Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844», sayfa 8

NEWS FROM AN EXILED CONTRIBUTOR

MELBOURNE, PORT PHILIP, NEW SOUTH WALES, July 1, 1843.

BELOVED AND REV. CHRISTOPHER,

You have been pleased many times, in very decided terms, to express your ever-to-be-respected conviction that I should eventually come to something; haply to the woolsack—possibly to the gallows; from which prophetic sentiment, I have naturally inferred that my genius was rare, and that your eagle eye had discovered it.

Before my letter reaches your generous shores, twelve months will have elapsed, most reverend Christopher, since we parted in the Hibernian city. Then we were as near to one another as firmly grasped hands could render us; now sixteen thousand miles effectually divide us; and whilst I sit silently wishing you ages of health and mortal happiness, the mercury of my thermometer stands lazily at freezing point, whereas your own sprightly quicksilver rushes up to 92. All things tell me of our separation. We sailed, as you will find by referring to your pocket-book—for you made a memorandum at the time—on the 14th day of November last from Cork; sighted Madeira—about thirty miles abreast—in eight days, and out of sight of it on the 22d. A fine fair wind was sent to us, and we crossed the Line, all well, on the 14th of December; then steering pretty far to westward, we luckily caught the trade-wind, and rounded the Cape in a good gale on the 15th of January. And here it came on to blow right earnestly; but we kept the gale for about eight days on our larboard quarter, and we scudded on our course at a fearful rate. Our mizen mast was carried away—both our mainsails split—and we smashed a few spars, and lost some running gear; nothing more serious happened, save the loss of as fine a young fellow as ever trode shoe-leather—a seaman. He was caught sharply by one of the ropes that gave way, and it carried him overboard like a feather. We saw him drop—the sea was running mountains high—we could render him no assistance; and he perished under our very eyes. The wind, fortunately for us, continued on either quarter of our ship; and it is a remarkable fact, and deserving of notice, that, during the whole of our voyage, we had occasion only to put the ship about TWICE. We cast anchor in Hobson's Bay, Port Philip on the morning of the 21st of February, having made our voyage in the short space of ninety-nine days, and the land within a quarter of an hour of the captain's reckoning. The events of the passage may be given paucis verbis. We had nine accouchements in the steerage amongst the emigrants, some of them premature from violent sea-sickness, and seven deaths—all children.

Our deaths, as I have said, were confined to the children. The adults kept free from fever; an astonishing fact, when the confinement and closeness of a steerage birth is taken into account. The voyage was agreeable. We were good friends in the cabin. The captain, a prudent, temperate man, took his three glasses of grog per diem, and no more; the first at noon, the second at dinner, the third and last at "turn-in." Your obedient servant, ever mindful of your strict injunctions, and of your eloquent discourse on sobriety and self-denial, and believing that he could not do better than regulate his watch according to the captain's chronometer, followed precisely the same rule. We maintained a glorious state of health after the first week; and if all future voyagers would do the same, let them neither eat nor drink aboard ship to the full extent of their appetites. This is simple advice, but I reckon it the first great secret which my nomadic experience enables me to put down for the benefit of my fellow-creatures; especially on board of a ship, leave off with an appetite. We passed our time—not having the fear of the Ancient Mariner before our eyes—in shooting albatrosses, Cape pigeons, and the like; in picking up a porpoise, a bonnitta, or a dolphin. Books, backgammon, and whist, filled up the measure of the day. Mem.—had we been favoured with less wind, we should have got more porpoises. We speared many—first-raters; but the speed at which we cut along, prevented our securing them.

But we have cast anchor. The harbour of Hobson's Bay is a splendid inlet of the sea. The bay is very narrow at the entrance, but the moment you get past the Heads, it extends to a breadth of eight or ten miles, and to a length of twenty-two miles, from the mouth to the anchoring place. The land around the bay is flat and sandy, and covered with wood almost to the water's edge. The tree there resembles our common mountain fir: it is exactly like it in the bark; but it is called by the settlers, the she-oak. I reckon it to be the beef-tree, for it has its appearance when cut up, is hard, and takes a beautiful polish. Inland, this wood grows to a considerable height and thickness; but the principal part of the interior is thickly covered with the various species of the gum and peppermint trees, many of them of a singularly large growth: but more of the interior anon. Immediately opposite to the anchorage ground, there is a pretty little town called Williamstown, in which the water-police magistrate, an old seafaring gentleman, Captain ——, has his residence. The gallant captain has enough to do with the jolly tars, who invariably attempt to cut and run as soon as they have got here. A sailor misconducting himself on the voyage, has at least two months' reflection in the jail of Williamstown, commencing immediately upon his arrival. The news of this prison establishment will probably reach England before my letter. Should it be spoken of in your presence, say that it has been found absolutely necessary for the protection of shipmasters, and that an act was passed accordingly for its erection. Gordon law, so called after the first magistrate, is proverbial, and very summary. Every fellow found drunk gets two hours in the stocks, and he becomes sober there much sooner than if he had been simply fined five shillings.

The town of Melbourne is beautifully situated on the face of a hill, in the hollow of which runs the noble river called the Yarra-Yarra, words which signify in the native language, "flowing constantly." It is distinguished by its title from the large majority of rivers, which are nearly still, and which, after extending only for a mile or two, form at length a species of swamp. Such rivers are generally styled lagoons. The Yarra-Yarra is navigable up to the town of Melbourne for ships of a large size—say 400 tons; but the seven miles of distance being circuitous, and the banks of sand at the mouth of the river occasionally shifting, the larger class of ships generally remain at the anchorage ground in the bay, and discharge by common lighters. At the present moment, from twenty to thirty very large ships are riding in the bay. A pretty little steamer plies three times a-day between the towns of Melbourne and Williamstown—price five shillings, up and down. Another steamer, "The Sea Horse," plies between Melbourne and Sydney once a fortnight; the passage is made in three days, and the fares £12 for cabin, £6 for steerage. The communication is a vast accommodation to this district. The steamer is in private hands, and did not answer at first; she now carries the mail, and promises to turn out a profitable spec. The coast is very dangerous, and at every season of the year liable to very violent gales. Even in the bay the squalls are sudden, violent, and dangerous, and many lives are lost for want of proper precaution and care, on board of small boats. Only yesterday, my friend, Mr G——, and three men, were out in a pleasure boat; in five minutes they were swept off to leeward, the boat was upset, and they were all drowned.

Melbourne is perhaps the most surprising place in her Majesty's dominions. Nothing, in the history of colonization, approaches her as regards the rapidity of advancement and extent. Six years ago there were not twenty British subjects on the spot, and at the present hour, Melbourne and its suburbs boast of a population of ten thousand souls. There are already built four splendid edifices for public worship—Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, and Independents, are provided for—and there is in addition a very large Roman Catholic chapel in the course of erection. There are three banks all doing excellently well—"The Australasian," "The Union Bank of Australia," and "Port Philip's Bank"—and there is yet a good field for another, under prudent management. The rate of discount is £10 per cent; and the interest given on deposit accounts £7 per cent. The common rate of interest, given with good mortgage security, is £20 per cent; and in some instances, where a little risk is taken, £25 and £30. Bills past due at the bank, are charged £12 per cent. A court of law (by act of Council) allows £8 per cent on all bills sued upon, with a discretionary power of extending the rate to £12 per cent, to cover any damage or loss sustained. There are two Club houses, a Royal Exchange, and some very large buildings for stores. A spacious new jail is building in a most commodious situation, and a public court house will soon follow; the one existing being but small and temporary. The new customhouse, which has been completed since my arrival is a fine building, and forms one side of the Market Square. In front of this, and about four hundred yards distant, stands the wharf. Melbourne rejoices likewise in its theatre, or, as it is called, "pavilion," which place of amusement, however, the governor does not think proper to license. His refusal is, I believe, very properly founded upon the questionable condition of the morals of the great body of the population. Two hours at the police-office any morning, afford a stranger a tolerably clear insight into this subject generally, and acquaint him particularly with the over-night deportment of the Melbournese. The police magistrate holds any thing but a sinecure. We have three newspapers in Melbourne, namely, The Patriot, The Herald, and Gazette, each published twice a-week; the first on Monday and Thursday, the second on Tuesday and Friday, the third on Wednesday and Saturday; so that we have a newspaper every day. The advertisements are numerous and varied in matter. I have heard upon good authority that the proprietor of any one of these journals draws at least £4000 to £5000 per annum from the profits of them. It is not difficult to account for these enormous gains. Every thing here is sold by auction, and the advertisements are in consequence more numerous than they would otherwise be. An auctioneer alone, in good business, will pay each of the papers about £1000 per annum for printing and advertising his numerous sales. We have a supreme court with a suitable establishment of officers. John Walpole Willis, Esq., was resident judge. He is now amongst you, for, by the slip which carries this letter, he starts for England, circumstances having occurred that render it necessary for him to vindicate in person a character which requires no vindication. The people of Melbourne part with the upright and learned judge with infinite regret, softened only by the certain hope they entertain of his immediate return. The resident judge holds civil courts as in England during the several terms, and criminal courts of general jail-delivery every month. The pleadings are conducted by barristers at law, who have been duly admitted in England, Ireland, Scotland, or Isle of Man. The agents or attorneys and solicitors are those duly admitted at Sydney, at courts of Westminster in England, High Courts in Ireland, and writers to her Majesty's Signet in Scotland. Others who may have served a regular apprenticeship of not less than five years to any such agent, after undergoing a necessary examination, are likewise suffered to practise as attorneys. The supreme court has been established about twelve months. Before that time all suits were carried on in Sydney. Conveyances of land may be prepared by any one, and, before professional men appeared amongst the settlers, there were some rare specimens of deeds in this branch of English law. Now they are of course better—and those to which I have adverted have fortunately paved the way for endless litigation. We have a sprinkling of military and mounted police; two very large steam mills for grinding flour and sawing timber; and in a word, all the concomitants of a large and flourishing city. I should, however, except the public streets. These are still unpaved, and consequently in wet weather, in some places, impassable, and in dry weather insufferably dusty. I have spoken of the sudden squalls which arise often in the Bay. Whilst one of these prevails, clouds of dust are carried from the streets so dense that you cannot see half a yard before you. If you are exposed to the whirlwind, and chance to wear clothes of a dark colour, you issue from it with the appearance of a man who has been confined in a mill for a week. A house of furniture well cleaned in the morning, looks at dinner-time as if it had been coated with dirt for a twelvemonth. Should there be a sudden mortality among the ladies of Port Philip, it will undoubtedly be occasioned by this warfare with the dirt, which is carried forward day after day without any prospect of retreat on either side.

Having read thus far, you will very likely tap the floor impatiently with your foot, and say—if you have not said it already—"Well, but what is the fellow about himself?" Patience, gentle Christopher. I will tell you now. Upon my arrival with a pocket, as you are aware, not very inconveniently laden, I kept of course "my eye ahead" for any thing suitable in the farming way; sheep-stock or cattle. But it would not do. Capital was required to get a sheep-station, and employment as an overseer, in consequence of the depression that existed in the markets for all kinds of stock, altogether hopeless. No man is idle here longer than he can help it, unless he have the wherewithal to look to; and there are fifty modes of gaining bread here, if a man will turn to them? What could a briefless barrister do better than throw himself upon the law? I smelled out the attorneys to begin with. The first with whom I came in contact was one Mr ——, from a northern county in England. He had been here only three years, and was already rattling about in his carriage. He arrived without a shoe to his foot, or a sixpence in his pocket. Another was my old and respected friend Mr ——, writer to the signet, of Edinburgh, who had been here about eighteen months, was living like a gentleman, and on the point of entering a fine new dwelling-house, which he had himself erected out of his own honourable gains. Upon him I waited, and from his kindness I obtained all the information I stood in need of; and not only this, but immediate profitable employment in his office, which, with his leave, I hold until something offers—whether I shall claim admission as attorney, solicitor, and proctor, as some have done before me, or resort to my old calling of advocate, is as yet an undecided question. I am now in the receipt of more than is necessary for subsistence, and I shall look before I leap. The rents of houses are extravagantly high. The poorest tradesmen pay fifteen shillings a-week for his small house—and he must pay it weekly; the better class of tradesmen pay twenty and twenty-five shillings, and the higher class from two to four pounds a-week; for a petty dwelling containing only three rooms and a kitchen. A small brick cottage held by a friend of mine, and consisting of sitting-room, bed-room, servant's room, and kitchen, is considered a great bargain at a hundred pounds per annum. The hours of business are limited with strictness to seven—videlicit, from nine in the morning until four P.M. You are your own master after four o'clock, and need fear no business-calls or interruptions. Whilst business, however, is going on, the excitement and bustle compel me to regard Cheapside on a Saturday afternoon, as a place of great quietness and an agreeable promenade. Fellows are riding as hard as they can tear from one end of the town to the other—cattle are driving to and fro—bullock-drays are crowding from the interior with wood—auctions are eternally at work—settlers are coming from their stations, or getting their provisions in. Tradesmen and mercantile men are hurry-skurrying with their orders. A vast amount of work is done up to four o'clock, and afterwards all is silence, and the place looks unlike nothing so much as itself; and yet, notwithstanding all this bustle, money is altogether out of the question. From what exact cause or series of causes, I cannot tell you now—but the fact is certain that the mercantile community here is nearly bankrupt. There is a glut of goods, a superabundance of every thing in the market. It has been wrongfully supposed in England that every thing would sell here, and the consequence has been that an overflow of every kind of commodity has poured in upon us. The supply has doubled and trebled the demand. Upon the first establishment of these settlements the wants of the people were of course many, and their prices for stock were so good, and their speculations in land so profitable and bright, that they could afford the indulgence of a luxury, no matter what price was asked to purchase it. It is very different now. The staple commodity of this colony is wool. Well, so long as all the stations or sheep-runs continued unoccupied, and new settlers arrived, the price of sheep kept naturally very high; but every station that can command a due supply of water, is now in occupation, and consequently the demand for stock has ceased. Sheep, which three years ago sold for twenty-five and eighteen shillings, command now, for first quality, eight shillings and sixpence only; ordinary quality, six shillings; and middling as low as five shillings. For cash sale by sheriff-warrant, I have seen beautiful ewes, free from all disease—2000 of them—sold for two and sixpence each! Cattle three years ago sold for ten, twelve, and sometimes fifteen pounds per head. At this moment they are so plentiful that I could purchase a drove of fat cattle, two to three hundred head—and some of them weighing eighty stone—for eight pounds a beast, and that on credit too by approved bill at four months' date. Such are a few of the reasons why a damper has come over the Port Philip market, reducing amongst other things the price of wages by nearly a third. Emigrants continue to pour in, and they stare and are grievously disappointed at the rate of wages, so very different to that which they expected. Twelve months since, a single labouring man got forty pounds per annum, with weekly rations of provisions; now with his rations, he receives only twenty-five, or at most thirty pounds per annum. Married men with young families will not be hired at any rate, for they are only burdens on a station. A good thorough-bred shepherd maintains his price. He is still in great demand, and may command from sixty to seventy pounds per annum, with rations, cow's milk, free hut, and a portion of produce of stock in addition to all, if he chooses to put his wages to that mode of profit. Women servants were formerly much wanted. They are now at a discount. The filthy drabs ejected from Ireland are scarcely worth their meat. I am proud to say it, and you should be proud to hear it, gentle Christopher, that a Scotch servant, male or female, is forty per cent above every other in value in this colony. Scotch servants get ahead in spite of every thing. The Scotch tradesmen have almost all of them made money; some abundantly. I have met many here from the North who brought nothing but their energy, moderation, and unconquerable perseverance with them, and they are affluent, and are becoming daily more so. Donald ——, who was a servant lad at home, and is now a respected and respectable man in Melbourne, is independent. He went first to Van Diemen's Land, and came here some three years ago. "And had you arrived," he said to me the other day, "at the same time, you might now have been moving home a prosperous gentleman." However, nil desperandum. There is still a fair opportunity for an industrious man, who above all things has resolution to be SOBER in his habits. The mischief with the labouring man has been, that having suddenly discovered his wages to be high in comparison with those he received in the mother country, he has considered himself entitled to have a proportionate extra amount of enjoyment at the public-house, where drink is very high. Good tradesmen would infallibly make money, but for this great failing. The bullock dray-drivers, certainly the best paid of all the working men, absolutely think nothing of coming from the Bush into Melbourne, with twenty or thirty pounds in their pocket, and spending every farthing of the sum—in one night—champagne to the mast-head. The innkeepers make fortunes rapidly. Shall I tell how much Boniface will draw in a week? No—for you will not believe me. Certainly as much as many an innkeeper in a country town would draw in twelve months. An innkeeper's license to Government is thirty pounds per annum. This entitles him to keep his house open from six in the morning until eleven o'clock at night; ten pounds more enables him to have open house during the night; and an additional ten pounds enables him to keep a billiard table. There are a great many houses with tables and a number of light houses; but, as I have hinted before, our police courts exhibit abominations, and a police court is a good criterion of the morals of a people. In the first formation and early beginnings of this colony, a man having sheep took up his abode in the interior, on any spot which he considered suitable and agreeable, and he was called a squatter. Now no individual may pasture sheep or cattle of any kind without receiving a license from Government, for which he pays ten pounds annually, and making a return every year of all his stock, servants, and increase—the license, by the way, not being available within three miles of Melbourne. The holder of such a license is called a settler. A settler is entitled to cut wood upon his own station or run, for firing for himself and servants; but if he cut it for sale—and we have no coal here—he pays, in addition to the ten pounds, three pounds more per annum for the permission so to do.

You shall now receive a faithful account of the settling of a settler. Suppose him to have a station in the interior, or as it is invariably styled, "in the Bush." The distance is forty, fifty, or it may be eighty, miles from Melbourne, and the stock consists of from four to five thousand sheep, and from one to two hundred head of cattle. The settler, in all probability, has been accustomed in early life to good society, has been well educated and brought up. Living at his station he sees none but his own servants, his chère amie, (always a part of a settler's stock,) and perhaps a few black natives, not unfrequently hostile visitors. Business calls the settler to Melbourne; he puts up at his inn; any thing in the shape of society rejoices his heart, and forthwith he begins "the lark;" he dines out—gets fuddled, returns to his inn, finds a city friend or two waiting for him, treats them to champagne, of which, at ten shillings per bottle, they drink no end. Very well. His horse is in the stable at seven shillings and sixpence a-night, his own bill varies from six to eight pounds per diem, and at the end of a fortnight my settler is called upon to hand over a cheque upon his banker to the tune of a hundred pounds, or, if he has no bank-account, his promissory note at a very short date. Away starts the settler back to his solitude; he has given his bill, and he thinks no more about it; but the bill finds its way quickly into the hands of an attorney, and in eight days there is an execution out for recovery, with an addition of ten pounds already incurred in legal expenses. The sheriff's bailiff rides to the station and demands payment of the whole. He gets no money, but settler and bailiff return in company to Melbourne: a friend is applied to; he discounts a bill for the sum required. The attorney is paid the amount by the hands of the sheriff. The bill once more becomes due, and is once more dishonoured; expenses run up like wildfire. This time there is no escape, and a portion of the stock must be sold to avoid ruin—and it is sold sometimes at a fearful sacrifice. This is no insulated case. It is the history of nine-tenths of the thoughtless fellows who dwell away in the Bush. Such gentlemen at the present hour, in consequence of the depressed state of the stock market, are all but ruined. Any one of them, who twelve months since purchased his flock of two thousand sheep at eighteen or five-and-twenty shillings, can only reckon upon a fourth of the amount in value now. It is increase only that enables him to pay his servants, and he has as much off the wool as affords him the means of living. The sale of his wethers would not pay for the tear and wear of bullocks and drays; and if any profit does by any chance arise, it can be only from occasionally catching a few head of cattle, which, as they run wild in the woods, the settler can keep no account of, and only with difficulty secure when they come to a lagoon for water, where they are watched, because at one time or another they are certain to appear. Horses are very dear in Melbourne: a useless brute, which in England would be dear at ten pounds, sells here quickly for thirty; a good saddle horse will fetch a hundred, and I have seen some tolerable cart horses sold for fifty and sixty pounds. In a new colony, where almost all the draught is performed by bullocks, cart horses must realize a good price. The hire of a horse and cart in Melbourne is, one pound four shillings for the day.

In addition to those above spoken of there is another class of settlers, who were the original stock-holders and land-purchasers in the district. They have large tracts of country in the Bush, and thousands of sheep and cattle on then, and all managed by servants and overseers. These proprietors live at the clubs in Melbourne and constitute what is here termed the élite of society. A short time ago these gentlemen entertained the pleasing notion, that there was to be no termination to the increase and extent of their wealth; and one very young member of the society was heard to exclaim, in apparent agony at his excessive good fortune, "upon my soul, I am become most disgustingly rich." But mark the difference The élite have been living in the most extravagant manner. They discounted bills at their own pleasure here at ten per cent; and knowing well that these bills would not be honoured at maturity, they sent them to London, and cashed them there: with the funds thus raised, they speculated in the buying of land and stock, hoping to get (as in many instances they did) at least eighty per cent profit by their transactions. But now stock has fallen to a trifle; bills are falling due, rushing back from England under protest—and the bubble bursts. The banks are drawing in their accommodation, and the élite, who were a short time back so disgustingly rich, are, whilst I write, most disgustingly poor. This is no imaginative statement; it is a sober fact. But I do not suppose that the present state of things will last long. Speculation and the rate of interest must come down. When the human body is disordered, it is a happy time for the doctor; when the body mercantile is diseased, it is the attorney's harvest time. If an attorney has any business at all, he must do well in Melbourne, for his fees are inordinately high. Protesting a bill is five-and-twenty shillings; noting, half-a-guinea; every letter demanding payment of account, if under twenty pounds, half-a-guinea; above twenty and under a hundred pounds, one guinea; above a hundred, two guineas. Every summons (a summons being a short printed form) before the supreme court, is charged six guineas; and the clients pay down at once, without any questions, too glad to do so, provided they can get rid of their temporary difficulties. Litigation is short and quick. Conveyancing is downright profit; a deed, however short, conveying a piece of land, however trifling, costs five guineas. There are no stamps, and the work is done in an hour. More valuable properties are conveyed by a deed generally charged nine guineas. My friend —— has drawn twelve such deeds in his office in the course of one day; and with these eyes I have seen him earn six guineas in as many minutes, by appearing at the police-office when a dispute has arisen between a master and his servant. All quarrels of this kind are arranged at the police-office, when the amount of wages received by the servant does not exceed thirty pounds annually. An attorney with brains cannot fail to get ahead. He has only to use dispatch, and to begin and continue in one even and undeviating course. Our barristers are few in number. There are but four of then. There is still a glorious field for a barrister of talent, and especially if he be conversant with the nicer points of conveyancing. Any clever barrister up to the business and a good speaker, might rely upon making immediately at least a thousand a-year; the community are looking and waiting for such a man. A fellow with no capital and no profession had better not show his face in Melbourne. It is a thousand to one against him. Compared to his position that of a labourer is an enviable one; yet any respectable and intelligent man tolerably well educated, coming here with four or five hundred pounds in his pocket, may certainly, in a couple of years, and in twenty different ways, treble that capital. The best and most promising is the following:—Buy in any growing part of the town of Melbourne, a small piece of town allotment. This will cost fifty pounds, upon this you may erect two small brick cottages, containing each two rooms and a kitchen, and well fitted for a respectable tradesman. Two hundred and forty pounds will build them up; thus the whole expense of cottages and ground is two hundred and ninety pounds at most. Each cottage will, for a moral certainty, let for one pound five shillings per week, and thus return you a clear rental of sixty-four pounds per annum, for the sum of one hundred and forty-four pounds laid out. Some capitalists are not long in discovering this mode of adding to their fortunes, and it is not surprising that such men, with ease, get speedily rich. Many individuals are personally known to me who arrived here with small means a few years back, and who are now receiving an income of fifteen hundred pounds a-year from houses, which they have raised upon their profits and by not slow degrees. Their returns are certain for, mark you, every tradesman pays his rent every Monday morning, there is no delay. If it be not paid the hour it is due, the landlord is empowered by law to send a bailiff to the house, to keep him there at an expense to the tenant of three shillings per day—and to request him, at the end of five days, to sell off the goods and chattels provided the demand is still unsatisfied. I know no better investment for capital, be it large or small, than that of which I speak. There are no taxes, no ground-rents, and the tenant is bound to keep his premises in repair. If a mistake has been made in the building of houses, it is because some have overshot the mark, and built dwellings that are too large for the purposes required; these large houses cost a large sum of money, and neither let readily nor nearly so high in proportion, as the smaller houses occupied by the working-classes.