MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 251, 24 January 1889, Page 3

MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

[from our own correspondent.] For a long time past there have been grumblings on the part of the shipping community loud and deep. Owing to the insufficiency of berthing accommodation, vessels are detained an absurd length of time in port, to the great loss, of course, of the owners and inconvenience to shippers. So great did the grievance become, and so numerous the complaints concerning it, that the chairman of the Harbor Trust considered it a duty to make person <1 inquiry into the matter. And what did he find ? Simply that the management of the port was disgraceful. Whilst the Trust has been spending heaps of money in improving the river so as to bring as much shipping as possible up to the Melbourne wharves from the bay, it totally neglected the necessity of looking Mter the channels which enabled the ships to come up the bay itself. This is like establishing a market, without providing means for bringing goods to the market. Port Phillip is silting up at a remarkable rate, and to cope with it incessant dredging is required. If the Trust desires to retain public confidence, it will have to direct alittle more attention to the bay, regardless of what is best for any individual locality. A very extraordinary murder is reported from America—not that the murder itself is extraordinary—but the motive assigned for the crime is. A boarding house keeper in Philadelphia, named Schlops killed one of his lodgers—because the latter consumed too much of the hash provided fir the dinner table. In fact for his gluttony he got slops I Mr Schlops must, however, have been a very inexperienced lodging house keeper, if he could find no other way of curbing his victim’s voracious appetite. There are hundreds of - [andladys in Melbourne who would have Managed much more sensibly. The plan they WKopt is to take very good care lodgers shall not have the opportunity of using their knives and forks too freely. They keep what they choose to call a solid table—the table certainly is solid enough—but the contents are like th* fair proprietress :—dry hash—very—.

The sympathy with Mr W. K. Thomson in his present reverses is wide and general. In the commercial world he has always been an active figure, and as a man of extreme probity and honor he has enjoyed the confidence and. respect of all with whom he cam* in contact. Although he occupied no very prominent part* in politics, he exercised considerable political influence, and if he did not personally seek legislative honors, he took an energetic interest in securing the return of others Whose opinions coincided with his own. His connection with the well known firm of James M'Ewan k Co.. of which he was the head, ceased some time since, the business having been floated into a limited liability company. From a man of wealth Mr Thomson has gradually been reduced to circumstances that resulted in bis insolvency, Investsments in sugar plantations in Fiji and elsewhere, Which turned out very unpiofitable ventures, ar* attributed as the principal cause of his failure. Mr Thomson, moreover, was a man Of large-hearted hospital! y and open-handed charity, and his many friends gave practical recognition of these estimable qua-itles, when they collected at asingle meeting over £3OOO in his behalf.

An undertaker of my acquaintance informed me in confidence the other day that he once had to bury a Hibernian corpse called Beilly. Bcilly in Hi* had ordered from him a rosewood coffin, and paid for it in advance. Th* doctor had given Mr Reilly only a few weeks to live, and therefore he thought it as well to arrange about his sepulchral affairs beforehand. The undertaker thought, as there had been ho witnesses to the transaction, and no receipt was given, it would eave him some money, and not matter much to the corpse of Reilly if he put it into what he termed “a varnished piner,”—meaning a coffin made of pine and varnished. “You mightn’t believe it,” continued my friend, “ but as I’m a livin’ man that piner Was exactly the same size and same build as the rosewooder. And what do you think ’ I’m dashed if that there corpse Reilly didn’t swell himself out so’s he wouldn’t fit into it. I had to put him into the rosewooder after all, and he fitted snug as you like. That’ll tell you the style these dashed corpses can put on when they choose.”

Perhaps ths thing that most astonishes a young student of Sociology is th* question -/“How it comes to pass that masses of men will submit to be tyrannised over to the extent of death by starvation by a few no stronger, as man to man, than themselves, and do nothing more than murmur 1 Such a frightful phenomenon as the French Revolution may come at last, but it is just as well to remember that the French Revolution is the only successful uprising of the people on record since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. And why? Because the rich few can divide the people against the people. Over a thousand men in Sydney were without employment some time ago. Work was found for them by Government on what were understood to be Government works. Some revelations made in the House recently —which would blast for ever the character of any man or body of men in their private capacity—show that these men were employed in making roads and other conveniences on land belonging to prominent members of the Government, thereby multiplying the value of the land three or four times, while the purely public works were almost entirely neglected,

- j There was such a flagrant expose of this made in the House that something had to be done—and consequently the men who had been employed on these nefarious « jort” were promptly, one might almost say ignominiously, discharged and sent out like scapegoats into the wilderness. They may Starve once more because men who ought to be mirrors of honesty and moral purity are shameless swindlers. This is a pretty way of apportioning punishment. If a deputation of the men thrown out of work, through the exposed robberies of these other men who hold their heads so high, were to wait upon them and politely but firmly request them to bang themselves in order to save the deputation trouble, I think the proceeding, though it be characterised as unconventional and perhaps abrupt, could hardly he termed

The father who cuts off his son is a very familiar object in obsolete comedies, but it has been reserved for modern days to produce a son who cuts his father off with four shillings a month. The father is an inmate of the Benevolent Asylum not far from Melbourne. The son was asked to contribute a few shillings a month for hi* parent’s maintenance in th* institution. He agreeably replied—»Sir,—ln answer to your letter which I received about my father, as to maintaining him, I did not know I had a father, for he not worth the name of one. ’He never brought me up'or maintained me, lor I had to go and beg my bread before I had any, ana sleep out in the gardens and in the pigsties, wherever I could get a place to lie down. My mother died and left me a baby, and I have never had a home since. Put it to yourself and see how you would like to maintain ouch a father. He has spent quite as much as would have kept him now in his old age, without troubling anyone ant th* last thing to do is to tell him to go when hs has carried his money and spent it There are only two of us living, end be he Served us worse than dogs. How can he 100 l to us for support ? I will allow the old doi 4a monthly, and no more, and that is mor than I ought to do.” The offer was accepted despite th* terms In which it was couched.