A CHEQUERES CAREER.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1405, 26 May 1884, Page 2

A CHEQUERES CAREER.

♦ — : (Melbourne Argus.) Many old colonists who whore frequenters of the Criterion Hotel, iv Collins street wi st, and who remember tbe magical rapidity with whioh it was l»uilt, will also refill to mind its first landlord. He was a Prussian by birth, but had b> -en educated in England, and inii.ui:it< j >l to America, from whence he was allured to Australia by the discovery of the goldfields. Upon a site originally purchased for the price of a horse aud dray, Samuel Mosb, of Saliui Morse, as he called himself in later years, erected an hotel which was ! famous in the fifties. Its hall was tbe scene of viceregal festivities, and also of Fourth of July celebrations, when G. F. Traiu used to indulge in spreadeagleism, and the qnaint oratory of Consul Tarleton was groatly relished. The. bridal chamber was also oue or the sights of the. city and everybody in those days used to be ''called to the bar" of the Criterion who had business in that part of Melbourne. Moss made a fortune, and sank some of it in building what is now the convent at Abbotsford. Returning to the United States, he married a wife in Sun Francisco, and took a farm iv Mendoncino County, .where. h« resided from 1859 to 1865. H* separated from his wife, and she is now keeping a small shop in Ui.it city. He was afterwards heard of in San Domingo, aud about four yearn ago lu'turuod up in Now York, with a Vorsiou of tiie L\ssbn Play, wiiiea had brran performed wii/li 80W« .sucoosa in Blu F.uu-

■cisco. He obtained from Mr Abbley a promise to produce it at Booth s Theatre, but the proposition was so •stroncly condemned by the press and in the pulpit, that the idea had to he Moss then leased a, dim oh -converted it into a theatre, but the mayor refused to license it, and Mo s, •who had invested all the money h* possessed, and as much as he could borrow from other people, in the undertaking, was ruined. Then he wrote something which he called a -comedy,- entitled, " A Bustle among the Petticoats," which proved a dismal failure. Then he seems to have formed an attachment for an actress, a Miss Blackburn, and the Cosmopolitan Theatre was taken. Here he produced -a drama under the title of "On the Yellowstone." This also share! the fate of its predecessor, and ex-landloid •of the Criterion found himself at the •age of 58, in straitened circumstance i, and somewhat unhinged in his mind. After spending the evening of February 23 at the house of Miss Blackburnlie left it shortly after midnight, and on the following morning bis body Tvas found floating on the surface of the North Kiver, with strong suspicions, as our New York, correspondent asserts, that he was the victim of foul