succeeding years established the settlement. Emerald Hill, though municipally attached to Melbourne, was the first to take advantage of the powers of severance conferred by the Municipal Institutions' Act, and accordingly a "Repeal of the Union," was speedily effected. In its efforts to introduce the Self Government System, the Bill had the great advantage of a few able indefatigable local men, who
"Knew their rights
And knowing would maintain them,"
and amongst them may be accounted as facile princeps—Mr. James Service, the first Mayor of the Municipality, who for years rendered a series of local services of a most invaluable nature, which never should have been, but were, forgotten. It is worthy to note the many civic improvements wrought on the Hill, which has within the past few years showed more signs of permanent advancement than any other suburb. It may be now said to join Sandridge, it is fast moving towards St. Kilda and South Yarra; and it is practically as near Melbourne as one of the principal streets of the City. Here there is something of a greater variety of street-naming than in Sandridge, for, whilst the municipal authorities took good care not to forget themselves, they have condescended to confer favours on Prince Albert, Lords Nelson, Raglan and Palmerston, and Mr. Cobden; and they have actually a St. Vincent amongst them.
The now fashionable watering-place, St. Kilda, was, in the "dark ages," known as "Euro-Yroke," after a sort of sandstone found there, with which the blacks used to shape and sharpen their rude stone tomahawks, and its present pleasant name was obtained in the following manner:—
Once on a time, there was a picnic in one of the then umbrageous nooks with which the beautiful suburb abounded. Many of the élite of Melbourne were there, and amongst them the Superintendent, Mr. Latrobe. Whilst the champagne corks were flying, someone said to Mr. Latrobe, "What name shall this place have?" and Mr. Latrobe, at the moment looking over the water, saw a small yacht sailing like a swan before him. The sight suggested the answer, and he replied, "Well, I don't think we can do better than name it after Captain ————'s yacht."[1] The name of the little clipper was "The St. Kilda," and so St. Kilda came to be thenceforward known. But St. Kilda was for several years little more than a pretty seaside retreat, visited by the well-to-do Melbournians who flocked on summer evenings to cool themselves after the heat and turmoil of the day. A comfortable hotel was kept there by a Mr. Howard, and half-a-dozen villa residences were put up at various times. T h e land about was either sandy or swamp scrub; and in winter all pedestrianism between it and Brighton was cut off by quagmires. Save on the Melbourne side, it was often both water and puddle-bound. Towards 1850, some co-operating land-buying societies were formed, and purchases were made about this quarter. The "Golden Age," the next year, pushed it and Windsor, Elsternwick, Caulfield, Malvern, and around there, ahead. St. Kilda began to spread its wings, and "Forward!" became its motto. At the time of the naming of the streets the Crimea furore had reached the colony, and the authorities must have been a good deal war-bitten, for St. Kilda was considerably War-officed by the martial designations of some of its highways. Honour was done to Wellington, Nelson, and Havelock, whilst the Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, Sebastopol, and, the Malakoff were not forgotten. A dash of law and equity was added in Jervis and Westbury, statecraft commemorated by Carlisle, and Barkly, and old colonists not forgotten in Fawkner, Gurner, Greeves, Jackson, Dalgety and Burnett. Literature was commemorated in the illustrious names of Byron, Scott, Southey, Dickens, Tennyson, Mitford, and Burns—but proh, pudor! poor Moore was passed over! His umbra, however, need take no offence at the omission—for "Lalla Rookh" lives where "St. Kilda " is unknown.
Windsor never seemed to me a fitting designation for the district which got wedged between St. Kilda and Prahran. In one of the dialects of the aborigines, "Prahran" means sandy, and a miserable sand-blinding, slush-making and rarely-visited region it was in the good old times. By the strangest of all conjunctures, too, it got in some way municipally screwed up to South Yarra. In this Southern district there is a most amusing mixing up of street names, for we have Sir Walter Raleigh keeping company with Lord Chatham, and Dr. Lang, the old religious firebrand of New South Wales, exchanging compliments with Lord Aberdeen and George Washington; and Charon, the ferryman of the Infernal Regions attended
- ↑ This name was never discovered.
