eight to twenty-five acres each, and the highest price fetched at the hammer was £28, and the lowest £13 per acre. The twenty-five acre lot, commencing at the corner of the Bridge and Punt roads, was purchased by a Mr. M'Nall, the chief butcher of the time, for £24 an acre, while the opposite one of twenty-eight acres was knocked down to Mr. Craig, a merchant, for £28 per acre, and twenty-seven acres at the corner of Simpson's Road and East Melbourne brought only £16 per acre. These subdivisions were intended for Rus in urbe boxes, where the well-to-do Melbourne merchants and professionals could retire after the worry and wear, the profit and loss, of a busy day, and smoke the calumet of peace in the bosoms of their families. It never entered into the sphere of probability that the then Richmond would, in a few years, become the great, thriving, working, hive of busy bees it is to-day. Comfortable, if not architecturally stylish, villas began to dot the place, and amongst the earliest Richmondites were Messrs. Campbell and Woolley, wine and spirit meichants; Mr. Cavenagh, the founder of the Herald; Mr. Ocock, one of Melbourne's earliest solicitors (now dead) ; the once well-known W. B. Burnley (who died some years ago, very wealthy); the old identity, Judge Pohlman; "Billy Barrett," an ancient,fidgetty,short-tempered auctioneer; Mr. Thomas Strode, for many a long year the "Father of the Chapel" of the Melbourne Press since 1839; Mr. William Hull, J.P., and two or three others, since removed from all terrestrial troubles. With the exception of Carlton and Hotham, our suburbs have been spoiled in consequence of the way in which they have been cut up by land-jobbers, to squeeze the largest number possible of building lots out of them. Streets, and lanes, and places, and terraces have been improvised—many of them mere culs de sac, and yards have been turned into the narrowest of thoroughfares, with the view of turning them again into as many pounds as they would bring during the pressure of the gold fever, and Richmond has been everlastingly marred in this way. Every hole and corner where a house could be squeezed in has been utilized; and, furthermore, I do not think that Richmond was well cared for in the early stage of its municipal endowment. For instance, I never pass the Richmond Town Hall without wondering how it ever came to be erected where it is, as such an edifice might be such an ornament and acquisition in a more central position. It is the right thing put in the wrong place; but the error cannot be rectified, and as it pleased the rate-payers of the time to be satisfied, of course so must I, mere outsider as I am. And here again is the usual ill-assorted agglomeration of street names, some perpetuating welldeserved public benefactors, and others the veriest ciphers. The Richmondites must have been hard up for some one or somewhere, after whom or which to dub their highways and byeways, for they travelled from Bendigo to Berlin, from Erin to Hamburg, and away from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, appellationhunting. The Rose and the Shamrock are not forgotten, but the Scottish and Welsh national emblems—the Thistle and Leek are given the go-by. Religion is honoured by having one of the best streets named after the Church, and Lennox, the first Superintendent of bridges, is in Godly company on the parallel line. Old colonists, like Sir Wm. Stawell and Sir J. Palmer, Messrs. W. Hull, W. Highett, W. B. Burnley, and D. S. Campbell, are not forgotten. Prince Patrick, the Duke of Wellington, and Neptune are comfortably provided for; and Lords Brougham and Lyndhurst, the great defiant and defunct Chancellors of England, are woolsacked near each other. St. James and the Lady Rowena are not overlooked, but surely it was an oversight not to have provided the lady with an Ivanhoe to "parade" with her. Some admirer of Petrarch, no doubt, suggested Vaucluse; but who was the printer in whose honour they proclaimed a Type Street? Melbourne's well-known town clerk, Fitzgibbon, is nDt forgotten; nor is George Coppin disregarded, and shame on Richmond were it so. I must now return by Bridge Road, and look into the aristocratic quarter of East Melbourne, sanctified by ever so many religious edifices, and two Episcopal mansions. The original boundary of old Melbourne was Spring Street, but after some time it was evident that the town would extend in that direction. A s proposed by Mr. Hoddle, there was to be a prolongation of the streets running eastward, with different names; but after some consideration it was vetoed by Mr. Latrobe, who compelled Hoddle, much to his annoyance, to block up the east end. A few years after, the Corporation had a plan of extension in this quarter prepared, but it was also negatived. The present Fitzroy Gardens in 1839, contained a quarry, which was then worked to supply the blue-stone for the foundations of the more substantial of the town buildings, and was, for years, a regular eyesore instead of the thing of beauty it is now, a consummation for which much praise must be given to Mr. Clement Hodgkinson an ex-Assistant Surveyor General. According to the newly-propounded scheme, a Crescent was to be formed in
