adjournment of the court, instead of poking themselves into some neighbouring tavern to crack hard biscuits and drink bad beer, used to betake themselves to the "bush" at the rear of the gaol, where, sub tegmine fagi, they enjoyed their lunch in quiet comfort. The present exceptionally superior appearance of those suburbs, as compared with other localities, may be attributed to the relatively late period when the greater part of the land was sold, and the judgment evinced by the land speculators in subdividing their purchases. "When a large portion of Carlton and Hotham was put into the market, numbers of people who had saved money from the early gold years (and better still, knew how to keep it), invested it there to advantage. A taste also gradually grew up for dwellings with the comfort and conveniences of English life, and to such causes are to be traced the superior style of building, very generally prevailing. Municipal self-government was likewise a powerful agent and improver, and much as we may occasionally grumble at the fantastic tricks of Mayors and Councillors, no really impartial observer will be unwilling to accord them a very large share of credit for the substantial benefits they have conferred upon their respective districts, by the generally intelligent and efficient manner in which they have performed their corporate duties. It used to be said of the old unreformed English and Irish Corporations that "they bad neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be damned;" and this was, to a great extent, figuratively true, for they were regular sinks of jobbery and corruption. But, taken as a whole, our own Municipal Institutions have been a great success, and no candid writer can fairly allege otherwise. The first member of the regular villa family in Carlton was the residence of Sir Redmond Barry, who removed there from a small comfortable two-storied house in Russell Street. The villa has been purchased as an hospital for sick children, and it is a transition of an amusing kind—to have the once so-much-admired semi-rural retreat turned into an infantile infirmary. Speaking of hospitals, mention should be made of the Lying-in Hospital (how much better to change it for the more appropriate appellation of Maternity Institution), whose foundation originated with Dr. John Maund, who died many years ago.
I cannot leave Carlton without paying a compliment to the street nomenclators for the improved taste they have displayed in their street-naming of the more modern part of it. The public thoroughfares are mated with names famed in story, for amongst them are some of the giant intellects of Britain meetly recognised, e.g. statesmanship in Pitt and Palmerston, administrative ability in Elgin, oratory in Grattan and Canning, science in Faraday, Owen, and Murchison, whilst our own Macarthur, Kay, and Neil are not forgotten; and though last not least, in its far north, Shakspeare holds a place. The older portion of it, eastward of the Carlton boundary line towards Elizabeth Street is, with the exception of Drummond Street, misnamed, and what on earth could have induced the naming of one of the two knock-kneed streets starting from the University, after such a symmetrically well-built man as Sir Redmond Barry? Hotham is much more prolific in the clarum et venerabile nomen line, for there we have quite an extensive commingling of English, Irish, Scotch, and Colonial worthies. We have streets called after Peel, Erskine, O'Connell, Shiel, Curran, Macaulay, Adderly, Arden, Brougham, O'Shannassy, Molesworth, Cobden, Haines, Chapman, Murphy, and, though last, not the least of the bunch—clever, slippery Richard Ireland, who, if his application had equalled his ability, would have had no superior either at our Bar or in our Senate. Leaving Hotham, and passing on to a sort of boundary mark dignified by the name of Railway Place, let me glance across the railway lines, far over the Swamp to the opposite Saltwater River—aboriginally known as the Mirring-gnay-bir-nong—formerly lined with a dense scrub, but now invaded by abattoirs and factories of all descriptions, and flanked on the other side by the rising town of Footscray. It is now styled the West Melbourne Swamp, but every one in days of yore called it Batman's. It ought to be called Higinbotham, because the eminent railway engineer of that name changed its surroundings very much, and certainly not for the better. Look at it now, and read the following account of its primitive state, when seen by Batman, and thus described by him:— "I crossed on the banks of the river a large marsh about one mile and a half wide, by three or four miles long, of the richest description of soil—not a tree. When we got on the marsh, the quails began tofly,and I think, at one time, I can safely say I saw a thousand quail flying at one time—quite a cloud. I never saw anything like it before I shot two large ones as I walked along. At the upper end of the marsh is a large lagoon. I should think from the distance I saw that it was upwards of a mile across, and full of swans, ducks and geese." This was penned upwards offiftyyears ago, and pondering over the now and the then, one must acknowledge
