Merchants and Agents.
Flinders Street:— Arthur Kemmis and Co., Reeves and Locke, M'Cabe and Co., Thomas, Enscoe and James.
Little Flinders Street:— Bells and Buchanan, J. F. Palmer, Dunlop, M'Nab and Co., John Roach, Heape and Grice, P. W. Welsh and Co., Langhorne Brothers, Were Brothers and Co., M'Kinlay and Co.
Collins Street:— Alison and Knight, Turnbull, Orr and Co., A. Andrew, Hunter, Somervail and Co., J. Cain, G. W. Cole, Peter Inglis. Craig and Broadfoot, F. Pittman, J. Cropper and Co., W. F. A. Rucker, J. and P. Drummond, J. W. Shaw and Co., Dutton, Simpson and Darlot, John Maude Woolley.
Little Collins Street:— Manton and Co., Pullar Brothers and Porter, Oliver Gourlay.
Bourke Street:— Worsley and Forester.
Lonsdale Street:— A. Abrahams.
William Street:— L. Hind and Co., Strachan and Co.
Queen Street:— Arthur Willis and Co.
Elizabeth Street:— Campbell and Woolley, Porter and White, Hamilton and Goodwin, E. M. Sayers, George James.
Russell Street:— James Graham.
The following mercantile houses in Melbourne have branch establishments:—
At Geelong:— Messrs. P. W. Welsh and Co., and Messrs. Strachan and Co.
At Williamstown:— Messrs. Langhorne Brothers.
At Portland Bay:— Messrs. P. W. Welsh and Co.
Additional Merchants:— H. G. Ashurst and Co., W. and H. Barnes, O. Williams, and W. Westgarth.
This phalanx, however, had troublous times before it, for instead of having only one storm to breast, it was on the eve of three or four years of a commercial crisis, never since equalled in intensity and disruption. 1842-4 constituted an ordeal of the most testing nature for the mercantile fraternity of the time, through which few, indeed, passed unscathed. The tempest came on—the hurricane not only swept the country, but settled upon the town, and the crash was all but universal. peculation, over-trading, and insufficiency of capital, a recklessness in business, and an excessive inter se system of bill-discounting, known as "kite-flying," only produced the consequences inevitable from such rashness. Every imaginable device for "raising the wind" was unscrupulously resorted to; but the particular monetary wind that was wanted would not blow. The Resident Judge (Willis), who revelled in the role of mischief maker, judicially, or extrajudicially, seemed like a spirit of evil, with a blazing torch, spreading about the flame of discontent whenever he had a chance; and Supreme Court attachments, sequestrations, and assignments, were the order of the day during his tenure of office. Creditors grew clamourous for payment; property of every description, not only depreciated in value, but for a time was absolutely unsaleable. Overdue paper could not be retired, overdrafts remained unreduced, and the Australasian and Union Banks were, in self-protection, forced to put on the "screw." Sales were compelled under ruinous sacrifices, and the break-up was general. Some of the merchants and agents terminated their earthly anxieties by dying, whilst others took wings and "bolted." The majority were thoroughly "burst up," whilst a few emerged from the tribulation unscorched, and in the march of time succeeded in acquiring considerable affluence. One of the departed (Mr. F. Manton), I had always good reason to hold in kind remembrance, for it was in his employment I earned the first money that ever, as my own, entered my pocket. A cheque for fifteen guineas received from him was the first "oil" I struck on entering upon what has proved a neither short nor altogether uneventful "battle of life;" and though the "valuable consideration" did not remain long with me, whenever it recurs to my memory, it is accompanied by a vision of the pleasurable sensation which I experienced.
