Mr. Francis M'Donnell, tailor, Collins Street, " begs to inform his customers, that in consequnce of all his workmen leaving him to go to the gold ' diggings' he is obliged to shut up his shop and suspend business for a month from this date." (6th October). Mr. William Hoffman, butcher, Elizabeth Street, "respectfully informs the public that he does not intend closing his establishment." Mr. John Lush, tailor and draper, Collins Street, " has m a d e arrangements with his men, and is thereby enabled to keep open his establishment, where business continues to be conducted, etc." The Melbourne journals had difficulty enough to induce sufficient compositors to remain to enable issues, m a d e as light as possible, to be brought out; but the proprietors were regularly driven into a corner to keep on a staff of three or four boys each, as runners; for papers then wrere delivered every morning direct from the offices to the subscribers, and no such convenient modern usages were known as paper-sellers in the streets, or agents. T h e regular boys had almost all decamped, and there were instances where principals turned their o w n sons into morning Mercuries, and borrowed juveniles from their friends for the same purpose. This difficulty continued for several weeks.
THE DOCTOR'S PROCESSION TO THE DIGGINGS.
Melbourne could at this time boast of possessing amongst its medicoes, Mr. I). J. Thomas, a surgeon of considerable eminence, and an individual occasionally prone to harmless eccentricities. H e conceived a notion of organizing something like a State procession to the gold-fields, a mixed cavalcade, for it was to be both vehicular and equestrian, including both ladies and gentlemen. He carried out his project too, for on the morning of the 14th October, a large scrap of the h u m a n remnant remaining in town, paraded to see "the Doctor" and his cortege starting for their destination The procession was thus formed:—Surgeon Thomas, in a four-horse drag, acting as whip and conductor-in-chief, surrounded by a bevy of ten lady passengers, the reverse of unattractive; then succeeded a barouche and pair similarly freighted, followed in turn by three ladies on horseback, attended by two equerries in the persons of Captain R. H . Bunbury, the Harbour Master and Mr. W . A. C. A'Beckett, then a rather good-looking harmless-faced young man. Though they had a perilous journey before them, they got through it well, for a newspaper of the time records " That they started on a Tuesday and arrived safe on Saturday, having only broken two poles, and camped out a night." They got into Ballarat, where there was then no township, in dashing style, and were vociferously cheered on their arrival by the congregated diggers. O n e day during the past week, whilst enjoying a meditative stroll near the Hobson's Bay Railway Station, by a chance I met one of the two surviving gentlemen of this singular expedition, and on mentioning it to him, he was immensely amused by the awakening of an event which had gone to sleep in his memory, and had passed out of his recollection for years. H e good-humouredly promised to supply m e with a few particulars about it, and two days after I received the following communication from him :— " As to the precise day or month, or even year, I cannot tell you, but sure enough the excursion you spoke of came off. Dr. T h o m a s had been talking about arranging a holiday trip out of town, and his intention was originally to go to the top of Mount Macedon, a wild enough notion at the time, for it would be beset by m u c h difficulty; so, on consideration, he decided on a change of route, and a trip to the diggings was substituted. A party was accordingly organized, consisting, as far as I can n o w recollect, of—Dr. Thomas, Captain Bunbury (the Harbour Master), Mr. Lloyd Jones (the well-known squatter), Mr. W . A. C. A'Beckett, and Dr. Thomas's Groom. T h e lady contingent comprised— Mrs. Thomas and her little daughter, Miss H — y — y , Mrs. E. B r, Mrs. Alexander H r (whose husband was at the diggings), Miss S 1 (now Mrs. Dr. R 11), Mrs. L e, Miss Elizabeth B e (now Mrs. M . G e), and Miss M ' M n (daughter of Dr. M ' M n, Medical Officer). This is all I can remember of the party. It was fine weather, and our route was over the plains to Staughton's Werribee Station (Exford), thence by Balkan to what is n o w Gordons, and
