of men there will be a residuum of poverty and filth, let humanity do what she will to prevent it. In Melbourne there is an Irish quarter and there is a Chinese quarter, as to both of which I was told that the visitor who visited them might see much of the worse side of life. But he who would see such misery in Melbourne must search for it especially. It will not meet his eye by chance, as it does in London, in Paris, and also in New; York."[1]
Here we have an eminent English writer demeaning himself to the level of the professional globe-trotter, and, on mere hearsay evidence, fathering a most offensive statement that, he might easily have ascertained from any respectable local authority, had no foundation whatever in fact. "In Melbourne there was an Irish quarter, and he was told (the old story) that the visitor who visited it might see much of the worse side of life." It will be observed that Mr. Trollope was told all this, not that he had ascertained the truth of it for himself. His reflections must have been the reverse of agreeable when he found out how cruelly he had been hoaxed into a belief in the existence of an "Irish quarter" in the city of Melbourne. Why, the oldest inhabitant of the city would have given Mr. Trollope a look of blank amazement if asked to point out the direction in which the "Irish quarter" lay. There is no such thing; as a distinctive Irish quarter in Melbourne, known and recognised by that contemptuous term. Irishmen and their families are to be found in all parts of the city and suburbs, and everywhere they form a peaceable,
- ↑ "Australia and New Zealand." By Anthony Trollope. Page 250.
