Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria | Page 9

"the wharf," such as it then was. Flinders-street had as yet but little in it. James Jackson, afterwards Jackson, Rae and Company, was already there. About the middle was the cottage of P.W. Welsh, prior to his removing to South Yarra; and there, as the story goes again, Mrs. Welsh gave her "Five Hundred Pound Party," but having unfortunately omitted Arden, the editor of the "Gazette", in the invitations, he was left free to denounce so bad an example of extravagance. Bourke-street had an incongruous grouping, including the well-known Kirk's Bazaar, and the superb cottage, for its time, of Mr. Carrington, the solicitor; and in Little Bourke-street was Mr. Condell's brewery. At the far east end was Mr. Porter's good cottage, and further on, Mr. La Trobe's bijou residence, in its pretty grounds, which, although only of wood and of the smallest dimensions, he stuck to until his final leave in 1854. The lanes, or Little Flinders and Collins streets, were already fairly filled, as the land there was much cheaper. In the former were Heap and Grice's offices, and the Adelphi Hotel, approaching the Lamb Inn in noisy repute. The latter had Bells and Buchanan, the Post-Office under D. Kelsh, and, where Elizabeth-street crossed, G. Lovell and Company and Campbell and Woolley. The Catholic Church in Lonsdale-street was under construction, and on the western brow was Mr. Abrahams's good house, with his two pretty girl children, one of whom was in succession Mrs. Pike, Mrs. Gray, and Mrs. Williams, and is still alive, with a creditable total of family. Beyond was the trackless bush, excepting the bush tracks to Sydney, and in the Flemington and Keilor direction. But outside the town were already several suburbs, of which Collingwood was the largest, having the residences of John Hunter Patterson and other leading early colonists.
I used to traverse not a few dreary empty allotments in the hot summer sun to reach the stores of my friend the Honourable James Graham, whose dwelling and business place in Russell, by Bourke street, seemed then quite far out of the village, but is since in the very heart of the great city. The course of values in the colony, early and late, is well illustrated by this example. The allotment originally belonged to our friend in common, S.A. Donaldson, of Sydney, who had bought for some nominal price at the Government sale in 1837. He bought many other lots thereabout, and towards Collingwood, further east and north; and after the gold discoveries, he told me pathetically, oftener than once, that his impatience to sell had lost him the status and happiness--whatever the latter might be--of a millionaire. Donaldson had let this place, with its house, stores, etc., good as these things went then, to Graham, at 500 pounds a year. This was about 1838-9, when everything in business ways was rolling jollily upwards. But some few years afterwards the landlord's attorneys, William Ryrie and myself, had to reduce the rent to either 100 or 50 pounds--I think the latter. Some years later, Graham purchased at 2,000 pounds, and it is understood has lately resold at something approaching a quarter of a million. As these matters are all locally so well known, I feel that, as with wills at Doctor's Commons, I tread upon no toes in such useful illustrations.
I arrived just to witness the last glories of the famous champagne lunches, which prefaced the auction sales of these early days, and repeatedly I saw in his element Charles Williams, the earliest of his trade. If such lunches cost 40 pounds, which was given me as a moderate average, who suffered, argued their justifiers, if the exhilaration they produced gave 400 pounds more to the net proceeds? The brisk liquor appreciably blew up the prices, as the same lots, cut up and rearranged, would come again and yet again under the hammer. Many a bullock-drover would pull up on passing the auction room or tent, and quaff off half a bottle to the good health of all concerned in such liberality. One respectable old colonist was said to have almost lived on those lunches in the dear early times, so regularly did he encourage and patronize them. The bidding public were regaled before the sale, but the auctioneer and his clients after--a plan which made very much the better business, as might have been seen by the effects in either case. Williams began with 4,000 pounds a year profits, which I dare say went on to the rate of 10,000 pounds for the brief term. He was just finishing what, for those times, was a fine villa on the Yarra-bank, beyond Richmond, when the rapidly receding tide left him, as well as many others, stranded.
Great gum-tree stumps were grievously prevalent, alike in Melbourne streets and