Town Life in Australia | Page 7

of thousands of villas whose
occupants must be spending from a thousand to fifteen hundred a year.
All these suburbs are connected with the town by railway. A quarter of
an hour will bring you ten miles to Brighton, and twelve minutes will
take you to St. Kilda, the most fashionable watering-place. Within ten
minutes by rail are the inland suburbs, Toorak, South Yarra, and Kew,
all three very fashionable; Balaclava, Elsterwick, and Windsor,

outgrowths of St. Kilda, also fashionable; Hawthorn, which is budding
well; Richmond, adjacent to East Melbourne, and middle class; and
Emerald Hill and Albert Park, with a working-class population.
Adjoining the city itself are North Melbourne, Fitzroy, Carlton,
Hotham, and East Melbourne, all except the last inhabited by the
working-classes. Emerald Hill and Hotham have handsome town halls
of their own, and the larger of these suburbs form municipalities.
Nearly everybody who can lives in the suburbs, and the excellence of
the railway system enables them to extend much farther away from the
city than in Adelaide or Sydney. It is strange that the Australian
townsman should have so thoroughly inherited the English love of
living as far as possible away from the scene of his business and work
during the day.
The names of the suburbs afford food for reflection. Yarra is the only
native name. Sir Charles Hotham and Sir Charles Fitzroy were the
governors at the time of the foundation of the municipalities which bear
their names. The date of the foundation of St. Kilda is evidenced by the
name of its streets--Alma, Inkerman, Redan, Malakoff, Sebastopol,
Raglan, Cardigan, and Balaclava, the last of which gave its name later
on to a new suburb, which grew up at one end of it. In the city proper
the principal streets are named after colonial celebrities in the early
days--Flinders, Bourke, Collins, Lonsdale, Spencer, Stephen, Swanston,
while King, Queen, and William Streets each tell a tale. Elizabeth
Street was perhaps named after the virgin queen to whose reign the
accession of the Princess Victoria called attention.
As you walk round you cannot fail to notice the sunburnt faces of the
people you meet. Melbourne is said to have the prettiest girls in
Australia. I am no judge. On first arrival their sallow complexions
strike you most disagreeably, and it is some time before you will allow
that there is a pretty girl in the country. When you get accustomed to
this you will recognise that as a rule they have good figures, and that
though there are no beauties, a larger number of girls have pleasant
features than in England. What may be called nice looking girls abound
all over Australia. In dress the Melbourne ladies are too fond of bright
colours, but it can never be complained against them that they are

dowdy--a fault common to their Sydney, Adelaide, and English
sisters--and they certainly spend a great deal of money on their dress,
every article of which costs about 50 per cent. more than at home. In
every town the shop girls and factory girls--in short, all the women
belonging to the industrial classes--are well dressed, and look more
refined than in England. Men, on the other hand, are generally very
careless about their attire, and dress untidily. The business men all wear
black frock-coats and top hats. They look like city men whose clothes
have been cut in the country. The working-men are dressed much more
expensively than at home, and there are no threadbare clothes to be
seen. Everybody has a well-to-do look There is not so much bustle as in
the City, but the faces of 'all sorts and conditions of men' are more
cheerful, and less careworn and anxious. You can see that
bread-and-butter never enters into the cares of these people; it is only
the cake which is sometimes endangered. or has not sufficient plums in
it.
SYDNEY.
I suppose that nearly everyone has heard of the beauties of Sydney
Harbour--'our harbour,' as the Sydneyites fondly call it. If you want a
description of them read Trollope's book. He has not exaggerated an
iota on this point. Sydney Harbour is one of those few sights which,
like Niagara, remain photographed on the memory of whoever has been
so fortunate as to see them. With this difference, however--the
impression of Niagara is instantaneous; it stamps itself upon you in a
moment, and though further observation may make the details more
clear, it cannot add to the depth of the impressions. But Sydney
Harbour grows upon you. At the first glance I think you will be a little
disappointed. It is only as you drink in each fresh beauty that its
wonderful loveliness takes possession of you. The more you explore its
creeks and coves--forming altogether 260 miles of shore--the more
familiar you