is two thousand pounds. The cost of such
provisional orders and of other preliminaries
was, to Barnard Castle, exactly one hundred
and sixteen pounds. The expense of the
works themselves will be amply defrayed
by a special district rate of one shilling and
sixpence in the pound, to expire in thirty
years; which is less than the rates now
paid for cleansing cesspools, mending pumps,
and purifying and renewing foul water-
pipes. For twopence farthing a week in
addition, every imaginable sanitary luxury
will be brought into the meanest cottage;
and most of this sum will be saved in the
economising power of the water (which is
derived from a hill-spring a mile from the
town) in the use of tea and soap.

The Local Board adopted the new principle
of seeking springs where natural springs of
soft water are to be found; or, where natural
are not to be found, looking for some suitable
stratum, and making artificial springs, by
laying down earthenware drain-pipes on the
principle of agricultural drains, and collecting
spring water. In the present instance, natural
springs upon search were found.

In connection with the new drainage works
the idea of brick sewers was given up, and
there will soon be neither a cesspool, nor a
brick sewer in the place: the whole of the new
sewers and drains are of earthenware.

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.

Melbourne, Nov. 12, 1852.—To all whom it
may concern:—once for all, digging is so
very arduous and precarious a work that very
few, excepting labouring men, can continue it
profitably. They can attempt it without
capital, or with only thirty or forty pounds
each, because if they fail, they can work on
the roads, or at something else, until they
have accumulated enough to try their luck
again at digging. But, it is not a work for
men of education and different habits of
working and living. Besides suffering from
a new set of muscles called into arduous
activity, they will have to eat dirt, drink dirt,
breathe dirt, get only dirty water to wash in
(and but little of that), and have their souls
obscured in clouds of dust and clouds of dirt
during the whole period of their labours. So
much for spade, and pick, and cradle, and pan
work, as digging is at present constituted.
As soon, however, as machinery comes to be
employed, and companies are well established,
matters will be different.

The greatest profit is derived from buying
and selling gold and other things. A large
capital is of course best, but not necessary, as
the money may be turned over once a
fortnight, or once a month at farthest. With
three hundred pounds a man may realize
from fifty to three hundred per cent, in a short
time. Fifty per cent. is nearly certain, and a
hundred per cent. is an ordinary transaction.

It should be remembered that a sum
which is a fortune to a working man hardly
repays others, and by no means those who
have a certain moderate income, for the
adventure. When companies are well formed
and properly worked by men who really
know what they are about, and when
machinery is employed, then it will be a different
thing, and the head will be worth more
than the hands. The expense of living is so
great in Melbourne, that six hundred a year
does not produce half the sustenance that may
be had in England for two hundred a year.
Comfort is unknown here—that is, in the
town; although a house and garden in the
bush is a very different thing. At present all
the varieties of the English climate, and in
far greater severity—especially with regard
to floods of rain, and dense clouds of hot
blinding dust—rage in the golden land.

There are thousands of persons, many of
them females and children, daily landing at
the wharf, who cannot either for love or
money, get places wherein to lay their
heads. Imagine a gloomy day (of which
there are many at the present season), the
rain descending in torrents, and the unpaved
streets a morass: the river steamers running
up and down the Yarra, between the town
and Hobson's Bay (where the shipping are
anchored) all day long, to convey at each trip
hundreds of newly arrived emigrants: the
passengers are landed, bag and baggage, on
the wharf, among hundreds of their fellow-
sufferers, and are left ruthlessly to their fate.
The men of the different parties disperse
about the town in quest of lodgings; the
women seat themselves upon their piled up
luggage, gather their wondering children
around them, and await the husbands' or
brothers' return with hope and confidence.
Husbands, fathers, and brothers do return;
but after long absence, with wearied feet,
flushed faces, and sinking hearts. They have
made a tour of the town, and there is no
lodging to be had—they are absolutely houseless.

Besides this, every article of consumption
is enormously dear—store-room for luggage
(if found at all) is ruinous. Again the men
start wildly on the same errand, and again
return unsuccessful. I have seen tears rolling
down more than one manly fellow's face, as
he has stood contemplating his wife and
children reduced to such hard necessities;
and it is painful to witness the stunned look
of despair, or the agony of grief and tears
with which the English women receive the
cruel intelligence, and clasp with streaming
eyes their homeless little ones to their
hearts.

The feverish bustle and excitement at the
wharf is increased by a novel kind of sale or
market, which is incessantly being held, and
which, in itself, is also a disagreeable and
ominous "sign of the times!" The wares thus
sold in the open air consist of the household
furniture, the little lots of goods brought out