lemonade. There are two physicians' tents;
who of course are at the same time surgeons,
dentists, corn-cutters, and apothecaries.
Young gentlemen of family and education
drive water-carts about the "streets," and
sell wood (felled, and brought from a mile or
two off in the bush); and oh, ye classic groves,
where the trees have fresh green leaves, of
which there are no signs here. In summer,
how many University men does this strange
collection of tents, with all their gipsy-life
appurtenances, contain? There are several
besides myself; and some ladies also, besides
my wife. It took me some days to learn
these particulars; but how many days would
it take to ascertain the amount of
disappointment, privation, and misery which these
frail walls conceal from view?

Within the canvass enclosures of a few
feet are contained the perplexed energies,
the blighted hopes and despondency of many
a newly arrived family. Some have tried the
Diggings and failed, their utter ruin following
in most cases as a matter of course, unless
they possess bodily strength and health, and
are ready to do the humblest work. This
they may generally obtain, and contrive to
live. Even tenting upon a piece of waste
land is not gratuitous. We had to pay
half-a-crown to the Government for the first
week, and five shillings for every week afterwards.
There is a tent on the ground where
a Commissioner's clerk sits all day, to grant
permits and to receive rents.

I have hardly the heart to revert to my
speculations, and still less to relate what my
present position is, now that I have been nine
weeks in Canvass Town. The hams that
remained, and the boots and shoes—so many of
each having been bartered in exchange for
immediate necessaries—did not produce a
fourth part of what I had rationally expected,
and which regular dealers easily obtained.
They were sold by auction, and I afterwards
found some of the auctioneers had an
understanding with certain dealers, and knocked
down goods to them at a very early stage of
the proceeding. On one occasion, the refusal
to recognise a higher bidder was so palpable,
that, if I had been a descendant of the
Telamonian Ajax, I should have been tempted
to assault Mr. Auctioneer severely. As for
my agricultural and mining tools, they were
all a sheer mistake; gold-digging tools being
abundant in Melbourne; as indeed was all
common ironmongery. With respect to
agriculture, as there were no labourers to be
had, implements were useless. I sold most of
them at their value as old iron.

At length, we were reduced to selling our
clothes and other articles, like the rest of the
unfortunates around us. This was effected at
first by my going to a strip of waste ground
near the wharf, which was called Rag Fair.
I was even obliged to consent, on one or two
occasions, when I was unwell from the
exposure to the heat, to allow my wife to go
there and to take her stand behind an open
box, with the contents spread out on the
ground in front and around it, waiting for
purchasers. Strange and sad work for a
baronet's daughter! Had any evil witch
hinted at such a thing when I saw her
dancing in her father's ball-room, or on that
moonlight night when, like a sylph, she met
me at the bottom of the lawn of her father's
garden, and promised—I must not think of
all this, or I shall go mad.

We were disposing of our things by these
means to a good advantage, and I was just
getting a glimmering idea of turning it into a
trade to support us, when the benevolent and
inexplicable hand of the local Government
was protruded in the form of sundry policemen,
who drove us all away from Rag Fair, and
informed us that what we were doing was no
longer allowed. It was alleged that Jews and
other small shopkeepers from the town came
there. A piece of ground had, however, been
allotted instead by the Government for this
purpose, at a rent of one pound per week.
Of this many of the "Jews and other small
shopkeepers from the town" immediately
availed themselves; but as for us poor
people from Canvass Town, we were obliged
to retire to our tents, and to exhibit our little
stock as a traffic among each other.

I ought not to omit to state, that the
Government here intended to make some provision
for the necessities of new arrivals, who
had no place to lay their heads; and, accordingly,
a range of wooden shed-like houses has
been erected on the South Yarra for this
humane and considerate purpose, but (out
comes the needy hand again of our paternal
authorities!) at a rent of two pounds five
shillings for ten days—after which you and
your family are turned out.

The immigrants, however, declined, for the
most part, this hospitable arrangement for
"turning a penny;" and, moving a few yards
higher up, pitched tent after tent, till they
rose to the humble dignity of Canvass Town.
In vengeance, I suppose, for this successful
evasion, the five shillings a-week was laid on;
and as many of the people had placed old
boards and pieces of light plank and paling
round the bottom, or at the sides of their
tents to keep out the weather, an order came
one day that they were all to pull down their
wood-work, and use no more boards, the
"permit" being only for tents. To this order
we have paid no sort of attention, and do not
intend to do so. If our poor abodes are to
be destroyed, somebody must be sent to
destroy them, as we certainly shall not do it
ourselves; and, whether these five or six
thousand people will passively stand by
while it is done, remains to be seen.

I have delayed to the last to mention it,
not being, in fact, quite determined whether
I would do so; but what I have already told
of ourselves here, renders it no such very
great effort for me to say that I have been