up stair-cases and along passages,—
individual embodiments of that fearful, restless
Anglo-Saxon energy, which, merely to look
upon, drives the pure lounger to distraction.
The body of Opera-goers are toned down by
refinement and aristocratic ease. They toil
not, neither do they spin.

But here their sacred temple of taste, luxury,
and melodious idleness, is given over to
the frantic hunger for exertion of the flannel
jacketed, blue-shirted maniacs of toil. Turn
my eyes wherever I will, instead of the
bright eyes and beaming faces of my lovely
country-women, I see dirty men engaged
in a fierce war with inanimate matter. They
strike it sometimes gently, sometimes heavily
with hammers; they drive into it long nails;
they chip it with sharp chisels; they cut it with
sliding planes, they swing it by means of ropes
in mid-air, they hurl it from giddy elevations
down into yawning earth-gulfs below.
Sometimes they pause a few moments for rest or
consideration; but only to renew the attack
with more energy than ever.

I look towards the stage, and find it nothing
but a number of thin planks, sticking
upwards like hop-poles. Far beneath these
planks are dark brick arches, and black
passages, under which little knots of labourers
are conversing mysteriously, and in and out
of which tramps a procession of dirty
powdered men with hods of mortar upon their
shoulders. A bare wooden proscenium hangs
suspended from the rafters over a dark
earthen gulf, where the orchestra should be
—long, broad, and deep enough to swallow
all the Opera bands of Europe. Stretching
up on each side, and across the back, is the
scooped-out expanse of the stage, looking like
the undeveloped plan of one of our large
public squares. Lofty, solid blocks of clean,
new brickwork; large archways and gaps
showing the thickness of the walls; heaps of
dirt, dust, and brick-rubbish; iron girders;
strong rude galleries running high up along
the walls. Above all, more fan-like covering
of planks, through which dangle dusty
boots and legs; from which men slide down
ropes into the dusky pit beneath; and from
lath to lath of which men hop, serenely
unheeding of their danger; pursuing their
allotted task of labour, even to the gates of
death. At the back of the stage, underneath
the painting gallery, on a raised platform,
intended for the machinists' workshop, is a
long row of men in paper caps, cutting,
smoothing, and hammering for their lives, by
the light of a line of flickering gas jets. It
is the only grouping in the theatre that
presents anything like stage effect; and,
although I have long given up all hopes of the
Huguenots, I still look in this direction for a
chorus taking the form of a benediction of
the trowels.

Climbing over ragged timber, running up
and down tilting planks, jumping over prostrate
poles, bonneted by overhanging rafters,
hustled up dark, uneven, unfinished staircases
by dusty labourers, deafened by the
ceaseless din of the discord of work, my boots
and trowsers soiled with whitewash and
mortar, choked with a dust compounded of a
dozen different materials, I begin to feel that
I, too, am not an Arcadian, and I thread my
way painfully and timidly to the galleries
above the stage, in search of comparative
repose. I find the galleries, but I find no rest.
The din reaches me there, if anything, with
increased force; and, as I look from the stage
towards the interior of the house, I see the
little hives of industry in full activity. Up
in the galleries, amongst the cobwebs of
wood-work, are little glimmering lamps;
centres of nodding heads directing upraised
arms that strike and pause, and pause and
strike again. Carrying my eye round the
circle of the boxes, the novelty of the sight is
still more apparent.

What is it that I am looking at? Is
it a sectional view of some model lodging-
house; the interior of an unfinished
emigrants' hotel at the Bendigo diggings; or
a theatre erected in the wilds of Ballarat
to provide the imported luxury of deal
boarded private boxes for successful miners,
who are determined to have the genteel
thing, and hang the expense? In one bare
wooden box, seated on a rough stool, is a
melancholy looking lad, gazing vacantly at
the monotonous performances below; and
unconsciously imitating the aspect of some
fastidious musical critic, who is dissatisfied
with the execution of a new German
singer, or the composition of an hitherto
untried Opera. Another box has an air
of domestic comfort about it, savouring
of the model lodging-house. Coat and a
hat are hanging up; and, in addition to
a stool, there is something that looks from
this distance like a table. A good apartment
and fitting for a single young man. In
another compartment are two men in familiar
conversation, and common clothes. They may
be discussing the merits and demerits of the
entertainment; and they diffuse for a little
distance around them the idea of working-
men attending a working-man's Opera, at a
working-man's Opera-house. In other
neighbouring boxes are men engaged in
nailing up and papering the walls; and this
carries us back again to the idea of an
emigrants' hotel. Some are coming in or
going out of doors; some are in their shirt-
sleeves; some are talking from the open,
unfronted apertures to their friends in the
boxes above or the pit below. Generally
the favourite means of access from the
gallery to the lower portions of the building,
in this very primitive theatre, seem to
be by ropes and ladders extending from the
one to the other. The line of what I should
consider the dress-circle, presents the
appearance of a row of shops; unopened as
yet in a new settlement, and awaiting