IN THE MARTS OF THE CITY
Melbourne is one of the best business cities of Australia, and to a
large extent the money centre of the country. It has a number of rich
men, its people are great spenders, and money is kept on the move
most of the time. By no means all of it goes for good living. There
are numbers of insurance companies, real-estate firms, and banking
institutions. The chief banks have branches in the state of Victoria
and in all parts of the continent.
Some of the stores are called universal providers, taking the place
of our department stores. All have good window displays and they
advertise in the spread-eagle American way. One man boasts of having
one million books in his stock, and fills the newspapers with rhymed
effusions about his goods. His shop is called the Book Arcade, and it
is a sort of department store, in which books are featured. It sells
also stationery, candy, and pictures, and in it you may get a tooth
pulled or a photograph taken while you wait. As in Sydney, many of the
big stores are in arcades from one principal street to another which
protect the shoppers from the blazing sun in summer.
Among the most interesting shops are those selling jewellery, for they
give an idea of the wealth and the tastes of the people. There are
quarts of diamonds and pearls displayed in the cases, and the windows
are filled with rings, brooches, and precious stones. Among the most
common of the jewels are Australian opals. They may be seen everywhere.
I verily believe I have handled a half bushel of them since I came to
the country. They are sold set and unset, and are cheaper than with
us, although the better stones bring good prices. An opal the size of
a small pea costs three dollars, while for fifteen dollars you can
get one full of fire and as big as your sweetheart’s thumb nail. Like
diamonds, the stones are sold by weight, at so much a carat.
In walking through the business streets I see many curious signs. One
reads: “John Jones, Fellmonger.” That is a fur store, as I can see from
the ’possum, the platypus, and other skins in the window. The shop
next door has the word “Draper” above it. That is a dry-goods store,
while the sign “Ironmonger” on the building over the way shows that
it is a place for selling hardware. In Australia the druggists are
called chemists, and a drug store is a chemist shop. Lumber dealers are
“timber merchants,” and the lumberman is a “timber getter.”
Besides what seems to an American their queer use of English, the
Australians are even more addicted to slang than we are. Their most
common ejaculation is “My word!” You hear this everywhere. It takes
the place of “Mon Dieu!” in French, “Ach Gott!” in German, and “Oh,
Lord!” in the United States. The Australian evidently thinks his word
a better thing to swear by than the name of the Almighty. Among other
slang phrases are the words “screw,” for salary or income; “narked,”
for angry; “cush,” for comfortable, and “putting on side,” for putting
on airs. If a man is assaulted by highwaymen and robbed he is “stuck
up,” and if he has no money whatever, it is common to say he “has not
a bean.” “Good iron” is an expression of incredulity at a preposterous
story. People ask you to “hang up your horse” instead of hitching it.
“To have” a man is to fool him or take him in. If a person fails “he
has gone the bung,” and if he is well off “he is pretty well on.” We
use the expressions “on the jump” or “on the go”; the Australian says
he is “on the wallaby.” When a man acts foolishly we sometimes say “he
is off his base”; with the Australian “he is off his pannikin.” An
Australian girl does not primp, she “tittivates.” An Australian dude is
a “toff,” a tramp is a “swagman,” “a humping bluey,” or a “sun-downer.”
Luggage is always called “swag,” and the common word for food is
“tucker.”
As to Melbourne’s business hours, the forty-four-hour week prevails
generally. Most of the big stores are not open before half-past eight
or nine; all except fruit and confectionery shops must close at six,
and all are required to shut up for the half holiday every Saturday.
Barbers and tobacconists may close half a day on Wednesday, instead of
Saturday. Even the drug stores have to close on Saturday afternoons and
on Sundays as well.
Melbourne is called the Yankee city of Australia and its people pride
themselves on being like us. They are considered the most enterprising
of any people south of the Equator. I have been frequently asked if
Melbourne did not remind me of home, or whether we have anything better
of the same kind in the United States.
Many Americans flocked here during the gold rushes of the early fifties
and some of them stayed and bought property. Several of the finest
business blocks are owned by Americans; for instance, the Equitable
Life Insurance Company of New York has one of the best office buildings
here. A great many fortunes have been made in Melbourne real estate.
The romances of its land speculations are like those of New York and
Chicago. The island of Manhattan was bought from the Indians for about
a peck of beads, buttons, and trinkets; Chicago could once have been
purchased for a pair of old boots. The Australian aborigines traded the
site of Melbourne, including six hundred thousand acres surrounding it,
for forty pairs of blankets, forty-two tomahawks, and a few knives,
scissors, looking glasses, and shirts. The same ground is worth more
than one hundred million dollars to-day. John Batman, the man who
bought this tract, was not allowed to keep it. His claim was disputed
by others, and a few months later the governor of Australia came down
from Sydney, laid out the town, and sold off the lots at auction.
That auction made fortunes for the successful bidders. There were
about two hundred men present, and nearly all bought city lots of half
an acre each. The first sold for $150 and another for twice that.
One block of ten acres netted $2500. That area is now worth at least
$15,000,000 and the value of many of the other lots has increased in
about the same ratio. The net proceeds of the day’s sale were less
than $20,000, yet to-day the same land is worth at least $40,000,000;
that is, its value has increased just about two thousandfold, which is
certainly a fair profit. The auctioneer was a man named Hoddle, who
worked on commission. His fees for the sale were about $285, and he
took them in land. He was awarded two lots in Elizabeth Street, which
he lived to see worth $1,250,000. That was certainly one occasion when
talk was worth money, for Hoddle must have received in the end hundreds
of dollars for every time he opened his mouth to cry, “Sold.”
This auction took place in 1837. From that time the town grew steadily.
Within twelve months a hundred houses were built, and within five years
it had six thousand inhabitants. It was incorporated in 1842. Ten years
later nuggets of gold as big as your fist were discovered at Ballarat,
some hundred miles back in the country, and Melbourne boomed as San
Francisco did, and at just about the same time.
Hundreds of thousands of men passed through the city on their way to
and from the goldfields, and within ten years more than four hundred
million dollars’ worth of gold was sent into Melbourne for shipment to
Europe. The town doubled and quadrupled in size. It soon reached the
rank of a city, and kept growing until about 1890, when it had half a
million people.
Then came a panic, which seemed for a time to be the ruin of Australia.
But Melbourne was soon on its feet again and I agree with the people
here who believe that their city is destined to become even greater as
the Commonwealth grows.