Let Philomel, exhausted, Shall warble; but to me, Then let the flowers all wither, THE FLOWERS ARE FADED. BY EMILY C-L. The flowers are faded, Mary, When their fair young bloom came laughing out In early summer's glow. Fair as thyself-their blossom, And as sweet their balmy breath; But that only made them, darling girl, More coveted by death. Methinks I see them twining But they are gone-those flowers But thy voice is heard no more. N. S. VOL. XXXIV. K AUSTRALIAN DIGGINGS. The following are extracts from letters just received from a young man who emigrated to Australia a few years ago. They are addressed to his mother in London : "Melbourne, July 30, 1852. "I told you of my start for the diggings, with my stores, &c., in mine of the 28th of April. On my arrival, our company broke up, and I, joining with Dr. M'C., worked there till the latter end of June (in the most part of the time dreadful wet weather), when, as we had done very little good in the time, owing to the obstacles thrown in our way by the continued wet, I sold off my stores at very good prices, and returned to Melbourne, which I reached again on the 8th of this month. I sold flour, that I had given 31. per bag for, for 167.; sugar, for which I had given 3d. per lb., at 1s. 6d., and so on. My two horses, cart, and harness cost me close on 801.; I sold them for 3lb 2 oz. of gold, which at 21. 17s. per oz., was 110., the price agreed upon by the buyer; but I brought the gold to Melbourne, and sold it at 37. 3s. per oz., so that they brought me in 1217., I making about 401. by the transaction. But such a sum as 407, is not thought much of here now, as gold diggers think nothing frequently of giving 501. or 601. for a couple of two-horse flys to drive a wedding party about the town for two or three hours. There are one or two of these weddings here nearly every day; the party drive up one street and down another half the day, showing themselves off, and getting gradually drunk as the day advances. You would stare in London to see such a wedding, the whole party, excepting, perhaps, the bride and bridesmaids, smoking; and generally one, the drunkest of the party, leaning half over the back of the fly, black bottle in hand, inviting the public in general to have a nobbler.' One of these weddings frequently costs the 'happy bridegroom' 300l. or 400l. " August 31. "People are flocking in from all countries now, and there is not accommodation for a tenth of them. Some have to sleep in sheds, &c., who never knew anything but a feather-bed in England. We have had very heavy rains lately; several people have been drowned on their way to and from the diggings in attempting to swim the creeks, as the Government does not think of putting any bridges where required; indeed, the people are beginning to murmur against the abominable way in which our government is carried on. . The people can, and will soon, govern themselves, if the authorities are not very soon altered, or change their mode of action-if such a word as 'action' may be used for their utter imbecility. You cannot walk the streets of the city after dark without being armed. I never go out at night without having an open knife in my hand. Robberies are committed also in the open day with impunity, while the legislative council is debating whether they shall give policemen 7s. 6d. or 7s. 9d. per day, when no man will now work under 10s. at even roadscraping. I cannot have lost less than between 3001. and 4007. by the mismanagement of the Post-office, letters, being mislaid, missent, and lost altogether day after day. We want a Vigilance Committee here, as in California, and I would be one of the first to join it; it saved California and we shall have no safety until it is adopted here. There are marriage parties driving about every day, as I described in my last. I was at the Botanical-gardens last Sunday, and there were diggers' wives promenading most splendidly dressed in silks, satins, velvets, feathers, and jewellery, who had been servants in situations a week before. "September 2. "There are about 1,500 people arriving here every week; this number will soon be 2,000; hitherto we have only had them from the surrounding colonies; the stream is now commencing in earnest from England, the mother country, as she is called; but she is a mother that does not know how to govern her children. Everybody now is doing well that the weather will permit to do anything. In nearly every shop, such as a tailor's, there is a bill up with 'thirty good hands wanted;' carpenters are advertised as being wanted, wages 11. per day; dressmakers and milliners in proportion, and more than they can do. Pastrycooks are making small fortunes, from mere wedding-cakes, one about 6 or 8 inches diameter costing 47. or 51.; if it is 4l., the digger throws down a 57. note, and takes a handful of gingerbread nuts as change. Melbourne is literally crowded with new chums,' who are at their wits'-end where to lay their heads. They stand with open mouths at the windows of the gold-brokers' shops, admiring the golden show; the window is generally set out with three or four glass vases filled with gold, large pieces of the same metal being placed separate when weighing above 1 lb. or so; the rest of the window is generally filled up with rolls of banknotes and piles of sovereigns. All this, reflected by a looking-glass, forms a very attractive sight to newly-arrived gold-seekers. Some of these windows must contain a value of from 9,000l. to 10,0007. The goldbroker has a happy facility in converting into an office any space large enough to contain himself and a pair of scales. The passage or private entrance of a shop is frequently made into an office' by having a green baize partition at the back of the broker, who pays about 57. per week for the accommodation. Some of these take in diggers to a great extent. One of their tricks is as follows;-A digger goes into one of these offices with his bag of dust and nuggets, which the broker requests him to empty on a large sheet of whitey-brown or other large paper; he then begins a vigorous rousing with his fingers and a magnet to extract the ironstone from among it, and a good deal of blowing and shaking having been gone through in a careless off-hand manner, he empties the lot into the scale. Seven and four is eight, eight and three are eleven, eleven and four is fourteen; fourteen ounces, four pennyweights and a half, at 31. 7s. an ounce, is 431.; there's a check, sir.' Now all this shaking, &c., is to make a portion of the gold pass through two nicks each in two sheets of papers. When he takes it to put the gold into the scale he shifts the two sheets, so that the nicks are no longer over each other, and consequently cannot be seen, even if the seller has any suspicion. Sometimes, after shaking and blowing the gold in the above manner, he offers 2s. per ounce less than the digger can get anywhere else, who of course, decilnes selling, and goes away with an ounce or so less than he came with. Some never buy an ounce, but have a pound or two to sell at the end of a week. Some scales have the beam, divided unequally, so that it takes a quarter of an ounce to turn the scale. If one half of the beam is the 16th of an inch longer than the other, it will take this. The way to beat them at this work is to reverse the gold and weights from one scale to the other. The known weight of gold that has been sent from here up to this date is 64 tons; but this does not include that which parties take away of their own. The number of persons that arrived in Melbourne last week was 4,283; who left it, 390; leaving an addition to our population in one week of 3,893. Land, like everything else, is fetching great prices, particularly in or near town. Some in one of the best situations in the city fetched 210l. per foot frontage, 38 feet deep; this was last week. The private escort arrived in town at 2 o'clock this morning, bringing 32,000 ounces. The Government one is not yet in. Market prices last week-Cauliflowers, 1s. each; cabbages. Is.; turnips, 4s. per dozen; carrots, 3s. per dozen; parsnips, 4s.; onions, 4d. per lb. potatoes, 12s. per cwt.; new ditto, 6d. per lb. ; green peas,1s. 3d. per quart, unshelled; turkeys, 20s. each; geese, the same; ducks, 12s. per pair: fowls, the same; eggs, 3s. per dozen, coming down; butter 3s. 6d. per lb., also much lower than it has been; mutton or beef, 6d. per lb., ham, 3s.; bread, 4d. per lb.; English cheese, 2s. 6d.; milk (and water), ls. 4d. per quart; one' pennorth' of watercresses, 1s. 6d. ; radishes, Is. per dozen; three-pennyworth' of greens, 2s. ; a 207. house, 1507. Many arrive here without money, and cannot leave the ship until they sell something. But I have no doubt that thiugs will soon come more to a level." ; BEAUTY. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; Its loveliness increasing, it will never Pass into nothingness, but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. * Such the sun and moon, Trees, old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils, KEATS. ALLSOPP'S ALE. "FROM small events what great effects arise," is a very old but true saying the mere fact of an unknown adventurer risking a few absurd remarks on the celebrated beverage called Bitter Ale, brewed by Messrs. Allsopp and Sons of Burton-upon-Trent, has aroused the public indignation, and called forth the unreserved opinion of men who for science and chemical research have stood the test of the world's judgment for years past. What an insult is offered to an enlightened British public in telling them that for twenty years they have been partaking of a beverage likely to do them an injury from the deleterious ingredients of which it is composed, and that after so long a period, during which chemical science has made such rapid strides, they should not have discovered it before. Are the opinions of such men who conduct the "Lancet" to be treated with contempt? Are the opinions and remarks of the most celebrated medical men of the present day to be set at defiance by parties who have no claim even to public attention but through the medium of some newspaper? Certainly not! Let every thinking and unprejudiced person read the pamphlet so ably written by a "London Citizen," and which, upon application Messsr. Allsopp and Co. will be glad to forward; let them weigh the valuable evidence given by the parties named in that treatise against the individual opinion of one whose bitter invective has dared to raise its hydra head in opposition to Allsopp's Bitter Ales. I shall now endeavour to confirm the truth contained in the treatise referred to on the use of "Dietetic Liquids." The late Dr. Roots, of the London Hospital says, "If you want to preserve the tone of your digestive organs, avoid as much as possible all spirits either neat or diluted; and if you must take something between breakfast and dinner, let it be an Abernethy biscuit and a glass of Allsopp's Bitter Ale. Dr. Bolton, consulting physician to H.M.G. Majesty, Queen Victoria, advised most of his patients when convalesant to take as a tonic now and then a glass of bitter ale. At the trial of the celebrated will forgery cases, when so many clerks from the Bank of England were present, most if not all of them took Allsopp's Bitter Ales, and on my requesting to know the reason for the preference given for that beverage, they frankly told me that as they led a sedentary life they found porter or stout too heavy for them, but the bitter ale not only preserved their appetite, but by its invigorating properties made them feel light and cheerful, and enabled them to discharge their various duties with more pleasure to themselves than when they took other liquids. Then again take the evidence of a highly respectable and important body of men, clerks in solicitors and other offices, men whose multitudinous duties require a vast amount of mental energy, |