appreciably blew up the prices, as the same lots, cut up and rearranged,
would come again and yet again under the hammer. Many a bullock-drover
would pull up on passing the auction room or tent, and quaff off half a
bottle to the good health of all concerned in such liberality. One
respectable old colonist was said to have almost lived on those lunches
in the dear early times, so regularly did he encourage and patronize
them. The bidding public were regaled before the sale, but the
auctioneer and his clients after--a plan which made very much the better
business, as might have been seen by the effects in either case.
Williams began with 4,000 pounds a year profits, which I dare say went
on to the rate of 10,000 pounds for the brief term. He was just
finishing what, for those times, was a fine villa on the Yarra-bank,
beyond Richmond, when the rapidly receding tide left him, as well as
many others, stranded.

Great gum-tree stumps were grievously prevalent, alike in Melbourne
streets and allotments. Swanston-street was special in this way, and
they long flourished upon allotments about where the city hall at first
stood. One huge stump, just touching the Collins-street line where the
Criterion Hotel was afterwards built, long held defiant existence, the
wooden building of the time having deviated to go round it. When at
length the lot came to be sold by Mr. James Purves, a well-known early
allotment-monger, whom I recollect on this occasion descanting on the
future prospects of so central a site, the buyer had the too
long-endured enemy attacked and extirpated.


THE MELBOURNE CORPORATION, 1842.

"When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,