370 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



lighterage from the bay to Melbourne as it did to bring the goods 

 from England, it was declared by some leading merchants that far 

 more than the total freight charge was lost by peculation in transit 

 during the last nine miles. The inability to command sufficient 

 labour or horse-power, to accept promptly the reckless deliveries, 

 produced such a congestion at the wharves that it was impossible 

 to fix responsibility. The loss of property became so serious that 

 the traders appealed to the Government for protection, only to be 

 put off with promises. While the importer suffered, he had, how- 

 ever, the means to recoup himself by doubling the price of his 

 wares, such was the unsatisfied demand. But the poor immigrant, 

 encumbered with much luggage, and often with furniture, was the 

 victim of the cruellest extortion. As a rule, his passage-money had 

 only franked him to Hobson's Bay, and after he had met the greedy 

 claims of boatmen, lightermen and wharfingers, he had to face the 

 exorbitant demands of the draymen, whose tariff ranged from 2 to 

 4 per load within the suburban radius. Thus it came about that 

 many poor families were literally stranded on the wharves, and 

 found that the cost of landing their personal effects sometimes 

 exceeded the amount paid for them in England. A singular evidence 

 of the waste of those times was the fact that for years afterwards 

 the beach from Sandridge to St. Kilda and Brighton was literally 

 covered with derelict mattresses and bedding material, with which 

 in 1853 it was customary for passengers to provide themselves. 

 Blankets would generally be saved for outdoor camping on shore, 

 but as a rule all the rest went overboard, and drifted about the bay 

 for months. There was enough bed-ticking wasted to have made 

 all the tents in Canvas Town. The Immigrants' Aid Society had 

 obtained permission from the Government to put up a temporary 

 iron store on the wharf for the luggage of new arrivals seeking a 

 domicile. But such was the restless excitement that many of them 

 rushed off to the diggings without troubling to make any arrange- 

 ment about their belongings, and in a very short time the store 

 was crammed to the roof. Finally, it occurred to some of the more 

 distressingly impecunious ones that it would be better to part with 

 all they could spare of their outfit, for whatever it would fetch, 

 rather than disburse more than its value in store rent and cartage. 



