324 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



fish was certainly worth its weight in silver. Certain 

 employments, which had been proved and were known to 

 succeed, occupied and monopolized the attention of most 

 new-comers of strong and active frames and determined 

 perseverance, and amongst these occupations none was more 

 common and profitable than driving a dray and horse, at 

 which a hardy and industrious man might realize from two 

 to five pounds per diem ; the original cost of his turn-out 

 averaging about one hundred pounds. 



Nor was this metier confined to the labouring classes 

 alone. Many a broken-down scion of aristocracy, who 

 had the pluck to succumb to circumstances, and consult 

 nature instead of his pedigree, was doing a good stroke of 

 business in the dray-line ! and I remember being very much 

 amused by a scene I witnessed at the table-d'hote of the Port 

 Philip Club Hotel. 



A very gentlemanly-looking man, " a new arrival," who 

 was seated at the table, was attracting the attention of most 

 of the guests by the expression of his features, the convul- 

 sive movements of his hands, and other signs of some great 

 agitation, when, upon being questioned by a neighbour as to 

 the cause of his excitement, he exclaimed, pointing to a dray- 

 load of goods, just driven up . to the door, " You see the 

 driver of that cart that man, sir, is my brother!" The 

 tone of surprise and despair in which this sentence was 

 uttered was inimitable. He was evidently "not the man 

 for Australia." The very torrents of water that rushed 

 down the streets at this season of the year would have made 

 the fortune of a London crossing-sweeper by the* employ- 

 ment of planks as temporary stepping-places, but here people 

 had to stem the torrent in the best way they could, and to 

 restrain their feelings when they read the frequently adver- 

 tised fact in the newspaper, " Another child drowned in the 

 streets of Melbourne." 



