KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



75 



of a spacious and handsome mansion in a 

 respectable square. 



All sorts of dreadful scenes are brought 

 to light, by the visits of the police- ser- 

 geants employed in the work of inspection ; 

 people dying, or dead of small-pox, or fever, 

 or starvation, in small rooms and in close 

 contact with crowds of poor wretches seem- 

 ingly waiting their turn to be stretched on 

 the bed or bier by their side. At night, 

 these poor creatures simply denude them- 

 selves of the rags they wore in the day; 

 and instead of walking in them, lie under 

 them as decently as may be. The stench 

 that rises from these foul lairs is so intoler- 

 able, as seriously to affect the health of the 

 strong police-sergeants engaged to inspect. 

 Hitherto, for these evils there has been no 

 remedy ; but the new Act imposes some 

 little check on the rapacity of the wretches 

 who thus trade in human lives with even 

 less humanity than they would show in the 

 nightly housing of cattle or pigs. 



The work, however, is in no respect easy. 

 The inspecting sergeants have to walk more 

 than eight-hundred miles every week in 

 discharge of their duty ; and since the pass- 

 ing of the Act, have paid nearly fifty thousand 

 visits. They have to encounter deadly 

 effluvium, contagious diseases, violent tem- 

 pers, the shifty tricks of mercenary lodging- 

 house keepers, and the shiftless habits of 

 the poor. ' But they are often the means of 

 doing the greatest good. Sometimes they 

 report to the Board of Health, or to the 

 local authorities, whole blocks of buildings 

 destitute of proper drainage and the con- 

 tinual nurseries of disease. Sometimes they 

 separate fever cases, just in time to save 

 crowded neighborhoods. 



Various instances are given in the Report, 

 showing the great labor imposed by the 

 Act, the many visits often required for the 

 removal of one nuisance or the correction 

 of one offence, and the very great benefits 

 that have frequently resulted. 



It is well for us, that we only read instead 

 of see what is going on nightly in this 

 great city. The scenes of depravity and 

 human wretchedness that present them- 

 selves, would sicken by the recital. 



The "moral" we would deduce from this — 

 and we like to " point a moral" in all that 

 flows from our pen — is, the great obligation 

 that rests on us to be thankful for the ex- 

 traordinary comforts we enjoy by compari- 

 son with others. Those who are wealthy, 

 know not what penury means — cannot " feel" 

 for people pinched by want. Yet can they 

 credit what they hear ; and by timely aid 

 largely benefit, without injury to themselves, 

 those noble institutions which are ready and 

 willing to perform what none but themselves 

 could efficiently carry out. 



The world is full of misery. We cannot 

 remove it ; but we may alleviate a part of 

 it. The peace of mind resulting from even 

 the smallest share in the good work, is great 

 indeed ! Let us try it. We can all do 

 " something." 



WHAT'S IN A NAME !— 



OR 



VAN PIEMEN'S LAND. 



Time was, when the mere pronunciation 

 of the words, Van Diemen's Land, carried 

 with it an awe to the hearer. The person 

 who uttered them, too, seemed half afraid of 

 what he had done. Transportation, villains, 

 bandits, assassins, and all that was truly 

 horrible, were associated with the name of 

 the country. The times have changed. We 

 have changed with them. England's sons 

 and daughters are flying all over the earth ; 

 some for gold, others for a change — all for 

 imagined happiness. 



Under the title of " My Home in Tasmania, 

 during a Residence of Nine Years," Mrs. 

 Charles Meredith has recently published a 

 very readable book. Everybody should 

 peruse it, if only for the sake of information 

 as to what the country we are speaking of 

 really is. It will not do, now-a-days, to 

 entertain old prejudices. We must go ahead, 

 and see things as they are. 



Allowing that some of Mrs. Meredith's 

 sketches are couleur de rose, there is ample 

 evidence in her book that she has an eye for 

 the picturesque and the sublime ; also a heart 

 to enjoy what she sees. This at once places 

 her on our list of " pets." Hear what she 

 says about Cape Pillar, while sailing along 

 the coast : — 



I have heard much of the grandeur of the 

 " North Cape " at midnight ; but I would not 

 lose my memory of Cape Pillar, at sunset, for all 

 the icy glitter of that more renowned scene. 



We love this independent manner of 

 writing, vastly ; it is so purely natural. Now, 

 let us give Mrs. Meredith's graphic descrip- 

 tion of her afternoon sail : — 



It was a most beautiful afternoon, sunny and 

 pleasant,with a fair breeze ; and as we sailed along 

 the picturesque coast of Tasmania, the deep bays, 

 rocky headlands, and swelling hills, formed a 

 charming panorama, which I roughly and hastily 

 sketched as we glided past. The white-cliffed 

 Hippolyte Rocks, commonly called by colonial 

 seamen the 'Epaulettes,' rising squarely, like 

 masses of neat masonry above the sea, had exactly 

 the appearance of a fort ; and I almost expected to 

 discern a flag floating over them, or to be startled 

 by the flash and boom of a cannon from the snow- 

 white walls ; but a flight of sea-birds rising from 

 the summit, was the only token of living residents 

 that the formidable rocks displayed. 



The southern promontory of Fortesque Bay ap- 



