each other—the welfare of the town, if not altogether forgotten, being a matter of minor importance. The townspeople in such hard times were either unable or unwilling to pay the municipal rates ; warrants to levy were issued in large batches, and the Corporation bailiffs and auctioneers had such a brisk season as " distressed" almost everyone but themselves. B y all thinking people the Council was voted an intolerable nuisance, and burgesses began to repent having ever asked for such a worrying sample of H o m e Rule. Judge Willis was passing from bad to worse. H e was like a self-acting, social firebrand; and though m u c h allowance must be m a d e for the circumstances surrounding him, and the mazes of rascality through which he had to grope without a clue, interwoven with the complicated equity and insolvency suits brought before him, his unfitness for his important position was unquestionable. H e had warred with not only the principal officers, but had almost every m a n of position and reputation arrayed against him, and an influentially-signed memorial for his recall had been transmitted to Sir George Gipps. T h e state of the district was attracting the attention of the neighbouring colonial press ; and the Sydney Australian, a very ably conducted journal regretted " the examples of judicial indecency, municipal wrangling, social discord, and universal embarrassment which the southern district of Port Phillip presents," and believed " that the Governor must see the expediency of interposing his authority, at all events as far as Judge Willis is concerned." Though the N e w South Wales Executive could not abolish a Corporation, it could extinguish a Judge, so Willis was snuffed out, and a gentleman succeeded him in every way a vast improvement. B y a strange freak of chance, whilst the cloud of almost universal distress brooded over the land, the novelty of thefirstpolitical General Election was introduced, and so far had the good effect that it forced the public for a while to disregard the coming shadow of the door-wolf, and to launch into the whirlpool where candidates and canvassers, election addresses and election promises (brittle as the proverbial pie-crust) were floating about. For thefirsttime in the colony the embers of religious bigotry were gathered up, some fuel added, and, fired by the "Lucifer" of Fanaticism, the town was lighted by the lurid blaze until the election was over. T h e "flare-up,"flickeredfor a while, and burned out. Efforts have been since made at rare intervals to rekindle it, but the unholy fetish never found a congenial abiding place amongst us. T h e elections over and the year advancing, commercial troubles still kept to the front, and continued their pressure; but as there is no cloud without a silver lining, a gleam of hope flashed at a time, and from a quarter least expected. THE
TURNING OF THE TIDE.
Mr. Wentworth, the greatest son of the soil ever born at the Antipodes, could not see why, if sheep and cattle could not be rendered remunerative by converting theirfleshinto meat, the desired result might not be accomplished by turning their fat into tallow. H e was a m a n , prompt in deed as in thought, and forthwith purchasing a sheep at a butcher's stall in Sydney, had it slaughtered and boiled down, when it yielded 24lbs. of tallow. T h e experiment was repeated, and eventuated in a grand success; such a discovery was not long making itself k n o w n — a Mr. Henry O'Brien of Yass, and others, further tested it; and the boiling down of not only sheep, but cattle, soon spread. Port Philip was not slow in profiting by what might be termed an invention, the importance of which could not possibly be over-rated. Boiling-down establishments, as they were called, were opened in several places, the first at the Salt Water River, by Bolden and Ryrie, two squatters, w h o placed it under the control of a M r . R. Forrest, possessed of much practical knowledge acquired in Cork, the then pig-killing entrepot for the exportation of pork carcase-meat from the South of Ireland to England. Mr. Edward Curr opened another at Port Fairy, and Dr. Thompson, at Geelong. Hunter Somerville and Co. built premises for the purpose in Bourke Street ; Brock and Mollison, and Watson and Wight had large establishments at the Melbourne s w a m p (now the Spencer Street Railway Station). Boiling down was soon improved into melting d o w n (the complete antithesis of the meat freezing projects of to-day) and the profitable outlet thus presented for realising on stock wrought such a change, that prices immediately improved and manifestations of a m e n d m e n t showed themselves. Another new industry was added to colonial products by the exportation of bark, with which the n a m e of Mr. William Hull must be always associated. Amidst those indications of returning prosperity the resumption of Free Immigration (for some time suspended) was announced and gave m u c h satisfaction; and people
