During the same Session an abstract of the revenue of New South Wales, with its appropriation for 1836, was presented, and under the head of "Port Phillip" appears a schedule of items as expended, which I transcribe because it virtually forms the first "Estimates" of Victoria, and, consequently, must possess some historical interest:—
Salaries and allowances, £445 1s. 5¾d.; Outfit and passage-money to officers and men, £327; Horses and harness, £361 2s. 6d.; Tents, articles of equipment, tools, stores, and other supplies, £335 16s. 10d.; Clothing and bedding, £156 10s.; Timber, bricks, lime, iron, and other materials, £102 14s. 10¼d.; Wages to military labourers, £11 19s. 2d.; Stationery and printing, £93 13s.; a whale-boat and oars, £32 17s. 6d. ; Presents of clothing, blankets, and badges to Aborigines, ^160 3s. 4d.; Freight from Sydney of the frame for a house, horses, and stores, £132 18s.; Conveyance of stores, £5. Total, £2164 16s. 8d.
The "frame for a house" indicated, in the second last item, is evidently the made-up materials for the first Customs-shed used as such in Melbourne.
No one now amongst us, unless then in the Province, even in the wildest freak of imagination, can well comprehend the extraordinary difference in the Melbourne of 1888 and the nondescript here and there settlement which passed under that name in the early part of 1838. In it there dwelt some thousand persons—a third of the whole population; and it was estimated that there were some one hundred buildings, graduating from the two-storied brick to the mud-made "bothie;" and, though some of the highways dedicated to the public were marked out, the street intersections, gullies, or quagmires were almost inextricable for man or beast once glued into them, whilst the principal thoroughfares were so incommoded with tree stumps that it took years, even after the incorporation of the town, to thoroughly eradicate them. The Yarra, too, was very different from that river to-day; the surrounding country was picturesque and umbrageous, and the ti-tree scrub, which has long since disappeared to give way to wharves and docks and lines of railway, was then in most places almost impenetrable. Melbourne possessed some five or six public-houses, and the only other one in the whole district was on the River Goulburn, near (now) Seymour. To Williamstown was a toilsome trip by land, and a journey to Geelong was quite a hazardous expedition. But there was an active vitality in the very circumscribed public life of the young colony, and the eaters of the bread of idleness were comparatively few. Everyone was not only alive, but wide-awake. Stores were doing a fair business, bill discounters making large profits, ministers of religion putting in an appearance, and branches of the Australasian and Union Banks were in the near future. "Johnny Fawkner" was the proprietor of the Original Groggery, and, to add zest to his tipple, had annexed a reading-room to its bar, whilst his foolscap M.S. newspaper, the Melbourne Advertiser, was fattening on a circulation of twelve copies, sold at one shilling each, barring one specially reserved for the enlightenment of those who patronised the editor's doubtful drinkables. A chief constable and a handful of tip-taking policemen were the supposed guardians of the public weal—for, though there was a detachment of Military stationed in the township, their principal duty seemed to be to keep watch and ward over a rascally gang of convicts, set to work on the streets and elsewhere, whose attempts at up and down levelling only made what was originally bad enough infinitely worse. One sentiment, however, animated the inhabitants, high and low—and that was an absolute belief in a wonderful future for their embryo city, their great expectations regarding which were never abated in the smallest degree. The Melbourne Advertiser of the 8th April, 1838, thus observes on the building condition of the place:— "The town of Melbourne is rapidly increasing in population and in building. There are at this present time not less than ten brick houses in hand, some of them roofed in, and others, the walls partly built. Some of these houses are large, and six are of two stones, with underground cellars. The wood buildings are more numerous, but generally of less size. In fact, persons who have been absent only a few days, on their return express pleased feelings of surprise at the very evident advancement of this flourishing, but newly settled, town. About 180 allotments have been sold here and the first hundred in June, 1837—the eighty lots in November last—and already more than two hundred buildings are ready (or nearly so) for dwelling in."
The wants of Melbourne are declared in the Advertiser, 23rd of April, to be:—
"Surveyors, a coroner, a judge and court, buoys, beacons, wharf, bridge, the streets cleared of stumps, the local expenditure of the money raised by taxation, and a resident Governor." Long and persistent was the struggle before all these wants were supplied.
