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Only three years had elapsed since Melbourne had been named and officially laid out, and, excepting the very centre, there were still wide intervals between the houses on either side even of Collins-street.
The rain had begun to pour, and the night was pitch dark. We got into Collins-street, but had much difficulty in keeping its lines where there were not post-and-rail fences round the vacant allotments.
There are several good clubs in Melbourne the principal are the Australian at the west end of the town, and the Melbourne at the east end of Collins-street. Most of the clubs have bedrooms attached, which are much used by travellers in the colonies.
On this point Professor Nanson writes: "In an actual election in Victoria this 'first state of the poll' could be arrived at with the same rapidity as was the result of the recent poll on the Commonwealth Bill. In both cases but one fact is to be gleaned from each voting paper. The results from all parts of the colony would be posted in Collins-street on election day.
Down Collins-street once more, we pass the primitive wooden cottage residence of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, whose family of fine daughters were already all married Mrs. D.S. Campbell, Mrs. R. Russell, Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Hutton excepting the youngest, then a school-girl, afterwards married to Nantes, of Geelong, D.S. Campbell's partner.
Wilson, as I have repeatedly seen him, would occupy his corner in the comparatively large room into which the narrow old premises in Collins-street east had been latterly expanded.
Swanston-street was special in this way, and they long flourished upon allotments about where the city hall at first stood. One huge stump, just touching the Collins-street line where the Criterion Hotel was afterwards built, long held defiant existence, the wooden building of the time having deviated to go round it. When at length the lot came to be sold by Mr.
"The General" had mainly to sustain this attack, as his brother was generally in Melbourne practising professionally as an architect, and was engaged at that very time in building the Scots' Church in Collins-street. Naturally enough, he would fain have turned somewhat the flank of this invading host; but, without being successful, his efforts only got him the name of "Hungry Jackson."
Melbourne has two obvious superiorities first in the systematic laying out of the streets, and second in the more conveniently level site. Thus no Sydney street can compare with Collins-street, where even the moderate rise of the eastern and western hills still adds to the commanding effect of the whole line.
Perhaps it was his literary turn that led him first, in his new home, to try a stationery business, which, under the style of Kerr and Holmes, afterwards Kerr and Thompson, in Collins-street west, was, I think, the precursor of that particular trade in little early Melbourne.
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