25 January 1840—The number of dogs that are everywhere to be met with in the streets on our infant city during the moonlight nights is incredible. They roam abroad not only in parties of three and four but ‘in battalions’; and it is remarkable that the ‘bonny Lady Moon’ seems to exercise some mysterious influence over their motions and conduct. This, to people ardent in their pursuit of animal history, &c., may be all extremely interesting, but to us who have arrived at that easy stage of existence when a night of calm and undisturbed repose is more prized than any abstruse investigation into the principles of metaphysics, whether canine or otherwise, it is altogether the reverse. The following programme of the nightly concert of these animals will, we believe, give a tolerably faithful idea of their proceedings: the first intimation is given by the master of the band in a long low prolongation of a howl, which seems peculiar to the species in these colonies. This is answered by some impatient reveller in an adjacent street, who calls to him aloud. Immediately crowds of yelping curs of all degrees congregate from the neighbouring thoroughfares, and, uniting their voices in all varieties of dissonant tones, combine to produce such an infernal commingling of sound, as no mortal tympanum can withstand…In their career they attack every specimen of animated nature that crosses their path, until to their own dismal and discordant notes are now added the bellowing of cattle, the squeaking of pigs and the baaing of goats.
5 August 1840—Little Collins Drain. We would beg, with all due deference, to suggest to the authorities the necessity of having a bridge thrown across this drain, with as little delay as possible. We have been told that some of the inhabitants continue to apply to it the original name of street; but upon referring to the latest edition of Walker, we perceive that a street is defined to be ‘a properly paved way’, and that a drain is ‘the channel through which liquors are gradually drawn’. We leave common sense to decide which is the most appropriate.
24 October 1840—There are certain boys (or fools) who are frequently annoying the inhabitants by discharging firearms at all hours of the night and morning, not perhaps being aware that they are liable to a penalty for such conduct. A few nights since, between twelve and one, some person alarmed the residents of Lonsdale Street and that neighbourhood by a constant firing of a gun, which might have been attended with very serious consequences, as a female in a very delicate state of health was thrown into the most alarming state of mental as well as bodily suffering, being impressed with the notion that the blacks were besieging the town. This nuisance gives rise to another; as a sudden explosion in the dead of the night fails not to arouse all the dogs in town, who keep up a concert of howling generally until the break of day.
5 January 1841—The river Yarra, on the purity of whose waters the health of the inhabitants of Melbourne depends, is made the receptacle for the dead bodies of all animals that die within a mile of its banks. To the deleterious effects of its brackish water, is thus superadded the abominable and poisonous qualities communicated by putrescent carcases. The compound thus formed is of a kind the most noxious which it is possible to conceive. People are allowed to deposit dead bodies in the river at any part below Batman’s Hill— at least such an order was at one time foolishly made, and is not yet, so far as we are aware, rescinded. Even this qualification is not adhered to; and even if it were, would it be of much use since the influx of the tide immediately floats them up to and beyond the town. On this point as on all others, those fortunate individuals who reside beyond high-water mark, have the advantage over us, since once objects have flowed past them in the current, they cannot be, as with us, floated backwards and forwards until putridity has dissipated their constituent elements and mixed them with the stream from which the supply of a whole community is drawn. In the majority of instances it would be quite as easy to dig a grave and inter these animals, as to drag them to the banks of the stream; and we all expect that an order to this effect will not only be immediately given, but rigidly enforced.
30 January 1841—The number of cattle at large in the streets is a disgrace to the constabulary force, whose duty it is to attend to and endeavour to put a stop to such nuisances. We know of a gentleman who having lost some working bullocks for some time, and sought all over the country for them in vain, found them upon his arrival in Melbourne walking very quietly down Elizabeth Street.
Port Phillip Patriot, 18 February 1841—Swine of all descriptions, shapes and sizes have been permitted to stray about the streets of Melbourne, until they have become a public nuisance. Not long since a child was dreadfully mangled by a ferocious sow in Little Flinders Street, and more recently a child has had its ear torn off by a pig at Newtown1, yet as far as we can understand, the police have made no effort to abate the nuisance or to punish the owners of pigs allowed to stray about the streets.
20 February 1841—We beg to caution the public against the artifices of a set of impostors who wander about the town exhibiting subscription lists, which they pretend to have got up for the relief of individuals deprived by some unforeseen disaster of their accustomed means of support…A few evenings ago, one of these compassionate relievers of the distressed called at a certain shop in town, and after announcing with a most lugubrious visage, and in tones suited to the occasion, the sudden death of a certain tradesman, exhibited a subscription list, the proceeds of which he pretended were to be devoted to the purpose of bestowing on the remains of the deceased the honours of a Christian burial, and the residue to be applied to the relief of the distressed widow and famishing children. As the party appealed to chanced to have known the tradesman in question, he did not fail to contribute largely for the charitable object of interring his remains, although he could not avoid remarking the suddenness of the fate which had befallen the deceased, whom he had seen only a few days previously in the enjoyment of robust health, and also on the destitute circumstances in which one whom he had known to be a sober and industrious man had left his family. The sanctimonious collector of charity uttered a few pious ejaculations and remarks having reference to his own disinterested exertions on the occasion, pocketed the shopman’s booty and retired. About an hour afterwards, while sitting quietly in his shop ruminating on the precarious tenure by which our mortal existence is held, our informant was not a little confounded when the individual mechanic, for the celebration of whose funeral obsequies he had so lately contributed, burst into his shop in a state of unusually high excitement, and in the familiarity of long-established friendship fairly upset him in the ardour of his salutation.
14 April 1841—The healthiness of the town, we would venture to prophesy, would be almost insured by the clearing away of the forest which covers the swamp and sand between Melbourne and the beach; and yet, much to the public surprise, it is bruited about that Mr La Trobe is anxious to save the huge and ungainly mass of trees which obstruct the sea breezes reaching the town, and mainly contribute to that unsufferable heat and healthlessness of atmosphere which afflicts us during the summer months.
1. A suburb of Geelong.