E. W. Umpleby for £61, and Mr. John Hodgson bid £23 per half an acre of "the Block" in Collins Street, but, fancying he had "sold" himself by buying it, was thoroughly re-sold by his forfeiture of the couple of guineas paid as deposit money. It was subsequently taken up for the same price by a Mr. Fleming. A Mr. S. J. Browne, of Heidelberg, well known in those days as "Paddy" Browne, purchased the allotment at the corner of Queen and Collins Streets, on part of which is the Bank of Australasia, the price being £40, and he paid a deposit of 10 per cent, or £4. All that night he dreamed of having "burned his fingers,"and next day was sure he had done so. Coming to town and fretting over his bad bargain, he was so anxious to get rid of it that he actually offered the deposit receipt to several of his friends—satisfied to lose the £4 if the transferee would pay the balance. Not one of them would touch the thing even with a branch of gum-tree; and this so confirmed "Paddy" as to the badness of the investment that he actually forfeited the land! The half acre became waste land for a year or two, and after a time there was an intention to reserve it for a post-office site, but this was abandoned in favour of the more central position finally selected. In 1839 the Wesleyans obtained it from the Government as a chapel site, and thereupon was erected the large brick building so long known as the Wesleyan Chapel. In course of time the Wesleyan body thought it advisable to sell the place, and apply the large price expected, in promoting the spiritual efficiency of their mission; and the consequence was, that in less than forty years Paddy Browne's abandoned venture of £40 increased exactly in the ratio of one thousand to one, for just £40,000 was the price obtained by the Wesleyans. The four intersecting half-acre corners of Collins and Elizabeth Streets were got for £50, £40, £42, and £32, respectively. The first was knocked down to Mr. W. T. Mellison; it was, till recently, known as the Clarence corner, and subsequently sold for $60,000, and the Queen and Collins Streets block (now Bank of New Zealand) went for £42, the corresponding corner opposite bringing £90. Batman, who bought largely, got the half-acre, in Collins Street, opposite the Bank of Victoria, for £59, and the Rev. James Clow—wise in his generation, pocketed no less than two acres at the south-west corner of Swanston and Lonsdale Streets for £162. Germain Nicholson's corner (Collins and Swanston Streets) was bought for £43; the Albion Hotel lot in Bourke Street, £30, and the Beehive corner, opposite Post Office, £28. A Captain Synnot bought a halfacre in the heart of the "block" for £19, which he re-sold the day after for £25, congratulating himself on his good fortune in having cleared £6 so easily.
The result of the sales in Melbourne inducing a belief that land would bring more money if disposed of at Sydney, the venue was accordingly changed to that place, and from a financial point of view the result justified the course taken. In February, 1838, a sale was held there, when town, suburban, and country lots in Melbourne, Williamstown, and Geelong were offered, several following at intervals, and the prices increased in consequence of the Sydney capitalists going into the thing as land-jobbers. All that populous locality now known as Fitzroy and Collingwood, but then as the parish of Jika Jika or Newtown, was cut up into 25 acre lots, and averaged about £1 per acre. Lot 1 comprised the 25 acres commencing at the corner of Nicholson Street and Victoria Parade, and was sold for £6 10s. per acre. How many thousand pounds would it bring now? Two corners of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets were obtained for £125 and £136, the lot where the Argus Office is £129, and the (until recently) "Rainbow" corner near the Police Court, £121. Twelve 25-acre blocks at Richmond averaged nearly three times as much as at the first Collingwood sale. A land mania, which brought its own penalty of an early burst-up, set in the following year (1839), and continued for some time, and speculation reached a high pitch. The half-acres were cut up into feet, and brought what were then deemed not exorbitant prices; though a few examples will show the immense increase of supposed value. The south-east corner of Elizabeth and Little Collins Streets bought for £22 was re-sold at £600, and the north-east corner of Elizabeth and Collins Streets, (first cost £32) fetched £630. A corner of William and Collins Street, cost originally £95 and realised £2000. Fawkner made a good thing of his King and William Street bargain, for the £32 swelled into £1513 6s. 6d. and some land and three half-acre allotments in Collins Street, a little eastward of the Bank of Australia, sold at the rate of twenty-six guineas a foot. Two of them were bought by the well-known Mr. Ebden for £41 and £43, and the other by Lilly, the spouting auctioneer, for £42. The emergency evoked the auctioneering talent necessary for the occasion, and the two great hammer orators were a Messrs. Williams and Lilly, who hammered away in poster, newspaper and rostrum
