by no less than three saints—viz., one St. E d m u n d and two St. Davids. W o n d e r the Prahranites did not go a little further, and, dispensing with one of their Saintships, give Charon a help-meet in a street n a m e d Jezebel. There is also a Murphy Street, said to be called after a worthy denizen, w h o once had a Murphy's paddock between Punt R o a d and the Bridge. Potatoes were grown in a part of this—so flowery, that no prize bag ever shipped from Warrnambool could equal them, and Murphy's namesake came to be better liked and relished than himself. H e was a person of some consequence in his day, and, according to tradition, this is the way in which such an unassuming and commonplace n a m e came to be everlastingly allied with a quarter which afterwards took unto itself very exclusive aristocratic notions. A n d n o w as w e are at the Gardiner's Creek Road, let us be as polite as if w e were on the " Block," for are w e not pedestrianising the fashionable region of South Yarra ? This road was so called after Mr. John Gardiner, a bank manager in V a n Diemen's Land, who, fancying that gold might be as speedily coined under a bullock's hide as in a bank parlour, bade good-bye to bullion, took to bulls, and was one of the first arrivals in the n e w settlement. H e soon tired of bulls, turned back to bills and banking, and his n a m e frequently occurs in the old Chronicles. It should be mentioned that Prahran Flats were first annexed by two partners named G o g and Walpole, but they did not m a k e m u c h of it for sheep or cattle feeding. A M r . Glass (not the afterwards well-known H u g h ) was more fortunate, for he declared himself the lord and master of green Boroondara, from lordly Toorak to lofty Tara, from bosky Burwood plain to Ballyshanassy ; and Boroondara beef soon m a d e itself known in the market. If the Gardiner's Creek R o a d could speak, what queer tales could it not tell since the time w h e n Gardiner's bullocks stampeded along it; when Sir Charles H o t h a m m a d e Toorak his vice-regal flagship, hoisted his broad pennant from its turret, and dispensed colonial beer to his guests at birthday festivals. There was no road in the colony better posted up in all the great changes which have swept over this community ; better versed in all the political cabals that have taken place ; better learned in all the big and little scandals of every day as it passed. If this road could speak, and only tell a tithe of what it has heard uttered by those w h o passed along it for the last thirty years, truth would be found stranger than fiction, and no mistake. Let us proceed, however, and turn the corner, where the late m u c h lamented Judge Fellows once resided; and, standing on the top of Punt Hill, look round and ask where we are? W e are opposite " Cotmandene," a queer, comfortable-looking hooded house, of monastic aspect, fit residence for a recluse; yet no anchorite dwells there, for it is the h o m e of M r . G. W . Rusden, the clerk of the Parliaments, so well k n o w n in the colony as a m a n w h o has the gift of. tongues, and can write even more fluently than he can talk. A n d then on the opposite side, a little further north, is the feathered nest of the H o n . James Graham. It is called Elibank House, after a m e m b e r of the Elibank family, the H o n . Erskine Murray, w h o originally bought the land thereabout. H e was amongst the earliest barristers at the Port Phillip bar, and is mentioned in other chapters. T h e present occupant, when it passed into his possession, clung to the old name, though often asked to change it. T h e H o n . James Graham is one of our primitive merchants of w h o m so few survive. H e arrived in 1838, and has witnessed all the commercial and political ordeals through which the colony has passed. Commercially he was known as " Jas.," conventionally as "James," but familiarly as " J e m m y . " In the by-gone times he was always one of the foremost in getting up a birth-night or assembly ball, and was one of the few, who, by tact and caution, sailed clear of the financial maelstrom of 1841-3, within whose seething vortex so m a n y mercantile craft foundered. Walking d o w n the hill northward, we reach the Yarra ferry, the second oldest on the river, and pass right on to the heart of unclassic Richmond. In early days this suburb was a splendid section of green, undulating, well-timbered bush, and it was a favourite walk and drive with the citizens. Its prime piece was the part known as Docker's Hill, where the Rev. Joseph Docker m a d e a profitable investment, by the purchase of no less thanfiftyacres at one of thefirstland sales in 1839. For one moiety of this he paid ^£24 per acre, and £15 for the other. H e was mindful of the "loaves and fishes" in more than a Scriptural sense. If this land were kept until the present day, and n o w cut up and sold, what a fabulous number of " loaves andfishes" could be bought with the proceeds ! Parson Docker, however, had not the gift of prescience, for, by degrees, the hill was sold out for residence sites, and no doubt, as times went, the vendor "struck oil" pretty considerably, and reaped a luxuriant interest harvest on the original outlay. T h e township of Richmond, of some three hundred acres, was divided into twelve lots of from twenty-
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THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.
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