The Streets Too Had Undergone A Wondrous Transformation.

Collins Street looked quite bright and cheerful, and was the fashionable promenade of those who had time or inclination for lounging.

Parties of diggers were constantly starting or arriving, trips to St. Kilda and Brighton were daily taking place; and a coach was advertised to run to the diggings! I cannot quite realize the terrified passengers being driven through the Black Forest, but can picture their horror when ordered to "bail up" by a party of Australian Turpins.

In every window - milliners, baby-linen warehouses, &c., included - was exhibited the usual advertisement of the gold buyer - namely, a heap of gold in the centre, on one side a pile of sovereigns, on the other bank-notes. The most significant advertisement was one I saw in a window in Collins Street. In the middle was a skull perforated by a bullet, which lay at a little distance as if coolly examining or speculating on the mischief it had done. On one side of the skull was a revolver, and on the other a quantity of nuggets. Above all, was the emphatic inscription, "Beware in time." This rather uncomfortable-looking tableau signified - in as speaking a manner as symbols can - that the unfortunate skull had once belonged to some more unfortunate lucky digger, who not having had the sense to sell his gold to the proprietor of this attractive window had kept his nuggets in his pocket, thereby tempting some robbers - significantly personified by the revolver - to shoot him, and steal the gold. Nowhere could you turn your eye without meeting "30,000 oz. wanted immediately; highest price given;" "10,000 oz. want to consign per - - ; extra price given to immediate sellers," &c. Outwardly it seemed a city of gold, yet hundreds were half perishing for want of food, with no place of shelter beneath which to lay their heads. Many families of freshly-arrived emigrants - wife, children, and all - slept out in the open air; infants were born upon the wharves with no helping hand near to support the wretched mother in her misery.

How greatly the last few weeks had enlarged Melbourne. Cities of tents encompassed it on all sides; though, as I said before, the trifling comfort of a canvas roof above them, was denied to the poorest of the poor, unless a weekly tax were paid!

But I must return to ourselves. Our first business the next morning was to find for our little Jessie some permanent home; for all our movements were so uncertain - I myself, thinking of a return to the old country - that it was considered advisable to obtain for her some better friends than a set of volatile, though good-hearted young fellows - not the most suitable protection for a young girl, even in so lax a place as the colonies. We never thought of letting her return to England, for there the life of a female, who has her own livelihood to earn, is one of badly-paid labour, entailing constant privation, and often great misery - if not worse.

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