Melbourne, June 1st, 1854.

The growth of Melbourne during the twelve months that we have been up the country is something absolutely marvellous. Here is a town which in 1851 counted only 23,000 inhabitants, which now counts nearly 80,000. And this is only in accordance with the general growth of the colony, the whole population at that period being only 90,000, and now being calculated at 250,000.

On whatever side of Melbourne you take your walks you are met by the same evidences of rapid and unparalleled growth. Where two years ago Liardet's Beach and the lands between it and the town showed an odd house or a few straggling tents, Sandhurst and Emerald Hill now present populous towns, with good houses, excellent inns and stores, a fine macadamised road traversed by numbers of omnibuses and other carriages.

It is the same if you extend your excursion to Prahran, Windsor, St. Kilda, and Brighton. There you find yourselves amid miles and miles of houses. Go to the north of Melbourne, there is the same wonderful extension of human habitations where you left bare ground. Collingwood and Richmond, populous then, are doubly populous now.

Come into the town, there you find innumerable open spaces, no longer open, but occupied by good houses, and the town swelling out on all sides. What is more, there is not only a vastly increased number of houses, but there is an equally rapid process of elevation of character in the buildings going on.