any hour of the day thousands of persons may
be observed scurrying along them with true Cheapside
bustle." The Melbourne youth, however, appears to have been
precocious. "I was delighted," remarks this authority, "with
the Colonial young stock. The average Australian boy is a
slim, olive-complexioned young rascal, fond of Cavendish,
cricket, and chuck-penny, and systematically insolent to
girls, policemen, and new chums.... At twelve years of age,
having passed through every phase of probationary
shrewdness, he is qualified to act as a full-blown bus
conductor. In the purlieus of the theatres are supper-rooms
(lavish of gas and free-mannered waitresses), and bum-boat
shops where they sell play-bills, whelks, oranges, cheroots,
and fried fish."

But, notwithstanding the existence of these amenities, all was not
well where Lola was concerned. The Sydney correspondent of the _Argus_
had injured her chances of making a favourable impression by writing a
somewhat imaginative account of her troubles there:

"I need not tell you that the Montez has gone to Melbourne,
as she will have arrived before this letter, and is not the
sort of woman to keep her arrival secret. It may not,
however, be so generally known that she has made what is
colonially termed a 'bolt' from here.... Thinking, perhaps,
that Australia was not yet a part of the civilised world,
and that a company of players could not be secured here,
Madame brought a set of comedians from San Francisco. They
were quite useless. More competent help could have been had
on the spot."

Lola said nothing. Her leading man however, Mr. Follard, had something
to say, and wrote a strong letter to the editor:

"Permit me to state, with all due deference to your
correspondent's term 'bolt,' that Madame Lola Montez left
quietly and unostentatiously.... The attempt to stop her
leaving Sydney and prevent her engagement in Melbourne was
an exhibition of meanness at which every honest heart must
feel disgusted. Alone, in a strange land, without friends or
protector, her position as a woman should in itself have
saved her from the unmanly abuse heaped upon her and the
contemptible attitude manifested by some of her company."

A second adverse factor against which Lola had to contend in Melbourne
was that prices had been d