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 CHAPTER II.

GREATER BRITAIN'S METROPOLIS.

to the census of 1881 Victoria has a population of, in round numbers, 900,000, of whom one-fifth are either Irish born, or of Irish parentage. Melbourne, the capital, with its numerous suburbs of Carlton, Collingwood, Fitzroy, Richmond, Hotham, Emerald Hill, Port Melbourne,Williamstown, Footscray, Prahran, Hawthorn, St. Kilda and Brighton, forms a splendid city of 350,000 inhabitants, embracing 90,000 of the Irish race. The principal provincial centres are Ballarat, Sandhurst, Geelong, Castlemaine, Echuca, Beechworth, Stawell, Belfast, Warrnambool, Kilmore, and Kyneton, in all of which the Green Isle is well and ably represented. Melbourne is the metropolis of Australia, the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, the great centre of antipodean life and activity. When it is remembered that fifty years ago a forest of gum-trees occupied the site on which this bustling city now stands, and that, within the