Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/177

 every support from the State—for the progress of education amongst the middle and lower classes, large grants and endowments are allotted for the purpose of establishing a College in the metropolis, now nearly completed, which, we trust, will, ere long, vie with any College of the old world, as nothing has been left undone, but every inducement offered, to bring to the colony professors of the highest erudition and attainments.

From the latest accounts we find that the social, political, commercial, and religious condition of Victoria has wonderfully increased in improvement during the past year. Melbourne at the present moment offers to the stranger as many inducements for a pleasing sojourn and happy residence as many a refined city of Europe, or even its proudest capitals.

Of all the British colonies the history of Victoria has been the most marvellous. It has, indeed, been more marvellous than the history of any colony on record. The capital was founded only twenty years ago, and it is only some half-a-dozen years since it was a wretched out-port, at which a few stray ships touched. Yet now the population is more than 80,000, and the trade something fabulous. There is no region of the world that can give a better account of the period that intervened between its rise and the present date.

The trade of Victoria was, in 1854, not less than one hundred times greater than fifteen years before, and the population had multiplied itself thirty times