xcitement and bustle compel me to regard Cheapside on a Saturday
afternoon, as a place of great quietness and an agreeable promenade.
Fellows are riding as hard as they can tear from one end of the town to
the other--cattle are driving to and fro--bullock-drays are crowding from
the interior with wood--auctions are eternally at work--settlers are
coming from their stations, or getting their provisions in. Tradesmen and
mercantile men are hurry-skurrying with their orders. A vast amount of
work is done up to four o'clock, and afterwards all is silence, and the
place looks unlike nothing so much as itself; and yet, notwithstanding all
this bustle, _money_ is altogether out of the question. From what exact
cause or series of causes, I cannot tell you now--but the fact is certain
that the mercantile community here is nearly _bankrupt_. There is a glut
of goods, a superabundance of every thing in the market. It has been
wrongfully supposed in England that every thing would sell here, and the
consequence has been that an overflow of every kind of commodity has
poured in upon us. The supply has doubled and trebled the demand. Upon the
first establishment of these settlements the wants of the people were of
course many, and their prices for stock were so good, and their
speculations in land so profitable and bright, that they could afford the
indulgence of a luxury, no matter what price was asked to purchase it. It
is very different _now_. The staple commodity of this colony is wool. Well,
so long as all the stations or sheep-runs continued unoccupied, and new
settlers arrived, the price of sheep kept naturally very high; but every
station that can command a due supply of water, is now in occupation, and
consequently the demand for stock has ceased. Sheep, which three years ago
sold for twenty-five and eighteen shillings, command now, for first
quality, eight shillings and sixpence only; ordinary quality, six
shillings; and middling as low as five shillings. For cash sale by
sheriff-warrant, I have seen beautiful ewes, free from all disease--2000
of them--sold for two and sixpence each! Cattle three years ago sold for
ten, twelve, and sometimes fifteen pounds per head. At this moment they
are so plentiful that I could purchase a drove of fat cattle, two to three
hundred head--and some of them weighing eighty stone--for eight pounds a
beast, and that on credit too by approved bill at four months' date. Such
are a few of the reasons