In the heart of the city men were everywhere at work, laying gas and drain-pipes, macadamising, paving, kerbing: no longer would the old wives' tale be credited of the infant drowned in the deeps of Swanston Street, or of the bullock which sank, inch by inch, before its owner's eyes in the Elizabeth Street bog.

Massive erections of freestone were going up alongside here a primitive, canvas-fronted dwelling, there one formed wholly of galvanised iron.

Fashionable shops, two storeys high, stood next tiny, dilapidated weatherboards.

In the roadway, handsome chaises, landaus, four-in-hands made room for bullock-teams, eight and ten strong; for tumbrils carrying water or refuse--or worse; for droves of cattle, mobs of wild colts bound for auction, flocks of sheep on their way to be boiled down for tallow.
Stock-riders and bull-punchers rubbed shoulders with elegants in skirted coats and shepherd's plaid trousers, who adroitly skipped heaps of stones and mortar, or crept along the narrow edging of kerb.
The visitors from up-country paused to listen to a brass band that played outside a horse-auction mart; to watch the shooting in a rifle-gallery.

The many decently attired females they met also called for notice.