Prosperity of Colombo—Native Extortioners—Buddhist Temple—Life in the Streets—On the Indian Ocean—Stormy Seas guard Australia—English Coolness—Western Australia.
Asceneof Oriental loveliness opens on my dazzled eyes this morning. On my right is a fine breakwater, with a lighthouse at the end, which altogether cost £650,000, and the building of which occupied ten years. In front of me is the port of Colombo, filled with shipping from every quarter of the world. On my left is a long row of cocoa-palms, looking refreshing and green after the weary waste of waters we have travelled over. As I write the catamarans of Ceylon begin to crowd around. They are long, narrow boats—a stout Englishman would find it hard to sit in one of them—rowed by dusky sailors, with long oars, many of which seem to terminate in a sort of spade. The men are naked, with the exception of a clothround the loins, and are apparently strong and sinewy. A few feet off is the outrigger, so formed that the boat never upsets. They may be useful, these boats, but have an awkward appearance to an English eye. They bring on board the men who have come to fetch the washing for the passengers, which will all be finished and on board before we leave. Then come the tailors, who will measure you for a suit of white, which will also be finished ere we depart. Then come the barges with the coal, and I get into a tug and go on shore. We all do it, for theOrizabais unbearable while the coal is being put on board.
It is strange to remember that at one time Colombo was so far off, that the news of her Majesty’s accession to the crown, which occurred on June 20, 1833, did not reach Colombo till some immense time after. Ceylon was between ninety and a hundred days from England, now it is only eighteen. Long after Lieutenant Waghorn had opened up the overland route, her Majesty’s Government with characteristic stupidity still continued to send the mails by the Cape of Good Hope. It was left to the opening of the Suez Canal to render Ceylon easy of access, and to render it possible for English men and women to live there with comfort and luxury, in my humble opinion, farsuperior to anything we have at home, and Ceylon is redolent of prosperity, whether we regard its population, its revenue, or its trade. Directly the traveller lands at Colombo he feels as if in an enchanted isle.
As soon as you land in Colombo you are in India, and in, perhaps, its most attractive part. There are some 130,000 people in the city, all mild and gentle, and well-behaved. At once you are attracted by the grand Oriental Hotel, which faces the port; you pass on a few steps, and come to lofty shops, filled with all the dazzling products of the East, with gardens in the rear, and it is hard to avoid being taken in, for the swarthy shopkeepers are clamorous, and, in the matter of cheating, quite the equal of the Heathen Chinee. A friend of mine purchases a white sapphire, as it is called, for eighteenpence, for which the owner asked four pounds, and I much fear my friend has been victimized after all. An unfortunate gentleman shows me a gold ring for which more than three pounds was paid, and which turns out not to be worth a halfpenny. But it is too hot to walk and I hire a carriage, and, with a companion, take a ride of a couple of hours for the small charge of three shillings. We start for the Buddhist temple, a whitewashed building about a couple of miles off. Externally there is little to see. It stands in a green court, surrounded by white walls,and the schoolmaster, after we have dropped a shilling into the box, and given him a trifle for himself, takes us round. The place consists of three courts, but the light is bad, and the schoolmaster’s English very defective, and I came back little wiser than when I entered. The things that principally impressed me were a recumbent gigantic image of Buddha, a court in which there were seventy-five painted images of Buddha, and a smaller one in alabaster, and a long wall covered with representations of Buddhist legends which the schoolmaster, alas! did not condescend to explain. The Buddhist temple is small, and the only sign of its being used are the flowers scattered before the images, the offerings of his followers. The Christians, at any rate, make a good show as far as buildings are concerned, the Church of England heading the list with Christ Church Cathedral and nine other churches. The Presbyterians have two, the Wesleyans six, the Baptists one, the handsomest place of worship in the town, to say nothing of the Salvation Army, which has also a station here. Some people argue that Buddhism is such an exalted form of worship that we ought not to interfere with the faith of the people. That, however, is not the feeling of the whites in Ceylon, who know Buddhism best. To myself, with all my sympathy for Buddhism, theBuddhist temple seemed a very poor affair. I should have said there are also many Mohammedans, and their mosques are numerous.
The streets are an endless delight, as you pass ladies riding in little hooded chairs on wheels, drawn by men; or swells, native or English, in broughams with latticed sides, so as to admit the breeze; and cars, rather rickety, drawn by native ponies and driven by native drivers, whom you may trust to take you to all the objects of interest to be seen, such as the hotels, the gardens, the museum, etc. Then there are native waggons, thatched with dried leaves, and drawn by little dun-coloured bulls with humps on their backs—active animals, which trot along with a swiftness of which a Sussex farmer, who still ploughs with oxen as his fathers before him, can have no idea. Under the trees you see the natives sitting over their dirty rice, which they still eat with unwashed hands. Where the natives live the population is almost as dense as in the East-end of London; and as to the pickaninnies, they are everywhere, with their little curly heads, sparkling eyes, and half-naked bodies, their mothers, in coloured dresses, leaving them pretty much to take care of themselves. Boys and girls run after us all the way with flowers, or bright beetles, or packets of cinnamon and other woods. All is strange,and all is attractive—the gorgeous butterflies that flit in the sun, the crowded streets, the native dwellings, with a screen of lath, which apparently does duty for a door; the tempting bungalows, standing in the midst of gardens with Oriental flowers, or under the shade of palm-trees, of which we in England can only dream; the grand promenades, where the residents walk of an evening to catch the refreshing sea-breeze; and the handsome parks, where English bands play English airs to the delighted crowds. The town is prosperous, undoubtedly. There are fine English barracks, and England’s martial sons are to be met with everywhere. The whole island prospers under English rule. Ceylon’s staple products—tea, coffee, and cinchona—employ hundreds of men, women, and children of different classes, and now an attempt is being made to introduce fish-curing. I could almost envy Arabi his place of banishment. I felt inclined to say with the poet, if there be an Elysium on earth, it is this; but then I was there in the cool time of year, when life is enjoyable, and when even the white man has a little of his native colour left. Yet even enchanting Colombo (I did not realize Heber’s Ceylon’s spicy breezes, quite the reverse, but perhaps that was my misfortune rather than my fault) has its drawbacks. As I am standing opposite the hotel, anative approaches with a small basket. He puts the basket on the ground and begins to pipe. To my horror, as he does so, a hooded cobra, lyingperdu, with its black eyes and silver hood, erects itself on its tail as if ready to dart on its prey. Now, as above all things I hate snakes, and cobras most of all, I fled the spot and at once made for the tug, leaving the native juggler, I doubt not, not a little astonished at my want of taste.
Life on the ocean wave is really to be enjoyed on the Indian Ocean—an immense water, pleasanter to look at and sail on than the Atlantic, of which no one is sure, and which is variable as woman herself. It is impossible to overrate the beauty of the azure waves and skies which greet us every day. Nevertheless, we may have too much of a good thing, and no one regrets that we are approaching the end of our journey. At church on Sunday it seemed to me that we are much given to the use of misleading language. It was announced that the bishop would hold divine service, and perhaps he did so; at any rate, the assembly was numerous, and in appearance devout; but I missed the firemen who kept up the steam, the men on the outlook, the steersman on the bridge, and the inmates of the room set apart for the due study of charts. Were they not engaged in a service equally divine?
How, one by one, vanish the illusions of youth! Yesterday I would have sworn mangoes were delicious eating, for I have read so a thousand times; but to-day I have discovered the much-talked-of mango to be an impostor, in shape like a potato, with a great stone inside, only to be thrown away. Then what raptures we hear about the Southern Cross! I have seen it and it charms no longer, and the beauty of it is that the Australians who most rejoice in it seem utterly unable to tell you in what part of the heavens it shines. Then take the tropics. What descriptions one reads of tropical heats: heats fraught with deadly fever—heats so intense that an old man may well shrink from the danger of encountering them! I have been now nearly a week in the tropics, and they are really delightful. It is true you are warm; it is true that when the ports are closed by night the atmosphere in the cabin is apt to be unpleasant—but then that is of rare occurrence—and the tropics, I hold, so far from deserving to be run down, are favourably to be compared with London fogs and cold. We have now crossed the line, and have sailed for days along the Indian Ocean. Not a drop of rain has fallen on the deck, not a touch of bronchitis is to be met with in anyone aboard, not a ripple is to be seen on the great blue plain of the sea save thatmade by theOrizabaas she ploughs her majestic way at the rate of 320 miles a day. I should say, as far as my experience goes, any elderly man or woman, who in London suffers from its uncertain climate, would find the atmosphere of the Indian Ocean an immense change for the better. If any such require a real sanatorium, I would conscientiously recommend them a trip to Australia and back, if they can stand the sea, and if they have the good luck to secure a berth in such a ship as theOrizaba. By all means let them have a chair; I did not take one, as I thought it would not be worth the trouble, and even at Naples, when an ex-M.P. who went ashore there kindly offered me his chair as a parting gift, I had not sense enough to avail myself of the offer; but I have regretted it ever since. People who have chairs put them in the best places, where the breeze is most grateful, and thus enjoy a great advantage over those who can do nothing of the kind. By all means also let the tourist have a white dress; it is the only kind of dress to be tolerated on the Indian Ocean, and, of course, he must have canvas shoes, which he will find the more useful if they are soled with indiarubber rather than leather. You are bound to take as much exercise as you can, and it is not pleasant to fall on a slippery deck.
Let the intending traveller choose, if he can, his time. Between November and March the ocean is delightful. If, however, it is entered between May and September, when the thick weather and fierce winds of the south-west monsoon prevail, it is very much the reverse. It is a run of more than 3,000 miles from Colombo to Cape Leeuwin, the south-west point of Australia, and this is the most monotonous part of the journey, as there is nothing to be seen on the sea. We only met two ships after leaving Colombo, and people grow sleepy and dull, and the conversation, at no time brilliant, rather flags. One can scarcely imagine what the horror of the passage was in not very remote times. When the bishop first went, he tells me, it was in a sailing vessel, and they were three months on the voyage, revelling on salt pork and beef all the while. Our modern bishops don’t care much for that sort of diet, nor, if I may judge by the way we live, their flocks either, and this, by the way, is the real difficulty and danger on ship-board. As a rule, people are ill because they eat and drink too much. I have been a teetotaler all the while and have tried to eat as little as I could, and hence I am at any rate as well as anyone aboard. Again, let me caution the traveller to avoid a ship that rolls. In this respect we are wonderfully fortunate. TheOrizabanever rolls, and in the worst weather we dine in comfort, no crockery is smashed, and no steward spills a drop of soup. In the dark watches of the night it is the rolling that keeps passengers wide awake, and if ships can be built like ours it is a shame to send people on such long voyages in any others. In the tropics the clouds that come up as the fiery sun sinks into the blue sea are awful, darker and more threatening than any I have seen elsewhere. Then they disappear, and then again reappear, to fly with the early dawn. It is a long time before one can be reconciled to their grandeur. I am not surprised that people feel timid. There is a good deal to make people nervous at sea. A lady passenger tells me that when she goes to bed in rough weather, every night she expects to go to the bottom. I gave her what comfort I could; but then, as Festus grandly tells us, we live by heart-throbs not by years, and so the poor woman is to be pitied after all.
Not in summer calm, not when the gentleness of heaven is on the sea, do we approach the Australian coast. The garden of the Hesperides was guarded by dragons; and approach the Australian continent, for such it really is, which way you will, you find her defended by winds that are ever howling and seas that never are at rest. They did their best to frightenus as we made for the point where first we greet the granite rocks of the Land of the Golden Fleece; of course, there is no danger, and everyone pretends to enjoy it. As to myself, I frankly own—in spite of Byron and dear old Captain Basil Hall, whose pictures of sea-life, when I was in jackets, made everyone long to be a sailor—that I prefer calm to storm, and that never do I love the ocean so much as when it has ceased to roar. There are people who feel otherwise, just as there are people who enjoy the bagpipes, but they are the exception rather than the rule. It may be that the danger is little, but the motion of any ship on a stormy sea is unpleasant. It is to be questioned, however, whether there is any other sea-voyage so long, and at the same time attended with so little inconvenience, as this Australian trip, and I can quite understand how ready the Australians are to run ‘home,’ as they call it. They love Old England to the very bottom of their hearts. Some of them are quite ready to return and leave their bones amongst us. But we drive them away. One of my companions, for instance, has been spending a few weeks in London. He is a lawyer, and has made a lot of money, gotten chiefly at Ballarat in the good old times, when, instead of the ordinary six-and-eight, he always pocketed a fiver. It was his intention to have bought an estateand settled in England; but then it occurred to him that if he did no one would ever come to see him—at any rate, such was the universal testimony of those of his friends who had settled down in the old country, one of them a gentleman who had done the State some service and who had been presented at Court; and so my friend returns to Australia—swearing he will never go to London again—where he seems to have spent his money like a Nabob. Another complaint which I hear in many quarters is that Englishmen are ungrateful. One gentleman tells me how he had exerted himself on behalf of a young lad who had come out to Melbourne friendless, did all he could for him, treated him, in fact, as his own son, even had a gushing letter of thanks and gratitude from the mother, and yet when he called upon her in London she did not take the slightest notice of him; and in another case, where he introduced himself to the father of two young men to whom he had been the means of rendering much assistance, and to whom he had extended the utmost hospitality, all he received was a formal invitation to call when that way, and that only after he had met the grateful parent twice in the streets of the county town near which he lived. Colonials who have been hospitable to English visitors naturally expect a return of hospitality when they findthemselves strangers in a strange land; and Englishmen should remember that it is at all times a duty to perpetuate the traditions of old English hospitality, and to take in the stranger in the Scriptural rather than in the modern way.
At length I have seen an albatross, and that may be taken as an indication that we are getting near our journey’s end. It is a large bird, as big almost as a turkey, with white body and dark wings, but not often to be seen at this season of the year. For awhile we skirted the Australian coast, and dropped some thirty passengers for Western Australia at Albany, its chief port. They were sent ashore in a tug in rather a primitive fashion, and we had plenty of time to admire the magnificent harbour surrounded by granite rocks, enclosing a wide expanse of water, which we enter between two rocks, on one of which is a lighthouse. Of human habitations we saw nothing save one or two on the brow of a hill, at the bottom of which has been built a long railway pier, which railway, as it is not complete, is only used once a week, when the steamers arrive, for the purpose of conveying mails and passengers to Perth. ‘I suppose the first port you touched at was Perth?’ said an English M.P. and distinguished educationalist to me. Alas! it would have been hard work to havetaken theOrizabato Perth. Perth is the capital of a country eight times as large as the United Kingdom, which is at present a Crown colony, but which is to be made directly the home of a self-governing community. We dropped at Albany a young man who has been sheep-farming there for fifteen years, and is quite satisfied with the result. You could hardly credit how many thousand acres he has hired of the Government at a rental of 10s. a thousand acres. He has no white neighbours, and his labourers are chiefly native blacks, with whom, he tells me, he gets on very well. The country, he says, is well fitted for agricultural purposes, and there is plenty of good land to be bought at 10s. an acre. Hitherto the difficulty has been how to dispose of the produce, but that will shortly cease, as the district is now being opened up by railways, and from all that I can hear it is just the country for the British farmer who feels inclined to clear off before he has lost his last farthing in the vain attempt to compete with the foreign producer. In Western Australia, with a little capital, he may certainly do well. Everyone says Western Australia is the country of the future. As to Albany itself, it is growing rapidly, and has a population now of about 2,000. It seems to me prettily situated, and already people who have madea little money have fixed upon it as their residence. There are Church of England, Wesleyan, and Presbyterian churches there, and it boasts a paper—published weekly for threepence, and dear at the money—which found a large sale on board, for the sake mainly of its meagre telegraphic intelligence relating to English and European affairs. After the dreary monotony of the sea it was pleasant to look on the hills which hid Albany and its surrounding district from the vulgar gaze. On one hill there was a long trail of smoke, which indicated that somewhere there was a large bush fire; and climbing up the sides of all was a scanty undergrowth, which if good for neither man nor beast, had an appearance of verdure, which, to the eye, seemed a living green, now and then varied by stretches of yellow or white sand; and behind, though not visible to us from the deck of the steamer, stretched a forest, full of a black wood which makes the finest railway-sleepers in the world. On the whole, it may be said Western Australia is bound to go ahead.
Melbourne Gleanings—Dr. Bevan—Night at a Bungalow—Cole’s Book-shop—A Day at Sorrento—White Cruelty to the Aborigines—Coffee Palaces—Dr. Strong—The Presbyterian Church in Collins Street—The Late Peter Lalor—Ballarat—Romance of Gold Mining—Sydney and Melbourne compared—Australian Rogues—Suburban Melbourne—Victorian M.P.’s—Victorian Politics.
Thestranger who makes his first trip to Australia is not a little astonished by the extreme cold which greets him as he nears his destination. You hear so much of Australian heat that you are not a little astonished to find the nearer you get to your journey’s end the colder it becomes. In the tropics we had all given up warm clothing, but as we reached Western Australia great-coats by day and blankets by night came into fashion. People were wrapped up as if we were on the coast of England rather than of Australia, and as to sleeping with the ports open, that was quiteout of the question. This is an admirable provision of Nature. It gives us the advantage of having the body braced up before it encounters the formidable heat which, according to all accounts, awaits us on shore. Another thing that strikes a stranger, as he studies the papers from all parts of the country, is the extraordinary difference in the weather as recorded in different localities. For instance, I find at Sydney the weather is described as delightfully cool, while at Adelaide on the same day it is recorded as the hottest of the season. In one district I read how the rain has come down in a perfect deluge, whilst in another men and vegetables are dying from the want of water. At a town in Queensland, the heat is so intense that many are dying daily of sunstrokes, and the insurance agents have been telegraphed to not to effect any more insurances, whilst in another locality I read of a heavy fall of snow. The fact is, it is impossible to realize the size of the Australian continent, twenty-six times larger than Great Britain and Ireland, or the various kinds of weather to be met with, till you are on the continent itself.
A pleasant trip of a day and a half from Adelaide, most of which time was passed in sight of land, enabled us to reach Melbourne—marvellous Melbourne, as it has been called—in time to go on boardtheLusitaniaand bid good-bye to Miss von Finkelstein, who is, she tells me, wonderfully delighted with her Australian trip, and intends returning again. She goes now as far as Port Said, and thence she makes her way to Jerusalem. I then get into the train, and after a run of half an hour along a flat district, partly waste and partly built over with little wooden villas—prettily painted, each with its tiny garden, which seemed to me to have a wonderful knack of getting burnt down every night—find myself landed in the noble thoroughfare, which seems to me to run from one end of the city to the other, known as Collins Street; and almost the first person I meet—at any rate, the first one I recognise—is Dr. Hannay, who is leaving by the next mail steamer, and who is looking very well, though he tells me he has been much tried by the great heat of the last fortnight. The dust and the sun are trying, and I get back to the ship for dinner.
When next I go on shore it is Sunday morning, and a grateful breeze awaits me as I make my way along picturesque and stately Collins Street—a street which would be an ornament to London itself. The public-houses are closed, the tramcars have ceased running, and the busy crowds that block up the footways on the week-day are away. Instead of themthere are the church-goers—well-dressed, sedate, orderly—just as we may see anywhere in England on the Sabbath. And if I miss the sound of the church-going bell, I know not that that is an unmitigated loss—indeed, as far as London is concerned in that respect, it always seems to me that we may have too much of a good thing. On my left I pass a handsome Baptist Church, which was crammed to suffocation when a short time since Rev. Dr. Maclaren, of Manchester, was preaching. Further on I pass the fine Scots Church, and on the other side of the crossing is the noble church of which Dr. Bevan is the popular pastor, and where I tarry to admire the cool and spacious structure, the appearance of the people, and the eloquence of the preacher. It is the premier church of Victoria, and is in every way worthy of its position. The people rejoice in an endowment of £3,700 a year, all of which is turned to good purposes, and they give at the doors as much as £1,500 a year, to say nothing of pew rents. It is not in Victoria that you feel doubts as to the power of the Churches to evangelize the land. Here, as all over the colonies, the Church of England leads the way, and—as was to be expected when you remember what an adventurous race of men the Scotch are—the Presbyterians occupy the second place. The Wesleyans and the Congregationalistscome next, and of the latter body Dr. Bevan is the leader, and he seems to me to enjoy his position to the utmost. He is the picture of health and happiness, and, as I tell him, is to be likened rather to a wealthy archdeacon at home than to a Congregational minister, as we know him, in a country where he has to take—thanks to Parliamentary wisdom—rather a place in the second rank. He and Mrs. Bevan alike seem to have renewed their youth in this far-off land. A dealer in portraits of English celebrities, by-the-bye, tells me that people often ask him if the portrait of John Bright he displays is not that of the worthy Doctor. And, indeed, there is a breadth and vigour in the Doctor’s sermons which naturally suggests to the hearer the fiery eloquence of John Bright. Standing in his gown, on his platform pulpit, the Doctor certainly carries all before him. His audience seems to be wielded at his will, and his audience is a noble one; men and women to whom the service of the sanctuary is not a form or conventional observance or symbol of respectability, but a joy and delight, which reminds one of what church-going was, in what to sceptical and scientific London seems a far-off time, when Dr. Watts could write:
At once they sing, at once they pray,They hear of heaven and learn the way.
At once they sing, at once they pray,They hear of heaven and learn the way.
What strikes me as a contrast to congregations I know nearer home is the power of the audience. The people are in the prime of life, not decayed and elderly, and the proportion of young men is great. In the evening they make a grand show in the gallery—semi-circular, lofty, and airy. And this is, remember, the summer season, when families rush off to the seaside, and corresponds to the period when in London our churches are thin, and when in New York and Washington, and the other great centres of American life and energy, it is usual for the pastor to shut up his church, and for the people to give themselves a Sunday rest—not in the Jewish, but in the modern acceptation of that term. In the afternoon I enjoyed the hospitality of one of the Doctor’s deacons, Mr. Johnson, who has had the honour of making his handsome house the temporary residence of Mr. Henry Lee, who is away preaching.
In every direction I look I see capacious streets with handsome houses, all painted white, and broad streets which are lined for miles with the dwellings of the Melbournites, while as you wander in wonder, every now and then, beyond the glitter of the white houses, and the green foliage of the public gardens, you see a thin silver streak of the blue bay. In the evening, the Doctor will have me go home with him.We stop late, for there are people waiting to see the Doctor in his private vestry; then we catch the last tram to Camberwell—how funny the old name seems to us on this Australian soil! Then we are driven home by the Doctor’s Jehu—who, I fancy, has rather a good time of it, though, as a Roman Catholic, he holds his master to be a heretic—and we have a welcome supper in a veritable bungalow, large, and occupying its own grounds of thirty acres, devoted by the Doctor to farming, on an interesting, but, I fear, rather unprofitable, scale. At an early hour on Monday morning—for we have much to talk of over our cigars, uncommonly fine ones, a present to the Doctor—I am offered a choice of beds, of course all on the ground-floor. I resolved to sleep in the one which has recently been tenanted by Dr. Hannay, of whom everyone in Melbourne speaks well. As the Doctor shows me to my bed and shuts down the window, I am idiot enough to say, ‘Any snakes about here, Doctor?’ ‘Only a few black ones now and then,’ he replies, in a light and airy way. But, alas! the Doctor’s words kept me uncommonly wide awake that night.
One of the sights of Melbourne, the most marvellous I have yet seen, is that known as ‘Cole’s Book Arcade,’ in Bourke Street, which is not merely aplace for the dissemination of knowledge, useful or otherwise, but a reading-room as well, into which thousands enter, pick up a book, take a seat, and read as long as they like without spending a farthing. Mr. Cole himself, the owner, is a remarkable man. He hails from Ashford, in Kent, and had been some time in the colony trying to make a fortune, but with little success, and now evidently he has, to borrow an Americanism, ‘struck ile.’ As a compiler he has done some good work. His aim is to publish the Library of the Future, to be composed entirely of the cream of human thought and knowledge. To this scheme he gives the title of ‘The Federation of the World’s Library.’ It is to consist of one hundred of the best books in the world; one book, the best of its kind, is to be on astronomy, another on geology, another on geography, and so on. Each book is to be complete of its kind, and highly condensed. It is easily and perfectly done, he says. A moderate-sized song-book, he tells us, holds all the best songs in the world; a moderate-sized wisdom-book—it is a humiliating reflection—will hold all the wisest sayings in the world; a moderate-sized book, carefully prepared, of astronomy, geology, chemistry, botany, or any of the sciences, will give a clear knowledge of the principles of each. Such alibrary, of 100 volumes of 600 pages each, can be produced to sell at £10, thus bringing all the most important knowledge and all the most beautiful thoughts within the reach of every human being. He calculates that there are a million printed poems in the world. The 1,000 best are worth the remaining 999,000 all put together. Probably out of the 1,000 best there are 100 first-class, 300 second-class, and 600 third-class. Amongst the first-class Mr. Cole reckons Gray’s ‘Elegy,’ Goldsmith’s ‘Deserted Village,’ and Longfellow’s ‘Psalm of Life.’ As a bookseller he asserts—and I am sorry to write it—that it is read more, verse for verse, than the whole of Milton’s and Homer’s poems put together. Mr. Cole tells me that, with the exception of school books—always in demand—his principal sales are novels and theological works. Of the latter he sells most of Talmage. Ward Beecher does not go down so well. Perhaps the Australians in this respect resemble some of the members of the Christian Young Men’s Association. When last in London, Mr. Cole went to hear the great American lecture at Exeter Hall. ‘Mr. Beecher ought not to be allowed to lecture here,’ said someone to him. ‘Why so?’ asked Mr. Cole. ‘Because he is an infidel,’ was the charitable reply.
And what a sight Mr. Cole’s shop is, to be sure! especially at business hours, when it swarms with buyers and readers. It is three stories high, 200 feet deep, and 40 feet wide. Its walks are a third of a mile long, and its capacious galleries are supported by 140 brass pillars. The sign of the establishment is the rainbow, which is to be seen painted everywhere. A gorgeous rainbow ornaments the chief entrance in Bourke Street. Inside daily may be seen hundreds of men, women, and children, who really seem more numerous than they are in consequence of the seventy mirrors with which the interior is decorated. There are twenty miles of boards in the shelving, and 2,800 large cedar drawers. Altogether there are 100,000 sorts of books, all well classified, so that the purchaser can at once secure what he requires, and if he wants a selection he has probably a million of books to choose from. New books, music, and stationery occupy the ground-floor, second-hand books the next floor, and on the top floor is a fine collection of china, glass, and other house ornaments and knick-knacks. This flat is entirely devoted to the sale of goods to beautify the interiors of houses, as books beautify the mental interiors of their readers. If you want to get to the top, and you are too tired and weary to walk,there is a handsomely-decorated lift at your service, and if you require the solace of music there are free performances given every afternoon and evening. Mr. Cole, to his credit be it said, has prohibited, as far as he is concerned, the sale of Zola’s novels, having struck them out of his list. I asked one of hisemployésto what religious body he belonged. I was amused with this reply: ‘I don’t know; but he’s a very good man. I expect he is a Dissenter.’ It is curious to find people who do not go to Episcopalian churches spoken of as Dissenters in a land where there is no State Church, and where all denominations are on an equality; but then this particular young man had only left the Old Country a year and a half, and had not got rid of his Old World ideas. As an illustration of the value of property in Melbourne, Mr. Cole tells me that his rent is £1,000 a year, that he has a lease of it for fifteen years, and that the proprietor nevertheless had had an offer made him for the place of £5,000 a year. All round Mr. Cole’s premises are what he calls intellect sharpeners, in the shape of extracts from what wise men have written in favour of study and reading. This Australian Cole seems in his way to do much to advance Australia.
One of the few places in Australia to which interestingassociations attach is Sorrento, and it is one of the places most patronised by the Melbourne public. You leave Melbourne Port at half-past eleven, and you arrive there at two. As the steamer returns at half-past three, you have not much time for exploration, and in my own case I admit that time was curtailed from perfectly natural causes. As I landed, the announcement ‘hot dinners’ met my eye, and gave me quite an appetite. I walked up the cliff, found a comfortable and airy hotel at the top, and did justice to a good half-crown dinner. Nor was I singular. I found many of my travelling companions similarly disposed. One must dine, and you may as well dine in comfort as not.
Everyone in Melbourne goes to Sorrento. I was in the former city on one of the days when the heat is tropical, when the hot wind and the dust are intolerable, when everyone in the city looks parched and weary; while the wives and mothers and daughters at home draw down the blinds, fasten all the doors to keep the hot air out, and sit metaphorically in dust and ashes. In vain are scanty attire and cooling drinks; in vain are all the resources of human ingenuity. The only thing to do is to take the train to Melbourne Port, and then get on board the steamer for Sorrento, where the temperature is always twentydegrees lower than in Melbourne. The wind blows straight from Port Melbourne to the Heads; it has no heated land to pass over on its way to Sorrento, and arrives there cool and bracing from its contact with the salt water. On one side we have the Bay, and on the other side the Southern Ocean, only a narrow mile of land dividing them. It has a charming locality all round, picturesque cliffs, and the sea. Traces of the old settlement are visible still. One of the original wells sunk in 1803 has been opened for the use of the public, and the shade of the scrub gives special advantage to picnic parties, for which the whole picturesque extent of country round is admirably adapted. It was here came the original settlers. One of the oldest, just carried to his last long home, used to tell terrible stories of them. ‘Had you any trouble with the natives in those days?’ asked an anxious inquirer. ‘Trouble!’ was the reply; ‘not me, poor things. Why, sir, they were as harmless as babies. I have seen upwards of a thousand on ’em at a corroborree on the Meni creek—that was their camping-ground then. Dear, dear, poor things, they’re gone now, sir, gone; most on ’em shot off, or put out of the way somehow else. If there is any questions asked when we are dead and gone, some of our big squatting swells ull have someawful posers to answer.’ Again, added the old man, ‘Take my word for it, sir, the blacks were a harmless, good-natured lot till the cruelty of the whites made ’em bad and revengeful, poor things; and who can blame ’em?’ The flour which they used was mixed with arsenic, and thus they lost in many cases their lives and lands. In one case it was certain that a native was shot by a celebratedsavantthat he might have possession of the native’s skull. There are few natives left now. Such humane treatment has somewhat diminished their number. At all times it was a puzzle what to do with them, as the following well-authenticated anecdote shows. Two aboriginal children, separated from babyhood from aboriginal life, were trained and educated like colonists. In the earlier years little difference was noted, but as they advanced into boyhood, some restlessness became apparent. Ultimately, when a native tribe happened to come near, the children escaped, to taste once more the charms of savage life. The Australians employ many of them, and make them useful in many ways, but none of them rise to anything like a position in the social scale, or evince any capacity of ever rising to become more than hewers of wood and drawers of water. I have seen them usefully engaged at such places as the Point Macleay Mission, in SouthAustralia, but even there I question whether they earn their own living. On one occasion I crossed Lake Alexandrina in a sailing-boat managed by blacks, and I was not drowned—which, however, does not say much for their nautical skill, as the lake was as calm as a mill-pond.
But to return to Sorrento. The history of this place begins with the discovery of the fine harbour of Port Philip by Lieutenant Murray, a harbour of some forty miles in extent. The next year it was made the site of a convict settlement under Governor Collins, who soon had enough of the place, and started off for Tasmania. Eight convicts were missing within a month of their arrival. Four were brought back and punished, one was shot by a constable, and the three others, oppressed with hunger, after wandering round the western shores of Port Philip, made fires to attract the attention of their companions, but without success. Two of them walked back to surrender themselves into the hands of justice, but were never heard of after; and for a while the place was left to the kangaroos and the natives, till there arrived on the scene Hamilton Hume, a native-born colonist of New South Wales. In 1834 three gentlemen named Henty established a whaling station at Portland Bay, and this was thefirst settlement in Victoria. At this time, and for some time afterwards, the natives were easily beguiled. As late as 1835 a John Bateman, of Hobart Town, landed on the western shore of Port Philip, and entered into a contract with the natives for 1,000 square miles of territory for a few blankets to be given them every year. The Government refused to sanction this iniquitous transaction. Nevertheless, the natives were despoiled of their land—Governor Bourke annexed it in the name of his Majesty. Melbourne, on the Yarra, was named after the British Premier of that day, and Williamstown, where the grand boats of the Orient and P. and O. Companies land and embark their passengers, had the questionable honour of being named after our Sailor King.
Port Philip was a place rather given to joviality and adventure. Ladies and children were rare. There was a marvellous consumption of brandy. Manners, when visible, were rough. ‘The town,’ writes an old settler, ‘was bad, and the bush was worse.’ When a pious missionary of those early times, prior to adventuring into the interior, inquired of a squatter if the Sabbath was kept in the bush, ‘Oh yes,’ was the prompt reply; ‘a clean shirt and a shave.’ ‘At the time of my arrival,’ writes Mr. Westgarth, ‘all Melbourne-boundpassengers were put out by their respective ship’s boats upon that part of the northern beach of Port Philip that was nearest to Melbourne, whence in struggling lines, as best they could, in hot winds, they trod a bush-path of their own making, which, about a mile and a half long, brought them to a punt or little boat just above the Falls—which they crossed for the small charge of threepence.’ There are people who still maintain that Melbourne is planted on the wrong site, that Williamstown, with its healthful level, might have been better, or Geelong; with its beautiful ready-made harbour, and its direct access to all the superior capabilities of the West and North-west. The traveller, as he runs down to Sorrento by an excursion steamer, may, perhaps, agree with the critics. But, then, Sorrento would never have had a chance. Now it is a place to spend a happy day in, and many are the Melbournites who lodge in the vicinity. I would have tarried there longer, but steamers—like time and tide—wait for no man.
In one thing Melbourne beats London and all Australia put together, and that is in the number and excellence of its coffee-palaces, which are a real boon to the travelling public, and which may claim to have solved the question how, by co-operation, toprovide homes of comfort and luxury for the great middle-class of the community. The Federal Coffee-Palace in Melbourne is a remarkable illustration of what may be done in this way. Instead of spending three or four pounds a week at an hotel, and being expected to injure my health for the benefit of my landlord, I pay half a crown for my bed—it is true it is high up on the sixth floor, but then I go up and down by the lift, which is in active operation from seven in the morning till midnight; I get a good breakfast in a handsome apartment, served up by attractive young maidens in neat black dresses, for which I pay one-and-threepence; I can have a good lunch for a shilling; and my evening meal, with fish or flesh, costs about the same sum. There is a café attached, in which I can have a cup of coffee or some light refreshment at any time; a reading-room, if I require it; a smoking-room, if I am given to that mild form of self-indulgence; and a billiard-room, if I require a little exercise after the worry of the day. As soon as I rise I have a comfortable bath, which is not an extra, as in England. Nor need I fear being roasted alive, as half a dozen watchmen perambulate the place all night. In England we have nothing of this kind. We have large and grand hotels, but they are utterly beyond the reachof persons of moderate means; and it is a question whether, in these days when it is hard to get a decent servant-girl, something after the plan of the Federal Palace at Melbourne might not be started in London and our other big cities, not as a rest for the comfort and delectation of the weary traveller, but as an associated home. It is only in that way that the increasing difficulties connected with houses and servants, and the cost of living in London, can be met and overcome. The servant-girl in these coffee-palaces is far superior to her sister who acts the part of maid-of-all-work in a London suburb. She is always civil, always well dressed, always ready to oblige. She knows when her work is over, and that is a great consideration. She has her day out when she is off duty, and that keeps her in good temper all the rest of the week. At all times her appearance and behaviour are respectable. I have always found her cheerful and pleasant, much given to devoting her spare time to novel-reading, which helps to keep alive romance in her heart and preserve her youth. It is evident she is not over-worked in the coffee-palace; she looks too well and flourishing. I hope she marries well, and lives happily ever after. It seems to me that she deserves a good husband and a good home.
On the Federal Coffee-Palace money has been spent with a liberal hand; and it is run by a company, who find it, I believe, a commercial success. All that is wanted is a little better management. Melbourne is a city of fine buildings, and the Federal may vie with any of them as regards external grandeur and internal accommodation. The freehold alone cost £48,000, and the building and furniture for 400 sleeping-apartments, to say nothing of the public rooms, must have cost at least £150,000 more. Its tower, which is 200 feet high, is a landmark from all quarters. The site is happily chosen, as the Federal is not only close to the terminus of the railways, but is likewise in close proximity to the wharves on the Yarra, which are now daily crowded with large and powerful steam-vessels engaged in inter-colonial and foreign trade. The Custom House is near at hand, and business-men and visitors can, by means of the cable tramways in front of the palace, be speedily conveyed to any of the city suburbs. It has a post and telegraph-office attached, and the popular firm of Thomas Cook and Son have an agency in connection with it. Collins Street, in which it stands, is the centre of trade and commerce. It is there all the great companies have their headquarters, the papers are published, and all the wealthand fashion of the city congregates. The foundations of the new building, which enclose an area of half an acre, were laid at an expense of many thousands of pounds. The underground arrangements are admirable. One apartment is devoted entirely to pastry-cooks; in another is a freezing-apparatus, in which meat, poultry, and game may be kept fresh for a month or more. Another apartment is devoted to grills; and the kitchens are connected with the floors above them by several lifts, by which the cooked viands are noiselessly and rapidly raised to the various sitting-rooms, and the dishes so returned to the sculleries. As to the entrance, that must be seen to be appreciated—wide folding-doors open into a grand marble vestibule, which extends between massive columns into an interior hall. In the centre is the principal staircase, leading to the first-class dining-room and the upper stories. The area above is surrounded by galleries which serve as balconies, where the lady-visitors and their friends may be seen sitting all day long gazing on the busy crowd of arrivals and departures below. You may be almost said to sleep in marble halls, and the beauty of it is that all this splendour is not for the benefit of the bloated capitalist, but for the comfort of the many.
One Sunday I had rather a strange experience. Iwent to the Presbyterian Church in Collins Street, where there was a large congregation to listen to a fine sermon by the reverend minister on the custom of the primitive Church to have all things in common—a custom which the orator conclusively showed to the satisfaction of his hearers, wealthy Scotchmen, with few leanings towards Socialism in any form, was quite exceptional, and was not to be dreamed of in these latter days. I had a pair of gloves, which I laid down in the pew. When half-way out of the church I recollected that I had left those gloves behind. I returned to look for them, mentioning the fact to the gentleman who sat next me. On rushing to where I sat I found a pair of gloves exactly similar to my own at the back of the pew, and, concluding that they were what I sought, returned in triumph. Just as I had got to the door a young man came and claimed the gloves—and I gave them up—when, to my amazement, the same gentleman (?) who had sat in the pew with me, and to whom I had mentioned the loss of my gloves, handed my own over to me. It is true that the sermon was about having all things in common, but I object to such a practical application.
In Melbourne Dr. Strong, who was expelled from the Scotch church to which I have already referred,is making the experiment of carrying on a church without a creed. Apparently the attempt is a successful one. When I attended the congregation was a large one, and the sermon very interesting. It is a fine building in which they meet, and the people seem to be highly respectable, as much so as I have seen anywhere. Dr. Strong calls his place ‘The Australian Church.’ It seems to me, as far as I can make out, that the wish is father to the thought. I see no evidence in Australia that the people are discontented with the old ways, or are ready for change. Men immersed in business and money-making as a rule do not affect heresy; they are mostly conservative in politics and religion. From what I hear, it is the personal influence of Dr. Strong that has built the church and filled it. He is very popular with his people. They followed him from his old church to his new one, but they are not fanatics in favour of their new denomination, and I question whether out of Melbourne there is sufficient population to be developed into anything worthy to take the somewhat ambitious title of the Australian Church. The Wesleyans, the Presbyterians, and the Church of England, have already gone up and taken possession of the land, and they are organized, which is half the battle. ‘Our people,’ said a colonial bishop to meone day, ‘are not likely to be caught by the Salvation Army.’ The Church has its own organization, and it is that which keeps the flock from wandering. As long as they get something in the way of religious worship they are content. People who belong to other bodies tell me that the Church of England parsons are poor preachers, that they are, many of them, men who have failed in other pulpits, or who have been unable to pass the requisite examination, or whose characters do not stand high—and certainly I have seen some queer specimens of the genus. But then, says the devout worshipper, ‘we go to church to pray and to worship God. The sermon is not the main thing with us, as it is amongst the other religious bodies.’ It may be that he is wrong—I am not about to contest that matter—but it seems to me that in Melbourne the better preacher the man is the better does his church fill; and that if the Church of England, or any other religious body, seeks to be successful, due care must be taken that there is life in the pulpit. The stranger would think Melbourne a very religious city; much more so than London, or any town or city at home. The public-houses are strictly closed; the trains do not run till two o’clock. There is no Sunday newspaper published (in Sydney there are two, and both pay well). Except for thewell-dressed crowds on their way to their favourite church (they are all churches here—Little Bethels and Mount Zions are unknown), and the church bell, you would think such places as Sydney and Melbourne on a Sunday morning the cities of the dead. Walking along Bourke Street one Sunday evening—a street always black with pedestrians at that time—I saw a crowd hanging about the door of a theatre. I went in and found a place full of real working men in their working attire, who had come to enjoy a religious discussion. I got in only at the end, and heard but the orthodox reply from a gentleman who talked a good deal about matter and space, and the operations of the one great God, who had revealed Himself to man in the person of Jesus Christ. The crowd sat listening patiently till nine o’clock, when the gas was turned off, and they lit their pipes and went home. I heard some speaking of the objector, whom I was too late to hear, as a very clever fellow; but the mass seemed quite indifferent. I spoke to one or two of the hearers, whose minds seemed a perfect blank. There was no praying, no singing, no attempt to attract, no pale youth with a concertina, no tender maiden to sing a solo. In London the thing would have been a failure. Here the working man has his beershop and club, and his penny paper.In Australia he has nothing of the kind, and he is open to conviction even if it comes to him in a secularist form.
There has lately passed away a man well known in Victoria as Peter Lalor. He was an Irishman, and lived to be Speaker of the Victorian Parliament; but it was as a revolutionist that he gained his true fame. When the news of the discovery of gold in Ballarat filled that district with seekers from every part of the world, Mr. Peter Lalor was one of the first to put in an appearance. Melbourne and Geelong were almost emptied of their male inhabitants. Government was at its wit’s end how to preserve order among the young community. In 1855, the Government promulgated the right of the Crown to the gold, and issued licenses to the diggers. With a view to keep back the crowd, the license fee was increased from £1 10s. to £3 a month. This was more than the hardy gold-diggers could stand. They were not represented in Parliament, and they took the law into their own hands after their patience had been exhausted by the insults of the martinets in office, who were sent to see that they had all the requisite licenses, and to whom hunting the diggers was a pleasant sport. The Gold Commissioners, as they were called, were frequently corrupt, and alwaysinsolent and overbearing. At length matters came to a crisis. A digger got killed in a house that did not bear a good character, and the landlord was considered to have been a participator in the murder. The man was tried with others, and discharged. In their indignation over the untimely end of a chum, the diggers subscribed, and had a new trial. It was while holding a meeting for this purpose that they came into collision with the police, who were guarding the hotel. The place was burnt down, and three of the incendiaries were imprisoned. Another meeting was then held to demand the release of the prisoners, and at the same time to claim manhood suffrage, and other political and social reforms. Soon, losing all confidence in the Government, they began to drill and arm. Fighting commenced in real earnest under the flag of the Southern Cross. They were attacked, and amongst the wounded was their general, the late Speaker, Peter Lalor. The eyes of the blind were opened. Government, in time, learned to act rationally, and the result was, Ballarat became the centre of a law-abiding people—a people, nevertheless, given over to the worship of the golden calf. ‘I remember it,’ said a man to me yesterday, as I wandered along its streets, down which a whirlwind of white dust was unpleasantly blowing, ‘when there was only onehouse in the town; when it was all gum-trees and tents. There,’ said he, pointing to a particular spot at the entrance of the town—‘is where the Welcome Nugget was found; it was worth £5,000, and was discovered by a couple of diggers who had barely been earning their living for months. There,’ he continued, ‘I had a miner’s right; I sold it for £50 to the present owner, of whom a syndicate has been trying to buy it for £40,000. Them was hard times. I remember when I walked twelve miles to a store, and could only bring back a pound of butter, and that was a favour.’ But most of the miners lost their money as quickly as they made it. ‘In 1860,’ he added, ‘I was ready to go home, but in 1861 I was up a tree.’
Ballarat has now settled down into a rather humdrum sort of city, with a population of about 50,000. The diggers are mostly dead or gone, and few traces of them remain, save in the turned-up earth outside the town, where there are traces still remaining of what they called shallow digging. On a hill just outside, also, it is evident that there has been a good deal of soil turned up, or turned out, in the search for gold, but no alluvial deposits exist; gold, if found, is only found in quartz, and that has to be crushed, and the gold eliminated by machinery of a very complicatedand costly character, to secure which a company has to be formed, and then the returns, in the shape of dividends, are generally small. It is unhealthy work, too, in the mines, and I was not surprised to find that many of the men had left, and taken to farming instead. Any morning in the week you will find a lot of agents and brokers in the Ballarat Mining Exchange, ready to do a little business in the way of speculation, and that is, perhaps, all that remains to testify as to what Ballarat was in its golden age. As to the riotous living of the past, that is a matter of tradition. The fact is, Ballarat has had its day. Where the carcase is, there the eagles gather, and little of the carcase is left in Ballarat. Mount Morgan and Broken Hill are now names of greater power. Ballarat has an Episcopalian bishop. The Wesleyans and Presbyterians are very strong in the town. The Roman Catholics and the Congregationalists are also in evidence. Somehow or other I missed the Episcopalian place of worship; but with its schools and other buildings, with its wood warehouses and stores, I felt how great had been the change, how sober and quiet had become the Ballarat of to-day. ‘We shall meet again, sir,’ said my unknown friend, in a tone the honesty of which deeply affected me—‘we shall meet again, sir, some day. Let us hope it will be in the right place.’
Of the romance of Ballarat one gets a good idea from a story which I found in a newspaper which will certainly interest the general reader. The history of one of the Ballarat claims, called the Blacksmith’s Claim because its first owner belonged to this craft, reads like a page of romance. The blacksmith, with a party of eight, all novices, sank the shaft in so irregular and unworkmanlike a manner, that it was absolutely at the risk of his life that a man made the descent to the bottom. Without opening out a regular drive they washed all the stuff within reach, and after realising £12,800 offered it for sale, but so wet and rotten was the ground, so badly sunk the shaft, that at first no purchaser could be found. At last a party of ten plucked up courage and bought all right and title to the claim and tools for £77. They entered into possession at noon on Saturday, and long before the sun had set had in their possession £2,000 worth of gold. By working day and night in spells till the following Monday they raised this to £10,000. Then, after the usual reckless manner of lucky diggers, they left this mine of wealth, and went on the spree for a week. Their tenants made good use of the time at their disposal; they opened up two drives; and before the week was out were the happy possessors of £14,400, all taken out of theclaim. The other party then returned, and after a week’s work, during which they realized £9,000, they sold out to a storekeeper for £100, who put in a gang to work on shares, and these, labouring in a desultory fashion for a fortnight, took but £5,000. At the end of that time, one of the party, an old hand from Van Diemen’s Land, undermined the props, and next morning on returning to work the men found the whole of the workings had fallen in. The rest of the party appeared to have taken this misfortune very calmly, and to have completely abandoned the claim, for no mention is made of their further proceedings; but it is related how the author of the mischief coolly marked out a claim 24 feet square on the top of the ruin, and working with a hired party, sunk a shaft straight as a die for the gutter. The first tubful of wash dirt they found turned out 40 lb. weight of gold, and the next two averaged 10 lb. each, and as Ballarat gold was and is superior to any other at all times, fetching at least £4 an ounce, those three bucketfuls of earth were worth £2,880 to their fortunate possessor. Altogether, out of that small area, hardly larger than a good-sized room, was taken in a few weeks gold worth nearly £30,000.
Round Ballarat the country is rather prettier than is the average of Australian scenery. All the wayfrom Geelong, situated rather charmingly at the bend of a pretty bay, which is bound to become a fashionable watering-place, the land rises till you nearly reach Ballarat, when you go down a slight incline. The soil is good, and there are many twenty-acre farms, and the heat is not so great as in Melbourne. Out of the town there is a fine sheet of water, devoted to boating and black swans, and there is a botanical garden, in which I own I was somewhat disappointed, though everyone (perhaps it was for that very reason) said it was one of the places which I was bound to go and see, and which would delight me greatly. The Ballarat people, I was told in the train, were hospitable. It may be so, but I can bear no testimony on that point, as none of their hospitality was extended to me. My only experience of them was at an ordinary at the principal hotel, and there I was not particularly gratified, as conversation seemed quite out of the question. Now I come to think of it, that must have been through fear of the head waiter, who certainly was a very superior personage indeed, and was much better got up than any of his guests. Be this as it may, it was with little regret that I got on board the train and left the Golden City, with its green foliage, its red-brick houses, its white town-hall, its awful dust, its broad streets, and its rough pedestrians, far behind.
Anthony Trollope tells us that no one who has ever paid Sydney a visit will leave it without a tear or a regret. I confess I had no such feeling as I got into a hansom and drove down to theLiguria—a ship dear to many—which is to be known no more to Australian friends, as her destination henceforth is to be South America; but she took me safely to Melbourne, where I landed, to be more than ever charmed with the busy city and its people, a city and a people who believe themselves destined to the leadership of these sunny lands. Sydney is too old, they say, handsome as it is in parts, and Brisbane is too hot, to be in the running. As long as Sydney is faithful to Free Trade she will be a great emporium of commerce; but the democracy rule in Sydney, and the democracy all the world over have lost faith in Free Trade. Sydney has little to boast of besides its unrivalled harbour, lined with health resorts where wealth, and beauty, and fashion congregate, and where all the residences are of the most captivating character—white villas with verandas, rising out of green lawns shaded by tropical plants, and gorgeous with tropical flowers, in bloom, at any rate, the greater part of the year—where the blue waves ever murmur underneath. I must own, too, that some of the shops in Sydneyare far finer than any to be seen in Melbourne; and the post-office at Sydney is, perhaps, the noblest building of the kind to be seen anywhere. A similar remark applies to the Town Hall, completed after I left. But Melbourne has, in Collins Street, a unique and stately thoroughfare, such as can be seen nowhere else—a street as gay of an afternoon as Regent Street, and as difficult in crossing, owing to its swarming traffic, almost as Cheapside. Sydney has no such show; and the Melbourne ladies tell me that it is to that place that the Sydney drapers come for the latest fashions. It seems to me that there is a great deal more drinking in Sydney than in Melbourne. Almost every other house you come to is an hotel, and it has its bar, where, under the presidency of two or three rather showy damsels, the drinking goes on all day. In both cities there is apparently more drinking than in London, except in the poorest quarters, affected by the beggar, and the pauper, and the tramp, by depraved men, and women infinitely worse. But for Melbourne and Sydney a defence may be made which is not available at home. The population in both cities is of a very migratory character; a large number of men spend their time in passing from one colony to another, and in this way they make many acquaintances,and when they meet they have a drink. In Sydney the fashion is to hand you the bottle and let you help yourself. The landlord finds it to his interest to do so. The customer takes less than the landlord would give him for his sixpence. The customer knows that he has the day before him, and that it will not do to get exhilarated too soon. There are drinks awaiting him with other friends at other bars and at other hours, and so he takes as little whisky as he can in his glass. Superficially, Melbourne seems the more moral town, but so far as my experience goes all cities are much alike. Chicago proudly boasts that it is the wickedest city in the world, but I much doubt its claim to that bad pre-eminence. I only met one shady character there, and he was an Englishman. That there are rogues in Melbourne I readily admit. As I was passing up Bourke Street looking for a place to rest in till my friend’s carriage, with his lady, was to call for me to take me to his handsome suburban residence, a well-dressed man accosted me with an inquiry as to how I had been enjoying myself since I landed from theLiguria. Having replied, I said I was going to have a cup of coffee and a cigar in a handsomecaféjust opposite where we were standing. After I had been seated a few minutes he made his appearance to tellme that he was staying at the Melbourne Club, membership of which is the sign and seal of the most extreme respectability; that he was going to England in theAustral(I had told him I was going in that ship to Adelaide) in consequence of the delicacy of his wife’s health, and that he wished me to come along with him to introduce me to a few friends. I went with him, and in a few minutes was seated in the bar-room of an adjoining hotel, refusing every offer to have a drink. A man came up to my friend with a bill, requesting payment, as he was hard up. Accordingly my gentleman put his hand in his pocket, pulling out three or four sovereigns. Alas! he was a sovereign short. Could I lend him one? Unfortunately I could not. ‘Could I lend him half-a-sovereign?’ I again deplored my inability to do anything of the kind.
‘It does not matter,’ he said. Turning to the man he continued, ‘Come over the way and I will get the money,’ and away he went, telling me he would be back in five minutes. I waited ten, but it is needless to say I saw him no more. Leaving the pub, I met a policeman.
‘Have you any rogues about here?’ I asked.
‘I should say we had,’ replied the policeman, with a grin; ‘why, last month we had one out herefrom New York. He said he thought he knew the ropes pretty well, but he felt like a child out here.’
If this policeman’s tale be true, Melbourne must indeed be marvellous in more senses than one. To my mind the most marvellous part of Melbourne is to be found in its suburbs. Melbourne is fortunate in this respect. All along the seashore the coast is lined with handsome residences, quite equal in every respect to those of our London merchant princes. At one of them, where I spent a couple of happy days, I found residing in wealth and comfort a son of the well-known and still-lamented, in Nonconformist and Liberal circles, Mr. Grimwade, of Ipswich. He calls his place Harleston, the name of the little sleepy East Anglian town in which he was born. The colonists love the old English names. In the aristocratic quarter known as Toorak I spent a pleasant day with Mr. Murray Smith, the one man whom all the Victorians regard as the most refined of gentlemen, and most able of politicians. In London, as some of my readers may remember, Mr. Murray Smith, as Agent General, was quite as much a social success as he is at home. He calls his place Repton, in memory of his old Derbyshire Grammar School. I discovered the Rev. J. J. Halley, the energetic secretary of the Australian CongregationalUnion, living in a pretty villa at Camberwell, which he ventures to call Irwell, a stream to most Englishmen who have ever been at Manchester, somewhat dark and malodorous. It is thus the colonists keep up the tender memories of their far-off native land. As in New South Wales, so in Victoria, a good deal of attention is turned to politics. In the latter colony the Parliament lasts three years, and a general election was at hand; but the worst of it is, that while the people are in many quarters determined to have a fight, in reality there is nothing to fight about. I attended what was advertised as a monster meeting of the Liberal party, but the attendance did not consist of more than 400, and the speaking was, at any rate, not up to the English level, though one speaker did somehow manage to close with an irrelevant peroration, in which he invoked the spirit which in England had carried Catholic emancipation, had removed the Test and Corporation Acts, and was prepared to do justice to Ireland—and this was in connection with a meeting called to support the Liberal platform, the main article of which is protection to native industry and a stock tax for the farmer, who complains bitterly of the way in which New South Wales and Queensland beef is poured into the home market. Itseems strange to read of a candidate appealing to the electors for support as ‘A Liberal and Protectionist.’ But the fact is, in Victoria everyone is a Protectionist, and on the vital issues of the past the community is now at one. A coalition Government is in office, and it is hard to see how any other can exist. A nationalist party is now in course of formation, which has for its object Australian unity, to be accomplished by free inter-colonial interchange. In the meanwhile the Liberals seem to have only, to fight about the constitution of the present Government—their chief complaint being that the Liberal element in it is not sufficiently strong.
Zeno tells us that a man has two ears and one mouth, that he may say little and hear much. Australian M.P.’s are quite of a different way of thinking. Of the late Victorian Parliament, a critic inThe Melbourne Arguswrites that during its existence ‘the worst elements in the Assembly have had sway instead of the better.’ Of all methods of blocking business, none is so plausible as that of moving the adjournment of the House. In nine cases out of ten, a review says, such motions result in a mere waste of time. Another nuisance is the habit of speaking often and long, as every member is entitled to speak once on every question before the House, and as often as he likeswhen in Committee. This kind of obstruction is raised into an art, and is called ‘stonewalling.’ As to indecent language, I find one M.P. calling a judge of a neighbouring colony ‘a ruffian and a scoundrel, and a bloody-minded man,’ referring to the Chief Secretary as being ‘as ignorant as a pig on the subject,’ and, in short, acting as much like an Irish patriotic M.P. at home as was possible. Again, I found a gentleman who was afflicted with heart disease, and whom nothing but a sense of duty kept at his post, is referred to by an honourable M.P. as follows: ‘But nobody takes any notice of a dying man. He is going to be wafted aloft.’ Again, a Mr. Jones, referring to a Mr. Reid, said: ‘The Hon. Member for Fitzroy with his cavernous mouth could laugh louder than the rest of the Assembly. That cavernous mouth of his was the only thing the hon. member had to connect him with other people. He had a mouth to laugh at a joke, but no brains to originate one.’ Again, another M.P. spoke of Sir Graham Berry as ‘that miserable old counterfeit, that white-haired political rogue, that bandy-legged old schemer.’ After this it is not surprising to read how the same orator, in the course of a scene which occurred on his being called to order, spoke of a fellow M.P. as one who had tried to diddle a barmaid out of threepence! It really seems as if Parliamentaryinstitutions had become effete. In New South Wales the Dibbs Ministry has already been hurled from office. I have seen alike its rise and fall, and it is evident that at Sydney, as in Melbourne, the obstructionists will be strong enough, not to do any good themselves, but to interfere with anyone wishing to achieve any good for the colony whatever.
The Trades Political Platform made its appearance at Melbourne when I was there. It consists of fifteen planks, the chief of which are the maintenance and extension of protection to local industries, the extension of the same principle to the farming and grazing industry by an adequate increase in the duty on imported cereals and stock, the representation of labour on public boards and the commission of the peace, an Eight Hours Legislation Bill (in Victoria the shops are closed at an early hour by Act of Parliament), the abolition of plural voting, the introduction of a Bill to prevent criminal and pauper labour in the community—rather hard this, in a colony where the pauper desires to work, and, able-bodied as many of her paupers are, is really qualified for labour—the extension of the franchise to seamen. Women voters are favoured by the Liberals, though there is a good deal to be said on the other side of the question. As it is, the women do interfere. For instance, amongst the Melbournecandidates is a gentleman who has unfortunately acquired an undesirable reputation. The ladies have met, and resolved that he is not a fit and proper person to represent a respectable constituency. The gentleman in question sneers at the meeting as a hole-and-corner one, but I find several ministers of religion took part in it. Indeed, I think all denominations were represented with the exception of the clergy of the Church of England, who are as little inclined to co-operate with other bodies out here as they are at home. As a further indication of the political opinion forming in the Australian colonies, I note that many of the candidates for Parliamentary election are in favour of a tax on absentees, which, however, is but a small matter after all, as there is a growing tendency on the part of wealthy colonists to remain out here rather than settle in the old country. I question whether in the colonies there is much chance of the ‘One man one vote’ being carried. It finds no favour in the Second Chamber, to which here, as at home, many sober people look as the bulwark of constitutional freedom. The worst thing I know about Melbourne is its gambling.The Melbourne Daily Telegraph, writing of the last grand race—the race which the ladies make the occasion of the display of all that is novel or charming in toilettes, estimatesthe bets made with the bookmakers between Derby Day and Steeplechase Day as amounting to £700,000, and calculates that ‘the stakes, the cost and keep of the horses, the revenues of thefive hundred racing clubsof the colony, the expenditure of its army of bookmakers, and other forms of expenditure,’ will bring the racing budget for the year up to £800,000 sterling. We in England are bad enough in this respect I admit, but there is no reason whatever why Australia should follow a bad example.