It would be impertinent on the part of any English journalist to use the ordinary language at his command to describe that scene. Let him copy the headings of those who have given the people of the United States a language of their own:
ARMY OF LOYALISTS.A Hundred and Twenty Thousand Men March with Old Glory up Broadway.GRANDEST PARADE IN ALL HISTORY.The Great Thoroughfare a Tossing Sea of Red, White, and Blue and Gold.Cheers and Music fill the Air with Melody.Legions Marshalled for the Honor and Safety of the Union and the Prosperity of the People.PATRIOT ARMY'S GLORIOUS MARCH.WARRIORS OF PEACE, BATHED IN GOLDEN SUNLIGHT, PASS THROUGH STAR-SPANGLED LINES.PARADE'S RECORD-MAKING FIGURES.Number in Line,125,000.Miles long (estimated),14.Parade started at 10 a.m.Parade finished at 6.26 p.m.Number of spectators (estimated),1,200,000.
A Hundred and Twenty Thousand Men March with Old Glory up Broadway.
The Great Thoroughfare a Tossing Sea of Red, White, and Blue and Gold.
Cheers and Music fill the Air with Melody.
Legions Marshalled for the Honor and Safety of the Union and the Prosperity of the People.
Number in Line,125,000.Miles long (estimated),14.Parade started at 10 a.m.Parade finished at 6.26 p.m.Number of spectators (estimated),1,200,000.
No pen or pencil could give any idea of the intense feeling and excitement over that election. To realise its effect one must have seen the faces of business men in cities like New York—faces pallid with care, eyes restless with inquiry and uncertainty, mouths twitching with anxiety. To them Bryan spelt ruin. You could read that in the faces of every one of responsibility.
We had huge meetings and long speeches from morning to midnight. In the churches the pulpits were turned into hustings, and for the moment ministers preached the Gospel and McKinley in equal proportions. Miles of sound money men paraded the streets, and at night the rivers north and east were given over to political aquatic demonstrations. Huge banners flaunted the sky, and tons of party literature strewed the floors of every house; but the whole story was better told and more impressively demonstrated in the faces of those united in commerce—99 per cent. of the better class in the city. They looked worn and anxious; their words were words of confidence, but expressed with an uncertainty and reserve which were significant.
One day I met a prominent citizen—an ardent Republican—and I asked him how he thought the elections were going. He said, "I feel like the old woman Ingersoll tells of, who did not believe in ghosts, but was terribly frightened of them." This reminds me that the Free-thinking Ingersoll had been stumping the country, and clergymen, such as Dr. Parkhurst, had been turning their pulpits into political platforms to bring their influence to bear on the voters. To all those who were in New York during that momentous time the scene will linger in their memories when the names of Bryan and McKinley have ceased to interest them.
And the curious thing is that this is no exaggeration. To see, as I did, thousands of well-dressed city men marching past at quick time, with martial tread, to the music of innumerable bands, from half-past ten in the morning till seven o'clock at night, is a performance that Englishmen can hardly realise, and one that they will certainly never see in their own country.Its very seriousness, simplicity, and impressive monotony made it all the more striking. Not a soldier to be seen, no triumphal cars, no break in the stream of respectability mechanically moving throughout the day. In England, on public demonstrations, one goes to look at the crowd, but here the crowd was the procession. This political fever seemed to work up the enthusiasm of every man, woman, and child when the march was over, on, I may tell you, a bright, hot Indian summer's day in November.
AFTER THE GREAT PARADE: "AM I TO SIT ON AN ORDINARY SEAT TO-NIGHT?"
Crowds of the paraders continued to march in smaller squads through the side streets for their own enjoyment, and overflowed into hotel lobbies and restaurants, covered with emblems, flags, gold bugs, and chrysanthemums, which were brought into the city by thousands for the occasion. And then some humour was imported into the serious business of the day. One youth strolled into acafé, and when he was offered a chair by the waiter, he drew himself up, and said, "Am I to sit on an ordinary seat to-night?" They blew their tin horns, rattled their rattles, and waved their flags in and out of every place until late at night, and they were still singing and demonstratingin the morning, but with that extraordinary common-sense which is characteristic of Americans, the Bryanites and the McKinleyites shaking hands and setting about their business with redoubled energy, having another crisis in the country to record as a landmark in the history of the republic.
On the last day of my first visit to America I found myself in the head depôt of the New York detective force. The courteous and talented presiding genius of that establishment had left his busy office to show me over their museum, a chronicle of the city's crime, and as I was thanking him afterwards, he said:
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Well," I replied, "I have seen the best side of life in New York, now I should like to see the worst."
"The very worst?"
"The worst you have."
The worthy officer eyed me up and down as if he were going to measure me for a suit of clothes.
"Very well," he replied, seemingly satisfied with my resolute bearing and undaunted mien and determined visage, which showed my daring and enterprise. Beside me a Stanley or a Burton would have looked effeminate. "A detective will be at your hotel at ten o'clock to-night."
And he was.
I had just come in from dinner, and had changed my clothes for an old suit that had braved the weather in crossing, and was consequently well salted by Atlantic brine.
"May I offer you a cocktail?" I say.
"No, thank you," he replies.
(Hisnerve doesn't want fortifying, evidently!) Mine does, so I have a Manhattan as I hastily pencil a line to my wife to be sent to England in case I do not leave by theMajesticnext day.
"Now, then, what's your programme?" said I in an airy way, as we reached the street.
"Trust to me," said the "'tec," "interfere with no one, and keep your pencil and your notebook in your pocket till I tellyou. Keep your mouth shut and your ears and eyes open, and as they say in the pantomime, 'you shall see what you shall see.'"
We were soon whizzing along the elevated railway, and I was trying to impress my guide with stirring tales of midnight meanderings in the greater city, London. I left out any mention of Dublin, for my companion rejoiced in a truly Milesian cognomen, and still bore strong evidence of his native country in his accent, mixed with a good dash of American.
"Guess you're a pretty 'cute Britisher, and shure it's the likes of you I'm mighty glad to strike in thistremenjious city!"
I felt somewhat flattered by this encouraging condescension, and I admit now that I did not feel particularly happy at the idea of bearding the thieving lion, with his hyena-like satellites, in his den. I felt something like a criminal under arrest myself, and I am sure that everyone in the car must have thought that the world-famed detective force of New York had added another notorious catch to the many they have so cleverly made.
As we passed close to the windows of the houses, and actually looked into the rooms on the second and third stories, Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty would point out to me a room here and there which was being watched by his comrades, and as we approached nearer and nearer to the purlieus of the poor, he positively detected seated in rooms in shady hotels which harboured thieves a forger, a housebreaker, and other notabilities of a worse character. Indeed, I would not have been surprised had the arm of the law been literally stretched out at any moment, and one of these gentlemen transferred from his seat through the window and deposited by my side in the carriage.
America is a free country. England, we are assured, is not; but the fact that the police are allowed to arrest anybody they please without showing any authority whatever is a curious contradiction which the Britisher may be pardoned for smiling at.
Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty and I had a rather warm argument upon this point, and I must say that in the end I had to admit that there was a good deal to be said in favour of the utter want of liberty to which Americans have to submit.
ITALIANS.ITALIANS.
"For instance," said my guide, "to-morrow is a public holiday. At daybreak I guess we'll be afther locking up every thief, vagabond, and persons suspected of being varmint of this description in this great city, and it's free lodgings they'll have till the holiday's played out. In that way crime is avoided, and the truth of the saying proved that 'prevention is better than cure.'"
"But there is an unpleasant feeling that this autocratic power may lead to mistakes. In England the police must have a warrant," I said.
"Guess, stranger, if we waited for a warrant the varmint'd vanish, and there'd be the divil to pay. No, sir, I reckon we Amurricans don't wait for anything—we just take the law into our own hands right away. A short time ago I was sitting enjoying some singing in one of the saloons in the Bowery here, and right through in front of me sat two foreigners with the most perfect false whiskers on that I ever clapped eyes on. That was enough for me. I went outside, sent one of my men for assistance, and then sent in a theatrical lady's card to one of the gentlemen. The bait was taken, and he came out. We arrested him straight away, and made him send in for his friend, who came out, and we nailed him as well. Turned out afterwards that they had come to kill one of the actresses—love affair, revenge, and all that sort of thing. In your country guess you'd have arrested them after the murder; we had them before. There was no harm done, but they got a fine of a few dollars."
He put his hand suddenly upon mine as he said this. For a second I thought that he imaginedmywhiskers were false, and that this was only a plant to lock me up! It was evident my nerves were becoming unstrung, and as soon as we were in the street my good-humoured and excellent guide told me that in another five minutes we would begin our voyage of discovery. We passed through the Chinese quarter, down Mott Street, and I could not but feel a pang of sympathy for these aliens, looked upon by the Americans as vermin. It is a strange war, this between John Chinaman and Sambo for the vassalage of the States; but in poor England, the asylum of the alien, all nationalities have an equal chance, and the nigger, the Chinaman, the Jew, and the German can walk arm in arm, whether in the squalid streets of Spitalfields or the aristocratic precincts of Pall Mall.
But there is a war going on in London between two races of different colour, undisturbed and unseen, for the gory scenes of warfare are enacted in the bowels of the earth. It is to the death, and has been going on for years, the combatants being the red cockroach and the blackbeetle. Both came to our shores in ships from distant lands. The blackbeetles were first, and had possession of underground London, but the cockroaches followed, disputed the right of territory, and thus the war began. The latest reports from the seat of war assert that the cockroaches are victorious all along the line as far as Regent's Park.
But this is digression. I merely made use of the cockroach simile because it occurred to me as I traversed the Italian quarter and gazed upon its denizens, an occasional accidental rub against one of whom made me shudder. Innocent they may be, but they don't look it, and when I was taken up a court—a horrible, dark, dankcul-de-sac—and shown the identical spot which a few weeks beforehand had been the scene of a murder, I made a sketch in the quickest time on record, keeping one eye on the ghastly place and the other on a window where a ragged blind was pulled quickly and nervously back, and a white face peered suddenly out and as suddenly retreated.
I did the same, pulling my detective friend after me.
WHERE THE DEED WAS DONE!WHERE THE DEED WAS DONE!
It is said that one-half the world does not know how the other half lives, but not the ninety-ninth part knows how it dies. In the vicinity of Mulberry Bend I was shown a house in which another bloody deed had recently been perpetrated—another cockroach killed. The blood was as fresh and visible as that of Rizzio in Holyrood Palace, but this excited no curiosity among the passers-by—crimes are more plentiful than mulberries here.
Paradise Park, The Bowery, New York, is a very high-sounding address. It is one that any European might imagine as a retreat of aristocratic refinement and sylvan beauty; there is nothing in the name to suggest the Seven Dials of London in its old days; and yet the place is its counterpart, the only difference being that the Five Points, as it is called, is two degrees worse than the Seven Dials that's, all!
Standing at these misnamed crossways, I noticed hurrying past an Italian woman bearing a load of household furniture on her back, and followed by a man—her husband, I was told—cursing her.
"They always move at night," said my guide. "The women do all the carrying, and this is in a country where woman reignssoopreme, too!"
Next comes a youth with a crutch.
"One of the cleverest thieves in the city. No one suspects him—guess his crippling is his fortune."
I should like to tell you of other interesting people I saw, of my perambulations through Baxter Street, the Jewish quarter, of the visits to the joss house, opium joint, grocery stores, halls of dazzling delight, and dens of iniquity I made that night. I had my sketches and notes before me to continue this chapter, when I received a New York paper. In it I discovered an illustrated article headed "In His Own Black Art," purporting to be an account of my visit to the slums with a detective. After reading it I laid down my pen and took up my scissors, I felt it impossible to disclose any more. The rest I leave to my shadoweron that occasion, reproducing also some of the sketches this "faithful copper-fastened distorter of features" set down, with many thanks to him and a sincere wish that his headache is better.
IN AN OPIUM JOINT.IN AN OPIUM JOINT.
"IN HIS OWN BLACK ART."Mr. Furniss writes very cleverly, it should be said. He writes good London English, for he, like many of 'the infernally good fellows' of Fleet Street, 'don't you know,' believes that the vernacular is only written in its virgin purity in that city. However, let that pass."But there was one thing that I couldn't consent, even as his friend, to overlook. Mr. Furniss was determined to go 'slumming.' He had letters to several members of the police department, but the friends who had given these valuable credentials had evidently selected only the captains of the highly respectable precincts. Of course, they could not imagine that Mr. Furniss would want to visit the joss house and opiumjoints of Chinatown. Nobody would, to look at him. And yet, in his tireless study of 'American' character, he penetrated even these mysteries."Everything was arranged for the tour during the night before his departure on theMajestic. It was a charmingly dark night, admirably suited for thosechiaroscuroeffects that a black-and-white artist is supposed to seek even in his dreams. An experienced Central Office detective took him in hand with all thesavoir faireof an Egyptian dragoman."HITTING THE PIPE."With the wisdom of an artist and the news-sense of a Park Row hustler, Mr. Furniss lit a cigarette, and said:"'Show me all.'"This remark filled me with terror. Was it right to permit this well-meaning but over-zealous friend of my country, my people and myself to sound the depths of social degradation in the metropolis and lard an otherwise charming book with screed and sketches dragged from the slums? He was likely to mistake Donovan's Lane for Harlem Lane, and Paradise Square for Maddison Square! Any man would be liable to do so after a few days' visit to a strange city. How many of the American birds of passage who flock to London every summer know the distinction between Mitre and Capel Courts? One is the scene of a ghastly Whitechapel murder; the other is the financial center of the Eastern world!"When, therefore, it was seen to be impossible to dissuade the talented young caricaturist from his blue-glass view of metropolitan society, it seemed necessary to provide for our self-defence. One of the cleverest pen-and-ink artists in America was engaged to accompany the party as a second detective. A flying visit was paid to Mott Street, and the services of High Lung, a distinguished crayon manipulator, recently arrived (by way of Vancouver and the dark of the moon), were secured to make a Chinese-American caricature of the charming but over-curious Englishman."Everything worked to a charm. Mr. Furniss went where he intended. He saw all. He made sketches. He visited the shrine of the great Joss. He ate birds' nests and rice. He saw the deadly opium smoked, and 'hit the pipe' a few minutes himself."The night came to an end with dawn. Headache destroyed curiosity. Our own faithful, copper-fastened distorter of facial beauty set down in Mr. Furniss's black art what he had seen and did know. Here are the results, H. F. It is to be feared he has imitated your style."Bon voyage, master of the quick and the lead! Draw us, if you must; but draw not the long bow."J. C."
"Mr. Furniss writes very cleverly, it should be said. He writes good London English, for he, like many of 'the infernally good fellows' of Fleet Street, 'don't you know,' believes that the vernacular is only written in its virgin purity in that city. However, let that pass.
"But there was one thing that I couldn't consent, even as his friend, to overlook. Mr. Furniss was determined to go 'slumming.' He had letters to several members of the police department, but the friends who had given these valuable credentials had evidently selected only the captains of the highly respectable precincts. Of course, they could not imagine that Mr. Furniss would want to visit the joss house and opiumjoints of Chinatown. Nobody would, to look at him. And yet, in his tireless study of 'American' character, he penetrated even these mysteries.
"Everything was arranged for the tour during the night before his departure on theMajestic. It was a charmingly dark night, admirably suited for thosechiaroscuroeffects that a black-and-white artist is supposed to seek even in his dreams. An experienced Central Office detective took him in hand with all thesavoir faireof an Egyptian dragoman.
"With the wisdom of an artist and the news-sense of a Park Row hustler, Mr. Furniss lit a cigarette, and said:
"'Show me all.'
"This remark filled me with terror. Was it right to permit this well-meaning but over-zealous friend of my country, my people and myself to sound the depths of social degradation in the metropolis and lard an otherwise charming book with screed and sketches dragged from the slums? He was likely to mistake Donovan's Lane for Harlem Lane, and Paradise Square for Maddison Square! Any man would be liable to do so after a few days' visit to a strange city. How many of the American birds of passage who flock to London every summer know the distinction between Mitre and Capel Courts? One is the scene of a ghastly Whitechapel murder; the other is the financial center of the Eastern world!
"When, therefore, it was seen to be impossible to dissuade the talented young caricaturist from his blue-glass view of metropolitan society, it seemed necessary to provide for our self-defence. One of the cleverest pen-and-ink artists in America was engaged to accompany the party as a second detective. A flying visit was paid to Mott Street, and the services of High Lung, a distinguished crayon manipulator, recently arrived (by way of Vancouver and the dark of the moon), were secured to make a Chinese-American caricature of the charming but over-curious Englishman.
"Everything worked to a charm. Mr. Furniss went where he intended. He saw all. He made sketches. He visited the shrine of the great Joss. He ate birds' nests and rice. He saw the deadly opium smoked, and 'hit the pipe' a few minutes himself.
"The night came to an end with dawn. Headache destroyed curiosity. Our own faithful, copper-fastened distorter of facial beauty set down in Mr. Furniss's black art what he had seen and did know. Here are the results, H. F. It is to be feared he has imitated your style.
"Bon voyage, master of the quick and the lead! Draw us, if you must; but draw not the long bow.
"J. C."
Quarantined—The Receiver-General of Australia—An Australian Guidebook—A Death Trap—A Death Story—The New Chum—Commercial Confessions—Mad Melbourne—Hydrophobia—Madness—A Land Boom—A Paper Panic—Ruin.Sydney—The Confessions of a Legislator—Federation—Patrick Francis Moran.Adelaide—Wanted, a Harbour—Wanted, an Expression—Zoological—Guinea-pigs—Paradise!—Types—Hell Fire Jack—The Horse—The Wrong Room!
Quarantined—The Receiver-General of Australia—An Australian Guidebook—A Death Trap—A Death Story—The New Chum—Commercial Confessions—Mad Melbourne—Hydrophobia—Madness—A Land Boom—A Paper Panic—Ruin.
Sydney—The Confessions of a Legislator—Federation—Patrick Francis Moran.
Adelaide—Wanted, a Harbour—Wanted, an Expression—Zoological—Guinea-pigs—Paradise!—Types—Hell Fire Jack—The Horse—The Wrong Room!
ISE chroniclers are welcome to the opinion that "the dreaded Cape Leeuwin was first rounded by a Dutch vessel, 1622." All I can say is that the Cape has got sharpened again, for there is no roundness about save the billows of the Indian Ocean, which everlastingly dash against its side. I'll agree, however, with any chronicler that the cause of the chronic fury of the Indian Ocean at this point is caused through anger. To call that grand if barren promontory after a twopenny-halfpenny Dutch cockle-shell is a gross insult to the thousands of miles of sea between that point and any other land. Fortunately the little Dutch vessel had a name which sounds all right if only pronounced in plain English—Lionessin place ofLeeuwin—but the vessel might have been calledRats, orSchnapps, or some other name even less dignified, and one that would have been adopted just the same. It is the principle of the thing that the great sea objects to, and it is not slow to show its rage, as all who round it knowfull well. Chroniclers are found who seem to have agreed that the name is the whole cause of the roaring winds and waves around Cape Leeuwin, but that the roughness is in reality the result of satisfaction in bearing one so awe-inspiring, and that the "Lioness" is trying to live up to her natural wildness and fury, and fully succeeding in doing it.
COALING.
I regret that I was in too great a hurry to visit Fremantle, which lies at the head of the Lioness, particularly as on my journey to Australia I had cut out the following passage from a description I came across of that place. I read this, and re-read it, and still continue to read it, as a choice specimen of the guide-book-maker's delirium:
"The firstcoup d'œilof Fremantle is a white scattered township on an undulating plain fringed by a sea-beach and scant vegetation. As you land you are struck on all sides with the unusual activity around you. Long sinuous trains of loaded cargo trucks are coming and going, locomotive whistles warning the pedestrian to beware, lines of rails intersecting each other, crowds of lumpers, and the busy air of a large shipping centre bewilder you, and you are carried back to some old-world port where ships of all nations call and disgorge their lading."
There! Are you not anxious to go to a place with the assurance that you will be struck on all sides as soon as you land with unusual activity? Do you not burn to see what "a long sinuous train" is like? Are you not willing to brave the dangerous locomotives crossing the intersecting lines of railways, just to see those crowds of lumpers? Then to be bewildered by the busy mercantile air, and before you have time to fully realise all this you are to be "carried back to some old-worldport where ships of all nations call and disgorge their lading."
That last proposal settled my mind; no attractive trains or lumpers, undulating plains or scant vegetation, or anything equally attractive, would induce me to arrive at a place, after five or six weeks' travelling to get there, to find myself at once carried back to some old-world port before seeing something of the rest of Australia to repay one for the long and tedious journey. I therefore avoided Fremantle.
There is one attraction to visit that port which the traveller from the Old World will appreciate, after his experience of the fleecing dues and charges at Adelaide, Melbourne, and other Australian ports, in which officials all but tear the clothes off the visitor's back to tax them. In this port your mantle at least is free.
In spite of the following paragraph from the same source: "Western Australia has emerged into the full glare of the world's light and renown, and not to know its golden wonders is to argue oneself unknown," I determined to remain in obscurity.
The guide-books assure us Albany deserves more than "passing notice." This is true enough, but travellers do not always get a chance of giving the place its deserts. This was particularly the case with me on my first visit. Quarantine was then in force, and, with my fellow-passengers, I was forbidden to land. All I then saw of the people of Western Australia was limited to a few hours watching the coal-lumpers at work trucking coal along a plank from an ancient hulk moored by the side of the P. and O. steamshipVictoria. After the animated scenes of coaling at Malta and Aden, and particularly the wild, indescribable scene at Port Said, coaling at Albany fell decidedlyflat. The only diversion that varied the monotony of the proceedings was when a truck would capsize in its Blondin-like trip and pitch the coals into the sea.
HE most interesting personage in Albany is Captain B——, the harbour master. I call him the Receiver-General of Australia, for he is the first inhabitant of Australia to receive and welcome the new comer, and he is also the last to take farewell of the parting guest. Captain B—— has held the post of harbour master at King George's Sound, Albany, for over thirty years, and, though over seventy years of age, he seems equal to many years of service yet. Certainly a stranger gets a good impression of the country if he takes Captain B—— as a sample Australian, and one wonders, when one sees this fine old salt run up the gangway with the agility of a youth of seventeen, whether all Australians are equally active. Chatting with Captain B——, I complimented him on his youthful physique. "Why, sir," said he, "I can climb up anything. I can board the ship hand-over-hand on a rope and never touch the side with my feet." This seemed pretty good for a man of over seventy, but I did not regard it as an exaggeration. Captain B—— remembered his father and uncle, both naval men, going to the funeral of King George IV. His reminiscences included the experiences of singing in a choir at the coronation of the Queen, and also when Her Majesty was married. When the Captain ran down the gangway shouting orders to his men, the strength of his lungs was as evident as the agility of his body. Anyone who took this worthy official as a typical Australian would be greatly deceived. Diminutive in stature and voluble in speech, he is in every way the reverse to the average-born Australian. The Australian is generally tall, not to say lanky, and by no means communicative.
An American walked into the smoking-room of a P. and O. ship outward bound, as it was leaving St. George's Sound, threwhimself down on a sofa, stuck his feet on to a table, spit, and said to those in the saloon:
"I thank my stars I am clean out of that one-horse town Albany!"
Another traveller who had joined the ship at the same town and who lay huddled up in a corner more dead than alive after a severe attack of typhoid followed by pleurisy, remarked:
"Well, you must admit, sir, it is the healthiest place in Western Australia."
"Co-rect, stranger—co-rect," replied the Yankee. "Co-rect! guess that's why I have cleared out. This darned Albany is 90 per cent. of climate and only 10 per cent. of business."
SLEEPY HOLLOW.
I visited Albany on my return journey. It struck me that in "Sleepy Hollow" 90 per cent. of the natives were in bed and the other 10 per cent. were dozing on the seats on the parade.
When I started for the Antipodes the place that I looked forward to seeing more than any other was Western Australia. It is the part of Australia most discussed at home, where it is being boomed with all the artifice of the promoter's gang. Every ship brings living cargoes to Western Australia; every newspaper is full of Western Australia. On the front page are shipping advertisements offering every facility for quick and cheap transit; in the centre of the paper leading articles appear to ventilate the wonders of the West; towards the end of thepaper—in the City news—thousands eagerly scan the Stock Exchange for prices of Western Australia. There is another column still in which one might find interesting news concerning Western Australia—the deaths column.
When I arrived in Australia the one place that I determined nothing should drag me to was Western Australia. No, not all the gold in the mines would get me to that pestilential plague spot. Here is a place boomed "at home" and abroad at the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, when nightly speeches were made at banquets glorifying the charms of the speculators' Eldorado, Western Australia—when columns were written of its boasted civilisation, and cheers were given when "Advance Australia" was roared out, and bumpers were drunk by the stop-at-home wirepullers. Just read the following, published at the moment:—
"A WESTERN PLAGUE SPOT."How Fever Is Raging in Perth."Various visitors to Perth have expressed their opinions upon the awful conditions, from a sanitary point of view, of the Western city, and almost daily news is telegraphed across of the ravages from typhoid, pneumonia, and other diseases in consequence."That the state of affairs is in no way exaggerated by prejudiced outsiders is proved by a full-page account in a recent issue of the PerthHerald, and which is headed: 'Typhoid Fever in Perth; An Alarming Situation; The Position of Affairs Grows Worse.'"The opinions of doctors, nurses, experts, and others are published, all going to show that public and private action is almost in every case as if the one aim was to increase the death-rate to the highest possible figures."The water supply is contaminated; drainage runs into the catchment area, and even fæcal matter is plainly evident in the samples analysed; there is no supervision of the milk supply; vegetables are grown under most dangerous conditions; stagnant drains are in almost all the streets; about public places of recreation there are fever beds; many of the population are crowded in small boarding-houses like rabbits, and ordinary precautions for the removal of filth neglected, even if that were enough in itself; houses are built on pestilential swamps; the wind blows the dust about spots where the typhoid excrement has been deposited to breed germs by the million; and bread, meat, and other food carts go about uncovered to collect it, as if to make sure that any who escaped all other sources of the danger should not be allowed to escape the plague."Even the public esplanade has to be shunned, the silt from the sewer which is being used for reclaiming being a mass of foul matter."It will interest 't'othersiders' to read this about the conditions of life:—"'Many of the dwellings in which the t'othersiders are to be found huddled together are first-class fever "germinators." The rooms are small, the ventilation bad, the bed linen rarely changed, while not the slightest attention whatever is paid to sanitation. It is estimated that there are at least 400 small tenements, from two to five rooms, serving as "boarding" and "lodging" houses, and in these over 3,000 persons are sheltered.'"
"Various visitors to Perth have expressed their opinions upon the awful conditions, from a sanitary point of view, of the Western city, and almost daily news is telegraphed across of the ravages from typhoid, pneumonia, and other diseases in consequence.
"That the state of affairs is in no way exaggerated by prejudiced outsiders is proved by a full-page account in a recent issue of the PerthHerald, and which is headed: 'Typhoid Fever in Perth; An Alarming Situation; The Position of Affairs Grows Worse.'
"The opinions of doctors, nurses, experts, and others are published, all going to show that public and private action is almost in every case as if the one aim was to increase the death-rate to the highest possible figures.
"The water supply is contaminated; drainage runs into the catchment area, and even fæcal matter is plainly evident in the samples analysed; there is no supervision of the milk supply; vegetables are grown under most dangerous conditions; stagnant drains are in almost all the streets; about public places of recreation there are fever beds; many of the population are crowded in small boarding-houses like rabbits, and ordinary precautions for the removal of filth neglected, even if that were enough in itself; houses are built on pestilential swamps; the wind blows the dust about spots where the typhoid excrement has been deposited to breed germs by the million; and bread, meat, and other food carts go about uncovered to collect it, as if to make sure that any who escaped all other sources of the danger should not be allowed to escape the plague.
"Even the public esplanade has to be shunned, the silt from the sewer which is being used for reclaiming being a mass of foul matter.
"It will interest 't'othersiders' to read this about the conditions of life:—
"'Many of the dwellings in which the t'othersiders are to be found huddled together are first-class fever "germinators." The rooms are small, the ventilation bad, the bed linen rarely changed, while not the slightest attention whatever is paid to sanitation. It is estimated that there are at least 400 small tenements, from two to five rooms, serving as "boarding" and "lodging" houses, and in these over 3,000 persons are sheltered.'"
Stories of how fortunes are made and lives are lost in the race for wealth in Western Australia would fill volumes.
A typical story, and a genuine one to boot, is worth recording. A well-known racing man travelling on a steamer round the coast was attracted by a seedy, out-of-elbows individual seated all alone. He got into conversation with him. The seedy stranger was reticent about himself, but voluble about others, particularly those who were making their piles in Western Australia—he was going there if he had to walk. The idea of a man walking was a repulsive thought to a racing man, so he most generously insisted upon this dilapidated acquaintance accepting £10 to help him to get to the goldfields. The stranger was to pay him back some day if he ever struck oil. Time went on, and one morning the Good Samaritan received a letter with the £10 enclosed and a request to make an appointment. The two met again. The out-of-elbows fellow-traveller turned up to keep the appointment he had asked for, dressed in the height of fashion; he not only looked a millionaire, but he was one! Yet he was sad and depressed, and recited the history of his good fortune to the good-natured sportsman in a most dismal tone. Though his words were full of gratitude and thankfulness, he seemed, strange as it may appear, somewhat reproachful.
"Yes, thanks to you, I have struck a gold mine, the one the world is now talking about, and you shall have half of it; that is the reason I asked to see you."
"Not I," was the reply. "I don't want it; besides, you have relatives."
"I had," said the millionaire, looking sorrowfully away. "Ihad three brothers. I was very fond of them, and sent for them when my luck came and, thanks to you, my fortune also. They arrived in Western Australia full of life and hope and jubilation, three of the finest and strongest fellows in the Colonies. They were all dead and buried within a month—stricken down by the damned typhoid fever."
PROSPECTORS.
Every day I spent in Australia I had similar stories to these told me—of how those rushing into the death-trap to dig up gold were buried themselves instead. Every day I heard of the swindles as well as of the sewerage. Both the towns and the business stank. Bogus mines were foisted into the "new chum," and huge companies started to work them; businesses advertised as big affairs with tremendous capitals were in reality a paltry village hut or two, with a few pounds of goods flung into them.
If you are not robbed in England right away by such swindles, you are invited to sail for Western Australia.
I met the manager of a Western Australian mining property, who was justly savage at the influx of "new chums" sent outby the directors of the company he represents. These ne'er-do-wells, of all ages and of all degrees of stupidity and vice, arrive weekly, with letters of recommendation from the London directors, and in most cases actual contracts signed for berths as book-clerks, secretaries, corresponding clerks, &c., &c.—worthless incumbrances, but, even should they be found capable, not a berth open for one per cent. sent out: a fault showing that the directors in London are ignorant of the working of things they are supposed to direct. A sharp manager, finding himself face to face with a cargo of these silly "new chums" so landed, after going carefully over the binding contracts they came armed with, addressed them thus:—
"You, Mr. Nogood, hold a contract made in London by your uncle, a director of this company, to be engaged on arrival as clerk at £10 a week. You, Mr. Boozer, are to be engaged at £6 a week as book-keeper; and you, Mr. Flighty, at £5 a week as an assistant engineer, and so on. Now, gentlemen, in my position as manager here I may tell you plainly that your relatives and friends—the directors in London—are not conversant with the business here in detail. Were they, I am certain, gentlemen, you would never have signed these contracts agreeing to give your valuable services to us for such a ridiculously small remuneration. Things are dearer here than in London, you know; you could not live on such miserable pittances. Now I am unfortunately in the unhappy position that whilst here absolutely at the head of affairs and an autocrat, I am at the same time bound to accept these contracts made in London, and am therefore powerless to improve your unfortunate acceptances of these posts assigned to you. However, if you will agree to tear up these contracts I shall engage you weekly all the same, but at double salaries. Do you agree to this, gentlemen?"
They all did. The contracts were destroyed, they received double salaries, for a fortnight, were not asked to do anything, and were all dismissed with a week's notice by the autocrat, the manager of the property, who has his picked, tried, and trusted men to do all the work necessary.
The Western Australian boom is over. The rooks haveplucked every feather they can off the poor pigeon. The Land of Promise, the Land of Myth, the Land of Sharks and Sharpers, is discovered by the paying public, and is in disgrace. Truth will out, and the truth about Western Australia is out of the designing promoter's bag now, never to be caught in it again. Africa suggests a comparison. In mining there is a great difference between Africa and Australia. Take, for instance, the Rand in Africa: it is one long reef of general excellence, divided into mines all of solid value. Australian mines, with one or two notable exceptions, do not run so; they are short, broken and erratic.
Each of these when struck may or may not yield the three ounces to the ton they are boomed as having, but what is not explained to the investing public is the fact that the mines are limited and uncertain—they are not continuous, they are most expensive to open and work, and consequently they are practically worthless, and the investors' money is swamped and the land shows no return.
A man who has most exceptional experience in mining, in a conversation with me used an expressionà proposof the character of the mining lodes. He said that they were "patchy." That expresses everything Australian. Australia is a patchy country. Look at the sheep stations: a good season or two, property investment, rush, extravagance, no rain, ruin, despair, exodus. So it is with land, with everything—it is patchy. The people are patchy. One set, pleasant, refined, kindly, lovable; the next objectionable, vulgar, low and detestable.
A friend of mine on board the steamer had the following interesting conversation with an Irish lady moving in Australian society:
"Do you happen to know Mrs. Larry O'B. and Mrs. Mike O'C.?
"Do I know thim? Well, iv course I do. Shure, me darlin', both of their husbands stood in the same dock wid moi husband on their thrial for murder—for killin' a process server in Oireland years ago. Moi husband was acquitted, worse luck!"
"Worse luck?"
"Yis. Maybe y'don't know as how the other two gintlemen got sintinced and were sent out here as convicts, and both of thim now are millionaires, and my poor man is still workin' hard for his livin' in the ould counthry."
Hydrophobia is unknown in Australia. A traveller on arrival has his pet dog taken from him and the poor animal is thrust into quarantine for six months. These four millions of inhabitants, spread over the largest colony in the world, consider themselves so precious they quarantine everything and everybody but lunatics. Why not quarantine lunatics? Are they not dangerous? Did not a whole city go mad? Stark, staring, raving mad—Mad Melbourne—and yet a Maltese terrier is quarantined in the same port for six months!
QUARANTINE ISLAND.
Yet lunatics arrive and make lunacy rampant, and a whole city is left after such a visitation an asylum of melancholia—Mad Melbourne. Lunacy frequently takes the form of egotism. Peasants imagine themselves princes; Calibans believe themselves to be Adonises; beggars imagine themselves millionaires. It is a harmless vanity and hurts no one, but a mad city may ruin thousands by suddenly imagining itself a gold mine. Melbourne a few years ago imagined it suddenly became the hub of the universe. The world and his wife had but one burning desire—that was to live in Melbourne. Some lunatic started this ridiculous idea, and the boom spread like lightning. Melbourne was by this magic boom turned into an Aladdin cave. Noprairie fire ever started with such suddenness, with such fury, burning up, as it leapt and galloped along, all the reasoning powers and common sense of the people. Those who cleared a space around them to avoid destruction were tongued by the fire of speculation, and before they could move away were irreparably lost. Great and small, old and young, were carried away in the blaze of speculation. The frightened reptiles and beasts running in front to escape it were, it was thought, miserable fools who had not the pluck or sense to aid in setting speculation in Melbourne on fire. A fanciful picture on paper this? True, so was the great boom of 1887 merely a fanciful picture on paper. Had it been otherwise banks would not have failed, nor would families have been ruined wholesale, nor would trade and speculation have been left charred roots and stubble on the scene of folly—Mad Melbourne.
It is difficult to say how it began—it is unnecessary to say how it ended. I am told that at the height of the boom Melbourne went frantically and absolutely mad. Poor men and women rushed about fancying that they had suddenly become millionaires. In the few hours between breakfast and lunch they had bought a piece of land for £1,000, and in a few hours had sold the same block for £10,000—on paper. They then heard that the purchaser had re-sold it for £20,000 before dinner, they bought it back for £30,000, and re-sold it over supper again for £50,000, a good day's work—on paper. Everyone did the same—all were mad. Money flowed in from the Old Country in millions, champagne flowed freely all over Melbourne in gallons, everyone was intoxicated with joy and soused themselves and their friends in champagne to wash down success. Vehicles rushed speculators through the streets, trains whisked them to the land free, luncheons free awaited all at every turn, fortunes at every step. Melbourne was mad drunk—lost!
Buildings—comfortable, sensible buildings—were pulled down and "sky scrapers" and mansions were erected in their places. Bridges, good for a hundred years to come, were pulled down and millions spent in erecting in place of the old ones others notmore serviceable or of more use. Huge docks, not wanted, were built at fabulous outlays—all these buildings stand as monuments of Melbourne's Madness.
The extraordinary good spirits of the Melbournites is a healthy sign. Those who not only lost all their money invested, chagrined by their folly and left with liabilities that will cripple them for life, smile and bear their fall right cheerily.
Some of these notes made by me whilst seeing the Kangarooists at home "in a hurry" may not be received in the proper spirit. All new countries are sensitive, and resent truths coming from a stranger, while at the same time their home critics, though far more severe, are tolerated and unchallenged. Now I met one of the most prominent Australians, a man of the world, a leading legal light and a Member of Parliament. It was in the Legislative Chamber I had a conversation with him on matters Australian. He led off: "This bit of a place here (Sydney), with a population less than that of a second-class provincial town in England, has in it people with more cheek than would be found in the capitals of London, Paris and St. Petersburg rolled into one. Why, these people have some ingrained vain idea that everything and everybody connected with them are the most important things and the most important people in the world. Small-minded people in a large country—that is what they are—a country the size of Europe with a population less than that of London with the intellect of a country village. That is Australia."