Let us now hie us to humbler abodes, and visit an eight-roomed cottage, inhabited by a young solicitor whose income is from £500 to £1000 a year. Here the whole drawing-room suite is in cretonne or rep, and comprises the couch, six chairs, and lady's and gent's easy-chairs, which we saw before at Muttonwool's. The carpet is also ditto. The glass, ornaments, etc., are similar, but on a smaller scale; and if there are any pictures on the wall they are almost bound to be chromos, for whilst Croesus sometimes invests in expensive paintings, the middle-class, who cannot afford to give from £100 upwards for a picture, will make no effort to obtain something moderately good, such as can be easily obtained in England for a very small outlay. The gasalier is bronze instead of glass. The real living-room of the house is the dining-room, which is therefore the best furnished, and on a tapestry carpet are a leather couch, six balloon-back carved chairs, two easy-chairs, a chiffonier, a side-table, and a cheap chimney-glass. In the best bedroom the bedstead is a tubular half-tester, the toilet-ware gold and white, the carpet again tapestry. Throughout the house the furniture is made of cedar. The kitchen is summarily disposed of; Biddy has to content herself with d table, dresser, safe, pasteboard and rolling-pin, and a couple of chairs. Her bedroom furniture is even more scanty--a paillasse on trestles, a chair, a half-crown looking-glass, an old jug and a basin on a wooden table. Even in the houses of the wealthy poor Biddy is very badly treated in this respect. In Muttonwool's house, if he keeps two servants, they both sleep in one room, and not improbably share the same basin. Servants are undoubtedly troublesome to a degree in Australia, but it is not altogether a satisfactory feature in colonial life that the provision made for their comfort is literally nil.
Having seen the £600 a year cottage it is almost needless to visit the £300 and £400, belonging to clerks and the smaller shopkeepers. The style is the same, but the quantity and quality inferior. For instance, the drawing-room carpet is tapestry instead of Brussels; the dining-room furniture is covered with horse-hair instead of leather, and so on. We will go into the next cottage--less pretentious-looking and a little smaller. The rent is twelve shillings a week, and it belongs to a carpenter in good employ. Here there is no drawing-room, but the parlour aspires to comfort quite undreamt of by an English tradesman. Our old friends the horse-hair cedar couch, the gent's and lady's chairs together with four balloon high chairs, turn up again. There is a four-foot chiffonier, a tapestry carpet, a gilt chimney-glass, a hearthrug, a bronze fender and fire-irons, and a round table with turned pillar and carved claws. In the parents' bedroom are a half-tester bedstead with coir-fibre or woollen flock mattress, two cane chairs, washstand, toilet-table, glass and ware, towel-horse, chest of drawers, and a couple of yards of bedside carpet. The two youngest children sleep in this room, and three or four others in the second bedroom, where the bedsteads are less showy and the ware very inferior. The carpet is replaced by china matting. The chest of drawers does duty as a toilet-table, and there are of course no such luxuries as towel-horses. Yet, take it all in all, Chips has much to be thankful for.
With labour so dear as it is here, it is wonderful to think that a working-man can furnish, and furnish comfortably, a four-roomed cottage for £27; and yet this is what has recently been done in Melbourne by my friend Hornyhand, who is a common labourer, earning only eight to nine shillings a day, and paying about as much a week for rent. He is really uncommonly well off, everything in his house being brand-new; and yet, as he tells me, he is absolutely at the root of the honest social tree--the worst paid of the working-classes. I think it worth while to subjoin his bill. He certainly has not gone in for luxuries, but then he is of a frugal mind. If he wanted it, his house could be as well furnished as Chips'; but he doesn't see any object in wasting money on that kind of thing, and is content with little:
Parlour. £ s. d.Cedar polished couch, covered with horse-hair 2 10 0Four cane-seat chairs, each 7s. 6d. 1 10 0Cedar polished table, 3 ft. 6 in., on claws 1 10 0Maple rocking-chair, with elbows 0 17 6Carpet 1 5 0Hearthrug, 8s. 6d. fender, 9s. irons, 6s. 6d. 1 4 0Bedroom.French bedstead, 4 ft. 6 in. by 6 ft. 6 in. 1 15 0Pair paillasses 12 6Woollen flock mattrass 1 0 0Woollen flock bolster and 2 pillows 8 0Washstand, and rail attached 10 6Toilet table, to match 10 6Toilet glass, 14 in. by 10 in. 8 62 cane-scat chairs (Albert), 6s. each 12 04 yards matting at 9d. 3 0Toilet-ware, six pieces 12 6Second Bedroom.2 French bedsteads, 3 ft. by 6 ft. 6 in. at 30s. 3 0 04 paillasses, at 10s. per pair 1 0 02 woollen flock mattrasses, at 16. 3d. each 1 12 62 bolsters, flock, at 4s. 6d. each 9 02 pillows, flock, at 3s. each 6 0Toilet chest of drawers(to serve for toilet table), cedar 2 5 0Toilet glass, 14 in. by 10 in. 7 0Washstand, 2 ft. 6 in. 12 0Wash, etc., 6 pieces 12 6Kitchen.Deal table, turned legs, varnished 10 62 wood chairs, each 4s. 6d. 9 0Safe in Kauri pine 10 6Pasteboard and rolling-pin 4 0£27 7 0Note.--That if he had not had two children to provide for in a secondbedroom, nor indulged in the luxury of a chest of drawers, the whole ofhis furnishing would only have cost him £17 3s.
Before closing this letter, a word as to what may be called the accessories of the household. But few families have any large quantity of plate, and electro has almost entirely superseded silver; metal is not common for dishes, and is quite unknown for plates. Nor is the crockery at all a strong point even in the wealthiest houses. In the shops it is almost impossible to get anything satisfactory in this line; and until the exhibitions, nine Australians out of ten had no idea what was meant by hand-painted china. The difference between china and earthenware is, it goes almost without saying, little if at all appreciated, much less that between hand-painted and stamped ware. The display of cut-glass at the exhibitions was almost as great a revelation to colonists as that of porcelain; hitherto all middle-class and most wealthy households have been contented with the commonest stuff. Table-cloths and napkins are also very second-rate, and sheets are almost invariably of calico.
That servants are the plague of life seems to be an accepted axiom amongst English ladies of the upper middle class. When I hear them discussing their grievances over their afternoon tea, I wish them no worse fate than to have the management of an Australian household for a week. It is not every Englishwoman whose peace of mind would survive the trial. Many a young English wife have I seen unhappy in her married life in the colonies, mainly on account of her domestics. And yet I doubt whether the colonial mistress makes as much fuss about her real wrongs as the English one about her imaginary grievances. Of course she can, if drawn out, tell you enough ridiculous stories about her servants to fill a number ofPunch; but if they are only fools she is well content, and it is only when she is left servantless for two or three days that she waxes wroth.
Where mistresses are many and servants are few, it goes almost without saying that large establishments are out of the question. Given equal incomes, and the English mistress has twice as many servants as the Australian, and what is more, twice as competent ones. Even our friend Muttonwool only has six coachman, boy, cook, housemaid, nurse, and parlourmaid. I don't suppose there are a hundred households in all Australia which keep a butler pure and simple, though there must be several thousand with what is generically known as a man-servant, who gets twenty-five shillings a week, all found. A coachman's wages are on the average about the same. The 'boy' gets ten shillings. Man-cooks are rare. A decent female cook, who ranks out here as first-class, earns from fifteen shillings to a pound a week. For this sum she is supposed to know something about cooking; yet I have known one in receipt of a weekly guinea look with astonishment at a hare which had been sent to her master as a present, and declare that it was 'impossible to make soup out of that thing.' After a little persuasion she was induced to try to make hare-soup after Mrs. Beeton's recipe, but the result was such as to try the politeness of her master's visitors. This lack of decent cooks is principally due to the lack of establishments large enough to keep kitchenmaids. Would-be cooks have no opportunity of acquiring their art by training from their superiors; they gain their knowledge by experiments on their employers' digestions; never staying long in one place, they learn to make some new dishes at each house they go to, and gradually rise in the wages-scale.
Directly you come to incomes below a thousand a year, the number of servants is often reduced to a maid-of-all-work, more or less competent according to her wages, which run from seven to fifteen shillings a week. At the former price she knows absolutely nothing; at the latter something of everything. She cooks, washes, sweeps, dusts, makes the beds, clears the baths, and answers the, door. All is grist that comes to her mill; and if she is Jill-of-all-trades and mistress of none, one must admit that an English-bred servant would not be one quarter so suitable to colonial requirements. Of course she is independent, often even cheeky, but a mistress learns to put up with occasional tantrums, provided the general behaviour and character are good. When we were first out here we used to run a-muck with our servants about once a week; but now we find it better to bear the ills we have than fly to others which we know not of. Our present Lizzie is impertinent to a degree when reproved; but then she can cook decently, and she is the first decent cook we have had since we have been out here. When you have lived on colonial fare for a few months, a good plain dinner covers a multitude of sins.
Unfortunately, four-fifths of our servants are Irish--liars and dirty. These Irish are less impertinent than the colonials; but if you do get hold of a well trained colonial, she is worth her weight in gold on account of her heterogeneity. Your Irish immigrant at eight and ten shillings a week has as often as not never been inside any other household than her native hovel, and stares in astonishment to find that you don't keep a pig on your drawing-room sofa. On entering your house, she gapes in awe of what she considers the grandeur around her, and the whole of her first day's work consists of ejaculating 'Lor' and 'Goodness!' We once had a hopeful of this kind who, after she had been given full instructions as to how a rice-pudding was to be made, sat down and wept bitterly for half an hour, till--her mistress having told her to 'bake'--the happy thought struck her to put a dish full of rice in the oven,sansmilksanseggs,sanseverything. Another Biddy, engaged by a friend of ours, having to make a yeast-cake, put it under her bed-clothes 'just to plump it a bit.' A third, having been given a bill-of-fare for the day, put soup, meat, and pudding all into one pot, and served them upau pot-pourri.
But if Biddy is trying to the patience, her stupidity is to a mistress accustomed to English ways almost more bearable than the 'go-as-you-please'--if I may borrow a phrase from the new American athletic contests--of the colonial young lady, who comes to be engaged in the most elegant of dresses, bows as she enters the room, seats herself, and smilingly remarks, that she has heard that Mrs. So-and-So is wanting a 'girl.' After a little discussion about the work, privileges, etc., and upon the production of some written certificates--it is almost impossible to obtain personal references, and if it were possible you could not rely upon them--the engagement is made. The mistress requires a solemn promise that the servant will come on a certain day, and as often as not the day arrives without her. Our young lady has been round to a number of mistresses and 'priced' their places; she will not wilfully put you in a quandary, but if, after having engaged herself to you, she hears of another situation where there is less work or more wages, she takes it in preference, and leaves you to manage as best you can. Even when you have got her and found her suitable, you can never tell at what moment she will be pleased to be off 'Tuppence more and up goes the donkey!'--an inconvenience which is felt much more here, where there is probably only one servant in the house, than it would be in England.
But if it were only higher wages which tempted servants away the remedy would be easy; a few pounds more a year would be cheerfully paid for the convenience of a continuity of one's household arrangements. In one year we have had ten servants. As there were no children, the place was an easy one; but that seemed to make little difference. At first we kept two, but they did nothing but quarrel; the cook left us on this account. We took our new cook simply because she happened to be a friend of the housemaid; but before long we found that it was out of the frying-pan into the fire: the first two had quarrelled 'because there wasn't sufficient work for two to do;' the second pair played together so much that they never did any work. We banished them both, and tried keeping only one servant, which many people had assured us would prove more comfortable. So far they were right. Hitherto my wife's time had chiefly been taken up with looking after the servants, to see that they did their work; now peace reigned in the house. We gave our maid-of-all-work fifteen shillings a week; we thought we had found a real treasure, and for a month everything went on wheels. But at the end of that time, just when she was getting accustomed to our ways and we to hers, Sarah gives a week's notice; she had no fault to find with her mistress, but the place was too dull. We offered two shillings a week extra but in vain. Our next stayed six weeks; her reason for leaving was that she did not approve of the back-yard. Number six stayed for three months; she was very nearly leaving at the end of the first fortnight, but we won her heart by giving her young man free access to the kitchen from 9 o'clock to 10.30 every evening. Even then, however, she found the place too dull. Number eight stayed two months; she left avowedly because she did not care to stop too long in one place. The ninth remained only a fortnight. She left because we objected to her staying out after eleven o'clock at night, although we gave her three nights out a week after half-past eight.
When there are children in a middle-class family, a nurse-girl is generally, but by, no means always, kept. Hers is the lowest of all the branches of service, and is only taken by a young girl just going out into the world. Trained nurses, such as are common at home, are in great demand, and almost unobtainable. They can earn a pound a week easily, and at such wages a man whose income only runs into three figures is forced to put up with a nurse-girl. She undertakes no responsibility, her duties being confined to carrying the baby and screaming at the other children if they attempt to do themselves any bodily harm. If you wish to understand what the average nurse-girl is like, you have but to walk through any of the public gardens; you will see babies without number left in the blazing sun, some hanging half-way out of their perambulators, others sucking large, painted 'lollies' or green apples. The elder children, if they are unruly, are slapped and sent off to play by themselves, while the nurse-girls hold a confab on a neighbouring bench. Not that these girls are necessarily bad, but they lack the supervision and training of a head-nurse; they have been taught to look upon nursing as derogatory, and never stay long enough as nurses to get an experience in handling children. A few months of this, the lowest stage of servant-galdom, and then they pass up into the maid-of-all-work class. Thus it is that many mothers prefer undertaking the duties of nurse themselves, and devote themselves to their children often at the expense of their husbands, and certainly of all social relations.
Colonial servants are much too fond of change for change's sake ever to stay long in one situation. A month's character is a sure guarantee for another place, and only a week's notice is required on either side before leaving. Hence servants are engaged and paid by the week; they do not expect any presents or perquisites, and it is not the custom to make them any allowance for beer. On the other hand, they will not stand being allowanced for tea, sugar, butter, or anything of the kind, and as a rule they fare in exactly the same style as their masters. Every other Sunday afternoon and evening, one evening every week, and occasional public holidays, are the customary outings, though we found it expedient to allow a good many more.
The great redeeming-point about the servant-girl is the power she acquires, of getting through a large and multifarious quantity of work. She has frequently to do the whole house-work, cooking, washing, and ironing for a family of six or seven, and unless the mistress or her daughters are particularly helpful, it is out of all reason to expect that any of these things can be well done. Of course there are some good servants, but, unfortunately for their employers, the butchers and bakers generally have a keen eye for such, arguing with great justice that a good servant is likely to make a good wife.
The greater part of the high wages which servants get is spent on dress. If ever they condescend to wear their mistress's left-off clothes, it is only for work in the house; but the trouble they take to copy the exact fashion and cut of their mistress's clothes is very amusing. One girl we had frankly asked my wife to allow her to take a dress she admired to her dressmaker, in order that she might have one made up like it. Whilst girls in the upper and middle classes are very handy with their fingers, and often make up their own hats and dresses, the servant-class despise to do this, and almost invariably employ milliners, who often cheat them dreadfully, knowing that they appreciate a hat or a dress much according to the price they have paid for it, and the amount of show it makes. In hats and bonnets this is specially noticeable; I have often seen our servants with hats or bonnets on, which cannot have cost them less than three or four pounds.
The shortest and upon the whole the best way to get a servant is by going to one of the numerous registry offices. Some of these exist merely to palm off bad servants upon you; but there are always offices of good reputation, which will not recommend a girl they know absolutely nothing about.
The needlewoman is little in vogue here; but as nearly everyone washes at home, washerwomen are plentiful; their wages run from four to five shillings a day, according to their capabilities, food being of course included.
In spite of constant shipments from England, servants are always at a premium, and I need scarcely point out what an excellent opening these colonies afford for women-servants. Unfortunately, but a very small proportion of the daughters of the poorer colonial working-class will go into service. For some inexplicable reason, they turn up their noses at the high wages and comparatively light work offered, and prefer to undertake the veriest drudgery in factories for a miserable pittance. At a recent strike in a large shirt-making factory in Melbourne, it came out that a competent needlewoman could not make more than eighteen shillings a week even by working overtime, and that the general average earnings of a factory girl were only eleven to thirteen shillings a week. But so great is the love of independence in the colonial girl, that she prefers hard work and low wages in order to be able to enjoy freedom of an evening. It is in vain that the press points out that girls whose parents do not keep servants are accustomed to perform the same household duties in their own homes that are required of them in service; that work which is not degrading at home cannot be degrading in service; and that they will be the better wives for the knowledge of household work which they acquire in service. They might as well preach to the winds; and there are more applications for employment in shops and factories than there is work for, whilst mistresses go begging for lady-helps. There is a sad side to this picture as regards the social condition of the colonies, in addition to the inconvenience to people who keep servants. The girls who go into shops and factories, and have their evenings to themselves, necessarily undergo a great deal of temptation, and it is undeniable that they are not at all delivered from evil. The subject is out of keeping with these letters, but unless some means can be found to reconcile colonial girls to service, I fear an evil is growing up in our midst which is likely to be even more baneful in its effects upon the community than the corresponding tendency to 'larrikinism' amongst colonial youths.
Since writing the above, an article on the subject has appeared in the MelbourneArguswhich is worth quoting inextenso:
'We have undertaken to consider whether anything can be done to overcome the unwillingness which nearly all Australian girls exhibit to enter domestic service. There is an abundant supply of female labour in the colony, but unfortunately it is not distributed in the way that would be most advantageous to the community and beneficial to the women themselves. While household servants can scarcely be had for love or money, the clothing factories are crowded with seamstresses, who are content to work long hours at what are very much like starvation wages. How is this? We have shown that there is nothing in domestic work which any true woman need consider degrading; that the most refined and highly educated ladies have in all ages considered themselves properly employed when busy about household affairs; that servants have quite as many opportunities of forming matrimonial connections as factory girls, and that their training fits them to become much better, and therefore far happier wives. We have no doubt that all this, or at least the greater part, would be admitted by the seamstresses themselves: but nevertheless the fact remains that to domestic service they will not go. There is a feeling in existence amongst them that in some way or other household labour is menial occupation, and that to undertake it is to lose caste in the class to which they belong. We may call this fantastic idea "vanity" or "false pride," or what we will; but that does not do anything to banish it, or to render it less potent for mischief. Seeing that so much is at stake--that employers are clamouring for servants, and that women are sadly in want of some occupation which would lessen competition and raise wages in the sewing business--it is evident that society is deeply interested in getting rid of the ridiculous notion. As a first step towards that desirable consummation, let us endeavour to analyse the impression which exists in the minds of those who turn their backs upon household duties, and with their eyes open devote themselves to a laborious and underpaid occupation.
'A correspondent (The Argus, December 16) informs us that observation and the remarks he has heard made by factory girls have led him to think that there are three serious objections which the seamstresses have to domestic service. One of these is--"The idea of degradation, attached to the position of a 'slavey' in the minds of the lower classes themselves." As we have seen that there is nothing degrading in the work itself which servants are called upon to do, how comes it that its performance is considered less honourable than sewing or serving in a shop? The notion must take its rise in the conditions under which domestic service is rendered. The sewing girl or the shop-woman has certain business hours, outside of which she is as independent as her employer, and as little amenable to control. The household servant, on the other hand, is under discipline, and liable to be called on to do this, that, or the other during every hour of the twenty-four. From the time she gets up in the morning to the moment she goes to bed at night, she has no hour which of right she can reckon on as her own. If she wishes to go out she must ask permission; if she wants to receive a friend, she cannot rely on being left undisturbed. As a matter of fact, servants in this colony enjoy a very large measure of liberty, and those who are worth their salt very seldom have to complain of want of consideration or indulgence. If they do not meet with proper treatment, they can easily find situations where more regard is had to their feelings and comfort. But the thought that the leisure and freedom they enjoy is due in a great measure to favour, and not to right, is the fly in the ointment of the domestic's lot which renders it distasteful to many women, and which causes it to be looked down on by those who exist under far less favourable conditions. It seems to us that it is the want of some definite respite from liability to work which constitutes the "slavery" of which our correspondent speaks. If we are right in our supposition, then it is evident that employers have it in their power to take away the reproach from domestic servitude, by assimilating the conditions of household employment to those which attach to industrial occupations. Why should not servants have regular hours of work, outside which they would be absolutely free to go where, or to do as they please, without asking permission or fearing interruption? If such arrangements were to become customary, we can hardly doubt that the prejudice against domestic service would die out. The attractions of higher wages, equal freedom, better board, and more comfortable lodging would soon do their work.
'It may be said that such a change as we propose would entirely alter the relations between mistresses and their "helps." No doubt it would. But we may ask why the relations between mistresses and servants should continue as they were in semi-feudal times, when the relations of other classes of society to each other have been resettled on an entirely different basis? Nearly all sorts of service now are matters of simple contract, and we know of no reason why domestic engagements should not be regulated in the same way. It would be better for employers to have a plentiful supply of efficient servants liable to work eight or ten hours per diem, than a scanty stock of discontented women whose services they can command day and night. With altered relations, we should soon have a change of demeanour on both sides. The correspondent we have quoted says that another of the things which prevents seamstresses from "going into service," is "the over-anxiety of mistresses that servants should know their position." In a democratic country like this, where young people are brought up with the idea that one man or woman is as good as another, we can easily understand that any assertion of superiority on the part of employers, or attempt to exact an outward show of deference, is very galling to undisciplined minds. Those who have been accustomed to be waited on from childhood upwards, are never very careful to insist on those forms and modes of address which at one time servants invariably adopted. As long as they are well served, they are content to sacrifice something to the modern spirit of equality. It is those who have risen in the social scale late in life who are always standing on their dignity and exacting homage. If the latter class would moderate its pretensions, a stumbling-block would be removed from the entrance to domestic service. We already have several agencies for training servants; could they not add to their duties the work of training mistresses in the ideas we have set forth, and in any others which are likely to diminish the distaste of Australian girls for household work? If they would take the matter in hand in a practical way, and familiarise the public mind with the notion of limited domestic labour, they would, we believe, do much to promote the comfort of home life in Victoria, and to improve the position of female labour.'
Generally speaking, food in Australia is cheaper and more plentiful than in England, but poorer in quality. Adulteration is, of course, as yet unknown, or but very little known, for the simple reason that it costs more to adulterate than to provide the genuine article. The working-man's food here is also immeasurably better and cheaper. Mutton he gets almost for the asking, and up-country almost without it. Bread is only 1¼d. to 2d. a pound, and all the necessaries of life are good, healthy, and fairly cheap. But the richer man, who asks for more than soundness in the quality of his food, finds himself worse off than in London. Meat of the same quality as he gets at his club in Pall Mall is not to be got in Collins Street for love or money. The flour is the best in the world, and the bread wholesome and sweet; but the toothsomeness of German and French bakers is not to be had, and the finest qualities of flour are all shipped to England instead of being used here. The dearness of labour makes it impossible to give the same care to the cultivation of fruit and vegetables; and though these are cheap enough, the delicate flavour of Convent Garden is hardly compensated by their superior freshness. In short, our food is somewhat coarse, albeit wholesome enough.
Up-country the meat is excellent; but in the towns it is not, as a rule, so good as in England, as the sheep and cattle have often to be driven long distances before they are slaughtered. Prices vary according to the different towns, seasons, and qualities from 6d. to 2½d. a lb. for beef, and from 4d. to l½d. for mutton. Pork is from 9d. to 7d.; veal from 8d. to 4d. All kinds of fruit and vegetables, except Brussels sprouts, are cheap and plentiful. I will quote one or two prices at random from a market-book: artichokes, l½d. a lb.; tomatoes, 2d. a lb.; beetroot and cabbages, 1s. 6d. a dozen; potatoes, 6s. a cwt. During the season fruit is very cheap. Splendid Muscatel grapes can be bought in Adelaide from ld. to 2d. a lb.; peaches, 3d. a dozen; apricots, 2d. a dozen; raspberries, 5d. a lb.; cherries, 2d. a lb.; strawberries, 4d.; plums almost for nothing; but by far the best is the passion-fruit. Neither vegetables nor fruit, as sold in the markets and shops, are as good as those you buy in England. The inferior quality is due to the grow-as-you-please manner in which the fruit is cultivated, pruning and even the most ordinary care being neglected; but you can get as fine-flavoured fruit here as anywhere, and to taste grapes in perfection you must certainly go to Adelaide.
Of course meat is the staple of Australian life. A working-man whose whole family did not eat meat three times a day would indeed be a phenomenon. High and low rich and poor, all eat meat to an incredible extent, even in the hottest weather. Not that they know how to prepare it in any delicate way, for to the working and middle, as well as to most of the wealthy classes, cooking is an unknown art. The meat is roast or boiled, hot or cold, sometimes fried or hashed. It is not helped in mere slices, but in good substantial hunks. In everything the colonist likes quantity. You can hardly realize the delight of 'tucking in' to a dish of fruit at a dinner-party. I once heard a colonist say, 'I don't like your nasty little English slices of meat:wewant something that we can put our teeth into.' Imagine the man's misery when dessert came on the table, and he was asked whether he would take asliceof pear! Vegetables are for the most part despised, though the thoroughly old English dish of greens remains in favour, and potatoes are largely eaten.
Tea may fairly claim to be the national beverage. A large majority of the population drink it with every meal, and you find cases of this even in the metropolitan middle classes. With them, however, it is more usual to drink beer with their mid-day meal, and to have meat-tea in the evening. This practice extends through the upper and middle classes, and into many wealthy houses. Next to tea may be ranked beer, English or colonial, which I have come to think is a necessity to the English-speaking races. But no colonist drinks much at meals. He prefers to quench his thirst at every opportunity that may occur between. In all country towns, if you go to see a man on business, out comes the whisky-bottle. If you meet an old friend, his first greeting is, 'Come and have a nobbler!' No bargain can be concluded without it. If it is a warm day, you must have a nobbler to quench your thirst; if it is freezing, to keep the cold out. There is no trade at which more fortunes have been made here than the publican's. The most exclusive and the most out-at-elbows find a common meeting-place in the public-house; although it is only fair to say that the custom of 'shouting,' as it is called, is going--if it has not gone--out of fashion amongst the better classes in the capital cities. Beer, or more frequently spirits, form the favourite 'nobbler,' the price of which varies from fourpence to eightpence in Sydney and Adelaide according to the drink. In Melbourne all drinks are sixpence. There is a current story--which I know to be true--of two well-known colonials, who, on landing from the P. and 0. steamer at Southampton, immediately entered the first public-house, and asked for 'two nobblers of English ale.' Having drunk the ale, which was highly approved of, one of them put down a shilling, and was walking off, when the barmaid recalled him, and offered eightpence change. 'By G----!' was their simultaneous exclamation, 'this is a land to live in, where you can get two nobblers of English ale for fourpence! let us drink our shilling's-worth.'
Like their American cousins, the Australians are of opinion that there is no liquid worthy to be mentioned by the side of 'champagne.' It requires some education to acquire a taste for claret. To the uninitiated sherry and port are chiefly palatable for their spirituousness; but everyone is born with a taste for champagne. It does not follow that everyone knows what constitutes good champagne. No merchant or lawyer, or anyone whose income is over £500 a year, dare give a party without champagne. It is champagne which giveston. For this purpose it need not be very good.
Thesine quibus nonare a well-known brand and a 'gold-top.' Moët's or Roëderer'scarte d'oris the party-goer's criterion of the success of the entertainment. As soon as he sees the label, he swallows the wine, good or bad--more probably bad, for most champagnes, like all other wines, are 'specially prepared for the Australian market,' and you know what that means. 'Body,' or what captious folk would call 'heaviness,' is the first condition of good wine to the colonial taste. The lower middle and lower classes also like it sweet; but of course a man who drinks any quantity of wine prefers it dry. Besides the champagne drunk for show, there is--in spite of a 20s. a dozen duty--a large quantity consumed in the way of nobblers, and at dinner by wealthy men. When a man has made a lucky speculation, or has just got a large order, he treats his friends to a bottle of champagne.
I have not seen burgundy half a dozen times since I have been here. The old colonist finds claret thin and sour; but the younger generation are beginning to take to it, although there is no wine harder to obtain here than claret. Nine-tenths of what one buys is adulterated. His knowledge ofcrûsbeing naturally limited, the colonist likes to see on his wine a fine label, one which makes the quality of the wine easily comprehensible to him. Thus the most successful claret sold here is divided according to degrees of nastiness into five ranks, and you ask for So-and-So's No. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, irrespective of vintage or year. 'Bon ordinaire' is of course unobtainable, but you can get 'Chateau Margaux,' duty paid, at from 40s. to 50s. a dozen. I was once asked to buy some wine bearing that label for 2s. 6d. a bottle. The names of one or two well-known wines having reached your host's ears, he likes to show you by the name on the label that he is giving them to you; and, unfortunately, Margaux and Lafittelabelscost no more than any other.
A good deal of sherry and port--even more brandied than for the English market--is drunk. A wealthy man will never give you colonial wine, not because it is necessarily worse than the imported stuff on his table, but because it is colonial. Amongst the middle classes it is beginning to find favour. A great deal of extravagant praise has been lavished in the press on these wines since the Bordeaux Exhibition, and I fear that many who taste them for the first time will be disappointed. They are too heady, and for the most part wanting in bouquet, whilst their distinctive character repels the palate, which is accustomed to European growths. But for all that, I cannot understand how men with only moderate means living out here can pay large prices for very inferior imported wines, when a good sound, palatable wine is obtainable at from 15s. to 25s. a dozen. At the latter price a Sauvignon approaching to claret, grown close to Melbourne, is obtainable, which is really excellent; and the white hermitage from the same district, as well as from the Hunter River district in New South Wales, at 15s. a dozen, is also as good as one can wish, short of agrand vin, although in none of these wines do you entirely lose thegoût du terroir, a peculiar earthy taste resulting from the strength of the soil. The cheapest wholesome wine I have ever drunk off the Continent is a thinvin ordinaire, smelling likepiquette, which is sold at a certain rather low-looking shop in Melbourne. It is quite palatable, and when heavily watered I can vouch for its wholesomeness.
The lightest of these wines contain about 18 degrees of spirit, whereas, as you know, an 'ordinaire' has only about 8, and a burgundy not more than 11 or 12. But the native wines which are generally preferred by the colonists themselves are the South Australian. In spite of a duty of 10s. a dozen, large quantities of Adelaide wine are drunk in Melbourne. Its chief characteristics are sweetness and heaviness. It may seem to you incredible, but I have drunk a wine made from the Verdeilho grape, and, grown near Adelaide by a Mr. C. Bonney, which contained no less than 36 degrees of natural spirit, without a drop added: 32 and 33 degrees are quite common, and the average percentage in South Australian wine is about 28.
In most cases the wines are named after the grape from which they are made, though sometimes the less sensible course of calling the wine 'claret,' 'sherry,' or 'port,' is adopted. I say less sensible, because all colonial wines have a peculiar flavour, which makes it difficult to mistake them for the wines they profess to imitate. The Carbinet-Sauvignon grape, which I believe is the principal one used in the Bordeaux district, produces here a wine something like what you get on the Rhone. The Riesling, a Rhineland grape, resembles a brandied hock; it makes one of the best wines, and is often very palatable. The red and white Hermitage grapes do best of all. The Muscatel makes a delicious sweet wine in Adelaide, but it is very heady. I have no doubt that in the course of time, and when more scientific methods are pursued, South Australia will produce excellent ports and sherries, as well as Constantias, Malagas, and madeira, but I fear it will not be within the present generation. Claret, I understand from experts, will never be produced, but hermitages and wines of that type will be made in the course of ten or twenty years which will be able to compete in the European markets; long before this they should become useful for blending with French and Spanish wines. As a rule the wine is already sound and wholesome; and if one comes to think of it, taste is a purely arbitrary matter. One forms one's taste according to a certain standard to which one is accustomed. To a man accustomed to colonial wines, clarets and hocks seem thin and sour. One great difficulty which militates against the reputation of Australian wine, is that of the untrustworthiness of all but a few brands. Of course all vintages from the same grapes differ, but there is a margin of difference beyond which a wine may not go, and with many an Australianvigneronthis margin is frequently passed, owing to carelessness or inexperience in manufacture. Another drawback is the difficulty of procuring all but the most immature wine. Nearly the whole of each vintage is drunk within twelve months after it is made. That Australian wines will ever compete with the famous FrenchcrûsI should very much doubt, but that they will in the course of the next twenty years gradually supersede with advantage a great deal of the manufactured stuff now drunk in England is more than probable. At present the prices are too high for Australian wines to find any large market at home. Although it is of course an exceptional case, there is an Adelaide madeira which fetches as much as 63s. per dozen within two miles of the vineyard. Nothing now obtainable in Australia under 15s. a dozen would be worth sending home, and by the time freight and duty is added to that, the London price would be considerable.
I have already made allusion to that peculiar phase of Australian life--nobblerising; but, if I am not mistaken, the impression left on your mind will be that the nobbler is either of aristocratic champagne or plebeian beer. But there are two other liquids--whisky and brandy--which play an important part in nobblerising. The quantity of spirits drunk in Australia is appalling. Whisky is the favourite spirit, then brandy, and rarely Schiedam, schnapps, or gin. And what about drunkenness? Statistically it is not very much worse than in England, but the difference lies in the class who get drunk. Here it is not merely the lower classes, but everybody that drinks. Not a few of the wealthiest and most leading citizens are well-known to be frequently drunk, though their names do not, of course, appear in the papers or in the police reports. The state of public feeling on the subject, though improving, is much as it was in England twenty or thirty years ago. Society says, 'Capital fellow, Jones; pity he drinks!' but no social reprobation attaches to Jones. He may be known to be carried to bed every night, for all it affects his reputation as a respectable and respected citizen. But with the advance of civilization better times are coming in these matters. It is no more so absolute a necessity to take a nobbler as it was ten years ago. Drunkenness, if not reprobated, is no longer considered a 'gentlemanly vice.' A man who drinks is pitied. This is the first step. Before long blame will tread in the steps of pity.
But enough of drinking. It is not a pleasant subject. Besides, I have not yet described the food of any but the working-class. And if they live ten times better than their fellows at home, it is equally true that the middle, and especially the upper, class live ten times worse. It requires the tongue and the pen of a Brillat-Savarin to give flavour to a Barmecide's feast; but as victualling is as necessary a condition of existence here as anywhere else, I must do my best to enlighten you as to our situation in this respect. May you never have practical experience thereof! If it be true that, while the French eat, the English only feed, we may fairly add that the Australians 'grub'. Nor could it well be otherwise under the circumstances. It is not merely because it is difficult to entice a good cook to come out here. If he really wants a thing, the wealthy colonist will not spare money to get it; but how can you expect a man who--for the greater part of his life--has been eating mutton and damper, and drinking parboiled tea three times a day, to understand the art of good living? Even if he does, he finds it unappreciated by those around him; and there are few men fond enough of the luxuries of life to be singular in their enjoyment. It takes a lot of trouble to get and keep a good cook, and there is nothing the Australian abhors like trouble. Consequently--I am now speaking only of the wealthy--he adopts one of two courses.
Either he gives occasional grand dinners, in which case he imagines he has got a good cook because he is paying £60 or £70 a year for him--no very large salary even in England for achef; or he is contented to live anyhow. In the latter case he dines at his club (where, by the way, he gets a very fair meal) in the middle of the day, and has meat-tea in the evening. In both cases the family dinner is much the same. No. 1 cannot see the use of having what he would call a 'spread' for his own selfish benefit, and leaves his grand cook unemployed the greater part of the week. The dinner consists of beef or mutton, roast or boiled, potatoes and greens, bread-and-butter pudding, and cheese. The details change, but the type is always the same--what his wife calls 'a good plain English dinner, none of your unwholesome French kickshaws,' which are reserved for company. Fortunately his cook, if not very expert in the 'foreign' dishes required to be concocted for company, has generally pretty correct notions within the limits of the family dinner.
But it is not so with No. 2, and with the large middle class who all live in the same way. The usual female cook at 12s. a week is not even capable of sending up a plain meal properly. Her meat is tough, and her potatoes are watery. Her pudding-range extends from rice to sago, and from sago to rice, and in many middle-class households pudding is reserved for Sundays and visitors. A favourite summer dish is stewed fruit, and, as it is not easy to make it badly, there is a great deal to commend in it. At the worst, it is infinitely preferable to fruit tart with an indigestible crust.
Ye gentlemen of England, who sit at home at ease, how astonished you would be to see your daughter Maud, whose husband is a well-to-do lawyer in considerable practice, setting the table herself because she cannot rely upon her servant doing it properly! And then she goes into the kitchen, and teaches cook how to make pie-crust. If children are numerous, or her husband is not getting on quite so well as could be wished, she will not be able to have a servant to wait at table. What wonder, then, if she gives up late dinner and has a meat-tea, at which everything can be put on the table at once. A colonial-bred lady has generally learnt something of good plain cooking, but the English mistress often breaks down before the serious and multifarious nature of her duties. It is by no means uncommon for her to be suddenly left servantless for two or three days; and if she does not possess great adaptability of disposition, the whole house is bound to be at sixes-and-sevens, and all its occupants, including herself, in anything but a pleasant state of mind. If a woman is worth her salt, she will not mind these things, or rather she will make the best of them; but it is not every English young lady whose love for her husband, present or future, will carry her through these domestic hurricanes; and, if not, she had better not come out here, although husbands are plentiful. Except amongst a very small class who can afford luxuries, the girl-of-the-period is out of place in Australia.
I doubt whether in my preceding letters I have made the distinction between Melbourne and its sister capitals sufficiently plain. I shall perhaps best convey it by saying that Melbourne is quasi-metropolitan, while both Sydney and Adelaide are alike provincial in their mode of life. In the matters of which I have been writing, the difference has hardly been sufficient to warrant a separate treatment; but with regard to dress, it becomes so noticeable, that not to treat of Melbourne separately would convey a false idea. For in dress it is not too much to say that the ladies of Melbourne are luxurious-a charge which could scarcely be brought against Australians in any other particular that I can think of. And take them all-in-all, they do not dress badly; indeed, if one considers the distance from Paris, and the total want of a competent leader of fashion, they may be said to dress well, especially of late years. The highly fantastic and gorgeous costumes for which Melbourne used to be notorious are fast disappearing. Successful diggers no longer take their wives into a shop, and ask how much colour and stuff can be put into a dress for fifty pounds. Already outrageousness is confined to a few, and when I say that it is generally agreed to be 'bad form,' you will understand that its death-blow has been struck and the hearse ordered. Bright colours are still in vogue, but they are not necessarily loud or unpleasant beneath the austral sun, and the act of combining them is beginning to be understood. When one remembers how their houses are furnished, and what their general style of living is it is astonishing to find Melbourne ladies dressing so brilliantly and yet with so little vulgarity.
But it is not among thegrand monde--if the term be not ridiculous as applied to Victoria--that you must go to discover taste. I am not sure that, class for class, the rich do not show the least taste in their apparel. Many of them send to Paris for their dresses, and pay sums, which make one's mouth water, to be dressed in the latest fashion; but I fancy that the Frenchmodistesmanufacture a certain style of attire for the Australian taste, just as the French merchants manufacture clarets for the Australian market. It is a compound of thecocotteand the American. Nor when she has got a handsome dress does the Melbournegrande dameknow how to wear it; she merely succeeds in looking what a Brighton lodging-house keeper once defined to me as a 'carriage-lady.' A lady of the English upper middle-class dressed by a London milliner looks infinitely better.
There are some costumes worn by Victorian ladies which you will never see worn by any other ladies; but for all that, the middle and even the lower class am by no means destitute of ideas about dress. Compare the Melbourne with the Birmingham or Manchester factory girl, or the young lady in a Collins Street retail establishment with the shop-girl in any but the most aristocratic part of London; the old country will come out second-best. And why is it? It is no easy question to answer; at the bottom is undoubtedly that general love of display, which is almost as characteristic of Melbourne as it is of Paris. But then what is the cause of that? And a love of display, though it may be and is amongst the wealthy productive of grand dresses, as it is of grand dinners and grand furniture, does not make taste--e.g., the Second Empire; and though it would be going too far to say that the ladies of Melbourne dress tastefully, it is within the truth to give them credit for a tendency towards taste. Throughout England the middle and lower classes dress hideously. Why should the first generation of Victorians show a disposition to abandon the ugly? I leave it to some aesthetic philosopher to find out the reason, and content myself with noting the fact. If I wanted to moralize, I have little doubt that the drapers' and milliners' accounts of these 'young ladies' would furnish a redundant text, and that, although a large number of them make up their dresses themselves from paper patterns or illustrations inMyra's Journal. How they can afford to dress as well as they do, they and their mothers best know; but the bow here and the flower there are not costly things, and the mere fact of being able to cut out a dress so as not to look dowdy shows natural taste. It is the rarest of sights to see a real Melbourne girl look dowdy. Her taste sometimes runs riot: it is exuberant, and becomes vulgar and flash; but even then the vulgarity and flashness are of a superior type to those of her equals across the ocean.
Sydney and Adelaide are distinctly superior to English towns of the same size in the matter of apparel; but they will not bear comparison with Melbourne. On the other hand, gorgeous and flash dresses are very rare in the smaller cities. If they have not the talent of Melbourne, neither do they share its blots. They go along at a steady jog-trot, and are content to take their fashions second-hand from Melbourne, but with modifications. Their more correct and sober taste will not tolerate even many of the extravagances of which London is guilty--such extravagances, for instance, as the Tam O'Shanter cap, which was warmly taken up in Melbourne. But with all this good sense, they remain dowdy.
I have said nothing hitherto of married ladies' dress. When a colonial girl marries, she considers herself, except in rare instances, on the shelf, and troubles herself very little about what she wears. As a rule, she has probably too many other things to take up her time. She has got a husband, and what more can she want? He rarely cares what she has on, as soon as the honeymoon is over. There is no one else to please, and I fear that colonial girls are not of those who dress merely for themselves; they like to be admired, and they appreciate the value of dress from a flirtation point of view. Their taste is rather the outcome of a desire to please others than of a sense of aesthetics. It is relative, and not absolute. When once the finery has served its purpose, they are ready to renounce all the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. And if the moralist says that this argues some laxness of ideas before marriage, let him remember that it is equally indicative of connubial bliss. Once married, her flirtations are at an end--'played out,' if I may use the term.
In another respect the Victorian is the direct opposite of theParisienne. If you leave general effects, and come to pull her dress to pieces, you find that the metal is only electro, to whatever rank of life she may belong. The general appearance may be pleasing, but in detail she is execrable. Not but that the materials of her dress are rich enough, so that my electro simile will hardly hold water; but money does not make the artist. Let us begin with the bonnet. Walk down Collins Street at the time of the block on Saturday, and I doubt whether you can count half a dozen bonnets which are both pretty and suitable to the face and head of the wearer.Bien chaussée et bien gantéemight be Greek as far as Australia is concerned, and if by chance you see a stocking or any portion of the under-clothing, you will have your eyes opened. Whatever does not meet the eye is generally of the commonest. It would be thought a sinful waste of money to have anything particularly good or expensive which other people could not see. The light of Melbourne is never likely to hide itself under a bushel; external adornment is themot d'ordre. Ribbons and laces, or anything that helps to improve the look of a dress, the colonial lady will indulge in freely and even extravagantly; but you must not penetrate her tinsel armour.
Owing to the climate, hats are much more frequently in use than bonnets, and if the merit of subdued tints is unappreciated, it is not often that the eye is shocked by the glaring discords to which Englishwomen are so prone. Fringes are much worn, and the hair is often parted on the side. In spite of the heat,gants de suèdefind very little favour; they look dirty, and with a 25 per cent. duty cannot be renewed every day. The usual English fashions find their way to Melbourne in about eight months, and this is the more convenient, because your summer is our winter, andvice versa. Spring and autumn we agree to forget; this is rather a pity, because practically nine-twelfths of our year are spring and autumn, and on a bright July or August day the dress which is appropriate to a London fog in December looks singularly out of place. Sealskins and furs are worn till you almost imagine it must be cold, which during daylight it hardly ever is in this country. In summer, suitable concessions become obligatory, and dresses are made of the thinnest and lightest materials. Pompadour prints and white calicoes reign supreme, and look better than anything else. It is then that the poorer classes are able to dress best, the material being cheap. Winter stuffs are expensive, and to a great degree their effectiveness is in direct ratio to their cost; but during quite half of the Australian year the poor meet the rich, if not on an equality, at any rate on much fairer terms than at home with regard to dress.
Servants, of course, ape their mistresses' dresses as in England, and generally manage to produce a delightful sense of incongruity in their attire; but for all that, they are much less dowdy than English servants.
So much for ladies' dress. Change the sexes, and the picture is by no means so pleasing; for thorough untidiness of person, there can surely be no one to beat the Australian. Above all must one beware of judging a man's position by his coat. It is impossible to tell whether the dirty old man who slouches along the street is a millionaire or a beggar. The older his coat, and the dirtier his shirt, the more the probabilities are in favour of the millionaire. Perhaps he thinks he can afford to dress as he pleases. The city men are more careful of their personal appearance, and have kept up the shadow and image of London. They wear shiny frock-coats and the worst-brushed and most odd-shaped of top-hats, and imagine they are well-dressed; at least I suppose they do, for they seem to have a sort of contempt for the spruce tweed suits and round hats of 'new chums,' and such of the rising generation as have followed their example and adopted that fashion. Can you imagine yourself wearing a black coat and high hat with the thermometer jogging about from 70º to 110º in the shade? If the coat were decently cut, and of good cloth and well-brushed, and the silk hat well-shapen and neat, I might put you down a fool, but would admit your claims to be a dandy. But as it is, most of our city men are both uncomfortable and untidy. Their clothes look as if they had been bought ready-made at a slop-shop. The tie they prefer is a black bootlace; if not, it is bound to be of the most tasteless colour and pattern you can think of. A heavy gold watch-chain and diamond ring isde rigueur, but otherwise they do not wear much jewellery. Their hair, like their clothes, generally wants brushing, and hands and nails are not always so clean as they might be; but one knows that for the most part they tub every morning: this is a consolation.
The bushman, at least, dresses sensibly. Wen he comes into town, he puts on a slop-coat, but retains, if not a cabbage-tree, at any rate a wide-brimmed, soft felt hat. Sacrificing comfort to ceremony, he generally puts on a collar, but he often kicks at a tie: he finds he must draw a line somewhere. But there is something so redolent of the bush about him, that one would not have him otherwise; the slop clothes even become picturesque from the cavalier fashion in which he wears them. Note that his pipe never leaves his mouth, while the city man does not venture to smoke in any of the main streets. He is a regular Jack ashore, this bushman. A bull would not be more out of place in a china-shop, though probably less amusing and more destructive. The poor fellow meets so many friends in town, that by the end of the day he has probably had more nobblers than are altogether good for him. It is a very hard life that he leads, and he takes his pleasure, like his work, hardly.
If the Adelaidians are perhaps the least got-up, they are certainly the most suitably dressed of the inhabitants of Australian towns. With them the top hat is comparatively of recent introduction. Silk coats and helmets are numerous still, though becoming more rare every day. Melbourne and Sydney think itinfra dig.to allow themselves these little comforts, and Adelaide is gradually becoming corrupted. It must, however, be added that the Adelaide folk are the most untidy, as the Melbourne are the least untidy of Australians. Comfort and elegance do not always go hand in hand. Tweeds are beginning to come into use amongst the upper middle, as they long have in the lower middle and lower classes. Capital stuffs are made at Sydney, Melbourne, Ballarat, and Geelong; but the patterns are very common. In a dusty place like this it is impossible to keep black clothes clean, and tweeds give far the best wear and appearance of any stuff. For my own part, I wear them winter and summer.
The working-classes can, of course, afford to be, and are, better dressed than at home; for though clothes are in reality much dearer, they are much cheaper in proportion to wages. They do not often wear black coats in the week, but keep them for Sundays and grand occasions. Directly an immigrant has landed, he feels that his first earnings must be devoted to a Sunday go-to-meeting suit. His fellow-men all have one, and he does not like to feel himself their inferior, even with regard to a coat.
Hitherto I have been writing of the properties and adjuncts of Australian life. It is high time to say something of the colonists themselves. And, here I shall describe the types which the colony has produced and is producing, rather than such modifications as colonists born and bred in England have undergone during their subsequent residence in Australia--colonials as distinct from colonists.
Perhaps of their first stage of existence the less said the better. I have a holy horror of babies, to whatever nationality they may belong; but for general objectionableness I believe there are none to compare with the Australian baby. It is not only that the summer heat and sudden changes of climate make him worse-behaved than hisconfrèresover the ocean, but the little brute is omnipresent, and I might almost add omnipotent. Nurses are more expensive and mothers less fastidious than in England. Consequently, baby lives in the family circle almost from the time of its birth. Nurseries are few and far between. He is lashed into a chair by his mother's side at meals; he accompanies her when she is attending to her household duties, and often even when she is receiving her visitors. But if this were all I would say nothing. French children are brought up in a similar way; and in their case it certainly has its advantages as far as the child is concerned, whatever may be the inconvenience to the adults amongst whom it is brought. It is easy to avoid families whose children make themselves nuisances to visitors. But the middle and lower classes of Australians are not content with the baby's supremacy in the household. Wherever his mother goes, baby is also taken. He fills railway carriages and omnibuses, obstructs the pavement in perambulators, and is suckledcoram populoin the Exhibition. There is no getting away from him, unless you shut yourself up altogether. He squalls at concerts; you have to hold him while his mother gets out of the omnibus, and to kiss him if you are visiting her house.
It is little better when he gets old enough to walk and talk. Having once made the household bow down before him, he is slow to relinquish the reins of office. Possession is nine points of the law. It requires a stern parent to make good the tenth. If the child no longer cries or has to be kissed, he makes up for it in other ways. He has breathed the free air of Australian independence too early to have much regard for the fifth commandment. To make himself a nuisance till he gets what he wants is the art he first learns and to this end he considers all means legitimate. Strict anda fortiorisevere measures towards children are at a discount in Australia, and, considering the surrounding circumstances, by no other means can they be rendered tractable. The child has no restrictions put on his superabundant animal spirits, and he runs wild in the most extraordinary, and often to elders, unpleasant freaks. Certes the second stage is but little less unpleasant than the first,
When it gets into petticoats or breeches, the child must be treated of according to sex. And hereplace aux demoiselles, for from this time upwards they are a decided improvement upon their brothers. The Australian schoolgirl, with all her free-and-easy manner, and what the Misses Prunes and Prisms would call want of maidenly reserve, could teach your bread-and-butter miss a good many things which would be to her advantage. It is true that neither schoolmistresses nor governesses could often pass a Cambridge examination, nor have they any very great desire for intellectual improvement. But the colonial girl is sharper at picking up what her mistress does know than the English one, and she has more of the boy's emulation. Whatever her station in life, she is bound to strum the piano; but in no country is a good pianoforte player more rare, or do you hear greater trash strummed in a drawing-room. Languages and the other accomplishments are either neglected or slurred over; but, on the other hand, nearly every colonial girl learns something of household work, and can cook some sort of a dinner, yea, and often cut out and make herself a dress. She is handy with her fingers, frank, but by no means necessarily fast in manner, good-natured and fond of every species of fun. If her accomplishments are not many, she sets little value on those she possesses, and never feels the want of, or wastes a regret, on any others.
Almost all girls go to school, but the home-training leads to little obedience or respect for their teachers, and the parental authority is constantly interposed to prevent well-deserved punishments. Accustomed to form judgments early and fearlessly, each girl measures her mistress by her own standard; and if she comes up to that standard, anentente cordialeis established, the basis whereof is the equality which each feels to subsist independent of their temporary relations.
At seventeen my lady comes out, though for the last two, if not three or four, years she has been attending grown-up dances at the houses of friends, so that the edge of her pleasure has long been dulled. School once left behind, she looks upon marriage as the end and object of life; but it must not be supposed from this that she makes any attempt to catch a husband. Young men are plentiful enough, and she does not care when her turn comes. That it is bound to come she takes for granted, and accordingly is always on the look-out for it. The camaraderie which exists between her and some half-a-dozen men may lead to something with one of them; and meanwhile she has time to ascertain their dispositions and turn their qualities over and over in her mind till some one's attentions become marked, and she makes up her mind that she is suited or the reverse. She has danced too much before she came out to care much for it now; but in a warm climate, where verandas and gardens lend themselves so readily to flirtation, she retains a due appreciation of balls and parties, and gets a far larger number of them than an English girl of the middle class.
On the average, colonial girls possess more than their share of good looks; but 'beauties' are rare, and the sun plays the deuce with complexions. The commonest type is the jolly girl who, though she has large hands and feet, no features and no figure, yet has a taking little face, which makes you say: 'By Jove, she is not half bad-looking!' Brunettes are, of course, in the majority; and every third or fourth girl has beautiful brown eyes and an abundance of coarsish hair--which, by the way, she probably dresses in an untidy knob, all corners and no rotundity.
Her manners have lost the boisterousness of school days, but still often want toning down according to English ideas. Her frankness and good-fellowship are captivating, and you feel that all her faults spring from the head, and not from the heart. She is rarely affected, and is singularly free from 'notions,' though by no means wanting in ideas and in conversation of a not particularly cultured description. With a keen idea of the value of money and the benefits to be derived from its possession, she never takes it into consideration in choosing her husband: her ideal of whom is above all things 'manly'--the type that used to be known under the description of 'muscular Christians.'
In religion her views are not pronounced. She attends church pretty regularly, but is entirely free from superstition, though not always from intolerance. Adoration of the priesthood is not at all in her line. For politics she cares nothing, except in Victoria where naturally she espouses her father's side warmly, but in an irrational, almost stupid, way. Art is a dead letter to her, and so is literature, unless an unceasing and untiring devotion to three-volume novels be counted under that head. To music, according to her lights, she professes, and often feels, a strong leaning.
There is one thing about her that strikes you disagreeably in society. It is her want of conversation with ladies and married people. To a bachelor, to whom she has just been introduced, she will chatter away nineteen to the dozen; but, even in her own, house, she has no idea of the social duties. Marriage, in her opinion, is a Rubicon, which, once crossed, if it does not altogether debar from the pleasures of maiden and bachelorhood, at least makes it necessary for married folk to shift for themselves. To talk or dance with a married man would be a terrible waste of time; and as for married women, she expects to join that holy army of martyrs in the course of time, and will then be quite contented with the same treatment as she has meted out to others. The politeness which springs from a sense of duty to others is little known to the Australian girl. If she likes you, she will make herself very pleasant; but if you are not worth wasting powder and shot on, you must expect to realize that disagreeable truth in all its nakedness.
In many things a child, she often looks forward to her wedding for the mere festivity of the occasion, and thinks how jolly it will be to have six bridesmaids, how nice she will look in her bridal dress, and how the other fellows will envy her chosen one. Generally marrying two or three years younger than the English girl, she would consider herself an 'old maid' at twenty-three; and for old maids she entertains the very minimum of respect, in spite of their rarity in the colonies. Once married, she gives up to a large extent, if not entirely, the pomps and vanities of which she has had her full during spinsterhood, and devotes herself to her household, children, and husband. She usually has a large family, and in them pays for all the sins of her youth. She has had her fling, and for the rest of her life she lives but to serve her children and make them happy, recognising that in the antipodes 'juniores priores' is the adopted motto.
The Australian schoolboy is indeed a 'caution.' With all the worst qualities of the English boy, he has but few of his redeeming points. His impudence verges on impertinence, and his total want of respect for everybody and everything passes all European understanding. His father and mother he considers good sort of folk, whom he will not go out of his way to displease; his schoolmaster often becomes,ipso facto, his worst enemy, in the never-ceasing, war with whom all is fair, and obedience but the last resource. Able to ride almost as soon as he can walk, he is fond of all athletic sports; but it is not till leaving school that his athleticism becomes fully pronounced: thus reversing the order observed in England, where the great majority of the boys, who are cricket and football mad at school, more or less drop those pursuits as young men. He is too well fed and supplied with pocket-money ever to feel the need for theft, but it is difficult to get him to understand Dr. Arnold's views about lying and honour. Though not wanting in pluck, he lacks the wholesome experience of a few good lickings, and can easily pass his school-days without having a single fight. He is quarrelsome enough, but his quarrels rarely go farther than hard words and spiteful remarks. At learning he is apt, having the spirit of rivalry pretty strong in him.
In all but one or two schools classes are too much mixed to make a gentlemanly tone possible, and such little refinements as tidiness of dress are out of the question. When he is at home for the holidays, his mother tries to dig some manners into him (if she has any herself); but he has far too great a sense of the superiority of the rising generation to pay more attention to her than is exacted by the fear of punishment. Unfortunately, that punishment is very sparingly made use of; and when it is used, it takes a very lenient shape, public opinion being strongly against corporal punishment, however mild, and according to children a number of liberties undreamed of in the old country.
Indoors the Australian boy is more objectionable than the English one, because he is under less restraint, and knows no precincts forbidden to him. Generally intelligent and observant, he is here, there, and everywhere; nothing escapes him, nothing is sacred to him. Of course his further development draws its form and shape from his previous caterpillar condition, and when he comes to take his place in mercantile or professional life, he is equally disagreeable and irrepressible.
But such a young 'gum-sucker' must not be confounded with the ordinary middle-class Englishmen who form the majority of the professional and business men one comes in contact with in the present day. The native Australian element is still altogether in the minority in everyday life, and the majority of adults are English-born colonists. What modification then, you will ask, does the middle-class Englishman undergo in Australia? In some ways, a deterioration; in others, an amelioration. The deteriorating tendency shows itself in an increased love of dram--and especially spirit--drinking; in apparel and general carelessness; in a roughening of manner and an increase of selfishness. The improvement lies chiefly in greater independence of manner and thought, in a greater amount of thought, in enlarged and more tolerant views, in less reserve andmorgue, in additional kindness of heart, and in a more complete realization of the great fact of human brotherhood.
In Australia a man feels himself an unit in the community, a somebody; in England he is one amongst twenty-seven millions, a nobody. This feeling brings with it a greater sense of self-respect and responsibility. Altogether, then, it may be said that the balance of the modification is generally on the side of improvement rather than of deterioration. The Englishman in Australia improves more than he deteriorates. And this is the more true the lower you descend in the social scale. It may be doubted whether the really well-educated man--the 'gentleman' in short, to use the word in its technical sense of a man well born, well bred, and well educated--generally improves in the colonies. As a rule, I should say he deteriorates. He cannot often find a sufficiently large number of his equals within a sufficiently small area, nor keep sufficiently amongst them not to lose somewhat in manner and culture. He develops the breadth, as distinct from the depth, of his intellect. He learns a great deal which he did not know before from the life around him, but he also forgets a great deal which he has learnt.
The great tendency of Australian life is democratic, i.e. levelling. The lower middle-class and the upper middle-class are much less distinct than at home, and come more freely and frequently, indeed continually, into contact with each other. This is excellent for the former, but not so good for the latter. In the generation that is growing up, the levelling process is going much further. The small tradesmen's sons are going into professions, and the professional men's sons into trades. You have the same tendency in England, but not nearly to the same extent.