AUSTRALIAN MANNERS.
Governor King, when in Australia in that administrative capacity, wrote
in a despatch of his instituting an orphan school:--
"It is the only step that would ensure some change in the manners of the
next generation. God knows this is bad enough."
That was in 1801.
I made diligent search, and that is the last evidence I could find of
hope having been entertained for Australian manners.
My observations during the last few months have convinced me that the
average Australian simply doesn't know the meaning of the word. One
thing that struck me most forcibly is the despicable habit of cadging
invitations to the best social functions. I find that it is quite a
common thing for a citizen who has been neglected in the case of a big
ball to ring up the gentleman in charge of the invitation list, and
remind him of the omission. This willingness to humiliate oneself in
order to gratify social ambition was a revelation to me. Another thing
that left me dumb with astonishment was the boorish behaviour of your
women in the trams. I have repeatedly seen an alleged lady compel a man
to occupy an uncomfortable seat rather than move up a little to make
room for him. A glaring example of this ill-mannered selfishness came
under my notice only the other day. A bejewelled female sat on an
outside seat with about a foot of spare space on either side of her. A
man got in, and jambed himself between her and the end of the seat. The
man on the other side of her moved up to allow the society dame to shift
along, but not she! She just stuck there, and ignored her unfortunate
fellow passenger altogether. It would be difficult to find any country
in the older and more cultured world in which the common decencies of
civilisation would be so completely ignored.
Nobody ever considers the convenience of others. People in the streets
of every civilised portion of the world--I don't say every "other"
civilised portion of the world--walk on the right-hand side of the
footpath. If one of them happens to be eccentric or possessed of the
anti-social instinct or overcome by any cause and obstructs the traffic
by walking on the wrong side, he is promptly checked by authority in the
guise of a policeman. But in the streets of Sydney there is no such law
and order. The public wander over the footpaths like sheep--and with the
same directing intelligence. The result is that instead of there being
two clearly defined streams of traffic on each footpath there is a
struggling, chaotic mass. Under intelligent discipline, and with a
people possessed of decent manners, the immense London crowds that fill
the streets around the Bank and the Exchange and the Mansion House flow
to and fro to their destinations like trains in a railway yard. But in
Sydney, where only a comparatively handful of people fill the streets,
all is confusion. There being no rule of the path, there is no order.
There being no manners, there is no mutual courtesy to ease the
position. There being no chivalry, the women get hustled, and the
elderly and weak bumped and injured. The police never interfere until
somebody is assaulted, and, as may be expected with chaotic traffic
regulation and ill-mannered people, this is not an infrequent
occurrence. But the moment the offender has been dragged off the police
retire to their places by a verandah post, and the same old rabble again
fills the footpaths. Considering that the police do not control the
vehicles, it is scarcely surprising that they permit the pedestrians to
wander where they will. Carts and horses take any course they like. One
never hears of anybody being prosecuted for driving on the wrong side of
a Sydney street. A London policeman could not believe his eyes were he
suddenly transported into an Australian city at a busy hour of the day.
As an example in chaos and ill-manners, the Government provides the
public with a tramway system. The tramcars do not run on the wrong side
of the road. I'll say that for them. But they commit every other offence
against civic management that it is possible to think of. It would be
difficult to find any tramways in the world in which the passengers are
treated less considerately. The old motto of Boss Tweed, the Tammany
leader, was, "The public be damned," and the Government of New South
Wales seems to have adopted it for its tramway department. As may be
expected, accidents are frequent. It is scarcely possible for anybody
who has not visited Australia to picture what this means--a badly
managed tramway service, run by badly-mannered officials, and carrying
about double the number of badly-mannered passengers. An old time
bear-pit must have been a refined assemblage as compared with a Sydney
tramcar.
The bad manners of the people are manifest in other places besides the
trams and trains and ferries. It is impossible to find a woman who will
stand aside to let others in or out of a passage way. One of the most
common experiences is to find two or more women standing in front of the
turnstile to talk while 50 or 100 persons miss the ferry. The same thing
occurs at the doors of all the elevators in places of business, and at
the railway wickets. On the tramways, men and women alike rush the
doors the moment a car stops, utterly careless of the passengers who
wish to alight. In the restaurants customers place parcels, umbrellas,
even hats, on the tables. Whether other customers have any elbow room or
room for their plates doesn't trouble them one jot. Nobody ever
apologises in Australia. One gets used to that after one's toes have
begun to get callous from frequent treading on by strange feet. One's
dress may be spoilt by a passing painter or by a fellow dancer at a ball
overturning a cup of coffee, but one never hears an expression of
regret.
The culmination of Australian bad manners was probably reached when the
New Year of 1908 was ushered in. Australia on New Year's Eve follows the
silly practice of hanging about the streets of the city generally doing
nothing. But this time it did something. It let off fireworks. It blew
horns and otherwise made a fool of itself. And eventually growing tired
of making a fool of itself, it proceeded to make a hog of itself. The
women, I understand, were as much to blame as the men at the outset.
What followed cannot be related, but the Saturnalia of Ancient Rome, the
Bal des Quartz Arts, and the worst of the orgies of seventeenth century
rural England all found excellent imitations in the streets of Sydney
that night.