IN THE COLONY OF VICTORIA.
Melbourne Gleanings—Dr. Bevan—Night at a Bungalow—Cole’s Book-shop—A Day
at Sorrento—White Cruelty to the Aborigines—Coffee Palaces—Dr. Strong—The
Presbyterian Church in Collins Street—The Late Peter
Lalor—Ballarat—Romance of Gold Mining—Sydney and Melbourne
compared—Australian Rogues—Suburban Melbourne—Victorian M.P.’s—Victorian
Politics.
THE stranger who makes his first trip to Australia is not a little
astonished by the extreme cold which greets him as he nears his
destination. You hear so much of Australian heat that you are not a
little astonished to find the nearer you get to your journey’s end the
colder it becomes. In the tropics we had all given up warm clothing, but
as we reached Western Australia great-coats by day and blankets by night
came into fashion. People were wrapped up as if we were on the coast of
England rather than of Australia, and as to sleeping with the ports open,
that was quite out of the question. This is an admirable provision of
Nature. It gives us the advantage of having the body braced up before it
encounters the formidable heat which, according to all accounts, awaits
us on shore. Another thing that strikes a stranger, as he studies the
papers from all parts of the country, is the extraordinary difference in
the weather as recorded in different localities. For instance, I find at
Sydney the weather is described as delightfully cool, while at Adelaide
on the same day it is recorded as the hottest of the season. In one
district I read how the rain has come down in a perfect deluge, whilst in
another men and vegetables are dying from the want of water. At a town
in Queensland, the heat is so intense that many are dying daily of
sunstrokes, and the insurance agents have been telegraphed to not to
effect any more insurances, whilst in another locality I read of a heavy
fall of snow. The fact is, it is impossible to realize the size of the
Australian continent, twenty-six times larger than Great Britain and
Ireland, or the various kinds of weather to be met with, till you are on
the continent itself.
A pleasant trip of a day and a half from Adelaide, most of which time was
passed in sight of land, enabled us to reach Melbourne—marvellous
Melbourne, as it has been called—in time to go on board the _Lusitania_
and bid good-bye to Miss von Finkelstein, who is, she tells me,
wonderfully delighted with her Australian trip, and intends returning
again. She goes now as far as Port Said, and thence she makes her way to
Jerusalem. I then get into the train, and after a run of half an hour
along a flat district, partly waste and partly built over with little
wooden villas—prettily painted, each with its tiny garden, which seemed
to me to have a wonderful knack of getting burnt down every night—find
myself landed in the noble thoroughfare, which seems to me to run from
one end of the city to the other, known as Collins Street; and almost the
first person I meet—at any rate, the first one I recognise—is Dr. Hannay,
who is leaving by the next mail steamer, and who is looking very well,
though he tells me he has been much tried by the great heat of the last
fortnight. The dust and the sun are trying, and I get back to the ship
for dinner.
When next I go on shore it is Sunday morning, and a grateful breeze
awaits me as I make my way along picturesque and stately Collins Street—a
street which would be an ornament to London itself. The public-houses
are closed, the tramcars have ceased running, and the busy crowds that
block up the footways on the week-day are away. Instead of them there
are the church-goers—well-dressed, sedate, orderly—just as we may see
anywhere in England on the Sabbath. And if I miss the sound of the
church-going bell, I know not that that is an unmitigated loss—indeed, as
far as London is concerned in that respect, it always seems to me that we
may have too much of a good thing. On my left I pass a handsome Baptist
Church, which was crammed to suffocation when a short time since Rev. Dr.
Maclaren, of Manchester, was preaching. Further on I pass the fine Scots
Church, and on the other side of the crossing is the noble church of
which Dr. Bevan is the popular pastor, and where I tarry to admire the
cool and spacious structure, the appearance of the people, and the
eloquence of the preacher. It is the premier church of Victoria, and is
in every way worthy of its position. The people rejoice in an endowment
of £3,700 a year, all of which is turned to good purposes, and they give
at the doors as much as £1,500 a year, to say nothing of pew rents. It
is not in Victoria that you feel doubts as to the power of the Churches
to evangelize the land. Here, as all over the colonies, the Church of
England leads the way, and—as was to be expected when you remember what
an adventurous race of men the Scotch are—the Presbyterians occupy the
second place. The Wesleyans and the Congregationalists come next, and of
the latter body Dr. Bevan is the leader, and he seems to me to enjoy his
position to the utmost. He is the picture of health and happiness, and,
as I tell him, is to be likened rather to a wealthy archdeacon at home
than to a Congregational minister, as we know him, in a country where he
has to take—thanks to Parliamentary wisdom—rather a place in the second
rank. He and Mrs. Bevan alike seem to have renewed their youth in this
far-off land. A dealer in portraits of English celebrities, by-the-bye,
tells me that people often ask him if the portrait of John Bright he
displays is not that of the worthy Doctor. And, indeed, there is a
breadth and vigour in the Doctor’s sermons which naturally suggests to
the hearer the fiery eloquence of John Bright. Standing in his gown, on
his platform pulpit, the Doctor certainly carries all before him. His
audience seems to be wielded at his will, and his audience is a noble
one; men and women to whom the service of the sanctuary is not a form or
conventional observance or symbol of respectability, but a joy and
delight, which reminds one of what church-going was, in what to sceptical
and scientific London seems a far-off time, when Dr. Watts could write:
At once they sing, at once they pray,
They hear of heaven and learn the way.
What strikes me as a contrast to congregations I know nearer home is the
power of the audience. The people are in the prime of life, not decayed
and elderly, and the proportion of young men is great. In the evening
they make a grand show in the gallery—semi-circular, lofty, and airy.
And this is, remember, the summer season, when families rush off to the
seaside, and corresponds to the period when in London our churches are
thin, and when in New York and Washington, and the other great centres of
American life and energy, it is usual for the pastor to shut up his
church, and for the people to give themselves a Sunday rest—not in the
Jewish, but in the modern acceptation of that term. In the afternoon I
enjoyed the hospitality of one of the Doctor’s deacons, Mr. Johnson, who
has had the honour of making his handsome house the temporary residence
of Mr. Henry Lee, who is away preaching.
In every direction I look I see capacious streets with handsome houses,
all painted white, and broad streets which are lined for miles with the
dwellings of the Melbournites, while as you wander in wonder, every now
and then, beyond the glitter of the white houses, and the green foliage
of the public gardens, you see a thin silver streak of the blue bay. In
the evening, the Doctor will have me go home with him. We stop late, for
there are people waiting to see the Doctor in his private vestry; then we
catch the last tram to Camberwell—how funny the old name seems to us on
this Australian soil! Then we are driven home by the Doctor’s Jehu—who,
I fancy, has rather a good time of it, though, as a Roman Catholic, he
holds his master to be a heretic—and we have a welcome supper in a
veritable bungalow, large, and occupying its own grounds of thirty acres,
devoted by the Doctor to farming, on an interesting, but, I fear, rather
unprofitable, scale. At an early hour on Monday morning—for we have much
to talk of over our cigars, uncommonly fine ones, a present to the
Doctor—I am offered a choice of beds, of course all on the ground-floor.
I resolved to sleep in the one which has recently been tenanted by Dr.
Hannay, of whom everyone in Melbourne speaks well. As the Doctor shows
me to my bed and shuts down the window, I am idiot enough to say, ‘Any
snakes about here, Doctor?’ ‘Only a few black ones now and then,’ he
replies, in a light and airy way. But, alas! the Doctor’s words kept me
uncommonly wide awake that night.
One of the sights of Melbourne, the most marvellous I have yet seen, is
that known as ‘Cole’s Book Arcade,’ in Bourke Street, which is not merely
a place for the dissemination of knowledge, useful or otherwise, but a
reading-room as well, into which thousands enter, pick up a book, take a
seat, and read as long as they like without spending a farthing. Mr.
Cole himself, the owner, is a remarkable man. He hails from Ashford, in
Kent, and had been some time in the colony trying to make a fortune, but
with little success, and now evidently he has, to borrow an Americanism,
‘struck ile.’ As a compiler he has done some good work. His aim is to
publish the Library of the Future, to be composed entirely of the cream
of human thought and knowledge. To this scheme he gives the title of
‘The Federation of the World’s Library.’ It is to consist of one hundred
of the best books in the world; one book, the best of its kind, is to be
on astronomy, another on geology, another on geography, and so on. Each
book is to be complete of its kind, and highly condensed. It is easily
and perfectly done, he says. A moderate-sized song-book, he tells us,
holds all the best songs in the world; a moderate-sized wisdom-book—it is
a humiliating reflection—will hold all the wisest sayings in the world; a
moderate-sized book, carefully prepared, of astronomy, geology,
chemistry, botany, or any of the sciences, will give a clear knowledge of
the principles of each. Such a library, of 100 volumes of 600 pages
each, can be produced to sell at £10, thus bringing all the most
important knowledge and all the most beautiful thoughts within the reach
of every human being. He calculates that there are a million printed
poems in the world. The 1,000 best are worth the remaining 999,000 all
put together. Probably out of the 1,000 best there are 100 first-class,
300 second-class, and 600 third-class. Amongst the first-class Mr. Cole
reckons Gray’s ‘Elegy,’ Goldsmith’s ‘Deserted Village,’ and Longfellow’s
‘Psalm of Life.’ As a bookseller he asserts—and I am sorry to write
it—that it is read more, verse for verse, than the whole of Milton’s and
Homer’s poems put together. Mr. Cole tells me that, with the exception
of school books—always in demand—his principal sales are novels and
theological works. Of the latter he sells most of Talmage. Ward Beecher
does not go down so well. Perhaps the Australians in this respect
resemble some of the members of the Christian Young Men’s Association.
When last in London, Mr. Cole went to hear the great American lecture at
Exeter Hall. ‘Mr. Beecher ought not to be allowed to lecture here,’ said
someone to him. ‘Why so?’ asked Mr. Cole. ‘Because he is an infidel,’
was the charitable reply.
And what a sight Mr. Cole’s shop is, to be sure! especially at business
hours, when it swarms with buyers and readers. It is three stories high,
200 feet deep, and 40 feet wide. Its walks are a third of a mile long,
and its capacious galleries are supported by 140 brass pillars. The sign
of the establishment is the rainbow, which is to be seen painted
everywhere. A gorgeous rainbow ornaments the chief entrance in Bourke
Street. Inside daily may be seen hundreds of men, women, and children,
who really seem more numerous than they are in consequence of the seventy
mirrors with which the interior is decorated. There are twenty miles of
boards in the shelving, and 2,800 large cedar drawers. Altogether there
are 100,000 sorts of books, all well classified, so that the purchaser
can at once secure what he requires, and if he wants a selection he has
probably a million of books to choose from. New books, music, and
stationery occupy the ground-floor, second-hand books the next floor, and
on the top floor is a fine collection of china, glass, and other house
ornaments and knick-knacks. This flat is entirely devoted to the sale of
goods to beautify the interiors of houses, as books beautify the mental
interiors of their readers. If you want to get to the top, and you are
too tired and weary to walk, there is a handsomely-decorated lift at your
service, and if you require the solace of music there are free
performances given every afternoon and evening. Mr. Cole, to his credit
be it said, has prohibited, as far as he is concerned, the sale of Zola’s
novels, having struck them out of his list. I asked one of his
_employés_ to what religious body he belonged. I was amused with this
reply: ‘I don’t know; but he’s a very good man. I expect he is a
Dissenter.’ It is curious to find people who do not go to Episcopalian
churches spoken of as Dissenters in a land where there is no State
Church, and where all denominations are on an equality; but then this
particular young man had only left the Old Country a year and a half, and
had not got rid of his Old World ideas. As an illustration of the value
of property in Melbourne, Mr. Cole tells me that his rent is £1,000 a
year, that he has a lease of it for fifteen years, and that the
proprietor nevertheless had had an offer made him for the place of £5,000
a year. All round Mr. Cole’s premises are what he calls intellect
sharpeners, in the shape of extracts from what wise men have written in
favour of study and reading. This Australian Cole seems in his way to do
much to advance Australia.
One of the few places in Australia to which interesting associations
attach is Sorrento, and it is one of the places most patronised by the
Melbourne public. You leave Melbourne Port at half-past eleven, and you
arrive there at two. As the steamer returns at half-past three, you have
not much time for exploration, and in my own case I admit that time was
curtailed from perfectly natural causes. As I landed, the announcement
‘hot dinners’ met my eye, and gave me quite an appetite. I walked up the
cliff, found a comfortable and airy hotel at the top, and did justice to
a good half-crown dinner. Nor was I singular. I found many of my
travelling companions similarly disposed. One must dine, and you may as
well dine in comfort as not.
Everyone in Melbourne goes to Sorrento. I was in the former city on one
of the days when the heat is tropical, when the hot wind and the dust are
intolerable, when everyone in the city looks parched and weary; while the
wives and mothers and daughters at home draw down the blinds, fasten all
the doors to keep the hot air out, and sit metaphorically in dust and
ashes. In vain are scanty attire and cooling drinks; in vain are all the
resources of human ingenuity. The only thing to do is to take the train
to Melbourne Port, and then get on board the steamer for Sorrento, where
the temperature is always twenty degrees lower than in Melbourne. The
wind blows straight from Port Melbourne to the Heads; it has no heated
land to pass over on its way to Sorrento, and arrives there cool and
bracing from its contact with the salt water. On one side we have the
Bay, and on the other side the Southern Ocean, only a narrow mile of land
dividing them. It has a charming locality all round, picturesque cliffs,
and the sea. Traces of the old settlement are visible still. One of the
original wells sunk in 1803 has been opened for the use of the public,
and the shade of the scrub gives special advantage to picnic parties, for
which the whole picturesque extent of country round is admirably adapted.
It was here came the original settlers. One of the oldest, just carried
to his last long home, used to tell terrible stories of them. ‘Had you
any trouble with the natives in those days?’ asked an anxious inquirer.
‘Trouble!’ was the reply; ‘not me, poor things. Why, sir, they were as
harmless as babies. I have seen upwards of a thousand on ’em at a
corroborree on the Meni creek—that was their camping-ground then. Dear,
dear, poor things, they’re gone now, sir, gone; most on ’em shot off, or
put out of the way somehow else. If there is any questions asked when we
are dead and gone, some of our big squatting swells ull have some awful
posers to answer.’ Again, added the old man, ‘Take my word for it, sir,
the blacks were a harmless, good-natured lot till the cruelty of the
whites made ’em bad and revengeful, poor things; and who can blame ’em?’
The flour which they used was mixed with arsenic, and thus they lost in
many cases their lives and lands. In one case it was certain that a
native was shot by a celebrated _savant_ that he might have possession of
the native’s skull. There are few natives left now. Such humane
treatment has somewhat diminished their number. At all times it was a
puzzle what to do with them, as the following well-authenticated anecdote
shows. Two aboriginal children, separated from babyhood from aboriginal
life, were trained and educated like colonists. In the earlier years
little difference was noted, but as they advanced into boyhood, some
restlessness became apparent. Ultimately, when a native tribe happened
to come near, the children escaped, to taste once more the charms of
savage life. The Australians employ many of them, and make them useful
in many ways, but none of them rise to anything like a position in the
social scale, or evince any capacity of ever rising to become more than
hewers of wood and drawers of water. I have seen them usefully engaged
at such places as the Point Macleay Mission, in South Australia, but even
there I question whether they earn their own living. On one occasion I
crossed Lake Alexandrina in a sailing-boat managed by blacks, and I was
not drowned—which, however, does not say much for their nautical skill,
as the lake was as calm as a mill-pond.
But to return to Sorrento. The history of this place begins with the
discovery of the fine harbour of Port Philip by Lieutenant Murray, a
harbour of some forty miles in extent. The next year it was made the
site of a convict settlement under Governor Collins, who soon had enough
of the place, and started off for Tasmania. Eight convicts were missing
within a month of their arrival. Four were brought back and punished,
one was shot by a constable, and the three others, oppressed with hunger,
after wandering round the western shores of Port Philip, made fires to
attract the attention of their companions, but without success. Two of
them walked back to surrender themselves into the hands of justice, but
were never heard of after; and for a while the place was left to the
kangaroos and the natives, till there arrived on the scene Hamilton Hume,
a native-born colonist of New South Wales. In 1834 three gentlemen named
Henty established a whaling station at Portland Bay, and this was the
first settlement in Victoria. At this time, and for some time
afterwards, the natives were easily beguiled. As late as 1835 a John
Bateman, of Hobart Town, landed on the western shore of Port Philip, and
entered into a contract with the natives for 1,000 square miles of
territory for a few blankets to be given them every year. The Government
refused to sanction this iniquitous transaction. Nevertheless, the
natives were despoiled of their land—Governor Bourke annexed it in the
name of his Majesty. Melbourne, on the Yarra, was named after the
British Premier of that day, and Williamstown, where the grand boats of
the Orient and P. and O. Companies land and embark their passengers, had
the questionable honour of being named after our Sailor King.
Port Philip was a place rather given to joviality and adventure. Ladies
and children were rare. There was a marvellous consumption of brandy.
Manners, when visible, were rough. ‘The town,’ writes an old settler,
‘was bad, and the bush was worse.’ When a pious missionary of those
early times, prior to adventuring into the interior, inquired of a
squatter if the Sabbath was kept in the bush, ‘Oh yes,’ was the prompt
reply; ‘a clean shirt and a shave.’ ‘At the time of my arrival,’ writes
Mr. Westgarth, ‘all Melbourne-bound passengers were put out by their
respective ship’s boats upon that part of the northern beach of Port
Philip that was nearest to Melbourne, whence in struggling lines, as best
they could, in hot winds, they trod a bush-path of their own making,
which, about a mile and a half long, brought them to a punt or little
boat just above the Falls—which they crossed for the small charge of
threepence.’ There are people who still maintain that Melbourne is
planted on the wrong site, that Williamstown, with its healthful level,
might have been better, or Geelong; with its beautiful ready-made
harbour, and its direct access to all the superior capabilities of the
West and North-west. The traveller, as he runs down to Sorrento by an
excursion steamer, may, perhaps, agree with the critics. But, then,
Sorrento would never have had a chance. Now it is a place to spend a
happy day in, and many are the Melbournites who lodge in the vicinity. I
would have tarried there longer, but steamers—like time and tide—wait for
no man.
In one thing Melbourne beats London and all Australia put together, and
that is in the number and excellence of its coffee-palaces, which are a
real boon to the travelling public, and which may claim to have solved
the question how, by co-operation, to provide homes of comfort and luxury
for the great middle-class of the community. The Federal Coffee-Palace
in Melbourne is a remarkable illustration of what may be done in this
way. Instead of spending three or four pounds a week at an hotel, and
being expected to injure my health for the benefit of my landlord, I pay
half a crown for my bed—it is true it is high up on the sixth floor, but
then I go up and down by the lift, which is in active operation from
seven in the morning till midnight; I get a good breakfast in a handsome
apartment, served up by attractive young maidens in neat black dresses,
for which I pay one-and-threepence; I can have a good lunch for a
shilling; and my evening meal, with fish or flesh, costs about the same
sum. There is a café attached, in which I can have a cup of coffee or
some light refreshment at any time; a reading-room, if I require it; a
smoking-room, if I am given to that mild form of self-indulgence; and a
billiard-room, if I require a little exercise after the worry of the day.
As soon as I rise I have a comfortable bath, which is not an extra, as in
England. Nor need I fear being roasted alive, as half a dozen watchmen
perambulate the place all night. In England we have nothing of this
kind. We have large and grand hotels, but they are utterly beyond the
reach of persons of moderate means; and it is a question whether, in
these days when it is hard to get a decent servant-girl, something after
the plan of the Federal Palace at Melbourne might not be started in
London and our other big cities, not as a rest for the comfort and
delectation of the weary traveller, but as an associated home. It is
only in that way that the increasing difficulties connected with houses
and servants, and the cost of living in London, can be met and overcome.
The servant-girl in these coffee-palaces is far superior to her sister
who acts the part of maid-of-all-work in a London suburb. She is always
civil, always well dressed, always ready to oblige. She knows when her
work is over, and that is a great consideration. She has her day out
when she is off duty, and that keeps her in good temper all the rest of
the week. At all times her appearance and behaviour are respectable. I
have always found her cheerful and pleasant, much given to devoting her
spare time to novel-reading, which helps to keep alive romance in her
heart and preserve her youth. It is evident she is not over-worked in
the coffee-palace; she looks too well and flourishing. I hope she
marries well, and lives happily ever after. It seems to me that she
deserves a good husband and a good home.
On the Federal Coffee-Palace money has been spent with a liberal hand;
and it is run by a company, who find it, I believe, a commercial success.
All that is wanted is a little better management. Melbourne is a city of
fine buildings, and the Federal may vie with any of them as regards
external grandeur and internal accommodation. The freehold alone cost
£48,000, and the building and furniture for 400 sleeping-apartments, to
say nothing of the public rooms, must have cost at least £150,000 more.
Its tower, which is 200 feet high, is a landmark from all quarters. The
site is happily chosen, as the Federal is not only close to the terminus
of the railways, but is likewise in close proximity to the wharves on the
Yarra, which are now daily crowded with large and powerful steam-vessels
engaged in inter-colonial and foreign trade. The Custom House is near at
hand, and business-men and visitors can, by means of the cable tramways
in front of the palace, be speedily conveyed to any of the city suburbs.
It has a post and telegraph-office attached, and the popular firm of
Thomas Cook and Son have an agency in connection with it. Collins
Street, in which it stands, is the centre of trade and commerce. It is
there all the great companies have their headquarters, the papers are
published, and all the wealth and fashion of the city congregates. The
foundations of the new building, which enclose an area of half an acre,
were laid at an expense of many thousands of pounds. The underground
arrangements are admirable. One apartment is devoted entirely to
pastry-cooks; in another is a freezing-apparatus, in which meat, poultry,
and game may be kept fresh for a month or more. Another apartment is
devoted to grills; and the kitchens are connected with the floors above
them by several lifts, by which the cooked viands are noiselessly and
rapidly raised to the various sitting-rooms, and the dishes so returned
to the sculleries. As to the entrance, that must be seen to be
appreciated—wide folding-doors open into a grand marble vestibule, which
extends between massive columns into an interior hall. In the centre is
the principal staircase, leading to the first-class dining-room and the
upper stories. The area above is surrounded by galleries which serve as
balconies, where the lady-visitors and their friends may be seen sitting
all day long gazing on the busy crowd of arrivals and departures below.
You may be almost said to sleep in marble halls, and the beauty of it is
that all this splendour is not for the benefit of the bloated capitalist,
but for the comfort of the many.
One Sunday I had rather a strange experience. I went to the Presbyterian
Church in Collins Street, where there was a large congregation to listen
to a fine sermon by the reverend minister on the custom of the primitive
Church to have all things in common—a custom which the orator
conclusively showed to the satisfaction of his hearers, wealthy
Scotchmen, with few leanings towards Socialism in any form, was quite
exceptional, and was not to be dreamed of in these latter days. I had a
pair of gloves, which I laid down in the pew. When half-way out of the
church I recollected that I had left those gloves behind. I returned to
look for them, mentioning the fact to the gentleman who sat next me. On
rushing to where I sat I found a pair of gloves exactly similar to my own
at the back of the pew, and, concluding that they were what I sought,
returned in triumph. Just as I had got to the door a young man came and
claimed the gloves—and I gave them up—when, to my amazement, the same
gentleman (?) who had sat in the pew with me, and to whom I had mentioned
the loss of my gloves, handed my own over to me. It is true that the
sermon was about having all things in common, but I object to such a
practical application.
In Melbourne Dr. Strong, who was expelled from the Scotch church to which
I have already referred, is making the experiment of carrying on a church
without a creed. Apparently the attempt is a successful one. When I
attended the congregation was a large one, and the sermon very
interesting. It is a fine building in which they meet, and the people
seem to be highly respectable, as much so as I have seen anywhere. Dr.
Strong calls his place ‘The Australian Church.’ It seems to me, as far
as I can make out, that the wish is father to the thought. I see no
evidence in Australia that the people are discontented with the old ways,
or are ready for change. Men immersed in business and money-making as a
rule do not affect heresy; they are mostly conservative in politics and
religion. From what I hear, it is the personal influence of Dr. Strong
that has built the church and filled it. He is very popular with his
people. They followed him from his old church to his new one, but they
are not fanatics in favour of their new denomination, and I question
whether out of Melbourne there is sufficient population to be developed
into anything worthy to take the somewhat ambitious title of the
Australian Church. The Wesleyans, the Presbyterians, and the Church of
England, have already gone up and taken possession of the land, and they
are organized, which is half the battle. ‘Our people,’ said a colonial
bishop to me one day, ‘are not likely to be caught by the Salvation
Army.’ The Church has its own organization, and it is that which keeps
the flock from wandering. As long as they get something in the way of
religious worship they are content. People who belong to other bodies
tell me that the Church of England parsons are poor preachers, that they
are, many of them, men who have failed in other pulpits, or who have been
unable to pass the requisite examination, or whose characters do not
stand high—and certainly I have seen some queer specimens of the genus.
But then, says the devout worshipper, ‘we go to church to pray and to
worship God. The sermon is not the main thing with us, as it is amongst
the other religious bodies.’ It may be that he is wrong—I am not about
to contest that matter—but it seems to me that in Melbourne the better
preacher the man is the better does his church fill; and that if the
Church of England, or any other religious body, seeks to be successful,
due care must be taken that there is life in the pulpit. The stranger
would think Melbourne a very religious city; much more so than London, or
any town or city at home. The public-houses are strictly closed; the
trains do not run till two o’clock. There is no Sunday newspaper
published (in Sydney there are two, and both pay well). Except for the
well-dressed crowds on their way to their favourite church (they are all
churches here—Little Bethels and Mount Zions are unknown), and the church
bell, you would think such places as Sydney and Melbourne on a Sunday
morning the cities of the dead. Walking along Bourke Street one Sunday
evening—a street always black with pedestrians at that time—I saw a crowd
hanging about the door of a theatre. I went in and found a place full of
real working men in their working attire, who had come to enjoy a
religious discussion. I got in only at the end, and heard but the
orthodox reply from a gentleman who talked a good deal about matter and
space, and the operations of the one great God, who had revealed Himself
to man in the person of Jesus Christ. The crowd sat listening patiently
till nine o’clock, when the gas was turned off, and they lit their pipes
and went home. I heard some speaking of the objector, whom I was too
late to hear, as a very clever fellow; but the mass seemed quite
indifferent. I spoke to one or two of the hearers, whose minds seemed a
perfect blank. There was no praying, no singing, no attempt to attract,
no pale youth with a concertina, no tender maiden to sing a solo. In
London the thing would have been a failure. Here the working man has his
beershop and club, and his penny paper. In Australia he has nothing of
the kind, and he is open to conviction even if it comes to him in a
secularist form.
There has lately passed away a man well known in Victoria as Peter Lalor.
He was an Irishman, and lived to be Speaker of the Victorian Parliament;
but it was as a revolutionist that he gained his true fame. When the
news of the discovery of gold in Ballarat filled that district with
seekers from every part of the world, Mr. Peter Lalor was one of the
first to put in an appearance. Melbourne and Geelong were almost emptied
of their male inhabitants. Government was at its wit’s end how to
preserve order among the young community. In 1855, the Government
promulgated the right of the Crown to the gold, and issued licenses to
the diggers. With a view to keep back the crowd, the license fee was
increased from £1 10s. to £3 a month. This was more than the hardy
gold-diggers could stand. They were not represented in Parliament, and
they took the law into their own hands after their patience had been
exhausted by the insults of the martinets in office, who were sent to see
that they had all the requisite licenses, and to whom hunting the diggers
was a pleasant sport. The Gold Commissioners, as they were called, were
frequently corrupt, and always insolent and overbearing. At length
matters came to a crisis. A digger got killed in a house that did not
bear a good character, and the landlord was considered to have been a
participator in the murder. The man was tried with others, and
discharged. In their indignation over the untimely end of a chum, the
diggers subscribed, and had a new trial. It was while holding a meeting
for this purpose that they came into collision with the police, who were
guarding the hotel. The place was burnt down, and three of the
incendiaries were imprisoned. Another meeting was then held to demand
the release of the prisoners, and at the same time to claim manhood
suffrage, and other political and social reforms. Soon, losing all
confidence in the Government, they began to drill and arm. Fighting
commenced in real earnest under the flag of the Southern Cross. They
were attacked, and amongst the wounded was their general, the late
Speaker, Peter Lalor. The eyes of the blind were opened. Government, in
time, learned to act rationally, and the result was, Ballarat became the
centre of a law-abiding people—a people, nevertheless, given over to the
worship of the golden calf. ‘I remember it,’ said a man to me yesterday,
as I wandered along its streets, down which a whirlwind of white dust was
unpleasantly blowing, ‘when there was only one house in the town; when it
was all gum-trees and tents. There,’ said he, pointing to a particular
spot at the entrance of the town—‘is where the Welcome Nugget was found;
it was worth £5,000, and was discovered by a couple of diggers who had
barely been earning their living for months. There,’ he continued, ‘I
had a miner’s right; I sold it for £50 to the present owner, of whom a
syndicate has been trying to buy it for £40,000. Them was hard times. I
remember when I walked twelve miles to a store, and could only bring back
a pound of butter, and that was a favour.’ But most of the miners lost
their money as quickly as they made it. ‘In 1860,’ he added, ‘I was
ready to go home, but in 1861 I was up a tree.’
Ballarat has now settled down into a rather humdrum sort of city, with a
population of about 50,000. The diggers are mostly dead or gone, and few
traces of them remain, save in the turned-up earth outside the town,
where there are traces still remaining of what they called shallow
digging. On a hill just outside, also, it is evident that there has been
a good deal of soil turned up, or turned out, in the search for gold, but
no alluvial deposits exist; gold, if found, is only found in quartz, and
that has to be crushed, and the gold eliminated by machinery of a very
complicated and costly character, to secure which a company has to be
formed, and then the returns, in the shape of dividends, are generally
small. It is unhealthy work, too, in the mines, and I was not surprised
to find that many of the men had left, and taken to farming instead. Any
morning in the week you will find a lot of agents and brokers in the
Ballarat Mining Exchange, ready to do a little business in the way of
speculation, and that is, perhaps, all that remains to testify as to what
Ballarat was in its golden age. As to the riotous living of the past,
that is a matter of tradition. The fact is, Ballarat has had its day.
Where the carcase is, there the eagles gather, and little of the carcase
is left in Ballarat. Mount Morgan and Broken Hill are now names of
greater power. Ballarat has an Episcopalian bishop. The Wesleyans and
Presbyterians are very strong in the town. The Roman Catholics and the
Congregationalists are also in evidence. Somehow or other I missed the
Episcopalian place of worship; but with its schools and other buildings,
with its wood warehouses and stores, I felt how great had been the
change, how sober and quiet had become the Ballarat of to-day. ‘We shall
meet again, sir,’ said my unknown friend, in a tone the honesty of which
deeply affected me—‘we shall meet again, sir, some day. Let us hope it
will be in the right place.’
Of the romance of Ballarat one gets a good idea from a story which I
found in a newspaper which will certainly interest the general reader.
The history of one of the Ballarat claims, called the Blacksmith’s Claim
because its first owner belonged to this craft, reads like a page of
romance. The blacksmith, with a party of eight, all novices, sank the
shaft in so irregular and unworkmanlike a manner, that it was absolutely
at the risk of his life that a man made the descent to the bottom.
Without opening out a regular drive they washed all the stuff within
reach, and after realising £12,800 offered it for sale, but so wet and
rotten was the ground, so badly sunk the shaft, that at first no
purchaser could be found. At last a party of ten plucked up courage and
bought all right and title to the claim and tools for £77. They entered
into possession at noon on Saturday, and long before the sun had set had
in their possession £2,000 worth of gold. By working day and night in
spells till the following Monday they raised this to £10,000. Then,
after the usual reckless manner of lucky diggers, they left this mine of
wealth, and went on the spree for a week. Their tenants made good use of
the time at their disposal; they opened up two drives; and before the
week was out were the happy possessors of £14,400, all taken out of the
claim. The other party then returned, and after a week’s work, during
which they realized £9,000, they sold out to a storekeeper for £100, who
put in a gang to work on shares, and these, labouring in a desultory
fashion for a fortnight, took but £5,000. At the end of that time, one
of the party, an old hand from Van Diemen’s Land, undermined the props,
and next morning on returning to work the men found the whole of the
workings had fallen in. The rest of the party appeared to have taken
this misfortune very calmly, and to have completely abandoned the claim,
for no mention is made of their further proceedings; but it is related
how the author of the mischief coolly marked out a claim 24 feet square
on the top of the ruin, and working with a hired party, sunk a shaft
straight as a die for the gutter. The first tubful of wash dirt they
found turned out 40 lb. weight of gold, and the next two averaged 10 lb.
each, and as Ballarat gold was and is superior to any other at all times,
fetching at least £4 an ounce, those three bucketfuls of earth were worth
£2,880 to their fortunate possessor. Altogether, out of that small area,
hardly larger than a good-sized room, was taken in a few weeks gold worth
nearly £30,000.
Round Ballarat the country is rather prettier than is the average of
Australian scenery. All the way from Geelong, situated rather charmingly
at the bend of a pretty bay, which is bound to become a fashionable
watering-place, the land rises till you nearly reach Ballarat, when you
go down a slight incline. The soil is good, and there are many
twenty-acre farms, and the heat is not so great as in Melbourne. Out of
the town there is a fine sheet of water, devoted to boating and black
swans, and there is a botanical garden, in which I own I was somewhat
disappointed, though everyone (perhaps it was for that very reason) said
it was one of the places which I was bound to go and see, and which would
delight me greatly. The Ballarat people, I was told in the train, were
hospitable. It may be so, but I can bear no testimony on that point, as
none of their hospitality was extended to me. My only experience of them
was at an ordinary at the principal hotel, and there I was not
particularly gratified, as conversation seemed quite out of the question.
Now I come to think of it, that must have been through fear of the head
waiter, who certainly was a very superior personage indeed, and was much
better got up than any of his guests. Be this as it may, it was with
little regret that I got on board the train and left the Golden City,
with its green foliage, its red-brick houses, its white town-hall, its
awful dust, its broad streets, and its rough pedestrians, far behind.
Anthony Trollope tells us that no one who has ever paid Sydney a visit
will leave it without a tear or a regret. I confess I had no such
feeling as I got into a hansom and drove down to the _Liguria_—a ship
dear to many—which is to be known no more to Australian friends, as her
destination henceforth is to be South America; but she took me safely to
Melbourne, where I landed, to be more than ever charmed with the busy
city and its people, a city and a people who believe themselves destined
to the leadership of these sunny lands. Sydney is too old, they say,
handsome as it is in parts, and Brisbane is too hot, to be in the
running. As long as Sydney is faithful to Free Trade she will be a great
emporium of commerce; but the democracy rule in Sydney, and the democracy
all the world over have lost faith in Free Trade. Sydney has little to
boast of besides its unrivalled harbour, lined with health resorts where
wealth, and beauty, and fashion congregate, and where all the residences
are of the most captivating character—white villas with verandas, rising
out of green lawns shaded by tropical plants, and gorgeous with tropical
flowers, in bloom, at any rate, the greater part of the year—where the
blue waves ever murmur underneath. I must own, too, that some of the
shops in Sydney are far finer than any to be seen in Melbourne; and the
post-office at Sydney is, perhaps, the noblest building of the kind to be
seen anywhere. A similar remark applies to the Town Hall, completed
after I left. But Melbourne has, in Collins Street, a unique and stately
thoroughfare, such as can be seen nowhere else—a street as gay of an
afternoon as Regent Street, and as difficult in crossing, owing to its
swarming traffic, almost as Cheapside. Sydney has no such show; and the
Melbourne ladies tell me that it is to that place that the Sydney drapers
come for the latest fashions. It seems to me that there is a great deal
more drinking in Sydney than in Melbourne. Almost every other house you
come to is an hotel, and it has its bar, where, under the presidency of
two or three rather showy damsels, the drinking goes on all day. In both
cities there is apparently more drinking than in London, except in the
poorest quarters, affected by the beggar, and the pauper, and the tramp,
by depraved men, and women infinitely worse. But for Melbourne and
Sydney a defence may be made which is not available at home. The
population in both cities is of a very migratory character; a large
number of men spend their time in passing from one colony to another, and
in this way they make many acquaintances, and when they meet they have a
drink. In Sydney the fashion is to hand you the bottle and let you help
yourself. The landlord finds it to his interest to do so. The customer
takes less than the landlord would give him for his sixpence. The
customer knows that he has the day before him, and that it will not do to
get exhilarated too soon. There are drinks awaiting him with other
friends at other bars and at other hours, and so he takes as little
whisky as he can in his glass. Superficially, Melbourne seems the more
moral town, but so far as my experience goes all cities are much alike.
Chicago proudly boasts that it is the wickedest city in the world, but I
much doubt its claim to that bad pre-eminence. I only met one shady
character there, and he was an Englishman. That there are rogues in
Melbourne I readily admit. As I was passing up Bourke Street looking for
a place to rest in till my friend’s carriage, with his lady, was to call
for me to take me to his handsome suburban residence, a well-dressed man
accosted me with an inquiry as to how I had been enjoying myself since I
landed from the _Liguria_. Having replied, I said I was going to have a
cup of coffee and a cigar in a handsome _café_ just opposite where we
were standing. After I had been seated a few minutes he made his
appearance to tell me that he was staying at the Melbourne Club,
membership of which is the sign and seal of the most extreme
respectability; that he was going to England in the _Austral_ (I had told
him I was going in that ship to Adelaide) in consequence of the delicacy
of his wife’s health, and that he wished me to come along with him to
introduce me to a few friends. I went with him, and in a few minutes was
seated in the bar-room of an adjoining hotel, refusing every offer to
have a drink. A man came up to my friend with a bill, requesting
payment, as he was hard up. Accordingly my gentleman put his hand in his
pocket, pulling out three or four sovereigns. Alas! he was a sovereign
short. Could I lend him one? Unfortunately I could not. ‘Could I lend
him half-a-sovereign?’ I again deplored my inability to do anything of
the kind.
‘It does not matter,’ he said. Turning to the man he continued, ‘Come
over the way and I will get the money,’ and away he went, telling me he
would be back in five minutes. I waited ten, but it is needless to say I
saw him no more. Leaving the pub, I met a policeman.
‘Have you any rogues about here?’ I asked.
‘I should say we had,’ replied the policeman, with a grin; ‘why, last
month we had one out here from New York. He said he thought he knew the
ropes pretty well, but he felt like a child out here.’
If this policeman’s tale be true, Melbourne must indeed be marvellous in
more senses than one. To my mind the most marvellous part of Melbourne
is to be found in its suburbs. Melbourne is fortunate in this respect.
All along the seashore the coast is lined with handsome residences, quite
equal in every respect to those of our London merchant princes. At one
of them, where I spent a couple of happy days, I found residing in wealth
and comfort a son of the well-known and still-lamented, in Nonconformist
and Liberal circles, Mr. Grimwade, of Ipswich. He calls his place
Harleston, the name of the little sleepy East Anglian town in which he
was born. The colonists love the old English names. In the aristocratic
quarter known as Toorak I spent a pleasant day with Mr. Murray Smith, the
one man whom all the Victorians regard as the most refined of gentlemen,
and most able of politicians. In London, as some of my readers may
remember, Mr. Murray Smith, as Agent General, was quite as much a social
success as he is at home. He calls his place Repton, in memory of his
old Derbyshire Grammar School. I discovered the Rev. J. J. Halley, the
energetic secretary of the Australian Congregational Union, living in a
pretty villa at Camberwell, which he ventures to call Irwell, a stream to
most Englishmen who have ever been at Manchester, somewhat dark and
malodorous. It is thus the colonists keep up the tender memories of
their far-off native land. As in New South Wales, so in Victoria, a good
deal of attention is turned to politics. In the latter colony the
Parliament lasts three years, and a general election was at hand; but the
worst of it is, that while the people are in many quarters determined to
have a fight, in reality there is nothing to fight about. I attended
what was advertised as a monster meeting of the Liberal party, but the
attendance did not consist of more than 400, and the speaking was, at any
rate, not up to the English level, though one speaker did somehow manage
to close with an irrelevant peroration, in which he invoked the spirit
which in England had carried Catholic emancipation, had removed the Test
and Corporation Acts, and was prepared to do justice to Ireland—and this
was in connection with a meeting called to support the Liberal platform,
the main article of which is protection to native industry and a stock
tax for the farmer, who complains bitterly of the way in which New South
Wales and Queensland beef is poured into the home market. It seems
strange to read of a candidate appealing to the electors for support as
‘A Liberal and Protectionist.’ But the fact is, in Victoria everyone is
a Protectionist, and on the vital issues of the past the community is now
at one. A coalition Government is in office, and it is hard to see how
any other can exist. A nationalist party is now in course of formation,
which has for its object Australian unity, to be accomplished by free
inter-colonial interchange. In the meanwhile the Liberals seem to have
only, to fight about the constitution of the present Government—their
chief complaint being that the Liberal element in it is not sufficiently
strong.
Zeno tells us that a man has two ears and one mouth, that he may say
little and hear much. Australian M.P.’s are quite of a different way of
thinking. Of the late Victorian Parliament, a critic in _The Melbourne
Argus_ writes that during its existence ‘the worst elements in the
Assembly have had sway instead of the better.’ Of all methods of
blocking business, none is so plausible as that of moving the adjournment
of the House. In nine cases out of ten, a review says, such motions
result in a mere waste of time. Another nuisance is the habit of
speaking often and long, as every member is entitled to speak once on
every question before the House, and as often as he likes when in
Committee. This kind of obstruction is raised into an art, and is called
‘stonewalling.’ As to indecent language, I find one M.P. calling a judge
of a neighbouring colony ‘a ruffian and a scoundrel, and a bloody-minded
man,’ referring to the Chief Secretary as being ‘as ignorant as a pig on
the subject,’ and, in short, acting as much like an Irish patriotic M.P.
at home as was possible. Again, I found a gentleman who was afflicted
with heart disease, and whom nothing but a sense of duty kept at his
post, is referred to by an honourable M.P. as follows: ‘But nobody takes
any notice of a dying man. He is going to be wafted aloft.’ Again, a
Mr. Jones, referring to a Mr. Reid, said: ‘The Hon. Member for Fitzroy
with his cavernous mouth could laugh louder than the rest of the
Assembly. That cavernous mouth of his was the only thing the hon. member
had to connect him with other people. He had a mouth to laugh at a joke,
but no brains to originate one.’ Again, another M.P. spoke of Sir Graham
Berry as ‘that miserable old counterfeit, that white-haired political
rogue, that bandy-legged old schemer.’ After this it is not surprising
to read how the same orator, in the course of a scene which occurred on
his being called to order, spoke of a fellow M.P. as one who had tried to
diddle a barmaid out of threepence! It really seems as if Parliamentary
institutions had become effete. In New South Wales the Dibbs Ministry
has already been hurled from office. I have seen alike its rise and
fall, and it is evident that at Sydney, as in Melbourne, the
obstructionists will be strong enough, not to do any good themselves, but
to interfere with anyone wishing to achieve any good for the colony
whatever.
The Trades Political Platform made its appearance at Melbourne when I was
there. It consists of fifteen planks, the chief of which are the
maintenance and extension of protection to local industries, the
extension of the same principle to the farming and grazing industry by an
adequate increase in the duty on imported cereals and stock, the
representation of labour on public boards and the commission of the
peace, an Eight Hours Legislation Bill (in Victoria the shops are closed
at an early hour by Act of Parliament), the abolition of plural voting,
the introduction of a Bill to prevent criminal and pauper labour in the
community—rather hard this, in a colony where the pauper desires to work,
and, able-bodied as many of her paupers are, is really qualified for
labour—the extension of the franchise to seamen. Women voters are
favoured by the Liberals, though there is a good deal to be said on the
other side of the question. As it is, the women do interfere. For
instance, amongst the Melbourne candidates is a gentleman who has
unfortunately acquired an undesirable reputation. The ladies have met,
and resolved that he is not a fit and proper person to represent a
respectable constituency. The gentleman in question sneers at the
meeting as a hole-and-corner one, but I find several ministers of
religion took part in it. Indeed, I think all denominations were
represented with the exception of the clergy of the Church of England,
who are as little inclined to co-operate with other bodies out here as
they are at home. As a further indication of the political opinion
forming in the Australian colonies, I note that many of the candidates
for Parliamentary election are in favour of a tax on absentees, which,
however, is but a small matter after all, as there is a growing tendency
on the part of wealthy colonists to remain out here rather than settle in
the old country. I question whether in the colonies there is much chance
of the ‘One man one vote’ being carried. It finds no favour in the
Second Chamber, to which here, as at home, many sober people look as the
bulwark of constitutional freedom. The worst thing I know about
Melbourne is its gambling. _The Melbourne Daily Telegraph_, writing of
the last grand race—the race which the ladies make the occasion of the
display of all that is novel or charming in toilettes, estimates the bets
made with the bookmakers between Derby Day and Steeplechase Day as
amounting to £700,000, and calculates that ‘the stakes, the cost and keep
of the horses, the revenues of the _five hundred racing clubs_ of the
colony, the expenditure of its army of bookmakers, and other forms of
expenditure,’ will bring the racing budget for the year up to £800,000
sterling. We in England are bad enough in this respect I admit, but
there is no reason whatever why Australia should follow a bad example.