few caves; New Zealand has the geyser district, and a glacier or two,
but there is nothing of predominant interest in either country, as you
will find in Egypt, or India, and in many other countries. The natives
here are not interesting; they remind you a good deal of country-town
negroes in the United States, although in a way they are superior to
the negroes, and superior to our Indians. After the Maoris have seen
the stage, the boat or the railroad train go by, they have apparently
completed their work for the day. In the old countries, the tourists
are interesting; but there are few tourists here: we have seen only New
Zealanders and Australians out for a holiday. Of brides and grooms we
have seen hundreds; if a woman never gets another one, she usually gets
a trip when she is married. We have seen a few Englishmen, but they
are usually here looking for opportunity to make money, not to spend
it.... Wherever I have seen natives I have detected a peculiar odor.
An Auckland woman with whom we traveled in the mountains, says the odor
comes from dried shark-meat, which the natives are always eating....
Last night, while looking out of my window at the lady bartenders in
the Empire Hotel, directly across the street, a negro man went by. He
is the only negro I have seen since leaving home. He was well-dressed,
and seemed to be prosperous.... The streets are somewhat narrow in
Wellington, and the Empire Hotel, across the way, greatly interests
me; I am more familiar with its guests than with the guests of the
Grand. And as soon as darkness sets in, I can see the lady bartenders;
the electric lights in the barroom render their every act visible. To
me it is indescribably funny to see a woman working on the inside of
a bar. Last night a patron gave one of the two a bouquet of flowers,
and she handled it as gracefully as a society queen.... In the
United States, a hotel or restaurant waiter looks almost as tough as
a hackdriver, but here they are fine-appearing men. Many of them are
elderly; they seem to have spent their lives as waiters. The man who
waits on us in the dining-room of the Grand might be a congressman,
so far as looks go, and I have never before known an equally capable
man of his calling. How the Grand affords it all at three dollars a
day, I cannot understand. The price is 12 and 6, which appears to be
$3.12 in our money, but it is really $3, since a shilling is worth
only twenty-four cents. The Grand is the best hotel in Wellington, and
probably in the Dominion. Wellington is full of hotels, and probably
the competition is so strong that the Grand is compelled to keep
its prices down.... New Zealand pays a good deal of attention to
tourists, and the government extensively advertises the hot lakes and
the glaciers; it also has a bureau for selling travelers tickets,
and owns resorts, boat lines, etc. But it pays little attention to
immigration, as Australia does. Australia does much more for immigrants
than the United States, giving them cheap fares to the country, reduced
freight rates, etc., and when they arrive, special attention is paid
them by a government department created for that purpose. The United
States gets more immigrants than any other country, without inducements
of any kind on the part of the government: news of the country paying
the best wages, and offering the best inducements, will find its way
everywhere.... Wirth’s Greatest Show on Earth is billed here. One
of its stars is Hillary Long, “the talk of America,” although I do not
remember to have heard of him there. Another of Wirth’s stars is Young
Buffalo Bill, who competes with Australian cowboys in mastering wild
horses and cattle.... The offices of the New Zealand government are
housed in what is said to be the largest wooden building in the world.
Wellington has many fine structures of stone, but the government
buildings were constructed years ago, and are mainly of wood....
This is as sleepy a town on Sunday as I have ever visited. This morning
we went down to breakfast at 8:30, and dined alone. At noon, the maid
had not yet cleaned up our rooms. But it is just as bad across the
street, at the Empire Hotel, into the rooms of which I can look. The
beds were not made there at noon, either; indeed, in one room a man was
still in bed. The lady bartenders at the Empire are not on duty today;
the blinds are down in the bar, and the lady bartenders are probably
patronizing some of the numerous excursions we saw advertised in the
morning papers. The day is not only Sunday, but rain began falling in
the afternoon, and we had no other amusement than watching the bored
guests at the Empire.... The maid came in at 2 P. M. to clean up my
room, and a fine lot of gossip she brought. She says that one of the
girls employed in the office of the Grand died last night, and that the
hotel force is demoralized. The girl’s body was taken to the morgue
this morning, and the maid thinks the papers will be full of it in the
morning. When a man dies, it seems to be regular, but when a woman
dies there is a chance for suspicion, particularly if she has been to
Sydney three months before on a vacation. The maid also says that the
lady bartenders at the Empire, across the street, kiss their customers.
Lady bartenders, as a class, according to the maid, do not stand very
high socially, a statement I can easily accept.... The maid says an
American stopped at the Grand several months ago, and every time he met
her, he said: “Go to h—l.” I did not recognize this as an American
trait: to tell ladies, without provocation, to go to h—l.... In
New Zealand or Australia (or in England, for that matter) the first
thing an American notices is the queer pronunciation of words by the
residents. I have mentioned this before, but mention it again because I
have just come across this statement by Rudyard Kipling:
“The American I have heard up to the present is a tongue as distinct
from English as Patagonian.”
From which I imagine that our pronunciations also jar on English
ears. I believe I can take their own dictionary, and convince the
English that they do not obey its rules of pronunciation. There is not
the slightest authority in any English dictionary for many of their
pronunciations. The pronunciation of the English people is arbitrary;
there is no authority for much of it, as there is no authority for
the cockney dialect. At one place on this trip we met two old-maid
high-school teachers, and they almost spoke good English. And this is
a rule that may be depended upon: the educated English have a better
pronunciation than the uneducated. The pronunciation of Americans is
nearly always the same, but the English do not themselves use the
same pronunciations. Perhaps it is an intonation or quality of the
voice, or an inflection, but it is a fact that frequently an American
understands them with difficulty. For several days we traveled with an
English barrister, a very polite gentleman, and we frequently sat with
him at hotel, steamboat and dining-car tables. Half the time we could
not understand him. And he found equal difficulty in understanding
us, unless we spoke slowly and distinctly. Kipling says the American
language has nothing in common with English except the auxiliary verbs,
the name of the Creator, and damn.
MONDAY, JANUARY 27.—Although New Zealand is supposed to be an English
colony, there are no English soldiers here. A few soldiers are seen in
Wellington, but they belong to New Zealand regiments. The young man who
showed us about today is seventeen years old, and what we would call
an A. D. T. messenger boy. But the telegraph business is a government
monopoly here, and this young man is a government employee. There is
a mild system of compulsory military service. The young man says he
belongs to a military company of postoffice and telegraph employees,
and that they drill one hour every week. All young men are compelled to
belong to a similar company, from fourteen to twenty-five years of age.
They compose a military reserve, and never go into actual camp. New
Zealand also has a navy, which is about as much of a joke as its army.
Australia, being larger, has a larger establishment, but the system
is the same: New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania are exactly alike so
far as politics, sheep, and labor unions are concerned. Tasmania is
a little place, but it has mighty questions to settle. The Tasmania
legislative assembly has been in a deadlock several years, and none of
the big questions could be settled. An election was held recently, to
break the deadlock; and again the assembly is a tie. Politically, the
colonies remind one a little of Cuba, where the political pot boils
rather more steadily than anywhere else in the world.... The real
event of today has been the arrival of Dr. Beeson, of Chicago, with
whom we traveled three weeks on the “Sonoma.” I seem to have known him
always; he is my dearest friend, and the meeting apparently pleased him
as much as it did me.... In the celebration following my meeting
with Dr. Beeson, we went down into the Grand barroom, where we found
two bars, exactly alike, on opposite sides of a big room. An old maid
known as Polly served us; a younger woman called ‘Arriet presided at
the bar across the room. Polly was very amiable, and talked to us
about our trip; I suppose she has been a bartender ever since she
was eighteen, and attractive, and that was a long time ago. It will
surprise you to know that she reminded me of a school teacher; she was
as well-behaved as a school teacher, and had a bossy way that is always
associated in my mind with the school-room. The Doctor and I talked of
going over to see the lady bartenders at the Empire, but Polly coaxed
us out of the notion. Liquor is sold here almost entirely by women; the
custom of barmaids is more general in New Zealand, I am told, than in
England.... Every morning and evening I buy a newspaper. The news
is mainly from London, or local; I have not seen a telegram from the
United States. Which is not so surprising: you might read the American
papers a long time without seeing a telegram from New Zealand....
Wellington has a fine street-car system; considerably better than St.
Joseph, Mo., a city of about the same size. One line runs through a
tunnel under a mountain to a bathing-beach; another climbs one of the
great hills, where are located many fine residences. There are several
short cable lines running up the steep mountains. In addition to this
means of communication, there are many boats running around and across
the harbor, to bathing-beaches and suburbs. Wellington is as fine a
town as St. Joseph, and the suburbs of Wellington look better. The
streets and roads here are superior to those in the Missouri city, and
I saw a grocery store here today that St. Joseph cannot equal....
There is a probability of a strike among the cab-drivers here. The
drivers are demanding that passengers handle their own baggage. The
city has taken a hand, and decided that it is the duty of cab-drivers
to place the baggage of passengers on their cabs; whereupon the Cab
Drivers’ Union inquired, in a resolution, “Why should not passengers
handle their own luggage?” A district delegate has arrived from
Auckland, and last night delivered a fiery speech about the starving
poor, the insolent rich, the disposition of capital to wring the last
drop of blood from the people, etc., and it will be known in a day
or two whether I shall be compelled to carry my own trunks when I go
to the ship.... This town is known as Windy Wellington, because
the wind blows so steadily. One story is that you may always tell a
Wellington man, wherever he may be: when he turns a street corner, he
grabs his hat, to keep it from blowing away. Wellington people also
have a story on Sydney; they say that when they visit that city they
pin a tag on their coats, which reads: “I am much pleased with your
harbor.” Sydney people are very proud of their harbor, and Auckland
and Wellington are very jealous, as both the last named cities have
beautiful harbors, though neither is as large as that at Sydney....
A gentleman who sits at our table at the hotel lived for six months
at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and thinks it a very fine town. He lives
in New Zealand now, but Lancaster pleased him very much. Chicago
scared him; he was there one night, and the next morning the papers
reported six murders. As soon as Dr. Beeson arrived, Chicago had a
more capable defender, and I withdrew, to enjoy the scrimmage....
Chinese are admitted to New Zealand on payment of $1,500 per head, and
a good many of them run fruit and vegetable stores here.... As the
maid predicted, the Monday morning papers mentioned the death at the
Grand Hotel Saturday night, but they handled the item very cautiously,
saying that the circumstances were suspicious, and that an inquest was
necessary.... No doubt the people at the Empire are much exercised;
unless I am much mistaken, the people of the Empire are saying: “That
rotten outfit across the street is getting what it deserves.” You can’t
expect anyone to be fair with his rival in business.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28.—We took a long street-car ride this morning, and
paid sixteen cents for one journey which would have cost only five
cents in an American city. But you can ride a short distance for two
cents. The fare increases two cents per section. Whether our plan of
five cents for a street-railway ride, long or short, is better or worse
than this, I do not know. There are no transfers here; if you travel
on three different lines, you pay three fares.... Every morning our
waiter at the hotel brings us hot cakes, although we do not order them.
We discovered the reason today: on the bill of fare they are called
“hot cakes, American style.” It is the waiter’s way of announcing that
he knows we are Americans.... When you order soft-boiled eggs here,
they are brought to you in the shell, and you eat them out of egg cups.
This morning I asked the waiter to break mine in a glass, which he
did, but he also put in pepper and salt, and stirred them up....
This has been a very chilly day, and the Wellington people are going
about wearing overcoats and straw hats. A woman on the street-car
informed us that today has been as cold as the weather ever gets here,
at any season. At one of the beaches we saw the surf rolling in a very
boisterous and menacing way, as the wind was blowing almost a gale. But
flowers are in bloom, and vegetables growing in gardens. The vegetable
gardens here are in the hands of Chinese, and are wonderfully neat;
almost as wonderful as the gardens about Paris, where the gardeners
remove the original dirt, and make a new soil.... We hear complaints
everywhere of the labor unions. On a street-car today we engaged in
conversation with an elderly woman who said she was born in Wellington,
and who complained bitterly of the unions, which cause constant
disturbances in all branches of business. This was surprising to me, in
New Zealand, where we have heard everything is so amiable. I hear the
same thing every time I talk with New Zealand people. “It is too much
of a good thing,” they say. Possibly it is like our tariff: originally
a good thing, it has been overdone, and all of us are now compelled to
pay tribute in the shape of a heavy tax.... When we began talking
with the woman, she said: “I take it that you are Americans.” We always
hear that.... We have discovered that among its other attractions,
the Grand Hotel has a roof garden. Even the Chicago doctor is surprised
at the excellence of the hotel; and the price is only $3 a day each,
including meals and rooms. We have concluded that the necessities of
life, on an average, are about one-quarter cheaper here than in the
United States. While there are no great tracts of farming land in the
vicinity of Wellington or Auckland, near Christchurch, on the other
island, there are said to be plains one hundred miles long. People here
say that mutton is the one meat they never tire of; and mutton is very
plentiful and very cheap.... The New Zealander who sits at our table
is a very bold man, to hear him talk. I told him of my experience with
snoring men, on the “Maheno,” and he says that under such circumstances
he would have raised a row with the disturbers. But I think that
possibly he is like many others I have known: a great talker, rather
than a great hero. He tells an amusing story of a friend he once
invited to his home for a visit of a fortnight. The friend turned out
to have the loudest and most disagreeable snore ever heard in New
Zealand, and no one in the house slept during the two weeks the visitor
was there.... The tipping evil is not as great in New Zealand as
it is in many places; the servants here have heard of the custom, but
they do not mob travelers who fail to fee them satisfactorily....
The greatest need at present, in all parts of the world, is a library
of books of simple information, simply written. Today I bought a book
on Africa, by Sir H. H. Johnston. The introduction is interesting, but
the remaining hundreds of pages contain a lot of technical information
that no one wants. My impression is that Sir H. H. Johnston wrote
the introduction, and the remaining pages were taken from old books
on the subject. Cyclopedias are made in the same way. Some time ago
I read the confession of a cyclopedia editor. He says such books are
full of errors, because of the habit of copying, and that there is
too little independent investigation. He relates that as an editor he
once invented a man, a “noted clergyman,” and sent a “story” about
him to the printers. The “story” passed the scrutiny of all the other
editors, and was about to be made up into the pages of the cyclopedia,
when the joker took it out. That is the way historical books are
printed; they are too long, very dull, full of errors, written in a
ponderous style that repels readers, and lacking in the simplicity and
terseness necessary for the understanding of the average reader. There
are several “libraries” of “universal knowledge,” and not one of them
is half as good, as useful or as entertaining as it could have been
made. The lack in all these books is simplicity; the professors write
in fear of the criticism of other professors, and not for busy people.
In this book on Africa, about all I found of interest was a statement
that the Australoid type of man is almost certainly the parent of the
white man in Europe and Asia. The Australoid, represented at present by
the indigenous population of Australia (a chocolate-colored people,
rather than black) comes nearest of all living men to the basal stock
of our race, and behind him lies a long vista of semi-humanity till
apehood is reached. This was a new statement to me.... The human
genus was evolved somewhere in Asia, most probably in India, according
to the best authority. This was a long time ago; human remains at least
five hundred thousand years old have been found in the Rhine basin near
Heidelberg, and it is believed the race is much older in Asia. But the
original man was a black man, or a yellow man; the white man originated
much later, and, according to Sir H. H. Johnston, he originated in
Australia. So I am visiting the home of my remote ancestors. While
man is very old, he ceased only twenty-five or thirty thousand years
ago—this is only a guess of scientists, but the best information we
have—to live in an absolutely savage condition as a mere hunter of
other animals. The present civilized man gradually developed from a
start made probably thirty thousand years ago. It was the white man who
made this start toward civilization, and he originated in Australia, if
Sir H. H. Johnston knows what he is talking about. The white man has
always been an adventurer, and, in the course of ages, spread over the
earth.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29.—The New Zealander who sits at our table, and who
lived awhile at Lancaster, Pa., said at breakfast this morning:
“The people of the United States are the smartest in the world. No
doubt about it. In everything worthy and desirable, they are ahead of
any other people.”
This man was born in England, and lived in London many years, but is
lately living in New Zealand. He believes the “Pennsylvania Dutch”
he knew at Lancaster to be the best type of people he ever knew, and
regrets that all the people of the United States are not more like
them.... This gentleman also showed us how the English and Scotch
eat oatmeal porridge. They salt it, but never use sugar. In the left
hand they hold a cup of milk, and into this they dip a spoonful
of porridge before eating it.... It seems there was a blizzard
yesterday; the thermometer got down to fifty-six above. But we went
about in our usual summer clothing, and did not know it was a blizzard
until this morning’s papers appeared.... In the botanical garden,
this morning, I believe I saw the finest display of flowers I have
ever seen. You hear much of the famous gardens of Japan, but I have
never seen a Japanese garden as beautiful as that I saw this morning.
The Japanese gardens are grotesque rather than beautiful. On the way
back to town we visited a big department store, and remained an hour,
watching the crowds. Doctor Beeson and I followed Adelaide around among
the crowds of women, and enjoyed the experience. There was a special
sale on, and postal cards had been reduced to a cent each. The store
was a big one, but not nearly so large as the big ones in Kansas City.
All the clerks were girls, and it was about the usual thing in special
sales, except that prices were in pounds, shillings and pence.... In
the public places here, we see this sign very frequently: “Citizens,
protect your own property.” That is, everything belongs to the people,
therefore why destroy anything? Some people are natural vandals, but
people of a little culture and refinement never are.... In New
Zealand, a woman has no interest in her husband’s real-estate. If a
man desires to transfer a piece of real property here, his wife’s
signature to the deed is not necessary, as is the case in the United
States. Still women have full suffrage in New Zealand.... Not only
the talk is unintelligible here at times, but I see advertisements in
the English newspapers I can’t understand. Here is an exact copy of an
advertisement in the Wellington _Post_ of this date:
WANTED—A General. Apply Mrs. Focke, 210 The Terrace.
If you know what Mrs. Focke wants, you know more than I do. Here is
another advertisement from the same newspaper:
FOR SALE—Butchery business; going concern; average weekly killing, 6
bodies and 30 small. Victor E. Smith, Box 59, Fielding.
I haven’t the remotest notion what the advertisement means....
The newspapers here, of course, have taken after the street-railway
company. They demand a universal fare of two cents, instead of two
cents a section. It seems impossible to run a newspaper anywhere
without abusing the street-railway. One correspondent of _The Post_
says the street-car company is entitled to take in only enough to pay
actual running expenses, as the increasing value of the property is
profit enough.... At luncheon today, our waiter at the Grand Hotel
brought me an extra dish. “American pork and beans,” he announced
triumphantly. They never let me forget for a moment that I am an
American, or that they have caught me at it.... The dry-goods men
here are as big talkers as they are anywhere. In _The Post_ of this
afternoon, James Smith, Limited, offers a special sale in summer goods.
Here is one price he quotes:
“Ladies’ one-piece washing frocks, in various colors, good value at
18_s._ 6_d._; carry your choice away tomorrow at 5_s._ 11_d._”
It seems that any sane woman would know that an article now offered
at 5_s._ 11_d._ (or $1.42) was never good value at 18_s._ 6_d._ (or
$4.62). If James Smith ever sold an article at $4.62 and has now cut
it to $1.42, he is a robber, and no woman should patronize him. Yet
his store will be crowded with women tomorrow, and many of them will
buy dry goods they do not need, at prices that afford James Smith,
Limited, a fair profit. The manner in which smart merchants fool the
women with special sales should receive attention at the next meeting
of Congress.... Bob Fitzsimmons, the prizefighter, came from New
Zealand, and I think he is rather more popular at home than Melba is in
Australia, where she was born. Indeed, I have heard Melba “picked at” a
good deal, while Fitz is generally pointed to with pride.