The change to a more genial climate and clearer skies has not been
altogether without effect upon the temperament of the colonists. Like the
stock from which they spring their ideas of pleasure are still limited.
They are still, above all, a serious people; no disposition to abate this
seriousness has shown itself, even in the rising generation. On the
contrary, brought up in a country where idleness is a reproach, they have
the serious side of life always before them. To 'get on' is the watchword
of young Australia, and getting-on means hard work. But the more ample
reward attaching to labour out here leaves the colonist more leisure. And
this leisure he devotes to working at play.
That 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' is already an accepted
maxim, is exemplified by the numerous holidays and the way in which they
are spent. There must be pretty nearly a dozen public holidays in the
year. Saturday is always a half-holiday. Nine till five are the accepted
hours for the clerk; half-past nine till six for the shop-assistant. The
eight-hour system is generally accepted in all classes of manual labour.
Some shops are open on Saturday evenings; but there is a strong movement
to abolish this system. The clerk is rarely called back to work after
hours. In all trades and professions the hours and work of the
subordinates are much less than in England. When a public holiday falls
on a Monday, Saturday for most purposes becomes a whole holiday also.
Christmas Day falling on Monday in 1882, business did not begin again
till Wednesday. So on Friday everybody had to lay in their stock of bread
and meat to last till Wednesday morning. In wholesale business, in the
professions and amongst the working-classes, the whole week from
Christmas Eve to the 2nd of January is practically a holiday. It is quite
useless to attempt to do any business during that period. In most places
it is about Twelfth Day before things get into trim again. During the
first few days of the year the work is done by half the ordinary staff
The colonist certainly endeavours to get as much pleasure as he can out
of existence. He has a full appreciation of the value of amusement. He is
not himself amusing, but he thoroughly enjoys amusing himself.
The abundance of fine and temperate weather makes outdoor life preferable
to indoor during eight months of the year. Perhaps this is a reason why
the colonists live in such poor houses and care so little how they are
furnished. Town-life is a recent invention in Australia; and town-life as
it is known at home, in the sense that numbers of people live in a town
all their lives and only go into the country for an airing, is quite
unknown. The majority of the population still lives, more or less, in the
bush. Our ideals are country ideals and not town ideals. For all these
reasons the principal amusements of the Australians are outdoor sports of
one kind or another; and if the interest taken in them proportionate to
the population be the criterion, this may fairly claim to be the most
sporting country in the world. In Australia alone, of all countries, can
any sport be called national in the sense that the whole nation, from the
oldest greybeard to the youngest child, takes an interest in it.
Cricket must, I suppose, take the first place amongst Australian sports,
because all ages and all classes are interested in it; and not to be
interested in it amounts almost to a social crime. The quality of
Australian cricket has already spoken for itself in England. Of its
quantity it is difficult to give any idea. Cricket clubs are perhaps
numerable, though yearly increasing; but of the game itself there is no
end. There is no class too poor to play, as at home. Every little
Australian that is 'born alive' is a little cricketer, a bat, or bowler,
or field. Cricket is the colonial _carrière ouverte aux talents_. As
Napoleon's soldiers remembered that they carried a marshal's _bâton_ in
their knapsacks, so the young Australians all remember that they have a
chance of becoming successors of that illustrious band of heroes who have
recently conquered the mother-country and looted her into the bargain,
though the idea of gain certainly never enters into their heads in
connection with cricket. It may be, and it is most probable, that English
cricket will soon recover the laurels which the Australians carried away
in 1882; but I venture to prophesy that from 1890 onwards, the cricket
championship will, except through occasional bad-luck, become permanently
resident in Australia. The success of the first Australian Eleven bred
cricketers by the thousand. If that eleven was picked out of, say, 10,000
men and boys playing cricket, the present has been chosen from 20,000,
and by 1890 the eleven will be chosen from 100,000. Certainly, very few
of these can afford to devote themselves solely to cricket; but most of
them will play from five to seven o'clock through six months of the year,
and on holidays, half-holidays, and odd moments through nine months. Some
measure of the interest which attaches to cricket can be gathered from
the space devoted to it in every paper, and the fact that during the tour
of the Australian Elevens the full scores of every match they played,
together with details of the more important matches, were cabled from
London every day, and this at 10s. 6d. a word. At the intercolonial and
international cricket matches in Melbourne, as many as 23,000 persons
have, on one day, paid their shilling to gain admittance into the cricket
ground, and 10,000 is about an average attendance.
The other day Parliament was most suddenly and unexpectedly dissolved in
Melbourne. In a place where political feeling runs so high, the greatest
excitement might have been expected over such an occurrence. But
'Reuter,' who may be considered an impartial authority, merely cabled to
New Zealand, 'The dissolution.'
Chiefly owing to the impossibility of bringing about an international
football match, the popularity of football is more local than that of
cricket; but in Melbourne I think it is more intense. Patriotism cannot,
of course, be roused when no national interests are at stake, but club
rivalry is decidedly stronger. Some measure of the popularity of the game
may be gathered from the fact, that the member who has sat in the last
three parliaments for the most important working-man's constituency, owes
his seat entirely to his prowess on behalf of the local football club. In
no other way has he, or does he pretend to have the slightest
qualifications. Of course there are numbers of people amongst the upper
and middle classes who still have a holy horror of football as a
dangerous game, and the want of unanimity in rules prevents the two
principal colonies from meeting on equal terms. In the older colony the
Rugby Union rules are played. Victoria has invented a set of rules for
herself--a kind of compound between the Rugby Union and Association.
South Australia plays the Victorian game. I suppose it is a heresy for an
old Marlburian to own it, but after having played all three games, Rugby,
Association and Victorian--the first several hundred times, the second a
few dozen times, and the third a couple of score of times--I feel bound
to say that the Victorian game is by far the most scientific, the most
amusing both to players and onlookers, and altogether the best; and I
believe I may say that on this point my opinion is worth having. Of
course, men who are accustomed to the English games, and have not played
the Victorian, will hold it ridiculous that the solution of the best game
of football problem should be found, as I believe it has been found, in
Melbourne. But I would ask them to remember that the Victorian game was
founded by rival public school men, who, finding that neither party was
strong enough to form a club of its own, devised it--of course not in its
present elaborate state--as a compromise between the two. In
corroboration of my opinion I would point to the facts that, while Sydney
is at least as good at cricket as Melbourne, there are not a dozen
football clubs in Sydney (where they play Rugby Union), as against about
a hundred in Melbourne; that the attendance at the best matches in Sydney
is not one-third of what it is in Melbourne; that the average number of
people who go to see football matches on a Saturday afternoon in Sydney
is not one-tenth of that in Melbourne; and that in Sydney people will not
pay to see the game, while in Melbourne the receipts from football
matches are larger than they are from cricket matches. The quality of the
attendance, also, in Melbourne is something remarkable; but of some
10,000 people, perhaps, who pay their sixpences to see the Melbourne and
Carlton Clubs play of an afternoon, there are not a thousand who are not
intensely interested in the match, and who do not watch its every turn
with the same intentness which characterizes the boys at Lord's during
the Eton and Harrow match. A good football match in Melbourne is one of
the sights of the world. Old men and young get equally excited. The
quality of the play, too, is much superior to anything the best English
clubs can produce. Of course it is not easy to judge of this when the
games played are different, but on such points as drop-kicking, dodging,
and catching, comparison can be made with the Rugby game; and every
'footballer' (the word, if not coined, has become commonly current here)
knows what I mean when I say, that there is much more 'style' about the
play of at least half a dozen clubs in Victoria, than about the 'Old
Etonians' or the 'Blackheath', which are the two best clubs I have seen
play in England.
Of athletic meetings there are plenty, but they do not attract much
interest as compared with cricket and football. Nor can rowing be called
a thoroughly national pastime, though both in Sydney and Melbourne there
are good rivers. The two colonies row each other annually; and in Sydney,
more especially, there is a good deal of excitement over this event. But
the interest felt in rowing is not much greater than in England. It is a
popular sport, and that is all.
Yachting is very popular in Sydney, the harbour being almost made on
purpose for it; but yachting is only a rich man's pleasure. Lawn-tennis
is as much in fashion here as at home, but it is not cultivated with the
same ardour. The best players in Sydney and Melbourne would not be
considered as more than third-rate at home. Bicycling is gaining in
favour in Melbourne and Adelaide; Sydney is rather hilly for it. There
are polo and gun clubs in all three towns, but they are, of course, small
and aristocratic rather than popular.
Fox-hunting there is none; but there are hunt clubs in the principal
towns who run after a drag--in Melbourne after a kangaroo, and
occasionally even after a deer. The country is of course monotonous, and
wants very good riding. There are no sensational water-jumps even at
steeplechase meetings, the colonial horse not being accustomed to water.
But it wants a good horse to get over the unvarying succession of post
and rail fences. People who talk about the jumps in steeplechases at home
being hard should try a run over a colonial course of 4-feet-6-inch post
and rails. The horses are accustomed to it, but not so always the riders.
Up in the bush there is plenty of kangaroo-hunting to be got at almost
any station. The squatters often pay a shilling a head for kangaroos, and
very fair sport they afford when not too numerous. The wallaby is a
smaller kind of kangaroo which is also hunted.
There are snipe to be shot in Australia; but wild duck is really the best
kind of shooting we get, and far more easily obtainable. They are much
more varied in kind than at home. Rabbits are generally too plentiful to
afford much fun. I have pelted them by the score from the veranda of a
station-house in South Australia. At best they are poor sport. The
kangaroos and wallaby are generally too tame. Amongst other animals
shootable are the native bear--a sluggish creature looking like a small
bear; the bandicoot, a small animal with a pig's head and snout; the
native cat; cockatoos, parrots, eagles, hawks, owls, parroquets, wild
turkey, quail, native pheasants, teal, native companions, water-hens, and
the black swan and the opossum. Of these the wild turkey affords the best
fun. You have to stalk them in a buggy, and drive in a gradually
narrowing circle round them till you get within shot. The opossum you
shoot by moonlight, getting them between your gun and the moon as they
jump from tree to tree. Teal are fairly numerous. Pheasants, partridges,
and quail, like the deer, were imported, and have bred rapidly; but they
are not sufficiently preserved.
On fishing I am no authority; but I have always understood that the
fishing in Australia was very poor. Trout are being acclimatized in
Victoria, but the day of the angler has yet to come.
The population of Victoria is 880,000; of Melbourne and suburbs, within a
ten-mile radius, 280,000. During the Exhibition year over 100,000 people
paid a shilling, or more for admission to the Flemington Race Course on
the Melbourne Cup day. The usual number on that occasion is 60,000 to
80,000. I don't know any better way of asserting Australian, and
especially Victorian, supremacy as _the_ racing country _par
excellence_, in comparison with which England, proportionately to her
population and her wealth, must indeed take a back-seat. There is not an
inhabited nook or corner of Australia where an annual meeting is not got
up, and well attended too. This meeting is the _rendezvous_ of the
whole country-side, and generally ends up with a dance, and what is
colonially known as a 'drunk.'
The large number of imported horses, the care taken in their selection
and the prices which have been paid in England for the best sires, are
sufficient proof that for strain of blood Australia is not to be beaten
in the world, whilst the progeny of this imported stock has for distance
beaten the best records of the English turf. Thus while Kettledrum's 2.43
is the best time--if my memory serve me right--on record for the Epsom
Derby, there have been several 2.43's in Australia, and three years ago
Darebin won in 2.41 1/2. And if it be objected that the imperfections of
the Epsom course account for the difference, I would point to Commotion's
victory in the Champion Stakes last New Year's Day--three miles in 5.26.
The times here are most carefully taken, and whilst admitting that time
can only furnish a rough test of merit, the times I have mentioned are
sufficient to show that colonial horses can at least claim comparison
with those at home. Doubtless before long we shall see an Australian colt
running at Epsom; but the difficulties of age and transit must always
severely handicap any Australian horse performing on the English turf.
The Victoria Racing Club of Melbourne may fairly claim to be the premier
club in Australia, and in the perfection of its arrangements and of the
course at Flemington, it stands a head and shoulders above any European
club. Already it has an excellent stand, and yet £30,000 have just been
voted for its improvement. The lawn is perfection. The hill behind the
stand would appear to have been made by nature in order to allow the
half-crown public to see the finish, as well as the half-guinea folk in
the stand. The course is flat as a pancake, well turfed and drained. The
surroundings remind one of Longchamps. On race-days trains run out from
Melbourne every ten minutes; and, as you can buy your train and race
ticket beforehand in the town, you need never be jostled or hurried.
Everything works as if by machinery. It would really pay the South
Western officials to take a lesson at the Spencer Street Station next
Cup-day, to prevent the annual scramble at Waterloo every Ascot meeting.
The V.R.C. hold three race-meetings in the year at Flemington, together
with a steeplechase meeting in July. The principal meeting is the autumn
meeting of four days on the second of which the blue ribbon of the
Australian turf--the Melbourne Cup--is run. One hundred and twenty-eight
horses entered for this race last year, and twenty-four ran. The latter
number is considerably below the average. The Cup is a handicap
sweepstakes of twenty sovs., the distance being two miles, and the added
money only £500. Altogether the V.R.C. gave £13,000 of added money last
year, the greatest amount given to a single race being £1,000 for the
Champion Stakes. Next to the V.R.C., the Australian Jockey Club of Sydney
ranks; but there are four other racing clubs in Melbourne, two more in
Sydney, and two in Adelaide--all holding good meetings, which are well
attended and well arranged. The minor meetings in Sydney and Melbourne
are, however, getting to be mere gate-money and betting affairs, and do
not--with one exception--attract horses from the other colonies.
Undoubtedly the chief fault of Australian racing is the prevalence of
handicaps. We do not get so many short-distance races as at home, but,
unless there is a prospect of a keen struggle between two special
favourites, the public will not attend weight-for-age races in numbers at
all adequate to defray their expenses, while a good handicap is always
remunerative. The V.R.C. does its best to hold out against popular
feeling by giving liberally to weight-for-age races, but without plenty
of handicaps they could not find money for the weight-for-age races, far
less for the luxurious arrangements of their courses.
The colonial jockeys cannot be said to be at all equal to the English,
and for really good riding one must still go to the old country; but
every year an improvement is visible, and before long we may reasonably
expect that Australia will have its Archer, or at least its Cannon.
On all Australian courses the ring is kept well away from the enclosure.
Last year the V.R.C. obliged the bookmakers to take out licenses to ply
their craft at all on the course. And this brings me to the subject of
betting and gambling generally. If the Australians are a racing
community, so also are they a gambling community. The popularity of the
Melbourne Cup is largely due to its being the great gambling event of the
year. Every township in the remote bush has its guinea sweepstake over
the Cup, every town hovel its half-crown one. The bookmaking fraternity
muster strong on all racecourses, and apparently make an uncommonly good
living out of their avocation. All kinds of laws have been made against
gambling, but they have proved utterly useless. It is estimated that over
a million of money changes hands annually over the Cup. Everybody backs
his fancy, if only because, unless he is a strict Methodist, it would be
peculiar not to do so. One of the peculiar features of this gambling
mania are the numerous guinea sweepstakes got up every year by a man
named Miller and his imitators. Miller last year had £120,000 entrusted
to him for thousand and two thousand guinea sweeps in the Cup alone. He
takes ten per cent. for management, and the rest is divided into so much
for the winner, a fair sum for second and third, and the balance amongst
runners and acceptances. Even those who draw a horse at all get
something. Miller has many imitators, two of whom have bolted with the
money entrusted to them; but deriving so liberal an income from
them--something like £5,000 a year he is hardly likely to be dishonest.
Passing from racing to horses generally. The riding capacities of the
Australians are well known. Nearly every one born in the colonies learns
to ride as a boy, and not to be able to ride is to write yourself down a
duffer. Horseflesh is so marvelously cheap, that it is not taken so much
care of as at home. In outward appearance, the Australian horse has not
so much to recommend him as a rule, but his powers of endurance rival
those fabled of the Arabian. A grass-fed horse has been known to go as
much as 100 miles in a day.
In 1796, i.e., only eight years after the establishment of a convict
settlement at Botany Bay, the Victoria Theatre, Sydney, was opened with
the famous prologue--
'True patriots all, for be it understood
We left our country for our country's good:
No private views disgraced our generous zeal,
What urged our travels was our country's weal;
And none will doubt but that our emigration
Was proved most useful to the British nation.'
The author was an ex-pickpocket; the actors were all convicts, and the
price of admission was the same all over the house--one shilling, payable
in flour, wheat, or liquor! Such a first night must have been unique in
the history of the drama.
The modern Australian stage, however, only dates back as far as 1853. How
popular it had become may be judged from the fact that Melbourne has four
theatres, Sydney two, and Adelaide two, besides concert halls. As in
England, these theatres have nothing to recommend them outside, nor can
the interior arrangements be commended. A large part of their beer
revenue is derived from drinking bars which are kept in connection with
them. One of these, though respectable enough, is generally unpleasantly
in close proximity to the entrance to the best seats in the house, and
the other forming a rendezvous for all the bad characters in the town.
The auditoria are nearly all badly ventilated, and ill fitted up, the
only exceptions being the Theatre Royal at Adelaide, and the Bijou in
Melbourne. The approaches and exits, are for the most part poor. Boxes
are unknown, and the stalls are only second-rate seats. The dress-circle,
which is considered the best part of the house, consists of a kind of
open gallery fitted up like the stalls of a London theatre. Above are the
'gods,' and below the pit. Prices of admission are very moderate; I have
been told that during Ristori's and De Murska's visits, as much as ten
shillings was charged for a dress-circle seat, but six shillings is the
highest charge that has been made since 1876. In any theatre six
shillings is the usual amount for the better performances, the worst only
asking four, and at some theatres coming down as low as 3 shillings.
Except when an Italian Opera Company is playing, full dress is
unnecessary, and even unusual, at the theatre.
The colonial taste in theatrical matters follows the English pretty
closely. Opera-bouffe and Gilbert and Sullivan are preferred to
everything else. Next in popularity is the 'New Babylon' type of play.
Low comedy also draws well; and I have often wondered that Mr. Toole has
not paid us a visit. Opera pure and simple used to be more appreciated
than it is; but as the companies which produced it were always very
second-rate, its temporary disappearance is not altogether to be
regretted. The class of opera company that usually comes out here may be
imagined when I tell you that Rose Hersée was a favourite _prima donna_!
There are now sufficient resident operatic singers of the third class
to perform opera without assistance from European stars; but by
themselves these purely colonial companies do not draw well, except in
pieces of the 'Patience,' or 'Tambour-Major' type. The Byron comedies are
popular throughout Australia. Thanks to a company which came out from
Enaland in 1880, and most of the members of which have taken up their
abode here, they have been much better acted than any other class of
plays. The modern society drama is not much appreciated, partly because
the life in which its action takes place is little understood, and partly
on account of the lack of the class of actors required to make the pieces
successful. Dion Boucicault is still a favourite. Shakespeare is
frequently played but, although the stage-mounting has been exceptionally
good, and we have had such very fair actors as Creswick, and Hoskins, and
Scott-Siddons, a high, authority has recently declared that Rignold's
'Henry V.' is the only Shakespearean performance, that has paid for many
years.
The average quality of the acting on the Australian boards is by no means
good. The difference between first and second rate art is not understood
by a sufficiently large number of people to make it profitable for such
companies as the Bancrofts, and Messrs. Hare and Kendall's, or stars of
the first magnitude, to come out here. Since Ristori was here in 1874,
Scott-Siddons, Creswick and Rignold, have been the best known actors we
have seen; although Marshall's Quilp, Vernon's Bunthorne, and Hoskins's
Touchstone, were impersonations of a high-class. Soldene, curious to say,
did not hit the popular taste. The cardinal fault of colonial acting
seems to me to be exaggeration. Most of our actors are artificial and
stagey; even those who clear themselves of these faults seem to play down
to the understanding of their audience. The 'star' system is as prevalent
as in England. The stock companies are for the most part very poor.
Pieces which require a large number of persons on the stage of course
suffer. Colonial supernumeraries can only be compared with those at
country theatres at home. Considering the circumstances, however, the
scenery and mounting are as a rule most creditable. The last two years,
especially, there has been a great improvement in this department.
Melbourne is decidedly the theatrical centre of Australia. It has twice
as many theatres as Sydney; most pieces are brought out there for the
first time in the colonies; its audiences are more appreciative and
critical; its stock companies are better. If a piece succeeds in
Melbourne, its success everywhere else is assured.
Whether it is on account of the warmer climate I do not know, but
certainly the colonists are a more musical people than the English. Of
course I do not mean that there are any considerable number of people
here who really understand classical music, or who play any instrument or
sing really well. On the contrary, as I think I have said in some other
connection, there is no part of the world where you hear so much bad
music, professional and amateur. But it is also true, that there are few
parts where you hear so much music. Almost every working-man has his
girls taught to strum the piano. Amateur concerts are exceedingly
popular. Most young people think they can sing, and Nature has certainly
endowed the young colonials with, on the average, far better and more
numerous voices than she has bestowed on English boys and girls.
Sometimes when you are bored in a drawing-room by bad music and poor
singing, you are inclined to think that the colonial love of music is an
intolerable nuisance. Especially is this the case with me, who have been
constantly interrupted in writing by my neighbour's daughters strumming
the only two tunes they know--and those tunes 'Pinafore,' and 'Madame
Angot.' But if you are out for a walk on a summer's evening, and look
into the windows of working men's cottages, you will see the old folk
after their day's labour gathered round the piano in the sitting-room to
hear their daughters play. I cannot hold with those who think a
working-man's daughter should not learn music. Their reasoning is
illogical--for being able to play the piano is in itself harmless, and
may keep the girl out of mischief. Further, it gives a great deal of
pleasure to her parents and friends, and often to herself as well.
As for musical performances apart from opera, there are plenty of them.
Twice a week there is an organ recital in the Melbourne Town Hall. Hardly
a night passes without a concert of some kind is going on. As in
theatrical matters, Melbourne takes the lead in all things musical. Last
Christmas-week it was actually so ambitious as to get up a Musical
Festival. The Town Hall organ is excellent. A good concert will always
draw well. Ketten--who was not a marvel--had crowded houses night after
night, with no other attraction but his pianoforte. Wilheling, who really
deserved all the praise he got, found ample success in Melbourne, and a
fair measure of it in Sydney and Adelaide. Arabella Goddard was, I
believe, well satisfied with her Australian tour, though it was made when
the population was not two-thirds of what it is now, and much less
cultured. The colonists are genuinely fond of music, bushmen and townsmen
alike. They may not know very much about it, but they are anxious to
learn all they can. They will even pay to hear something above their
appreciation, if the _Australasian_ tells them that it will improve
their musical taste. The orchestra in the Melbourne Town Hall will
accommodate 500 performers, and the hall itself can seat 4,000 people.
The Sydney and Adelaide Town Halls are little smaller, and yet it is no
uncommon sight to see them filled whenever a good concert is provided.
Besides their town halls, each city has a smaller hall, devoted to
musical entertainments.
The most remunerative spectacular representation is what the most
celebrated colonial impresario, Mr. R S. Smythe, calls a 'one-man show.'
Mr. Archibald Forbes and Mr. R. A. Proctor both made fabulous sums out of
their trip to the colonies; and if Arthur Sketchley failed, it was purely
for want of a good agent. In Adelaide, which, as a Puritan community,
looks somewhat askance at opera and drama, the popularity of good
lectures is beyond belief.
In a horse-loving country circuses are of course popular. Perhaps in no
other part of the world can a circus obtain so critical and appreciative
an attendance. Christy Minstrels and conjurors apparently do well,
considering how very poor some of the miscellaneous entertainments which
visit Australia are, it is most remarkable that they should contrive to
get so good audiences.
Household amusements are much the same as at home, although more
frequently indulged in. The more frank relations between the sexes make
dancing a favourite pastime. In this less pretentious social atmosphere a
dance can be given without all the costly paraphernalia customary in
England, and a far larger class of people are able to afford to give
parties and balls. 'Assemblies' are held every season in all the towns,
the season being, of course, in the winter months. Even the servants are
accustomed to go to balls, and a mistress would only make herself
ridiculous who looked upon their going to one as anything but proper. And
here I agree with the colonists. So long as her work is done for the day,
and provided that she does not go to so many balls as to interfere with
her capacity for doing her work, I cannot see what impropriety there is
in Biddy going to her ball. No doubt she enjoys dancing, and how can it
do her any more harm than her young mistress? With all the universal love
of dancing, which permeates even the strictest Puritans amongst the young
colonials, there is very little good dancing to be met with. People out
here do not attach much importance to what are called 'accomplishments.'
To dance is pleasant, but it would be a waste of time to take trouble to
learn to dance well.
A mining population is always a gambling one and a card-playing one. In
Adelaide the old Puritan element still sets its face as steadily as it
can against cards as the devil's playthings; but young Australia will not
put up with any such prejudices. Of course the mining townships are the
centre of gambling with cards; but the passion extends sufficiently
widely to do a good deal of harm. 'Euchre' is the favourite game, then
'Nap' and 'Loo;' but it would not be fair to call the Australians a
card-gambling people in comparison with the Californians.