(_From the Sydney Morning Herald, 25th December, 1861._)
This colony is a remarkable colony. The ancient gentleman (we forget his
name, and there isn't a Lemprière nearer than Cochin China), who turned
everything he touched to gold, must have called here on his way to
Hades. Gold, gold, nothing but gold. Let us calmly review what Australia
has done since Christmas, 1851.
Although she has separated from the mother country, it was not in anger,
but only as a rich child's establishment is naturally apart from that of
poor parents. We did not neglect Old England; we paid off her national
debt, and we deposited in the hands of trustees (the Emperor Jullien I.,
King Abbott-Lawrence, and Sultan Abd-el-Kadr) a sufficient sum to render
taxes in England unnecessary for two hundred years. Having thus done our
duty as a child, we leave the old lady to amuse herself her own way. But
we shall not forget her, and each Christmas we shall delight in
presenting her with a new Fleet, a box of palaces, or some other tribute
of affection.
We laid down the Cape and Algiers Railway, as also that from Gibraltar
to St. Petersburgh, and the eighty thousand miles of line in India. We
cut through the Isthmuses of Suez and Panama, and lengthened the grand
canal of Venice to the Black Sea.
We bought up all the opera singers in the world at their own price (the
largest drain our exchequer has known), and we founded the Australian
Opera. Meyerbeer received 100,000_l._ for his opening work—_Le
Kangaroo_, and the "Hopping Chorus" is worth the money.
We arranged a financial system for ourselves, the leading feature of
which was, that there should be no fractions, no change, no bargaining
(this nearly drove the women out of the colony), and no tick. The lowest
price of anything was to be a guinea.
We have an electric telegraph communication between our new capital,
Aureopolis, and every other metropolis in the world. Painful as it is to
hear the needy creatures of other continents squabbling about miserable
loans and wretched subsidies, when, perhaps, the whole sum at issue is
not fifty millions, and disagreeable as it must be to regard one's
acquaintance as paupers wrangling over halfpence, the lessons are not
without instruction.
Such are some of the achievements of Australia. But she is not
all-powerful. We have a failure to record. All her proffered treasures
could not buy one of the writers in the _Comic Almanack_. Yet it must be
done. Gird up thy loins, young nation! The rest were trifles, but here
is a task worthy of thee. Thy mines of wealth against the mines of wit;
for one of those priceless men thou must have. To the Diggings! to the
Diggings!
[Illustration:
—_Anticipations of the Golden Age! now coming; showing the probable
style of a coster=monger when _that_ "good time" _is_ come!!_
]