Part 8 (1/2)

It is not unnatural perhaps that a rade of it should estee all I can for personal prejudice and striving to look impartially upon it and its rivals, I am compelled to think it far and away the best in the world In Australia the high traditions of the parent Press are preserved, and aratefully and hopefully recognise the splendid enterprise and the lofty sense of public obligation which guide the youngest school of journalism in the world

In one respect Australian journalis to shohich will at all compare with the _Australasian_ or the _Leader_; but it is easy to see that they and similar journals of other cities (which are all worthy of the sah praise) are established excellences to local conditions These great weekly issues give all the week's news and all the striking articles which have appeared in the daily journals of which they are at once the growth and compendium

They do ardener, the agriculturist, the housewife, the lady of fashi+on, the searcher of general literature, the chess-player, the squatter can most desire to know They provide for 'all sorts of tastes and needs, and between their first sheet and their last, they render to their readers e in England buy half a score of special journals to secure The reason for their existence is sih to support the specialist as we know hi people will be served

The first unescapable belief of the English traveller is that the Australian is a transplanted Englishman pure and simple A residence of only a few ht Many new characteristics present themselves To arrest one of theand pleasure-seeking people in the world I wish now I had thought of securing trustworthy statistics with respect to the number of people who present themselves on the colonial racecourses within the li to knohat proportion of the population is given over to the breeding and training of horseflesh and the riding of races The Melbourne people exult--and not unjustifiably--in the Melbourne Cup and on the spectacle presented at its running That spectacle is quite unique as far as I know Neither the Derby nor the Grand Prix can rival it for its view of packed humanity, and neither can approach it for the decorous order of the crowd Is it Jane Taylor who tells the story of an English village?

I aenesis You in with For a church you want a parson and a parson rows everything In Australia they begin with the race-course This statement is not to be accepted as a satiric fable, but as a literal fact Nearly two years ago, travelling in the Blue Mountains--e board erected in the bush The board bore this inscription, ”Projected road to site of intended race-course” There was not a house visible, or the sign of the beginning of a house, but half-an-hour later, in apparent virgin forest, I found another board nailed to a big eucalypt It had a painted legend on it, setting forth that these eligible building sites were to be let or sold The solemn forest stood everywhere, and the advertise sites was the only evidence of man's presence It was for the benefit of future dwellers here that the road to the site of the ”intended race-course”

had been ”projected”

Again there are oers to the population than can probably be found elsewhere The houses and the performances are alike admirable Like the Americans, the Australians endure land, but they reat poland finds an early rendering in the great cities, and for serious work the general standard is as high as in Paris or in London The Princess Theatre in Melbourne has given renditions of co, _mise-en-scene_ and artistic finish to those of the Savoy The general taste is for jollity, bright colour, cheerful music Comedy runs broader than it does at home and some of the most excellent artists have learned a touch of buffoonery The public taste condones it, may even be said to relish it to _finesse_ The critics of the Press are, in the main, too favourable, but that is a stricture which applies to eneral

There is a desire to say ss pleasant

Outside the southernmost parts of Victoria Australia has a clilorious southern ht one can read the small print of a newspaper The air is cool after the overwhels are characteristic and pleasant, and they offer an opportunity for the British matron who flourishes there as here--heaven bless her--to air her sense of morals in letters to the newspapers

The creed of athleticis Searle, the champion sculler of the world, was a rereat athlete and a good fellow see excited by his early and mournful death looked disproportionate Every newspaper, froan of the village sang his dying song He was praised and laret seeerated At his funeral obsequies the streets were thronged, and thousands followed in his train It wasour of his strength It is always mournful that this should be so, but it is common, and the passion of the laenuine, but it ht possibly have had an object worthier of a nation's ood fellow is Frank Slavin, the prize-fighter

I have acknowledged a hundred ti to a lost cause My syly, I trace the growth of crilorious institution I want to see it back again, with its rules of fair-play, and for its contempt for pain and its excellent tuition in te alrew tired of the wild exultation in Slavin's prowess, theover a victory which meant less than it would have done in the days which I ah to re, except perhaps a e native and ask him what he knows of Marcus Clarke, of Jainal of Browning's _Waring_ He will have no response for you, but he will reel off for you the names of the best bowler, the best bat, the chaest of half-backs The portraits of football players are published by the dozen and the score, and the native knows the nanalled out for honour In England the schoolboys would know all about these people, but in Australia the world at large is interested The bank clerk who has a recognised position in a football teaes which another may not claim His athletic prowess reflects upon hier allows him holidays for his ard to hours for training

Froue the existence of a specially athletic people, but the conclusion is largely illusory The worshi+p of athleticism breeds a professional or se to kno little an effect it has upon the crowd of city people who join in all the rites of adoration The popularity of the game is answerable for the existence of the barracker whose outward reeable as they well can be The barracker is the man who shouts for his own party, and by yells of scorn and expletives of execration seeks to daunt the side against which he has put his athers in his thousands, as he does at all ly objectionable He is fluent in oath and objurgation, cursing like an inh at a raceand takes his pleasure mildly there

The barracker and the larrikin are akin The garown up to early manhood, fed on three meat meals a day, supplied with plenteous pocket money, and allowed to rule a tribe of tailors, would be a larrikin The New York hoodluh is a larrikin also with a difference The Australian representative of the great blackguard tribe is better dressed, better fed and more liberally provided in all respects than his _confrere_ of other nations He is the street bully, _par excellence_, inspired to this tyranny by unfailing beef and beer When Mr bumble heard of Oliver Twist's resistance to the combined authority of Mrs Sowerberry and Charlotte and Noah Claypole, he repudiated the idea of madness which was offered as an explanation of the boy's conduct ”It isn't madness, ma'am,” said Mr bumble, ”it's meat”

There is the true explanation of the larrikin He is meat-fed and is thereby inspired with ferocity, Darwin, if I reradually accustoan to take the coarseness of hair and the e

The fore-runners of the larrikin were never very sheep-like in all probability, for if one could trace his pedigree, it would in most cases be found that he is the descendant of the true British cad But he has improved upon the ancestral pattern and become a pest of formidable characteristics and dimensions The problem he presents has never been faced, but it will have to be er is forced to the conclusion that istrates are absurdly lenient I recall a case of so of well-fed ruffians assaulted an old man in Flinders Street, Melbourne The attack was shown to have been utterly unprovoked, and the victim's injuries were serious Three of the most active participators in the sport were seized by the police and were each sent to prison for six weeks, A sentence of six s thrown in, would have gone nearer to encies of the case; but there is a widespread objection to the use of the cat, the argu men by its application The saland, but in a less ree

Crimes of violence are of exceptionally frequent occurrence and it is still felt necessary to punish rape by the imposition of the final penalty

The democracy is detere seems to be within measurable distance It is conceivable that iteffect, and that it h the experiether with the payislative chambers, has not, so far, achieved the happiest conceivable results The parliaarden The late Mr MacEhlone (who once informed the Speaker that, when he encountered outside an honourable gentleise, he would ”spit in his eye ”) has a worthy successor in the presence of a Mr Crick Sonant house, wearied of his prolonged indecencies of demeanour, but his constituency sent hi to prove that the Ministry was coes dwindled into nothing; but one at least of his constituents is persuaded that the debates, as printed in the newspapers, would lose so much of sparkle if Mr Crick were banished permanendy from the house that the breakfast enjoyment of the public more than atoned for his presence there The women are notoriously deficient in humour, and it is possible that, when they con of Mr Crick and his like will be over

The best hope which lies before Australia at this hour is the federation of her several colonies Her determination to keep her population European can hardly fail of approval, but the immediate work to her hand is to consolidate her own possessions The attempt to find material for six separate parliaments in a population of three and a half millions has, it must be confessed in all candour, succeeded beyond reasonable expectations, but concentration will be of service There will be a laudable rivalry between the colonies which will result in the choice of the fittest men, and a conified body than has yet been assembled within colonial limits

But this is one of the smallest of the results to be anticipated The ridiculous tariff restrictions which now harass individuals and restrict commerce will pass away and with them the foolish hatreds which exist between the rival colonies At present if one desire to anger a Victorian he has only to praise New South Wales Would he wound a Sydneyite in the fifth rib, let hi about the proprietorshi+p of the Murray River It lies between the two colonies and New South Wales claims it to the Victorian bank

When it overflowed disastrously a couple of years ago, an irate farmer on the Victorian side is said to have written to Sir Henry Parkes, bidding him co to agitate for a duty (by the gallon) on i less than childish, but I have the personal assurance of the leading statesman of New South Wales that he is perfectly satisfied with the position It is probable that he sees in the existing riparian rights a chance for a concession which may win concessions in its turn The Victorians are iht to be so Federation is on all accounts to be desired, but it has yet to be fought for, and will only be gained with difficulty Wisefor it, but the petty jealousies of rival states will hold it back fro as delay is possible How infinitesi short of a residence in the land can teach anybody Wisdo run, but the belief of the veteran leader of New South Wales, that he will live to see the union of the Australian colonies, is a dreae him

The wide and varied resources of the country, and the ups and dohich e which in so my first stay in Melbourne the waiter who attended toof a dubious air, a scrap of blue paper, on which ritten, ”Your old friend------” I instructed him to show my visitor in, and a minute later beheld the face of an old corizzled and wrinkled than I had last seen it, but otherwise unchanged When we had shaken hands and he was seated, I found that he was dressed like a common labourer; and in answer to htly, that he had fallen upon evil tine, old man,” said he when I asked him to refresh himself, ”and a square foot will run to enjoy it” We talked away, and he told me of a history of success and failure, and at last he explained the purpose of his visit He wished to hear the three lectures I was advertised to deliver, and he had corace you, old boy,” he added, ”I have been down onto stay where I am, and _I have kept my dress clothes_” I do not know that I ever saw a finer bit of unconscious courage, and the incident gave me a certain faith in the spirit of the colonies which has never leftelereat and valuable thing It finds such a place in a new country as it can never have in an old one The English gentleland had fallen to be a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water would never have ”kept his dress clothes” He would have known that he was permanendy under, but here the British pluck had rational hope of recovery, and on that rational hope survived and even flourished

And this leads me back to that question of the self-confidence of the Australian-born colonial hich I started Hope looks so sure, that what Australia wants and has not it seems self-evident in a little while she will have And so she ht way for it, and instead of keeping three-quarters of her sparse inhabitants in toould take the work that lies before her nose and subdue the land and replenish it; and instead of shutting the gates deliberately on rival labour, would draw the stranger to her coasts and pour population on vast tracts of land which now lie barren and unproductive, but only wait for the hand of man to break into beauty and yield riches

In a hundred ways timidity would have been crie and hope have led the way, and to what effort they have prompted, a little over-confidence looks pardonable

Everywhere the colonists have worked for the future They have made railways and roads which will not be fully used for s are made to last, and are of dimensions nobler than present needs can ask for Generations to coenerosity of the men of the last fifty years In certain places there is an adst private citizens who have set themselves to beautify the towns in which they live This is very notable in Ballarat, where it has grown to be an excellent fashi+on to present the toith statues Should that fashi+on continue and should the sarow to be the Athens of the Southern Hee perhaps, but it is in the colonial fashi+on, and one would willingly believe in the chances of its ultienerations will have to thank their predecessors for sos of the world Every town has its gardens, the property of the citizens Those of Brisbane, Sydney, and Adelaide are extensively beautiful But rounds theates of the loveliest of them all I wish I had the _ipsissima verba_ of it, for it seemed to be characterised by an admirable simplicity and directness The sense of it is this,--

These gardens belong to the public and the owners are requested to protect their property