Part 12

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8.—At Sydney, we had heard of 107 in the shade at Melbourne, but found the weather very pleasant. In a very gentlemanly sort of way, Melbourne and Sydney are jealous of each other. They are of about the same size, with Sydney in the lead, and forging ahead rapidly; but Melbourne has the capital, and this is a bone of contention. To get rid of it, there is a plan to build a capital in the interior, as we built Washington to patch up the quarrel between cities anxious for the national capital. But Melbourne will indefinitely delay building a capital city in the sage-brush of the interior; I have heard this guess made many times.... I have been particularly pleased with the hotels in Australia and New Zealand, and am inclined to believe that Menzie’s, in Melbourne, is the best of the lot. I have a telephone in my room, and a big wide bed, and the meals are surprisingly good. The price is $3.60 per day, including everything. I was recently at the Sherman House, in Chicago, and paid $3.50 per day for a room. What we call “the European plan” is almost unknown at hotels here.... Melbourne is a better town than I expected to find it. Its citizens admit that Sydney is larger, and growing more rapidly; indeed, I have heard them say Sydney will continue to grow more rapidly, as it has a better country around it. But Melbourne is a beautiful city, and Sydney has nothing to match its St. Kilda Road. This is a great driveway leading from the city to a sort of Coney Island. This driveway is lined with flowers, green grass and beautiful homes. And I did not see a bathing-beach in Sydney as handsome as St. Kilda beach. Melbourne has wider streets than Sydney, and seems to be more modern. “Don’t you think,” one man asked me, “that Melbourne is more like one of your American cities than Sydney?” The people here are as familiar as the people of New Zealand with the fact that we are Americans, but they see more Americans, and are not so much interested in them. Every man I talk with reminds me that I am an American; always politely. I went yesterday to see about my baggage. “Don’t you find our system almost identical with yours in the United States?” the very agreeable and accommodating baggage agent asked. And the system of handling baggage here is the same as our system.... I think the people of Melbourne are sick and tired hearing of Sydney’s beautiful harbor; particularly as Melbourne’s harbor is not very large. There is a great bay here, but it is not a harbor; it is almost as much of an open roadstead as Manila bay.... Melbourne has cable cars, but the system was not adopted because of hills, for the city is almost flat. I enjoyed riding again in the front end of a grip-car, as I used to do in the old days in Kansas City. On one line, the fare is six cents per passenger for riding the shortest distance. I saw one short electric line; also, one horse-car line.... Years ago, the boomers declared that Melbourne needed a Convention hall, and one was finally built, after every citizen had been bored for a contribution, and soundly abused because he did not give more. Now the boomers are kept busy to find use for the hall. This month it is the scene of a Manufacturers’ exhibition, and I saw a good many interesting things there yesterday afternoon. There is an aquarium in connection; and at this place I saw the most interesting thing I have seen since leaving home—a monkey mother with a baby four or five weeks old. Monkeys always interest me, but this monkey with a baby was so much like a human mother that I watched her half an hour. The monkey baby was not well, and the mother watched over it precisely as a human mother would have done. Occasionally the baby played with its toes, as you have seen human babies do. The mother gave all her attention to the baby; she did not neglect it for a moment. There is a human quality about monkeys that always attracts me. One I saw this morning at the zoölogical garden was an old chap, and he was frowsy and irritable, as old men are, and the younger ones were afraid of him, and scampered out of his way.... We are still meeting “Sonoma” passengers; we encountered one at this hotel last night—a Mr. Smart, a London publisher. Another passenger on the “Sonoma” is a newspaper man here, but we have not yet seen him.... The eggs used at Menzie’s hotel are labeled. The two I had for breakfast were marked with a rubber stamp in this fashion: “A. J. Paine, The Sisters, Teremo; February 6, 1913.”... This morning, while at St. Kilda beach, we looked at the many ships in Port Melbourne, and distinguished a big blue funnel. It belonged to the “Anchises,” of the Blue Funnel line, and we will live on it for three weeks, beginning next Wednesday. It started from Sydney a week ago, but we will join it at Adelaide, for which city it sails tonight.... I was talking today with an intelligent Australian, and he says that in three or four years the cost of living here has increased one-fourth, owing to the advancing prices for labor.... In both Sydney and Melbourne, I found crowds around employment agencies. This surprised me; I thought every man who wanted work here, had it.... In coming from Sydney by rail, we saw hundreds of piano-boxes along the way. Each box contained an advertisement for the Steck piano. It was a new use for empty piano-boxes.... Here, when a doctor charges a big fee for an operation, the newspapers make a fuss about it. The Sydney papers were full of a sensation of this kind the day I left there. It is a fashion that might be copied by American papers; great outrages are perpetrated by some doctors in the United States, and nothing is said about it.... I have heard a great deal about rabbits in Australia; they are said to be so numerous as to be a curse. Still, while riding through the country yesterday on a railroad train, I saw two boys out hunting. One of them had three rabbits, and the other had four. Considering the rabbit stories I have heard, I thought the number quite modest. At another place, I saw a boy out hunting, and he had but one rabbit. Australia looks about as I expected it to look, except the rabbits.... At the zoölogical garden in Melbourne, there is an exhibit labeled: “American Cats.” And that’s exactly what they are: plain cats, such as you see around any American home.... At 4:15 we drove to the station, and a quarter of an hour later left for Adelaide, capital of South Australia; distance, 508 miles. The train is a better one than that running between Sydney and Melbourne, and we were told that the sleeper in which we had engaged berths would go through. The railroad is owned by the government, and the gauge is five feet three inches; eight and a half inches wider than our standard gauge. But the cars do not seem wider than ours, and certainly they were not so heavy. The rails were also light, although the train made good time. There was a dining-car attached, and at 6 o’clock we had an excellent dinner, at 96 cents each. There were only four others in the dining-car, and we had compartments to ourselves in the sleeping-car. The compartments are for two, but travel here is always light Saturday night, I am told. With a room to myself, I began almost having a good time, particularly as I have become accustomed to the pronunciations of the people, and they no longer distress me. On the dining-car bill of fare, this was printed: “Waiters are not permitted to accept tips, on pain of dismissal.” But when I offered our waiter a tip, he ran the risk of dismissal, and took it.... The trainmen told me that they are often compelled to work sixteen hours a day, and that they receive a shilling an hour: that is, for a day of sixteen hours, $3.84. Government ownership of railways is certainly a mistake, so far as the men are concerned. The government can bluff employees easier than a private employer.... I shall always remember the town of Ballarat, the largest interior town in Australia, with a population of 40,000. It was at this town that I lost my luck, and a man was assigned to my compartment. But Adelaide’s luck continued, and she had a compartment to herself all the way. In addition to having towns named for her, she is lucky in other ways. I never have towns named for me; you never heard of a town named Ed., did you?... We passed through one section of country which seemed to be noted for potato-growing. I remember we reached it after climbing a mountain of considerable height, and the potato-fields continued many miles. This must be the best section of Australia, since the railroad did not run more than thirty to sixty miles from the sea, which supplies the few rains Australia has. But the country looked very dry, and the soil thin.... We see no barns on the farms; in the United States, travelers remark that the barns are often huge, and the residences pitifully small. Possibly one explanation is that stock run out all winter here; it is not necessary to house them, or winter-feed. But the fact remains that Australia has no country like the best parts of Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio, or a dozen other states that might be mentioned. Australia somehow reminds me of California, where an exceptionally clever people have made a great deal out of a semi-arid country. The farmers I know pay little attention to agricultural reports. The Australian farmers do, and greedily devour everything printed that concerns their business.... The dining-car in which we ate dinner has two sections: first and second-class. We paid four shillings for dinner, and the second-class passengers paid two.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9.—When I awoke this morning, the train was running rapidly through the bleakest country I have seen in Australia or New Zealand. This is the land settlers are encouraged to “take up,” and improve. It did not look to be worth ten dollars a quarter-section, but occasionally I saw a settler’s cabin. A trainman told me that the original settler rarely did well, but that the man who bought him out for almost nothing, often did quite well. Suddenly we came in sight of the Murray river, the only considerable stream in Australia, and navigable for small boats a thousand miles above where I saw it. Soon after, we crossed the river at a little town, and stopped for breakfast. From the railroad bridge I saw several steamboats, and rather extensive facilities for loading and unloading freight.... Remember that in passing through the bleak, dry country referred to above, we were not fifty miles from the sea, and that the rainfall decreases toward the interior of the country.... This morning we began seeing plenty of rabbits; many times, forty or fifty were in view at the same time, and we are now satisfied.... A gentleman on the train who lives in the Fiji Islands, says that not long ago there, more than thirty-six inches of rain fell in one day; the government rain-gauge records thirty-six inches, but this filled, and ran over. It is a pity that the industrious Australians cannot have some of the rain that goes to waste in the Fiji Islands, where the inhabitants are shiftless.... Our first view of Adelaide was from a mountain, where the railroad runs. It is a city of 180,000, the capital of South Australia, and located on an extensive plain, between the sea and the mountain. Adelaide is not located on the sea, as I had imagined; its shipping is done at Port Adelaide, twelve miles away. We reached the city at 10 A. M., and went to the Grand Central Hotel, a large, new place, but we were almost the only guests; at one time, we saw only two others in the dining-room, and never more than fifteen. The dining-room is very large and very fine, and a good orchestra plays for dinner, but there are almost no guests. On our floor we see no one; we have it to ourselves. We like the quiet, but the proprietor of the hotel must be suffering. We asked a waiter for an explanation, and he said Saturday, Sunday and Monday are usually quiet days. The town is much like the hotel; it is not crowded. Here, as elsewhere in Australia and New Zealand, the people are exceptionally polite. We were standing on the street this afternoon, somewhat confused about the proper car to take, when a policeman stepped up and asked if he could do anything for us. I do not know where the people learned their exceptional politeness; they certainly did not learn it from the mother country, England.... In this dry country, people like to hover around the words “river” and “creek.” In a morning paper, I looked at a list of towns, and the first three were Tennant’s Creek, Brock’s Creek, and Powell’s Creek.... The newspapers here are very prosperous, as they are lately all over the world. Their great prosperity, I am told, has come within the past twenty years, and that is true everywhere. One Adelaide paper prints a department entitled: “Fifty Years Ago,” a brief résumé of events half a century old. One item reads: “A special harvest holiday train will leave Kapunda for Adelaide on Thursday, on account of the Agricultural Society’s exhibition,” etc.; so it seems that Adelaide is not at all youthful.... An advertisement in the morning paper read: “Wanted—Position by bird scorer.”... Over here, the word Trust, which we despise, is used without the slightest delicacy. The street-railway company is unblushingly called the Tramway Trust in its own announcements. And just now there is some excitement because the Tramway Trust, in a disagreement with its employees, refused to accept arbitration. All the papers are full of labor-trouble news. It seems to me that in the United States we do not hear half as much about labor disturbances as we hear here. Every workingman who is not on strike, is discussing one, with a view of forcing another increase in wages. But labor rioting is not as frequent or serious here as in the United States; there are practically no “scabs” to assault—it is a rare thing to find a working man or woman who does not belong to a union.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10.—No country in the world makes more of parks, gardens and hospitals than Australia. And probably no other country makes as much of the Salvation Army. About the first thing I saw on my arrival in Adelaide was a street meeting of the Salvation Army, a feature of which was a good brass band of forty men. Two other things travelers from the United States will notice here: drouth and prosperity. I have seen no poor people; no evidence of poverty—yet how dry the weather is! In the section of country where I live, we have had two very dry summers in the past thirty-five years; but during those summers the country did not look as parched as the country looks everywhere in Australia.... About the only vegetables we get at the hotels here are potatoes, cabbage, and canned beans. Tomatoes are served occasionally, but they are smaller than those we get at home, and not so good. On the streets, we see many carts selling fruit, including strawberries.... The city of Adelaide and the young lady in whose honor it was named, are very much alike in one particular; both are very quiet. We see no crowds here: we had plenty of room on the train coming here, we have plenty of room in the hotel, and we have plenty of room on the streets when we ride or walk about. This afternoon we went riding in an automobile, and everywhere we found it quiet and dusty. There are no crowds on the street-cars; and it may be mentioned incidentally that the street-railway system of Adelaide could not be more complete than it is. One may go to any nook or corner of the city in a clean electric car, and one line runs to a seaside resort, a distance of eight or nine miles. Fare, ten cents. All the cities in Australia have better street-railway accommodations than the country has steam-railway accommodations; it seems to me that the steam railways are not as numerous or efficient as the country demands, whereas I have everywhere remarked the excellence of street-railways.... In the United States, the privately owned railways cross the country from north to south, and from east to west, but the government-owned railways have not done as much for Australia. Comparing Australia with the United States, there is no railway across the continent, whereas we have five or six systems; nor is there a railway here crossing the continent from north to south. The Australian railways fringe the populous coast for a distance of fourteen or fifteen hundred miles; they take few risks, and do not attempt to make fruitful districts out of arid districts, as do the privately owned railways in the United States. Our railways have done more to develop the country than the government has done. Nor do the government-owned railways in Australia move perishable freight more promptly: at many stations along the road from Sydney to Adelaide, I heard complaints because the railway company did not provide cars in which to ship wheat piled on the ground. And when a car is provided, it is a small open flat-car, and does not hold much more than a big wagon. So far as I have been able to make out, railway rates are a little higher here than in the United States, and the service very much poorer.... We think we notice that women are rather better dressed in Australia than in New Zealand, and possibly a little better looking.... In every hotel dining-room here, we are always given ice-water; the waiters have heard that Americans like it.