Part 8

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25.—The first thing we do when we reach a strange town is to walk around and look at it, after being comfortably settled in a hotel. Later, we hire a messenger boy, as guide, and go riding. We like Wellington better than we liked Auckland, and we were in love with that town. The Grand Hotel is really excellent, yet the price is only $3.12 a day, which includes three regular meals, supper at 9 P. M., early morning tea, afternoon tea, and room. The house has a good elevator service, electric lights, and plenty of baths. My room looks out on the main street of Wellington, and has a little stone balcony in front. Across the street is the barroom of the Empire Hotel, with two lady bartenders. I amuse myself watching them. They are stylishly dressed, and it is funny to see them step up to the bar and ask a man what he will have.... We swing along the streets in comfortable fashion, and hope that drinking tea four times a day causes us to look Colonial, if not English, but when we step into a store and ask a price, the clerk replies, “Ten and six; that is, two dollars and sixty-two cents.” Which causes us to realize that our gait, our manner, our clothes and our talk are still plainly marked: “American.” We went into a dry-goods store this morning, and Adelaide bought a pair of gloves. The price was three and six (about half the price we would have paid at home), and I gave the clerk what I thought was the exact change. As I walked out, I was thinking the English system of money is easy to learn. When we were in the street, a girl came running after us with a shilling change.... Railroad trains run through one of the busiest streets of Wellington, and this morning we saw a train start for the races. It consisted of half a dozen passenger coaches, and twelve flat cars provided with board seats. One of the passenger cars was a sleeper. This is the capital of the country. Think of the government owning the railways in the United States, and, in Washington, D. C., compelling the people to ride on flat cars. I imagine that “Tax Payer,” and “Citizen,” to say nothing of “Old Soldier,” and “Vox Populi,” would write stinging letters to the newspapers.... There is a paper printed here called “Truth,” and I venture the opinion that it is the biggest liar in the Dominion. The last issue has a leader entitled “Christ—Cæsar—Napoleon.” Under such a title a writer might lie abominably.... In Australia, a Mr. Beeby was recently elected to the legislative assembly against the wishes of the labor unions. Mr. Beeby challenged the right of the labor unions to order his every political act, and become the keeper of his conscience. So he appealed to the people, and told the labor men to go to the devil. They made a tremendous fight against Mr. Beeby, and said he was trying to take bread out of the mouths of starving people, etc., although he was really a very fair and sensible friend of the working class. The result was a surprise; Mr. Beeby won, although by a small majority. The Wellington _Times_ of this morning, speaking of Mr. Beeby’s success, says:

“There is a good deal of hostility to the labor element, because of its disregard of the best traditions of constitutional government.”

It was a fair and square fight between conservative people and the labor unions, and the people won. There is a great deal of the same sentiment everywhere in New Zealand and Australia; the people believe the labor unions have become more exacting than circumstances warrant, and that some day, somewhere, the limit will be reached.... This has been a very enjoyable day, because there are no sights to see. Fortunately Thos. Cook & Son didn’t want us to go to the South Islands to see the glaciers; they say we haven’t time. We have walked about in a leisurely way today, and, living far from the sea, the docks attract us everywhere. This afternoon we engaged in conversation with an officer of a ship sailing to London by way of South America, and he took us all over it. He said sea-travel is safer now than ever before, because of the “Titanic” disaster; that every seaman is more careful.... Last night, two bands went by the hotel. The players were neatly uniformed, and there were at least sixty men in the two organizations. They were Mission bands; the Mission is a rival of the Salvation Army, but a little quieter in its methods. The Salvation Army also has a large band here, and both play in the streets every evening. The papers give advance notice of the location of the concerts, and large crowds gather to hear the music. The bands are very creditable; nothing amateurish about them.... The men who work in the slaughter-houses here are on strike, and the papers of this morning say that the Farmers’ Union has adopted resolutions condemning the slaughter-house employees for failure to accept arbitration.... In this country, when a newspaper prints a telegram, it prints the day and hour the telegram was received, as a guarantee that it was received by wire. If an editor prints a faked telegram, he is liable to fine and imprisonment. The idea isn’t a bad one. The government has lately ordered an investigation of the wireless telegraph business. The people desire to know just what is actually being accomplished by wireless. I shall watch the investigation with interest; I should like to know, too.... Tomatoes are generally sold here at fruit stores. Which revives the old conundrum: “Is the tomato a fruit or vegetable?”... A place in Wellington is known as “The American Lounge.” It is a soda-water place, and this sign appears in the window: “Coca-Cola; something entirely new in New Zealand.” The soda fountain is a small one-spout affair that a suburban grocer in America would not tolerate.... In one of the suburbs, this afternoon, children followed us, as though we were Chinese. “They are American people,” the children said, apparently not knowing that we could understand what they said. An old gentleman reprimanded the children, and apologized for their conduct.... The race track is twenty miles from Wellington, as there is not enough level land in the vicinity to accommodate a mile track, and most of the people are out there this afternoon. We were walking in the wholesale district at 3 P. M., and, looking in every direction, were able to see only five people; and they were hurrying to the railroad station. Wellington is very hilly, and mountains are only a stone’s-throw from its main streets.... Yesterday a man named James Cole brought an action against his wife, Fanny, because she failed to properly support him. Cole said he was unable to work because of an accident, whereas his wife had a profitable fish-supper business. Counsel asked Cole:

“How high are you able to lift your arm since the accident which you say disabled you?”

Applicant lifted his arm nearly up to his shoulder.

“How far could you lift it before the accident?” counsel for Mrs. Cole asked.

“Oh, up to here,” Mr. Cole replied, holding the arm high over his head. Whereupon the magistrate dismissed the case. All of which appears in the Wellington _Times_ of this morning; in the local news, and not in the joke department.... We have a mandolin orchestra at this hotel, and the leader is an old gentleman who looks like a member of the Supreme Court of the United States whose picture I have often seen, but whose name I have forgotten. He plays to the lady guests as the first violinist does in a Paris café, and is altogether a very interesting character.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26.—Australia has nothing to show tourists except a 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.