Town Life in Australia Part 9

Turning over to the twelfth or back page, I find Wanted to Buy, 12; Wanted to Sell, 35; Board and Lodging, 44; Houses to Let, 67; Houses for Sale, 34; Partnerships, Businesses, etc., 44, of which 12 are hotels; Wines, Spirits, etc., 16; Dress and Fashion, 3; Auction Sales, 128, taking up 12 columns; Amus.e.m.e.nts, 24, taking up 2 columns; Stock and Station Sales, 11; Horses and Carriages, 18; Produce and Provisions, 2 (Epps and Fry); Publications and Literature, 6; Bank Notices, 2; Public Notices, half a column; Business Notices, 53; Money, 41; Machinery, 23; Medical, 30; Judicial Law Notices, 6; Tenders, 26, and Meetings, 9. There is also a column and a half of special advertis.e.m.e.nts charged for at extra rates in the inside sheet just before the leading column.

Although the _Argus_ has a very influential and advertis.e.m.e.nt-bringing cla.s.s of readers, and penetrates beyond the limits of Victoria, by far the largest circulation in Australia is that of the _Melbourne Age_, a penny four-page sheet, published in Melbourne, which boasts of an issue of 50,000 copies daily, almost all absorbed within Australia. Its leading articles are as able and even more virulent than those of the _Argus_.

Its telegraphic intelligence is good, and in dramatic and literary criticisms it is second only to the _Argus_ in Australia. But its news is comparatively poor, owing to its being only a single-sheet paper, and it caters for a far inferior cla.s.s than the _Argus_. Its inventive ability, in which it altogether surpa.s.ses the London _Daily Telegraph_, has brought it the nickname of 'Ananias,' and it is essentially the people's journal. Just as in politics the _Argus_ is not only the organ but the leader of the ultra-Conservative party, even so the _Age_ coaches the Democracy. To its influence is mainly due the ascendency which Mr. Berry's party held for so long, and the violence of the measures which poor Mr. Berry took in hand. It was the _Age_ which originated the idea of the Plebiscite, and of the progressive land-tax.

It is protectionist to the backbone, having commenced the cry of 'Victoria for the Victorians,' and fosters a policy of isolation from the sister colonies. Prominent amongst its leader-writers is Mr. C. H.

Pearson, whose Democracy is at once the most ultra and the most cultured, the most philosophical and the most dogmatic. Another leader of the Radical party who frequently writes for the _Age_ is Mr. Dakin, the rising young man of Victorian politics, who represents talent and education apart from culture.

The third morning paper in Melbourne is the _Daily Telegraph_, a penny Conservative sheet which has never attained any large influence or circulation, although edited by a man of considerable literary ability.

The evening papers are the _Herald_, which is supposed to represent the Catholic party; and the _World_, which is rather American in tone, but very readable. Both are penny papers exerting very little influence.

In all the Victorian papers, of whatever party, it is noticeable that Victorian topics, and especially Victorian politics, occupy an almost exclusive share both of leading and news columns; while the New South Wales and South Australian papers devote far more attention to intercolonial and European affairs. The fact is that Victoria is much more self-contained and independent of the mother country than its neighbours. Somehow or other there is more local news obtainable, more going-on, in fact, in Melbourne than in Sydney and Adelaide put together.

Everything and everybody in Victoria moves faster. Hence there is more to chronicle; and greater interest is taken in what is going on in the colony. The political excitement of the country is, after all, but an outcome of this national vivacity of disposition. Half a dozen Berrys put together could not raise one quarter of the feeling in Adelaide, far less in Sydney.

After the _Argus_ I should place the _South Australian Register_, published in Adelaide, as the best daily paper in Australia. In style and get-up it is almost an exact copy of its Melbourne contemporary, and its published price is twopence. In reports and correspondence it is quite as enterprising, but its leading columns and critiques being almost all written in the office, are necessarily weaker. The whole paper is less carefully edited, but its opinions are more liberal, and it is in no sense a party paper. It May, indeed, be said that not even the _Times_ exercises so much influence in its sphere as does the _Register_. It not merely reflects public opinion, but, to a great extent, leads it, and it must be admitted that, on the whole, it leads it very sensibly. It may be urged against the _Register_, that its leading articles are wanting in literary brilliancy as compared with those of the _Argus_; but they are far more moderate and judicial in political matters. The extraordinary merits of this paper, in so small a community, are due partly to its having been, at a critical period in its existence, edited, managed and partly owned by the late Mr. Howard Clark, a man of great culture and ability, and partly to the close compet.i.tion of the South Australian _Advertiser_, a twopenny paper which is well sustained in every department, and noted for occasional leading articles of great brilliancy.

The _Sydney Morning Herald_ is the richest newspaper property in Australia. It has correspondents in almost every capital in Europe, including St. Petersburg--where the _Argus_ and _Register_ are not represented--publishes an immense quant.i.ty of news, and is edited by an able and liberal-minded man. But the absence of compet.i.tion makes it inferior in enterprise to either the _Argus_, _Register_, or _Advertiser_. Its leading columns are sound but commonplace, and there is a fatal odour of respectable dulness about the paper. A second paper called the _Daily Telegraph_ was established in Sydney in 1879, which seems to be meeting the wants of the penny public, but it is very inferior to the _Herald_, or to the second-rate papers in the other colonies. In Adelaide, the evening papers are merely penny reprints of half of the morning papers. In Sydney, the _Herald_ proprietors publish the _Echo_, a sprightly little sheet; but the best evening paper is the _Evening News_, which caters for the popular taste and is somewhat sensational.

The wants of the bushman, who relies on one weekly paper for his sole intellectual food, and who, though often well educated, is far away from libraries or books of any kind, have given rise to a cla.s.s of weekly papers which are quite _sui generis_. The model on which they are all formed is the _Australasian_, published by the _Argus_ proprietors, which is still the best known and the best. Some idea of the enormous ma.s.s of reading-matter it contains may be gathered from the fact that its ordinary issue is fifty-two pages, a little larger than the _Pall Mall_, but containing five columns to the page and printed in the ordinary small type used in most daily papers, and known to printers as 'brevier.'

To give an idea of the character of its contents is difficult. It is partly a newspaper, partly a magazine. The telegrams for the week are culled from the _Argus_. If it were not for the addition of a fortnightly intercolonial letter, the way in which the week's news is given would remind me of the _St. James's Budget_. It is divided into Parliament, town news, country news, intercolonial, home (i.e. English), and foreign news, and may be described as a cla.s.sified reproduction of the more important news in the _Argus_.

There are generally three or four leading articles somewhat of the character--but of course not the quality--of the _Spectator_; and the notes on the first page of the Liberal weekly are evidently imitated in a page of short editorial comments called 'Topics of the Week.'

'Literature,' by which is meant a two-column review of a single book and three or four short reviews, is another heading. The 'Ladies' Column'

contains a leader after the manner of the _Queen_, fashion items, notes and queries, and every other week an excellent English letter by Mrs.

Cashel Hoey, dealing with new plays, books and social events in London.

'The Wanderer,' 'The Traveller,' 'The Sketcher,' 'The Tourist,' head single or short serial articles of one and a half or two columns in length, signed or not signed, but always either well written or describing something new and interesting. 'Talk on 'Change' heads a column and a half of satirical or humorous notes, which are very much appreciated, and form a more leading feature of the paper than their merit warrants. The anecdotes are often new and always admirably told, but the comments are weak. 'The Theatres' contains one general critique of the newest play in Melbourne--sometimes two--followed by short detailed criticisms, hashed up from the _Argus_, of whatever is on the boards at the different theatres. 'The Essayist' is one of the best features in the paper, though it appeals to a very limited audience.

Those written by a gentleman signing himself 'An Eclectic,' are exceptionally good--better, as a rule, than most similar essays in the _Sat.u.r.day_. Dr. J. E. Taylor's 'Popular Science Notes' are by no means equal to those Mr. Proctor used to contribute. 'Original Poetry 'speaks for itself. 'Miscellany' heads a column of humorous extract paragraphs, chiefly from American papers. 'The Novelist' contains a serial. 'The Story-Teller' a single story--original. This department is always well sustained, and no expense is spared in getting good work.

'All Sorts and Conditions of Men' has just been running through the paper, Besant and Rice being favourite authors here. James Payne, B. L.

Farjeon and R. E. Francillon are other contributors whose names come into my mind. Occasionally a colonial work is chosen, and the proprietors do a great deal of service in bringing out really promising authors.

Besides all these standing dishes, there are, of course, a few stray articles on all kinds of subjects. In a copy before me is one of a series ent.i.tled, 'The Goldfields,' of special interest to miners, and treating the subject technically.

But the two departments which may be said to have made the _Australasian_ are the _Sportsman_ and the _Yeoman_, which, to all intents and purposes, are separate papers incorporated with the _Australasian_. Of the _Sportsman_, I don't think it is too much to say, that it is the best sporting paper in the world, not excepting the _Field_, and it fully deserves the supreme authority which it exercises over all sporting matters south of the line. The page begins with 'Answers to Correspondents.' Then come one or two leading articles on sporting matters, which form the stronghold of the department; then Turf Gossips, the Betting Market, full descriptions of all Australian and the princ.i.p.al New Zealand race-meetings, special training notes from Flemington, Randwick and Adelaide, intercolonial sporting notes and letters from special correspondents, winding up with 'Sporting Notes from Home.' Cricket next has a leading article and notes, followed by descriptions of the more important matches. Yachting, rowing, coursing, pigeon-shooting, hunting, shooting, football, and lawn-tennis all come in for a small share.

The _Yeoman_ is not much in my line, though it is looked up to as a great authority upon all agricultural and pastoral topics. Taking a current number, I find it begins with 'Answers to Correspondents;' then comes the 'Weekly Review of the Corn Trade;' 'Rural Topics and Events;'

a series of short editorial comments; a leader on' Wheat-growing;' 'The Crops and the Harvest, by our Agricultural Reporter, No. IV.;' 'In the Queensland Down County, No. VI.;' 'The Water Conservation Act, No. III.;'

'The Melbourne Wool-buyers and the Wool-brokers;' 'Separating Cream by Machinery;' 'Selling Live Cattle by Weight;' 'Fancy Price of Breeders;'

'Compet.i.tion between Draught Horses;' 'b.u.t.ter Cows;' 'The Black Walnut at Home.' 'Public Trial of Hornsby's Spring Binder;' 'Correspondence;'

'Horticultural Notes;' 'Gardening Operations for the Week;' 'Plant Notes;' 'Notes and Gleanings;' 'Impoundings;' etc., etc., etc.

So much for the _Australasian_, of which it must not be forgotten that the _Sportsman_ and _Yeoman_ are only component parts. As its name implies, it has a wide circulation beyond Victoria. In the Riverine district and a considerable part of New South Wales, it is the princ.i.p.al paper taken; and even in New Zealand and Western Australia all hotels and many private persons subscribe to it. To the wide area over which, and the good cla.s.s of people amongst whom it circulates, is largely due the leading position which Victoria occupies in the minds of all the other colonies, and the views they take of her politics. The _Australasian_ is of course Conservative, but not quite so rabidly so as the _Argus_.

It surveys politics from the Conservative gallery. The _Argus_ takes part in the scrimmage and leads the Conservative forces. In commenting on intercolonial politics, by which I mean those of the other colonies, it always takes a mildly Conservative view, advocating federation, caution in borrowing, and a.s.sistance to the exploration and settlement of the interior. Not its least use is, that it gives the people of one colony the opportunity of knowing what is going on in the other colonies. Many of the articles are signed with a _nom de plume_, under the cover of which atheistical and even revolutionary views are allowed to express themselves. In religious matters the _Argus_ and _Australasian_ maintain an eclectic att.i.tude. Outwardly they are Christian in the widest sense of the term, but it is not difficult to see that most of their writers are agnostics. On social subjects, directly they get clear of contemporary local politics, their views are progressive and enlightened, often indeed original. It is curious to note that all the leading organs of public opinion in Australia are strongly Conservative and Imperialistic in their views of the foreign policy of England. There is only one exception, to my knowledge, the _Melbourne Age_, which advocates a non-interference policy, and would not be sorry to see 'the painter cut.' On home affairs the colonial press is naturally in sympathy with the Liberals, but the _Argus_ draws the line at the Cloture and the Liberal policy in Ireland, which it opposes.

Of the imitators of the _Australasian_, the _Queenslander_, published by the proprietors of the _Brisbane Courier_; the _Leader_, published by the _Age_ proprietors; and the _Town and Country_, by the proprietors of the _Sydney Evening News_, are the best, in the order named. The _Sydney Mail_, published by the _Sydney Morning Herald_, is also a good compendium of information on current topics. The _Adelaide Observer_ is little better than an abstract of the S. A.

_Register_, and the S. A. _Chronicle_ is literally a reproduction of the S. A. _Advertiser_. But all these papers are much more provincial in tone than the _Australasian_, and have hardly any circulation outside the colony in which they are published. About two years ago a new independent paper was started in Melbourne, with the programme indicated by its name--the _Federal Australian_. It is very American in tone, and a large portion of its s.p.a.ce is devoted to rather second-rate funniness.

But the leading articles are good, and it has struck out a most useful line for itself in a supplement called the _Scientific Australian_, modelled on the _Scientific American_. This portion of the paper is of great value, and if only on that account it deserves to live.

Monthly ill.u.s.trated papers are published in connection with the _Argus_, the _Age_, and the _Sydney Herald_, and also independently by printing firms in Sydney and Adelaide. The two Melbourne ones are by far the best, but they are very dear at a shilling. The same may be said of the comic papers at sixpence. The political cartoons in the _Melbourne Punch_ are often excellently imagined, but the execution is not remarkable, and the reading matter is wretched. The conceptions of the cartoons are also frequently coa.r.s.e. The _Society_ paper has found its way here, via San Francisco. The most vulgar is the _Sydney Bulletin_, which is, as a rule, coa.r.s.e to a degree; but it must be owned that it is also very clever and exceedingly readable--qualities which its imitators altogether lack. One knows quite enough about other people's business here without having papers specially to spread it, and in such small communities the _Bulletin_ tribe are a public nuisance. But yet they sell freely at sixpence a copy!

The provincial press is, as a rule, feeble. Ballarat, Sandhurst, and Geelong are the only three towns large enough to support papers of the slightest value outside the place where they are published. But these small fry are very useful in their humble sphere, and are almost without exception respectably conducted. How they 'pay' is 'one of those things which no fellah can understand.'

There are a number of newspapers devoted to the promotion of the interests of the various religious bodies, the licensed victuallers, and other trades. The best of these is the _Australian Insurance and Banking Record_, which is most ably conducted. The licensed victuallers support a weekly _Gazette_ in each of the princ.i.p.al towns. The Church of England has two organs, one in Sydney, and the other in Melbourne. The Temperance party, like their opponents, have three papers devoted to the maintenance of their views, besides which, they get a good deal of side support from the dozen or so of religious sheets. The licensed victuallers seem to combine sporting and dramatic items with the advocacy of what they call the TRADE, and abuse of the Good Templars. The latter, however, are still more vehement in abuse, and even less sensible in argument.

Besides the newspaper press, Australia possesses four magazines, two published in Sydney and two in Melbourne. Of the former, one known first as the _Australian_, and then as the _Imperial Review_, is not worth mentioning, if, indeed, it is not ere now defunct. The other, called the _Sydney University Review_, a quarterly, has only just come into existence with an exceptionally brilliant number, three articles in which are fully worthy of a place in any of the leading London monthlies. That it will continue as it has begun I should fancy to be more than doubtful.

The oldest established magazine is the _Melbourne Review_, started about five years ago. For the last three years it has been languishing.

The most flourishing magazine is the _Victorian Review_, which is only three years old. The contents are very variable in quality. Occasionally there is a really first-cla.s.s article, and generally there are one or two very readable. The quality has much fallen off during the last eighteen months, but it affords a convenient outlet for the young colonists to air political and social crotchets, and to descant on philosophical theories.

Now and then the editor used to hook a big fish, such as the Duke of Manchester, Professor Amos, and Senor Castelar, who have all contributed to its columns. The philosophical articles are naturally very feeble, but not unfrequently university professors and others among the ablest residents in Australia make the _Review_ a vehicle for setting forth schemes and ideas, which would not find admission into the newspapers.

LITERATURE, LANGUAGE, AND ART.

Strictly speaking, there is not, and cannot yet be, any such thing as an Australian literature. Such writers as live in Australia are nearly all English-born or bred, and draw their inspiration from English sources. A new country offers few subjects for poetry and romance, and prophecy is by no means so inspiring as the relation of the great deeds of the past.

But yet there has been at least one amongst us who may claim to have had the real poetic afflatus, and whose subjects were invariably taken from the events of the life around him. This was Thomas Gordon, the author of 'How we Beat the Favourite,' and several other short pieces of verse of rare merit, and redolent of the Australian air. George Brunton Stephens is another versifier, who at times showed signs of genius; and it is not long since a Mr. Horace Kendall died, who ran off sheets of graceful verses with considerable talent and no little poetic fancy.

In philosophy, history, and science, many of the Professors at Australian Universities have written treatises worth reading; but Australia has had so little influence either upon their subjects or their mode of treating them, that their merit cannot be claimed for this country. Perhaps the best-known writers of this cla.s.s, resident in the colonies, are Professor Hearn, author of 'The Aryan Household.' and Mr. Charles A. Pearson, the historian of the Middle Ages.

Australia may boast of having furnished no uninteresting theme to Henry Kingsley, and several minor English novelists. She has sent to England no less rising a light than Mr. B. L. Farjeon; but the few novels that are written and published here have never attracted notice across the ocean, and rarely even in Australia itself, if we except Mr. Marcus Clarke's 'His Natural Life.' After Mr. Clarke come Mr. Garnet Walsh, Mr. Grosvenor Bunster, and one or two prophets in their own neighbourhood, pleasant writers of Christmas stories, clever dramatizers of novels and pantomime-writers, but none of them with the least claim to a wider audience.

The circ.u.mstances of a new colony naturally cause additions to the word-stock of the mother country. New occupations and modes of living need new words to describe them, or, as often as not, the settler not being of an inventive disposition, old words are used in a new sense.

The 'bush'--itself an old word used in a new sense--has been most prolific in new phrases. Everyone who lives in the country, whether on a station or in a farm, but not in a township, is called a 'bushman,'

although properly speaking this designation only applies to a person who lives in the 'bush' or unsettled country. 'Bushranger' is another word of the same derivation, which it is needless to explain. Of course you know what a 'squatter' is. It is strange that the same word which in America is used to denote the lowest cla.s.s of settlers--the man who settles upon somebody else's land and pays no rent--is here a synonym for aristocrat.

The term 'farmer' is applied exclusively to the agriculturist, and a squatter would be very much offended if you called him a sheep-farmer.

The squatting cla.s.s in Australia correspond to the landed gentry of England. The farmer is usually legally known as a 'selector,' because under the Land Act he selects a piece of ground perhaps in the middle of the squatter's leasehold and purchases it on credit for agriculture. A 'c.o.c.katoo' is a selector who works his piece of land out in two or three years, and having done nothing to improve it, decamps to select in a new district. A 'run' is the least improved kind of land used for sheep, but the word is used almost alternatively with 'station,' which denotes an improved run. The run may be a mere sheep-walk, but a station is bound to have a house attached to it, and fenced 'paddocks' or fields. The storekeeper is the lowest official on a station. Next above him is the 'boundary-rider,' whose duty it is to ride round the boundaries of fenced runs, to see that the fence is kept in good order, and that the sheep do not get through it. A 'stockman' is naturally the man who drives the stock, and the 'stockwhip' a peculiar short-handled long whip with which he drives them. A 'cabbage-tree' is an immense sun-protecting hat, rather like the top of a cabbage-tree in shape. It is much affected by bushmen.

A 'billy' is the tin pot in which the bushman boils his tea; a 'pannikin,' the tin bowl out of which he drinks it. A 'waler' is a bushman who is 'on the loaf.' He 'humps his drum,' or 'swag,' and starts on the wallaby track;' i.e., shoulders the bundle containing his worldly belongings, and goes out pleasuring. A 'shanty,' originally a low public-house, now denotes any tumble-down hut.

Apart from bush terms, there are town appellations, such as 'larrikin,'

which means a 'rough.' The word is said to have originated with an Irish policeman, who spoke of some boys who had been brought before the Melbourne Police Court as 'larriking around,' instead of 'larking.' To 'have a nip' is to take a 'n.o.bbler.' A white man born in Australia is a 'colonial,' vulgarly a 'gum-sucker;' if he was born in New South Wales, he is also a 'cornstalk.' An aboriginal is always a 'black fellow.' A native of Australia would mean a white man born in the colony. The diggings have furnished the expressive phrase 'to make your pile.' A 'nugget'--_pace_ Archbishop Trench--was a Californian importation. When speaking of a goldfield a colonist says 'on.' Thus you live 'on Bendigo,'

but 'in' or 'at' Sandhurst--the latter being the new name for the old goldfield town. To 'shout' drinks has no connection with the neuter verb of dictionary English. A 'shicer' is first a mining claim which turns out to be useless, and then anything that does so. There is room for a very interesting dictionary of Australianisms. But I have no time to collect such a list. The few words which I have given will serve as an indication of the bent of colonial genius in the manufacture of a new dialect; and as they are given without any effort, just as they have come to my mind in the course of one evening's thinking as I write, they may fairly be taken as being amongst the commonest.

I have headed this letter 'Literature and Art,'so that I am morally bound to say something about the latter, although there is next to nothing to say. Australia has not yet produced any artist of note. Perhaps the best is Mr. E. C. Dowling, and he is a Tasmanian. Resident in Victoria is a M.

Louis Buyelot, a landscape artist of considerable merit. Excepting him, we have no artists here whose works rise beyond mere mediocrity. Mr.

Summers was a Victorian, but his fame is almost unknown in his own country. Thanks to Sir Redmond Barry, Victoria possesses a very fair National Gallery attached to the Melbourne Public Library. Some of the paintings in it are excellent, notably Mr. Long's 'Esther;' the majority very mediocre. For my own part I prefer the little gallery at Sydney, which, though it has not nearly so many paintings, has also not nearly so many bad ones, and owns several that are really good, mostly purchased from the exhibitions. Adelaide has also recently bought a few pictures to form the nucleus of a gallery.

By means of Schools of Design and Art, the colonial Governments have, during the last few years, been doing all in their power to encourage the growth of artistic taste, but the whole bent of colonial life is against it. Art means thought and care, and the whole teaching of colonial life is to 'manage' with anything that can be pressed into service in the shortest time and at the smallest expense. It is only fair to mention as a tribute to the laudable desire of the people to see good works of art, that no parts of the International Exhibitions were so well attended as the Art Galleries, and that although the pictures shown there were for the most part quite third not to say fourth-rate. The press is very energetic in fostering taste, but I don't think it is natural to the people. They like pictures somewhat as the savage does, because they appeal readily to the imagination, and tell a story which can be read with very little trouble. It is significant of this, that there is hardly a hut in the bush where you will not see woodcuts from the _Ill.u.s.trated and Graphic_ pasted up, and that the pictures most admired at the exhibitions were those which were most dramatic--such as a horse in a stable on fire, and a showman's van broken down in the snow through the death of the donkey which drew it. Next to dramatic pictures, those in which horses, cows, or sheep appeared were most admired, for here the colonist felt himself a competent critic, and was delighted to discover any error on the part of the artist. Scenery came next in the order of appreciation, especially pieces with water in them, or verdure. Genre and figure-painting were quite out of their line.

Of Music I have written in my letter on 'Amus.e.m.e.nts'. As a creative art it cannot yet be said to have an existence, although Mr. Wallace composed 'Maritana' in Australia, and plenty of dance-music is manufactured every day.

THE END.