The Land of the Kangaroo Part 10

This led to a little talk on Australian politics, in which the youths learned that the people were divided into parties very much as in England and the United States, and their quarrels were just as fierce.

The party in power is always bitterly denounced by the party out of power, and the outs can always demonstrate how much better they could manage public affairs than the ins are doing it. The great questions usually before the people are the tariff and public improvements, and the fiercest fights are usually those concerning the tariff.

Protectionists and free traders are just as skillful and just as earnest as the same parties in the United States, and each can demonstrate mathematically how much better its own system is than that of the other side. The colonies are themselves divided on the subject of tariff, all of them favoring protection with the exception of New South Wales, where the free traders are in the majority.

There has been a great deal of talk about a federation of the colonies, but the stumbling-block in the way of it is the difference in the colonial tariff. Federation would have been brought about years ago had it not been for New South Wales and its free trade policy.

Ned and Harry started to take some notes on the subject of the tariff, but the doctor reminded them that they had better leave the subject alone, as it was a dangerous one to touch. Consequently they have not given us the benefit of their notes upon it, and we are unable to say what conclusion they reached.

At its appointed time the train reached Melbourne, and our friends found themselves in the s.p.a.cious station of the railway company.

As soon as they could get their baggage, our friends proceeded to a hotel which had been recommended to them, and which they found quite satisfactory. After securing rooms they went out for a stroll, having been advised to take a promenade along Collins Street. Harry said he was sure that the street had been named after somebody who was prominent in the early history of the colony, at least, he felt that such was the case if Melbourne had followed the example of Adelaide.

"Melbourne was founded before Adelaide was," said Dr. Whitney, "as the first settlement was made here in 1835, a year before the first settlement was made in Adelaide; but, all the same, your theory is correct. Collins Street was named after Colonel Collins, who established a convict settlement in this vicinity as far back as 1803, but for some reason he gave it up a year or two later, and transferred his convicts and their guards to Tasmania."

"The next street parallel to this," said Ned, "is Bourke Street. I wonder who Bourke was?"

"Bourke was the governor of the colony in 1836," the doctor replied, "and that is why he was honored with a street."

"We know about Captain Flinders," said Harry, "after whom Flinders Street was named. He was a daring explorer who accompanied Captain Ba.s.s when the latter discovered Ba.s.s's Strait, that separates Australia from Tasmania. There is also a range of mountains named after him."

"Captain Lonsdale, who was in command of some of the troops at the time that the city was laid out," said the doctor, "was honored with a street, and Swanston Street commemorates one of the early settlers. Then there are King Street, Queen Street, William Street, Elizabeth Street, which explain themselves, as they indicate the feelings of the early settlers towards the royal family."

"This street is certainly as attractive to the eye as Broadway or Fifth Avenue in New York," Ned remarked, as they strolled slowly along Collins Street. "See these magnificent buildings. You have only to shut your eyes and imagine yourself on Broadway, and when you open them again the illusion does not require a great stretch of the imagination. And all this has grown up since 1835. Just think of it!"

"Yes," replied the doctor; "it was about the middle of 1835 that one John Batman came here with a small sailing vessel, and made a bargain with the chief of the tribe of blacks then occupying this neighborhood, by which he purchased about twelve hundred square miles of ground for a quant.i.ty of goods worth, perhaps, one hundred dollars."

"That beats the purchase of Manhattan Island for twenty-four dollars,"

remarked Harry as the doctor paused.

"Yes, it does," was the reply; "the government afterwards repudiated Batman's trade, and took possession of the ground he had purchased."

"A pretty mean piece of business, wasn't it?" queried Harry.

"As to that," said the doctor, "there are arguments on both sides of the question. Batman felt that he had been unfairly dealt with, although the government paid him about thirty-five thousand dollars for his claim. At the time they paid the money to him the land was worth very much more than that amount."

"Did he stay here and go to building a city at once?" queried one of the youths.

"No; he went back to Tasmania, whence he had come, in order to get a fresh supply of provisions, and while he was gone John Fawkner came here with a schooner called the _Enterprise_, and made a settlement. His party consisted, if we may include the quadrupeds, of five men, two pigs, one cat, two horses, and three dogs. When Batman came back he was very angry, and as long as both the men lived there was a bitter quarrel between them which threatened several times to result in a shooting affray. Batman died in 1839; his heirs and partners took up the quarrel, and traces of it are said to exist to the present day. The people of Melbourne have erected a monument to Batman's memory, but Fawkner is generally regarded as the founder of Melbourne, as he made the first permanent settlement, and the colony may properly be considered to have begun on the date of his arrival."

When the conversation had reached this point, the party found themselves at the corner of Elizabeth Street, which intersects Collins Street at right angles.

"You observe," said the doctor, "that this street, Elizabeth, is the dividing line of the city. That is to say, from it the streets are called east and west just as they are so called in New York. At Fifth Avenue, East Forty-second Street and West Forty-second Street begin. In the same way we have here Collins Street, East, and Collins Street, West; Bourke Street, East, and Bourke Street, West; and so on through the whole list. They put the word designating the point of compa.s.s after the name of the street, while in New York we do just the opposite."

"Oh, yes, I see," Harry remarked, with a twinkle in his eye. "Melbourne is on the other side of the world from New York, and so they name the streets in the reverse manner. So, then, there is another proof that Australia is a land of contradictions."

Ned laughed, and made no reply other than to ask if the great number of deaths that occurred here during the gold excitement had any allusion to the name of the city. Harry looked at him with a puzzled expression, and asked what he meant.

"Why, I was thinking," said Ned, "that possibly Melbourne might have been 'the bourne whence no traveler returns,' mentioned by Shakespeare."

"Oh, that is old," said the doctor; "and while you are on this subject, I will inform you that the city obtained its name from Lord Melbourne, who was Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time that the place was laid out."

"The surveyor who laid out the city," remarked Harry, "had a 'level'

head, as well as a leveling one. See what wide streets he gave it."

"Yes, that is so," replied Ned. "They must be one hundred feet wide, at least that is what I would guess."

"You guessed very closely," said the doctor, "as they are ninety-nine feet (one chain and a half) wide, and the tradition is that Melbourne was laid out by an American surveyor. The city, as originally planned, was one mile square, but it has received numerous additions, so that it now covers a great deal more than a square mile. It really occupies, with its suburbs, an area of nearly one hundred square miles, and every year sees a new suburb added. Of course, when population is mentioned, the whole of the suburbs should be included, and the inhabitants claim, with a great deal of reason, that within a radius of ten miles from the city hall, there are fully four hundred thousand people residing."

"That is certainly a very rapid growth," said one of the youths. "All that population since 1835! It is the most rapid growth of any city that I know of, is it not?"

"Yes, I think it is," replied the doctor. "Neither San Francisco nor Chicago can show a growth equal to that of Melbourne in the first fifty years of its existence. Chicago is now a much larger city, but fifty years from its foundation it could not boast of as many inhabitants as could Melbourne when it was half a century old."

To the eyes of our young friends Melbourne presented a very busy appearance. Cabs and carriages were rus.h.i.+ng hither and thither. Crowds of people were on the sidewalks, and other crowds filled the tram-cars and omnibuses. Harry observed that Melbourne was sufficiently up with the times to be provided with electric cars, and that she also had cable lines, as well as the more primitive street cars. It was near the close of the afternoon, when the great majority of the population are seeking their homes, and the scene of busy life reminded the youths of lower Broadway, near the end of the day in New York.

The doctor explained that a very large part of the working population resembled the well-to-do portion, by having their homes in the suburbs, and, consequently, that a great many people required transportation.

Hence the rush for the tram-cars and other public means of travel on the part of the great ma.s.s of the public, while those with better-lined purses patronized the cabs and carriages. Cab fares are high, being about one third more than in London, but not so high as in New York. In the days of the gold rush the most ordinary carriages could not be hired for less than fifteen dollars a day, and five dollars was the price for an hour or two.

There is a story in circulation that a gold miner was once bargaining for a carriage for which the driver demanded twelve pounds (sixty dollars) for a day's hire. The miner said he would not pay it: he handed a ten-pound note to the driver, and said he must be satisfied with that.

The driver a.s.sented, and there was no further discussion on the subject.

Prices of all sorts of things throughout Melbourne are somewhat above London figures, but they have been established a long time and n.o.body complains of them.

Our friends continued their walk to the Yarra River, up whose waters Batman and Fawkner sailed when they came here to found the city. Its native name is Yarra-Yarra, but the double word is rarely used by the inhabitants of Melbourne in speaking of the stream. Of itself, it is not a river of much consequence, as originally all but very small vessels had difficulty in ascending it. It has been dredged and deepened, so that craft drawing not more than sixteen feet of water can ascend it to Prince's Bridge, the spot where our friends reached the stream. Vessels requiring more water than that must remain at Fort Melbourne, about three miles further down. There are several other bridges crossing the river at different points. Near Prince's Bridge our friends saw several pa.s.senger steamers crowded with people, on their way to their homes down the bay.

On their return towards the hotel our friends loitered among the shops, and especially among those in what are called the Arcades, of which there are four, modeled after the Arcades of London and the "Pa.s.sages"

of Paris. They are delightful places to lounge in, whether one is in search of purchases or not, and the three strangers were in no hurry to get through them.

One of the arcades is known as the Book Arcade, and the shops inside of it are almost wholly devoted to the sale of books. Harry remarked that he judged the Melbourne people to be a reading one, otherwise there would not be so much s.p.a.ce devoted to the sale of books. The youths had a brief conversation with one of the proprietors, who told them that it was one of the largest book stores in the world, in fact, he did not know of any other as large as that. "We can give you anything you want,"

said he; "everything is so arranged that we know just where to lay our hands on any book that a customer wants."

Melbourne is a great source of supply for all the interior of Victoria.

In the wholesale shops there were great quant.i.ties of goods intended for up-country use. "There were," said Harry, "tons and tons of clothing destined for the mines or for sheep and cattle runs, and great quant.i.ties of tea, sugar, and other provisions, together with saddlery, harnesses, and ironmongery in great quant.i.ty and variety."

"We observed," wrote Ned, "that between every two wide streets there is a narrow street running in the same direction. I believe you will find the same arrangement in many parts of Philadelphia, and also in the new part of Boston. The original intention of the surveyor was that these small streets should be used as back entrances for the buildings on the larger ones, but this intention has not been carried out in the development of the city. Formerly these narrow streets took the name of the wide ones, with the prefix 'Little'; for example, the one between Collins and Bourke Street being known as Little Collins Street. Most of them are now called lanes, and are spoken of as Collins Lane, Latrobe Lane, and the like, and many of them are devoted to special lines of trade. Flinders Lane, between Flinders and Collins Streets, is the princ.i.p.al locality of the wholesale dealers in clothing, and Bourke Lane is largely occupied by Chinese. We are told that the renting prices of stores along these lanes are very high, probably greater than either Batman or Fawkner ever dreamed they could be in their wildest moments.

"When we returned to the hotel we found an invitation for us to dine at one of the clubs, the gentleman who gave the invitation having called during our absence. We dressed as quickly as possible, and went at once to the club house, where we dined on the best that the city afforded.

Melbourne is a great place for clubs, quite as much so as London or New York. Nearly everybody belongs to a club, and many gentleman have two, three, or more clubs on their lists. Nearly all of the clubs have lodging rooms for bachelor members, and the popularity of the inst.i.tution is shown by the fact that most of these rooms are constantly occupied.

"Life at a club is somewhat expensive, though less so than at a first-cla.s.s hotel. One gentleman probably stated the case very clearly when he said that life in a club house is pretty much as each individual chooses to make it. He could live economically or expensively, according to his preference. He could dine on the choicest or on the plainest food, and could entertain liberally or frugally. 'There is no necessity,' he added, 'for a man to waste his money because he lives at a club, but there is no denying the fact that a club affords temptation and opportunity to do so.'

"During dinner the subject of horse racing came up, and our host said that he did not believe there was any city in the world where so large a proportion of the population was interested in equine sports as Melbourne. 'On Cup Day,' said he, 'that is, on the day of the annual race for the cup which is given by the city of Melbourne, people come here from all parts of Australia.'

"'Everybody who can afford the time and expense is reasonably sure to visit Melbourne, and a great many come here who can hardly afford to do so. Hotels and lodging houses are crowded to their fullest capacities for several days before the great event. When Cup Day comes, it is like the Derby Day in England. Half the population of Melbourne goes to Flemington, when the race is run, and nearly all the scenes of the great Derby Day in England are repeated. The winner of the Melbourne cup is greeted with the heartiest cheers at the close of the race, and if he is put up for sale on the spot, he is sure to bring an enormous price.'

"'I asked if the horses competing for the cup were limited to those raised in the colony of Victoria?'

"'Oh, not by any means,' the gentleman answered; 'horses from any of the colonies can be entered for the great race. They come from New South Wales, South and West Australia, and also from Queensland, and sometimes we have them from New Zealand or Tasmania. In some years it has happened that not one of the racers was bred in the colony of Victoria. There is never any lack of compet.i.tors, their number being usually quite equal to that in the race for the Derby. The race track is a little more than a mile from the center of the city, so that the public has not far to go.

Vehicles of every kind command high prices on Cup Day, and many thousands of people go to the race on foot. For weeks before the event little else is talked of, and the great question on every tongue is, "What horse will win the cup?"'