CHAPTER VI
WALKS ABOUT SYDNEY
COME with me for a walk through the city of Sydney. The sun is hot, but the porticoes of iron and glass, built out over the sidewalks, will protect us from its rays. We stroll by great stores with fine window displays, and find we can buy almost anything here that is to be had in New York. The prices are marked in pounds, shillings, and pence. Some of the department stores sell several million dollars’ worth of goods annually and employ from five hundred to one thousand clerks. Such stores do a big mail-order business with the people on the sheep stations and farms of the “back blocks.”
One feature of Sydney is the numerous arcades that are cut through from one street to another and lined with stores. They are ceiled with glass, paved with tiles, and decorated with tropical plants and flowers. They are delightful quarters in which to shop during the heat of the day.
The principal artery of the business section is Circular Quay, where the many ferries to the suburbs move in and out with their thousands going to and from work. The main streets of the down-town district lead to it. On Macquarie Street is the entrance to the Government House, where the governor of New South Wales resides. This thoroughfare was named for a stern old administrator of colonial times who used convict labour to put up the Parliament House and other buildings, many of which are still in use. Pitt and King streets are lined with handsome stores and office buildings. Above Circular Quay are great concrete wheat elevators with a capacity of six million bushels, which were erected not long ago under American supervision.
Sydney has big insurance buildings, bank buildings, excellent clubs, and many hotels. The two largest hotels are the Australia and the Wentworth, which have the features of the best American and European houses. The prices are about the same as in the United States, though at first they seem cheaper. The extras make up the difference. There are small hotels in every block, but most of these are merely saloons, or public houses, with a room or so for rent to conform to the law providing that liquor shall be sold only at places offering board and lodging as well as drinks.
There are some splendid public buildings. Take the town hall, for example. It is a magnificent stone structure in the heart of the city, containing a pipe organ, which is the largest south of the Equator, and a hall seating five thousand people. Some years ago the city of Melbourne bought what was then the largest organ in Australia. But Sydney was, of course, bound to beat Melbourne, and bought a bigger one. Her organ cost eighty-five thousand dollars, and has several thousand pipes.
Other fine structures are the Public Works office and the buildings of the various state departments. On George Street is the Victoria Market, put up at enormous expense to serve the whole city. But it did not succeed and has now been turned into offices. Throughout the city and suburbs are a number of well-regulated municipal markets.
In the down-town section is the office of the Sydney Bulletin, the most widely read paper in the Commonwealth. This bright pink weekly has been called a “cross between the London Punch and the New York Nation,” for its contents are both grave and gay. But it also has a flavour peculiarly its own. For one thing, it is so full of slangy phrases that outsiders almost need a glossary to understand some of its paragraphs. In it “Bananaland” may stand for Queensland; “Apple Isle” for Tasmania; the “Ma State” for New South Wales; “Fog Land” for Great Britain; the “Big Smoke” for London. Under the heading of “Aboriginalities” are paragraphs from correspondents throughout the country on matters relating to Australian place names, natural history, strange customs, and the like. The tone of the paper is often flippant, and, so the conservatives say, even irreverent and disloyal.
Nevertheless, the Bulletin is doing much toward building up an Australian literature, for its encouragement and prompt checks have kept going many a struggling young poet or journalist. It is the chief literary and dramatic paper of the country, and its so-called “red page” always carries able book reviews and criticisms. Politically, it is independent, although it inclines more to the Labour than to the Liberal view. Still, it does not hesitate at times to publish editorials denouncing the Labour leaders. It is Australian of the Australians, and is read in the towns and cities, in the scorching northern mining camps, in the remotest sand plains of the west, and in the isolated sheep stations of the “bush.”
Sydney has as good lungs as any city of Europe. It is noted for its extensive park system. Moore Park contains more than three hundred and fifty acres, Centennial Park five hundred and fifty acres, and there are also the cricket fields, race courses, and fair grounds. One of the best zoos of the world is at Taronga Park on the north side of the harbour. Here cages have been largely dispensed with, and the animals are given as nearly as possible their native conditions and surroundings. The Botanical Gardens are on the spot where the early convicts raised their vegetables.
Sixteen miles south, of Sydney is the National Park, which contains more than thirty-three thousand acres, most of them covered with virgin forest. Convenient to the city there are also a number of sandy beaches where “surfing,” swimming, and fishing are enjoyed. At the Manly and Bondi beaches “surfing” is especially popular. It is the sport of expert swimmers, who throw themselves on boards on which the incoming waves dash them to shore. The pastime is borrowed from the South Sea Islanders and is especially adapted to the heavy surf of the Sydney beaches.
The most interesting park in all Australia is the Domain. It is in the centre of Sydney and has magnificent trees, velvety lawns, and walks and drives of every description. The park is accessible to everyone; there are no signs to keep off the grass, and babies and grown-ups play and stroll upon it.
Every Sunday afternoon the Domain becomes the forum of the people. Any one who wishes to preach or pray or talk politics has a right to set up his pulpit on the grass and toot for hearers. No one questions his doctrines, and he may say what he pleases. There are at least a score or more of such speakers here every Sunday, each with a crowd about him. There are lightning calculators, labour agitators, Socialists, preachers of every gospel and every creed, phrenologists and beggars, faith healers and cranks of all sorts.
The crowd is a good-natured one, made up of all classes, but with working people in the majority. When I visited the Domain the other Sunday, there were at least twenty-five thousand persons there. I paused for a time at each group. The first was gathered about a lightning calculator, who talked a blue streak as his hand danced over a blackboard, stopping only at intervals to sell books explaining how to learn the higher mathematics in three lessons. The next speaker was a temperance orator. He was criticizing the rich men and the officials of the city and denouncing the saloons. Beyond him was a Socialist, who demanded heavier taxes from the rich and a general division of property, and farther on was a Negro, who was preaching the end of the world in a marked Yankee accent. At another place a Salvation Army band was led by a woman with a sweet singing voice and a complexion as fair as that of a baby.
About fifty feet from this crowd I saw a walking hospital in charge of a woman called “the Good Samaritan.” The old lady had thirteen invalids, each of whom was terribly afflicted. They were of all ages, from babies to threescore and ten—some lame, some halt, and some blind. They sat about in chairs on the grass while the Good Samaritan in their midst showed their sores and deformities to the crowd and begged money for their support. She had a carpet laid at her feet and upon this the charitably inclined cast their pennies and sixpences.
Near by was a blind man with a cracked voice and a fiddle, who sang and sawed for money, and farther over an orator haranguing about the big captains of industry in America. They were, he said, enslaving the Yankee labouring men, and would in time probably come over to place the yoke of bondage on the workers of Australia.
All this discussion in the different parts of the park went on without commotion or trouble; every one said what he pleased and none bothered about what anybody said.
Leaving the Domain, I walked back to the hotel, noticing the queer signs by the way. One was “Lollies for Sale.” It was over the door of a confectioner’s store where all sorts of candies were displayed. “Lollies” is the popular word here for candies, and between the acts at the theatres boys go about through the audience calling out “Lollies, ladies! Lollies, gents! Does any one want a box of fine fresh lollies?” So, I suppose, America is indebted to Australia for its “lollipops.”