Thirty Years in Australia

by Ada Cambridge

I did not know—though I soon learnt—that the poorest Sunday-school child would not look at it. For the Sunday-school treat—just so much on a lower plane than a tea-meeting as boys and girls are inferior to men and women—you must have nothing plainer than ham-sandwich; that is the basis on which to build the rich edifice of sweets. Ham it must be, and no meaner substitute. So, at least, it was when I took active part in such affairs; for I know that once, when we thought to economise with beef, an irate mother came to ask us what we meant by it. The children never had been put off with beef, and she considered it a burning shame. One year, when the "treat" food was provided, as usual, by the ladies of the congregation, each cooking to outvie the rest, I took upon myself to remonstrate with them for their cruelty—in stuffing the poor children with unlimited cream-cakes and meringues. Yes, actually meringues, on my word of honour. But that, I must admit, was an exceptional circumstance.

Nowadays, as I am informed, things are not quite the same. For instance, the current Sunday-school attached to this establishment makes its annual sandwiches of ham, beef, and German sausage, in about equal parts, and I do not hear of any complaints. It is a large Sunday-school, and therefore not so much all one family as those little ones of the past: and ham is something like a shilling a pound; and town ways are not as Bush ways. In town it is a common thing to employ a caterer at so much per head. So that we may say the times have changed. But the children, wherever they are and whoever makes it for them, still pack rich puff pastry on the top of their sandwiches, and rich plum cake on the top of that, and miscellaneous "lollies" on the top of all, until there is no room for a crumb more; and what happens to them next day, and the day after, is a question that yearly agitates my mind. Quite unnecessarily, I suppose. Their little stomachs are hardened to it.

So the aspect of my Bush feast—the tea-meeting tea—may be inferred. Chickens and turkeys, hams and tongues, pies and sucking-pigs, jellies and trifles—in short, all the features of an old-fashioned wedding breakfast or a ball supper were there, except the wine. You had, naturally, to drink tea at a tea-meeting—if you wanted to drink anything with such oceans of whipped cream. But the tea is the only remaining link between the Australian tea-meeting and the English one, unless the English one has changed greatly since my time.

A purely social function, did I call it? It had, of course, its raison d'être if only to "draw the people together," which is its last excuse (the first always "goes without saying"). On one occasion a tea-meeting was attached to a movement for getting some parochial work done, of which part of the parish approved and part did not. Speeches for and against were made when the tables had been cleared, and G. spoke for the side that he personally espoused. The local paper, which was on the opposite side, reported his speech in the following ingenious manner: "The reverend gentleman was understood to say" so and so (substantially what he actually did say), "but what he meant to say was" so and so (what the local paper and its party thought he ought to have said).

The great tea-meeting of all is what is called the Diocesan Festival. It is held annually, at the time of the sitting of the Church Assembly, which is our House of Convocation; and all the leading (English) Churchmen of the diocese, lay and clerical, take their part in "running the show." The Melbourne Town Hall is filled with tea-tables, individually donated by parishes or private families; Church of England people, and many besides, flock thither and pack the place to suffocation before six o'clock, at which hour they sit down to eat and drink, having paid eighteen pence per head for the privilege. When tea is over there is a great struggle for room to remove the tables and their furnishings, but it is done somehow, and only benches and chairs left for the evening assembly, augmented by many not present at the tea. During this interval the cathedral organist gives selections on the great instrument that was the city's pride in the seventies and eighties, but now needs more money than City fathers care to give (for mere artistic purposes) to bring it up to the requirements of these times and of a self-respecting performer; then, when all is ready, the orchestra platform fills with big-wigs—governor, bishops, "special attractions" bespoken long before—and stirring speeches fill the rest of the bill. It is a great carnival for pious folk, and not without interest for mere ordinary beings like myself; and the substantial profit resulting from it is one of the mainstays of the "Bishop of Melbourne's Fund," which is the general fund in aid of general diocesan distress.

Substantial profit, it is needless to remark, is the first object of the promoters of all these entertainments, so many and various—tea-meetings, bazaars, "sales of gifts," Bruce auctions, cake fairs, concerts, etc., etc.—and has to be so while the voluntary system and poor human nature exist together. Each event is contrived "for the benefit of the Church," a term well understood by all its members, who will contribute pounds of money and endless time and trouble to such affairs sooner than lay an extra shilling or two in the offertory plate. Every parish is running its little money-making enterprise at short intervals, the other denominations, whose parish it is also, doing the same. Sometimes there is an unfriendly competition between the churches, smart dodges to take the wind out of a rival's sails; more often they have a tacit fraternal arrangement to aid each other, or at anyrate not get into each other's way. You will hear it said at a ladies' working party, "What a shame of the Catholics to take our conversazione night for their concert!" Or, "The Presbyterians sent a lot of things to our bazaar, so it is only right we should help them with theirs."

The concert is the commonest of these events. It costs, in money, time, and trouble, less to get up than the others. Domestically, this is a musical country, and local performers are never hard to find. My natural impulse is to stay at home when the miscellaneous amateur is abroad, but sometimes, when I have steeled myself to endure him or her, I have been rewarded beyond my expectations or deserts. One thing stands out from my experiences in this line that is worthy of note—the high average of excellence in the quality of the amateur voice. I am convinced there are as good fish in the sea as the Melbas and Crossleys that have come out of it, judging by the number of little girls, hardly past childhood, whom I have seen come upon the stage in parish schoolrooms and rural shire-halls, and proceed to give forth full, ringing notes that, for power, would do justice to the Albert Hall or the Crystal Palace, and with the right training (as I think) might do anything. I believe it is the climate that accounts for it—the air that throat and lungs have grown on; and if so, this is the place for the speculator in such wares to come to. Expert fossicking might reveal a new Kimberley to the world.

Still, in spite of these occasional surprises, the parish concert—after so many of them—is apt to pall upon the too-accustomed ear. One looks to the human interest for entertainment, rather than to art. In what I believe was the very first parish concert that I went to, this element largely predominated.

It was held at a hamlet some eight or ten miles from head-quarters, and we drove to it in a party, taking several of the performers with us. Before business began, our prima donna, a young married lady, confessed to not feeling very well; she said she had been eating fruit, which had disagreed with her. However, she went through the two hours' programme unflinchingly, and so acquitted herself as to rouse no suspicion of the fact that she herself was perfectly aware of. She was a tall, handsome, resolute sort of woman, who, finding herself in a horrible dilemma, determined to brave it out. "I had to do it," she said to us afterwards, "or else upset everything and make a disgraceful exhibition of myself. And I thought there would be plenty of time." But she had miscalculated in this respect, as it is so easy to do, and the situation had grown desperate before she was nearly through with her last number; I noted her damp brow and deeply flushed face, and wondered at the unsmiling look in her eyes when they met mine; her accompanist also was put about a little here and there; nevertheless, she made a finish of her song before she bowed to our applause and bowed herself off the stage. Then a word went round amongst the matrons which filled us with dismay and concern. The doctor's horses were put to his buggy, and the doctor and his wife and Mrs T. were gone ere "God Save the Queen" was finished. When the rest of us got home afterwards, it was to hear that our prima donna had become a mother rather less than two minutes after gaining the shelter of her own house.

I think that was the most interesting concert I was ever at. Others who were there, remembering it with equal vividness, say the same.