On the Wallaby Through Victoria

by Elinor Mordaunt

“There’s a cool hundred for me—whoever would have thought it!” said my companion when it was all over, trying to speak indifferently. “Come along and have some tea.” And I went, regretting my strength of mind too deeply for any words—even more deeply next morning, when I fared forth, prepared at least to get a little change and amusement out of life by paying my debts, and had my bag cut off my wrist by some thief, unnoticed in the jostling of the crowded street; so losing alike my hardly-earned money and my belief in the beauties of self-denial.

Flemington racecourse—where the Cup week is held, and many lesser races run throughout the year, and which covers an area of 301 acres—is most beautifully kept, and in some spirit of alliteration is almost as famous for its roses as its races. I never saw such standards, arches, bushes of them as there are, all aglow with colour. In front of the Grand Stand and the smaller stand is the lawn, as smooth as a billiard-table, and affording a splendid show-ground for the women’s dresses. To the right, beyond the Grand Stand, is the paddock, and the ground where the less wealthy people are massed, shot through by the smart costumes of those who penetrate there from among the more select, to have a look at the horses, and so on to the betting paddock, where numberless bookies congregate, shrieking themselves hoarse. The crowd is simply gigantic—and well it may be, seeing that not only is pretty well every soul there from within easy reach of Melbourne, but all who can afford it—sometimes by means of a year’s strenuous saving—from other States and up-country districts. But though the actual size of the crowd is perfectly amazing to any newcomers, who have heard much in regard to the scanty population of Australia, what is even more amazing is to see so enormous a concourse of well-dressed, thoroughly prosperous-looking people; for though individual toilettes may not reach to the same high pitch of extravagance and costly beauty as they do at Ascot, the average is very much higher; shop-girls, servants, mothers of large families, factory hands, and sempstresses alike all having embarked on something new for this great festival of the year.

Generally speaking, it is the New South Wales people who—apart from the Victorians—have flooded Melbourne during the Cup week, with the addition, after a good season, of a fair sprinkling of Queenslanders. But this last racing festival has been marked by a quite new influx of South Australians. Of course, some of the very wealthiest have always come up for the week; but the ordinary South Australian farmer is a slow, steady-going person who does not take any risks. Lately, however, the system of close culture, which he has practised with the greatest possible success, and a series of magnificent seasons, have not only given him a feeling of security, but have rendered him so prosperous that he and his family have flocked to Melbourne for this year’s sport with light hearts and full pockets. The New South Wales man would venture if he had as much as his train fare, and trust to luck to get back again, but one may feel sure that the South Australian is conscious of a solid balance at the bank before he will come so far away from home for his amusement, nothing showing the difference in the character of the people of the Australian States so plainly as the way in which they take their pleasure. In itself the very fact that there were some 150,000 people at the Cup this year is a very fair sign of the country’s prosperity—150,000 well-dressed and keenly alive people, all intensely alert and charged with the nervous energy that is such a characteristic of their race, all hanging like one, with heart and soul and the stored-up excitement of days and hours, on the result of two and a half minutes: no wonder that the very air seems charged with electricity so intense that the only possible relief is to be found by forgetting that we are the civilized product of an artificial age, and by yelling as a savage or a child would yell.

All the shops, excepting the tobacconists and confectioners and restaurants, are shut on Cup day, which is, indeed, a national holiday, and rather amusing efforts are made by the religious authorities to get their flock out of the way of temptation on such a day. One year, I remember, there was a large Sunday-school picnic at a public park some three miles from Melbourne, under the command of a portly Church of England dignitary. All through the earlier part of the day he was bland and cheerful, though occasionally absent-minded. About five o’clock, however, he became distinctly restless. He walked up and down the park gravely discussing the affairs of Church and State, but I observed that each turn landed us distinctly nearer to the fence abutting on the public highway, while again and again he paused to take out his watch and glance at it with an air of elaborate carelessness. As dog-carts and traps of all sorts—buggies they are called here—began to rattle along the road from the direction of Melbourne it became very evident that my companion was, as they say, “talking out of the back of his head,” while constantly interspersing his remarks with ejaculations regarding those misguided souls who had by that time lost their little “all,” or been precipitated, by their unholy gains, further than ever on the downward grade. At last he could bear it no longer, and with a decided step, which absolutely disregarded my mischievous attempt to turn, reached the fence, and hailed a passing vehicle: “Hey! hey! You there! who won the Cup?”

He might just as well have said “How did it go?” or just raised his eyebrows, with an interrogatory glance, for anyone in Australia that day would have known what he meant, or merely have kept silent and waited for the gratuitous information to be tossed to him. I did not dare to ask, but I wondered then—and have wondered since—what he “had on.” Something considerable—and misplaced—as I should guess by the expression with which he received the reply.

Everyone goes to the theatre the evening after the Cup race; at least, everyone who has any money left, or can find even standing room. The plays produced during this famous week are usually of the lightest description of musical comedy, or at the Royal and King’s the most sensational melodrama; the managers seldom taking the trouble to stage their best play, for people will go whatever happens to be on, while they are too completely in the humour to have a “good time,” or too sleepy after long days spent in the open air, to be severely critical.

Though the totalizer is not legal in Victoria, and the State does not stand to make anything by the betting, 10 per cent. being deducted from the proceeds where it is in use—7½ for the State and 2½ for the race-course expenses—still it gathers in a matter of some £5,800 a year from licence fees and the percentage of legitimate receipts, the annual sum payable being 3 per cent. on a gross revenue over £1,500, 2 per cent. under that sum, and nil on anything less than £600.

The Melbourne people are inveterate theatregoers, everyone, even the artisan and his wife, regarding a visit to the play as a fitting ending to their week’s work; so that, though the theatres are always well filled, they are literally crammed on Saturday nights. The people are very particular, and they will have their plays well dressed, and well staged, and played, but all the critical faculty begins and ends with the audience, for the papers—both daily and weekly—seem to be absolutely lacking in any powers of discernment or courage, being far less exacting, indeed, than the veriest larrikin among the gods.

It is curious to note the different classes of people that are attracted by different plays in Melbourne; the people with the money—evidently here as elsewhere—not being the people with the intellect or taste. Plays like the “Merry Widow” or the “Dollar Princess” fill the stalls and dress-circle to overflowing; but for more serious comedy, or for Shakespeare’s plays, the bulk of the audience is to be found patient and watchful in the cheaper parts of the theatre, and it is extraordinary what patience these people will show when it is a question of procuring a good place to see any special play or actor.