Peeps At Many Lands: Australia

by Frank Fox

In the cities the schools are very good. All the State schools are absolutely free, and even books are provided. A smart child can win bursaries, and go from the primary school to the high school, and then on to the University, and win to a profession without his education costing his parents anything at all. When I was a boy the State of Tasmania used to send every year two Tasmanian scholars to Oxford University, giving them enough to pay for a course there. That has since been stopped, but many Australians come to British Universities now—mostly to Oxford and Edinburgh—with money provided by their parents. There are, however, excellent Universities in the chief cities of Australia, and there is no actual need to leave the Commonwealth to complete one’s education.

In the Bush, and indeed almost everywhere—for there is no city life which has not a touch of the Bush life—Australian children grow to be very hardy and very stoical. They can endure great hardship and great pain. I remember hearing of a boy in the Maitland (N.S.W.) district whose horse stumbled in a rabbit-hole and fell with him. The boy’s thigh was broken and the horse was prostrate on top of him, and did not seem to wish to move. The boy stretched out his hand and got a stick, with which he beat the horse until it rose, keeping the while a hold of the reins. Then, with his broken thigh, that boy mounted the horse (which was not much hurt), rode home, and read a book whilst waiting for the doctor to come and set his limb. Another boy I knew in Australia was bitten by a snake on the finger; with his blunt pocket-knife he cut the finger off and walked home. He suffered no ill effects from the snake-poison.

Endurance of hardship and pain is taught by the life of the Australian Bush. It is no place for the cowardly or for the tender. You must learn to face and to subdue Nature.

The games of the Australian child are just the British games, changed a little to meet local conditions. A very favourite game is that of “Bushrangers and Bobbies” (“bobbies” meaning policemen). In this the boys imitate as nearly as they can the old hunting down of the bushrangers by the mounted police.

The bushranger made a good deal of exciting history in Australia. Generally he was a scoundrel of the lowest type, an escaped murderer who took to the Bush to escape hanging, and lived by robbery and violence. But a few—a very few—were rather of the type of the English Robin Hood or the Scotch Rob Roy, living a lawless life, but not being needlessly cruel. It is those few who have given basis to the tradition of the Australian bushranger as a noble and chivalrous fellow who only robbed the rich (who, people argue, could well afford to be robbed), and who atoned for that by all sorts of kindness to the poor. Many books have been written on this tradition, glorifying the bushranger. But the plain fact is that most of the bushrangers were infamous wretches for whom hanging was a quite inadequate punishment.

The bushranger, as a rule, was an escaped convict or a criminal fleeing from justice. Sometimes he acted singly, sometimes he had a gang of followers. A cave in some out-of-the-way spot, good horses and guns, were his necessary equipment. The site of the cave was important. It needed to be near a coaching-road, so that the bushranger’s headquarters should be near to his place of business, which was to stick-up mail-coaches and rob them of gold, valuables, weapons, and ammunition. It also needed to be in a position commanding a good view, and with more than one point of entrance. Two bushrangers’ caves I remember well, one near to Armidale, on the great northern high-road. It was at the top of a lofty hill, commanding a wide view of the country. There was no outward sign of a cave even to the close observer. A great granite hill seemed to be crowned with just loose boulders. But in between those boulders was a winding passage which gave entrance to a big cave with a little fresh-water stream. A man and his horse could take shelter there.

Another famous bushranger’s cave was near Medlow, on the Blue Mountains (N.S.W.), in a position to command the Great Western Road, along which the gold from Lambing Flat and Sofala had to go to Sydney. This was quite a perfect cave for its purpose. Climbing down a mountain gully, you came to its end, apparently, in a stream of water gushing from out a wall of rock. But behind that rock was a narrow passage leading to a cave which opened out into a little valley with another stream, and some good grass-land. To this valley the only means of access was the secret passage through the cave, which allowed a man and his horse to pass through. A gang of bushrangers kept this eyrie for many years undiscovered.

The latest big gang of bushrangers were the Kelly brothers, who infested Victoria. Ned Kelly was famous because he wore a suit of armour sufficiently strong to resist the rifle bullet of that day. The Kellys were finally driven to cover in a little country hotel in Victoria. They held the place against a siege by the police until the police set fire to it. Some of the gang perished in the flames. Others, including Ned Kelly himself, broke out and were shot or captured. He was hanged in Melbourne gaol.

But this is getting far away from the Australian children’s games. It is a curious fact that when the Australian children assemble to play “Bushrangers and Bobbies,” everybody wants to be a bushranger, and the guardian of the law is looked upon as quite an inferior character. Lots decide, however, the cast. The bushrangers sally forth and stick up an imaginary coach, or rob an imaginary country bank. The “bobbies” go in pursuit, and there is a desperate mock battle, which allows of much yelling and running about, and generally causes great joy.

“Camping out” is another characteristic amusement of the Australian child. In his school holidays, parties go out, sometimes for weeks at a time, sailing around the reaches of the sea inlets, or, inland, following the course of some river, and hunting kangaroos and other game as they go. Generally adults accompany these parties, but when an Australian boy has reached the age of fifteen or sixteen he is credited with being able to look after himself, and is trusted to sail a boat and to carry a firearm. I can remember once on the way down to National Park (N.S.W.) for the Field Artillery camp, at one of the suburban stations there broke into the carriage reserved for officers, with a cheerful impudence that defied censure, a little band of boys. They had not a shoe among them, nor had anyone a whole suit of clothes. But they carried proudly fishing tackle and some rags of canvas which would help, with boughs, to build a rough shelter hut. The remainder of the train being full, they invaded the officers’ carriage and made themselves comfortable. They were out for a few days’ “camp” in the National Park. For about ten shillings they would hire a rowing-boat for three days. Railway fares would be sixpence or ninepence per head. A good deal of their food they would catch with fishing lines; bread, jam, a little bacon, and, of course, the “billy” and its tea were brought with them. This was the great yearly festival, planned probably for many weeks beforehand, calling for much thought for its accomplishment, showing the sturdy spirit which is characteristic of the young Australian.