Everyone in Melbourne goes to Sorrento. I was in the former city on one of the days when the heat is tropical, when the hot wind and the dust are intolerable, when everyone in the city looks parched and weary; while the wives and mothers and daughters at home draw down the blinds, fasten all the doors to keep the hot air out, and sit metaphorically in dust and ashes. In vain are scanty attire and cooling drinks; in vain are all the resources of human ingenuity. The only thing to do is to take the train to Melbourne Port, and then get on board the steamer for Sorrento, where the temperature is always twenty degrees lower than in Melbourne. The wind blows straight from Port Melbourne to the Heads; it has no heated land to pass over on its way to Sorrento, and arrives there cool and bracing from its contact with the salt water. On one side we have the Bay, and on the other side the Southern Ocean, only a narrow mile of land dividing them. It has a charming locality all round, picturesque cliffs, and the sea. Traces of the old settlement are visible still. One of the original wells sunk in 1803 has been opened for the use of the public, and the shade of the scrub gives special advantage to picnic parties, for which the whole picturesque extent of country round is admirably adapted. It was here came the original settlers. One of the oldest, just carried to his last long home, used to tell terrible stories of them. ‘Had you any trouble with the natives in those days?’ asked an anxious inquirer. ‘Trouble!’ was the reply; ‘not me, poor things. Why, sir, they were as harmless as babies. I have seen upwards of a thousand on ’em at a corroborree on the Meni creek—that was their camping-ground then. Dear, dear, poor things, they’re gone now, sir, gone; most on ’em shot off, or put out of the way somehow else. If there is any questions asked when we are dead and gone, some of our big squatting swells ull have some awful posers to answer.’ Again, added the old man, ‘Take my word for it, sir, the blacks were a harmless, good-natured lot till the cruelty of the whites made ’em bad and revengeful, poor things; and who can blame ’em?’ The flour which they used was mixed with arsenic, and thus they lost in many cases their lives and lands. In one case it was certain that a native was shot by a celebrated savant that he might have possession of the native’s skull. There are few natives left now. Such humane treatment has somewhat diminished their number. At all times it was a puzzle what to do with them, as the following well-authenticated anecdote shows. Two aboriginal children, separated from babyhood from aboriginal life, were trained and educated like colonists. In the earlier years little difference was noted, but as they advanced into boyhood, some restlessness became apparent. Ultimately, when a native tribe happened to come near, the children escaped, to taste once more the charms of savage life. The Australians employ many of them, and make them useful in many ways, but none of them rise to anything like a position in the social scale, or evince any capacity of ever rising to become more than hewers of wood and drawers of water. I have seen them usefully engaged at such places as the Point Macleay Mission, in South Australia, but even there I question whether they earn their own living. On one occasion I crossed Lake Alexandrina in a sailing-boat managed by blacks, and I was not drowned—which, however, does not say much for their nautical skill, as the lake was as calm as a mill-pond.
But to return to Sorrento. The history of this place begins with the discovery of the fine harbour of Port Philip by Lieutenant Murray, a harbour of some forty miles in extent. The next year it was made the site of a convict settlement under Governor Collins, who soon had enough of the place, and started off for Tasmania. Eight convicts were missing within a month of their arrival. Four were brought back and punished, one was shot by a constable, and the three others, oppressed with hunger, after wandering round the western shores of Port Philip, made fires to attract the attention of their companions, but without success. Two of them walked back to surrender themselves into the hands of justice, but were never heard of after; and for a while the place was left to the kangaroos and the natives, till there arrived on the scene Hamilton Hume, a native-born colonist of New South Wales. In 1834 three gentlemen named Henty established a whaling station at Portland Bay, and this was the first settlement in Victoria. At this time, and for some time afterwards, the natives were easily beguiled. As late as 1835 a John Bateman, of Hobart Town, landed on the western shore of Port Philip, and entered into a contract with the natives for 1,000 square miles of territory for a few blankets to be given them every year. The Government refused to sanction this iniquitous transaction. Nevertheless, the natives were despoiled of their land—Governor Bourke annexed it in the name of his Majesty. Melbourne, on the Yarra, was named after the British Premier of that day, and Williamstown, where the grand boats of the Orient and P. and O. Companies land and embark their passengers, had the questionable honour of being named after our Sailor King.
Port Philip was a place rather given to joviality and adventure. Ladies and children were rare. There was a marvellous consumption of brandy. Manners, when visible, were rough. ‘The town,’ writes an old settler, ‘was bad, and the bush was worse.’ When a pious missionary of those early times, prior to adventuring into the interior, inquired of a squatter if the Sabbath was kept in the bush, ‘Oh yes,’ was the prompt reply; ‘a clean shirt and a shave.’ ‘At the time of my arrival,’ writes Mr. Westgarth, ‘all Melbourne-bound passengers were put out by their respective ship’s boats upon that part of the northern beach of Port Philip that was nearest to Melbourne, whence in struggling lines, as best they could, in hot winds, they trod a bush-path of their own making, which, about a mile and a half long, brought them to a punt or little boat just above the Falls—which they crossed for the small charge of threepence.’ There are people who still maintain that Melbourne is planted on the wrong site, that Williamstown, with its healthful level, might have been better, or Geelong; with its beautiful ready-made harbour, and its direct access to all the superior capabilities of the West and North-west. The traveller, as he runs down to Sorrento by an excursion steamer, may, perhaps, agree with the critics. But, then, Sorrento would never have had a chance. Now it is a place to spend a happy day in, and many are the Melbournites who lodge in the vicinity. I would have tarried there longer, but steamers—like time and tide—wait for no man.
In one thing Melbourne beats London and all Australia put together, and that is in the number and excellence of its coffee-palaces, which are a real boon to the travelling public, and which may claim to have solved the question how, by co-operation, to provide homes of comfort and luxury for the great middle-class of the community. The Federal Coffee-Palace in Melbourne is a remarkable illustration of what may be done in this way. Instead of spending three or four pounds a week at an hotel, and being expected to injure my health for the benefit of my landlord, I pay half a crown for my bed—it is true it is high up on the sixth floor, but then I go up and down by the lift, which is in active operation from seven in the morning till midnight; I get a good breakfast in a handsome apartment, served up by attractive young maidens in neat black dresses, for which I pay one-and-threepence; I can have a good lunch for a shilling; and my evening meal, with fish or flesh, costs about the same sum. There is a café attached, in which I can have a cup of coffee or some light refreshment at any time; a reading-room, if I require it; a smoking-room, if I am given to that mild form of self-indulgence; and a billiard-room, if I require a little exercise after the worry of the day. As soon as I rise I have a comfortable bath, which is not an extra, as in England. Nor need I fear being roasted alive, as half a dozen watchmen perambulate the place all night. In England we have nothing of this kind. We have large and grand hotels, but they are utterly beyond the reach of persons of moderate means; and it is a question whether, in these days when it is hard to get a decent servant-girl, something after the plan of the Federal Palace at Melbourne might not be started in London and our other big cities, not as a rest for the comfort and delectation of the weary traveller, but as an associated home. It is only in that way that the increasing difficulties connected with houses and servants, and the cost of living in London, can be met and overcome. The servant-girl in these coffee-palaces is far superior to her sister who acts the part of maid-of-all-work in a London suburb. She is always civil, always well dressed, always ready to oblige. She knows when her work is over, and that is a great consideration. She has her day out when she is off duty, and that keeps her in good temper all the rest of the week. At all times her appearance and behaviour are respectable. I have always found her cheerful and pleasant, much given to devoting her spare time to novel-reading, which helps to keep alive romance in her heart and preserve her youth. It is evident she is not over-worked in the coffee-palace; she looks too well and flourishing. I hope she marries well, and lives happily ever after. It seems to me that she deserves a good husband and a good home.
On the Federal Coffee-Palace money has been spent with a liberal hand; and it is run by a company, who find it, I believe, a commercial success. All that is wanted is a little better management. Melbourne is a city of fine buildings, and the Federal may vie with any of them as regards external grandeur and internal accommodation. The freehold alone cost £48,000, and the building and furniture for 400 sleeping-apartments, to say nothing of the public rooms, must have cost at least £150,000 more. Its tower, which is 200 feet high, is a landmark from all quarters. The site is happily chosen, as the Federal is not only close to the terminus of the railways, but is likewise in close proximity to the wharves on the Yarra, which are now daily crowded with large and powerful steam-vessels engaged in inter-colonial and foreign trade. The Custom House is near at hand, and business-men and visitors can, by means of the cable tramways in front of the palace, be speedily conveyed to any of the city suburbs. It has a post and telegraph-office attached, and the popular firm of Thomas Cook and Son have an agency in connection with it. Collins Street, in which it stands, is the centre of trade and commerce. It is there all the great companies have their headquarters, the papers are published, and all the wealth and fashion of the city congregates. The foundations of the new building, which enclose an area of half an acre, were laid at an expense of many thousands of pounds. The underground arrangements are admirable. One apartment is devoted entirely to pastry-cooks; in another is a freezing-apparatus, in which meat, poultry, and game may be kept fresh for a month or more. Another apartment is devoted to grills; and the kitchens are connected with the floors above them by several lifts, by which the cooked viands are noiselessly and rapidly raised to the various sitting-rooms, and the dishes so returned to the sculleries. As to the entrance, that must be seen to be appreciated—wide folding-doors open into a grand marble vestibule, which extends between massive columns into an interior hall. In the centre is the principal staircase, leading to the first-class dining-room and the upper stories. The area above is surrounded by galleries which serve as balconies, where the lady-visitors and their friends may be seen sitting all day long gazing on the busy crowd of arrivals and departures below. You may be almost said to sleep in marble halls, and the beauty of it is that all this splendour is not for the benefit of the bloated capitalist, but for the comfort of the many.
One Sunday I had rather a strange experience. I went to the Presbyterian Church in Collins Street, where there was a large congregation to listen to a fine sermon by the reverend minister on the custom of the primitive Church to have all things in common—a custom which the orator conclusively showed to the satisfaction of his hearers, wealthy Scotchmen, with few leanings towards Socialism in any form, was quite exceptional, and was not to be dreamed of in these latter days. I had a pair of gloves, which I laid down in the pew. When half-way out of the church I recollected that I had left those gloves behind. I returned to look for them, mentioning the fact to the gentleman who sat next me. On rushing to where I sat I found a pair of gloves exactly similar to my own at the back of the pew, and, concluding that they were what I sought, returned in triumph. Just as I had got to the door a young man came and claimed the gloves—and I gave them up—when, to my amazement, the same gentleman (?) who had sat in the pew with me, and to whom I had mentioned the loss of my gloves, handed my own over to me. It is true that the sermon was about having all things in common, but I object to such a practical application.
In Melbourne Dr. Strong, who was expelled from the Scotch church to which I have already referred, is making the experiment of carrying on a church without a creed. Apparently the attempt is a successful one. When I attended the congregation was a large one, and the sermon very interesting. It is a fine building in which they meet, and the people seem to be highly respectable, as much so as I have seen anywhere. Dr. Strong calls his place ‘The Australian Church.’ It seems to me, as far as I can make out, that the wish is father to the thought. I see no evidence in Australia that the people are discontented with the old ways, or are ready for change. Men immersed in business and money-making as a rule do not affect heresy; they are mostly conservative in politics and religion. From what I hear, it is the personal influence of Dr. Strong that has built the church and filled it. He is very popular with his people. They followed him from his old church to his new one, but they are not fanatics in favour of their new denomination, and I question whether out of Melbourne there is sufficient population to be developed into anything worthy to take the somewhat ambitious title of the Australian Church. The Wesleyans, the Presbyterians, and the Church of England, have already gone up and taken possession of the land, and they are organized, which is half the battle. ‘Our people,’ said a colonial bishop to me one day, ‘are not likely to be caught by the Salvation Army.’ The Church has its own organization, and it is that which keeps the flock from wandering. As long as they get something in the way of religious worship they are content. People who belong to other bodies tell me that the Church of England parsons are poor preachers, that they are, many of them, men who have failed in other pulpits, or who have been unable to pass the requisite examination, or whose characters do not stand high—and certainly I have seen some queer specimens of the genus. But then, says the devout worshipper, ‘we go to church to pray and to worship God. The sermon is not the main thing with us, as it is amongst the other religious bodies.’ It may be that he is wrong—I am not about to contest that matter—but it seems to me that in Melbourne the better preacher the man is the better does his church fill; and that if the Church of England, or any other religious body, seeks to be successful, due care must be taken that there is life in the pulpit. The stranger would think Melbourne a very religious city; much more so than London, or any town or city at home. The public-houses are strictly closed; the trains do not run till two o’clock. There is no Sunday newspaper published (in Sydney there are two, and both pay well). Except for the well-dressed crowds on their way to their favourite church (they are all churches here—Little Bethels and Mount Zions are unknown), and the church bell, you would think such places as Sydney and Melbourne on a Sunday morning the cities of the dead. Walking along Bourke Street one Sunday evening—a street always black with pedestrians at that time—I saw a crowd hanging about the door of a theatre. I went in and found a place full of real working men in their working attire, who had come to enjoy a religious discussion. I got in only at the end, and heard but the orthodox reply from a gentleman who talked a good deal about matter and space, and the operations of the one great God, who had revealed Himself to man in the person of Jesus Christ. The crowd sat listening patiently till nine o’clock, when the gas was turned off, and they lit their pipes and went home. I heard some speaking of the objector, whom I was too late to hear, as a very clever fellow; but the mass seemed quite indifferent. I spoke to one or two of the hearers, whose minds seemed a perfect blank. There was no praying, no singing, no attempt to attract, no pale youth with a concertina, no tender maiden to sing a solo. In London the thing would have been a failure. Here the working man has his beershop and club, and his penny paper. In Australia he has nothing of the kind, and he is open to conviction even if it comes to him in a secularist form.
There has lately passed away a man well known in Victoria as Peter Lalor. He was an Irishman, and lived to be Speaker of the Victorian Parliament; but it was as a revolutionist that he gained his true fame. When the news of the discovery of gold in Ballarat filled that district with seekers from every part of the world, Mr. Peter Lalor was one of the first to put in an appearance. Melbourne and Geelong were almost emptied of their male inhabitants. Government was at its wit’s end how to preserve order among the young community. In 1855, the Government promulgated the right of the Crown to the gold, and issued licenses to the diggers. With a view to keep back the crowd, the license fee was increased from £1 10s. to £3 a month. This was more than the hardy gold-diggers could stand. They were not represented in Parliament, and they took the law into their own hands after their patience had been exhausted by the insults of the martinets in office, who were sent to see that they had all the requisite licenses, and to whom hunting the diggers was a pleasant sport. The Gold Commissioners, as they were called, were frequently corrupt, and always insolent and overbearing. At length matters came to a crisis. A digger got killed in a house that did not bear a good character, and the landlord was considered to have been a participator in the murder. The man was tried with others, and discharged. In their indignation over the untimely end of a chum, the diggers subscribed, and had a new trial. It was while holding a meeting for this purpose that they came into collision with the police, who were guarding the hotel. The place was burnt down, and three of the incendiaries were imprisoned. Another meeting was then held to demand the release of the prisoners, and at the same time to claim manhood suffrage, and other political and social reforms. Soon, losing all confidence in the Government, they began to drill and arm. Fighting commenced in real earnest under the flag of the Southern Cross. They were attacked, and amongst the wounded was their general, the late Speaker, Peter Lalor. The eyes of the blind were opened. Government, in time, learned to act rationally, and the result was, Ballarat became the centre of a law-abiding people—a people, nevertheless, given over to the worship of the golden calf. ‘I remember it,’ said a man to me yesterday, as I wandered along its streets, down which a whirlwind of white dust was unpleasantly blowing, ‘when there was only one house in the town; when it was all gum-trees and tents. There,’ said he, pointing to a particular spot at the entrance of the town—‘is where the Welcome Nugget was found; it was worth £5,000, and was discovered by a couple of diggers who had barely been earning their living for months. There,’ he continued, ‘I had a miner’s right; I sold it for £50 to the present owner, of whom a syndicate has been trying to buy it for £40,000. Them was hard times. I remember when I walked twelve miles to a store, and could only bring back a pound of butter, and that was a favour.’ But most of the miners lost their money as quickly as they made it. ‘In 1860,’ he added, ‘I was ready to go home, but in 1861 I was up a tree.’
Ballarat has now settled down into a rather humdrum sort of city, with a population of about 50,000. The diggers are mostly dead or gone, and few traces of them remain, save in the turned-up earth outside the town, where there are traces still remaining of what they called shallow digging. On a hill just outside, also, it is evident that there has been a good deal of soil turned up, or turned out, in the search for gold, but no alluvial deposits exist; gold, if found, is only found in quartz, and that has to be crushed, and the gold eliminated by machinery of a very complicated and costly character, to secure which a company has to be formed, and then the returns, in the shape of dividends, are generally small. It is unhealthy work, too, in the mines, and I was not surprised to find that many of the men had left, and taken to farming instead. Any morning in the week you will find a lot of agents and brokers in the Ballarat Mining Exchange, ready to do a little business in the way of speculation, and that is, perhaps, all that remains to testify as to what Ballarat was in its golden age. As to the riotous living of the past, that is a matter of tradition. The fact is, Ballarat has had its day. Where the carcase is, there the eagles gather, and little of the carcase is left in Ballarat. Mount Morgan and Broken Hill are now names of greater power. Ballarat has an Episcopalian bishop. The Wesleyans and Presbyterians are very strong in the town. The Roman Catholics and the Congregationalists are also in evidence. Somehow or other I missed the Episcopalian place of worship; but with its schools and other buildings, with its wood warehouses and stores, I felt how great had been the change, how sober and quiet had become the Ballarat of to-day. ‘We shall meet again, sir,’ said my unknown friend, in a tone the honesty of which deeply affected me—‘we shall meet again, sir, some day. Let us hope it will be in the right place.’
Of the romance of Ballarat one gets a good idea from a story which I found in a newspaper which will certainly interest the general reader. The history of one of the Ballarat claims, called the Blacksmith’s Claim because its first owner belonged to this craft, reads like a page of romance. The blacksmith, with a party of eight, all novices, sank the shaft in so irregular and unworkmanlike a manner, that it was absolutely at the risk of his life that a man made the descent to the bottom. Without opening out a regular drive they washed all the stuff within reach, and after realising £12,800 offered it for sale, but so wet and rotten was the ground, so badly sunk the shaft, that at first no purchaser could be found. At last a party of ten plucked up courage and bought all right and title to the claim and tools for £77. They entered into possession at noon on Saturday, and long before the sun had set had in their possession £2,000 worth of gold. By working day and night in spells till the following Monday they raised this to £10,000. Then, after the usual reckless manner of lucky diggers, they left this mine of wealth, and went on the spree for a week. Their tenants made good use of the time at their disposal; they opened up two drives; and before the week was out were the happy possessors of £14,400, all taken out of the claim. The other party then returned, and after a week’s work, during which they realized £9,000, they sold out to a storekeeper for £100, who put in a gang to work on shares, and these, labouring in a desultory fashion for a fortnight, took but £5,000. At the end of that time, one of the party, an old hand from Van Diemen’s Land, undermined the props, and next morning on returning to work the men found the whole of the workings had fallen in. The rest of the party appeared to have taken this misfortune very calmly, and to have completely abandoned the claim, for no mention is made of their further proceedings; but it is related how the author of the mischief coolly marked out a claim 24 feet square on the top of the ruin, and working with a hired party, sunk a shaft straight as a die for the gutter. The first tubful of wash dirt they found turned out 40 lb. weight of gold, and the next two averaged 10 lb. each, and as Ballarat gold was and is superior to any other at all times, fetching at least £4 an ounce, those three bucketfuls of earth were worth £2,880 to their fortunate possessor. Altogether, out of that small area, hardly larger than a good-sized room, was taken in a few weeks gold worth nearly £30,000.