A Boy's Voyage Round the World

by Samuel Smiles

One thing, however, there is at Melbourne that you cannot see in any town in England, and that is the Chinese quarter. There the streets are narrower and dirtier than anywhere else, and you see the yellow-faced folks stand jabbering at their doors—a very novel sight. The Chinamen, notwithstanding the poll-tax originally imposed on them of 10l. a head, have come into Victoria in large and increasing numbers, and before long they threaten to become a great power in the colony. They are a very hardworking, but, it must be confessed, a very low class, dirty people.

Though many of the Chinamen give up their native dress and adopt the European costume, more particularly the billycock hat, there is one part of their belongings that they do not part with even in the last extremity—and that is their tail. They may hide it away in their billycock or in the collar of their coat; but, depend upon it, the tail is there. My friend, the doctor of the 'Yorkshire,' being a hunter after natural curiosities, had, amongst other things, a great ambition to possess himself of a Chinaman's tail. One day, walking up Collins Street, I met my enthusiastic friend. He recognised me, and waved something about frantically that he had in his hand. "I've got it! I've got it!" he exclaimed, in a highly excited manner. "What have you got?" I asked, wondering. "Come in here," said he, "and I'll show it you." We turned into a bar, when he carefully undid his parcel, and exposed to view a long black thing. "What is it?" I asked. "A Chinaman's pigtail, of course," said he, triumphantly; "and a very rare curiosity it is, I can assure you."

Among the public institutes of Melbourne one of the finest is the Public Library, already containing, I was told, about 80,000 volumes. It is really a Library for the People, and a noble one too. So far as I can learn, there is nothing yet in England that can be compared with it.[4] Working men come here, and read at their leisure scientific books, historical books, or whatever they may desire. They may come in their working dress, signing their names on entering, the only condition required of them being quietness and good behaviour. About five hundred readers use the library daily.

Nor must I forget the Victorian collection of pictures, in the same building as the Public Library. The galleries are good, and contain many attractive paintings. Amongst them I noticed Goodall's 'Rachel at the Well,' Cope's 'Pilgrim Fathers' (a replica), and some excellent specimens of Chevalier, a rising colonial artist.

The Post Office is another splendid building, one of the most commodious institutions of the kind in the world. There the arrival of each mail from England is announced by the hoisting of a large red flag, with the letter A (arrival).

In evidence of the advanced "civilization" of Melbourne, let me also describe a visit which I paid to its gaol. But it is more than a gaol, for it is the great penal establishment of the colony. The prison at Pentridge is about eight miles from Melbourne. Accompanied by a friend, I was driven thither in a covered car along a very dusty but well-kept road. Alighting at the castle-like entrance to the principal courtyard, we passed through a small doorway, behind which was a strong iron-bar gate, always kept locked, and watched by a warder. The gate was unlocked, and we shortly found ourselves in the great prison area, in the presence of sundry men in grey prison uniform, with heavy irons on. Passing across the large clean yard, we make for a gate in the high granite wall at its further side. A key is let down to us by the warder, who is keeping armed watch in his sentry-box on the top of the wall. We use it, let ourselves in, lock the door, and the key is hauled up again.

We enter the female prison, where we are shown the cells, each with its small table and neatly-folded mattress. On the table is a Bible and Prayer-book, and sometimes a third book for amusement or instruction. In some of the cells, where the inmates are learning to read and write, there is a spelling primer and a copybook for pothooks. The female prisoners are not in their cells, but we shortly after find them assembled in a large room above, seated and at work. They all rose at our entrance, and I had a good look at their faces. There was not a single decent honest face amongst them. They were mostly heavy, square-jawed, hard-looking women. Judging by their faces, vice and ugliness would seem to be pretty nearly akin.

We were next taken to the centre of the prison, from which we looked down upon the narrow, high-walled yards, in which the prisoners condemned to solitary confinement take their exercise. These yards all radiate from a small tower, in which a warder is stationed, carefully watching the proceedings below.

We shortly saw the prisoners of Department A coming in from their exercise in the yard. Each wore a white mask on his face with eyeholes in it; and no prisoner must approach another nearer than five yards, at risk of severe punishment. The procession was a very dismal one. In the half-light of the prison they marched silently on one by one, with their faces hidden, each touching his cap as he passed.

Department B came next. The men here do not work in their separate cells, like the others, but go out to work in gangs, guarded by armed warders. The door of each cell throughout the prison has a small hole in it, through which the warders, who move about the galleries in list shoes, can peep in, and, unknown to the prisoner, see what he is about.