Reminiscences of Travel in Australia, America, and Egypt

by Sir Richard Tangye

This used to be the old coach-road before the railway was opened, and many a coach has been stopped and robbed by gangs of escaped convicts called bushrangers. People were easily frightened in those days. A woman coming out of a cottage at night has been known to stop a coach, and snapping the spring of an old candlestick has ordered the passengers to “bail up” and to throw the mail-bags out, which being done under terror of the supposed pistol, she commanded them to drive on; the coachman of course supposing there was a gang of ruffians lying in wait.

Bushrangers are not yet a thing of the past, for while we were in Sydney four were sentenced to death for the murder of a policeman, who was one of a party sent in pursuit of the gang.

Hard by our hotel is a solitary graveyard, where lie the bodies of many convicts who died while confined in a neighbouring stockade in the old transportation days. A more desolate and melancholy place it would be impossible to imagine. Some of the public-houses have queer mottoes on their sign boards. We observed three not far apart having these inscriptions: “Labour in Vain,” “The Leisure Hour,” “The Rag and Famish.” A favourite drink amongst the people is sarsaparilla, which is generally mentioned on the sign along with the beer.

There are two kinds of birds in the woods about Mount Victoria which make a great noise at night; one is called the “Great Goat Sucker,” and continually cries “more pork, more pork”; while the other, called the “Laughing Jackass,” or the great kingfisher, makes night hideous by its insane laughter; in the day-time, however, it performs a very useful service, in waging perpetual war against the snakes.

The ants in Australia are rather formidable creatures. Some of them are more than an inch in length, and one kind, called the “bull-dog,” is very fierce, and will attack anything; he can run backwards or forwards with equal facility, and never turns his back to the foe. Their hills are very large, and a slight tap brings numbers of them out at once, and unless you want to be well punished, you had better leave them quickly, for their bite is something to be remembered. One morning while on a walk we observed two boys “prodding” an ant-hill; but by the time we had come up to them we found them otherwise engaged, for the “bulldogs” had got up their clothes and were causing the boys to jump about as though they were “possessed;” occasionally they would pause and rub their legs with great devotion; and altogether it was apparent they felt their position keenly. As we passed them they gave us a ghastly smile, and I think they will let “sleeping bull-dogs lie” in the future.

During one of my visits to Sydney the political situation was this:—Two questions were before the Parliament and country—viz., an Amended Education Act, and an Excise Act, by which latter it was proposed to put a tax upon colonial beer.

“It happens that a vacancy has occurred in an important constituency, and as these questions are greatly agitating the whole country, the election is looked forward to with great interest as being a sort of test of the public sentiment. The Government candidate of course supports the two measures above referred to, while the opposition candidate is adverse to both, the latter being the largest brewer in the Colony, (which of course accounts for his opposing the excise duty on beer) and, what is not unusual in the case of brewers, he is a decided Churchman, and supporter of what he calls ‘religious education.’ The whole strength of the clergy, publicans, bishops, loafers, avowed atheists, Roman Catholic archbishop, priests, and Irish is most heartily with the Church-loving, beer-brewing candidate, who is socially much liked, and very strong. His opponent is supported by the whole Liberal party, by large numbers of the Churchmen, and by a few Catholics. The Amended Education Act simply provides that whereas at present State aid is given to denominational schools it shall now be withdrawn. The Bible is not read in the schools, but the lesson books of the Irish National Schools are used. Facilities are offered to the various denominations to give religious instruction to the children in the State schools. The bishop and clergy of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic priests unite heartily with the beer interest (as usual), the proposal to tax the beer coming in very opportunely to enlist the sympathies and votes of the idle, drunken, venal, and dissolute portion of the community. The bishop takes an opportunity of stating publicly how much he is in favour of temperance, and his clergy follow suit; the Catholic clergy do the same, and in the evenings clergy of both religious denominations appear at public meetings in support of the brewer! The publicans and their followers are relieved from saying anything about the tax on beer by the existence of the education question, which they heartily oppose, thus avoiding the subject in which they have a selfish interest; so it comes to this—Bible says to beer, ‘I’ll support you, although it is rather inconvenient, for am I not pledged to temperance?’ Beer says to Bible, ‘I’ll support you with all the strength of my lungs, rendered all the noisier by copious draughts of untaxed beer; beer and Bible, Bible and beer for ever!’

“The Roman Catholic clergy anathematise Protestants of all kinds and classes, including the Church of England, but the latter joins hands with the Roman Catholics and the beer party to gain its ends, the said ends being the same with both Churches—viz., the triumph of priestly rule and domination.”