Chapter III.
AUSTRALIAN MANNERS.
Governor King, when in Australia in that administrative capacity, wrote in a despatch of his instituting an orphan school:—
"It is the only step that would ensure some change in the manners of the next generation. God knows this is bad enough."
That was in 1801.
I made diligent search, and that is the last evidence I could find of hope having been entertained for Australian manners.
My observations during the last few months have convinced me that the average Australian simply doesn't know the meaning of the word. One thing that struck me most forcibly is the despicable habit of cadging invitations to the best social functions. I find that it is quite a common thing for a citizen who has been neglected in the case of a big ball to ring up the gentleman in charge of the invitation list, and remind him of the omission. This willingness to humiliate oneself in order to gratify social ambition was a revelation to me. Another thing that left me dumb with astonishment was the boorish behaviour of your women in the trams. I have repeatedly seen an alleged lady compel a man to occupy an uncomfortable seat rather than move up a little to make room for him. A glaring example of this ill-mannered selfishness came under my notice only the other day. A bejewelled female sat on an outside seat with about a foot of spare space on either side of her. A man got in, and jambed himself between her and the end of the seat. The man on the other side of her moved up to allow the society dame to shift along, but not she! She just stuck there, and ignored her unfortunate fellow passenger altogether. It would be difficult to find any country in the older and more cultured world in which the common decencies of civilisation would be so completely ignored.
Nobody ever considers the convenience of others. People in the streets of every civilised portion of the world—I don't say every "other" civilised portion of the world—walk on the right-hand side of the footpath. If one of them happens to be eccentric or possessed of the anti-social instinct or overcome by any cause and obstructs the traffic by walking on the wrong side, he is promptly checked by authority in the guise of a policeman. But in the streets of Sydney there is no such law and order. The public wander over the footpaths like sheep—and with the same directing intelligence. The result is that instead of there being two clearly defined streams of traffic on each footpath there is a struggling, chaotic mass. Under intelligent discipline, and with a people possessed of decent manners, the immense London crowds that fill the streets around the Bank and the Exchange and the Mansion House flow to and fro to their destinations like trains in a railway yard. But in Sydney, where only a comparatively handful of people fill the streets, all is confusion. There being no rule of the path, there is no order. There being no manners, there is no mutual courtesy to ease the position. There being no chivalry, the women get hustled, and the elderly and weak bumped and injured. The police never interfere until somebody is assaulted, and, as may be expected with chaotic traffic regulation and ill-mannered people, this is not an infrequent occurrence. But the moment the offender has been dragged off the police retire to their places by a verandah post, and the same old rabble again fills the footpaths. Considering that the police do not control the vehicles, it is scarcely surprising that they permit the pedestrians to wander where they will. Carts and horses take any course they like. One never hears of anybody being prosecuted for driving on the wrong side of a Sydney street. A London policeman could not believe his eyes were he suddenly transported into an Australian city at a busy hour of the day.
As an example in chaos and ill-manners, the Government provides the public with a tramway system. The tramcars do not run on the wrong side of the road. I'll say that for them. But they commit every other offence against civic management that it is possible to think of. It would be difficult to find any tramways in the world in which the passengers are treated less considerately. The old motto of Boss Tweed, the Tammany leader, was, "The public be damned," and the Government of New South Wales seems to have adopted it for its tramway department. As may be expected, accidents are frequent. It is scarcely possible for anybody who has not visited Australia to picture what this means—a badly managed tramway service, run by badly-mannered officials, and carrying about double the number of badly-mannered passengers. An old time bear-pit must have been a refined assemblage as compared with a Sydney tramcar.
The bad manners of the people are manifest in other places besides the trams and trains and ferries. It is impossible to find a woman who will stand aside to let others in or out of a passage way. One of the most common experiences is to find two or more women standing in front of the turnstile to talk while 50 or 100 persons miss the ferry. The same thing occurs at the doors of all the elevators in places of business, and at the railway wickets. On the tramways, men and women alike rush the doors the moment a car stops, utterly careless of the passengers who wish to alight. In the restaurants customers place parcels, umbrellas, even hats, on the tables. Whether other customers have any elbow room or room for their plates doesn't trouble them one jot. Nobody ever apologises in Australia. One gets used to that after one's toes have begun to get callous from frequent treading on by strange feet. One's dress may be spoilt by a passing painter or by a fellow dancer at a ball overturning a cup of coffee, but one never hears an expression of regret.