The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 by Harry Furniss (best ereader for comics TXT) 📗
- Author: Harry Furniss
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I regret that I was in too great a hurry to visit Fremantle, which lies at the head of the Lioness, particularly as on my journey to Australia I had cut out the following passage from a description I came across of that place. I read this, and re-read it, and still continue to read it, as a choice specimen of the guide-book-maker's delirium:
"The first coup d'œil of Fremantle is a white scattered township on an undulating plain fringed by a sea-beach and scant vegetation. As you land you are struck on all sides with the unusual activity around you. Long sinuous trains of loaded cargo trucks are coming and going, locomotive whistles warning the pedestrian to beware, lines of rails intersecting each other, crowds of lumpers, and the busy air of a large shipping centre bewilder you, and you are carried back to some old-world port where ships of all nations call and disgorge their lading."
There! Are you not anxious to go to a place with the assurance that you will be struck on all sides as soon as you land with unusual activity? Do you not burn to see what "a long sinuous train" is like? Are you not willing to brave the dangerous locomotives crossing the intersecting lines of railways, just to see those crowds of lumpers? Then to be bewildered by the busy mercantile air, and before you have time to fully realise all this you are to be "carried back to some old-world[Pg 133] port where ships of all nations call and disgorge their lading."
That last proposal settled my mind; no attractive trains or lumpers, undulating plains or scant vegetation, or anything equally attractive, would induce me to arrive at a place, after five or six weeks' travelling to get there, to find myself at once carried back to some old-world port before seeing something of the rest of Australia to repay one for the long and tedious journey. I therefore avoided Fremantle.
There is one attraction to visit that port which the traveller from the Old World will appreciate, after his experience of the fleecing dues and charges at Adelaide, Melbourne, and other Australian ports, in which officials all but tear the clothes off the visitor's back to tax them. In this port your mantle at least is free.
In spite of the following paragraph from the same source: "Western Australia has emerged into the full glare of the world's light and renown, and not to know its golden wonders is to argue oneself unknown," I determined to remain in obscurity.
The guide-books assure us Albany deserves more than "passing notice." This is true enough, but travellers do not always get a chance of giving the place its deserts. This was particularly the case with me on my first visit. Quarantine was then in force, and, with my fellow-passengers, I was forbidden to land. All I then saw of the people of Western Australia was limited to a few hours watching the coal-lumpers at work trucking coal along a plank from an ancient hulk moored by the side of the P. and O. steamship Victoria. After the animated scenes of coaling at Malta and Aden, and particularly the wild, indescribable scene at Port Said, coaling at Albany fell decidedly[Pg 134] flat. The only diversion that varied the monotony of the proceedings was when a truck would capsize in its Blondin-like trip and pitch the coals into the sea.
HE most interesting personage in Albany is Captain B——, the harbour master. I call him the Receiver-General of Australia, for he is the first inhabitant of Australia to receive and welcome the new comer, and he is also the last to take farewell of the parting guest. Captain B—— has held the post of harbour master at King George's Sound, Albany, for over thirty years, and, though over seventy years of age, he seems equal to many years of service yet. Certainly a stranger gets a good impression of the country if he takes Captain B—— as a sample Australian, and one wonders, when one sees this fine old salt run up the gangway with the agility of a youth of seventeen, whether all Australians are equally active. Chatting with Captain B——, I complimented him on his youthful physique. "Why, sir," said he, "I can climb up anything. I can board the ship hand-over-hand on a rope and never touch the side with my feet." This seemed pretty good for a man of over seventy, but I did not regard it as an exaggeration. Captain B—— remembered his father and uncle, both naval men, going to the funeral of King George IV. His reminiscences included the experiences of singing in a choir at the coronation of the Queen, and also when Her Majesty was married. When the Captain ran down the gangway shouting orders to his men, the strength of his lungs was as evident as the agility of his body. Anyone who took this worthy official as a typical Australian would be greatly deceived. Diminutive in stature and voluble in speech, he is in every way the reverse to the average-born Australian. The Australian is generally tall, not to say lanky, and by no means communicative.
An American walked into the smoking-room of a P. and O. ship outward bound, as it was leaving St. George's Sound, threw[Pg 135] himself down on a sofa, stuck his feet on to a table, spit, and said to those in the saloon:
"I thank my stars I am clean out of that one-horse town Albany!"
Another traveller who had joined the ship at the same town and who lay huddled up in a corner more dead than alive after a severe attack of typhoid followed by pleurisy, remarked:
"Well, you must admit, sir, it is the healthiest place in Western Australia."
"Co-rect, stranger—co-rect," replied the Yankee. "Co-rect! guess that's why I have cleared out. This darned Albany is 90 per cent. of climate and only 10 per cent. of business."
I visited Albany on my return journey. It struck me that in "Sleepy Hollow" 90 per cent. of the natives were in bed and the other 10 per cent. were dozing on the seats on the parade.
When I started for the Antipodes the place that I looked forward to seeing more than any other was Western Australia. It is the part of Australia most discussed at home, where it is being boomed with all the artifice of the promoter's gang. Every ship brings living cargoes to Western Australia; every newspaper is full of Western Australia. On the front page are shipping advertisements offering every facility for quick and cheap transit; in the centre of the paper leading articles appear to ventilate the wonders of the West; towards the end of the[Pg 136] paper—in the City news—thousands eagerly scan the Stock Exchange for prices of Western Australia. There is another column still in which one might find interesting news concerning Western Australia—the deaths column.
When I arrived in Australia the one place that I determined nothing should drag me to was Western Australia. No, not all the gold in the mines would get me to that pestilential plague spot. Here is a place boomed "at home" and abroad at the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, when nightly speeches were made at banquets glorifying the charms of the speculators' Eldorado, Western Australia—when columns were written of its boasted civilisation, and cheers were given when "Advance Australia" was roared out, and bumpers were drunk by the stop-at-home wirepullers. Just read the following, published at the moment:—
"Various visitors to Perth have expressed their opinions upon the awful conditions, from a sanitary point of view, of the Western city, and almost daily news is telegraphed across of the ravages from typhoid, pneumonia, and other diseases in consequence.
"That the state of affairs is in no way exaggerated by prejudiced outsiders is proved by a full-page account in a recent issue of the Perth Herald, and which is headed: 'Typhoid Fever in Perth; An Alarming Situation; The Position of Affairs Grows Worse.'
"The opinions of doctors, nurses, experts, and others are published, all going to show that public and private action is almost in every case as if the one aim was to increase the death-rate to the highest possible figures.
"The water supply is contaminated; drainage runs into the catchment area, and even fæcal matter is plainly evident in the samples analysed; there is no supervision of the milk supply; vegetables are grown under most dangerous conditions; stagnant drains are in almost all the streets; about public places of recreation there are fever beds; many of the population are crowded in small boarding-houses like rabbits, and ordinary precautions for the removal of filth neglected, even if that were enough in itself; houses are built on pestilential swamps; the wind blows the dust about spots where the typhoid excrement has been deposited to breed germs by the million; and bread, meat, and other food carts go about uncovered to collect it, as if to make sure that any who escaped all other sources of the danger should not be allowed to escape the plague.[Pg 137]
"Even the public esplanade has to be shunned, the silt from the sewer which is being used for reclaiming being a mass of foul matter.
"It will interest 't'othersiders' to read this about the conditions of life:—
"'Many of the dwellings in which the t'othersiders are to be found huddled together are first-class fever "germinators." The rooms are small, the ventilation bad, the bed linen rarely changed, while not the slightest attention whatever is paid to sanitation. It is estimated that there are at least 400 small tenements, from two to five rooms, serving as "boarding" and "lodging" houses, and in these over 3,000 persons are sheltered.'"
Stories of how fortunes are made and lives are lost in the race for wealth in Western Australia would fill volumes.
A typical story, and a genuine one to boot, is worth recording. A well-known racing man travelling on a steamer round the coast was attracted by a seedy, out-of-elbows individual seated all alone. He got into conversation with him. The seedy stranger was reticent about himself, but voluble about others, particularly those who were making their piles in Western Australia—he was going there if he had to walk. The idea of a man walking was a repulsive thought to a racing man, so he most generously insisted upon this dilapidated acquaintance accepting £10 to help him to get to the goldfields. The stranger was to pay him back some day if he ever struck oil. Time went on, and one morning the Good Samaritan received a letter with the £10 enclosed and a request to make an appointment. The two met again. The out-of-elbows fellow-traveller turned up to keep the appointment he had asked for, dressed in the height of fashion; he not only looked a millionaire, but he was one! Yet he was sad and depressed, and recited the history of his good fortune to the good-natured sportsman in a most dismal tone. Though his words were full of gratitude and thankfulness, he seemed, strange as it may appear, somewhat reproachful.
"Yes, thanks to you, I have struck a gold mine, the one the world is now talking about, and you shall have half of it; that is the reason I asked to see you."
"Not I," was the reply. "I don't want it; besides, you have relatives."
"I had," said the millionaire, looking sorrowfully away. "I[Pg 138] had three brothers. I was very fond of them, and sent for them when my luck came and, thanks to you, my fortune also. They arrived in Western Australia full of life and hope and jubilation, three of the finest and strongest fellows in the Colonies. They were all dead and buried within a month—stricken down by the damned typhoid fever."
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