Five Years Under the Southern Cross: Experiences and Impressions. Frederic C. Spurr
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Frederic C. Spurr
Five Years Under the Southern Cross: Experiences and Impressions
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066150822
Table of Contents
FIVE YEARS UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS
FOREWORD AUSTRALIA’S PLACE IN THE EMPIRE
CHAPTER I GOING TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
CHAPTER III AN ACCOMPLISHED MIRACLE AND A PREDICTION
CHAPTER IV ADELAIDE, THE QUEEN CITY OF AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER V THE ROMANCE OF MELBOURNE
CHAPTER VI THE BEAUTY OF SYDNEY
CHAPTER VIII BRISBANE, THE QUEEN CITY OF THE NORTH
CHAPTER IX QUEENSLAND, THE RICH UNPEOPLED STATE
CHAPTER X THE ROMANCE OF QUEENSLAND SUGAR
CHAPTER XI THE AUSTRALIAN WINTER AND SPRING
CHAPTER XIV A HONEYMOON IN THE BUSH
CHAPTER XV THE HIGHWAYMEN OF THE BUSH
CHAPTER XVI A SQUATTER’S HOME AND DAUGHTER
CHAPTER XVII THE HARDSHIPS OF THE BUSH
CHAPTER XVIII AMONGST THE ABORIGINES
CHAPTER XX THE MIRACLE OF THE MALLEE
CHAPTER XXII AN INTERLUDE—A DUST STORM IN SUMMER
CHAPTER XXIII CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER XXIV SOCIAL LIFE IN AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER XXV LABOUR CONDITIONS IN AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER XXVI DEAD FLIES IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
CHAPTER XXVII AUSTRALIAN POLITICS
CHAPTER XXVIII RELIGION IN AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER XXIX IN VAN DIEMEN’S LAND—AN IMPRESSION
CHAPTER XXX THE ROMANCE OF TASMANIA
CHAPTER XXXI A PARADISE OF FRUIT
CHAPTER XXXII THE OUTLOOK IN TASMANIA
FIVE YEARS UNDER THE
SOUTHERN CROSS
FOREWORD
AUSTRALIA’S PLACE IN THE EMPIRE
The average Englishman and the average Australian have at least one thing in common: each of them is profoundly ignorant of the inner life of that country in which his fellow-subjects, separated from him by a distance of twelve thousand miles, dwell.
The average Australian knows by name the chief cities of Britain; he knows a little about British exports and imports; he knows as much of English politics as scanty cables and the letters of special correspondents inform him. If he is a religious man he knows also the names of the outstanding preachers of various churches. Beyond this he has only the haziest ideas of the conditions of life in the Mother Country. When a cable message informs him that London is enveloped in a thick fog, or that Britain is frost-bound, he fervently thanks God that his lot has been cast in a country where “the amount of bright sunshine” has not to be registered each day in the winter-time. Of the inner life of the Old Land he knows nothing at all, nor can he grasp, unless he is particularly well informed, the true meaning of current political and social movements. For this he is in no way to be censured; it is the fatality of distance that weighs upon him. I am speaking of the average, untravelled Australian. It is very different, of course, with those persons who have visited the Homeland, and who, open-eyed and impressionable, have come to understand what English life stands for. When such travellers return to Australia they rarely speak of the Old Country as “having seen its best days.” While they very properly deplore the overcrowding of English towns and cities, and in particular are aghast at the alarming development of slumdom, they also recognise that the energy of Britain is more