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

       [email protected]

      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 II THE GOLDEN WEST

       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 VII AT BOTANY BAY

       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 XII BUSH HOLIDAYS

       CHAPTER XIII SOME BUSH YARNS

       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 XIX THE GOLDEN CITIES

       CHAPTER XX THE MIRACLE OF THE MALLEE

       CHAPTER XXI THE ANNUAL SHOWS

       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

       CHAPTER XXXIII REVIEW

FIVE YEARS UNDER THE

       SOUTHERN CROSS

       Table of Contents

FOREWORD

       AUSTRALIA’S PLACE IN THE EMPIRE

       Table of Contents

      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