| | | | | Mrs. Meredith is well known to the English public as an | Australian writer, and in that capacity has gained a very | considerable popularity. The favour she has obtained is | very natural, for she stands almost alone upon the | ground she has selected. We mean no disparagement to | the colonists when we say that ladylike authoresses are | not among the products they have any right to expect to | raise. We have them among ourselves, though in no | very great abundance, and though they are obscured by | a crowd of unsuccessful imitators. But they are | essentially the mark of a full-grown community. They | belong to a state of society in which housekeeping is | delegated to servants, and the making of puddings has | ceased to be a female accomplishment. It is very hard | for a colonial matron to escape from household cares, if | she is equal to her duties; and if she is not, she is very | unlikely to possess application enough for the work of | an authoress. The class of women who write because | they cannot repress the impulse to put their thoughts | down on paper are not likely to find their way to the | Antipodes. Moreover, in a colony education and | affluence do not go so regularly together as they do in | an old country. The majority of those who make | money there are, as a rule, the last people who would | have selected literary wives. Mrs. Meredith has the | field, therefore, pretty well to herself. She is an | agreeable and lively writer, and deserves the praise of | combining in her writings the refinement of the old | country with the freshness and vigour of the new. A | colonist, like an American, is very fond of | grandiloquent sentiments and bursts of prophetic | patriotism. He is always mentally attitudinizing as the | founder of an infant empire, and can hardly be | persuaded that his particular Wooloomooloo, or other | equally euphonious locality, is not destined to be the | metropolis of the civilized world. And this special | tendency to turgidity is apt to infect his style generally | with fustian, which is often very tiresome reading. | From all those defects Mrs. Meredith is free, and | therefore enjoys without drawback all the benefit of the | attractiveness which the novelty of her subject naturally | gives her. | The present work is nothing more than a slight sketchy | narrative of a trip from Van Diemen's Land to | Melbourne. It is full of amusing anecdotes and vivid | pictures, diversified by tracts of rather more arid | moralizing. Its chief value lies in the incidental | descriptions of colonial life and manners, and the light | it occasionally throws on controverted colonial | questions. The transportation question is an example. | To an external observer its history is a great puzzle. The | system was abandoned, as is well known, by England, | in consequence of the great outcry which was raised | against it in all parts of the colony. This outcry was at | the time a perfect enigma to English statesmen. That | the more refined minority of these communities should | revolt at the indignity of the country which was their | home being made the cesspool for English crime, was | intelligible enough. That the ministers of religion | should murmur against a system which gave a | peculiarly hopeless complexion to their task of | evangelization was still more natural. But a colony is | not mainly composed of refined people and ministers of | religion. Its chief ingredients are of a much more | earthy character, and take a much more commercial | view of life. That, in a country where labour was | scarce, a set of men who had expatriated themselves for | the sole purpose of making money should object to be | presented gratis with a certain and cheap supply of | labour, seemed absolutely inconceivable. For some | time the Government at home refused to believe it. | They set the outcry down as an artificial clamour got up | by a few restless philanthropists. But the movement | gained in area and strength, despite of all official | discountenance, and at last threatened to become the | basis of a dangerous agitation; and the Government was | forced to give way. Mrs. Meredith throws some light | upon the puzzle. If the colonists really had derived | some benefit from the forced labour ~~ if public works | of a profitable kind had been executed for them without | cost ~~ they would probably have taken a different | view of the moral aspect of the question. But the | scheme ~~ at least at the time when the | anti-transportation movement took its origin ~~ existed only | on paper. The gaoler-class is not a very hopeful one in | England; the portion of it that will exile itself for its | country's good is less hopeful still. The Government | could not find officials honest enough and capable | enough to carry out its plans. The whole affair was | jobbed, neglected, or mismanaged. Plenty of money | was expended, and plenty of convicts were sent; but | roads and bridges were not made. The island of | Tasmania is not a very large one, nor is there anything | of special and unusual difficulty | | in the country; but many of the best parts of it are still | as inaccessible as if no convict had ever been landed on | its shores. The convicts were either left in idleness, or | employed to do work which oxen would have done | better: ~~ | | Unluckily, the idleness thus encouraged bore evil fruit | positively as well as negatively. The most horrible | wickedness became prevalent among the convicts thus | maintained in luxurious ease, and the pestilence of | immorality spread abroad among the community was | enough to alarm the most sober moralist. At one time it | was difficult to bring up the children even of the more | affluent classes without exposing them to the terrible | contagion. And the panic of timid piety magnified the | dangers which actually prevailed. Meanwhile, all this | corruption was not paid for by any compensating profit. | The flood of wickedness was not a fertilizing flood, or | it might have been borne. The monthly ship-load of | reprobation raised the police rates to a frightful height, | but it did not make roads or bridges. Consequently the | colonists felt themselves morally outraged and | commercially disappointed at the same time; and the | tones of their virtuous indignation were proportionably | harsh. | Among other places, Mrs. Meredith went up to the | diggings. There is nothing in her account to confirm | the horrible pictures of disorder with which the | correspondents of London newspapers used to terrify | their European readers. But she gives a melancholy | account of the continued prevalence of an evil which | we should have thought had been stayed by this time ~~ | the expedition to the El Dorado of people of educated | habits and delicate nurture. At first it was impossible to | persuade poor gentility or starving clerkdom that wealth | was not attainable where gold was to be had for the | picking up. But it has been true from the first, and, as | the surface-gold is exhausted, becomes truer still, that | the instances of great success are very rare indeed. A | few made very good wages by their labour at the gold | mines, and a large majority made less than they could | have secured by remaining at their ploughs, or with | their flocks. But the people who were almost certain to | lose everything were those who were too gently | nurtured to bear up against continued hardship. | Exhausting labour under a nearly vertical sun, | poisonous water, rough food, and constant exposure, | will bring a delicate constitution to the grave long | before the lucky nugget is found. Mrs. Meredith gives | several stories of the utter ruin that is the common | reward of the gold-field gambler. We will extract the | shortest: ~~ | | Though she has been long a resident in the colonies, use | has not blinded our authoress to the peculiarities of her | countrymen. She takes off their quaint ruggedness and | vulgarity with a great deal of humour. It is not quite | safe for us, however, to venture upon this | ground. Mr. Duffy, who has gone quite voluntarily to | the bourn where so many of his brother heroes of 1848 | have gone before, is zealous for the classic land of Irish | patriotism. His susceptibilities have been so wounded | by the gloomy view which we took on one occasion of | the morality and good breeding of the Australian | Legislatures, that he thought it necessary to summon a | meeting of Melbourne citizens, before whom he | declaimed in the very energetic style of his nation | against our depravities. We should be sorry to give him | the trouble again. We quite feel that Australia has | many difficulties to contend against. To have to work a | constitutional system in a political firmament of which | Mr. Duffy is a distinguished star is a task that may well | claim all our indulgence. We shall abstain therefore | from extracting from Mrs. Meredith's picture-gallery an | amusing description of a Melbourne senator's | eloquence, lest we should be thought to be personal. | We will only commend the book heartily to our readers | as a vigorous picture, so far as it goes, of Australian life | and manners.