Chapter I: The Holy Village

Adelaide, known to all intelligent people as the City of Juvenile Depravity, and to the less enlightened as the City of Churches, is situated on the River Torrens, and is the capital of South Australia. A poor claim to distinction for South Australia, but we assure the reader that, although Adelaide is nominally the principal town, there are several equally, if not more, interesting places in the State--Port Pirie, for example, or Petersburg, where they have rifle ranges, public libraries, and other wild excitements, to say nothing of the periodical visits of a “first-class dramatic company” and an occasional “sensational accident.”

The Village itself consists of a main street (Rundle Street) and several lesser streets, and is surrounded by Park Lands, which, unlike Adelaide itself, are quite useful--in that they supply the homeless wanderer with sleeping accommodation free. In early morning they are almost as thickly peopled as Sydney Domain, and afford a refuge to burglars, sundowners, unemployed, and other unfortunates. We have camped out ourselves when fishing, and we think the Park Lands are green enough, at certain seasons, to offer every inducement to quiet rest.

Outwardly, Adelaide is intensely respectable--that is to say, the inhabitants go to church regularly, and think it extremely wrong to play cards for money. They are ostentatious in their charity, but it goes very little below the surface. Their ideas are, for the most part, about as broad as Blondin’s wire, and their cardinal virtues are Religious Belief and Conventionality. Briefly summed up, the creed of Adelaide so-called Society runs:--

“I believe in Lewis Cohen, Mayor of Adelaide, and in Sir George LeHunte (or any other man), Governor of South Australia, from whom much hospitality may be expected. He was appointed in England, and ascended into Government House. From thence he shall issue many invitations. I believe in the social laws, in much going to Church, in doing to others as they would do unto you if they could, in the charity that will be beneficial to our social position, and in the Life of the Everlasting, Amen.”

Of real charity there is little, as will be shown later on.

Several well-known pillars of Adelaide have been more than generous, and have showered gifts on the village--notably a School of Mines, Statues, wings to Hospitals, Lions to the Zoo, etc.--not forgetting an elderly lady who paid for building nearly half of a famous church. Rumor hath it that the youthful curate promptly offered her his hand and heart, presumably in gratitude for her generosity.

So much for charity in Adelaide.

The Village is less holy than might be supposed, for Melbourne, with approximately a population of 494,129, has seven opium dens; while Adelaide, with a population of 162,261, has eight. Then, too, it is pretty generally admitted that, in proportion to its size, Adelaide has more prostitution and more young girls on its streets than any other city in Australasia. Many women of the unfortunate class in Adelaide begin their wretched profession at the early age of thirteen or fourteen. Most of the Village’s newspapers have, to do them justice, militated against this evil--but unsuccessfully. The author knows of two local cases in which a mother deliberately trained her daughter to her own degrading career. It may be argued that similar cases abound in every city, but the reader must remember that Adelaide has clothed itself in a self-constituted halo of excessive virtue. This is not a treatise on morality--it is not Adelaide’s lack of morality to which I am objecting, but her lack of sincerity, to my mind a far greater evil. Be a little more humble, ye people of Adelaide, try to remember that your hills are not the greenest, or your morals the cleanest, or your shops the brightest in the whole world--and if you cannot bring yourselves to remember these things, then bear in mind that your wines are the worst ever made, that some of you are passing plain to look upon, and that you have acquired a world-wide fame for your cruelty to animals--especially horses.

Adelaide is justly famed for the beauty of her Botanical Gardens, and the antiquity of her tramway system, and it is on these two facts that her main claim to distinction is based. To be sure there is no antiquity in Adelaide _except_ the trams (and the tailors!)--and this is distinctly a pity. Next to the downright, thorough civilization of Paris or London, the happiest state is primitive rusticity; but here, a desire to be civilized, coupled with an inability to carry out the idea, have resulted in a distressing state of semi-civilization, which is most unpleasant. Things which should be old, are young, and _vice versa_. For instance, the shops are amazingly old, and the buildings aggressively new, which is a pity, for it is the privilege of shops to be modern, just as it is the privilege of buildings to be ancient.

The daily excitements of Adelaide are the coming of letters, and the going of the Melbourne express--the fascination of the latter will be readily understood, when it is remembered that it forms the principal link between Adelaide and civilization. To be sure, the letters are as behind-hand as the local divorce law, but this fact merely shows an excusable disinclination on the part of the engine driver to revisit Adelaide, for, be it observed, the express always _leaves_ the Village at the appointed time.

Adelaide has a theatre and a music hall--the former is open for about four months in the year, and generally spells financial disaster to enterprising managers. The latter, when not devoted to the lectures of the Reverend Henry Howard, revels in biograph entertainments, occasionally varied by a good variety show, which latter is, need we say, but little patronised.

The climate of Adelaide is good in spots--dust in summer, and hot winds--and in winter, much rain. The Hills, of which residents are so proud, are deluged with rain for nearly six months in the year, and for nearly all the remaining six they are burnt so brown as to lose all semblance to anything but volcanic rocks. Still, I have enjoyed glorious spring and autumn days in those hills--days that have lent themselves to picnics, which were generally made merry by the presence of persons not of Adelaide. Apart from the tram-steeds, the Adelaide horseflesh is superior, and takes many prizes, and I have a few delightful recollections of equine adventures--of horses difficult to master, splendid to look upon, and exciting to drive. Many of these emanated from Hill & Co.’s stables, an excellent institution of its kind, where both horses and men are of good calibre, but, unfortunately, not smartly turned out--to be smart is to transgress the social etiquette of the Village.

And there are other bright memories of Adelaide, notably Adams, a merry soul from Hill and Co.’s stables, who taught present scribe the delights of four-in-hand driving, thereby offering endless facilities for desecrating the virtuous Adelaide Sabbath. To Adams, a vote of thanks! and a thrill of real enthusiasm when I remember those crisp June mornings, the thud of the bloods’ hoofs in the frosty stillness, the scent of the fragrant earth--peace in my heart, sunshine abroad, and, for the time, the petty mortifications of my surroundings forgotten. Ah! Those were good days, and they stand out from the rest; but, alas! they are too few to compensate for other more frequent, and less enjoyable, days that must be endured.

Other attractions of the Village are a gallery of pictures, for the most part badly chosen; much statuary, which looks cheap, and was in reality expensive; and several tea-rooms. These latter are, of course, unlicensed, the tea is inferior, the cakes stale, and all the cups cracked, so they are not to be recommended.

Altogether, as a place of education Adelaide falls far short of the mark; as a place of amusement it is hopeless; and as a village--well, it is tolerably clean, and comparatively healthy.