Chapter II: Living Accommodation

There are numberless licensed places in Adelaide, where drink, varying in quality and unlimited in quantity, may be obtained, and there is one Hotel--the South Australian. It is distinctly promising, and I am glad it does not call itself “The Adelaide” Hotel, because that would damn it eternally--“South Australian” is so much more comprehensive. Whatever small element of rank and fashion there is in the Village, congregates in those spacious halls and early-Victorian reception-rooms--early-Victorian in the stiff-backed dignity of the furniture, and the scarcity of carpets. Moreover, one occasionally meets there persons who have been rash enough to leave better places to visit Adelaide. Let us be charitable, and hope that sternest duty brings them here. Surely no other motive could induce their presence! And let us remark, as a warning to others contemplating the same folly (especially theatrical managers), that if they come here in the hope of amusing, or being amused, bitter will be their disappointment. Those who visit the city of many whited sepulchres on business, are forgiven--those who come on pleasure bent should be relegated to asylums for the insane. However, should they remain here long enough, the insanity will follow.

The hotel itself is really charming--the staff is good, which is not surprising when one remembers that most of the employés hail from other places. The fact that _is_ surprising is that they can be content to work and serve so long here. This, however, is a tribute to the untiring kindness of the proprietress and the manager.

To keep servants long in any part of the world is both creditable and clever--to keep them long in Adelaide shows positive genius.[A]

[A] I except my own servants to this rule--no genius is exercised
to keep them, because none is required--as they, with one
exception, come from Melbourne, they have some faint idea of
their duties.--THE AUTHOR.

The liquor in the only hotel is passing good, save that it gives preference to South Australian Wines, which is criminal. But of Australian wine, more in another chapter. The hotel has, as I have said before, a charming proprietress, a capable manager and a splendid staff, and it has other virtues of a first-class hostelry. A substantial improvement might be effected by weeding out some of the permanent and usual boarders (mainly female) modernizing the rooms a little, and building vast quantities of additional bathrooms. Then add to the stock some good French Burgundy, some three-star Brandy that isn’t Hennessy, some Dewar’s Imperial Whisky, and a greater variety of liqueurs, and the “South Australian” would be a veritable oasis in the desert of Adelaide. As it is, it rivals the best hotels in the Southern Hemisphere, and to all who contemplate residence in Adelaide, we issue this warning--don’t be induced to stay elsewhere. (N.B.--This advertisement is not paid for.)

Of the other licensed houses there is little to be said; they are mainly patronized by country farmers, who are uninteresting people at best, and therefore deserving of little consideration. I once had the misfortune to spend a few days at one of these so-called Hotels on North Terrace, and among many minor inconveniences one heard the screams of delirious patients at the Hospital, the yells of the inmates of North Terrace Asylum, and the roar of the wild beasts from the not far-distant Zoo--it was distinctly a thrilling experience.

Some Adelaide hotels are kept by single women, who, presumably, obtain their licences in a married name; and this is obviously a serious evil, and one which should be looked into, necessitating, as it does, a more or less undesirable trade.

There are boarding-houses, too, many of them enormously respectable, and occasionally they are fortunate enough to have some of their rooms occupied. They are much the same as other boarding-houses all over the world--that is to say, food indifferent, drinks difficult to obtain, and attendance nil. I have never lived in an Adelaide boarding-house, but I once lunched at one. The rats had eaten most of my hostess’ clothes, which wasn’t surprising. Having sampled the food, one couldn’t blame those discriminating rodents for preferring the boarders’ garments.

There are many more or less charitable institutions which provide living accommodation in some cases free, but these appear to be inaccessible to the people who really need them. At the “Queen’s Maternity Home,” for instance, the marriage lines are the necessary qualification for admittance. No doubt the institution is excellent in its way, but Charity cannot draw distinctions of that sort, and so the home in question simply misses the primary object of such places.[B] There are also Benevolent, Destitute, and Blind Asylums, and several asylums for lunatics. The latter are, I understand, fairly well filled--which is easily understood.

[B] A small sum of money is paid by patients, according to their
means, but the home is distinctly a charity, and calls itself
one.--THE AUTHOR.

Flats, most desirable of modern conveniences, are as yet unheard of in Adelaide, which shows a deplorable neglect of personal comfort--indeed, a lamentable ignorance of all comfortable living accommodation is manifest. A flat comprises the largest amount of comfort in the smallest possible space--may the deserving originator of the scheme be blessed or sainted. May undeserving Adelaide never know the blessings of such luxury.

The dwelling-houses are, for the most part, cheaply built, badly fitted, and execrably furnished--there are a few notable exceptions, but these mostly err in the opposite direction, being lavishly vulgar in their gaudy upholsterings. Inwardly, Adelaide cannot esteem cleanliness a cardinal virtue, judging by the bathrooms in most of the available houses. A furnished house is very rarely to be had, and the few I have seen would preclude any desirable tenant from taking them. Ugh! The cheap and nasty furniture, china dogs, gaudy wall papers and architectural horrors of the Adelaide house! To those who must sojourn here, and who cannot afford the expensive seclusion of the only hotel--bring your beds on your back, or bring a tent and camp in the park lands, for woe unto ye who trust to the doubtful hospitality of the village boarding-houses, or of the “house to let.” We doubt if it is possible to be really comfortable here--certainly to be even tolerably comfortable, it is necessary to select--no, to bring--one’s own furniture, wall papers and other house trappings.