Chapter III: The Tram-Cars

Q.--“What is the difference between the Adelaide trams and the Adelaide street lights?”

A.--“One has a set o’ lean horses, and the other has acetylene lamps!”

So much has been said, and written, about Adelaide’s tram-cars, that any reference to the subject is of necessity boring, yet they are the worst evil (worst, because, apparently, irremediable) in all Australasia, and the system is a disgrace to any community calling itself civilized, much less _Christian! Christian!_ Save the mark!

In the _Advertiser_ some months back appeared a letter signed “M. B. S.,” written by a globe-trotter visiting the Village. He says--“I have been all over the world, and have never seen such cruelty to horses as here ... not even in Paris, where animals are not respected at all.” No one can dispute “M. B. S.’s” statement. The facts are hideous. The company’s shares are held by bloated--_very_ bloated--property-holders. Of course they draw eight per cent, or so, and, being essentially Adelaidean in their instincts, they want no change--they are satisfied.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the inconvenience to, and discomfort of, passengers--any discomfort they get I am inclined to think they deserve--and I speak solely from the standpoint of the ill-used horse. The cars are frequently overcrowded, the animals badly fed and mercilessly driven, and often in summer the miserable brutes fall dead: I have seen as many as three die within a fortnight on the hill near the Children’s Hospital. It is pitiful, and if some of the so-called Christians of Adelaide employed a little less theory and a good deal more practice, some remedy might be effected. I am thankful to say that I have never ridden in one of these cars. May I die if ever I add to the burden of those unfortunate horses, or the wealth of those bloated shareholders! I am no ardent pedestrian, but a thousand times rather would I walk than participate in such brutal ill-usage of one of the noblest animals in the scheme of creation. Christians, forsooth! Christ, the gentlest and kindest of men, would never have countenanced such cruelty, and yet Adelaide is a Christian village, infested with Churchianity.

I would suggest that the promoters of this tramway system be boiled to slow music, the shareholders be mutilated, the drivers be put to a more Christian trade--or suffer the punishment of their unintelligence--and the youthful fare-collectors taught to espouse a nobler cause.

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There are other modes of transit in the Village--one or two ’buses, some dilapidated machines called carettes, and some four-wheeled cabs. Some of the drivers of said four-wheelers treat their horses less brutally than does the tramway company, and therefore they deserve to make a living.

There are also several hansoms striving to earn a more or less honest crust under the frightful stigma of “not quite respectable--hardly correct!” To these we wish better days--the drivers are civil, the horses well fed, and the cabs fairly modern. Especially does one Fisher (no relation to the author) deserve to succeed, he having a decent intelligence, and a hansom worthy a better fate than Adelaide!

_PART II_