Ten Days in Sydney.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6165, 4 June 1891, Page 4

Ten Days in Sydney.

[BY "GALLERY."]

As you move about in Sydney } Oα cannot but bo struck by the oklor parts uf the city. There you see something that ia visible nowhere else iv the colonies. It ia not that the mud is thicker or deeper thau auy where else, it is not tbat the streets aro narrower and busier than you can see anywhere, nor ia it the general aspect of dirt which ia everywhere present in the locality, but it ia something so difforent to what yon get iv any other part of Australia, that you arc bound to investigate it. You take from Margaret street to Market street, and include Sussex, Kont, Clarence, and York streets — though the latter is almost too reupectablG now to be associated with the others —and you have a fine field for study. You come ~across a store —eolidly built of stone, though its contents may not be very valuable—and you find it enclosed with a wall —sometimes higher than the building—as if it were necessary to keep out all intruders, and suggesting that business could only bo djno under great difficulties. Here again you find the pavemeßt narrowed to a few inches, while alongside of where you are walking thore ia blank rock ten feet high. When you come to the end of the rock you find steps cut out, and at the top a quaint little house. Years and years ago, -when New South Wales capital was little more than a village, that little dwelling was doubtless a thing of beauty, but the rush of business, the progress of the place, the dirt and squalor, have left it out of the running, and though elsewhere it would have given place to another structure, here it still remains, a monument of a past and well-nigh forgotten age. Hedged in between two modern palatial stores you Will find a cottage, barely high enough in ike roof to allow you to stand erect inside, end a notice in the window tells you boots are repaired, and there inside is the owner of the place and tho repairer of the peda] conveniences. The city has altered, but he has not moved withjit, and he remains whore he was born sixty years ago. All this would do for the Homeland, but seems strangely out of keeping with Australia of to-day. As you look at the high wall? surrounding the store you know Ibat there were troubles In the early days, but why this old native has not altered is a puzzle. On every hand you find houses, which are altogether out of keeping alongside the grand stores by their side ; the lard must be worth a fortune on which they stand, but for some reason or other they are not sold. Upstairs you behold strange balconies of wood bulging out, and you wonder how anyone would venture to stand on them, but they have been substantially built. The queer little windows often hang out over the reet, and the steps even now are yellow nded, and would look well in an English lage. You go round to where the convicts in the old days cut a street through Eolid rock, and you cannot look on unmoved. The work must have been terrible, and many of the men employed at it had committed no greater crime than shooting a

Down at the foot of George street you have another view of an older order of things, strangely enough, here the Chinese b,ave taken up their quarters. You find well-filled grocery stores, but that evidently is not the most profitabls business carried on, for on the wall facing you is something Jike an auc'ioneer's map oT an estate that has been sold or is to be sold, and on which you observe patches of paint. You look closer, and you see that the little blocks are not allotments, but quaint papers gummed on a large eheet. These papers are marked lottery tickets ; they are the results of the drawings of the different Chinese bankc. There are eighty marks on each of these tickets, and when you purchase one you mark off twenty of the spaces. If you get five correct mirf s when the draving takee place you win a trifle, six means a good deal more, and ten breaks tho bank, and. you. get abput three hundred pounds. The Chinese bank ib an institution which flourishes. Detectives have tried to crush it, Europeans have created systems to smash it, but it is there still. You see the odds from the start are against the, speculator. Thi;re are four times as mflny spaces as you mark, and one-fourth of, your ma":ks must be correct to give you a trifle. Pan-tan is bad enough with the cheating thrown in, but the lottery ticket even on Ihe eauare is worse. Men invent systems for Monte Carlo, and after working the game for a short period lose their all and ■wind up by blowing out their brains. Here they spend more time trying to devise a plan by which they may win a paltry three hundred pounds than would suffice to earr. the money in a legitimate way. Truly it is a queer world, and the snug fat Chinamen behind the counter, has all the best of it as he wishes you luck when he hands you the marking pencil in return for your coin.

Though Sydney is not strong in churches the ecclesiastical edifices are worth inspection The Jewish synagogue externally is a very handsome building, while its interior will bear the closest inspection. The passer-by .■l the street sees much to admire in it The walla and gates are highly ornamented, and it is beautifully tesselated. The Congregational Church in Pitt Street outside would be passed by, for external appearance has been altogether sacrificed so that a wellventilated and well-lighted hall may be secured. On the street—or rather a few feet back—you find rooms for leaving umbrellas and cloaks, but when you enter the main building you are astonished to find a place so large that two thousand people can obtain sitting room. It is old, for the walla contain many tablets to the memory of deceased ministers of the church. In some respects it is a model for architects to follow, though the truest architectural building for the colony is the synagogue, the windows of which are a triumph of geometrical glazing , . The Anglician Cathedral—St. Andrew's—is like a good many buildings of the kind—it was began in a hurry, though there was very little hurry made to finnh it. The foundation stone was laid by Governor Macquarie in_lßl9, but so slow was the movement that within a month of Queen Victoria comir

to_ the throne Gover-ior Bourke once • -rf laid the foundation stone. The w more up to the height of sixty feet. - ills got height they remained for . and at that When the walls got to th<- many years, the funds were exha- j necessary height coi'ld not be put od .asted, and the roof took up the pr .. In 1860 the Bishop St. Andrew*, .jject, and after eight years It will loe ' j Cathedral was consecrated. Some <-" d een that history repeated itself, the • ji the windows are very fine, while *** altar is very beautiful, and the Cathedral ..iso possesess a magnificent organ It is best to see the Anglican Cathedral first, for the Koman Catholic one—St Mary's—ie by far the finer structure. It goes without eaying that it ie not completed, though already more than £100,000 has been spent, but eveu in its present state no visitor to the city forgets to see it. In length it is 250 feet and 118 feet wide within the transepts. The altar is one of the finest in the colonies, and was imported from Home. The marble is of the finest Carrara, and the workmanship will bear the closest of inspeotion. The brass work —like most of the windows— came from the celebrated firm of Hardman Brothers, of Birmingham, who have almost a monopoly of that kind of artistic work for Catholic chapels. But grandly decorated as the building is, its chief claim to distinction is on account of its windows. The finest of these ii?, if I remember rightly, the east one, which was erected to the memory of Archbishop Vaughan. We spent a very instructive hour here, and to tno3e who have not beheld Yorkraiuster or Glasgow Cathedral it is a revelation, the artistic work which is to be seen. The Wesleyan Church we did not see.

The railways in New South Wales are doing well, but they must be a puzzle to the traveller. In other colonies a first-class fare ia so much a mile, and return tickets are a half more, so that when you know the distance, you have a very good approximate idea of the fare. That can't work out in the old colony, for reading down the stations beginning with B, we find the following:—To Bathurst, 145 miles from Hydnoy, the fare is 26s 6d ; to Belford, 142 miles', 19s 2d; Bethungra, 268 miles, 50s; Blayney, 341 miles, 31s 9d ; Boggabri, 318 miles, 54s 8d; and the same thing holds good all through. There may be an explanation, but I don't know what it is

The English tourist whom I mentioned in the first letter complained that fruit in the colonies was dear, and told us he waa charged sixpence per pound for apples at Napier, and in Melbourne and Sydney he also found prices high. If that was his experience, it was not ours. An Adelaide visitor also compkined to us of the price** of fruit in Sydney, as he had beeu charged fourpeuce for a pound of yi-apes, whilo at Home ha could get them fur twopeucts ! (<l week later 1 bought grapes in a phop in Melbourne at twopence.) But the Englishman surely oould not eomplaiu of that figure. Sydney is not yet civilieed. Juut imagine tho capital of a great colony where they null i33.T3tma&. peurs, apples, penchea, tomatoes, and such lil.'o by the dozm. Of oourne, the Sydneyite may retort that in parta of llngland to this day butter is nold by the yard. JJauanns are cheap ; you pay rixpence per do& 11 in the flash shops, but elsewhero you get two or three duzaii for the earne coin, while tomatoes were four dozen for threepence. A few yeara ago bananas in Australia were sold at about eight for a shilling , . To-day, through their cheapnese, the demand is tuonnouw, and the consumption is over thirlj tbanaand bunchts per woek or fortnight. I forget which. Boun tliu >\uolc it ml iv Sydney v oheap," and thu u

it has to be borne in mind that a good deal of it is imported, which does not tend to cheapness. Everything in Sydney is imported. You go up and down the streets, and every sign nearly bears the word "importer," while " manufacturer " is seldom or never seen. This is an anomaly," Taut when you glance nt the trade returns you can believe it, for yon find butter, eggs, cheese, vegetables, and all such like productions are imported in large quantities, though why they should ba where there is so much variety, in climate and to niveh good ooil, is a puzzle. It may swell the trade returns of a colony to import everything, for in return something else must be exported to pay for them, but still there is no trade like tho local one, and no market like your own home one. When yon gaze from a height at the city you find yout view beautifully clear—far too clear. The etnoke of a thousand chimneys belching forth may spoil the aspect, but it is a lively, healthy sign which those acquainted with the manufacturing centres of England like to see wherever they go. They will look in vain for tho smoke in Sydney, and the stranger is struck with the absence of large manufacturing establishments. There are ecoree of articles imported to Sydr.ey which in other colonial towns are not to bo got except in colonial made. One result is the trade of the port of Sydney is infUted, thousrii that ia not much needed, seeing last eeneon they shipped from there upwards of five hundred thousand bales of wool. Tho mention of the word wool gives the explanation of Sydney's prosperity. They do not grow one-third the wheat necessary to support the r population, but they ship away enough wool to pay half-a-dozen times for all the wheat and fijur required. Probably it is a case of leaving the colony to grow that for which it is most suitable, and that for which it is best adapted will always bo tho most profitable crop.