AS OTHERS SEE US.

North Otago Times, 3 December 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

AS OTHERS SEE US.

''..„ THE DARK BIDS OP ;' ■'.'■ * AUSTRALIAN LIFE. ■ There ia, unhappily, a dark: side, to Australian life. Drink, gambling, and vice are terribly prominent,. so prominent that' soon enough it will be .a question whether vAustralia will, strangle .these or. they Australia. No nation morally, so heavily handicap: ped can expect to survive in.the modern racial struggle, for. existence. Against, such things there must in fairness be set indomitable.courage and endurance, No man knows, save he who has lived through .it, what life in the bush means for men, and especially for women. I Then there are the. sharks',"water sharks, of course, in these latitudes, and land sharks too. These are they who wait for the remittance man,, and for the young fool who has got into disgrace at home and is sent out to redeem his character in ; the States. Was there ever such madness i as this? If these lads cannot re-: cover 'themselves at home, with all' its influences, what hope is there for ■ them here ? In most cases absolute- ■ ly none. They simply disappear, I drawn under by the sharks. I These ■ sharks are they who wait for'the man from out back,' who, comes to break down his .annual I cheque in' the city. Some of these submit to what seems to them inevitable. They go to the hotel at' the nearest township; hand over their cheque to the publican, with the remark; "Let me know when I'm through that," and set to ; work grimly. But others purposa. wiser j courses, Ono instance shall suffice, It was' recounted by a man whose tanned skin and clear eye told of an open-air' life in the bush, and ho told his experience as if it was all in the day's work : 11 1 was up in Perth'from Ka'anning, a nd a • friend of mine wanted me to get him a particular kind of wire; ani of course I said I

would. Well, I. was in the ■ Hotel, and a man said ha could do me. 'Thirty-two gauge? Yes,' lu says, 'you meet me here to night and I'll fix you up.' 'All right,' I fays; 'have a liquor.' So of course• he came along, him and his mate, and we had a beer, and he takes me out along by the King's Park. 'Look here, mate,' i'says, 'ain't we getting a bit beyond civilisation ?' And with that he lands me right on the jaw ;' only he didn't get me right here, you know, and didn't knock me out. And with that I let him have it straight on the jaw, and knocked him down, only I didn't knock him out, • And with that his mate comes on to me. 'Pair play,' I says; 'come on one at a time, and I'll settle the two of you.' Fair play?' he says, getting up, "I'll give you fair play, you ——•,' and he,up with a . chunk of wood, and gets me on the jaw, and knocks me right out. And when I came to my coat was gone, and my waistcoat was gone, and my money was gone, and ray watch was goneyou know, Bill, that gold one I had, 'That's right," mutters Bill, affirmatively. 'And all I got was a cold. I did get a cold; my word !' " Thus has civilisation advanced since the days when cows were free to seek pasture in St, Georgo's Ter-race.-H, G. D, Latham, Dean of Perth, in the "Cornhill Magazine,"