AFTER DARK IN SYDNEY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3634, 27 September 1873, Page 6 (Supplement)

AFTER DARK IN SYDNEY.

The Sydney Morning Herald, of August; 29th, publishes the following articles in continuation of the previous ones ou the same subject, two of which were reprinted in the Daily Times :— - DARK INDEED. The spot which my companion indicated was a cavernous archway only a short distance north of Market street. The lamps at the corner of the street threw only a sideling light upon, partially—very partially illumining the front, and leaving the gateway in utter darkness. The houses at the side seemed to me in the dim light to be perched in air, and to be approached only by a series of ricketty steps, not peculiarly safe-looking in. themselves, and most certainly unsafe to ascend or descend under difficulties. Tom, however, in the most unconcerned manner walked up to the black-looking arch, and with the warning " mind your shins !" commenced—not a descent as one would have imagined who had the idea of the facilis descensus in his mind— but an ascent. The moment he passed the line of wall, he was lost to sight as much as if he had suddenly sunk into the earth, and were it not that I heard the slipping and slithering of his heavy boots, as he made what the west country folk call " one foot forward and two back," Ishould really have thought He had deserted me.

ADVANCE BY MATCH-LIGHT,

Following the example he had before set me, I brought out my box of matches, struck one, and looked around me in the dim beams which it threw upon the pathway. ~

" Well," said he, " that's cokum ; it's just as well to see where we are ;" and with that he also lighted a match, and then was shown a steep, broken, stony ascent, worn into deep ruts here and there, where the waters in rainy seasons had cut their way down, now in one channel, now in another. Even with the matches which we kept firing off at intervals, it was anything but a pleasant ascent, the stones being uneven and ridgy, and slippery with moisture. Arrived at the top of the ascent, we looked round us, and found that even now we were not yet on a level with the ground floor of the house which fronted the street, for there was a kind of wooden balcony on to which the back door opened with .another flight of steps leading from it down to the level on which we stood, forming altogether what might be called the west side of a square. A long, low, two-storied building—the door approached by two or three steps—formed the south side ; the north was nothing more than a dead wall, cutting off these from the adjoining premises; and on the east was an indistinct pile of building, to which the small beams of our matches would not reach.

' "HERE'S THE CRIB," said Tom, " but there don't seem to be no one at home," for I had remarked as well as he that the windows, of which there were some half-dozen, were all dark and drear. A match flashed up close showed also that they were all innocent of blind or curtain. "Looks as if they'd hooked it!" he added, as he gave two or three knocks upon the door with his stick. There was no response except from the hollow reverberations of the sound of the blows through the untenanted house. " Now I wonder what's been their little game V he asked himself pensively as he once more knocked, not loudly, but cogitatively upon the door.

INTERVIEW WITH AN" AMAZON.

" Now, then, what's,th"e iqvrV' ' It was a female voice, taking' us hi the rear, as 57 r e cpuliiiellb^th'e.flash of candle light behind us. I turned -and found the balcony on the west;occupied "by two females; The one was a big-stout bnilfc, powerful looking woman,4twho3e anger I would certainly at any time rather deprecate than raise, and who had spoken in that short sharp style that means business, and nothing else. She held a candle high above her head, so as to give her a good view of the intruders. Whilst one hand was thus employed, the other was placed imposingly on her hip, forming an unmistakable picture of feminine strength. The other was a younger and much less masculine female, who was evidently playing a merely subsidiary part, as she stood a little back, and under the shade thrown by the candlestick. . "

" Hallo !" exclaimed; Tom, turning briskly round, and nodding his head familiarly, "Good evening. How are

" I'm right enough," declared the Amazon, " and whab do you want V " There's a young lady lived here that I've known for a long tide, and I wanted to pay my respects to her," answered Tom, in his most persuasive tones. " There ain't no youngflady here," she responded, " so none of your gammon." " Why, . and —--ftived here," he asserted. f: '

" Yes. but they cleared out last week," replied the feniale, '^oo hot for W V inquired Tom, in enticing tones.

"Hot or cold ain't nothing to me^ They're gone, and the sooner you go the better,' she answered, somewhat menacingly.

" And the other crib ?" asked Tom,

"There's nobody there now. The court's clear out, so you needn't be pokin^ about no longer." "You're about righ>, my dear," Tom replied. "They've hooked it—bo we'll follow suit."

The Amazon watched us, holding the light, until we entered the archway ; and the last I saw of her was to meet her angry face looking down as though annoyed at letting us off; so easily—her companion iust visible behind her.

''VISIT ANOTHER CHINAMAN-.

, We continued down Sussex street, through the Argyle street cut into George street. Everything on this.line was as quiet as could be, and he there was nothing to be seen in my way. At, last we came to a lane leading up from near the Queen's Wharf to ."that part of Sydney know as the "Rocks." Here we visited another Chinaman who had married a wife of European blood. He had a little conversation with her from which I learned she was Australian born of Insh parents. She was -twenty years of age, had been married five years, and had three children. John was very good to her, and she had no reason to complain. All her children had been christened by the priest. The youngest was :an infant in the mother's arms. "A fine ', little fellow," says Tom, " how old is he V

"JFour. months," replied the mother, with becoming pride. " He christened •?" and Tom looked at Johnny, who was grinning delightfully all over his face.

" Oh, yes, he christen," answered John. " What name 1" " Christen Patrick—he !he!he ! " and Johnny grinned harder than ever. " Patrick ! why a, regular little Irishman !" declared Tom.

' Yes, he J he ! he J wejly good Irish manee—he! he!" jynd we could, hear Johnny's merry "\el h<j!" long after we lojs pght of him. v ■••■-••,■

A DUBIOUS LOCALITY. We came now to the top of the lane, where it crosses a wide street. At the south-west corner of this street, stood two houses of that peculiar construction which I had observed to be so frequently affected by persons of dubious characternamely, houses perched up some ten feet above the street, and to be reached only by steps of the most rickety description. There was a landing at the head of the steps, serving the purpose of a diminutive balcony something like that which we see at the Victoria Theatre, when Juliet comes out to do her love making with Romeo. To carry out the simile, there was a Juliet standing on this land ing—an ancient, and a grey haired Juliet, who nursed her elbows in her hands even as the woman I had already seen had done. But Juliet had her apron rolled over her arms, probably to keep them warm, and did hot make pretence to do conjuring tricks with her funny bones. "Does the Ghinaman live next door?" asked Tom, as the ancient Juliet looked down upon us suspiciously as we halted in front of the house and took a steady look at them.

" Yes—he's there ! an.little good yell get wid him," was answered with a tongue there was no mistakin?.

THE OPIUM-SMOKER'S ABODE.

Without stopping to answer, Tom mounted the steps. He had no occasion to knock at the door, for it was opened as our footfall sounded on the ricketty steps, and a stout, square-built Chinaman, dressed in European costume, and in rather a better style than an ordinary working man, came out on the landing and confronted us. Tom pushed his way up, forcing John Chinaman back into his house, as he retired before the other's advance. I entered the room immediately behind him, and the moment I did so, my nose told me that it would be necessary to leave the door open, instead of closing it as I had commenced to do. The odour was peculiar, not exactly sickening, but oppressive, stupefying; proceeding, as Tom said, from the fumes of opium. I commenced by a look at the Mongolian. He was well dressed with kerseymere trousers and a satin waistcoat, in the pocket of which was a watch, with a thick albert chain of gold attached. The room was comfortably furnished, and in one corner stood the Chinese couch or bed. It was raised some thirty inches from the floor, and was about six feet long and four feet six wideband covered with what seemed to me a railway rug. Round the head and side where it touched the wall there was a kind of ledge about six inches wide, raised some three or four inches from the couch, after the manner of the headrests on guard-room beds, but in that case stuffed and rendered soft to be suitable for pillows. On this couch, lying breadthways, was a young woman, curled up so as that her limbs should not project beyond the edge of the bed, her head half supported by her hand and half by the permanent pillow, and one of those little Chinese spirit lamps from which the Mongolians light their opium standing on the bed in front of her, and just within reach her of. her hand. She had a shawl over her shoulders, and was lying in the most apathetic manner that could be conceived, never as much as turning her head to see who entered, or taking the slightest interest in our arrival. When I came round to the front of her, so that the lights fell on her face, I could see from the dull stolid expression of the countenance, and the vacant dreamy appearance of the eye, that she was labouring under the influence of opium.

A3ST UNEXPECTED REBUFF.

The siglit was a novel "one to me, 'and I took up the small lamp for the purpose of examining more closely the effect upon the pupil of the eye. I soon found, however, that I was putting my foot in it, for the moment the light approached she exclaimed, though in a dreamy unenergetic way—"Cant-yon look at me without shoving the lamp down my throat 1 What the do you want ?"

I dropped the lamp—of course I mean figuratively—at this unexpected show of energy from one who, as I ( thought, was next door to insensible. But Tom heard the expression, and immediately came to the rescue. "Well, old woman,"—she was little more than a girl—"what have you been up to 1 Juat had your opium ?" "Yes," she answered, lazily. "Why, my goodness 1" I exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you smoke oj>ium regularly ? :> She looked at me pityingly, as if she felt for my ignorance, and said, "Can't do without it."

A PITIFUL STORY.

. And then we got her into a conversation ; coaxing her with a. question now and then, she answering the while in a lazy, apathetic style, as if she wished us anywhere but there to bother her. The substance of what we got from her was something to this effect, "I can't do without the opium now ; I must have it ; I've been smoking it eight years ; I'm twenty-two year old now; yes, I was about fourteen when I began j the Chinamen taught me, of coure; IVe been with the Chinamen these eight years ; I'm a native of Sydney ; no, I've got no father nor mother; don't remember father, believe he was lagged ; mother used to thrash me and I bolted; I knocked about a bit and then took up with the Chinamen ; I suppose I shall knock off the opium some day ; I mean to do it; it's hard work beginning ; I never go to church; no minister ever comes to see me ; I'm a Romau Catholic; I mean to go to the priest when I knock off the opium ; it ain't no good till then ; yes, I really do mean to begin soon ; I know lots of gals who use opium ; most of the Chinamen's gals use it} they soon get to like it."

MORALISING. — CONCLUSION.

And here was this girl falling under the influence of opium, with no one to put out a hand to help or to save her—never attending a church or seeing a- minister, biit sinking fast into the religious darkness of her comrade Chinese. And whilst this is going on, not in one case, but in scores of cases—whilst sheep are straying from our own flocks, we subscribe hun° dreds of thousands forJthe conversion of savages. This, however, is a point that has been dealt with by abler pens than mine ; and I should but weaken the effect of what others have written were I now to do more than to touch on it, as I have done briefly. This, however, I may say, that this poisoning of our youthful population seems to me to be. a righteous punishment for the part we took in forcing opium upon the Chinese, despite the edict of their Emperor. I can well remember how active some members of our community were in this traffic, at a time when it was carried on in the face of danger, and I cannot but think that this j is our share of the evil which we have caused to China.

This last scene so saddened me that on leaving the house I wished Tom goodnight, made an appointment for the next evening, and hurried home,

Whooping cough is still epidemic at the Thames, where ifc is reported to have caused large numbers $ deaths during the last few