The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1891-06-11
IN NORTHERN AUSTRALIA.
A Glimpse Of the Lives and Surroundings 81
the People.

IN NORTHERN AUSTRALIA.
A Glimpse Of the Lives and surroundings 81
the People.
The most delightful thing in the life
of northern Australia is its sans souct
appearance. Existence is literally out
doors, and people live as if burglars
were unknown. ] have ridden past
houses in the early morning, and have
seen the vcrandas Uttered with books,
bric-a-brac, walking-sticks, hats, lamps,
and other articles, and the doors wide
open. Night after night things are left
so, and they are not stolen.
Stealing is punished in Queensland
with the greatest rigor. A man might
be guilty of manslaughter. and stand in
better odor with the authorities than the
thief. ! have ridden to a plantation
late at night, turned my horse into the
horse paddock. entered the house, struck
a match, found sofa, lay down, and
awoke in the morning to find life bust
ling about me, my breakfast ready, and
l an utter stranger!
Such is the freedom of the life. l
was a traveller. / suppose l did not
look like vagabond; they appreciated
the desire on my part to not disturb
their rest, and they apologized for the
hardness of the sofa!
Every planter has not merely one
room in his house which is called the
strangers room. but several, and they
are seldom empty. In the days that |
visited Pride, the planter. there were six
guests besides myself there. Imagine a
house through which the warm air will
blow from side to side and from end to
end, with a group of buildings as dor
mitorics at the left, and another group
as kitchens and stores at the right; and
graced with all the comforts and with
little of the conventional stiffness of
metropolitan life; which has dignity
without show, and elegance without
heaviness--and you have the planters
home.
Put roses and bamboos, olcanders and
camellias. lines and oranges, laures-
tinus and jasmine, pineapple and bon
gainvillia, the glorious pawpaw and
grandallia, a tennis-court, and perhaps
an observatory, and you have a planters
garden healthy generosity, great
self-reliance, mind given to insisting
bluntly on the wisdom of its connections,
a hand ready to pour you out glass of
sherry or indite philippe against
government or Sir Samuel Griffith, who
has opposed Polynesian labor, and that
is Pride, the planter.
What you find Of lightness and COM
fort in the house of Pride, the planter,
you find in degree in all the north.
Order and cleanliness reign. You may
miss at times verdure and foliage, but
never that. Villages and towns are
swept and garnished, and the people
love flowers. And go straight across the
continent to Perth, Albany, York, or
Geraldton, and the same thing may be
found.
You will also find coupled with this
energy self-confidence, freshness, ag-
gressive assertion, and generous warmth.
Because these have always been difficult
questions to face, because unexpected
circumstances have called for immediate
action, because development has come
by leaps and bounds, and because there
have been struggles between class and
class, there has been produced an up
standing race of men, irasciblc, yet
hospitable; strenuous and stalwart, yet
not robustious; explosive, yet not
troublesome; uncompromising, yet gen.
erous That is the true Australian.
The rough persistency and selfishness
of the trades-union are not Australian.
1t is English, with sense of freedom
borrowed from easier conditions of life,
and a knowledge Of power gained from
the most perilous forms of American
and English existence. 1t is engrafted
Australia-Australia in the cities-that
is INTERCHANGEABLE. Australia itself
moves in ample assertion, but it has also
sound sentiment or patriotism. Its
natural tendency is toward hero-wor-
ship. but the faculty has not scope, for
want of heroes. No great crisis has
drawn the colonies together, and of late
years but few of the best men have
gone into public life.-Gilbert Parker,
in IIarper's Weekly.