Samuel Sidney

“ Manchester is the greatest manufactory in the world. The cradle and metropolis of a trade which employs a million and a half of souls, beside the sailors, the merchants, the planters and the slaves, who grow or carry or buy the raw material, it is the second city in the empire, and perhaps, considered in relation to the commercial influence of Great Britain, scarcely second. Blot out the capital, the credit, the living enterprise, the manufacturing power of Manchester, and we have lost a century of commercial progress. ”

“ It was a life like that of one of the little gambling courts and watering-places of Germany, with more heartiness, in consequence of the constant arrival of friends and victims from England. The town lots of Adelaide formed the great rouge-et-noir table. The climate rendered out-of-door life delightful, the imaginary streets swarmed with well-dressed crowds; so much really good society, so many fashionable men, had never before been found in a colony ”

“ Fine rooms, a fine garden, a dinner daily the best in Oxford, served in a style of profusion and elegance that leaves nothing to be desired, wine the choicest, New College ale most famous, a retiring-room, where, in obsequious dignity, a butler waits on his commands, with fresh bottles of the strong New College port, or ready to compound a variety of delicious drinks, amid which the New College cyder cup and mint julep can be specially recommended. ”

“ Leaving Western Port, we enter the now world-famous Port Phillip, an inland sea, which receives the ships whose cargoes or passengers are destined for the towns of Melbourne and Geelong.
The entrance to Port Phillip Bay is little more than one mile and a half across. On the one hand Point Nepean, a low sandy promontory, like a rabbit-warren without rabbits, at the base of the cape: beyond rises for a thousand feet Arthur's Seat, a woody range of hills, precipitous towards the sea, with barely room for a road between its foot and the flood-tide. ”

“ At the hour mentioned, the Railway passenger-yard is vacant, silent, and as spotlessly clean as a Dutchman’s kitchen; nothing is to be seen but a tall soldier-like policeman in green, on watch under the wooden shed, and a few sparrows industriously yet vainly trying to get breakfast from between the closely packed paving-stones. How different from the fat debauched-looking sparrows who throve upon the dirt and waste of the old coach yards! ”

“ When the Lady Head arrived here from Liverpool the weather was most inclement—wet pouring down in bucketfuls, and the dirt, slop, and mud more than knee-deep, not only in the thoroughfares, but in every spot where it was possible for human beings to set foot. In this state of affairs I saw more than 400 poor people thrust upon our wharves, without food or shelter, but what their scanty bedding supplied. ”

“ MIDDLETON.—And now, before taking a glance at the woollens and hardware of Yorkshire, we suggest, by way of change from the perpetual hum of busy multitudes and the whizzing and roaring of machinery, that the traveller take a holiday, and spend it in wandering over an agricultural oasis encircled by hills, and so far uninvaded by the stalks of steam-engines, where the air is comparatively pure and the grass green, although forest trees do not flourish. ”

“ Ewes, wethers, and lambs will be off to the pot;
For the gov'nor 'ill issue his new regulations,
That all must pay twice, or p'raps thrice, for their stations;
And the purse of the squatter the treas'ry must fill,
Just as much and as oft as the gov'nor shall will.
And there be my wheat to be reap'd by the blacks,
Because I can not pay the governor's tax.
And the huts will be silent, their occupants gone,
The yards all unswept, and the squatter undone.
And the wealth of Australia, wool, commerce, and ships,
Will be melted like wax at the breath of a Gipps. ”

“ In a picturesque point of view there are few towns more uninviting than Birmingham; for the houses are built of brick toned down to a grimy red by smoke, in long streets crossing each other at right angles,—and the few modern stone buildings and blocks of houses seem as pert and as much out of place as the few idle dandies who are occasionally met among the crowds of busy mechanics and anxious manufacturers. ”

“ Sixteen drays at Yuille's Ford, and nearly two hundred people. It is nearly impassable, from the fresh current of yesterday's rain. But the men, tailing on to the ropes by dozens, pull both the horses and carts through. Some there are pulling, some cooking their midday meals, some unloading the drays, some moving off the ground. Over the ford the road is delightful, the scenery charming, the land more broken, and timbered like a park. Ladidak comes in view, a beautiful ravine formed by the convergence of several hills, at the base of which the river so winds that it must be crossed thrice. ”

“ The hard work of colonisation has been done; the road has been smoothed, and made ready; yet is there ample verge and room enough for millions to follow in the track of the thousands who have conquered and subdued the earth, and planted and reared, not only corn and cattle, but an English race, imbued with English traditions, taught by English literature, enjoying English institutions, and practising English love of order and obedience to law while cherishing the firmest attachment to liberty. ”

“ It may be a pleasant recollection for the man who, in some ten or twenty years, beholds the docks crowded with steamers and coasters, and the railway busy in conveying seaborne cargoes, to recall the fact that he saw the infancy, if not the birth, of that teeming trade; for it is not to every man that it is given to behold the commencement of such a future as seems promised to gloomy, swampy Great Grimsby. ”

“ Sir Charles is in fact an eminent example of how far good temper and the impartiality of indifference, in the absence of higher qualities, may make a very respectable colonial governor. By placing himself unreservedly in the hands of men of colonial experience—by yielding every point left to his own discretion by the home government to the wishes of the majority of the Legislative Council—and in fact by never taking the trouble to have any opinion on any colonial subject, has glided over difficulties on which men of more intellect and obstinacy would have made shipwreck. ”

“ From time to time you pass a cluster of deserted roofless cottages of dingiest brick, half-swallowed up in sinking pits or inclining to every point of the compass, while the timbers point up like the ribs of a half-decayed corpse. The majority of the natives of this Tartarian region are in full keeping with the scenery—savages, without the grace of savages, coarsely clad in filthy garments, with no change on week-days and Sundays, they converse in a language belarded with fearful and disgusting oaths, which can scarcely be recognized as the same as that of civilized England. ”

“ The capitalist for the first time saw himself painted as an injured victim, and presented with a new field for ample profits; the ratepayer was charmed at the idea of getting rid of an unlimited number of paupers; the educated gentleman hoped to live on his £20,000 with all the state, dignity, and luxury, physical and intellectual, that a landed estate of 100,000 confers in England or Scotland. The adventurous of the middle class dwelt on the charms of distinction which would be open to them in a new colony ”

“ From the densely-populated iron districts, and the model agriculture of disciples of the same school as Lord Hatherton, we can turn our faces to a vast moorland, forty miles square, stretching from where it is first seen on the banks of the railway to the banks of the Trent, as wild as any part of Wales or Scotland, intersected by steep hills, by deep valleys, covered with gorse and broom, dotted with peat marshes, tenanted by wild deer and feathered game, and fed over by the famous “Kenk” sheep, nearly as wild as deer, and in flavour rivalling the best mountain mutton. ”

“ Mother Partington's mop was not more powerful to stop the Atlantic than paper proclamations to arrest the march of Australian settlers with sheep and lambs in sight of "fresh fields and pastures new."
On the one hand, shepherds and stockmen were spreading overland, following their flock from pasture to pasture toward Port Phillip; on the other, a Port Phillip fever seized the Tasmanians, and they crowded across the straits like the patriarchs of old, with tents and all their woolly possessions. ”

“ The trunk of an elephant that can pick up a pin or rend an oak, is as nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like wax before it; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can embroider muslin, and forge anchors, cut steel into ribands, and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the winds and waves. ”

“ Young men of spirit were not satisfied to retire into the bush and look after a flock of silly sheep while it was possible to buy a section of land at 1 an acre, give it a fine name as a village site, sell the same thing at 10 an acre, for a bill the bank would discount, and live in style at the Southern Cross Hotel; for when a man had made such a speculation he could not, and did not, do less than invite a party of new-made friends to celebrate his good fortune by a dinner, a ball, or a pic-nic, with a few cases of champagne imported by the merchant on credit. ”

“ Nowhere are there to be found so numerous a body of intelligent, ingenious, well educated workmen. The changes of fashion and the discoveries of science always find Birmingham prepared to march in the van, and skilfully execute the work needed in iron, in brass, in gold and silver, in all the mixed metals and in glass. When guns are no longer required at the rate of a gun a minute, Birmingham steel pens become famous all over the world. When steel buckles and gilt buttons have had their day, Britannia teapots and brass bedsteads still hold their own. ”

“ During the more lawless days of the Victorian gold diggings, it was the custom for travellers to wait on the verge of the forest until a sufficient number were collected to insure their passage through it in safety. Latterly, however, the place, although offering uncommon opportunities of concealment to the bushranger, has become so quiet, that no more fear is entertained by those who pass through it than on any other portion of the road. The Black Forest well deserves its name, for it is as gloomy a place as the imagination could well conceive. ”

“ While the country round the Peak is wild, bare, and rugged, the line of valleys and dales on which lies the road from Matlock to Burton and Manchester, presents the most charming series of pictures of undulating woodland scenery, adorned by mansions and cottages, that it is possible to imagine. The high road continually runs along the steep side of valleys,—on one side are thick coverts climbing the rocky hill-sides, all variegated with wild flowers, briars, and brushwood ”

“ Our territorial revenue,, diminished as it is by this insane policy, is in a great measure confined to the introduction among us of people unsuited to our wants, in many instances the outpourings of the poorhouses and unions of the United Kingdom; instead of being applied, as it ought to be, in directing to our colony a stream of vigorous and efficient labour, calculated to elevate the character of our industrial population. ”

“ To say of any one that he is an “Oxford man,” at once implies that he is a gentleman, and when a well-looking, well-mannered, and even moderately endowed young gentleman has passed respectably through his curriculum at Christchurch or Magdalen, Balliol, Oriel, University, or any other of the correct colleges, it rests with himself whether he runs the race of public life in England on equal terms with the sons of the oldest of the titled and untitled aristocracy, even though his father were an eminent retired dust contractor, and his mother laundry maid or factory girl. ”

“ Morrison, deceived by imaginary dividends, believed that government could buy up and work all the railways of Great Britain at a profit, so Lord Stanley and Lord Grey, dazzled by the land purchases of mad speculators in New South Wales, Port Phillip, and South Australia, fancied that the government had an inexhaustible treasure for emigration and patronage in the waste lands of every colony in the British dominions, from the Sugar Loaf Hills of New Zealand to the wild wintry moors of the Falkland Islands. ”

“ At length the word was given, and thump, thump, like an earthquake the steam-hammer descended, rapidly reducing the red-hot Dutch cheese shape to the flatter proportions of a mighty Double Gloucester, all the while the great smith was turning and twisting it about so that each part should receive its due share of hammering, and that the desired shape should be rapidly attained, sometimes with one hand, sometimes with the other, he interposed a flat poker between the red mass and the hammer, sharing a vibration that was powerful enough to dislocate the shoulder of any lesser man. ”

“ Now, this in a few words is the true art of colonisation. Locate poor men on waste land in England or Ireland and they sink under the multiplicity of money payments or debts, having to compete with a fund of cheap labour, and inferior land against superior land and skilled cultivation. Locate the same men in a colony, and they rise buoyed up by a surrounding dear labour market, which enables them to barter their chief possession, labour, for seeds, tools, stock, or whatever they may need ”

“ Then Oxford is so decorously clean, so spotlessly free from the smoke of engines and the roar of machinery; the groves and gardens, and trim green turf seen through richly-carved and corbeled archways, give such a feeling of calm study, and pleasant leisure, that we will defy the bitterest radical and the sourest dissenter not to be softened and charmed by his first impressions. ”

“ At Port Phillip Bay the great dividing range which runs parallel at varying distances with the coast from Wide Bay, penetrating New South Wales under various names (the Blue Mountains near Sydney, the Australian Alps in Gipps's Land) , seems to sink into the sea across Bass's Straits, where its course is marked by a chain of islands, and reappears with the same character in Van Diemen's Land.
Thus it is that, sailing up the bay, the scenery changes: the rugged cliffs and alpine ranges of the east coast give way to undulating grassy plains, sprinkled with picturesque hills. ”

“ The borough has had the good sense to prefer a merchant townsman, Sir Thomas Birch, and the son of a merchant, and friend and co-minister of the late Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Cardwell, to a soldier, and the dreamy poetical son of a Protectionist duke. A place like Liverpool ought to find in its own body better men than young lords or old soldiers. But young Liverpool dearly loves a lord, of any politics; and a little polite attention from a duke will produce an unconscious effect even on the trade report of a broker of “fashion.” ”

“ But not one of the whole array of model colonisers was able to answer my simple question, "How are Canterbury colonists to earn a living and obtain a return for capital invested after the rate of £3 an acre? Not by agriculture, for colonial experience proves that except to the peasant proprietor agriculture will not pay. If pastoral pursuits are relied upon, no land will be purchased by sane men, and the assumed advantages of concentration, with the funds for churches, bishoprics, schools and libraries, can never be realised." ”

“ The Birmingham public are so often in the habit of hearing from their favourite orators that they are the most intelligent, moral, and intellectual people in the world,—that their town is the healthiest, and their opinions the soundest, of any community in England, that it is not extraordinary if they overlook blots which are plain enough to a stranger. Perhaps they are quite right; perhaps they are more honest, more sensible, more sound politicians, than any other British community. ”

“ Sir, The present alarming state of the colony, in which every man's property, liberty, and life are endangered, induces us most earnestly to implore you instantly to place Governor Bligh under arrest, and to assume the command of the colony. We pledge ourselves, at a moment of less agitation, to come forward to support the measure with our fortunes and our lives. ”

“ In a word, a parliamentary train collects,—besides mechanics in search of work, sailors going to join a ship, and soldiers on furlough,—all whose necessities or tastes lead them to travel economically, among which last class are to be found a good many Quakers. It is pleasing to observe the attention the poor women, with large families and piles of packages, receive from the officers of the company, a great contrast to the neglect which meets the poorly clad in stage-coach travelling, as may still be seen in those districts where the rail has not yet made way. ”

“ Turning from the creek, and looking towards the low but gently-rising ground that lies between three hills, you observe an area of from eighty to one hundred acres, crowded with stone buildings, covered shafts leading under ground, machinery and engine works, engine-houses, storehouses, tanks, and dams of water, innumerable sheds of all sizes, and countless piles of copper ore of various assorted qualities, in different stages of dressing, lying almost in every direction. ”

“ In fact, civility to all, gentle and simple, is the rule introduced by the English railway system; every porter with a number on his coat is, for the time, the passenger’s servant. Special attention is bestowed on those who are personally known, and no one can grumble at that. Some people, who have never visited the continent, or only visited it for pleasure, travelling at their leisure, make comparisons with the railways of France and Germany, unfavourable to the English system. Our railways are dearer than the foreign, so is our government,—we make both ourselves ”

“ Thus, a day's labour from time to time with a neighbouring farmer will buy a yoke of bullocks, a dray, a quarter of wheat or maize, and assist both. In England and Ireland a poor man clings to land in hopes of making more than bare wages by extra toil; in a colony a man desires land to keep his family together, even at some sacrifice of money wages. In old countries the little freehold must be divided with sons and sons-in-law; in a colony the full-fledged brood can always, if idle "protective" laws do not impede, go further afield, and find a new site for a nest. ”

“ The political croakers who are constantly predicting that the last inevitable change, whether it be a Municipal Corporation Reform, a Tithe Commutation, or a Corn Tax Repeal, will prove the ruin of England, should study the geographical march of our manufactures, and mark how, on the whole population, the rise of a new staple in one district, or the invention of a new art, constantly creates a new demand for labour. ”