An Autobiography

by

Catherine Helen Spence

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE IN SCOTLAND. CHAPTER II. TOWARDS AUSTRALIA. CHAPTER III. A BEGINNING AT SEVENTEEN CHAPTER IV. LOVERS AND FRIENDS. CHAPTER V. NOVELS AND A POLITICAL INSPIRATION. CHAPTER VI. A TRIP TO ENGLAND. CHAPTER VII. MELROSE REVISITED. CHAPTER VIII. I VISIT EDINBURGH AND LONDON. CHAPTER IX. MEETING WITH J. S. MILL AND GEORGE ELIOT. CHAPTER X. RETURN FROM THE OLD COUNTRY. CHAPTER XI WARDS OF THE STATE. CHAPTER XII. PREACHING, FRIENDS, AND WRITING. CHAPTER XIII. MY WORK FOR EDUCATION. CHAPTER XIV. SPECULATION, CHARITY, AND A BOOK. CHAPTER XV. JOURNALISM AND POLITICS. CHAPTER XVI. SORROW AND CHANGE. CHAPTER XVII. IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. CHAPTER XVIII. BRITAIN, THE CONTINENT, AND HOME AGAIN. CHAPTER XIX. PROGRESS OF EFFECTIVE VOTING. CHAPTER XX. WIDENING INTERESTS. CHAPTER XXI PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION AND FEDERATION. CHAPTER XXII. A VISIT TO NEW SOUTH WALES. CHAPTER XXIII. MORE PUBLIC WORK. CHAPTER XXIV. THE EIGHTIETH MILESTONE AND THE END. 

CHAPTER I. 

EARLY LIFE IN SCOTLAND. 

Sitting down at the age of eighty-four to give an account of my life, Ifeel that it connects itself naturally with the growth and developmentof the province of South Australia, to which I came with my family inthe year 1839, before it was quite three years old. But there is muchtruth in Wordsworth's line, "the child is father of the man, " and noless is the mother of the woman; and I must go back to Scotland for theroots of my character and Ideals. I account myself well-born, for Myfather and my mother loved each other. I consider myself welldescended, going back for many generations on both sides of intelligentand respectable people. I think I was well brought up, for my fatherand mother were of one mind regarding the care of the family. I countmyself well educated, for the admirable woman at the head of the schoolwhich I attended from the age of four and a half till I was thirteenand a half, was a born teacher in advance of her own times. In fact. Like my own dear mother, Sarah Phin was a New Woman without knowing it. The phrase was not known in the thirties. 

I was born on October 31, 1825, the fifth of a family of eight born toDavid Spence and Helen Brodie, in the romantic village of Melrose, onthe silvery Tweed, close to the three picturesque peaks of the EildonHills, which Michael Scott's familiar spirit split up from one mountainmass in a single night, according to the legend. It was indeed poeticground. It was Sir Walter Scott's ground. Abbotsford was within twomiles of Melrose, and one of my earliest recollections was seeing thelong procession which followed his body to the family vault at DryburghAbbey. There was not a local note in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" orin the novels. "The Monastery" and "The Abbot, " with which I was notfamiliar before I entered my teens. There was not a hill or a burn or aglen that had not a song or a proverb, or a legend about it. Yarrowbraes were not far off. The broom of the Cowdenknowes was still nearer, and my mother knew the words as well as the tunes of the minstrelsy ofthe Scottish Border. But as all readers of the life of Scott know, hewas a Tory, loving the past with loyal affection, and shrinking fromany change. My father, who was a lawyer (a writer as it was called), and his father who was a country practitioner, were reformers, and soit happened that they never came into personal relations with the manthey admired above all men in Scotland. It was the Tory doctor whoattended to his health, and the Tory writer who was consulted about hisaffairs. 

I look back to a happy childhood. The many anxieties which reached bothmy parents were quite unknown to the children till the crisis in 1839. I do not know that I appreciated the beauty of the village I lived inso much with my own bodily eyes as through the songs and theliterature, which were current talk. The old Abbey, with its 'prenticewindow, and its wonders in stonecarving, that Scott had written aboutand Washington Irving marvelled at--"Here lies the race of the House ofYair" as a tombstone--had a grand roll in it. In the churchyard of theold Abbey my people on the Spence side lay buried. In the square ormarket place there no longer stood the great tree described in TheMonastery as standing just after Flodden Field, where the flowers ofthe forest had been cut down by the English; but in the centre stoodthe cross with steps up to it, and close to the cross was the well, towhich twice a day the maids went to draw water for the house until Iwas nine years old, when we had pipes and taps laid on. The cross wasthe place for any public speaking, and I recalled, when I wasrecovering from the measles, the maid in whose charge I was, wrapped mein a shawl and took me with her to hear a gentleman from Edinburghspeak in favour of reform to a crowd gathered round. He said that theTories had found a new name--they called themselves Conservativesbecause it sounded better. For his part he thought conserves werepickles, and he hoped all the Tories would soon find themselves in apretty pickle. There were such shouts of laughter that I saw this was agreat joke. 

We had gasworks in Melrose when I was 10 or 11, and a great joy to uschildren the wonderful light was. I recollect the first lucifermatches, and the wonder of them. My brother John had got 6d. From avisiting, uncle as a reward for buying him snuff to fill his cousin'ssilver snuffbox, and he spent the money in buying a box of lucifers, with the piece of sandpaper doubled, through which each match was to besmartly drawn, and he took all of us and some of his friends to theorchard, we called the wilderness, at the back of my grandfatherSpence's house, and lighted each of the 50 matches, and we consideredit a great exhibition. 'MY grandfather (old Dr. Spence) died before theera of lucifer matches. He used to get up early and strike a fire withflint and steel to boil the kettle and make a cup of tea to give to hiswife in bed. He did it for his first wife (Janet Park), who wasdelicate, and he did the same for his second wife until her last fatalillness. It was a wonderful thing for a man to do in those days. Hewould not call the maid; he said young things wanted plenty of sleep. He had been a navy doctor, and was very intelligent. He trusted much toNature and not too much to drugs. On the Sunday of the great annulareclipse of the sun in 1835, which was my brother John's eleventhbirthday, he had a large double tooth extracted--not by a dentist, andgas was then unknown or any other anaesthetic, so he did not enjoy theeclipse as other people did. It took place in the afternoon, and therewas no afternoon church. 

In summer we had two services--one in the forenoon and one in theafternoon. In winter we had two services at one sitting, which was athing astonishing to English visitors. The first was generally called alecture--a reading with comments, of a passage of Scripture--a dozenverses or more--and the second a regularly built sermon, with three orfour heads, and some particulars, and a practical summing up. 

Prices and cost of living had fallen since my mother had married in1815, three months after the battle of Waterloo. At that time tea cost8/0 a lb. , loaf sugar, 1/4, and brown sugar 11 1/2d. Bread and meatwere then still at war prices, and calico was no cheaper than linen, and that was dear. She paid 3/6 a yard for fine calico to makepetticoats. Other garments were of what was called home made linen. White cotton stockings at 4/9, and thinner at 3/9 each; silk stockingsat 11/6. I know she paid 36/ for a yard of Brussels net to make capsof. It was a new thing to have net made in the loom. When a womanmarried she must wear caps at least in the morning. In 1838 my motherbought a chest of tea (84 lb. ) for 20 pounds, a trifle under 5/0 a lb. ;the retail price was 6/0--it was a great saving; and up to the time ofour departure brown sugar cost 7 1/2d. , and loaf sugar 10d. It is nowonder that these things were accounted luxuries. When a decent Scotchcouple in South Australia went out to a station in the country in theforties and received their stores, the wife sat down at herquarter-chest of tea and gazed at her bag of sugar, and fairly wept tothink of her old mother across the ocean, who had such difficulty inbuying an ounce of tea and a pound of sugar. My mother even saw an oldwoman buy 1/4oz. Of tea and pay 11/2d. For it, and another woman buy1/4lb. Of meat. 

We kept three maids. The cook got 8 pounds a year, the housemaid 7pounds, and the nursemaid 6 pounds, paid half-yearly, but the summerhalf-year was much better paid than the winter, because there was theoutwork in the fields, weeding and hoeing turnips and potatoes, andhaymaking. The winter work in the house was heavier on account of thefires and the grate cleaning, but the wages were less. My mother gavethe top wages in the district, and was considerate to her maids, but Iblush yet to think how poorly those good women who made the comfort ofmy early home were paid for their labours. You could get a washerwomanfor a shilling or 1/6 a day, but you must give her a glass of whisky aswell as her food. You could get a sewing girl for a shilling or less, without the whisky. And yet cheap as sewing was it was the pride of themiddle-elms women of those days that they did it all themselves athome. Half of the time of girls' schools was given to sewing whenmother was taught. Nearly two hours a day was devoted to it in my time. 

A glass of whisky in Scotland in the thirties cost less than a cup oftea. I recollect my father getting a large cask of whisky direct fromthe distillery which cost 6/6 a gallon, duty paid. A bottle of inferiorwhisky could be bought at the grocer's for a shilling. It is surprisinghow much alcoholic beverages entered into the daily life, the business, and the pleasures of the people in those days. No bargain could be madewithout them. Christenings, weddings, funerals--all called for thepouring out of strong drink. If a lady called, the port and sherrydecanters were produced, and the cake basket. If a gentleman, probablyit was the spirit decanter. After the 3 o'clock dinner there was whiskyand hot water and sugar, and generally the came after the 10 o'clocksupper. Drinking habits were very prevalent among men, and were not inany way disgraceful, unless excessive. But there was less drinkingamong women than there is now, because public opinion was stronglyagainst it. Without being abstainers, they were temperate. With thesame heredity and the same environment, you would see all the brotherspretty hard drinkers and all the sisters quite straight. Such is theeffect of public opinion. Nothing else has been so powerful in changingthese customs as the cheapening of tea and coffee and cocoa, butespecially tea. 

My brothers went to the parish school, one of the best in the county. The endowment from the tiends or tithes, extorted by John Knox from theLords of the congregations, who had seized on the church lands, wasmore meagre for the schoolmasters than for the clergy. I think Mr. Thomas Murray had only 33 pounds in Money, a schoolhouse, and aresidence and garden, and he had to make up a livelihood from schoolfees, which began at 2/ a quarter for reading, 3/6 when writing wastaught, and 51 for arithmetic. Latin, I think, cost 10/6 a quarter, butit included English. Mr. Murray adopted a phonic system of teachingreading, not so complete as the late Mr. Hartley formulated for ourSouth Australian schools, and was most successful with it. He not onlyused maps, but he had blank maps-a great innovation. My mother was onlytaught geography during the years in which she was "finished" inEdinburgh, and never saw a map then. She felt interested in geographywhen her children were learning it. No boy in Mr. Murray's school wasallowed to be idle; every spare minute was given to arithmetic. In theparish school boys of all classes were taught. Sir David Brewster'ssons went to it; but there were fewer girls, partly because noneedlework was taught there, and needlework was of supreme importance. Mr. Murray was session clerk, for which he received 5 pounds a year. OnSaturday afternoons he might do land measuring, like Goldsmith'sschoolmaster in "The Deserted Village"--

 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And even the rumour ran that he could gauge. 

My mother felt that her children were receiving a much better educationthan she had had. The education seemed to begin after she left school. Her father united with six other tenant farmers in buying the thirdedition of "The Encyclopedia Britannica, " seven for the price of six. Probably it was only in East Lothian that seven such purchasers couldbe found, and my mother studied it well, as also the unabridgedJohnson's Dictionary in two volumes. She learned the Greek letters, sothat she could read the derivations, but went no further. She saw thefallacy of Mr. Pitt's sinking fund when her father believed in it. Toborrow more than was needed so as to put aside part on compoundinterest, would make the price of money rise. And why should notprivate people adopt the same way of getting rid of debts? The fathersaid it would not do for them at all--it was only practicable for anation. The things I recollect of the life in the village of Melrose, of 700 inhabitants, have been talked over with my mother, and manyembodied in a little MS. Volume of reminiscences of her life. I holdmore from her than from my father; but, as he was an unluckyspeculator, I inherit from him Hope, which is invaluable to a social orpolitical reformer. School holidays were only a rarity in harvest timefor the parish school. At Miss Phin's we had, besides, a week atChristmas. The boys had only New Year's Day. Saturday was only ahalf-holiday. We all had a holiday for Queen Victoria's coronation, andI went with a number of school fellows to see Abbotsford, not for thefirst time in my life. 

Two mail coaches--the Blucher and the Chevy Chase--ran through Melroseevery day. People went to the post office for their letters, and paidfor them on delivery. My two elder sisters--Agnes, who died ofconsumption at the age of 16, and Jessie, afterwards Mrs. AndrewMurray, of Adelaide and Melbourne, went to boarding school with theiraunt, Mary Spence, lit Upper Wooden, halfway between Jedburgh andKelso. Roxburghshire is rich in old monasteries. The border lands weremore safe in the hands of the church than under feudal lords engaged inperpetual fighting, and the vassals of the abbeys had generallyspeaking, a more secure existence. Kelso. Jedburgh, and Dryburgh Abbeyslay in fertile districts, and I fancy that when these came into thehands of the Lords of the congregation, the vassals looked back withregret on the old times. I was not sent to Wooden, but kept at home, and I went to a dayschool called by the very popish name of St. Mary'sConvent, though it was quite sufficiently Protestant. My mother had thegreatest confidence in the lady who was at the head of it. She had beena governess in good situations, and had taught herself Latin, so thatshe might fit the boys of the family to take a good place in theEdinburgh High School. She discovered that she had an incurabledisease, a form of dropsy, which compelled her to lie down for sometime every day, and this she considered she could not do as agoverness. So she determined to risk her savings, and start a boardingand day school in Melrose, a beautiful and healthy neighbourhood, andwith the aid of a governess, impart what was then considered theeducation of a gentlewoman to the girls in the neighbourhood. She tookwith her her old mother, and a sister who managed the housekeeping, andtaught the pupils all kinds of plain and fancy needlework. Shesucceeded, and she lived till the year 1866, although most of herteaching was done from her sofa. When my mother was asked what it wasthat made Phin so successful, and so esteemed, she said it was hercommonsense. The governesses were well enough, but the invalid old ladywas the life and soul of the school. There were about 14 boarders, andnearly as many day scholars there, so long as there was no competition. When that came there was a falling off, but my young sister Mary and Iwere faithful till the day when after nine years at the same school, Iwent with Jessie to Wooden, to Aunt Mary's, to hear there that myfather was ruined, and had to leave Melrose and Scotland for ever, andthat we must all go to Australia. That was in April, 1839. 

As I said, I had a very happy childhood. The death of my eldest sisterat 16, and of my youngest sister at two years old, did not sink intothe mind of a child as it did into that of my parents, and althoughthey were seriously alarmed about my health when I was 12 years old, when I developed symptoms similar to those of Agnes at the same age, Iwas not ill enough to get at all alarmed. I was annoyed at having tostay away from school for three months. When the collapse came Jessiehad a dear friend of some years' standing, and I had one whom had knownonly for some months, but I had spent a month with her in Edinburgh atChristmas, 1838, and we exchanged letters weekly through the box whichcame from Edinburgh with my brother John's, washing. It was tooexpensive for us to write by the post. Well, neither of our friendswrote a word to us. With regard to mine it was not to be wondered atmuch--she was only 13--but the other was more surprising. It was nottill 1865 that an old woman told me that when Miss F. B. Came to returnsome books and music to her to give to my aunt in Melrose, "she justsat in the chair and cried as if her heart would break. " She was notquite a free agent. Very few single women were free agents in 1839. Wewere hopelessly ruined, our place would know us no more. 

The only long holidays I had in the year I spent at Thornton Loch, inEast Lothian, 40 miles away. I did not know that my father was a heavyspeculator in foreign wheat, and I thought his keen interest in themarket in Mark lane was on account of the Thornton Loch crops, in whichfirst my grandfather and afterwards the three Maiden aunts were deeplyconcerned. My mother's father, John Brodie, was one of the mostenterprising agriculturists in the most advanced district of GreatBritain. He won a prize of two silver salvers from the Highland Societyfor having the largest area of drilled wheat sown. He was called uptwice to London to give evidence before Parliamentary committees on thecorn laws, and he naturally approved of them, because, with three largefarms held on 19 years' leases at war prices, the influx of cheap wheatfrom abroad would mean ruin. He proved that he paid 6, 000 pounds a yearfor these three farms--two he worked himself, the third was for hiseldest son; but he was liable for the rent. On his first London trip, my aunt Margaret accompanied him, and on his second he took my mother. That was in the year 1814, and both of them noted from the postchaisethat farming was not up to what was done in East Lothian. 

My grandfather Brodie was a speculating man, and he lost nearly all hissavings through starting, along with others, an East Lothian Bank, because the local banker had been ill used by the British LinenCompany. He put in only 1, 000 pounds; but was liable for all, and, asmany of his fellow shareholders were defaulters, it cost 15, 000 poundsbefore all was over, and if it had not been that he left the farm inthe capable hands of Aunt Margaret, there would have been little ornothing left for the family. When he had a stroke of paralysis hewanted to turn over Thornton Loch, the only farm he then had, to hiseldest son, but there were three daughters, and one of them said shewould like to carry it on, and she did so. She was the most successfulfarmer in the country for 30 years, and then she transferred it to anephew. The capacity for business of my Aunt Margaret, the wit andcharm of my brilliant Aunt Mary, and the sound judgment and accuratememory of my own dear mother, showed me early that women were fit toshare in the work of this world, and that to make the world pleasantfor men was not their only mission. My father's sister Mary was also aremarkable and saintly woman, though I do not think she was such a bornteacher as Miss Phin. When my father was a little boy, not 12 yearsold, an uncle from Jamaica came home for a visit. He saw his sisterJanet a dying woman, with a number of delicate-looking children, and heoffered to take David with him and treat him like his own son. Noobjections were made. The uncle was supposed to be well-to-do, and hewas unmarried, but he took fever and died, and was found to be not richbut insolvent. The boy could read and write, and he got something to doon a plantation till his father sent money to pay his passage home. Hemust have been supposed to be worth something, for he got a cask of rumfor his wages, which was shipped home, and when the duty had been paidwas drunk in the doctor's household. But the boy had been away only 21months, and he returned to find his mother dead, and two or threelittle brothers and sisters dead and buried, and his father marriedagain to his mother's cousin, Katherine Swanston, an old maid of 45, who, however, two years afterwards was the mother of a fine bigdaughter, so that Aunt Helen Park's scheme for getting the money forher sister's children failed. In spite of my father's strong wish to bea farmer, and not a writer or attorney, there was no capital to start afarm upon, so he was indentured to Mr. Erskine, and after some yearsbegan business in Melrose for himself, and married Lelen (Helen?)Brodie. His elder brother John went as a surgeon in the RoyalNavy--before he was twenty-one. The demand for surgeons was greatduring the war time. He was made a Freemason before the set age, because in case of capture friends from the fraternity might be ofgreat use. He did not like his original profession, especially whenafter the peace he must be a country practitioner like his father, atevery one's beck and call, so he was articled to his brother, and livedin the house till he married and settled at Earlston, five miles off. Uncle John Spence was a scholarly man, shy but kindly, who gave to uschildren most of the books we possessed. They were not in suchabundance as children read nowadays, but they were read and re-read. 

In these early readings the Calvinistic teaching of the church and theshorter catechism was supported and exemplified. The only secular booksto counteract them were the "Evenings at Home" and Miss Edgeworth's"Tales for Young and Old!" The only cloud on my young life was thegloomy religion, which made me doubt of my own salvation and despair ofthe salvation of any but a very small proportion of the people in theworld. Thus the character of God appeared unlovely, and it was wickednot to love God; and this was my condemnation. I had learned theshorter catechism with the proofs from Scripture, and I understood themeaning of the dogmatic theology. Watts's hymns were much more easy tolearn, but the doctrine was the same. There was no getting away fromthe feeling that the world was under a curse ever since that unluckyappleeating in the garden of Eden. Why, oh! why had not the sentence ofdeath been carried out at once, and a new start made with more prudentpeople? The school in which as a day scholar I passed nine years of mylife was more literary than many which were more pretentious. Needlework was of supreme importance, certainly, but during the hourand a half every day, Saturday's half-holiday not excepted, which wasgiven to it by the whole school at once (odd half-hours were also putin), the best readers took turns about to read some book selected byMiss Phin. We were thus trained to pay attention. History, biography, adventures, descriptions, and story books were read. Any questions orcriticisms about our sewing, knitting, netting, &c. , were carried on ina low voice, and we learned to work well and quickly, and good readingaloud was cultivated. First one brother and then another had gone toEdinburgh for higher education than could be had at Melrose ParishSchool, and I wanted to go to a certain institution, the first of thekind, for advanced teaching for girls, which had a high reputation. Iwas a very ambitious girl at 13. I wanted to be a teacher first, and agreat writer afterwards. The qualifications for a teacher would help meto rise to literary fame, so I obtained from my father a promise that Ishould go to Edinburgh next year; but he could not keep it. He was aruined man. 

CHAPTER II. 

TOWARDS AUSTRALIA. 

Although my mother's family had lost heavily by him, her mother gave us500 pounds to make a start in South Australia. An 80-acre section wasbuilt for 80 pounds, and this entitled us to the steerage passage offour adults. This helped for my elder sister and two brothers (myyounger brother David was left for his education with his aunts inScotland), but we had to have another female, so we took with us aservant girl--most ridiculous, it seems now. I was under the statutoryage of 15. The difference between steerage and intermediate fares hadto be made up, and we sailed from Greenock in July, 1839, in the barquePalmyra, 400 tons, bound for Adelaide, Port Phillip, and Sydney. ThePalmyra was advertised to carry a cow and an experienced surgeon. Intermediate passengers had no more advantage of the cow than steeragefolks, and except for the privacy of separate cabins and a pound ofwhite biscuit per family weekly, we fared exactly as the otherimmigrants did, though the cost was double. Twice a week we had eitherfresh meat or tinned meat, generally soup and boudle, and the biscuitseemed half bran, and sometimes it was mouldy. But our mother thoughtit was very good for us to endure hardship, and so it was. 

There were 150 passengers, mostly South Australian immigrants, in thelittle ship. The first and second class passengers were bound for PortPhilip and Sydney in greater proportion than for Adelaide There was inthe saloon the youthful William Milne, and in the intermediate was MissDisher, his future wife. He became President of the LegislativeCouncil, and was knighted. There was my brother, J. B. Spence, who alsosat in the Council, and was at one time Chief Secretary. There wasGeorge Melrose, a successful South Australian pastoralist; there was myfather's valued clerk, Thomas Laidlaw, who was long in the LegislativeCouncil of New South Wales and the leading man in the town of Yass. "Honest Torn of Yass" was his soubriquet. Bound for Melbourne therewere Mr. And Mrs. Duncan, of Melrose, and Charles Williamson, fromHawick, who founded a great business house in Collins Street. Therewere Langs from Selkirk, and McHaffies, who became pastoralists. Ournext cabin mate, who brought out a horse, had the Richmond punt whenthere was no bridge there. All the young men were reading a thick bookbrought out by the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge about sheep, but they could dance in the evenings to the strains of Mr. Duncan'sviolin, and although I was not 14, I was in request as a partner, asladies were scarce. Jessie Spence and Eliza Disher, who were grown up, were the belles of the Palmyra. Of all the passengers in the ship theyoung doctor, John Logan Campbell, has had the most distinguishedcareer. Next to Sir George Grey he has had most to do with thedevelopment of New Zealand. He is now called the Grand Old Man ofAuckland. He had his twenty-first birthday, this experienced surgeon(!)in the same week as I had my fourteenth, while the Palmyra was lyingoff Holdfast Bay (now Glenelg) before we could get to the old PortAdelaide to discharge. My brother saw him in 1883, but I have not seteye on him since that week in 1839. We have corresponded frequentlysince my brother's death. In his book "Poenama, " written for hischildren, there is a picture of the Palmyra, with an account of thevoyage and the only sensational incident in it. We had a collision inthe Irish Sea, and our foremast was broken, so that we had to return toGreenock for repairs, and then obtained the concession of white biscuitfor the second class for one day in the week. Sir John Campbell's giftof a beautiful park to the citizens of Auckland was made while mybrother John was alive. Just recently he has given money and plans forbuilding and equipping the first free kindergarten in Auckland--perhapsin New Zealand--and as this includes a training college for thestudents it is very complete. These Palmyra passengers have made theirmark on the history of Australia and New Zealand. It is surprising whata fine class of people immigrated to Australia in these days to faceall the troubles of a new country. 

The first issue of The Register was printed in London, and gave aglowing account of the province that was to be--its climate, itsresources, the sound principles on which it was founded. It issometimes counted as a reproach that South Australia was founded bydoctrinaires and that we retain traces of our origin; to me it is ourglory. In the land laws and the immigration laws it struck out a newpath, and sought to found a new community where the sexes should beequal, and where land, labour, and capital should work harmoniouslytogether. Land was not to be given away in huge grants, as had beendone in New South Wales and Western Australia, to people with influenceor position, but was to be sold at the high price of 20/ an acre. Theprice should be not too high to bring out people to work on the land. The Western Australian settlers had been wellnigh starved, becausethere was no labour to give real value to the paper or parchment deeds. The cheapest fare third class was from 17 pounds to 20 pounds, and thefamily immigration, which is the best, was quite out of the reach ofthose who were needed. The immigrants were not bound to work for anyspecial individual or company, unless by special contract voluntarilymade. They were often in better circumstances after the lapse of a fewyears than the landbuyers, and, in the old days, the owner of an80-acre section worked harder and for longer hours than any hired manwould do, or could be expected to do. 

In the South Australian Public Library there is a curious record--theminutes and proceedings of the South Australian Literary Society, inthe years 1831-5. As the province was non-existent at that time, thiscultivation of literature seems premature, but the members, 40 innumber, were its founders, and pending the passage of the Bill by theImperial Parliament, they met fortnightly in London to discuss itsprospects, and to read papers on exploration and on matters of futuredevelopment and government. The first paper was on education for thenew land, and was read by Richard Davies Hanson. The South AustralianCompany and Mr. George Fife Angas came to the rescue by buying aconsiderable area of land and making up the amount of capital which wasrequired. It is interesting to note that the casting vote in the Houseof Lords which decided that the province of South Australia should comeinto existence was given by the Duke of Wellington. Adelaide was tohave been called Wellington, but somehow the Queen Consort's namecarried the day. The name of the conquerer of Waterloo is immortalizedin the capital of the Dominion of New Zealand, in the North Island, which, like South Australia, was founded on the Wakefield principle ofselling land for money to be applied for immigration. The 40 signaturesin the records of the South Australian Literary Society are mostinteresting to an old colonist like myself, and the names of many ofthem are perpetuated in those of our rivers and our streets:--Torrens, Wright, Brown, Gilbert, Gouger, Hanson, Kingston, Wakefield, Morphett, Childers, Hill (Rowland), Stephens, Mawn, Furniss, Symonds. The secondissue of The Register was printed in Adelaide. It was also TheGovernment Gazette. It gave the proclamation of the province, which wasmade under the historic gum tree near Holdfast Bay, now Glenelg. Italso records the sales of the town acres which had not been allotted tothe purchasers of preliminary sections. These were of 134 acres, and atown acre, at the price of 12/6 an acre. This was a temptation toinvest at the very first, because afterwards the price was 20/ an acre, without any city lot. From this cheap investment came the frequentlamentation, "Why did not I buy Waterhouse's corner for 12/6?" Butthere was more than 12/6 needed. The investment was of 80 pounds, whichsecured the ownership of the corner block facing King William streetand Rundle street, and besides 134 acres of valuable suburban land. 

There were connected with The Register from the earliest days theenterprising head of the house. Robert Thomas, who must have been wellaided by his intelligent wife. The sons and daughters took their placein colonial society. Mr. George Stevenson left the staff of The Globeand Traveller, a good old London Paper, to try his fortunes in the newProvince founded on the Wakefield principle, as Private Secretary tothe first Governor (Capt. John Hindmarsh, R. N. ). It is matter ofhistory how the Governor and the Commissioner of Lands differed andquarrelled, the latter having the money and the former the power ofgovernment, and it was soon found that Mr. Stevenson could wield atrenchant pen. He had been on the "Traveller" branch of the Londonpaper what would be called now a travelling correspondent. The Governorwas replaced by Col. Gawler, and Mr. Stevenson went on The Register aseditor. Mrs. Stevenson was a clever woman, and could help her husband. She knew Charles Dickens, and still better, the family of Hogarth, intowhich he married. My father and mother were surprised to find so good apaper and so well printed in the infant city. Then there were A. H. Davis, of the Reedbeds, and Nathaniel Hailes, who wrote under thecognomen of "Timothy Short, " who had been publisher and bookseller. There was first Samuel Stephens, who came out in the first ship for theSouth Australian Company, and married a fellow passenger, CharlotteHudson Beare, and died two years after, and then Edward, manager of theSouth Australian Bank, and later, John Stephens who founded The WeeklyObserver, and afterwards bought The Register. These all belonged to aliterary family. 

People came out on the smallest of salaries with big families--H. T. H. Beare on 100 pounds a year as architect, for the South AustralianCompany, and he had 18 children by two wives. I do not know what salaryMr. William Giles came out on with nine children and a young secondwife, but I am sure it was less than 300 pounds. His family in allcounted 21. But things were bad in the old country before the greatlift given by railways, and freetrade, which made England the carrierfor the world; and the possibilities of the new country were shown inthat first issue of The Register in London in the highest colours. Nottoo high by any means in the light of what has been accomplished in 73years, but there was a long row to hoe first, and few of the pioneersreaped the prizes. But, in spite of hardships and poverty and struggle, the early colonial life was interesting, and perhaps no city of itssize at the time contained as large a population of intelligent andeducated people as Adelaide. 

Mrs. Oliphant, writing in 1885 at the age of 57, says that reading the"Life of George Eliot" made her think of an autobiography, and this waswritten at the saddest crisis of her life. She survived her husband andall her children, and had just lost the youngest, the posthumous boy. For them and for the family of a brother she had carried on thestrenuous literary work--fiction, biography, criticism, andhistory--and when she died at the age of 69 she had not completed thehistory of a great publishing house--that of Blackwood. Her lifetallies with mine on many points, but it is not till I have completedmy 84 years that her sad narrative impels me to set down what appearsnoteworthy in a life which was begun in similar circumstances, butwhich was spent mainly in Australia. The loss of memory which I see inmany who are younger than myself makes me feel that while I canrecollect I should fix the events and the ideals of my life by pen andink. Like Mrs. Oliphant, I was born (three years earlier) in the southof Scotland. Like her I had an admirable mother but she lost hers atthe age of 60, while I kept mine till she was nearly 97. Like Mrs. Oliphant, I was captivated by the stand made by the Free Church as aprotest against patronage, and like her I shook off the shackles of thenarrow Calvinism of Presbyterianism, and emerged into more light andliberty. But unlike Mrs. Oliphant, I have from my earliest youth takenan interest in politics, and although I have not written the tenth partof what she has done, I have within the last 20 years addressed manyaudiences in Australia and America, and have preached over 100 sermons. My personal influence has been exercised through the voice morestrongly than by the pen, and in the growth and development of SouthAustralia, to which I came with my parents and brothers and sisterswhen I was just 14, and the province not three years old, there havebeen opportunities for usefulness which might not have offered if I hadremained in Melrose, in Sir Walter Scott's country. 

CHAPTER III. 

A BEGINNING AT SEVENTEEN

Perhaps my turn for economics was partly inherited from my mother, andemphasized by my father having been an unlucky speculator in foreignwheat, tempted thereto by the sliding scale, which varied from 33/ aquarter, when wheat was as cheap as it was in 1837, to 1/ a quarter, when it was 70/ in 1839. It was supposed that my father had made hisfortune when he took his wheat out of bond but losses and deteriorationduring seven years, and interest on borrowed money--credit having beenstrained to the utmost--brought ruin and insolvency, and he had to goto South Australia, followed by his wife and family soon after. Itseems strange that this disaster should be the culmination of thepeace, after the long Napoleonic war. When my father married in 1815 heshowed he was making 600 pounds a year, with 2, 000 pounds book debts, as a writer or attorney and as agent for a bank. But the business felloff, the book debts could not be collected; the bank called up theadvances; and for 24 years there was a struggle. My mother would nothave her dowry of 1, 500 pounds and other money left by an aunt settledon herself--neither her father nor herself approved of it--the wife'sfortune should come and go with her husband's. My father firstspeculated in hops and lost heavily. He took up unlucky people, whomother business men had drained. I suppose he caught at straws. He hadthe gentlest of manners--"the politest man in Melrose, " the oldshoemaker called him. My paternal grandfather was Dr. William Spence, of Melrose. His father was minister of the Established Church atCockburn's Path, Berwickshire. His grandfather was a small landedproprietor, but he had to sell Spence's mains, and the name was changedto Chirnside. So (as my father used to say) he was sprung from the tailof the gentry; while my mother was descended from the head of thecommonalty. The Brodies had been tenant farmers in East Lothian for sixor seven generations, though they originally came from the north. Mygrandfather Brodie thought abrogation of the Corn Laws meant ruin forthe farmers, who had taken 19 years' leases at war prices. But duringthe war times both landlords and farmers coined money, while thelabourers had high prices for food and very little increase in theirwages. I recollect both grandfathers well, and through the accuratememory of my mother t can tell how middle-class people in lowlandScotland lived and dressed and travelled, entertained visitors, andworshipped God. She told me of the "dear years" 1799 and 1800, and whata terrible thing a bad crop was, when the foreign ports were closed byNapoleon. She told me that but for the shortlived Peace of Amiens shenever heard of anything but war till the Battle of Waterloo settled itthree months before her marriage. From her own intimate relations withher grandmother, Margaret Fernie Brodie, who was born in 1736, and diedin 1817, she knew how two generations before her people lived andthought. So that I have a grasp on the past which many might envy, andyet the present and the future are even more to me, as they were to mymother. On her death in 1887 I wrote a quatrain for her memorial, andwhich those who knew her considered appropriate--

 HELEN BRODIE SPENCE Born at Whittingham, Scotland, 1791. Died at College Town, Adelaide, South Australia, 1887. 

 Half a long life 'mid Scotland's heaths and pines, And half among our South Australian vines; Though loving reverence bound her to the past, Eager for truth and progress to the last. 

Although my mother had the greatest love for Sir Walter Scott, and thehighest appreciation of his poems and novels, she never liked Melrose. She liked Australia better after a while. Indeed, when we arrived inNovember, 1839, to a country so hot, so dry, so new, we felt like thegood old founder of The Adelaide Register, Robert Thomas, when he cameto the land described in his own paper as "flowing with milk andhoney. " Dropped anchor at Holdfast Bay. "When I saw the place at whichwe were to land I felt inclined to go and cut my throat. " When we satdown on a log in Light square, waiting till my father brought the keyof the wooden house In Gilles street, in spite of the dignity of my 14years just attained, I had a good cry. There had been such a droughtthat they had a dearth, almost a famine. People like ourselves with 80acre land orders were frightened to attempt cultivation in an unknownclimate, with seed wheat at 25/ a bushel or more, and stuck to thetown. We lived a month in Gilles street, then we bought a largemarquee, and pitched it on Brownhill Creek, above where Mitcham nowstands, bought 15 cows and a pony and cart, and sold the milk in townat 1/ a quart. But how little milk the cows gave in those days! Afterseven months' encamping, in which the family lived chiefly on rice--theonly cheap food, of which we bought a ton--we came with our herd toWest terrace, Adelaide. My father got the position of Town Clerk at 150pounds a year twelve months after our arrival, and kept it till themunicipal corporation was ended, as the City of Adelaide was too poorto maintain the machinery; but 75 pounds was the rent of the house andyards. We sold the cows, and my brothers went farming, and we tookcheaper quarters in Halifax street. 

The Town Clerkship, however, was the means of giving me a lesson inelectoral methods. Into the Municipal Bill, drawn up under thesuperintendence of Rowland Hill (afterward the great post officereformer, but then the Secretary of the Colonization Commissioner forSouth Australia), he had introduced a clause providing for proportionalrepresentation at the option of the ratepayers. The twentieth part ofthe Adelaide ratepayers by uniting their votes upon one man instead ofvoting for 18, could on the day before the ordinary election appear anddeclare this their intention, and he would be a Councillor on theirvotes. In the first election, November, 1840, two such quorums electedtwo Councillors. The workmen in Borrow and Goodear's building electedtheir foreman, and another quorum of citizens elected Mr. WilliamSenden; and this was the first quota representation in the world. Myfather explained this unique provision to me at the time, and showedits bearings for minority representation. 

After the break up of the municipality and the loss of his income myfather lost health and spirits. The brothers did not succeed in thecountry. My sister had married Andrew Murray, an apparently prosperousman, in 1841, but the protecting of the Government bills bought forremitting to England, and other causes, brought down every mercantilefirm in Adelaide except A. L. Elder, who had not been long established;and Murray & Greig came down too. Mr. Murray was a ready writer, andgot work on The South Australian, the newspaper which supported Capt. Grey's policy of retrenchment and stoppage of public works; so, with asmall salary, he managed to live. When I left Scotland I brought withme a letter of recommendation from my teacher, Miss Sarah Phin, concerning my qualifications and my turn for teaching. I don't know ifit really did me any good, for the suspicious look and the questionabout how old I was at the time embarrassed me. Of course I was only 131/2 and probably my teacher over-estimated me a little, but here is, the letter, yellow with the dust of over 70 years. 

Melrose. June 20, 1839. 

My dearest Catherine--Our mutual friend, Mrs. Duncan, told me that youwere not to sail for Australia till next month, and I have beenthinking if my poor testimonial to your worth and abilities could be ofany service to you I ought to give it but how can I trust myself?--forcould any one read what I feel my heart dictates it would be thoughtabsurd. You were always one of the greatest ornaments of my school, best girl and the best scholar, and from the time you could put threeletters together you have evinced a turn for teaching--so clear-headedand so patient, and so thoroughly upright in word and deed, and yourknowledge of the Scriptures equal to that of many students of Divinity, so should you ever become a teacher you have nothing to fear. You willbe able to undertake both the useful and the ornamental branches ofeducation--French, Italian, and Music you thoroughly understand. I feelconscious that you will succeed. Please to remember me to yourexcellent mother, and with love to Miss Spence and my darling Mary, believe me, my beloved Catherine, your affectionate friend and teacher. Sarah Phin. 

My knowledge of music was not great, even in those days, but I couldteach beginners for two or three years with fair success. We thoughtthat my mother and the two eldest girls could start a school, andbrought out with us a good selection of schoolbooks, bought from OliverJ. Boyd. Edinburgh, superior to the English books obtainable here, which we used up in time; but we dared not launch out into such aventure in 1840, and my sister Jessie had no desire to teach at all. The years at Brownhill Creek and West terrace were the most unhappy ofmy life. I suffered from the want of some intellectual activity, andfrom the sense of frustrated ambition and religious despair. The fewbooks we had, or which we could borrow, I read over and over again. Aikin's "British Poets, " a gift from Uncle John Spence, and Goldsmith'scomplete works, a school prize of my brother William's, were thoroughlymastered, and the Waverley novels down to "Quentin Durward" were wellabsorbed. I read in Chambers's Journal of daily governesses getting ashilling an hour, and I told my friend, Mrs. Haining, that I would goout for 6d. An hour. Although she disliked that way of putting it, itwas really on that basis that I had made my beginning when I reachedthe age of 17. In the meantime I had taught my younger sister Mary(afterwards Mrs. W. J. Wren) all I knew, and in the columns of TheSouth Australian I wrote an occasional letter or a few verses. ThroughMr. George Tinline we made the acquaintance of Mrs. Samuel Stephens herbrother, Thomas Hudson Beare, and his family, who had all come out inthe Duke of York, and lived six months on Kangaroo Island before SouthAustralia was proclaimed a British province. I have been mixed up somuch with this family that it is often supposed that they wererelatives, but it was not so. Samuel Stephens had died from an accidenttwo years after his marriage to a lady much older and much richer thanhimself, and she was living on two acres in North Adelaide, bought withher money at the first sale of city lands in 1837, and Mr. Tinlineboarded with her till his marriage. The nephews, and especially thenieces, of the old lady interested me--Lucy, the eldest, a handsomegirl, was about two years younger than myself; Arabella, about the ageof my sister Mary; Elizabeth, the baby Beare, who was the first whiteperson to set foot on South Australian soil after the foundation of theprovince, died from a burning accident when quite young. The onlysurvivor of that first family now is William L. Beare (84), held inhonour as one of our earliest pioneers. By a second marriage there werenine more children. Several died young, but some still survive. 

It was not till 1843 that I went as a daily governess at the rate of6d. An hour, and gave two hours five days a week to the families of thePostmaster-General, the Surveyor-General, and the Private Secretary. Thus I earned three guineas a month. I don't recollect taking holidays, except a week at Christmas. I enjoyed the work, and I was proud of thepayment. My mother said she never felt the bitterness of poverty afterI began to earn money, and the shyness which, in spite of all herinstructions and encouragement, I had felt with all strangers, disappeared when I felt independent. When a girl is very poor, andfeels herself badly dressed, she cannot help being shy, especially ifshe has a good deal of Scotch pride. I think mother felt more sorry forme in those early days than for the others, because I was so ambitious, and took religious difficulties so hard. How old I felt at 17. Indeed, at 14 I felt quite grown up. In 1843 I felt I had begun the career inAustralia that I had anticipated in Scotland. I was trusted to teachlittle girls, and they interested me, each individual with adifference. I had seen things I had written in print. If I was one ofthe oldest in feeling of the young folk in South Australia in my teens, I am the youngest woman in feeling in my eighties; so I have hadabundant compensation. 

CHAPTER IV. 

LOVERS AND FRIENDS. 

It is always supposed that thoughts of love and marriage are the chiefconcerns in a girl's life, but it was not the case with me. I had onlytwo offers of marriage in my life, and I refused both. The first mighthave been accepted if it had not been for the Calvinistic creed thatmade me shrink from the possibility of bringing children into the worldwith so little chance of eternal salvation, so I said. "No" to a veryclever young man, with whom I had argued on many points, and with whom, if I had married him, I should have argued till one of us died! I was17, and had just begun to earn money. I told him why I had refused him, and that it was final. In six weeks he was engaged to another woman. Mysecond offer was made to me when I was 23 by a man aged 55, with threechildren. He was an artist, whose second wife and several children hadbeen murdered by the Maoris near Wanganui during the Maori insurrectionof the forties, and he had come to Adelaide with the three survivors. The massacre of that family was only one of the terrible tragedies ofthat time, but it was not the less shocking. The Maoris had never beenknown to kill a woman, and when the house was attacked, Mr. Gilfillangot out of a back window to call the soldiers to their help. Thoughstruck on the back of the head and the neck and scarred for life--owingto which he was always compelled to wear his hair long--he succeeded inhis mission. His wife put her own two children through the window, andthey toddled off hand in hand until they met their father returningwith the soldiers. The eldest daughter, a girl of 13, escaped with aneighbour's child, a baby in arms. She was seen by the Maoris, struckon the forehead with a stone axe, and left unconscious. The crying ofthe baby roused her, and she went to the cowyard and milked a cow toget milk for the hungry child, and there she was found by the soldiers. She was queer in her ways and thoughts afterwards, and, it was said, always remained 13 years old. She died in November last, aged 74. Herstepmother and the baby and her own brother and sister were murderedone by one as they tried to escape by the same window that had led therest of the family to safety. One of the toddling survivors still livesin New Zealand. Now, these are all the chances of marriage I have hadin my life. Dickens, in "David Copperfield, " speaks of an old maid whokeeps the remembrance of some one who might have made her an offer, theshadowy Pidger, in her heart until her death. I cannot forget these twomen. I am constantly meeting with the children, grandchildren, and evengreat-grandchildren of the first. As for the other, Andrew Murray gaveme a fine landscape painted by John A. Gilfillan as a slightacknowledgment of services rendered to his newspaper when he left it togo to Melbourne, and it hangs up in my sitting room for all to see. Mr. Gilfillan had a commission to paint "The Landing of Capt. Cook" withthe help of Portraits and miniatures of the principal personages, andsome sketches of his of Adelaide in 1849 are in the Adelaide ArtGallery. If the number of lovers has been few, no woman in Australiahas been richer in friends. This narrative will show what goodfriends--men as well as women--have helped me and sympathized in mywork and my aims. I believe that if I had been in love, especially if Ihad been disappointed in love, my novels would have been stronger andmore interesting; but I kept a watch over myself, which I felt I knew Ineeded, for I was both imaginative and affectionate. I did not want togive my heart away. I did not desire a love disappointment, even forthe sake of experience. I was 30 years old before the dark veil ofreligious despondency was completely lifted from my soul, and by thattime I felt myself booked for a single life. People married young ifthey married at all in those days. The single aunts put on caps at 30as a sort of signal that they accepted their fate; and, although I didnot do so, I felt a good deal the same. 

I went on with daily teaching for some years, during which my father'shealth declined, but before his death two things had happened to cheerhim. My brother John left Myponga and came to town, and obtained aclerkship in the South Australian Bank at 100 pounds a year. It waswhilst occupying a position in the bank that he had some slightconnection with the notorious Capt. Starlight, afterwards the hero of"Robbery Under Arms, " for through his hands much of the stolen moneypassed. In 1900, when Mrs. Young and I were leaving Melbourne on ourvisit to Sydney, we were introduced to "Rolf Boldrewood, " the author ofthat well-known story. His grave face lit up with a smile when myfriend referred to the author of her son's hero. "Ah!" and he shook hishead slowly. "I'm not quite sure about the wisdom of making heroes ofsuch sorry stuff, " he replied. I thought I could do better with aschool. I was 20, and my sister Mary nearly 16, and my mother couldhelp. My school opened in May, 1846, a month before my father's death, and he thought that our difficulties were over. My younger brother, David Wauchope, had been left behind for his education with the threemaiden aunts, but he came out about the end of that year, and beganlife in the office of the Burra Mine at a small salary. My eldestbrother William, was not successful in the country, and went to WesternAustralia for some years, and later to New Zealand, where he died inhis eightieth year, soon after the death of my brother John in hisseventy-ninth, leaving me the only survivor of eight born and of sixwho grew to full age. My eldest sister Agnes died of consumption at theage of 16; and, as my father's mother and four of his brothers andsisters had died of this malady, it was supposed to be in the family. The only time I was kept out of school during the nine years at MissPhin's was when I was 12 when I had a cough and suppuration of theglands of the neck. As this was the way in which Agnes's illness hadbegun, my parents were alarmed, though I had no idea of it. I wasleeched and blistered and drugged; I was put into flannel for the onlytime in my life; I was sent away for change of air; but no one coulddiscover that the cough was from the lungs. It passed away with thecold weather, and I cannot say that I have had any illness since. Myfather died of decline, but, if he had been more fortunate, I think hewould have lived much longer. Probably my mother's life was prolongedbeyond that of a long-lived family by her coming to Australia in middlelife; and if I ever had any tendency to consumption, the climate musthave helped me. There were no special precautions against infection inthose days: but no other member of the family took it, and the alarmabout me was three years after Agnes's death. 

But to go on to those early days of the forties. There were twofamilies with whom we were intimate. Mr. George Tinline (who had beenclerk to my fathers' old friend, William Rutherford, of Jedburgh), whowas in the bank of South Australia when in 1839, my father went to putour small funds in safety, introduced us to a beautiful young widow, Mrs. Sharpe, and her sisters Eliza and Harriet, and her brother, JohnTaylor. Harriet afterwards married Edward Stirling, a close friend ofmy brother-in-law, Andrew Murray, and I was a great deal interested inthe Stirlings and their eight children. Mr. William Bakewell, ofBartley & Bakewell, solicitors, married Jane Warren of Springfield, Barossa, and I was a familiar friend of their five children. In onehouse I was "Miss Spence, the storyteller, " in the other "Miss Spence, the teller of tales!" Some of the tales appeared long after asChristmas stories in The Adelaide Observer, but my young hearerspreferred the oral narrative, with appropriate gestures and emphasis, and had no scruple about making faces, to anything printed in books. Itook great liberties with what I had read and sometimes invented all. It was a part of their education, probably--certainly, it was a part ofmine, and it gave me a command of language which helped me when Ibecame a public speaker. My brother-in-law's newspaper furnished anoccasional opportunity to me, though no doubt he considered that hecould fill his twice-a-week journal without my help. He was, however, helpful in other ways. He was one of the subscribers to a Reading Club, and through him I had access to newspapers and magazines. The SouthAustralian Institute was a treasure to the family. I recollect anewcomer being astonished at my sister Mary having read Macaulay'sHistory. "Why, it was only just out when I left England, " said he. "Well, it did not take longer to come out than you did, " was her reply. We were all omnivorous readers, and the old-fashioned accomplishment ofreading aloud was cultivated by both brothers and sisters. I was theonly one who could translate French at sight, thanks to Miss Phin'sgiving me so much of Racine and Moliere and other good French authorsin my school days. 

But more important than all this was the fact that we took hold of thegrowth and development of South Australia, and identified ourselveswith it. Nothing is insignificant in the history of a young community, and--above all--nothing seems impossible. I had learned what wealthwas, and a great deal about production and exchange for myself in theearly history of South Australia--of the value of machinery, of roadsand bridges, and of ports for transport and export. I had seen the4-lb. Loaf at 4/ and at 4d. I had seen Adelaide the dearest and thecheapest place to live in. I had seen money orders for 2/6, and evenfor 6d. , current when gold and silver were very scarce. Even before thediscovery of copper South Australia had turned the corner. We had goneon the land and become primary producers, and before the golddiscoveries in Victoria revolutionized Australia and attracted our malepopulation across the border, the Central State was the only one whichhad a large surplus of wheat and hay to send to the goldfields. 

Edward Wilson of The Argus, riding overland to Adelaide about 1848, wasamazed to see from Willunga onward fenced and cultivated farms, withdecent homesteads and machinery up to date. The Ridley stripper enabledour people to reap and thresh the corn when hands were all too few forthe sickle. He said he felt as if the garden of Paradise must have beenin King William street and that the earliest difference in theworld--that between Cain and Abel--was about the advantages of the80-acre system. Australia generally had already to realize the factthat the pastoral industry was not enough for its development, andSouth Australia had seemed to solve the problem through the doctrinairefounders, of family immigration, small estates, and the development ofagriculture, horticulture, and viticulture. We owed a great deal in thelatter branches to our German settlers--sent out originally by Mr. G. F. Angas, whose interest was aroused by their suffering persecution forreligious dissent--who saw that Australia had a better climate thanthat of the Fatherland. We owed much to Mr. George Stevenson, who wasan enthusiastic gardener and fruitgrower, and lectured on thesesubjects, but the contrast between the environs of Adelaide and thoseof Sydney and Melbourne were striking, and Mr. Wilson never lost anopportunity of calling on the Victorian Legislature and the Victorianpublic to develop their own wonderful resources. When you take gold outof the ground there is less gold to win. When you grow golden grain orruddy grapes this year you may expect as much and as good next year. Mybrother David went with the thousands to buy their fortunes at thediggings, but my brother John stuck to the Bank of South Australia. Mybrother-in-law's subscribers and his printers had gone off and left himwoefully embarrassed. He went to Melbourne. My friend John Taylor lefthis sheep in the wilderness and came to Adelaide to the aid of TheRegister. He had been engaged to Sophia Stephens, who died, and herfather John Stephens also died soon after; and Mr. Taylor shoulderedthe management of the paper until the time of stress was over. 

When Andrew Murray obtained employment on The Argus as commercialeditor, he left his twice-a-week newspaper in the charge of Mr. W. W. Whitridge, my brother John, and myself. If anything was needed to bewritten on State aid to religion I was to do it, as Mr. Whitridge wasopposed to it. This lasted three months. The next quarter there were nofunds for the editor, so John and I carried it on, and then let it die. At that time I believed in State aid, which had been abolished by thefirst elected Parliament of South Australia, although that Parliamentconsisted of one-third nominees pledged to vote for its continuance. 

CHAPTER V. 

NOVELS AND A POLITICAL INSPIRATION. 

It was the experience of a depopulated province which led me to writemy first book, "Clara Morison--A Tale of South Australia during theGold Fever. " I entrusted the M. S. To my friend John Taylor, with whom Ihad just had the only tiff in my life. He, through his connection withThe Register, knew that I was writing in The South Australian, tryingto keep it alive, till Mr. Murray decided to let it go, and he toldthis to other people. At a subscription ball to which my brother Johntook me and my younger sister Mary, she found she had been pointed outand talked of as the lady who wrote for the newspapers. I did not likeit even to be supposed of myself, but Mary was indignant, and I wrotean injured letter to my friend. He apologized, and said he thought Iwould be proud of doing disinterested work, and he was sorry themistake had been made regarding the sister who did it. Of course, Iforgave him. He was the last man in the world to give pain to anyone, and I highly admired him for his disinterested work on The Register. Hereluctantly accepted 1, 000 pounds when the paper was sold. He must havelost much more through neglect of his own affairs at such a criticaltime. He was taking a holiday with his sister Eliza in England andFrance, where the beautiful widowed sister was settled as Madam Dubois, and I asked him to take "Clara Morison" to Smith, Elder & Co. 's, inLondon, and to say nothing to anybody about it; but before it wasplaced he had to return to Adelaide, and in pursuance of my wishes, left it with my other good friend, Mr. Bakewell, who also happened tobe visiting England with his family at the time--1853-4. I had an ideathat, as there was so much interest in Australia and its gold, I mightget 100 pounds for the novel. Mr. Bakewell wrote a preface from which Iextract a passage:--"The writer's aim seems to have been to presentsome picture of the state of society in South Australia in the years1851-2, when the discovery of gold in the neighbouring province ofVictoria took place. At this time, the population of South Australianumbered between seventy and eighty thousand souls, the greater part ofwhom were remarkable for their intelligence, their industry, and theirenterprise, which, in the instance of the Burra Burra, and other coppermines had met with such signal success. When it became known that goldin vast quantities could be found within 300 miles of their ownterritory, they could not remain unmoved. The exodus was almostcomplete, and entirely without parallel. In those days there was noKing in Israel, and every woman did what was right in her own sight. "Another reason I had for writing the book. Thackeray had written aboutan emigrant vessel taking a lot of women to Australia, as if these wereall to be gentlemen's wives--as if there was such a scarcity ofeducated women there, that anything wearing petticoats had the prospectof a great rise in position. I had hoped that Smith, Elder, & Co. Wouldpublish my book, but their reader--Mr. Williams, who discoveredCharlotte Bronte's genius when she sent them "The Professor, " and toldher she could write a better, which she did ("Jane Eyre")--wrote asimilar letter to me, declining "Clara Morison, " as he had declined"The Professor, " but saying I could do better. J. W. Parker & Sonpublished it in 1854, as one of the two-volume series, of which "TheHeir of Redcliffe" had been most successful. The price was to be 40pounds; but, as it was too long for the series, I was charged 10 poundsfor abridging it. It was very fairly received and reviewed. I think Iliked best Frederick Sinnett's notice in The Argus--that it was thework of an observant woman--a novelist who happened to live inAustralia, but who did not labour to bring in bushrangers and convicts, and specially Australian features. While I was waiting to hear the fateof my first book, I began to write a second, "Tender and True, " ofwhich Mr. Williams thought better, and recommended it to Smith, Elder, and Co. , who published it in two volumes in 1856, and gave me 20 poundsfor the copyright. This is the only one of my books that went throughmore than one edition. There were two or three large editions issued, but I never got a penny more. I was told that nothing could be made outof shilling editions; but that book was well reviewed and now and thenI have met elderly people who read the cheap edition and liked it. Themotif of the book was the jealousy which husbands are apt to feel oftheir wives' relations. As if the most desirable wife was an amiableorphan--if an heiress, so much the better. But the domestic virtueswhich make a happy home for the husband are best fostered in a centrewhere brothers and sisters have to give and take; and a good daughterand sister is likely to make a good wife and mother. I have read quiterecently that the jokes against the mother-in-law which are so many andso bitter in English and American journalism are worn out, and havepractically ceased; but Dickens and Thackeray set the fashion, and itlasted a long time. 

While "Clara Morison" was making her debut, I paid my first visit toMelbourne. I went with Mr. And Mrs. Stirling in a French ship consignedto him, and we were 12 days on the way, suffering from the limitedideas that the captain of a French merchantman had of the appetites ofAustralians at sea. I intended to pay a six weeks' visit to my sisterand her family, but she was so unwell that I stayed for eight months. Ifound that Melbourne in the beginning of 1854 was a very expensiveplace to live in, and consequently a very inhospitable place. Mr. Murray's salary sounded a good one, 500 pounds a year, but it did notget much comfort. His sister was housekeeper at Charles Williamson &Co. 's, and that was the only place where I could take off my bonnet andhave a meal. From the windows I watched the procession that welcomedSir Charles Hotham, the first Governor of the separated colony ofVictoria. He was received with rejoicing, but he utterly failed tosatisfy the people. He thought anything was good enough for them. Onefestivity I was invited to--a ball given on the opening of the newoffices of The Argus in Collins street--and there I met Mr. EdwardWilson, a most interesting personality, the giver of the entertainment. He was then vigorously championing the unlocking of the land and thedeveloping of other resources of Victoria than the gold. It hadsurprised him when he travelled overland to Adelaide to see fromWillunga 30 miles of enclosed and cultivated farms, and it surprised meto see sheepruns close to Melbourne. With a better rainfall and equallygood soil, Victoria had neither the farms nor the vineyards nor theorchards nor the gardens that had sprung up under the 80-acre sectionand immigration systems of South Australia. It had been an outlyingportion of New South Wales, neglected and exploited for pastoralsettlement only. The city, however, had been well planned, like that ofAdelaide, but the suburbs were allowed to grow anyhow. In Adelaide thebelt of park lands kept the city apart from all suburbs. Andrew Murraywas as keen for the development of Victoria agriculturally andindustrially as Mr. Wilson, and they worked together heartily. Owing tothe state of my sister's health I was much occupied with her and herchildren; but in August she was well, and I returned with Mr. Taylorand his sister in the steamer Bosphorus, when it touched at Melbourneon the way home. He brought me 30 pounds for my book, and the assurancethat it would be out soon, and that I should have six copies to give tomy friends. Novel writing had not been to me a lucrative occupation. Ihad given up teaching altogether at the age of 25, and I felt that, though Australia was to be a great country, there was no market forliterary work, and the handicap of distance from the reading world wasgreat. 

My younger sister married in 1855 William J. Wren, then an articledclerk in Bartley & Bakewell's office, and afterwards a partner with thepresent Sir James Boucaut. Mr. Wren's health was indifferent, andcaused us much anxiety. My brother John married Jessie Cumming in 1858, and they were spared together for many years. As the Wrens went on along voyage to Hongkong and back for the sake of my brother-in-law'shealth, my mother and I had the charge of their little boy. But in thatyear, 1859, my mind received its strongest political inspiration, andthe reform of the electoral system became the foremost object of mylife. John Stuart Mill's advocacy of Thomas Hare's system ofproportional representation brought back to my mind Rowland Hill'sclause in the Adelaide Municipal Bill with wider and larger issues. Italso showed me how democratic government could be made real, and safe, and progressive. I confess that at first I was struck chiefly by itsconservative side, and I saw that its application would prevent thepolitical association, which corresponded roughly with the modernLabour Party, from returning five out of six members of the Assemblyfor the City of Adelaide. But for blunders on ballot papers the wholeticket of six would have been elected. They also elected the threemembers for Burra, and Clare. I had then no footing on the Adelaidepress, but I was Adelaide correspondent for The Melbourne Argus--thatis to say, my brother was the correspondent, but I wrote theletters--he furnished the news. I read Mill's article one Monday night, and wrote what was meant for a leader on Tuesday morning, and went toread it to my brother at breakfast time, and posted it forthwith. Iknew The Argus had been dissatisfied with the recent elections, andfancied that the editor would hail with joy the new idea; but Ireceived the reply that The Argus was committed to the representationof majorities; and, though the idea was ingenious, he did not evenoffer to print it as a letter. About two years later Mr. LavingtonGlyde, M. P. , brought forward in the Assembly Mr. Fawcett's abstract ofHare's great scheme, and I seized the opportunity of writing a seriesof letters to The Register, signed by my initials. Mr. Glyde, seeingthe House did not like his suggestions, dropped the matter, but I didnot. I was no longer correspondent to The Argus--the telegraph stoppedthat altogether. My wonderful maiden aunts made up to me and my motherthe 50 pounds a year that I had received as correspondent, and did asmuch for their brother, Alexander Brodie, of Morphett Vale, from 1, 000pounds they had sent to invest in South Australia. It was as easy toget 10 per cent. Then as to get 4 per cent. Now; indeed I think themoney earned 12 per cent. At first. My brother John was accountant tothe South Australian Railways, then not a very great department--Ithink the line stretched as far as Kapunda to the north from PortAdelaide. He was as much captivated by Mr. Hare's idea as I was, and hesaid that if I would write a pamphlet he would pay for the printing of1, 000 copies, to be sent to all the members of Parliament and otherleading people in city and country. I called my pamphlet "A Plea forPure Democracy, " and when writing it I felt the democratic strength ofthe position as I had not felt it in reading Hare's own book. It costmy brother 15 pounds, but he never grudged it. 

While the pamphlet was in the press, I heard of the dangerous illnessof my friend Lucy Anne Duval (nee Beare), one of the originalpassengers in the Duke of York, the first ship which arrived here. Iwent to consult Mr. Taylor and Mr. Stirling at their office. I saw onlyMr. Stirling. I said, "I should like to go and nurse her, " and he said. "If you will go, I'll pay your expenses;" and I went and stayed withher for three weeks, till she died, and left five children, three ofthem quite young. There were Duvals in England in good circumstances, and I wrote pleading for the three little ones, though every one saidit was quite useless; but an uncle by marriage was touched, and sent100 pounds a year for the benefit of the three children, and I wasconstituted the guardian. The youngest died within two years, but theallowance was not decreased, and I was able to get some schooling foran elder boy. This was my first guardianship. 

My pamphlet did not set the Torrens on fire. It did not convert TheRegister, but Mr. Fred Sinnett, who was conducting The Telegraph, wasmuch impressed, especially as he had the greatest reverence for JohnStuart Mill, and thought him a safe man to follow. I had another novelunder way at the time, and Mr. Sinnett thought it would help TheTelegraph to bring it out as a serial story in the weekly edition; andI seized my opportunity to bring in Mr. Hare and proportionalrepresentation. In England Mr. Hare, Mr. Mill, Rowland Hill, and hisbrother, and Professor Craik, all considered my "Plea for PureDemocracy" the best argument from the popular side that had appeared. Igot the kindest of letters from them, and my brother considered mylabour and his money well spent. Professor Craik, writing to MissFlorence Davenport Hill about the "Plea for Pure Democracy, " says--"Itis really a pity that the pamphlet should not be reproduced in thiscountry--modified, of course, to the slight extent that would benecessary. It is really a very remarkable piece of exposition--the bestfor popular effect by far on this subject that has come in my way. Irejoice to hear that there is a chance of Mr. Hare's plan being adoptedin South Australia. " I may be allowed to observe that there is still achance, but not yet a reality. My aunts at Thornton Loch were appliedto by my English admirers to see if they would be at the cost of anEnglish edition; but, though they were goodness itself to our materialneeds, they thought it was throwing money away to bring out a pamphleton an unpopular subject that would not sell. Why, even in SouthAustralia, though the price was marked at one shilling, not a singleshilling had been paid for a single copy; and in South Australia I wasknown! Not so well known, however. I wrote under initials only, andmany thought my letters and pamphlets were the work of Charles SimeonHare, one of the tallest talkers in South Australia, who said Mr. Thomas Hare was his cousin. My novels were anonymous up to the third, which was not then written. If my name would have done the cause anygood it would have been given, but it was too obscure then. 

The original title of my third book was "Uphill Work, " and it took upthe woman question as it appeared to me at the time--the difficulty ofa woman earning a livelihood, even when she had as much ability, industry, and perseverance as a man. My friend Mrs. Graham, who hadbeen receiving 100 pounds a year and many presents and muchconsideration from the Alstons, of Charles Williamson & Co. , had toreturn to Scotland to cheer her father's last years. After his deathshe became housekeeper to the Crichton Asylum for the Insane, with 600or 700 patients, at a salary of 30 pounds a year. This started me onthe story of two girls educated well and soundly by an eccentric uncle, but not accomplished in the showy branches, who, fearing that the elderand favourite niece would marry a young neighbour, and that the othermight be a confirmed invalid, disinherited them, and left his estate toa natural son with a strict proviso against his marrying either of hiscousins. In that case the property was to go to a benevolentinstitution named. Jane Melville applied for the situation ofhousekeeper to this institution at 30 pounds a year, but was refusedbecause she was too young and inexperienced. After all sorts ofdisappointments she took a situation to go out to Australia, and hersister accompanied her as a lady's maid in the same family. You maywonder how I brought in proportional representation, but I managed it. I think, on the whole, it is a stronger book than either of the others. The volume has two interesting associations, one which connects it withMrs. Oliphant. My friend Mrs. Graham knew I had sent it to England forpublication, and when she read the anonymous "Doctor's Family" she wassure it was mine, and was delighted with it. When I read of the braveAustralian girl Nettie, taking on herself the burden of the flabbysister and her worthless husband and their children, I wished that Ihad written such a capital story. In a subsequent tale of Mrs. Oliphant's, "In Trust, " a father disinherits the elder girl from a fearof an unworthy marriage, but he leaves a letter to be opened when Rosyis 21, which--should Anne not marry Cosmo Douglas--restores her to herown mother's fortune, which was in his power. There was no savingclause in my book. The nieces were left only 20 pounds a year each. Mr. Williams did not think "Uphill Work" as good as "Tender and True, " andit was hung up till circumstances most unexpectedly brought me toEngland, and I tried Bentley, and found that his reader approved, butwished me to change the name, as the first critic would say it wasuphill work to read it. Then let it be "Mr. Haliburton's Will. " Thatwould clash with "Mrs Haliburton's Troubles. " So the name was changedto Hogarth, and the title became "Mr. Hogarth's Will. " It was wellreviewed, and I got 35 pounds as my half-share of the profits on athree-volume edition, besides 50 pounds from The Telegraph. But thebook was to have more effect in unexpected quarters than I couldimagine. When staying with my aunts in Scotland I had a letter from Mr. Edward Wilson's secretary, saying that he had wished to write anarticle for The Fortnightly on "The Representation of Classes, " whichwas his cure for the excesses of democracy; but, as he could not see, and his doctor had forbidden him even to dictate, he had reluctantlyabandoned the idea. He had, however, heard that I was in Scotland, and, though my idea was different from his, he believed that I could writethe article from some letters reprinted from The Argus and a few hintsfrom himself, and that I could adapt them to English conditions. Igladly undertook the work, and satisfied Mr. Wilson. Just before I leftfor Australia I went to Mr. Wilson's, and we went through the proofstogether. Mr. Wilson, being a wealthy man, did not ask any payment fromThe Fortnightly, but he gave me 10 pounds and thanked me for steppingin to his assistance when he needed it. He said that my novel had beenthe subject of a great deal of discussion in his house. I asked, "Why?"He replied, "The uncle and the nieces, of course. " I thought no more ofit till the death of Mr. Wilson revealed that he had left his estate tothe charities of Melbourne. Then my brother told me that when he was inEngland in 1877 Mr. Wilson had told him that it was seldom that a novelhad any influence over a man's conduct, but that reading his sister'snovel had set him thinking, and had made him alter his will. He did notthink it to the advantage of his nieces to be made rich, and he wouldleave his money to Victoria and Melbourne, where he had made it. I wasthe innocent cause of disappointing the nieces, for I think I made itclear that the uncle did very wrongly. But when I see 5, 000 pounds ayear distributed among Melbourne charities, and larger gifts for thebuilding of a new hospital, I cannot help thinking that these are theresults of Mr. Wilson reading "Mr. Hogarth's Will" and it may be thatother similar trusts are the results of Mr. Wilson's action. 

Another literary success I had during that visit to England. I went toSmith, Elder, & Co. To ask if I could not get anything for the shillingedition of "Tender and True, " and was answered in the negative; but Ihad not talked ten minutes with Mr. Williams before he said that if Iwould put these ideas into shape, he thought he could get an articleaccepted by The Cornhill Magazine. "An Australian's Impressions ofEngland" was approved by the editor, and appeared in The Cornhill forJanuary 1866, and for that I received 12 pounds, the best-paid work Ihad ever had up to that time. The Saturday Review said of "Mr. Hogarth's Will" that there was no haziness about money matters in itsuch as is too common among lady writers. Mr. Bentley advised me togive my name, and not to sell my copyright; but the latter has been ofno value to me; 500 copies of a three-volume novel exhausted the likelydemand. I got 12 copies to give to friends, and one copy I gave to Mr. Hare. His daughters were a little amused to see their father in anovel, and as the book was in the circulating library their friends andacquaintances used to ask, "Is that really your papa that it isintended for?" I did not at the time think of facing anybody inEngland, but I had been both amused and annoyed with the portraits Iwas supposed to have drawn from real people in and aboutAdelaide--often people I had never seen and had not beard of. "ButHarris is Ellis to the life, " said my old Aunt Brodie of Morphett Vale. "Miss Withing is my sister-in-law, " said another. Neither of thesepeople had I seen. Of course, Mr. Reginald was Mr. John Taylor, theonly squatter I knew, but I myself was not identified with my heroineClara Morison. I was Margaret Elliott, the girl who was studying lawwith her brother Gilbert; but my brother and my cousin Louisa Brodiewere supposed to be figuring in my book as lovers. In a small societyit was easy to affix the characteristics to some one whom it waspossible the author might have met; but I shrank from the idea that Iwas capable of "taking off" people of my acquaintance, and for manyreasons would have liked if the book had not been known to be mine inSouth Australia. There must, however, have been some lifelikepresentment of my characters, or they could not have been recognised. About this time I read and appreciated Jane Austen's novels--thoseexquisite miniatures, which no doubt her contemporaries identifiedwithout much interest. Her circle was as narrow as mine--indeed, narrower. She was the daughter of a clergyman in the country. Sherepresented well-to-do grownup people, and them alone. The humour ofservants, the sallies of children, the machinations of villains, thetricks of rascals, are not on her canvas; but she differentiated amongequals with a firm hand, and with a constant ripple of amusement. Thelife I led had more breadth and wider interests. The life of MissAusten's heroines, though delightful to read about, would have beendeadly dull to endure. So great a charm have Jane Austen's books hadfor me that I have made a practice of reading them through regularlyonce a year. 

As we grew to love South Australia, we felt that we were in anexpanding society, still feeling the bond to the motherland, but eagerto develop a perfect society, in the land of our adoption. 

CHAPTER VI. 

A TRIP TO ENGLAND. 

I have gone on with the story of my three first novels consecutively, anticipating the current history of myself and South Australia. Therewere three great steps taken in the development of Australia. The firstwas when McArthur introduced the merino sheep; the second whenHargreaves and others discovered gold; and the latest when cold-storagewas introduced to make perishable products available for the Europeanmarkets. The second step created a sudden revolution; but the otherswere gradual, and the area of alluvial diggings in Victoria madethousands of men without capital or machinery rush to try theirfortunes--first from the adjacent colonies, and afterwards from theends of the earth. Law and order were kept on the goldfields of MountAlexander, Bendigo, and Ballarat by means of a strong body of police, and the high licence fees for claims paid for their services, so thatnothing like the scenes recorded of the Californian diggings could bepermitted. But for the time ordinary industries were paralysed. Shepherds left their flocks, farmers their land, clerks their desks, and artisans their trades. Melbourne grew apace in spite of the highestwages known being exacted by masons and carpenters. Pastoraliststhought ruin stared them in the face till they found what a market thegoldfields offered for their surplus stock. Our South Australianfarmers left their holdings in the hands of their wives and childrentoo young to take with them, but almost all of them returned to growgrain and produce to send to Victoria. It was astonishing what thewomen had done during their absence. The fences were kept repaired andthe stock attended to, the grapes gathered, and the wine made. In thesedays it was not so easy to get 80 acres or more in Victoria; so, withwhat the farmers brought from their labours on the goldfields, theyextended their holdings and improved their homes. For many years theprices in Melbourne regulated prices in Adelaide, but when the land wasunlocked and the Victorian soil and climate were found to be as good asours it was Mark lane that fixed prices over all Australia for primaryproducts. After the return of most of the diggers there was a greatdeal of marrying and giving in marriage. The miners who had left theBurra for goldseeking gradually came back, and the nine remarkablecopper mines of Moonta and Wallaroo attracted the Cornishmen, whopreferred steady wages and homes to the diminishing chances of Ballaratand Bendigo where machinery and deep sinking demanded capital, and theminers were paid by the week. These new copper mines were found in theCrown leases held by Capt. (afterwards Sir Walter) Hughes. He had beenwell dealt with by Elder, Smith, & Co. , and gave them the opportunityof supporting him. At that time my friends Edward Stirling and JohnTaylor were partners in that firm, and they shared in the success. Mr. Bakewell belonged to the legal firm which did their business, so thatmy greatest friends seemed to be in it. I think my brother Johnprofited less by the great advance of South Australia than he deservedfor sticking to the Bank of South Australia. He got small rises in hissalary, but the cost of living was so enhanced that at the end of sevenyears it did not buy much more than the 100 pounds he had begun with. My eldest maiden aunt died, and left to her brother and sister in SouthAustralia all she had in her power. My mother bought a brick cottage inPulteney street and a Burra share with her legacy--both excellentinvestments--and my brother left the bank and went into the aeratedwater business with James Hamilton Parr. 

We made the acquaintance of the family of Mrs. Francis Clark, ofHazelwood, Burnside. She was the only sister of five cleverbrothers--Matthew Davenport, Rowland, Edwin, Arthur, and FrederickHill. Rowland is best known, but all were remarkable men. She was solike my mother in her sound judgment, accurate observation, and kindheart, that I was drawn to her at once. But it was Miss Clark whosought an introduction to me at a ball, because her uncle Rowland hadwritten to her that "Clara Morison, " the new novel, was a capital storyof South Australian life. She was the first person to seek me out onaccount of literary work, and I was grateful to her. I think all thebrothers Hill wrote books, and Rosamond and Florence Davenport Hill hadjust published "Our Exemplars. " My friendship with Miss Clark led tomuch work together, and the introduction was a great widening ofinterests for me. There were four sons and three daughters--Miss Clarkand Howard were the most literary, but all had great ability andintelligence. They were Unitarians, and W. J. Wren, my brother-in-law, was also a Unitarian, and had been one of the 12 Adelaide citizens whoinvited out a minister and guaranteed his salary. I was led to hearwhat the Rev. J. Crawford Woods had to say for that faith, and told myold minister (Rev. Robert Haining) that for three months I would hearhim in the morning and Mr. Woods in the evening, and read nothing butthe Bible as my guide; and by that time I would decide. I had beeninduced to go to the Sacrament at 17, with much heart searching, butwhen I was 25 I said I could not continue a communicant, as I was not aconverted Christian. This step greatly surprised both Mr. And Mrs. Haining, as I did not propose to leave the church. The result of mythree months' enquiry was that I became a convinced Unitarian, and thecloud was lifted from the universe. I think I have been a most cheerfulperson ever since. My mother was not in any way distressed, though shenever separated from the church of her fathers. My brother was ascompletely converted as I was, and he was happy in finding a wife likeminded. My sister, Mrs. Wren, also was satisfied with the new faith; sothat she and her husband saw eye to eye. It was a very livecongregation in those early days. We liked our pastor, and we admiredhis wife, and there were a number of interesting and clever people whowent to the Wakefield Street Church. 

It was rather remarkable that my sister's husband and my brother's wifearrived on the same day in two different ships--one in the Anglier fromEngland, and the other in the Three Bells from Glasgow--in 1851; but Idid not make the acquaintance of either till 1854 and 1855. JessieCumming and Mary Spence shook hands and formed a friendship overCarlyle's "Sartor Resartus. " My brother-in-law (W. J. Wren) had fineliterary tastes, especially for poetry. The first gift to his wifeafter marriage was Elizabeth Browning's poems in two volumes and RobertBrowning's "Plays and Dramatic Lyrics" in two volumes, and Mary and Idelighted in them all. In those days I considered my sister Mary and mysister-in-law the most brilliant conversationalists I knew. My eldersister, Mrs. Murray, also talked very well--so much so that herhusband's friends and visitors fancied she must write a lot of hisarticles; but none of the three ladies went beyond writing goodletters. I think all of them were keener of sight than I was--moreobservant of features, dress, and manners; but I took in more by theear. As Sir Walter Scott says, "Speak that I may know thee. " To mymind, dialogue is more important for a novel than description; and, ifyou have a firm grasp of your characters, the dialogue will be true. With me the main difficulty was the plot; and I was careful that thisshould not be merely possible, but probable. I have heard scores ofpeople say that they have got good plots in their heads, and whenpressed to tell them they proved to be only incidents. You need muchmore than an incident, or even two or three, with which to make a book. But when I found my plot the story seemed to write itself, and theactors to fit in. 

When the development of the Moonta Mine made some of my friends richthey were also liberal. Edward Stirling said that if I wanted a trip toEngland I should have it at his cost, but it seemed impossible. Afterthe death of Mr. Wren my mother and I went to live with my sister, andput two small incomes together, so as to be able to bring up andeducate her two children, a boy and a girl. My brother John had leftthe railway, and for nine years had been Official Assignee and Curatorof Intestate Estates; and in 1863 he had been appointed manager of thenew Adelaide branch of the English, Scottish, and Australian Bank. Myfriend, Mr. Taylor, had helped well to get the position for one hethought the fittest man in the city. He had lost his wife, Miss MaryAnn Dutton when on a visit to England, and at this time was engaged toMiss Harriet McDermott. His sisters both were very cold about theengagement. They did not like second marriages at all, and consideredit a disrespect to the first wife's memory, even though a decentinterval had elapsed. When he wrote to me about it I took quite adifferent view. He said it was the kindest and the wisest letter I hadever written in my life, and he knew I had loved his late wife verymuch. He came to thank me, and to tell me that he had always wishedthat I should be in England at the time he was there, and that he wasgoing in a P. & 0. Boat immediately after his marriage. Although Mr. Stirling had promised to pay my passage, I hesitated about going. Therewere my mother, who was 72, and my guardianship of the Duvals to thinkabout. I had also undertaken the oversight of old Mrs. Stephens, thewidow of one of the early proprietors of The Register. These objectionswere all overruled. I still hesitated. "I cannot go unless I have moneyto spend, " I urged. "Let me do that, " was the generous reply. --"I haveleft you 500 pounds in my will. Let me have the pleasure of giving yousomething while I live. " I was not too proud to owe that memorablevisit to England to my two good friends. John Taylor had put into myhands on board the Goolwa, in which I sailed, a draft for 200 poundsfor my spending money, and in the new will he made after his marriagehe bequeathed me 300 pounds. I said "Goodby" to him, with good wishesfor his health and happiness. I never saw him again. He took a sicklylooking child on his knee when crossing the Isthmus of Suez--there wasno canal in 1864--to relieve a weary mother. The child had smallpox, and my friend took it and died of it. He was being buried beside hisfirst wife at Brighton when the Goolwa sailed up the Channel after apassage of 14 weeks--as long as that of the Palmyra 25 yearsbefore--and the first news we heard was that Miss Taylor had lost abrother, the children a favourite uncle, and I, a friend. It was a sadhousehold, but the Bakewells were in London on business connected withsome claims of discovery of the Moonta Mines, and they took me to theirhouse in Palace Gardens. Kensington, till I could arrange to go to myaunt's in Scotland. All our plans about seeing people and placestogether were, of course, at an end. I was to go "a lone hand. " Mrs. Taylor had a posthumous son, who never has set foot in Australia. Shemarried a second time, an English clergyman named Knight, and hadseveral sons, but she has never revisited Adelaide, although she hasmany relatives here. So the friend who loved Australia, and was eagerto do his duty by it--who thoroughly approved of the Hare system ofrepresentation, and thought I did well to take it up, was snatched awayin the prime of life. I wonder if there is any one alive now to whomhis memory is as precious. The Register files may preserve some of hiswork. 

At Palace Gardens the Bakewell family were settled in a furnished housebelonging to Col. Palmer, one of the founders of South Australia, though never a resident. Palmer place, North Adelaide, bears his name. Thackeray's house we had to pass when we went out of the street in thedirection of the city. His death had occurred in the previous year. Ihad an engagement with Miss Julia Wedgwood, through an introductiongiven by Miss Sophia Sinnett, an artist sister of Frederick Sinnett's. I was called for and sent home. I was not introduced to the family. Itwas a fine large house with men servants and much style. Miss Wedgwood, who was deaf, used an ear trumpet very cleverly. I found her asdelightful as Miss Sinnett had represented her to be, and I discoveredthat Miss Sinnett had been governess to her younger sisters, but thatthere was real regard for her. I don't know that I ever spent a moredelightful evening. She had just had Browning's "Dramatis Personae, "and we read together "Rabbi Ben Ezira" and "Prospice. " She knew aboutthe Hare scheme of representation, supported by Mill and Fawcett andCraik. She was a good writer, with a fine critical faculty. Everythingsigned by her name in magazines or reviews was thenceforwardinteresting to me. I promised her a copy of my "Plea for PureDemocracy, " which she accepted and appreciated. By the father's sideshe was a granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of Britishpottery as a fine art. Her mother was a daughter of Sir JamesMackintosh. Mrs. Wedgwood was so much pleased with my pamphlet that shewanted to be introduced to me, and when I returned to London I had thepleasure of making her acquaintance. Miss Wedgwood gave me abeautifully bound copy of "Men and Women, " of which she had aduplicate, which I cherish in remembrance of her. 

During my stay I was visited by Mr. Hare. I had to face up to thepeople I had written to with no idea of any personal communication, andI must confess that I felt I must talk well to retain their goodopinion. I promised to pay a visit to the Hares when I came to Londonfor the season. He was a widower with eight children, whom he hadeducated with the help of a governess, but he was the main factor intheir training. The two eldest daughters were married--Mrs. Andrews, the eldest, had helped him in his calculations for his great book on"Representation. " His second daughter was artistic, and was married toJohn Westlake, an eminent lawyer, great in international law, a pupilof Colenso, who was then in London, and who was the best-abused man inthe church. Another visitor was George Cowan, a great friend of my latebrother-in-law, Mr. W. J. Wren, who wrote to him till his death, whenthe pen was taken up by my sister Mary till her death, and then Icorresponded with him till his death. He came to London a raw Scotchlad, and met Mr. Wren at the Whittington Club. Both loved books andpoetry, and both were struggling to improve themselves on smallsalaries. George Cowan had been entrusted with the printed slips of"Uphill Work, " and had tried it at two publishers without success. Ihad to delay any operations till I returned to London, and promised tovisit the Cowans there. 

CHAPTER VII. 

MELROSE REVISITED. 

Jack Bakewell and Edward Lancelot Stirling went to see me off by thenight train to Dunbar Station, five miles from Thornton-Loch, and I gotthere in time for breakfast. The old house was just the same except foran oriel window in the drawing room looking out on the North Sea, andthe rocks which lay between it and Colhandy path (where mygreat-grandfather Spence had preached and his wife had preferredWesley), and Chirnside, or Spence's Mains in the same direction. Allthe beautiful gardens, the farm village, where about 80 souls lived, the fields and bridges were just as I remembered them. My aunt Margaretwas no longer the vigorous business-like woman whom I recollectedriding or driving in her little gig an over the farm of 800 Englishacres which my great-grandfather had rented since 1811. Not the MissThompson whom I had introduced into "Uphill Work. " She had had a severestroke of paralysis, and was a prisoner to the house, only being liftedfrom her bed to be dressed, and to sit in a wheeled chair and be takenround the garden on fine days. The vigorous intellect was somewhatclouded, and the power of speech also; but she retained her memory. Shewas always at work with her needle (for her hands were not affected)for the London children, grandnieces, and nephews who called hergrandmamma, for she had had the care of their Parents during 11 yearsof her brother Alexander's widowhood. But Aunt Margaret could play acapital game of whist--long whist. I could see that she missed it muchon Sunday. It was her only relaxation. She had given up the farm toJames Brodie, who had married her cousin Jane, the eldest of the twochildren she had mothered, and he had to come to the farm once or twicea week, having a still larger farm of his own in East Lothian, and astock farm in Berwickshire also to look after. The son of the old farmsteward, John Burnet, was James Brodie's steward, and I think the farmwas well managed, but not so profitable as in old times. Aunt Marysaid, in her own characteristic way, "she always knew that her sisterwas a clever woman, but that the cleverest thing she had done wastaking up farming and carrying it on for 30 years when it wasprofitable, and turning it over when it began to fall off. " But sheturned it over handsomely, and did not interfere in the management. MyAunt Mary deserves a chapter for herself. She was my beau ideal of whata maiden aunt should be, though why she was never married puzzles morethan me. Between my mother and her there was a love passing the love ofsisters--my father liked her better than his own sisters. When myletter announcing my probable visit reached her she misread it, andthought it was Helen herself who was to come; and when she found outher mistake she shed many tears. I was all very well in my way, but Iwas not Helen. It was not the practice in old times to blazon anengagement, or to tell of an offer that had been declined; but mymother firmly believed that her sister Mary, the cleverest and, as shethought, the handsomest of the five sisters, had never in her life hadan offer of marriage, although she had a love disappointment at 30. Shehad fixed her affections on a brilliant but not really worthy man, andshe had to tear him out of her heart with considerable difficulty. Itcost her a severe illness, out of which she emerged with what shebelieved to be a change of heart. She was a converted Christian. Imyself don't think there was so much change. She was always a noble, generous woman, but she found great happiness in religion. Aunt Mary'sdisappointment made her most sympathetic to all love stories, andwithout any disappointment at all, I think I may say the same ofmyself. She was very popular with the young friends of her youngestbrother, who might have experienced calf love; so very real, but sovery ineffectual. One of these said to her:--"Oh, Miss Mary, you'rejust a delight, you are so witty. " Another, when she spoke of some manwho talked such delightful nonsense, said, "If you would only come toBranxholme I'd talk nonsense to you the haill (whole) day. "

When I arrived at the old home I found Aunt Mary vigorously rubbing herhand and wrist (she had slipped downstairs in a neighbour's house, andbroken her arm, and had to drive home before she could have it set). Noone from the neighbour's house went to accompany her; no one came toenquire; no message was sent. When she recovered so far as to be ableto be out, she met at Dunbar the gentleman and lady also driving intheir conveyance. They greeted each other, and aunt could not resistthe temptation to say:--"I am so glad to see you, and so glad that youhave spoken to me, for I thought you were so offended at my taking theliberty of breaking my arm in your house that you did not mean to speakto me again. " This little expression of what the French call malice, not the English meaning, was the only instance I can recollect of AuntMary's not putting the kindest construction on everybody's words andactions. But when I think of the love that Aunt Mary gathered toherself from brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, andfriends--it seems as if the happiest wife and mother of a large familycould not reckon up as rich stores of affection. She was the unfailingcorrespondent of those members of the family who were separated by landand ocean from the old home, the link that often bound these together, the most tolerant to their failings, the most liberal in her aid--fullof suggestions, as well as of sympathy. Now, in my Aunt Margaret'senfeebled state, she was the head of the house and the director of allthings. Although she had differed from the then two single sisters andthe family generally at the time of the disruption of the Church ofScotland, and gone over to the Free Church, the more intenselyCalvinistic of the two, though accepting the same standards--theWestminster Confession and the Shorter Catechism--all the harsherfeatures fell off the living texture of her faith like cold water off aduck's back. From natural preference she chose for her devotions thoseparts of the Bible which I selected with deliberate intention. Shewondered to find so much spiritual kinship with me, when I built onsuch a different foundation. When I suggested that the 109th Psalm, which she read as the allotted portion in "Fletcher's FamilyDevotions, " was not fit to be read in a Christian household, she saidmeekly--"You are quite right, I shall mark it, and never read it again. "

My mother always thought me like her sister Mary, and when I asked Mr. Taylor if he saw any resemblance between us, he said, with cruelcandour--"Oh, no. Your Aunt Mary is a very handsome woman. " But in waysand manners, both my sister Mary and myself had considerableresemblances to our mother's favourite sister; and I can see traces ofit in my own nieces. There can be no direct descent from maiden aunts, though the working ants and bees do not inherit their industrioushabits from either male or female parents, but from their maiden aunts. Galton's theory, that potentialities not utilized by individuals or bytheir direct descendants may miss a generation or two, opens a widefield of thought, and collaterals may draw from the original sourcewhat was never suspected. And the Brodies intermarried in such a way asto shock modern ideas. When my father was asked if a certain Mr. Dudgeon, of Leith, was related to him, he said--"He is my mother'scousin and my stepmother's cousin, and my father-in-law's cousin, andmy mother-in-law's cousin. " Except for Spences and Wauchopes there wasnot a relative of my father that was not related to my mother. Grandfather Brodie married his cousin, and Grandfather Spence marriedhis late wife, Janet Parks cousin Katherine Swanston. I cannot see thatthese close marriages produced degenerates, either physical or mental, in the case of my own family. 

Of the twelve months I spent in the old country, I spent six with thedear old aunts. How proud Aunt Mary was of my third novel, with thesketch of Aunt Margaret in it, of the Cornhill article, and the requestfrom Mr. Wilson to write for The Fortnightly. I introduced her to newbooks and especially to new poets; she had never heard of Browning andJean Ingelow. She was so much cleverer than her neighbours that I oftenwondered how she could put up with them. How conservative these farmersand farmers' wives and daughters were, to be sure. These big tenantsconsidered themselves quite superior to tradesmen, even to merchants, unless they were in a big way. There was infinitely more differencebetween their standard of living and that of their labourers thanbetween theirs and that of the aristocratic landlords. James Barnet, the farm steward, said to me--"you have brought down the price of wheatwith your Australian grain, and you do big things in wool, but you cannever touch us in meat. " This was quite true in 1865. I expected to seesome improvement in the farm hamlet, but the houses built by thelandlord were still very poor and bare. The wages had risen a littlesince 1839, but not much. The wheaten loaf was cheaper, and so was teaand sugar, but the poor were still living on porridge and bannocks ofbarley and pease meal instead of tea and white bread. It wasquestionable if they were as well nourished. There were 100 soulsliving on the farms of Thornton and Thornton Loch. 

A short visit from Mrs. Graham to me at Thornton Loch opened up to AuntMary some of my treasures of memory. She asked me to recite "Brother inthe Lane, " Hood's "Tale of a Trumpet, " "Locksley Hall. " "The PiedPiper, " and Jean Ingelow's "Songs of Seven. " She made me promise to goto see her, and find out how much she had to do for her magnificentsalary of 30 pounds a year; but she impressed Aunt Mary much. Mrs. Graham had found that the Kirkbeen folks, among whom she lived, weremore impressed by the six months' experiences of two maiden ladies, whohad gone to Valparaiso to join a brother who died, than with her freshand racy descriptions of four young Australian colonies. She had seenMelbourne from 1852 to 1855--a wonderful growth and development. Theonly idea the ladies from Valparaiso formed about Australia was that itwas hot and must be Roman Catholic, and consequently the Sabbath mustbe desecrated. It was in vain that my friend spoke of the Scots Churchand Dr. Cairns's Church. Heat and Roman Catholicism were inseparablyconnected in their minds. 

Visiting Uncle and Aunt Handyside and grown-up cousins, whom I leftchildren, I saw a lot of good farming and the easy circumstances whichI always associated with tenants' holdings in East Lothian. Next farmto Fenton was Fentonbarns, a Show place, which was held by George Hope, a cousin of my grandmother's He was an exceptional man--a radical, afreetrader, and a Unitarian. Cobden died that year. Uncle Handyside wassurprised that George Hope did not go into mourning for him. JohnBright still lived, and he was the bete noire of the Conservatives inthat era; and the abolition of the corn laws was held to be the causeof the agricultural distress--not the high rent of agricultural land. George Hope was a striking personality. When my friend J. C. Woods wasminister at St. Mark's Unitarian Church, Edinburgh, Mr. Hope used to becalled the Bishop, though he lived 16 miles off. When the first Mrs. Woods died, leaving an infant son, it was Mrs. Hope who cared for ittill it could go to his relatives in Ireland. Later he stood forParliament himself. In the paper I wrote over the name of Edward Wilsonfor The Fortnightly I noted how the House of Commons represented thepeople--or misrepresented them. The House consisted of peers and sonsof peers, military and naval officers, bankers, brewers, andlandownership was represented enormously, but there were only twotenant farmers in the House. It was years after my return to Australiathat I heard of his unsuccessful candidature, and that when he soughtto take another lease of Fentonbarns, he was told that under nocircumstances would his offer be entertained. Fentonbarns had beenfarmed by, three generations of Hopes for 100 years, and to no owner byparchment titles could it have been more dear. George Hope's friend, Russell, of The Scotsman, fulminated against the injustice of refusinga lease to the foremost agriculturist in Scotland--and when you saythat you may say of the United Kingdom--because the tenant held certainpolitical opinions and had the courage to express them. My uncleHandyside, however, always maintained that his neighbour was the mosthonourable man in business that he knew, and far from being an atheistor even a deist, he had family prayers, and on the occasion of a deathin the family, the funeral service was most impressive. He was one ofthe salt of the earth, and the atmosphere was clearer around him forhis presence. 

But I must give some space to my visit to Melrose, my childhood's home. My father's half-sister Janet Reid was alive and though her two sonswere, one at St. Kitts and the other at Grand Canary, she lived with anold husband and her only daughter in Melrose still.. I can never forgetthe look of tender pity cast on me as I was sitting in our old seat inchurch, looking at seats filled by another generation. Thepaterfamilias, so wonderfully like his father of 1839, and sons anddaughters, sitting in the place of uncles and aunts settled elsewhere. They grieved that I had been banished from the romantic associationsand the high civilization of Melrose to rough it in the wilds, while myheart was full of thankfulness that I had moved to the wider spaces andthe more varied activities of a new and progressive colony. My dear oldteacher was still alive, though the school had been closed for manyyears. She lived at St. Mary's with her elder sister, who had taught mesewing and had done the housekeeping, but she herself was almost blind, and a girl came every day to read to her for two or three hours. Shetold me what a good thing it was that she knew all the Psalms in theprose version by heart, for in the sleepless nights which accompany oldage so often they were such a comfort to her in the night watches. Ihad sent her my two novels when they were published, "Clara Morison"and "Tender and True. " She would have been glad if they had been moredistinctly religious in tone. Indeed, the novel I began at 19 wouldhave suited her better, but my brother's insistence on reading it everyday as I wrote it somehow made me see what poor stuff it was, and I didnot go far with it. But Miss Phin was, on the whole, pleased with myprogress, and glad that I was able to go to see her and talk of oldtimes. How very small the village of Melrose looked! How littlechanged! The distances to the neighbouring villages of Darnick andNewstead, and across the Tweed to Gattonsville, seemed so shrunken. Itwas not so far to Abbotsford as to Norwood. The very Golden Hillslooked lower than my childish recollection of them. Aunt Janet Reidrejoiced over me sufficiently. "You are not like your mother in theface, but, oh, Katie, you are like dear Mrs. David in your ways. How Iwas determined to hate her when she came to Melrose first. I was not 13and she was taking away the best of my brothers, the one that I likedbest; but it did not take long before I was as fond of her as of Davidhimself. "

I also had the pleasure of visiting Mr. Murray, the parishschoolmaster, who taught my three brothers, then retired, living withhis daughter, Louisa, an old schoolfellow at Miss Phin's. There was anabsurd idea current in 1865 that all visiting Australians were rich andI could not disabuse people of that notion. Of all the two families ofBrodies and Spences who came out in 1839 there was only my brother Johnwho could be called successful. He was then manager of the Adelaidebranch of the English, Scottish, and Australian Bank. If it had notbeen for help from the wonderful aunts from time to time both familieswould have been stranded. I had the greatest faith in the future ofAustralia, but I felt that for such gifts as I possessed there was nomarket at home. Possibly I should have tried literature earlier if Ihad remained in Scotland, but I am not at all sure that I could havesucceeded as well. For the first time in my life I had as much money asI wanted. I am surprised now that I spent that 200 pounds when I had somuch hospitality. In fact, except for a week in Paris, I never had anyhotel expenses. I had got the money to enjoy it and I did. This waswhat my friend wished. I made a few presents. I bought some to takehome with me. I spent money on dress freely, so as to present a properappearance when visiting. I was liberal with veils, though I hate thepractice. To a woman who had to look on both sides of a shilling since1839 this experience was new and delightful. Among other people I wentto see was Mrs. C----. The widow of the Tory writer and branch bankmanager, who was my father's successful rival. He was not speculativelike my father. He was a keen business man and had a great hunger forland. 

On the gravestones around Melrose Abbey are many names with theavocation added--John Smith, builder; William Hogg, mason--but manywith the word portioner. They were small proprietors, but they were notdistinguished for the careful cultivation which in France is known as"LA PETITE CULTURE. " No; the portions were most carelessly handled, andin almost every instance they were "bonded" or mortgaged. I recollectin old days these portioners used to make moonlight, flittings anddisappear, or they sold off their holdings openly and went to America, meaning the United States. The tendency was to buy up these portions, and a considerable estate could be built up by any shrewd man who hadmoney, or the command of it. Before we left Melrose in 1839, Mr. C----had possession of a good deal of land. When he died he left property ofthe value of 90, 000 pounds, an unheard-of estate for a country writerbefore the era of freetrade and general expansion. He had asked so muchrevenue from the railway company when the plan was to cut through thegardens we as children used to play in, that the company made adeviation and left the garden severely alone. The eldest daughter hadmarried a landed proprietor, the second was single, the third marriedto a wealthy man in the west, the fourth the richest widow in Scotland. One son had land, and the other son land, and another businesstraining. All was material success, and I am sure I did not grudge itto them, but when I took stock of real things I had not the leastglimmering of a wish to exchange. One generally desires a little moremoney than one has; but even that may cost too much. I think my dearold Aunt Reid felt that the Spences had gone down in my father'sterrible smash in 1839, and the C---- family had steadily gone up, andshe was pleased that a niece from Australia, who had written two booksand a wonderful pamphlet, and, more important still in the eyes of Mrs. Grundy, had money to spend and to give, was staying with her inMelrose, and wearing good and well made clothes. Old servants--the oldlaundress--old schoolfellows were visited. My father's old clerk, AllanFreer, had a good business in Melrose, though not equal to that of theTory firm. I think the portioners were all sold out before he couldenter the field, and the fate of these Melrose people has thoroughlyemphasized for me the importance of having our South Australianworkmen's blocks, the glory of Mr. Cotton's life, maintained always onthe same footing of perpetual lease dependent on residence. If thesmall owner has the freehold, he is tempted to mortgage it, and then inmost instances the land is lost to him, and added to the possessions ofthe man who has money. With a perpetual lease, there is the samesecurity of tenure as in the freehold--indeed, there is more security, because he cannot mortgage. I did not see the land question as clearlyon this 1865 visit, as I did later; but the extinction of the oldportioners and the wealth acquired by the moneyed man of Melrose gaveme cause for thinking. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

I VISIT EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 

A visit to Glasgow and to the relatives of my sister-in-law opened outa different vista to me. This was a great manufacturing and commercialcity, which had far outgrown Edinburgh in population and wealth; butthe Edinburgh people still boasted of being the Athens of the north, the ancient capital with the grandest historic associations. In GlasgowI fell in with David Murray and his wife (of D. & W. MurrayAdelaide)--not quite so important a personage as be became later. Not arelative of mine; but a family connection, for his brother Williammarried Helen Cumming, Mrs. J. B. Spence's sister. David Murray wasalways a great collector of paintings, and especially of prints, whichlast he left to the Adelaide Art Gallery. He was a close friend of mybrother John's until the death of the latter. One always enjoys meetingwith Adelaide people in other lands, and comparing the most recentitems of news. I went to Dumfries according to promise, and spent manydays with my old friend Mrs. Graham, but stayed the night always withher sister, Mrs. Maxwell, wife of a printer and bookseller in the town. Dumfries was full of Burns's relies and memorials. Mr. Gilfillan hadtaken the likeness of Mrs. Burns and her granddaughter when he was ayoung man, and Mrs. Maxwell corresponded with the granddaughter. It wasalso full of associations with Carlyle. His youngest sister, Jean theCraw, as she was called on account of her dark hair and complexion wasMrs. Aitkin, a neighbour and close friend of Mrs. Maxwell. I was takento see her, and I suppose introduced as a sort of author, and sheregretted much that this summer Tom was not coming to visit her atDumfries. She was a brisk, cheery person, with some clever daughters, who were friends of the Maxwell girls. When the Froude memorials cameout no one was more indignant than Jean the Craw--"Tom and his wifealways understood each other. They were not unhappy, though after herdeath he reproached himself for some things. "

I found that my friend had just as much to do from morning to night asshe could do, and I hoped with a great hope that "Uphill Work" would bepublished, and all the world would see how badly capable andindustrious women were paid. I fancied that a three-volume novel wouldbe read, marked, and inwardly digested by everybody! But Mrs. Grahamwas appreciated by the matron, the doctors, and by the people ofDumfries, as she had not been in the village of Kirkbeen. Herpicturesque descriptions of life in the various colonies interestedhome-staying folk, for she had the keenest observing faculties. Therewas an old cousin of Uncle Handyside's who always turned theconversation on to Russia, where he had visited successful brothers;but his talk was not incisive. My cousin Agnes asked me when I supposedthis visit was paid, and I said a few years ago, probably, when shelaughed and said--"Nicol Handyside spent six weeks in Russia 30 yearsago, and he has been talking about it ever since. " One visit I paid inEdinburgh to an old lady from Melrose, who lived with a marrieddaughter. She had always been very deaf, and the daughter was out. Withgreat difficulty I got her to see by my card that my name was Spence. "Are you Jessie Spence?" I shook my head. "No; Katie. " "Are you MarySpence?" Another headshake, "No; I am Katie. " "Then who are you?" Shecould understand the negative by the headshaking, but not anythingelse. I wanted a piece of paper or a slate badly, but the daughter camein and made her mother understand that I was the middle Spence girl, and then the old lady said, "It is a very hot country you come from, "her only idea apparently of wonderful Australia. And to think that intimes long past some intriguing aunts tried very hard to arrange amarriage between my father and the deaf young lady who had about 600pounds a year in land in and near Melrose. She might have been mymother! The idea was appalling! None of her children inherited thedeafness, and they took a fair proportion of good looks from theirfather, for the mother was exceedingly homely. A brightlooking grandsonwas on the rug looking through a bound volume of Punch, as my nephew inAustralia loved to do. The two mothers were school companions andplaymates. 

My return to London introduced me to a wider range of society. I hadadmissions to the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons from SirCharles Dilke, Professor Pearson's friend, and I had invitations tostay for longer or shorter periods with people various in means, intastes, and in interests. To Mr. Hare I was especially drawn, and Ishould have liked to join him and his family in their yearly walkingtour, which was to be through the Tyrol and Venice; but Aunt Maryprotested for two good and sufficient reasons. The first was that Icould not walk 16 or 20 miles a day, even in the mountains, which KatieHare said was so much easier than on the plains; and the second wasthat to take six weeks out of my visit to the old country was a greatdeal too much. If it could have done any good to proportionalrepresentation I might have stood out; but it could not. For that Ihave since travelled thousands of miles by sea and by land; and, thoughnot on foot, I have undergone much bodily fatigue and mental strain, but in these early days of the movement it had only entered theacademic stage. My "Plea for Pure Democracy" had been written at awhite heat of enthusiasm. I do not think I ever before or since reacheda higher level. I took this reform more boldly than Mr. Mill, whosought by giving extra votes for property and university degrees orlearned professions to cheek the too great advance of democracy. I wasprepared to trust the people; and Mr. Hare was also confident that, ifall the people were equitably represented in Parliament, the good wouldbe stronger than the evil. The wise would be more effectual than thefoolish. I do not think any one whom I met took the matter up sopassionately as I did; and I had a feeling that in our new colonies thereform would meet with less obstruction than in old countries bound byprecedent and prejudiced by vested interests. Parliament was thepreserve of the wealthy in the United Kingdom. There was no propertyqualification for the candidate in South Australia, and we had manhoodsuffrage. 

South Australia was the first community to give the secret ballot forpolitical elections. It had dispensed with Grand Juries. It had notrequired a member of either House to stand a new election if heaccepted Ministerial office. Every elected man was eligible for office. South Australia had been founded by doctrinaires, and occasionally acheap sneer had been levelled at it on that account; but, to my mind, that was better than the haphazard way in which other colonies grew. When I visited Sir Rowland Hill he was recognised as the great postoffice reformer. To me he was also one of the founders of our province, and the first pioneer of quota representation. When I met MatthewDavenport Hill I respected him because he tried to keep delinquent boysout of gaol, and promoted the establishment of reform schools; but Ialso was grateful to him for suggesting to his brother the park landswhich surround Adelaide, and give us both beauty and health. To Col. Light, who laid out the city so well, we owe the many open spaces andsquares; but he did not originate the idea of the park lands. Much ofthe work of Mr. Davenport Hill and of his brother Frederick I took uplater with their niece (Miss C. E. Clark), and their ideas have beenprobably more thoroughly carried out in South Australia than anywhereelse; but in 1865 I was learning a great deal that bore fruitafterwards. 

I fear it would make this narrative too long if I went into detailabout the interesting people I met. Florence and Rossamund DavenportHill introduced me to Miss Frances Power Cobbe, whose "IntuitiveMorals" I admired so much. At Sir Rowland Hill's I met Sir WalterCrofter, a prison reformer; Mr. Wells, Editor of "All the Year Round;"Charles Knight, who had done so much for good and cheap literature;Madame Bodichon (formerly Barbara Smith), the great friend andcorrespondent of George Eliot, who was interesting to me because byintroducing the Australian eucalyptus to Algeria she had made anunhealthy marshy country quite salubrious. She had a salon, where I metvery clever men and women--English and French--and which made me wishfor such things in Adelaide. The kindness and hospitality that wereshown to me--an absolute stranger--by all sorts of people weresurprising. Mr. And Mrs. Westlake took me on Sunday to see BishopColenso. He showed me the photo of the enquiring Zulu who made himdoubt the literal truth of the early books of the Bible, and presentedme with the people's edition of his work on the Pentateuch. 

In all my travels and visits I saw little of the theatre or concertroom, and some of the candid confessions of Mrs. Oliphant might standfor my own. I had read so many plays before I saw one that theunreality of much of the acted drama impressed me unfavourably. Theasides in particular seemed impossible, and I think the more carefullythe pieces are put on the stage the more critical I become concerningtheir probability; and when I hear the praise of the beautiful andexpensive theatrical wardrobes which, in the case of actresses seem toset the fashion for the wealthy and well-born, I feel that it is acostly means of making the story more unlikely. I seem to lose theidentity of the heroine who in two hours wears three or four differenttoilettes complete. As Mrs. Oliphant did not identify the "nobody inwhite tights" who rendered from "Twelfth Night" the lovely linesbeginning "That strain again; it had a dying fall" with the Orsino shehad imagined when reading the play, so I, who knew "She Stoops toConquer" almost by heart, was disappointed when I saw it on the stage. I was taken to the opera once by Mr. And Mrs. Bakewell, and heard Pattiin "Don Giovanni, " at Covent Garden, but opera of all kinds is wastedon me. I liked some of the familiar airs and choruses, but all operaneeds far more make-believe than I am capable of. It is a pity that Iam so insensible to the youngest and the most progressive of the finearts. I am, however, in the good company of Mrs. Oliphant, who, speaking of the musical parties in Eton, where she lived so long, forthe education of tier boys, writes in words that suit me perfectly: "Inone of these friends' houses a family quartet played what were rathernew and terrible to me--long sonatas and concerted pieces which filledmy soul with dismay. It is a dreadful confession to make, and proceedsfrom want of education and instruction, but I fear any appreciation ofmusic I have is purely literary. I love a song and a 'tune;' thehumblest fiddler has sometimes given me the greatest pleasure, andsometimes gone to my heart; but music, properly so called, the onlymusic that many of my friends would listen to, is to me a wonder and amystery. My mind wanders through adagios and andantes, gaping, longingto understand. Will no one tell me what it means? I want to find theold unhappy far off things which Wordsworth imagined in the Gaelic songof the 'Highland Lass. ' I feel out of it, uneasy, thinking all the timewhat a poor creature I must be. I remember the mother of the sonataplayers approaching me with beaming countenance on the occasion of oneof these performances, expecting the compliment which I faltered forth, doing my best not to look insincere. 'And I have this every evening ofmy life, ' cried the triumphant mother. 'Good heavens, and you havesurvived it all' was my internal response. " But the worst thing is whenyou do not expect a musical evening and this superior music is sprungon you. Mrs. Webster and I were once invited to meet some veryinteresting people, some of the best conversationalists in Melbourne, and we were given high-class music instead, and scarcely could a remarkbe exchanged when a warning finger was held up and silence insisted on. I could not sing, but sometimes I attempted to hum a tune. I recollectduring my first visit to Melbourne, my little nephew Johnnie, delightedin the rhymes and poems which I recited; but one day when I was ironingI began to sing, and he burst out with "Don't sing, auntie; let me hearthe voice of your words. " So for my own delectation I beganWordsworth's "Leechgatherer"--

 There was a roaring in the wind all night, The rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright. The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the stock dove broods. The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters, And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. 

"Oh, that's pretty, auntie; say it again, " I said it again, and yetagain, at his request, till he could almost repeat it. And he was notquite 4 years old. He is still alive, and has not become a poet, whichwas what I expected in those early days. He could repeat great screedsof Browning's "Pied Piper of Hamelin, " which was his especialfavourite. Music has often cheated me of what is to me the keenestpleasure in life. Like Samuel Johnson, I enjoy greatly "good talk, "though I never took such a dominant part in it. There are two kinds ofpeople who reduce me to something like silence--those who know toolittle and those who know too much. My brother-in-law's friend, Mr. Cowan, was a great talker, and a good one, but he scarcely allowed me afair share. He was also an admirable correspondent. 

One predominant talker I met at Mr. Edwin Hill's--William Ellis, aspecial friend of the Hills, and a noteworthy man. One needs to lookback 60 years to become conscious of how much English education was inthe hands of the church. Not only the public schools and the universitywere overshadowed by the Established Church, but what schools wereaccessible to the poor were a sort of appanage to the rectory, and theteachers were bound to work for the good of the church and theconvenience of the incumbent. The commercial schools, which wereindependent of the church, to which Non-conformists sent their boys, were satirised by Dickens, and they deserved the satire. The masterswere generally incompetent, and the assistant teachers or ushers werethe most miserable in regard to payment and status. William Ellisexpended large sums of money, and almost all his leisure, inestablishing secular schools that were good for something. He calledthem Birkbeck schools, thus doing honour to the founder of mechanics'institutes, and perhaps the founder of the first of these schools; andhe taught what he called social science in them himself. He was theSenor Ferrer of England; and, though he escaped martyrdom in the moreenlightened country he was looked on suspiciously by those whoconsidered education that was not founded on revealed religion andpermeated by its doctrines as dangerous and revolutionary. 

But there was one great personage who saw the value of those teachingson things that make for human happiness and intellectual freedom, andthat was the Prince Consort. He asked William Ellis to give somelessons to the eldest of the Royal children--the Princess Victoria, Prince Edward (our present King), and Prince Alfred, afterwards Duke ofSaxe-Coburg. Mr. Ellis said all three were intelligent, and PrincessVictoria exceptionally so. What a tragedy it was--more so than that ofmany an epic or drama--that the Princess Royal and the husband of herchoice, who had educated themselves and each other to take the reins ofthe German Empire, and had drawn up so many Plans for the betterment ofthe general conditions of the people, should, on their accession topower, have met death standing on the steps of the throne; and thatonly a powerless widow should have been left without much authorityover her masterful son. But my firm belief is that in many of theexcellent things that the Kaiser William has done for his people, he isworking on the plans that had been committed to writing by the CrownPrince and Princess. Her father's memory was so dear to the CrownPrincess that anything he had suggested to her was cherished all herlife; and I do not doubt that these early lessons on the right relationof human beings to each other--the social science which regards humanhappiness as depending on justice and toleration--is even now bearingfruit in the Fatherland. Shortsighted mortals see the immediatefailures, but in the larger eye of the Infinite and the Eternal thereis always progress towards better things from every honest attempt toremedy injustice, and to increase knowledge. 

I arranged for a week in Paris with my young friends, Rosa and SymondsClark, of Hazelwood, and we travelled as far as Paris with the Harefamily, who went on to the Tyrol. We enjoyed the week. Louis Napoleonappeared then to be quite secure on his throne, and we saw the fetesand illuminations for his birthday. What a day and night of rain itwas! But the thousands of people, joyful and good-humoured underumbrellas or without them--gave us a favourable impression of Parisiancrowds. In London I had been with Mr. Cowan in the crush to thetheatre. It was contrary to his principles to book seats, and I neverwas so frightened in my life. I thought a London crowd rough andmerciless. I was the only one of the party who could speak any French, and I spoke it badly, and had great difficulty in following Frenchconversations; but we got into a hotel where no English was spoken, andmanaged to pull through. But we did not know a soul, and I think we didnot learn so much from our week's sightseeing as we should have done ifMiss Katie Hare had stayed the week with us. 

I then paid a visit to Birmingham, and spent a week at the sittings ofthe British Association. By subscribing a guinea I was made anAssociate, and some of the sessions were very interesting, but much toodeep for me. I sat out a lecture on the Higher Mathematics, byProfessor Henry Smith, to whom Professor Pearson gave me anintroduction, in hopes that I might visit Oxford; but he was goingabroad, and I could not go to Oxford if I knew nobody--especiallyalone. I went, however, to Carr's Lane Chapel, where a humble friendhad begged me to go, because there she had been converted, and therethe Rev. R. W. Dale happened to preach on "Where prayer was wont to bemade. " He said that consecration was not due to a Bishop or to anyecclesiastical ceremony, but to the devout prayers and praise of thefaithful souls within it--that thousands over Scotland and England, andothers in America, Australia, and New Zealand, look back to words whichthey had heard and praises and prayers in which they had joined as theholiest times in their lives. I thought of my good Mrs. Ludlow, andthanked God for her. When Mr. Cowan took me to the church in Essexplace where he and his friend Wren used to hear Mr. W. J. Fox, M. P. ForOldham, preach, a stranger, a young American, was there. I found outafterwards he was Moncure Conway, and he gave us a most strikingdiscourse. There was going on in Birmingham at this time a controversybetween the old Unitarians and the new. In the Church of the Messiahthe old ministers gave a series of sermons on the absolute truth of theNew Testament miracles. The Old Testament he was quite willing to giveup, but he pinned his faith on those wrought by Christ and Hisapostles. Some of the congregation told me they had never thought ofdoubting them before, but the more Mr. B. Defended them as the bulwarksof Christianity, the more they felt that our religion rested on otherfoundations. I saw a good deal of the industrial life of Birmingham, and had a sight of the Black Country by day and by night. JosephChamberlain was then a young man; I believe he was a Sunday schoolteacher. The Unitarian Sunday Schools taught writing and arithmetic aswell as reading. In the terrible lack of national day schools many ofthe poor had no teaching at all but what was given on Sundays, and notime on other days of the week to learn anything. I could not helpcontrasting the provision made by the parish schools of Scotland out ofthe beggarly funds or tithes given for church and schools out of thespoils of the Ancient Church by the Lords of the Congregation. Education was not free, but it was cheap, and it was general. Scotchmenmade their way all over the world better than Englishmen mainly becausethey were better educated. The Sunday school was not so much needed, and was much later in establishing itself in Scotland. Good Hannah Moretaught girls to read the Bible under a spreading tree in her gardenbecause no church would give her a place to teach in. "If girls weretaught to read where would we get servants?" It was an early cry. 

CHAPTER IX. 

MEETING WITH J. S. MILL AND GEORGE ELIOT. 

I leave to the last of my experiences in the old world in 1865-6 myinterviews with John Stuart Mill and George Eliot. Stuart Mill's wifewas the sister of Arthur and of Alfred Hardy, of Adelaide, and theformer had given to me a copy of the first edition of Mill's "PoliticalEconomy, " with the original dedication to Mrs. John Taylor, whoafterwards became Mill's wife, which did not appear in subsequenteditions; but, as he had two gift copies of the same edition, Mr. Hardysent it on to me with his almost illegible handwriting:--"To MissSpence from the author, not, indeed, directly, but in the confidencefelt by the presenter that in so doing he is fulfilling the wish of theauthor--viz. , circulating his opinions, more especially in suchquarters as the present, where they will be accurately considered andtested. " I had also seen the dedication to Harriet Mill's belovedmemory of the noble book on "Liberty. " Of her own individual work therewas only one specimen extant--an article on the "Enfranchisement ofwomen, " included in Mill's collected essays--very good, certainly, butnot so overpoweringly excellent as I expected. Of course, it was anearly advocacy of the rights of women, or rather a revival of MaryWollstoneeraft's grand vindication of the rights of the sex; and thiswas a reform which Mill himself took up more warmly than proportionalrepresentation, and advocated for years before Mr. Hare's revelation. For myself, I considered electoral reform on the Hare system of morevalue than the enfranchisement of women, and was not eager for thedoubling of the electors in number, especially as the new voters wouldprobably be more ignorant and more apathetic than the old. I wasaccounted a weak-kneed sister by those who worked primarily for womansuffrage, although I was as much convinced as they were that I wasentitled to a vote, and hoped that I might be able to exercise itbefore I was too feeble to hobble to the poll. I have unfortunatelylost the letter Mr. Mill wrote to me about my letters to The Register, and my "Plea for Pure Democracy, " but it gave him great pleasure to seethat a new idea both of the theory and practice of politics had beentaken up and expanded by a woman, and one from that Australian colony, of which he had watched and aided the beginnings, as is seen by thename of Mill terrace, North Adelaide, to-day. Indeed, both Hare andMill told me their first converts were women; and I felt that theabsolute disinterestedness of my "Plea, " which was not for myself, butonly that the men who were supposed to represent me at the pollingbooth should be equitably represented themselves, lent weight to myarguments. I have no axe to grind--no political party to serve; so thatit was not until the movement for the enfranchisement of women grew toostrong to be neglected that I took hold of it at all; and I do notclaim any credit for its success in South Australia and theCommonwealth, further than this--that by my writings and my spokenaddresses I showed that one woman had a steady grasp on politics and onsociology. In 1865, when I was in England, Mr. Mill was permanentlyresident at Avignon, where his wife died, but he had to come to Englandto canvass for a seat in Parliament for Westminster as an Independentmember, believed at that time to be an advanced Radical, but known tobe a philosopher, and an economist of the highest rank in Englishliterature. I had only one opportunity of seeing him personally, and Idid not get so much out of him as I expected--he was so eager to knowhow the colony and colonial people were developing. He asked me aboutproperty in land and taxation, and the relations between employers andemployes, and I was a little amused and a little alarmed when he saidhe was glad to get information from such a good authority. I had todisclaim such knowledge; but he said he knew I was observant andthoughtful, and what I had seen I had seen well. He was particularlyearnest about woman's suffrage, and Miss Taylor, his stepdaughter, saidshe thought he had made a mistake in asking for the vote for singlewomen only and widows with property and wives who had a separateestate; it would have been more logical to have asked for the vote onthe same terms as were extended to men. The great man saidmeekly--"Well, perhaps I have made a mistake, but I thought with aproperty qualification the beginning would awake less antagonism. " Hesaid to me that if I was not to return to London till January we werenot likely to meet again. He walked with me bareheaded to the gate, andit was farewell for both. 

Wise man as Mill was he did not foresee that his greatest object, theenfranchisement of women, would be carried at the antipodes long beforethere was victory either in England or America. When I received, in1869 from the publisher, Mr. Mill's last book, "The Subjection ofWomen, " I wrote thanking him for the gift. The reply was asfollows:--"Avignon, November 28, 1869--Dear Madam--Your letter ofAugust 16 has been sent to me here. The copy of my little book wasintended for you, and I had much pleasure in offering it. The movementagainst women's disabilities generally, and for the suffrage inparticular, has made great progress in England since you were lastthere. It is likely, I think, to be successful in the colonies laterthan in England, because the want of equality in social advantagesbetween women and men is less felt in the colonies owing, perhaps, towomen's having less need of other occupations than those of marriedlife--I am, dear Madam, yours very truly, J. S. Mill. " I have alwaysheld that, though the Pilgrim Fathers ignored the right of the PilgrimMothers to the credit of founding the American States--although thesewomen had to take their full share of the toils and hardships andperils of pioneer and frontier life, and had in addition to put up withthe Pilgrim Fathers themselves--Australian colonization was carried outby men who were conscious of the service of their helpmates, andgrateful for it. In New Zealand and South Australia, founded on theWakefield system, where the sexes were almost equal in number, and theimmigration was mainly that of families, the first great triumphs forthe political enfranchisement of women were won, and through SouthAustralia the women of the Commonwealth obtained the Federal vote forboth Houses: whereas even in the sparsely inhabited western states inthe United States which have obtained the State vote the Federal voteis withheld from them. But Mill died in 1873, 20 years before NewZealand or Colorado obtained woman's suffrage. 

In treating of my one interview with Mr. Mill I have carried thenarrative down to 1869. With regard to my single meeting with GeorgeEliot, I have to begin in 1865, and conclude even later. Before I leftEngland Mr. Williams, of Smith, Elder, & Co. , offered me anintroduction to George Henry Lewes, and I expressed the hope that itmight also include an introduction to George Eliot, whose works I soadmired. Mr. Lewes being away from home when I called, I requested thatthe introductory letter of Mr. Williams should be taken to George Eliotherself. She received me in the big Priory drawing room, with the grandpiano, where she held her receptions and musical evenings; but sheasked me if I had any business relating to the article which Mr. Williams had mentioned, and I had to confess that I had none. For onceI felt myself at fault. I did not get on with George Eliot. She saidshe was not well, and she did not look well. That strong pale face, where the features were those of Dante or Savanarola, did not soften asMill's had done. The voice, which was singularly musical andimpressive, touched me--I am more susceptible to voices than tofeatures or complexion--but no subject that I started seemed to fall inwith her ideas, and she started none in which I could follow her leadpleasantly. It was a short interview, and it was a failure. I felt Ihad been looked on as an inquisitive Australian desiring an interviewupon any pretext; and indeed, next day I had a letter from Mr. Williams, in which he told me that, but for the idea that I had somebusiness arrangement to speak of, she would not have seen me at all. SoI wrote to Mr. Williams that, as I had been received by mistake, Ishould never mention the interview; but that impertinent curiosity wasnot at all my motive in going that unlucky day to The Priory. 

Years passed by. I read everything, poetry and prose, that came fromGeorge Eliot's pen, and was so strong an admirer of her that Mr. W. L. Whitham, who took charge of the Unitarian Church while our pastor (Mr. Woods) had a long furlough in England, asked me to lecture on her worksto his Mutual Improvement Society, and I undertook the task with joy. Mr. H. G. Turner asked for the MS. To publish in the second number ofThe Melbourne Review, a very promising quarterly for politics andliterature. I thought that, if I sent the review to George Eliot with anote it might clear me from the suspicion of being a mere vulgarlionhunter. Her answer was as follows:--"The Priory, North Bank, Regent's Park, September 4, 1876. Dear Madam--Owing to an absence ofsome months, it was only the other day that I read your kind letter ofApril 17; and, although I have long been obliged to give up answeringthe majority of letters addressed to me, I felt much pleased that youhad given me an opportunity of answering one from you; for I havealways remembered your visit with a regretful feeling that I hadprobably caused you some pain by a rather unwise effort to give you areception which the state of my health at the moment made altogetherblundering and infelicitous. The mistake was all on my side, and youwere not in the least to blame. I also remember that your studies havebeen of a serious kind, such as were likely to render a judgment onfiction and poetry, or, as the Germans, with better classification, say, in 'DICHTUNG' in general, quite other than the superficialhaphazard remarks of which reviews are generally made. You will all thebetter understand that I have made it a rule not to read writing aboutmyself. I am exceptionally sensitive and liable to discouragement; andto read much remark about my doings would have as depressing an effecton me as staring in a mirror--perhaps, I may say, of defective glass. But my husband looks at all the numerous articles that are forwarded tome, and kindly keeps them out of my way--only on rare occasions readingto me a passage which he thinks will comfort me by its evidence ofunusual insight or sympathy. Yesterday he read your article in TheMelbourne Review, and said at the end--'This is an excellently writtenarticle, which would do credit to any English periodical' adding thevery uncommon testimony, 'I shall keep this. ' Then he told me of somepassages in it which gratified me by that comprehension of mymeaning--that laying of the finger on the right spot--which is moreprecious than praise, and forthwith he went to lay The Melbourne Reviewin the drawer he assigns to any writing about me that gives himpleasure. For he feels on my behalf more than I feel on my own, atleast in matters of this kind. If you come to England again when Ihappen to be in town I hope that you will give me the pleasure ofseeing you under happier auspices than those of your former visit. --Iam, dear madam, yours sincerely, M. G. Lewes. " The receipt of this kindand candid letter gave me much pleasure; and, although on the strengthof that, I cannot boast of being a correspendent of that great woman, Iwas able to say that I had seen and talked with her, and that sheconsidered me a competent critic of her work. Mrs. Oliphant says thatGeorge Eliot's life impelled her to make an involuntaryconfession--"How have I been handicapped in life? Should I have donebetter if I had been kept, like her, in a mental green-house and takencare of? I have always had to think of other people and to planeverything for my own pleasure, it is true, very often, but always insubjection to the necessity which bound me to them. To bring up theboys--my own and Frank's--for the service of God was better than towrite a fine novel, if it had been in my power to do so. " The heartknows its own bitterness. There might have been some points in whichGeorge Eliot might have envied Mrs. Oliphant. 

CHAPTER X. 

RETURN FROM THE OLD COUNTRY. 

Before leaving Scotland I arranged that my friend, Mrs. Graham of thestrenuous life and 30 pounds a year, should undertake the care of myaunts, to their mutual satisfaction. My last days in England were spentin either a thick London fog or an equally undesirable Scotch mist, which shrouded everything in obscurity, and made me long for the sunnyskies and the clear atmosphere of Australia. I told my friends that inmy country it either rained or let it alone. Indeed, the latest newsfrom all Australia was that it had let it alone very badly, and thatthe overstocking of stations during the preceding good seasons had ledto enormous losses. Sheepfarmers made such large profits in goodseasons that they were apt to calculate that it was worth while to runthe risk of drought; but experience has shown that overstocking doesnot really pay. The making of dams, the private and public provision ofwater in the underground reservoirs by artesian bores, and thefacilities for travelling stock by such ways have all lessened therisks which the pioneer pastoralists ran bravely in the old days. AnAustralian drought can never be as disastrous in the twentieth centuryas it was in 1866; and South Australia, the Central State, has from thefirst been a pioneer in development as well as in exploration. The humof the reaping machine first awoke the echoes in our wheatfields. Thestump-jumping plough and the mullenicer which beats down the scrub orlow bush so that it can be burnt, were South Australian inventions, copied elsewhere, which have turned land accounted worthless intoprolific wheat fields. 

If South Australia was the first of the States to exhaust heragricultural soil, she was the first to restore it by means offertilizers and the seed drill. When I see the drilled wheat fields Irecollect my grandfather's two silver salvers--the Prizes from theHighland Society for having the largest area of drilled wheat inScotland--and when I see the grand crops on the Adelaide Plains Irecall the opinion that, with anything like a decent rainfall, thatsoil could grow anything. In 1866 the northern areas had not beenopened. The farmers were continuing the process of exhausting the landby growing wheat--wheat--wheat, with the only variety wheaten hay. Irecollect James Burnet's amazement when I said that our horses were fedon wheaten hay. "What a waste of the great possibilities of a grainharvest!" He was doubtful when I said that with plenty of wheaten haythe horses needed no corn. South Australia, except about Mount Gambier, does not grow oats, though Victoria depends on oaten hay. The Britishagriculturist thinks that meadow hay is the natural forage for horsesand cattle, and for winter turnips are the standby. It was a littleamusing to me that I could speak with some authority to skilled andexperienced agriculturists, who felt our rivalry at Mark lane, but whodid not dream that with the third great move of Australia towards themarkets of the world through cold storage we could send beef, mutton, lamb, poultry, eggs, and all kinds of fruit to the consumers of Europe, and especially of England and its metropolis. I did not see it, anymore than the people to whom I talked. I still thought that for meatand all perishable commodities the distance was an insuperableobstacle, and that, except for live stock from America, or canned meatfrom Australia, the United Kingdom would continue self-supporting onthese lines. 

I returned to Australia, when this island continent was in the grip ofone of the most severe and protracted droughts in its history. The warbetween Prussia and Austria had begun and ended; the failure of Overendand Gurney and others brought commercial disaster; and my brother, withother bankers, had anxious days and sleepless nights. Some rich menbecame richer; many poor men went down altogether. Our recovery wasslow but sure. In the meantime I found life at home very dull after myinteresting experiences abroad. There was nothing to do forproportional representation except to write an occasional letter to thepress. So I started another novel, which was published serially in TheObserver. Mr. George Bentley, who published it subsequently in bookform, changed its title from "Hugh Lindsay's Guest" to "The Author'sDaughter. " But my development as a public speaker was more importantthan the publication of a fourth novel. Much had been written on thesubject of public speaking by men, but so far nothing concerning thecapacities of women in that direction. And yet I think all teacherswill agree that girls in the aggregate excel boys in their powers ofexpression, whether in writing, or in speech, though boys may surpassthem in such studies as arithmetic and mathematics. Yet law and customhave put a bridle on the tongue of women, and of the innumerableproverbs relating to the sex, the most cynical are those relating toher use of language. Her only qualification for public speaking in olddays was that she could scold, and our ancestors imposed a salutarycheek on this by the ducking stool in public, and sticks no thickerthan the thumb for marital correction in private. The writer of theProverbs alludes to the perpetual dropping of a woman's tongue as anintolerable nuisance, and declares that it is better to live on thehousetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house. A later writer, describing the virtuous woman, said that on her lips is the law ofkindness, and after all this is the real feminine characteristic. Asdaughter, sister, wife, and mother--what does not the world owe to thegracious words, the loving counsel, the ready sympathy which sheexpresses? Until recent years, however, these feminine Rifts have beenstrictly kept for home consumption, and only exercised for the woman'sfamily and a limited circle of friends. In 1825, when I first opened myeyes on the world, there were indeed women who displayed an interest inpublic affairs. My own mother not only felt the keenest solicituderegarding the passing of the Reform Bill, but she took up her pen, andwith two letters to the local press, under the signature of "GrizelPlowter, " showed the advantages of the proposed measure. But publicspeaking was absolutely out of the question for women, and though I wasthe most ambitious of girls, my desire was to write a great book--notat all to sway an audience. When I returned from my first visit toEngland in 1866, I was asked by the committee of the South AustralianInstitute to write a lecture on my impressions of England, differentfrom the article which had appeared in The Cornhill Magazine under thattitle, but neither the committee nor myself thought of the possibilityof my delivering it. My good friend, the late Mr. John Howard Clark, Editor of The Register, kindly offered to read it. I did not go to hearit, but I was told that he had difficulty in reading my manuscript, andthat, though he was a beautiful reader, it was not very satisfactory. So I mentally resolved that if I was again asked I should offer to readmy own MS. Five years afterwards I was asked for two literary lecturesby the same committee, and I chose as my subjects the works ofElizabeth Browning and those of her husband, Robert Browning. Now, Iconsider that the main thing for a lecturer is to be heard, and arising young lawyer (now our Chief Justice) kindly offered to take theback seat, and promised to raise his hand if he could not hear. It wasnot raised once, so I felt satisfied. I began by saying that Iundertook the work for two reasons--first, to make my audience morefamiliar with the writings of two poets very dear to me; and second, tomake easier henceforward for any woman who felt she had something tosay to stand up and say it. I felt very nervous, and as if my kneeswere giving way; but I did not show any nervousness. I read thelecture, but most of the quotations I recited from memory. Not havinghad any lessons in elocution, I trusted to my natural voice, and feltthat in this new role the less gesticulation I used the better. Whetherthe advice of Demosthenes is rightly translated or not--firstrequisite, action; second, action; third, action--I am sure thatEnglish word does not express the requisite for women. I should rathercall it earnestness--a conviction that what you say is worth saying, and worth saying to the audience before you. I had a lesson on thedanger of overaction from hearing a gentleman recite in public "Thedream of Eugene Aram, " in which he went through all the movements ofkilling and burying the murdered man. When a tale is crystallized intoa poem it does not require the action of a drama. However little actionI may use I never speak in public with gloves on. They interfere withthe natural eloquence of the hand. After these lectures I occasionallywas asked to give others on literary subjects. 

At this time I began to study Latin with my nephew, a boy of 14. He wasthen an orphan, my youngest and beloved sister Mary having recentlydied and left her two children to my care. My teacher thought me themore apt pupil, but it was really due more to my command of Englishthan to my knowledge of Latin that I was able to get at the meaning ofVirgil and Horace. When it came to Latin composition I was no betterthan the boy of 14. Before the death of my sister the family investedin land in Trinity street, College Town, and built a house. Mother hadplanned the house she moved into when I was six months old, and shedelighted in the task, though she said it seemed absurd to build ahouse in her seventy-ninth year. But she lived in it from January, 1870, till December, 1887, and her youngest daughter lived in it foronly ten months. Before that time I had embarked with my friend, MissClark, on one of the greatest enterprises of my life--one which led toso much that my friends are apt to say that, if I am recollected atall, it will be in connection with the children of the State and notwith electoral reform. But I maintain now, as I maintained then, thatthe main object of my life is proportional representation, or, to usemy brother John's term, effective voting. 

CHAPTER XI

WARDS OF THE STATE. 

In a little book which the State Children's Council requested me towrite as a memorial of the great work of Miss C. E. Clark on herretirement at the age of 80, I have given an account of the movementfrom the beginning down to 1907, which had its origin in SouthAustralia under the leadership of Miss Clark. When I was on my way cutfrom England, Miss Clark wrote a letter to The Register, suggestingthat the destitute, neglected, or orphaned children should be removedfrom the Destitute Asylum and placed in natural homes with respectablepeople; but the great wave which came over England about that time forbuilding industrial schools and reformatories affected South Australiaalso, and the idea was that, though the children should be removed fromthe older inmates, it should be to an institution. Land was bought andplans were drawn up for an industrial school at Magill, five miles fromAdelaide, when Miss Clark came to me and asked me to help her to take adifferent course. She enlisted Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Colton and Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Davenport in the cause, and we arranged for adeputation to the Minister; Howard Clark, Neville Blyth, and Mr. C. B. Young joined us. We offered to find country homes and provide ladyvisitors, but our request was simply scouted. As we did not offer tobear any of the cost it would be absurd to give us any share in theadministration. Children would only be given homes for the sake of themoney paid, and Oliver Twist's was held up as the sort ofapprenticeship likely to be secured for pauper children. So we had toplay the waiting game. The school built to accommodate 230 children wason four floors, though there was 40 acres of good land. It was sopopular that, though only 130 went in at first, in two years it was sofull that there was talk of adding a wing. This was our opportunity, and the same men and women went on another deputation, and this time weprevailed, and were allowed to place out the overflow as an experiment;and not only the Boarding-out Committee, but the official heads of theDestitute Department, were surprised and delighted with the good homeswe secured for 5/ a week, and with the improvement in health, inintelligence, and in happiness that resulted from putting children intonatural homes. What distinguishes work for children in Australia fromwhat is done elsewhere is that it is national, and not philanthropic. The State is in loco-parentis, and sees that what the child needs are ahome and a mother--that, if the home and the mother are good, the childshall be kept there; but that vigilant inspection is needed, voluntaryor official--better to have both. Gradually the Magill School wasemptied, and the children were scattered. Up to the age of 13 the homewas subsidized, but when by the education law the child was free fromschool attendance, and went to service, the supervision continued untilthe age of 18 was reached. For nearly 14 years, from 1872 to 1886, theBoarding-out Society pursued its modest labours as auxiliary to theDestitute Board. Our volunteer visitors reported in duplicate--one copyfor the official board, and one for the unofficial committee. When themethod was inaugurated, Mr. T. S. Reed. Chairman of the Board, wascompletely won over. We had nothing to do with the reformatories, except that our visitors went to see those placed out at service intheir neighbourhood. 

Our success attracted attention elsewhere. The late Dr. Andrew Garran, who was on The Register when I went to England, had moved to Sydney inmy absence, and was on the staff of The Sydney Morning Herald. WhenMiss Clark went to England in 1877, after her mother`s death, Dr. Garran wrote to me for some account of our methods, and of theirsuccess, physical, moral, and financial. Dr. Garran came out with Mr. G. F. Angas and the Australian Constitution in 1851 in search of healthand work, both of which he found here. The first pages of my fourvolumes of newspaper cuttings are filled with two long articles, "TheChildren of the State, " and this started the movement in New SouthWales, led by Mrs. Garran, nee Sabine, and Mrs. Jefferis wife of theleading Congregational minister, moved from Adelaide to Sydney. Professor Henry Pearson asked me a year or two later to give similarinformation to The Melbourne Age. Subsequently I wrote on this subject, by request, to Queensland, New Zealand, and I think also Tasmania, where we were imitated first, but where there are still to be foundchildren of the State in institutions. In Victoria and New South Walesa vigorous policy emptied these buildings, which were used for otherpublic purposes, and the children were dispersed. The innovation whichat first was scouted as utopian, next suspected as leading to neglect, or even unkindness--for people would only take these children for whatthey could make out of them--was found to be so beneficial that nobodyin Australia would like to return to the barrack home or the barrackschool. If the inspection had been from the first merely official, public opinion would have been suspicious and sceptical, but whenladies saw the children in these homes, and watched how the dull facesbrightened, and the languid limbs became alert after a few weeks ofordinary life--when the cheeks became rosier, and the eyes had newlight in them; when they saw that the foster parents took pride intheir progress at school, and made them handy about the house, as theycould never be at an institution, where everything is done at the soundof a bell or the stroke of a clock--these ladies testified to what theyknew, and the public believed in them. In other English-speakingcountries boarding-out in families is sometimes permitted; but here, under the Southern Cross, it is the law of the land that children shallnot be brought up in institutions, but in homes: that the child whoseparent is the State shall have as good schooling as the child who hasparents and guardians; that every child shall have, not the disciplineof routine and redtape, but free and cheerful environment of ordinarylife, preferably in the country--going to school with other youngfellow citizens, going to church with the family in which he is placed, having the ordinary ditties, the ordinary difficulties, the ordinarypleasures of common life; but guarded from injustice, neglect, andcruelty by effective and kindly supervision. This movement, originatedin South Australia, and with all its far-reaching developments andexpansions, is due to the initiative of one woman of whom the State isjustly proud--Miss Caroline Emily Clark. 

Even while we were only a Boarding-out Committee, it was foundnecessary to have one paid inspector; but there was greatdissatisfaction with the Boys' Reformatory which had been located in anold leaky hulk, where the boys could learn neither seamanship noranything else--and with some other details of the management of thedestitute poor, and a commission with the Chief Justice as Chairman, was appointed to make enquiries and suggest reforms. The result was theseparation of the young from the old absolutely; and a new body, theState Children's Council, of 12 men and women of nearly equalproportions, had authority over the reformatories, as well as what wascalled the industrial school, which was to be reduced to a merereceiving home, and all the children placed out, either on subsidy orat service. Most of the old committee were appointed; but, to my greatjoy, Dr. Edward C. Stirling and Mr. James Smith, the most enlightenedman on the Destitute Board, were among the new members. We had a paidstall, with a most able secretary--Mr. J. B. Whiting. 

Dr. Stirling was unanimously voted in as President, and we felt webegan our new duties under the most promising auspices. But, alas, intwo years there was so much friction between the council and theMinistry that we all resigned in a body, except Mrs. Colton (who was inEngland) and Mrs. Farr. We were fighting the battle of the unpaidboards, and we were so strong in the public estimation that we mighthave won the victory. The Government had relieved children on thepetition of parents, contrary to the strong recommendation of thecouncil. Although the commission had declared that the reformatory boysshould be removed at once from the hulk Fitzjames, they were still keptthere, and the only offer of accommodation given was to share theMagill Industrial School with the reformatory girls. Now, this thecouncil would not hear of, for we felt that the Government plans forseparate entrances and separate staircases were absolutely futile andridiculous for keeping apart these two dangerous classes in a singlebuilding. The Government gave way on the point of providing a separatebuilding for the reformatory girls; and the committee, with theexception of Dr. Stirling and Mr. James Smith--our two strongestmembers--were reappointed. The official staff was increased by theappointment of clerks and inspectors, many of them women, who havealways given every satisfaction, and who justify the claim made thatwomen's work is conscientious and thorough. 

More departments were gradually added to our sphere of action. Theseparate trial of juvenile delinquents was strongly advocated by thecouncil. Miss Clark and Mr. C. H. Goode were particularly keen on theintroduction of Children's Courts. In this reform South Australia ledthe world, and in the new Act of 1896, after six years of tentativework, it became compulsory to try offenders under 18 at the Children'sCourt in the city and suburbs, and in the Magistrate's room in thecountry. The methods of organization and control vary in the differentStates of the Commonwealth, but on one point the six are allagreed--that dependent and delinquent children are a national asset anda national responsibility, and any forward step anywhere has everychance of being copied. The result of Children's Courts and probationhas been that, while the population of the State has greatly increased, the committals to the Gaol and for penal servitude have steadilydecreased, and the Boys' Reformatory has been reduced to one-third ofthe number in earlier days. There are, of course, many factors in alldirections of social betterment, but the substitution of homes forinstitutions, and of probation carefully watched for summarypunishment, are, in my opinion, the largest factors in, this State. Theaffection between children and their foster parents is often lifelong;and we see thousands who were taken from bad parents and evilenvironments taking their place in the industrial world, and filling itwell. The movement in South Australia initiated by Miss Clark spreadfrom State to State, and the happy thought of the President andSecretary of the Council that I should write an account of"Boarding-out and its Developments" as a memorial of her great workbore fruit in the legislation of the United Kingdom itself. A letter Ireceived from Mr. Herbert Samuel, then Under-Secretary of State in theBritish Government, was gratifying, both to the council and tome:--"Home Office, Whitehall, S. W. , August 5, 1907. Dear Madam--I havejust read your little book on 'State Children in Australia;' and, although a stranger to you, would venture to write to thank you for thevery valuable contribution you have made to the literature on thesubject. The present Government in England are already engaged inpromoting the more kindly and more effective methods of dealing withdestitute, neglected, or delinquent children, which are already sowidely adopted in South Australia. We are passing through Parliamentthis year a Bill to enable a system of probation officers, both paidand voluntary, to be established throughout the country, for dealingnot indeed with child offenders alone, but with adult offenders also, who may be properly amenable to that treatment. And next year wepropose to introduce a comprehensive Children's Bill, which has beenentrusted to my charge, in which we hope to be able to include some ofthe reforms you have at heart. In the preparation of that Bill theexperience of your colony and the account of it which you havepublished will be of no small assistance. Yours sincerely, HerbertSamuel. "

Another department of our work for the protection of infant life, andthis we took over from the Destitute Board, where some uniqueprovisions had been initiated by Mr. James Smith. The Destitute Asylumwas the last refuge of the old and incapacitated poor, but it neveropened its doors to the able bodied. In the Union Workhouse in Englandroom is always found for friendless and penniless to come there forconfinement, who leave as soon as they are physically strong enough totake their burden--their little baby--in their arms and face the worldagain. In Adelaide these women were in 1868 divided into two classes, one for girls who had made their first slip--girls weak, but veryrarely wicked--so as to separate them, from women who came for a secondor third time, who were cared for with their infants in the generalasylum. Mr. James Smith obtained in 1881 legislation to empower theDestitute Board to make every woman sign an agreement to remain withher infant, giving it the natural nourishment, for six months. This hassaved many infant lives, and has encouraged maternal affection. TheDestitute Board kept in its hands the issuing of licences, andappointed a lady to visit the babies till they were two years old, anddid good work; but when that department was properly turned over to theState Children's Council there was even more vigilance exercised, andthe death rate among these babies, often handicapped before birth, andalways artificially fed after, was reduced to something less than theaverage of all babies. We have been fortunate in our chief inspectressof babies. Her character has uplifted the licensed foster mothers, andthe two combined have raised the real mothers. It is surprising how fewsuch babies are thrown on the State. The department does not pay anyboard or find any clothing for these infants. It, however, pays forsupervision and pays for a lady doctor, so that there need be no excusefor not calling in medical assistance if it is felt to be needed. Occasionally a visitor from other States or from England is allowed asa great favour to see, not picked cases, but the ordinary run, of thehomes of foster mothers, and the question, "Where and how do you getsuch women?" is asked. We have weeded out the inferiors, and ourinstructions with regard to feeding and care are so definite, and foundto be so sound, that the women take a pride in the health and thebeauty of the little ones; and besides they keep up the love of thereal mother by the care they give them. A recent Act has raised the ageof supervision of illegitimate babies from two to seven years, and thishas necessitated the appointment of an additional inspectress. In SouthAustralia baby farming has been extinguished, and in the other Stateslegislation on similar lines has been won, and they are in process ofgradually weeding out bad and doubtful foster mothers. And the fosterfathers are often as fond of the babies as their wives--and assofthearted. "Did you see that the poor girl had on broken boots thisweather?" said he. "Yes, it's a Pity; but we are poor folksourselves--we can't help it, " said she. "Let her off the 6/ for afortnight, so as she can get a pair of sound boots for her feet, we'llworry through without it. " And they did. The extreme solicitude of theState Children's Department, as carried out by its zealous officers, for the life and the wellbeing of their babies serves them in Publicextenuation, and the children are often so pretty and engaging thatthey win love all round. A grown-up son in the home was very fond oflittle Lily. "Mother will you get Lily a cream coat, such as I seeother babies wearing, and I will pay for it. "

A most pathetic story I can tell of a girl respectably connected in thecountry, who had been cast off in disgrace, and came to town to take aplace, committing her infant to a good foster mother. When he was oldenough to move about, and was just trying to walk, the mother was takendangerously ill to the Adelaide Hospital. The foster mother thought thegirl's father should be sent for, and wrote to him giving her ownaddress, but not disclosing her connection with the patient. The fatherof the girl came, and was told that he had better be accompanied by hisinformant, who could prepare the sick woman for the interview. Thelittle boy was running about, and the old man took him on his kneewhile the woman got ready to go out. "You must come with us, Sonny, "said she. "I can't leave you alone in the house. " "A very fine littlechap. Your youngest, I suppose. I can see he is a great pet. " "No, "said the woman slowly, "he is not my son, he is your grandson. " "GoodGod, my grandson, " Then, clasping the little fellow to his heart, hesaid, "I'll never part with him!" The mother recovered, and was takenhome with her child and forgiven. Such is often the work of the goodfoster mother. In all the successes of the irresponsible committee andof the responsible State Children's Council the greatest factor hasbeen the character of the good women who have been mothers to thelittle ones. The fears that only self-interest could induce them totake on the neglected and uncontrollable children were not borne out byexperience, and in the ease of these babies not really illegitimate--itis the parents who deserve that title, no infant can--the mother'sinstinct came out very strong. At a conference of workers amongdependent children, held in Adelaide in May, 1909, when all six Stateswere represented, a Western Australian representative said that theaverage family home was not so good for its natural circle that itcould be depended on for strangers; but our answer was that, both forthe children of the State and for the babies who were not Statechildren, we insisted on something better than the average home, andthrough our inspection we sought to improve it still further. We havenot reached perfection by any means. When we begin to think we have, weare sure to fall back. Another good office the State Children'sDepartment fills is that of advice gratis. One of the most strikingchapters in Gen. Booth's "Darkest England" dealt with the helplessnessof the poor and the ignorant in the face of difficulties, of injustice, and of extortion. When I was in Chicago in 1893 I saw that the firstuniversity settlement, that of Hull House, presided over by Miss JaneAddams (St. Jane some of her friends call her) was the centre to iswhich the poor American, German, Italian, or other alien went foradvice as well as practical help. A word in season was often of morevalue than dollars. To be told what to do or what not to do at a crisiswhen decision is so important may be salvation for the pocket or forthe character. 

CHAPTER XII. 

PREACHING, FRIENDS, AND WRITING. 

My life now became more interesting and varied. A wider field for myjournalistic capabilities was open to me, and I also took part in thegrowth of education, both spiritual and secular. The main promoters ofthe ambitious literary periodical The Melbourne Review, to which Ibecame a contributor, were Mr. Henry Gyles Turner (the banker), Mr. Alexander Sutherland, M. A. (author of "The History of Australia" andseveral other books), and A. Patchett Martin (the litterateur). Itlived for nine years, and produced a good deal of creditable writing, but it never was able to pay its contributors, because it neverattained such a circulation as would attract advertisements. Thereviews and magazines of the present day depend on advertisements. Theycheapen the price so as to gain a circulation, which advertisers caterfor. I think my second article was on the death of Sir Richard Hanson(one of the original South Australian Literary Society, which met inLondon before South Australia existed). At the time of his death he wasChief Justice. He was the author of two books of Biblicalcriticism--"The Jesus of History" and "Paul and the PrimitiveChurch"--and I undertook to deal with his life and work. About thattime there was one of those periodic outbursts of Imperialism in theAustralian colonies--not popular or general, but among politicians--onthe question of how the colonies could obtain practical recognition inthe Legislature of the United Kingdom. Each of the colonies felt thatDowning street inadequately represented its claims and its aspirations, and there were several articles in "The Melbourne Review" suggestingthat these colonies should be allowed to send members to the House ofCommons. This, I felt, would be inadmissible; for, unless we wereprepared to bear our share of the burdens, we had no right to sit inthe taxing Assembly of the United Kingdom. The only House in which thecolonies, small or great, could be represented was the House of Lords;and it appeared to me that, with a reformed House of Lords, this wouldbe quite practicable. An article in Fraser's Magazine, "Why not theLords, too?" had struck me much, and the lines on which it ran greatlyresemble those laid down by Lord Rosebery for lessening in number andimproving in character the unwieldy hereditary House of Peers; butneither that writer nor Lord Rosebery grasped the idea that I madeprominent in an article I wrote for The Review, which was that thereduction of the peers to 200, or any other number ought to be made onthe principle of proportional representation, because otherwise themajority of the peers, being Conservative, an election on ordinarylines would result in a selection of the most extreme Conservatives inthe body. My mother had pointed out to me that the 16 representativeScottish peers elected by those who have not a seat as British peers, for the duration of each Parliament, were the most Tory of the Tories, and that the same could be said of the 28 representative peers forIreland elected for life. So, though the House of Lords contains arespectable minority of Liberals, under no system of exclusivelymajority representation could any of them be chosen among the 200. Ihad the same idea of life peers to be added from the ranks of theprofessions, of science, and of literature, unburdened by the weightand cost of an hereditary title, that Lord Rosebery has; and into sucha body I thought that representatives of the great self-governingcolonies could enter, so that information about our resources, ourpolitics, and our sociology might be available, and might permeate thepress. But, greatly to my surprise, my article was sent back, but wasafterwards accepted by Fraser's Magazine. This was better for me, forwhat would have been published for nothing in The Melbourne Reviewbrought me 8/15/0 from a good English magazine. I continued to writefor this review, until it ceased to exist, in 1885, literary andpolitical articles. The former included a second one on "George Eliot'sLife and Work, " and one on "Honore de Balzac, " which many of my friendsthought my best literary effort. 

It was through Miss Martha Turner that I was introduced to her brotherand to The Melbourne Review. She was at that time pastor of theUnitarian Church in Melbourne. She had during the long illness of theRev. Mr. Higginson helped her brother with the services. At first shewrote sermons for him to deliver, but on some occasions when he wasindisposed she read her own compositions. Fine reader as Mr. H. G. Turner is he did not come up to her, and especially he could not equalher in the presentment of her own thoughts. The congregation on thedeath of Mr. Higginson asked Miss Turner to accept the pastorate. Shesaid she could conduct the services, but she absolutely declined to dothe pastoral duties--visiting especially. She was licensed to conductmarriage services and baptized (or, as we call it, consecrated)children to the service of Almighty God and to the service of man. During the absence of our pastor for a long holiday in England Mr. C. L. Whitham afterwards an education inspector, took his place for twoyears, and he arranged for an exchange of three weeks with Miss Turner. She is the first woman I ever heard in the pulpit. I was thrilled byher exquisite voice, by her earnestness, and by her reverence. I feltas I had never felt before that if women are excluded from theChristian pulpit you shut out more than half of the devoutness that isin the world. Reading George Eliot's description of Dinah Morrispreaching Methodisim on the green at Hayslope had prepared me in ameasure, but when I heard a highly educated and exceptionally ablewoman conducting the services all through, and especially reading theScriptures of the Old and New Testaments with so much intelligence thatthey seemed to take on new meaning, I felt how much the world had beenlosing for so many centuries. She twice exchanged with Adelaide--thesecond time when Mr. Woods had returned--and it was the beginning to meof a close friendship. 

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest flattery; and when a similaropportunity was offered to me during an illness of Mr. Woods, when nolayman was available, I was first asked to read a sermon of Martineau'sand then I suggested that I might give something of my own. My firstoriginal sermon was on "Enoch and Columbus, " and my second on "Content, discontent, and uncontent. " I suppose I have preached more than ahundred times, in my life, mostly in the Wakefield Street pulpit; butin Melbourne and Sydney I am always asked for help; and when I went toAmerica in 1893-4 I was offered seven pulpits--one in Toronto, Canada, and six in the United States. The preparation of my sermons--for, afterthe first one I delivered, they were always original--has always been ajoy and delight to me, for I prefer that my subjects as well as theirtreatment shall be as humanly helpful as it is possible to make them. In Sydney particularly I have preached to fine audiences. On oneoccasion I remember preaching in a large hall, as the Unitarian Churchcould not have held the congregation. It was during the campaign thatMrs. Young and I conducted in Sydney--in 1900, and we had spent theday--a delightful one--with the present Sir George and Lady Reid attheir beautiful home at Strathfield, and returned in time to take theevening service at Sydney. I spoke on the advantages of internationalpeace, and illustrated my discourse with arguments, drawn from theSouth African War, which was then in progress. I seized the opportunityafforded me of speaking some plain home truths on the matter. I wasafterwards referred to by The Sydney Bulletin as "the gallant littleold lady who had more moral courage in her little finger than all theSydney ministers had in their combined anatomies. " For one of mysermons I wrote an original parable which pleased my friends so muchthat I include it in the account of my life's work. "And it came topass after the five days of Creation which were periods of unknownlength of time that God took the soul, the naked soul, with which Hewas to endow the highest of his creatures--into Eden to look with himon the work which He had accomplished. And the Soul could see, couldhear, could understand, though there were neither eyes, nor ears, norlimbs, nor bodily organs, to do its bidding. And God said, 'Soul, thoushalt have a body as these creatures, that thou seest around thee have. Thou art to be king, and rule over them all. Thy mission is to subduethe earth, and make it fruitful and more beautiful than it is even now, in thus its dawn. Which of all these living creatures wouldst thouresemble?' And the Soul looked, and the Soul listened, and the Soulunderstood. The beauty of the birds first attracted him and their songswere sweet, and their loving care of their young called forth aresponse in the Prophetic Soul. But the sweet singers could not subduethe earth--nay, even the strongest voice could not. Then the Soul gazedon the lion in his strength; on the deer in his beauty. He saw thelarge-eyed bull with the cow by his side, licking her calf. The statelyhorse, the huge elephant, the ungainly camel--could any of these subduethe earth? He looked down, and they made it shake with their heavytread, but the Soul knew that the earth could not be subdued by them. Then he saw a pair of monkeys climbing a tree--the female had a littleone in her arms. Where the bird had wings, and the beasts four legsplanted on the ground, the monkeys had arms, and, at the end of each, hands, with five fingers; they gathered nuts and cracked them, andpicked out the kernels, throwing the shells away--the mother caressedher young one with gentle fingers. The Soul saw also the larger apewith its almost upright form. 'Ah!' sighed the Soul, 'they are notbeautiful like the other creatures, neither are they so strong as manyof them. But their forelimbs, with hands and fingers to grasp with, arewhat I need to subdue the earth, for they will be the servants who canbest obey my will. Let me stand upright and gaze upward, and this isthe body that I choose. ' And God said, 'Soul, thou hast chosen well, Thou shalt be larger and stronger than these creatures thou seest thoushalt stand upright, and look upward and onward. And the Soul cancreate beauty for itself, when it shines through the body. ' And it wasso, and Adam stood erect and gave names to all other creatures. "

In the seventies the old education system, or want of system, wasbroken up, and a complete department of public instruction wasconstructed. Mr. J. A. Hartley, head master of Prince Alfred College, was placed at the head of it, and a vigorous policy was adopted. Whenthe Misses Davenport Hill came out to visit aunt and cousins, I visitedwith them and Miss Clark the Grote Street Model School, and I wasdelighted with the new administration. I hoped that the instruction ofthe children of the people would attract the poor gentlewomen who wereso badly paid as governesses in families or in schools; but my hope hasnot been at all adequately fulfilled. The Register had been mostearnest in its desire for a better system of public education. The lateMr. John Howard Clark, its then editor, wanted some articles on theeducation of girls, and he applied to me to do them, and I wrote twoleading articles on the subject, and another on the "Ladder ofLearning. " from the elementary school to the university, as exemplifiedin my native country where ambitious lads cultivated literature on alittle oatmeal. For an Adelaide University was in the air, and tookform owing to the benefactions of Capt. (afterwards Sir Walter Watson)Hughes, and Mr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Elder. But the opposition toMr. Hartley, which set in soon after his appointment, and his supposeddrastic methods and autocratic attitude, continued. I did not knew Mr. Hartley personally, but I knew he had been an admirable head teacher, and the most valuable member of the Education Board which preceded therevolution. I knew, too, that the old school teachers were far inferiorto what were needed for the new work, and that you cannot make anomelette without breaking eggs. A letter which I wrote to Mr. Hartley, saying that I desired to help him in any way in my power, led to afriendship which lasted till his lamented death in 1896. I fancied atthe time that my aid did him good, but I think now that the oppositionhad spent its force before I put in my oar by some letters to thepress. South Australians became afterwards appreciative of the workdone by Mr. Hartley, and proud of the good position this State took inmatters educational among the sister States under the Southern Cross. 

It was due to Mrs. Webster's second visit to Adelaide to exchange withMr. Woods that I made the acquaintance of Mr. And Mrs. E. Barr Smith. They went to the church and were shown into my seat, and Mrs. Smithasked me to bring the eloquent preacher to Torrens Park to dine there. I discovered that they had long wanted to know me, but I was out ofsociety. I recollect afterwards going to the office to see Mr. Smith onsome business or other, when he was out, and meeting Mr. Elder instead. He pressed on me the duty of going to see Mrs. Black, a lady fromEdinburgh, who had come out with her sons and daughter. Mr. Barr Smithcame in, and his brother-in-law said, "I have just been telling MissSpence she should go and call on the Blacks. " "Tom, " said Mr. BarrSmith, "we have been just 20 years making the acquaintance of MissSpence. About the year 1899 Miss Spence will be dropping in on theBlacks. " What a house Torrens Park was for books. There was no othercustomer of the book shops equal to the Torrens Park family. Rich menand women often buy books for themselves, and for rare old books theywill give big prices; but the Barr Smiths bought books in sixes and indozens for the joy of giving them where they would be appreciated. Onmy literary side Mrs. Barr Smith, a keen critic herself, fitted in withme admirably, and what I owed to her in the way of books for about 10years cannot be put on paper, and in my journalistic work shedelighted. Other friendships, both literary and personal, were formedin the decade which started the elementary schools and the University. The first Hughes professor of English literature was the Rev. JohnDavidson of Chalmers Church, married to Harriet, daughter of HughMiller, the self-taught ecologist and journalist. 

On the day of the inauguration of the University the Davidsons askedMiss Clark and myself to go with them, and there I met Miss CatherineMackay (now Mrs. Fred Martin), from Mount Gambier. I at first thoughther the daughter of a wealthy squatter of the south-east, but when Ifound she was a litterateur trying to make a living by her pen, bringing out a serial tale, "Bohemian Born, " and writing occasionalarticles, I drew to her at once. So long as the serial tale lasted shecould hold her own; but no one can make a living at occasional articlesin Australia, and she became a clerk in the Education Office, but stillcultivated literature in her leisure hours. She has published twonovels--"An Australian Girl" and "The Silent Sea"--which so good ajudge as F. W. H. Myers pronounced to be on the highest level everreached in Australian fiction, and in that opinion I heartily concur. Itake a very humble second place beside her, but in the seventies Iwrote "Gathered In, " which I believed to be my best novel--the novelinto which I put the most of myself, the only novel I wrote with tearsof emotion. Mrs. Oliphant says that Jeanie Deans is more real to herthan any of her own creations, and probably it is the same with me, except for this one work. From an old diary of the fifties, when myfirst novels were written I take this extract:--"Queer that I who havesuch a distinct idea of what I approve in flesh-and-blood men shouldonly achieve in pen and ink a set of impossible people, with an absurdmuddy expression of gloom, instead of sublime depth as I intended. Mennovelists' women are as impossible creations as my men, but there isthis difference--their productions satisfy them, mine fail to satisfyme. " But in my last novel--still unpublished--felt quite satisfied thatI had at last achieved my ambition to create characters that stood outdistinctly and real. Miss Clark took the MS. To England, but she couldnot get either Bentley or Smith Elder, or Macmillan to accept it. 

On the death of Mr. John Howard Clark, which took place at this time, Mr. John Harvey Finlayson was left to edit The Register, and I became aregular outside contributor to The Register and The Observer. Hedesired to keep up and if possible improve the literary side of thepapers, and felt that the loss of Mr. Clark might be in some measuremade up if I give myself wholeheartedly to the work. Leading articleswere to be written at my own risk. If they suited the policy of thepaper they would be accepted, otherwise not. What a glorious openingfor my ambition and for my literary proclivities came to me in July, 1878, when I was in my fifty-third year! Many leading articles wererejected, but not one literary or social article. Generally these lastappeared in both daily and weekly papers. I recollect the secondoriginal social article I wrote was on "Equality as an influence onsociety and manners, " suggested by Matthew Arnold. The much-travelledSmythe, then, I think, touring with Charles Clark, wrote to Mr. Finlayson from Wallaroo thus:--"In this dead-alive place, where onemight fire a mitrailleuse down the principal street without hurtinganybody, I read this delightful article in yesterday's Register. Whenwe come again to Adelaide, and we collect a few choice spirits, be sureto invite the writer of this article to join us. " I felt as if theround woman had got at last into the round hole which fitted her; andin my little study, with my books and my pigeon holes, and my dear oldmother sitting with her knitting on her rocking chair at the lowwindow, I had the knowledge that she was interested in all I did. Igenerally read the MS to her before it went to the office. What is moreremarkable, perhaps, is that the excellent maid who was with us for 12years, picked out everything of mine that was in the papers and readit. A series of papers called "Some Social Aspects of Early ColonialLife" I contributed under the pseudonym of "A Colonist of 1839. " From1878 till 1893, when I went round the world via America, I held theposition of outside contributor on the oldest newspaper in the State, and for these 14 years I had great latitude. My friend Dr. Garran, theneditor of The Sydney Morning Herald, accepted reviews and articles fromme. Sometimes I reviewed the same books for both, but I wrote thearticles differently, and made different quotations, so that I scarcelythink any one could detect the same hand in them; but generally theywere different books and different subjects, which I treated. I triedThe Australasian with a short story, "Afloat and Ashore, " and with asocial article on "Wealth, Waste, and Want. " I contributed to TheMelbourne Review, and later to The Victorian Review, which began bypaying well, but filtered out gradually. I found journalism a betterpaying business for me than novel writing, and I delighted in thebreadth of the canvas on which I could draw my sketches of books and oflife. I believe that my work on newspapers and reviews is morecharacteristic of me, and intrinsically better work than what I havedone in fiction; but when I began to wield the pen, the novel was theline of least resistance. When I was introduced in 1894 to Mrs. Croly, the oldest woman journalist in the United States, as an Australianjournalist, I found that her work, though good enough, was essentiallywoman's work, dress, fashions, functions, with educational and socialoutlooks from the feminine point of view. My work might show the biasof sex, but it dealt with the larger questions which were common tohumanity; and when I recall the causes which I furthered, and which insome instances I started, I feel inclined to magnify the office of theanonymous contributor to the daily press. And I acknowledge not onlythe kindness of friends who put some of the best new books in my way, but the large-minded tolerance of the Editors of The Register, who gaveme such a free hand in the treatment of books, of men, and of publicquestions. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

MY WORK FOR EDUCATION. 

I was the first woman appointed on a Board of Advice under theEducation Department, and found the work interesting. The powers of theboard were limited to an expenditure of 5 pounds for repairs withoutapplying to the department and to interviewing the parents of childrenwho had failed to attend the prescribed number of days, as well asthose who pleaded poverty as an excuse for the non-payment of fees. Ialways felt that the school fees were a heavy burden on the poor, andrejoiced accordingly when free education was introduced into SouthAustralia. This was the second State to adopt this great reform, Victoria preceding it by a few years. I objected to the payment of feeson another ground. I felt they bore heavily on the innocent childrenthemselves through the notion of caste which was created in the mindsof those who paid fees to the detriment of their less fortunate schoolcompanions. And again, education that is compulsory should be free. Other women have since become members of School Boards, but I was thepioneer of that branch of public work for women in this State. It is aprivilege that American women have been fighting for for many years--tovote for and to be eligible to sit on School Boards. In many of theStates this has been won to their great advantage. In this present yearof 1910 Mrs. Ella, Flagg Young, at the age of 65, has been elected bythe Chigago Board, Director of the Education of that great city of overtwo millions of inhabitants at a salary of 2, 000 pounds a year, with amale university professor as an assistant. At an age when we in SouthAustralia are commanding our teachers to retire, in Chicago, which issaid by Foster Fraser to cashier men at 40, this elderly woman hasentered into her great power. 

It is characteristic of me that I like to do thoroughly what Iundertake to do at all, and when, on one occasion I had not receivedthe usual summons to attend a board meeting, I complained of theomission to the Chairman. "I do not want, " I said, "to be a merelyornamental member of this board. I want to go to all the meetings. " Hereplied, courteously, "It is the last thing that we would say of you, Miss Spence, that you are ornamental!" It was half a minute before hediscovered that he had put his disclaimer in rather a different formfrom what he had intended, and he joined in the burst of laughter whichfollowed. Another amusing contretemps occurred when the same gentlemanand I were visiting the parents who had pleaded for exemption from thepayment of fees. At one house there was a grown-up daughter who hadthat morning left the service of the gentleman's mother--a factenlarged upon by my companion during the morning's drive. "Why is youreldest daughter out of a place?" was the first question he put to thewoman. "She might be earning good wages, and be able to help you paythe fees. " "Oh!" came the unexpected reply, "she had to leave old Mrs. ---- this morning; she was that mean there was no living in the housewith her!" Knowing her interlocutor only as the man in authority, theunfortunate woman scarcely advanced her cause by her plain speaking, and I was probably the only member of the trio who appreciated thesituation. I am sure many people who were poorer than this mother paidthe fees rather than suffer the indignity of such cross-questioning bythe school visitors and the board--an unfortunate necessity of thesystem, which disappeared with the abolition of school fees. 

It had been suggested by the Minister of Education of that period thatthe children attending the State schools should be instructed in theduties of citizenship, and that they should be taught something of thelaws under which they lived, and I was commissioned to write a shortand pithy statement of the case. It was to be simple enough forintelligent children in the fourth class; 11 or 12--it was to lead fromthe known to the unknown--it might include the elements of politicaleconomy and sociology--it might make use of familiar illustrations fromthe experience of a new country--but it must not be long. It was notvery easy to satisfy myself and Mr. Hartley--who was a severecritic--but when the book of 120 pages was completed he was satisfied. A preface I wrote for the second edition--the first 5, 000 copies beinginsufficient for the requirements of the schools--will give some ideaof the plan of the work:--"In writing this little book, I have aimedless at symmetrical perfection than at simplicity of diction, and sucharrangement as would lead from the known to the unknown, by which theolder children in our public schools might learn not only the actualfacts about the laws they live under, but also some of the principleswhich underlie all law. " The reprinting gave me an opportunity to replyto my critics that "political economy, trades unions, insurancecompanies, and newspapers" were outside the scope of the laws we liveunder. But I thought that in a new State where the optional duties ofthe Government are so numerous, it was of great importance for theyoung citizen to understand economic principles. As conduct is thegreater part of life, and morality, not only the bond of social union, but the main source of individual happiness, I took the ethical part ofthe subject first, and tried to explain that education was of no valueunless it was used for good purposes. As without some wealth, civilization was impossible, I next sought to show that national andindividual wealth depends on the security that is given by law, and onthe industry and the thrift which that security encourages. Land tenureis of the first importance in colonial prosperity, and consideration ofthe land revenue and the limitations as to its expenditure led me tothe necessity for taxation and the various modes of levying it. Taxation led me to the power which imposes, collects, and expends it. This involved a consideration of those representative institutionswhich make the Government at once the master and the servant of thepeople. Under this Government our persons and our prosperity areprotected by a system of criminal, civil, and insolvent law--eachconsidered in its place. Although not absolutely included in the lawswe live under, I considered that providence, and its various outlets inbanks, savings banks, joint stock companies, friendly societies, andtrades unions, were matters too important to be left unnoticed; andalso those influences which shape character quite as much as statutelaws--public opinion, the newspaper, and amusements. As the use of mylittle book was restricted solely to school hours, my hope that theparents might be helped and encouraged by its teaching was doomed todisappointment. But the children of 30 years ago, when "The Laws WeLive Under" was first published, are the men and women of to-day, andwho shall say but that among them are to be found some at least worthyand true citizens, who owe to my little book their first inspiration to"hitch their wagon to a star. " Last year an enthusiastic young Swedishteacher and journalist was so taken with this South Australian littlehandbook of civics that he urged on me the duty of bringing it up todate, and embracing women's suffrage, the relations of the States tothe Commonwealth, as well as the industrial legislation which is inmany ways peculiar to Australia, but although those in authority weresympathetic no steps have been taken for its reproduction. Identifiedas I had been for so many years with elementary education in SouthAustralia, my mind was well prepared to applaud the movement in favourof the higher education of poorer children of both sexes by thefoundation of bursaries and scholarships, and the opening up of theavenues of learning to women by admitting them to University degrees. Victoria was the first to take this step, and all over the Commonwealththe example has been followed. I am, however, somewhat disappointedthat University women are not more generally progressive in theirideas. They have won something which I should have been very glad of, but which was quite out of reach. All opportunities ought to beconsidered as opportunities for service. As my brother David regardedthe possession of honours and wealth as demanding sacrifice for thecommon good, so I regarded special knowledge and special culture asmeans for advancing the culture of all. It is said to be human naturewhen special privileges or special gifts are used only for egoisticends; but the complete development of the human being demands thataltruistic ideas should also be cultivated. We see that in China anaristocracy of letters--for it is through passing difficultexaminations in old literature that the ruling classes areappointed--is no protection to the poor and ignorant from oppression ordegradation. It is true that the classics in China are very old, but soare the literatures of Greece and Rome, on which so many universitydegrees are founded; and it ought to be impressed upon all seekersafter academic honours that personal advantage is not the be-all andend-all of their pursuits. In our democratic Commonwealth, althoughthere are some lower titles bestowed by the Sovereign on colonists moreor less distinguished, these are not hereditary, so that an aristocracyis not hereditary. There may be an upper class, based on landed estateor one on business success, or one on learning, but all tend to becomeconservative as conservatism is understood in Australia. Safety ismaintained by the free rise from the lower to the higher. But all theopenings to higher education offered in high school and university donot tempt the working man's children who want to earn wages as soon asthe law lets them go to work. Nor do they tempt their parents to theirlarge share of the sacrifice which young Scotch lads and even Americanlads make to get through advanced studies. The higher education isstill a sort of preserve of the well-to-do, and when one thinks of howgreatly this is valued it seems a pity that it is not open to thetalents, to the industry, to the enthusiasm of all the young of bothsexes. But one exception I must make to the aloofness of people withdegrees and professions from the preventible evils of the world, andthat is in the profession that is the longest and the mostexacting--the medical profession. The women doctors whom I have met inAdelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney have a keen sense of theirresponsibility to the less fortunate. That probably is because medicineas now understood and practised is the most modern of the learnedprofessions, and is more human than engineering, which is also modern. It takes us into the homes of the poor more intimately than even theclergyman, and it offers remedies and palliatives as well as advice. The law is little studied by women in Australia, but in the UnitedStates there are probably a thousand or more legal practitioners. It isthe profession that I should have chosen when I was young if it hadbeen in any way feasible. I had no bent for the medical profession, andstill less for what every one thinks the most womanly ofavocations--that of the trained nurse. I could nurse my own relativesmore or less well, but did not distinguish myself in that way, and Icould not devote myself to strangers. The manner in which pennilessyoung men become lawyers in the United States seems impossible inAustralia. Judge Lindsay, son of a ruined southern family, studied lawand delivered newspapers in the morning, worked in a lawyer's officethrough the day, and acted as janitor at night. The course appears tobe shorter, and probably less Latin and Greek were required in awestern State than here. But during the long vacation in summer, students go as waiters in big hotels at seaside or other healthresorts, or take up some other seasonal trade. All the Columbian guardsat the Chicago Exhibition were students. They kept order, they gavedirections, they wheeled invalids in bath chairs, and they earned allthat was needed, for their next winter's course. In the long highschool holidays youths and maidens who are poor and ambitious work formoney. I have seen fairly well-paid professors who went back to thefather's farm and worked hard all harvest time--and students always didso. It appears easier in America to get a job for three months'vacation than in England or Australia, and the most surprising thingabout an American is his versatility. Teaching is with most Americanmen only a step to something better, so that almost all elementary andthe far greater proportion of high school teaching is in the hands ofwomen. In Australia our male teachers have to spend so many yearsbefore they are fully equipped that they rarely leave the profession. The only check on the supply is that the course is so long andlaborious that the youth prefers an easy clerkship. Women, in spite ofthe chance of marriage, enter the profession in the United States ingreater numbers, and as the scale of salaries is by no means equal payfor equal work, except in New York, money is saved by employing women. I think that it is the student of arts (that English title which is asvague and unmeaning as the Scottish one of humanities)--student ofancient classical literature--who, whether man or woman, has leastperception of the modern spirit or sympathy with the sorrows of theworld. With all honour to the classical authors, there are two thingsin which they were deficient--the spirit of broad humanity and thesense of humour. All ancient literature is grave--nay, sad. It is alsoaristocratic for learning was the possession of the few. While writingthis narrative I came upon a notable thing done by Miss CrystalEastman, a member of the New York Bar, and Secretary of the StateCommission on Employers' Liability. It is difficult for us tounderstand how so many good things are blocked, not only in the FederalGovernment, but in the separate States, by the written constitutions. In Great Britain the Constitution consists of unwritten principlesembodied either in Parliamentary statutes or in the common law, andyields to any Act which Parliament may pass, and the judiciary canimpose no veto on it. This is one reason why England is so far ahead ofthe United States in labour legislation. Miss Eastman was the principalspeaker at the annual meeting in January, 1910, of the New York StateBar Association. She is a trained economic investigator as well as alawyer, and her masterly analysis of conditions under the presentliability law held close attention, and carried conviction to manypresent that a radical change was necessary. The recommendations forthe statute were to make limited compensation for all accidents, exceptthose wilfully caused by the victim, compulsory on all employers. Withregard to dangerous occupations the person who profits by them shouldbear the greatest share of the loss through accident. As for theconstitutionality of such legislation Miss Eastman said--"If our StateConstitution cannot be interpreted so as to recognise such an idea ofjustice then I think we should amend our Constitution. I see no reasonwhy we should stand in such awe of a document which expressly providesfor its own revision every ten years. " The evils against which thisbrave woman lawyer contends are real and grievous. Working people inAmerica who suffer from injury are unmercifully exploited by theambulance-chasing lawyers. Casualty insurance companies are said to beweary of being diverted from their regular business to become a merefighting force in the Courts to prevent the injured or the dependentsfrom getting any compensation. The long-suffering public is becomingaware that the taxpayers are compelled to bear the burden of supportingthe pitifully great multitude of incapacitated or rendered dependentbecause of industrial accident or occupational diseases. Employersinsure their liability, and the poor man has to fight an insurancecompany, and at present reform is blocked on the plea that it isunconstitutional. There are difficulties even in Australia, and toenquire into such difficulties would be good work for women lawyers. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

SPECULATION, CHARITY, AND A BOOK. 

In the meantime my family history went on. My nephew was sent to theNorthern Territory to take over the branch of the English and ScottishBank at Palmerston, and he took his sister from school to go with himand stay three months in the tropics. He was only 21 at the time. Fouryears after he went to inspect the branch, and took his sister with himagain. I think she loved Port Darwin more than he did, and she alwaysstood up for the climate. South Australia did a great work in building, unaided by any other Australian State, the telegraph line from PortDarwin to Adelaide, and at one time it was believed that richgoldfields were to be opened in this great empty land, which theBritish Government had handed over to South Australia, because Stuarthad been the first to cross the island continent, and the handful ofSouth Australian colonists bad connected telegraphically the north andthe south. The telegraph building had been contracted for by Darwentand Dalwood, and my brother, through the South Australian Bank, washelping to finance them. That was in 1876-7. This was the first, butnot the last by any means, of enterprises which contractors were notable to carry out in this State, either from taking a big enterprise attoo low a rate or from lack of financial backing. The Government, as inthe recent cases of the Pinnaroo Railway and the Outer Harbour, had tocomplete the halfdone work as the direct employer of labour and thedirect purchaser of materials. A great furore for goldmining in theNorthern Territory arose, and people in England bought city allotmentsin Palmerston, which was expected to become the queen city of NorthAustralia, Port Darwin is no whit behind Sydney Harbour in beauty andcapacity. The navies of the world could ride safely in its waters. Arailway of 150 miles in length, the first section of the greattranscontinental line, which was to extend from Palmerston to PortAugusta, was built to connect Pine Creek, where there was gold to befound, with the seaboard. South Australia was more than ever a misnomerfor this State. Victoria lay more to the south than our province, andnow that we stretched far inside the tropics the name seemedridiculous. My friend Miss Sinnett suggested Centralia as theappropriate name for the State, which by this gift was really thecentral State; but in the present crisis, when South Australia findsthe task of keeping the Northern Territory white too arduous and toocostly, and is offering it on handsome terms to the Commonwealth, Centralia might not continue to be appropriate. Our northern possessionhas cost South Australia much. The sums of money sunk in prospectingfor gold and other metals have been enormous, and at present there aremore Chinese there than Europeans. In the early days, when the Wrenswere there, Eleanor was surprised when their wonderful Chinese cookcame to her and said, "Missie, I go along a gaol to-morrow. You take AhKei. He do all light till I go out!" The cook had been tried andcondemned for larceny, but he was allowed to retain his situation tillthe last hour. Instead of being kept in gaol pending his trial heearned his wages and did his work. He had no desire to escape. He likedPalmerston and the bank, and he went back to the latter when released. He was an incorrigible thief, and got into trouble again; but as a cookhe was superlative. 

That decade of the eighties was a most speculative time all overAustralia and New Zealand. I was glad that leaving the English andScottish Bank enabled my brother to go into political and officiallife, but it also allowed him to speculate far beyond what he couldhave done if he had been manager of a bank. Everybody speculated--inmines, in land, and in leases. I was earning by my pen a very decentincome, and I spent it, sometimes wisely and sometimes foolishly. Icould be liberal to church and to good causes. I was able to keep adear little State child at school for two years after the regulationage, and I was amply repaid by seeing her afterwards an honoured wifeand mother, able to assist her children and their companions with theirlessons. I helped some lame dogs over the stile. One among them was ayoung American of brilliant scholastic attainments, who was the victimof hereditary alcoholism. His mother, a saintly and nobleprohibitionist worker, whom I afterwards met in America, had heard ofme, and wrote asking me to keep a watchful eye on her boy. This I didfor about 12 months, and found him employment. He held a sciencedegree, and was an authority on mineralogy, metallurgy, and kindredsubjects. During this speculative period he persuaded me to plunge(rather wildly for me) in mining shares. I plunged to the extent of 500pounds, and I owe it to the good sense and practical ability of mynephew that I lost no more heavily than I did, for he paid 100 poundsto let me off my bargain. 

My protege continued to visit me weekly, and we wrote to one anotheronce a week or oftener. The books I lent to him I know to this day bytheir colour and the smell of tobacco. I wrote to his mother regularly, and consulted with his good friend, Mr. Waterhouse, over what was bestto be done. One bad outburst he had when he had got some money throughme to pay off liabilities. I recollect his penitent, despairingconfession, with the reference to Edwin Arnold's poem

 He who died at Azun gave This to those who dug his grave. 

The time came when I felt I could hold him no longer, although thatescapade was forgiven, and I determined to send him to his mother--notwithout misgivings about what she might have still to suffer. He wroteto me occasionally. His health was never good, and I attribute thecraving for drink and excitement a good deal to physical causes; but atthe same time I am sure that he could have withstood it by a moreresolute will. The will is the character--it is the real man. Whenpeople say that the first thing in education is to break the will, theymake a radical mistake. Train the will to work according to thedictates of an enlightened conscience, for it is all we have to trustto for the stability of character. My poor lad called me his Australianmother. When I saw his real mother, I wondered more and more what sortof a husband she had, or what atavism Edward drew from to produce acharacter so unlike hers. I heard nothing from herself of what she wentthrough, but from her friends I gathered that he had several outbreaks, and cost her far more than she could afford. She paid everything thathe owed in Adelaide, except her debt to me, but that I was repaid afterher death in 1905, and she always felt that I had been a true friend toher wayward son. I recollect one day my friend coming on his weeklyvisit with a face of woe to tell me he had seen a man in dirt and rags, with half a shirt, who had been well acquainted with Charles Dickensand other notables in London. My friend had fed him and clothed him, but he wanted to return to England to rich friends. I wrote to a fewgood folk, and we raised the money and sent the wastrel to the oldcountry. How grateful he appeared to be, especially to the kind peoplewho had taken him in; but he never wrote a line. We never heard fromhim again. Years afterwards I wrote to his brother-in-law, asking wherethe object of our charity now was, if he were still alive. The replywas that his ingratitude did not surprise the writer--that he was ahopeless drunkard, a remittance man, whom the family had to ship off assoon as possible when our ill-judged kindness sent him to England. Atthat time he was in Canada, but it was not worth while to give anyaddress. When Mr. Bowyear started the Charity Organization Society inAdelaide, he said I was no good as a visitor; I was too credulous, andhad not half enough of the detective in me. But I had not much faith inthis remittance man. 

I have been strongly tempted to omit altogether the next book which Iwrote; but, as this is to be a sincere narrative of my life and itswork, I must pierce the veil of anonymity and own up to "An Agnostic'sProgress. " I had been impressed with the very different difficultiesthe soul of man has to encounter nowadays from those so triumphantlyovercome by Christian in the great work of John Bunyan in the firstpart of "The Pilgrim's Progress. " He cannot now get out of the Sloughof Despond by planting his foot on the stepping stones of the Promises. He cannot, like Hopeful, pluck from his bosom the Key of Promise whichopens every lock in Doubting Castle when the two pilgrims are shut init by Giant Despair, when they are caught trespassing on his grounds. Even assured Christians, we know, may occasionally trespass on thesegrounds of doubt; but the weapons of modern warfare are not of theseventeenth century. The Interpreter's House in the old allegory dealtonly with things found in the Bible, the only channel of revelation toJohn Bunyan. To the modern pilgrim God reveals Himself in Nature, inart, in literature, and in history. The Interpreter's Hand had to dowith all these things. Vanity Fair is not a place through which allpilgrims must pass as quickly as possible, shutting their eyes andstopping their ears so that they should neither see nor hear the wickedthings that are done and said there. Vanity Fair is the world in whichwe all have to live and do our work well, or neglect it. Pope and Paganare not the old giants who used to devour pilgrims, but who can nowonly gnash their teeth at them in impotent rage. They are live forces, quite active, and with agents and supporters alert to capture souls. Ofall the influences which affected for evil my young life I perhapsresented most Mrs. Sherwood's "Infant's Progress. " There were threechildren in it going from the City of Destruction to the Celestial Cityby the route laid down by John Bunyan; but they were handicapped evenmore severely than the good Christian himself with his heavyburden--for that fell off his back at the first sight of the Cross andHim who was nailed to it, accepted by the eye of Faith as the oneSacrifice for the sins of the world--for the three little ones, HumbleMind, Playful, and Peace, were accompanied always and everywhere by animp called Inbred Sin, who never ceased to tempt them to evil. 

The doctrine of innate human depravity is one of the most paralysingdogmas that human fear invented or priestcraft encouraged. I did notthink of publishing "An Agnostic's Progress" at first. I wrote it torelieve my own mind. I wanted to satisfy myself that reverent agnosticswere by no means materialists; that man's nature might or might not beconsciously immortal, but it was spiritual; that in the duties whichlay before each of us towards ourselves and towards ourfellow-creatures, there was scope for spiritual energy and spiritualemotion. I was penetrated by Browning's great idea expressed over andover again--the expansion of Paul's dictum that faith is not certainty, but a belief without sufficient proof, a belief which leads to rightaction and to self-sacrifice. Of the 70 years of life which one mighthope to live and work in, I had no mean idea. I asked in the newspaper, "Is life so short?" and answered. "No. " I expanded and spiritualizedthe idea in a sermon, and I again answered emphatically "No. " I saw thecontinuation and the expansion of true ideas by succeeding generations. To the question put sometimes peevishly, "Is life worth living?" Ireplied with equal emphasis, "Yes. " My mother told me of old times. Irecalled half a century of progress, and I hoped the forward movementwould continue. I read the manuscript of "An Agnostic's Progress" toMr. And Mrs. Barr Smith, and they thought so well of it that theyoffered to take it to England on one of their many visits to the oldcountry, where they had no doubt it would find a publisher. Trubner'sreader reported most favourably of the book, and we thought there wasan immediate prospect of its publication; but Mr. Trubner died, and thematter was not taken up by his successor, and my friends did what I hadexpressly said they were not to do, and had it printed and published attheir own expense. There were many printer's errors in it, but it wason the whole well reviewed, though it did not sell well. The Spectatorjoined issue with me on the point that it is only through the wicketgate of Doubt that we can come to any faith that is of value; but I amsatisfied that I took the right stand there. My mother was in no waydisquieted or disturbed by my writing the book, and few of my friendsread it or knew about it. I still appeared so engrossed with work onThe Register and The Observer that my time was quite well enoughaccounted for. I tried for a prize of 100 pounds offered by The SydneyMail with a novel called "Handfasted, " but was not successful, for thejudge feared that it was calculated to loosen the marriage tie--it wastoo socialistic and consequently dangerous. 

CHAPTER XV. 

JOURNALISM AND POLITICS. 

In reviewing books I took the keenest Interest in the "CarlyleBiographies and Letters, " because my mother recollected Jeanie Welch asa child, and her father was called in always for my grandfatherBrodie's illnesses. I was also absorbed in the "Life and Letters ofGeorge Eliot. " The Barr Smiths gave me the "Life and Letters ofBalzac, " and many of his books in French, which led me to write bothfor The Register and for The Melbourne Review. I also wrote "A lastword, " which was lost by The Centennial in Sydney when it died out. Itwas also from Mrs. Barr Smith that I got so many of the works ofAlphonse Daudet in French, which enabled me to give a rejoinder toMarcus Clark's assertion that Balzac was a French Dickens. Indeed, looking through my shelves, I see so many books which suggestedarticles and criticisms which were her gifts that I always connect herwith my journalistic career. 

Many people have consulted me about publishing poems, novels, andessays. As I was known to have actually got books published in England, and to be a professional journalist and reviewer, I dare say some ofthose who applied to me for encouragement thought I was actuated byliterary jealousy; but people are apt to think they have a plot whenthey have only an incident, or two or three incidents; and many who canwrite clever and even brilliant letters have no idea of theconstruction of a story that will arrest and sustain the reader'sattention. The people who consulted me all wanted money for their work. They had such excellent uses for money. They had too little. They wereneither willing nor able to bear the cost of publication, and it wasabsolutely necessary that their work should be good enough for abusiness man to undertake it. I am often surprised that I found Englishpublishers myself, and the handicap of distance and other things iseven greater now. If stories are excessively Australian, they lose thesympathies of the bulk of the public. If they are mildly Australian, the work is thought to lack distinctiveness. Great genius can overcomethese things, but great genius is rare everywhere. Except for my friendMiss Mackay (Mrs. F. Martin), I know no Australian novelist of genius, and her work is only too rare in fiction. Mrs. Cross reaches herhighest level in "The Masked Man. " but she does not keep it up, thoughshe writes well and pleasantly. Of course poetry does not pay anywhereuntil a great reputation is made. Poetry must be its own exceedinggreat reward. And yet I agree with Charles Kingsley that if you wish tocultivate a really good prose style you should begin with verse. In myteens I wrote rhymes and tried to write sonnets. I encouraged writinggames among my young people, and it is surprising how much clevernesscould be developed. I can write verses with ease, but very rarely couldI rise to poetry; and therefore I fear I was not encouraging to thebudding Australian poet. 

There was a column quite outside of The Register to which I liked tocontribute for love. That was "The Riddler, " which appeared in TheObserver and in The Evening Journal on Saturdays. It brought me incontact with Mr. William Holden, long the oldest journalist in SouthAustralia, who revelled in statistical returns and algebraical problemsand earth measurements, but who also appreciated a good charade ordouble acrostic. I used to give some of the ingredients for his"Christmas Mince Pie, " and wrote many riddles of various sorts. Mycharades were not so elegant as some arranged by Miss Clark, and not soeasily found out; and my double acrostics were not so subtle as thosegiven in competition nowadays, but they were in the eighties reckonedexcellent. My fame had reached the ears of Mrs. Alfred Watts (neeGiles), who spent her early colonial life on Kangaroo Island, and sheasked me to write some double acrostics for the poor incurables. Istared at her in amazement. "We want to be quite well to tackle doubleacrostics and to have access to books. Does not Punch speak of thetitled lady, eager to win a guinea prize, who gave seven volumes ofCarlyle's works to seven upper servants, and asked each to search oneto find a certain quotation?" "Oh, " said Mrs. Watts, "I don't mean forthe incurables to amuse themselves with. I mean for the benefit of thehome. "

In the end I prepared a book of charades and double acrostics, for theprinting and binding of which Mrs. Watts paid. It was entitled "SilverWattle, " and the proceeds from the sale of this little book went tohelp the funds of the home. For a second volume issued for the samepurpose Mrs. Strawbridge wrote some poems, Mrs. H. M. Davidson atranslation of Victor Huge, Miss Clark her beautiful "Flowers ofGreece, " and her niece some pretty verses, which, combined with thedouble acrostics, and acting charades supplied by me, made anattractive volume. Mrs. Watts had something of a literary turn, whichfound expression in "Memories of Early Days in South Australia, " a bookprinted for private circulation among her family and intimate friends. Dealing with the years between 1837 and 1845 it was very interesting toold colonists, particularly when they were able to identify the peoplementioned, sometimes by initials and sometimes by pseudonyms. Theauthor was herself an incurable invalid from an accident shortly afterher marriage, and felt keenly for all the inmates of the Fullarton Home. 

In 1877 my brother John--with whom I had never quarrelled in my life, and who helped and encouraged me in everything that I did--retired fromthe English, Scottish, and Australian Bank, and decided to contest aseat for the Legislative Council. It was the last occasion on which theCouncil was elected with the State as one district. Although heannounced his candidature only the night before nomination day, and didnot address a single meeting, he was elected third on the poll. Heafterwards became the Chief Secretary, and later Commissioner of PublicWorks. He was an excellent worker on committees, and was full of ideasand suggestions. Although not a good speaker, he rejoiced in mystanding on platform or in pulpit. He was nearly as democratic as Iwas; and when he invented the phrase "effective voting" it was from thesense that true democracy demanded not merely a chance, but acertainty, that the vote given at the poll should be effective for someone. My brother David inherited all the Conservatism of the Brodies forgenerations back. Greatly interested in all abstruse problems andabstract questions he had various schemes for the regeneration ofmankind. Two opposing theories concerning the working of bi-cameralLegislatures supplied me with material for a Review article. One theorywas intensely Conservative, and emanated from my brother David, who wasa poor man. The other was held by the richest man of my acquaintance, and was distinctly Liberal. My brother argued that the Upper Houseshould have the power to tax its own constituents, and was utterlyopposed to any extension of the franchise. My rich friend objected tothe limited franchise, and desired to have the State proclaimed oneelectorate with proportional representation as a safeguard againstunwise legislation and as a means to assist reforms. The great blot, heconsidered, on Australian Constitutions was the representation bydistricts, especially for the House that controlled the public purse. If districts were to be tolerated at all, they should be represented bymen who had a longer tenure of office than our Assembly's three years, and who did not have so often to ask for votes, which frequentlydepended on a railway or a jetty or a Rabbit Bill. So long as aGovernment depends for its existence on the support of localrepresentatives it is tempted to spend public money to gratify them. Both men were Freetraders, and both believed strongly in the justice ofland values taxation. 

My friend the late Professor Pearson had entered into active politicallife in Melbourne, and was a regular writer for The Age. Perhaps noother man underwent more obloquy from his old friends for taking theside of Graham Berry, especially as he was a Freetrader, and thepopular party was Protectionist. He justified his action by saying thata mistake in the fiscal policy of a country should not prevent a realDemocrat from siding with the party which opposed monopoly, especiallyin land. He saw in "LATIFUNDIA"--huge estates--the ruin of the RomanEmpire, and its prevalence in the United Kingdom was the greatestdanger ahead of it. In these young countries the tendency to build uplarge holdings was naturally fostered by what was the earliest of ourindustries. Sheepfarming is not greatly pursued in the United States orCanada, because of the rigorous winter--but Australia is the favouritehome of the merino sheep. Originally there was no need to buy land, oreven to pay rent to the Government for it; the land had no value tillsettlement gave it. The squatter leased it on easy terms, and bought itonly when it had sufficient value to be desired by agriculturists or byselectors who posed as agriculturists. When he bought it he generallycomplained of the price these selectors compelled him to pay, but itwas then secure; and, with the growth of population and the railroadsand other improvements, these enforced purchasers, even in 1877, hadbuilt up vast estates in single hands in every State in Australia. InThe Melbourne Review for April, 1877, Professor Pearson sketched a planof land taxation, which was afterwards carried out, in which the areaof land held was the test for graduated taxation. Henry George had notthen declared his gospel; and, although I felt that there was somethingvery faulty in the scheme, I did not declare in my article on thesubject that an acre in Collins street might be of more value than50, 000 acres of pastoral land 500 miles from the seaboard, and wastherefore more fitly liable to taxation for the advantage of the wholecommunity, who had given to that acre this exceptional value. I did notdeclare it because I did not believe it. But I thought that the endaimed at--the breaking up of large estates--could be better and moresafely effected, though not so quickly, by a change in the incidence ofsuccession duties. 

Some time after I saw a single copy of Henry George's "Progress andPoverty" on Robertson's shelves, and bought it, and it was I who afterreading this book opened in the three most important Australiancolonies the question of the taxation of land values. An article Iwrote went into The Register, and Mr. Liston, of Kapunda, read it, andspoke of it at a farmers' meeting. I had then a commission from TheSydney Morning Herald to write on any important subject, and I wrote onthis. It appeared, like a previous article on Howell's "Conflicts ofCapital and Labour, " as an unsigned article. A new review, TheVictorian, had been started by Mortimer Franlyn, which paidcontributors; and, now that I was a professional journalist, I thoughtmyself entitled to ask remuneration. I sent to the new periodical, published in Melbourne, a fuller treatment of the book than had beengiven to the two newspapers, under the title of "A CalifornianPolitical Economist. " This fell into the hands of Henry George himself, in a reading room in San Francisco, and he wrote an acknowledgment ofit to me. In South Australia the first tax on unimproved land valueswas imposed. It was small--only a halfpenny in the pound, but withoutany exemption; and its imposition was encouraged by the fact that wehad had bad seasons and a falling revenue. The income tax in Englandwas originally a war tax, and they say that if there is not a war theUnited States will never be able to impose an income tax. The separateStates have not the power to impose such a tax. Henry George said to mein his home in New York:--"I wonder at you, with your zeal andenthusiasm, and your power of speaking, devoting yourself to such asmall matter as proportional representation, when you see the greatland question before you. " I replied that to me it was not a smallmatter. I cannot, however, write my autobiography without givingprominence to the fact that I was the pioneer in Australia in this asin the other matter of proportional representation. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

SORROW AND CHANGE. 

In the long and cheerful life of my dear mother there at last came achange. At 94 she fell and broke her wrist. The local doctor (astranger), who was called in, not knowing her wonderful constitution, was averse from setting the wrist, and said that she would never beable to use the hand. But I insisted, and in six, weeks she was able toresume her knitting, and never felt any ill effects. At 95 she had afall, apparently without cause, and was never able to stand again. Shehad to stay in bed for the last 13 months of her life, with a gradualdecay of the faculties which had previously been so keen. My motherwanted me with her always. Her talk was all of times far back in herlife--not of Melrose, where she had lived for 25 years, but ofScoryhall (pronounced Scole), where she had lived as a girl. I had beenshown through the house by my aunt Handyside in 1865, and I couldfollow her mind wanderings and answer her questions. As she suffered solittle pain it was difficult for my mother to realize the seriousnessof her illness; and, tiring of her bedroom, she begged to be taken tothe study, where, with her reading and knitting, she had spent so manyhappy hours while I did my writing. Delighted though she was at thechange, a return to her bed--as to all invalids--was a comfort, and shenever left it again. Miss Goodham--an English nurse and a charmingwoman, who has since remained a friend and correspondent of thefamily--was sent to help us for a few days at the last. Another sorrowcame to us at this time in the loss of my ward's husband, and RoseHood--nee Duval--returned to live near me with her three smallchildren. Her commercial training enabled her to take a position asclerk in the State Children's Department, which she retained until herdeath. The little ones were very sweet and good, but the supervision ofthem during the day added a somewhat heavy responsibility to ouralready overburdened household. In these days, when one hears so muchof the worthlessness of servants, it is a joy to remember how ourfaithful maid--we kept only one for that large house--at her ownrequest, did all the laundry work for the family of five, and allthrough the three years of Eleanor's illness waited on her withuntiring devotion. 

An amusing episode which would have delighted the heart of my dearfriend Judge Lindsay occurred about this time. The fruit from ourorange trees which grew along the wall bordering an adjoining paddockwas an irresistible temptation to wandering juveniles, and many andgrievous were the depredations. Patience, long drawn out, at last gaveway, and when the milkman caught two delinquents one Saturday afternoonwith bulging blouses of forbidden fruit it became necessary to make anexample of some one. The trouble was to devise a fitting punishment. APolice Court, I had always maintained, was no place for children;corporal punishment was out of the question; and the culprits stoodtremblingly awaiting their fate till a young doctor present suggested adose of Gregory's powder. His lawyer friend acquiesced, and Gregory'spowder it was. A moment's hesitation and the nauseous draught wasswallowed to the accompaniment of openly expressed sympathy, one dearold lady remarking, "Poor children and not so much as a taste ofsugar. " Probably, however, the unkindest cut of all was the carryingaway by the milkman of the stolen fruit! The cure was swift andeffective; and ever after the youth of the district, like the Phariseeof old, passed by on the other side. 

My dear mother died about 8 o'clock on the evening of December 8, 1887, quietly and painlessly. With her death, which was an exceedingly greatloss to me, practically ended my quiet life of literary work. Henceforth I was free to devote my efforts to the fuller public workfor which I had so often longed, but which my mother's devotion to anddependence on me rendered impossible. But I missed her untiringsympathy, for with all her love for the old days and the old friendsthere was no movement for the advancement of her adopted land that didnot claim her devoted attention. But though I was now free to take uppublic work, the long strain of my mother's illness and death hadaffected my usually robust health, and I took things quietly. I hadbeen asked by the University Shakspeare Society to give a lecture onDonnelly's book, "The Great Cryptogram;" or "Who Wrote Shakspeare'sPlays?" and it was prepared during this period, and has frequently beendelivered since. October of the year following my mothers death foundme again in Melbourne, where I rejoiced in the renewal of a friendshipwith Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Walker, the former of whom had been connectedwith the construction of the overland railway. They were delightfulliterary people, and I had met them at the hospitable house of theBarr-Smiths, and been introduced as "a literary lady. " "Then perhaps, "said Mr. Walker, "you can give us the information we have long soughtin vain--who wrote 'Clara Morrison?'" Their surprise at my "I did" wasequalled by the pleasure I felt at their kind appreciation of my book, and that meeting was the foundation of a lifelong friendship. Before myvisit closed I was summoned to Gippsland through the death by accidentof my dear sister Jessie--the widow of Andrew Murray, once editor ofThe Argus--and the year 1888 ended as sadly for me as the previous onehad done. The following year saw the marriage of my nephew, CharlesWren of the E. S. And A. Bank, to Miss Hall, of Melbourne. On hisdeciding to live on in the old home, I, with Ellen Gregory, whom I hadbrought out in 1867 to reside with relations, but who has remained tobe the prop and mainstay of my old age--and Mrs. Hood and her threechildren, moved to a smaller and more suitable house I had in anotherpart of East Adelaide. A placid flowing of the river of life for a yearor two led on to my being elected, in 1892, President of the Girls'Literary Society. This position I filled with joy to myself and, Ihope, with advantage to others, until some years later the societyceased to exist. 

Crowded and interesting as my life had been hitherto, the best was yetto be. My realization of Browning's beautiful line from "Rabbi BenEzra"--"The last of life, for which the first was made, " came when Isaw opening before me possibilities for public service undreamed of inmy earlier years. For the advancement of effective voting I had so farconfined my efforts to the newspapers. My brother John had suggestedthe change of name from proportional representation to effective votingas one more likely to catch the popular ear, and I had proposed amodification of Hare's original plan of having one huge electorate, andsuggested instead the adoption of six-member districts. The State asone electorate returning 42 members for the Assembly may bemagnificent, and may also be the pure essence of democracy, but it isneither commonsense nor practicable. "Why not take effective voting tothe people?" was suggested to me. No sooner said than done. I hadballot papers prepared and leaflets printed, and I began the publiccampaign which has gone on ever since. During a visit to Melbourne as amember of a charities conference it was first discovered that I hadsome of the gifts of a public speaker. My friend, the Rev. CharlesStrong, had invited me to lecture before his working men's club atCollingwood, and I chose as my subject "Effective Voting. "

When on my return Mr. Barr Smith, who had long grasped the principle ofjustice underlying effective voting, and was eager for its adoption, offered to finance a lecturing tour through the State, I jumped at theoffer. There was the opportunity for which I had been waiting foryears. I got up at unearthly hours to catch trains, and sometimessucceeded only through the timely lifts of kindly drivers. Once I wentin a carrier's van, because I had missed the early morning cars. Itravelled thousands of miles in all weathers to carry to the people thegospel of electoral reform. Disappointments were frequent, andsometimes disheartening; but the silver lining of every cloud turned upsomewhere, and I look back on that first lecturing tour as a time ofthe sowing of good seed, the harvest of which is now beginning toripen. I had no advance agents to announce my arrival, and at one townin the north I found nobody at the station to meet me. I spent the mostmiserable two and a half hours of my life waiting Micawber-like forsomething to turn up; and it turned up in the person of the villageblacksmith. I spoke to him, and explained my mission to the town. Hehad heard nothing of any meeting. Incidentally I discovered that mycorrespondent was in Adelaide, and had evidently forgotten all about mycoming. "Well, " I said to the blacksmith, "if you can get together adozen intelligent men I will explain effective voting to them. " Helooked at me with a dumbfounded air, and then burst out, "Good G--, madam, there are not three intelligent men in the town. " But the oldorder has changed, and in 1909 Mrs. Young addressed an enthusiasticaudience of 150 in the same town and on the same subject. The town, moreover, is in a Parliamentary district, in which every candidate atthe recent general election--and there were seven of them--supportedeffective voting. Far down in the south I went to a little villagecontaining seven churches, which accounted (said the local doctor) forthe extreme backwardness of its inhabitants. "They have so many churchaffairs to attend to that there is no time to think of anything else. "At the close of this lecturing tour The Register undertook the publiccount through its columns, which did so much to bring the reform beforethe people of South Australia. Public interest was well aroused on thematter before my long projected trip to America took shape. "Come andteach us how to vote, " my American friends had been writing to me foryears; but I felt that it was a big order for a little woman of 68 toundertake the conversion to electoral reform of 60 millions of the mostconceited people in the world. Still I went. I left Adelaide bound forAmerica on April 4, 1893, as a Government Commissioner and delegate tothe Great World's Fair Congresses in Chicago. 

In Melbourne and Sydney on my way to the boat for San Francisco I foundwork to do. Melbourne was in the throes of the great financial panic, when bank after bank closed its doors; but the people went to church asusual. I preached in the Unitarian Church on the Sunday, and lecturedin Dr. Strong's Australian Church on Monday. In Sydney Miss Rose Scotthad arranged a drawing-room meeting for a lecture on effective voting. A strong convert I made on that occasion was Mr. (afterwards Sr. )Walker. A few delightful hours I spent at his charming house on theharbour with his family, and was taken by them to see many beautyspots. Those last delightful days in Sydney left me with pleasantAustralian memories to carry over the Pacific. When the boat sailed onApril 17, the rain came down in torrents. Some interesting missionarieswere on board. One of them, the venerable Dr. Brown, who had been for30 years labouring in the Pacific, introduced me to Sir John Thurston. Mr. Newell was returning to Samoa after a two years' holiday inEngland. He talked much, and well about his work. He had 104 studentsto whom he was returning. He explained that they became missionaries toother more benighted and less civilized islands, where their knowledgeof the traditions and customs of South Sea Islanders made theminvaluable as propagandists. The writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, had prepared me to find in the Samoans a handsome and stalwart race, with many amiable traits, and I was not disappointed. The beauty of thescenery appealed to me strongly, and I doubt whether "the light thatnever was on sea or land" could have rivalled the magic charm of theone sunrise we saw at Samoa. During the voyage I managed to get in onelecture, and many talks on effective voting. Had I been superstitiousmy arrival in San Francisco on Friday, May 12, might have boded ill forthe success of my mission, but I was no sooner ashore than my friendAlfred Cridge took me in charge, and the first few days were a whirl ofmeetings, addresses and interviews. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 

Alfred Cridge, who reminded me so much of my brother David that I feltat home with him immediately, had prepared the way for my lectures oneffective voting in San Francisco. He was an even greater enthusiastthan I. "America needs the reform more than Australia, " he used to say. But if America needs effective voting to check corruption, Australianeeds it just as much to prevent the degradation of political life inthe Commonwealth and States to the level of American politics. Mylectures in San Francisco, as elsewhere in America, were well attended, and even better received. Party politics had crushed out the bestelements of political life, and to be independent of either party gavea candidate, as an agent told Judge Lindsay when he was contesting thegovernorship of Colorado, "as much chance as a snowball would have inhell. " So that reformers everywhere were eager to hear of a system ofvoting that would free the electors from the tyranny of parties, and atthe same time render a candidate independent of the votes of hecklingminorities, and dependent only on the votes of the men who believed inhim and his politics. I met men and women interested in publicaffairs--some of them well known, others most worthy to be known, andall willing to lend the weight of their character and intelligence tothe betterment of human conditions at home and abroad. Among these wereJudge Maguire, a leader of the Bar in San Francisco and a member of theState Legislature, who had fought trusts, "grafters, " and "boodlers"through the whole of his public career, and Mr. James Barry, proprietorof The Star. 

"You come from Australia, the home of the secret ballot?" was thegreeting I often received, and that really was my passport to thehearts of reformers all over America. From all sides I heard that itwas to the energy and zeal of the Singletaxers in the various States--awell-organized and compact body--that the adoption of the secret ballotwas due. To that celebrated journalist, poetess, and economic writer, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, who was a cultured Bostonian, living in SanFrancisco, I owed one of the best women's meetings I ever addressed. The subject was "State children and the compulsory clauses in ourEducation Act, " and everywhere in the States people were interested inthe splendid work of our State Children's Department and educationalmethods. Intelligence and not wealth I found to be the passport tosocial life among the Americans I met. At a social evening ladies aswell as their escorts were expected to remove bonnets and mantles inthe hall, instead of being invited into a private room as inAustralia--a custom I thought curious until usage made it familiar. Thehomeliness and unostentatiousness of the middle class American werecaptivating. My interests have always been in people and in the thingsthat make for human happiness or misery rather than in the beauties ofNature, art, or architecture. I want to know how the people live, whatwages are, what the amount of comfort they can buy; how the people arefed, taught, and amused; how the burden of taxation falls; how justiceis executed; how much or how little liberty the people enjoy. And thesethings I learned to a great extent from my social intercourse withthose cultured reformers of America. Among these people I had not thedepressing feeling of immensity and hugeness which marred my enjoymentwhen I arrived at New York. My literary lectures on the Brownings andGeorge Eliot were much appreciated, especially in the East, where Ifound paying audiences in the fall or autumn of the year. Theselectures have been delivered many times in Australia; and, as theresult of the Browning lecture given in the Unitarian Schoolroom inWakefield street, Adelaide, I received from the pen of Mr. J. B. Mathera clever epigram. The room was large and sparsely filled, and to themodest back seat taken by my friend my voice scarcely penetrated. So heamused himself and me by writing:

 I have no doubt that words of sense Are falling from the lips of Spence. Alas! that Echo should be drowning Both words of Spence and sense of Browning. 

I found the Brownings far better appreciated in America than inEngland, especially by American women. In spite of the fact that TheSan Francisco Chronicle had interviewed me favourably on my arrival, and that I knew personally some of the leading people on The Examiner, neither paper would report my lectures on effective voting. The Star, however, quite made up for the deficiencies of the other papers, anddid all it could to help me and the cause. While in San Francisco Iwrote an essay on "Electoral Reform" for a Toronto competition, inwhich the first prize was $500. Mr. Cridge was also a competitor; but, although many essays were sent in, for some reason the prize was neverawarded, and we had our trouble for nothing. On my way to Chicago Istayed at a mining town to lecture on effective voting. I found thehostess of the tiny hotel a brilliant pianist and a perfect linguist, and she quoted poetry--her own and other people's--by the yard. A ladyI journeyed with told me that she had been travelling for seven yearswith her husband and "Chambers's Encyclopedia. " I thought they used theencyclopaedia as a guide book until, in a sort of postscript to ourconversation, I discovered the husband to be a book agent, better knownin America as a "book fiend. "

Nobody had ever seen anything like the World's Fair. My friend Dr. Bayard Holmes of Chigago, whose acquaintance I made through missing asuburban train, expressed a common feeling when he said he could weepat the thought that it was all to be destroyed--that the creationevolved from the best brains of America should be dissolved. Much ofour human toil is lost and wasted, and much of our work is moreephemeral than we think; but this was a conscious creation of hundredsof beautiful buildings for a six months' existence. Nowhere else exceptin America could the thing have been done, and nowhere else in Americabut in Chicago. At the Congress of Charity and correction I found everyone interested in Australia's work for destitute children. It wasdifficult for Miss Windeyer, of Sydney, and myself--the onlyAustralians present--to put ourselves in the place of many who believedin institutions where children of low physique, low morals, and lowintelligence are massed together, fed, washed, drilled, taught by rule, never individualized, and never mothered. I spoke from pulpits inChicago and Indianapolis on the subject, and was urged to plead withthe Governor of the latter State to use his influence to have at leasttiny mites of six years of age removed from the reformatory, which wasunder the very walls of the gaol. But he was obdurate to my pleadingsand arguments, as he had been to those of the State workers. Hemaintained that these tiny waifs of six were incorrigible, and werebetter in institutions than in homes. The most interesting woman I metat the conference was the Rev. Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, pastor of BellStreet Chapel, Providence. I visited her at home, in that retreat ofBaptists, Quakers, and others from the hard persecution of the NewEngland Orthodoxy, the founders of which had left England in search offreedom to worship God. Her husband was the Unitarian minister ofanother congregation in the same town. At the meetings arranged by Mrs. Spencer, Professor Andrews, one of the Behring Sea arbitrators, andProfessor Wilson were present; and they invited me to speak oneffective voting at the Brunn University. 

In Philadelphia I addressed seven meetings on the same subject. At sixof them an editor of a little reform paper was present. For two yearshe had lived on brown bread and dried apples, in order that he couldsave enough to buy a newspaper plant for the advocacy of reforms. Inhis little paper he replied to the critics, who assured me that it wasno use worrying, as everything would come right in time. "Time onlybrings wonders, " he wrote, "when good and great men and women rise upto move the world along. Time itself brings only decay and death. Thetruth is 'Nothing will come right unless those who feel they have thetruth speak, and Work, and strain as if on them alone rested thedestinies of the world. '" I went to see a celebrated man, George W. Childs, who had made a fortune out of The Philadelphia Ledger, and whowas one of the best employers in the States. He knew everybody, notonly in America but in Europe; and his room was a museum of gifts fromgreat folks all over the world. But, best of all, he, with his devotedfriend Anthony Drexel, had founded the Drexel Institute, which wastheir magnificent educational legacy to the historic town. I saw theLiberty Bell in Chicago--the bell that rang out the Declaration ofIndependence, and cracked soon after--which is cherished by all goodAmericans. It had had a triumphant progress to and from the World'sFair, and I was present when once again it was safely landed inIndependence Hall, Philadelphia. I think the Americans liked me, because I thought their traditions reputably old, and did not, likeEuropean visitors, call everything crude and new. The great war inAmerica strengthened the Federal bond, while it loosened the attachmentto the special Satte in which the United States citizen lives. Railroads and telegraphs have done much to make Americans homogeneous, and the school system grapples bravely with the greater task ofAmericanizing the children of foreigners, who arrive in such vastnumbers. Canada allowed the inhabitants of lower Canada to keep theirlanguage, their laws, and their denominational schools; and theconsequence is that these Canadian-British subjects are more Frenchthan the French, more conservative than the Tories, and more Catholicthan Irish or Italians. Education is absolutely free in America up tothe age of 18; but I never heard an American complain of being taxed toeducate other people's children. In Auburn I met Harriet Tribman, called the "Moses of her people"--an old black woman who could neitherread nor write, but who had escaped from slavery when young, and hadmade 19 journeys south, and been instrumental in the escape of 300slaves. To listen to her was to be transferred to the pages of "UncleTom's Cabin. " Her language was just that of Tom and old Jeff. A piousChristian, she was full of good works still. Her shanty was a refugefor the sick, blind, and maimed of her own people. I went all overHarvard University under the guidance of Professor Ashley, to whom ourChief Justice had given me a letter of introduction. He got up adrawing-room meeting for me, at which I met Dr. Gordon Ames, pastor ofthe Unitarian Church of the Disciples. He invited me to preach histhanksgiving service for him on the following Thursday, which I wasdelighted to do. Mrs. Ames was the factory inspector of women andchildren in Massachusetts, and was probably the wisest woman I met inmy travels. She spoke to me of the evils of stimulating the religioussentiment too young, and said that the hushed awe with which mostpeople spoke of God and His constant presence filled a child's mindwith fear. 

She related an experience with her own child, who on going to bed hadasked if God was in the room. The child was told that God was alwaysbesides us. After being left in darkness the child was heard sobbing, and a return to the nursery elicited the confession, "Oh, mamma, Ican't bear to be left with no one but God. " Better the simpleanthropomorphism which makes God like the good father, the generousuncle, the indulgent grandfather, or the strong elder brother. 

Such ideas as these of God were held by the heroines of the followingstories:--A little girl, a niece of the beloved Bishop Brooks, had donewrong, and was told to confess her sin to God before she slept, and tobeg His forgiveness. When asked next day whether she had obeyed thecommand, she said--"Oh, yes! I told God all about it, and God said, 'Don't mention it, Miss Brooks. '" A similar injunction was laid upon achild brought up by a very severe and rather unjust aunt. Her replywhen asked if she had confessed her sin was "I told God what I haddone, and what you thought about it, and I just left it to Him. " Theresponse of a third American girl (who was somewhat of a "pickle" andhad been reared among a number of boys) to the enquiry whether she hadasked forgiveness for a wrong done was--"Oh, yes; I told God exactlywhat I had done, and He said, 'Great Scot, Elsie Murray, I know 500little girls worse than you. '" To me this was a much healthier state ofmind than setting children weeping for their sins, as I have donemyself. 

On my second visit to Boston I spent three weeks with the family ofWilliam, Lloyd Garrison, son of the famous Abolitionist. The ChiefJustice had given me a letter of introduction to him, and I found him atrue-hearted humanitarian, as devoted to the gospel of single tax ashis father had been to that of anti-slavery. They lived in a beautifulhouse in Brookline, on a terrace built by an enterprising man who hadmade his money in New South Wales. Forty-two houses were perfectly andequally warmed by one great furnace, and all the public rooms of theground floor, dining, and drawing rooms, library, and hall wereconnected by folding doors, nearly always open, which gave a feeling ofspace I never experienced elsewhere. Electric lighting and bells allover the house, hot and cold baths, lifts, the most complete laundryarrangements, and cupboards everywhere ensured the maximum of comfortwith the minimum of labour. But in this house I began to be a littleashamed of being so narrow in my views on the coloured question. Mr. Garrison, animated with the spirit of the true brotherhood of man, wasan advocate of the heathen Chinee, and was continually speaking of thegoodness of the negro and coloured and yellow races, and of theinjustice and rapacity of the white Caucasians. I saw the files of hisfather's paper, The Liberator, from its beginning in 1831 till itsclose, when the victory was won in 1865. Of the time spent in theLloyd-Garrison household "nothing now is left but a majestic memory, "which has been kept green by the periodical letters received from thisnoble man up till the time of his death last year. He showed me themonument erected to the memory of his father in Boston in the townwhere years before the great abolitionist had been stoned by the mob. Only recently it rejoiced my heart to know that a memorial to LloydGarrison the younger had been unveiled in Boston, his native city; atthe same time that a similar honour was paid to his venerated leader, "the prophet of San Francisco. "

I account it one of the greatest privileges of my visit to America thatMrs. Garrison introduced me to Oliver Wendell Holmes, and byappointment I had an hour and a half's chat with him in the last yearof his long life. He was the only survivor of a famous band of NewEngland writers, Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorn, Bryant, Lowell, Whittier, and Whitman were dead. His memory was failing, and he forgotsome of his own characters; but Elsie Venner he remembered perfectlyand he woke to full animation when I objected to the fatalism ofheredity as being about as paralysing to effort as the fatalism ofCalvinism. As a medical man (and we are apt to forget the physician inthe author) he took strong views of heredity. As a worker among ourdestitute children, I considered environment the greater factor of thetwo, and spoke of children of the most worth less parents who hadturned out well when placed early in respectable and kindly homes. Before I left, the author presented me with an autograph copy of one ofhis books--a much-prized gift. He was reading Cotton Mather's"Memorabilia, " not for theology, but for gossip. It was the onlychronicle of the small beer of current events in the days of the witchpersecutions, and the expulsion of the Quakers, Baptists, and otherschismatics. I have often felt proud that of all the famous men I havementioned in this connection there was only one not a Unitarian, andthat was Whittier, the Quaker poet of abolition; and his theology wasof the mildest. 

Another notable man with whom I had three hours' talk was CharlesDudley Warner, the humorous writer. I am not partial to Americanhumorists generally, but the delicate and subtle humour of DudleyWarner I always appreciated. In our talk I saw his serious side, for hewas keen on introducing the indeterminate sentence into his own State, on the lines of the Elmira and Concord Reformatories. He told me thathe never talked in train: but during the three hours' journey to NewYork neither of us opened the books with which we had providedourselves, and we each talked of our separate interests, and enjoyedthe talk right through. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe I saw, but hermemory was completely gone. With Julia Ward Howe, the writer of "TheBattle Hymn of the Republic" I spent a happy time. She had been thePresident of the New England Women's Club for 25 years, and was acharming and interesting woman. I was said to be very like her, and, indeed was often accosted by her name; but I think probably the reasonwas partly my cap, for Howe always wears one, and few other Americanladies do. Whenever I was with her I was haunted by the beautiful linesfrom the closing verse of the "Battle Hymn"--

 In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born, across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. 

At her house I met many distinguished women. Mrs. J. F. Fields, thewidow of the well-known author-publisher; Madame Blaine Bentzam, awriter for French reviews; Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, one of the mostcharming of New England write is, and others. 

My best work in Canada was the conversion to effective voting of mygood friend Robert Tyson. For years now he has done yeoman service inthe cause, and has corresponded with workers all over the world on thequestion of electoral reform. I visited Toronto, at the invitation ofMr. William Howland, with whom I had corresponded for years. I wasinvited to dinner with his father, Sir William Howland, who was thefirst Lieutenant-Governor of Toronto after the federation of theDominion. I found it very difficult to remember the names of the manyinteresting people I met there, although I could recollect the thingsthey spoke about. Mr. Howland took me on with him to an evening gardenparty--quite a novel form of entertainment for me--where there wereother interesting people. One of these, a lady artist who had travelledall round the world, took me on the next afternoon to an at-home atProfessor Goldwin Smith's. In a talk I had with this notable man hespoke of his strong desire that Canada should become absorbed in theStates; but the feeling in Canada was adverse to such a change. Still, you found Canadians everywhere, for many more men were educated thancould find careers in the Dominion. Sir Sandford Fleming, the mostardent proportionalist in Canada, left Toronto on his trip to NewZealand and Australia shortly after I arrived there. I spent a fewhours with him, and owed a great deal of my success in the Dominion tohis influence. I felt that I had done much good in Canada, and my timewas so occupied that the only thing I missed was leisure. 

Much of the time in New York was spent in interviews with the variouspapers. I had a delightful few days at the house of Henry George, andboth he and his wife did everything in their power to make my visitpleasant. Indeed, everywhere in America I received the greatestkindness and consideration. I had been 11 months in the States andCanada, and lived the strenuous life to the utmost. I had deliveredover 100 lectures, travelled thousands of miles, and met the mostinteresting people in the world. I felt many regrets on parting withfriends, comrades, sympathizers, and fellow-workers. When I reflectedthat on my arrival in San Francisco I knew only two persons in Americain the flesh, and only two more through correspondence, and was able tolook back on the hundreds of people who had personally interested me, it seemed as if there was some animal magnetism in the world, and thataffinities were drawn together as if by magic. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

BRITAIN, THE CONTINENT, AND HOME AGAIN. 

I went by steamer to Glasgow, as I found the fares by that routecheaper than to Liverpool. Municipal work in that city was thenattracting world-wide attention, and I enquired into the methods oftaxation and the management of public works, much to my advantage. Theco-operative works at Shields Hall were another source of interest tome. At Peterborough I stayed with Mr. Hare's daughter, Katie, who hadmarried Canon Clayton. Never before did I breathe such anecclesiastical atmosphere as in that ancient canonry, part of the oldmonastery, said to be 600 years old. While there I spoke to the Guildof Co-operative Women on "Australia. " In Edinburgh I had a drawing-roommeeting at the house of Mrs. Muir Dowie, daughter of Robert Chambersand mother of Minnie Muriel Dowie, who wrote "Through the Carpathians, "and another at the Fabian Society, both on effective voting. Mrs. Dowieand Priscilla Bright McLaren, sister of John Bright, were both keen onthe suffrage, and most interesting women. I had been so much associatedwith the suffragists in America, with the veteran Susan B. Anthony attheir head, that English workers in the cause gave me a warm welcome. 

London under the municipal guidance of the County Council was verydifferent from the London I had visited 29 years earlier. PerhapsGlasgow and Birmingham have gone further in municipalizing monopoliesthan Londoners have, but the vastness of the scale on which Londonmoves makes it more interesting. Cr. Peter Burt, of Glasgow, had workedhard to add publichouses to the list of things under municipalownership and regulation, and I have always been glad to see theincreasing attention paid to the Scandinavian methods of dealing withthe drink traffic. I have deplored the division among temperanceworkers, which makes the prohibitionists hold aloof from this reform, when their aid would at least enable the experiment to be tried. But inspite of all hindrances the world moves on towards better things. It isnot now a voice crying in the wilderness. There are many thousands ofwise, brave, devoted men and women possessed with the enthusiasm ofhumanity in every civilized country, and they must prevail. Professorand Mrs. Westlake, the latter of whom was Mr. Hare's eldest daughter, arranged a most successful drawing-room meeting for me at their home, the River House, Chelsea, at which Mr. Arthur Balfour spoke. While hethought effective voting probably suitable for America and Australia, he scarcely saw the necessity for it in England. Party leaders soseldom do like to try it on themselves, but many of them are preparedto experiment on "the other fellow. " In this State we find members ofthe Assembly anxious to try effective voting on the LegislativeCouncil, Federal members on the State House, and vice versa. Otherspeakers who supported me were Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), Leonard(now Lord) Courtney, Mr. Westlake, and Sir John Hall, of New Zealand. The flourishing condition of the Proportional Representation Society inEngland at present is due to the earnestness of the lastnamedgentlemen, and its extremely able hon. Secretary (Mr. John H. Humphreys). 

A few days were spent with Miss Jane Hume Clapperton, author of"Scientific Meliorism, " and we had an interesting time visiting GeorgeEliot's haunts and friends. Through the Warwickshire lanes--where thehigh hedges and the great trees at regular intervals made it impossibleto see anything beyond, except an occasional gate, reminding me of Mrs. Browning's--

 And between the hedgerows green, How we wandered--I and you; With the bowery tops shut in, And the gates that showed the view. 

--we saw the homestead known as "Mrs. Poyser's Farm, " as it answers soperfectly to the description in "Adam Bede. " I was taken to see Mrs. Cash, a younger friend of George Eliot, and took tea with two mostinteresting, old ladies--one 82, and the other 80--who had befriendedthe famous authoress when she was poor and stood almost alone. How Igrudged the thousands of acres of beautiful agricultural land given upto shooting and hunting! We in Australia have no idea of the extent towhich field sports enter into the rural life of England. People excusedthis love of sport to me on the ground that it is as a safety valve forthe energy of idle men. Besides, said one, hunting leads, at any rate, to an appreciation of Nature; but I thought it a queer appreciation ofNature that would lead keen fox hunters to complain of the "stinking"violets that throw the hounds off the scent of the fox. I saw Ascot andEpsom, but fortunately not on a race day. A horse race I have neverseen. George Moore's realistic novel "Esther Waters" does not overstatethe extent to which betting demoralizes not only the wealthier, but allclasses. There is a great pauper school in Sutton, where from 1, 600 to1, 800 children are reared and educated. On Derby Day the children go tothe side of the railroad, and catch the coppers and silver coins thrownto them by the passengers, and these are gathered together to give thechildren their yearly treat. But this association in the children'sminds of their annual pleasure with Derby Day must, I often think, havea demoralizing tendency. 

While in London I slipped in trying to avoid being run down by anomnibus and dislocated my right shoulder. I was fortunate in being theguest of Mr. And Mrs. Petherick at the time. I can never besufficiently grateful to them for their care of and kindness to me. Only last year I went to Melbourne to meet them both again. It was theoccasion of the presentation to the Federal Government of the PetherickLibrary, and I went over to sign and to witness the splendid deed ofgift. 

I have left almost to the last of the account of my English visit allmention of the Baconians I met and from whom I gained valuableinformation in corroboration of the Baconian authorship. In somecircles I found that, to suggest that Shakspeare did not write theplays and poems was equal to throwing a bombshell among them. As aBaconian I received an invitation to a picnic at the beautiful countryhouse of Mr. Edwin Lawrence, with whom I had a pleasant talk. The housewas built on a part of a royal forest, in which firs and pines wereplanted at the time of the great Napoleonic wars when timber could notbe got from the Baltic and England had to trust to her own hearts ofoak and her own growth of pine for masts and planks. Mr. Lawrence hadwritten pamphlets and essays on the Baconian theory, and I found myknowledge of the subject expanding and growing under his intelligenttalk. His wife's father (J. Benjamin Smith) had taught Cobden theethics of free trade. It was through the kind liberality of MissFlorence Davenport Hill that a pamphlet, recording the speeches andresults of the voting at River House, Chelsea, was printed andcirculated. When I visited Miss Hill and her sister and found them aseager for social and political reform as they had been 29 yearsearlier, I had another proof of the eternal youth which large and highinterests keep within us in spite of advancing years. Miss DavenportHill had been a member of the London School Board for 15 years, and wasreelected after I left England. Years of her life had been devoted towork for the children of the State, and she was a member of the Boardof Guardians for the populous union of St. Pancras. Everyoneacknowledged the great good that the admission of women to those boardshad done. I spent a pleasant time at Toynbee Hall, a University centre, in the poorest part of London, founded by men. Canon and Mrs. Barrettwere intensely interested in South Australian work for State children. Similar University centres which I visited in America, like Hull House, in Chicago, were founded by women graduates. Mrs. Fawcett I met severaltimes, but Mrs. Garrett Anderson only once. When the suffrage wasgranted to the women of South Australia I received a letter ofcongratulation from Dr. Helen Blackburn, one of the first women to takea medical degree. Nowadays women doctors are accepted as part of ourdaily life, and it is to these brave pioneers of the women's cause, Drs. Elizabeth Blackwell, Helen Rackburn, Garrett Anderson, and otherlike noble souls, that the social and political prestige of women hasadvanced so tremendously all over the English-speaking world. It onlyremains now for a few women, full of the enthusiasm of humanity andgifted with the power of public speaking, to gain another and importantstep for the womanhood of the world in the direction of economicfreedom. Before leaving England I was gratified at receiving a chequefrom Mrs. Westlake, contributed by the English proportionalists, tohelp me in the cause. This was the second gift of the kind I hadreceived, for my friends in San Francisco had already helped mefinancially on my way to reform. Socially I liked the atmosphere ofAmerica better than that of England, but politically England wasinfinitely more advanced. Steadily and surely a safer democracy seemsto be evolving in the old country than in the Transatlantic Republic. Ileft England at the end of September, 1894. 

My intended visit to Paris was cancelled through the death a short timebefore of the only friend I wished to meet there, the BaronessBlaze-de-Bury, and I went straight through to Bale. I made a detour toZurich, where I hoped to see people interested in proportionalrepresentation who could speak English. An interesting fellow-worker inthe cause was Herr Karl Burkli, to whom I suggested the idea oflecturing with ballots. The oldest advocate of proportionalrepresentation on the Continent, M. Ernest Naville, I met at Geneva. Inthat tiny republic in the heart of Europe, which is the home ofexperimental legislation, I found effective voting already establishedin four cantons, and the effect in these cantons had been so good (saidErnest Naville) "that it is only a matter of time to see all the Swisscantons and the Swiss Federation adopt it. " In Zurich Herr Burkli wasdelighted that they had introduced progressive taxation into thecanton, but the effect had been to drive away the wealthy people whocame in search of quiet and healthy residence. Progressive taxation hasnot by any means proved the unmixed blessing which so many of itsadvocates claim it to be. In New Zealand, we are told, on the bestauthority, that land monopoly and land jobbery were never so rampant inthe Dominion as since the introduction of the progressive land tax. Onewondered how the three million Swiss people lived on their littleterritory, so much occupied by barren mountain, and lakes which supplyonly a few fish. My Zurich friends told me that it was by theirunremitting industry and exceptional thrift, but others said that theforeign visitors who go to the recreation ground of Europe circulate somuch money that instead of the prayer "Give us this day our dailybread" the Swiss people ask, "Send us this day one foreigner. "

In Italy I saw the most intense culture in the world--no pleasuregrounds or deer parks for the wealthy. The whole country looked like agarden with trellised vines and laden trees. Italian wine was grown, principally for home consumption, and that was immense. Prohibitionistswould speak to deaf ears there. Wine was not a luxury, but a necessityof life. It made the poor fare of dry bread and polenta (maizeporridge) go down more pleasantly. It was the greater abundance offruit and wine that caused the Italian poorer classes to look healthierthan the German. In Germany, which taxed itself to give cheap beetsugar to the British consumer, the people paid 6d. A lb. For the littlethey could afford to use; and in Italy it was nearly 8d. --a source ofrevenue to the Governments, but prohibitive to the poor. There were nosweet shops in Italy. England only could afford such luxuries. Ivisited at Siena a home for deaf mutes, and found that each child hadwine at two of its daily meals--about a pint a day. It was thelight-red wine of the country, with little alcohol in it; but those whowarn us against looking on the wine when it is red will be shocked tohear of these little ones drinking it like milk. Those, however, wholive in Italy say that not once a year do they see any one drunk in thestreets. 

I reached South Australia on December 12, 1894, after an absence of 20months. I found the women's suffrage movement wavering in the balance. It had apparently come with a rush--as unexpected as it was welcome tothose whose strenuous exertions at last seemed likely to be crownedwith success. Though sympathetic to the cause, I had always beenregarded as a weakkneed sister by the real workers. I had failed to seethe advantage of having a vote that might leave me after an election adisfranchised voter, instead of an unenfranchised woman. People talk ofcitizens being disfranchised for the Legislative Council when theyreally mean that they are unenfranchised. You can scarcely bedisfranchised if you have never been enfranchised; and I have regardedthe enfranchisement of the people on the roll as more important for thetime being than adding new names to the rolls. This would only tend toincrease the disproportion between the representative and therepresented. But I rejoiced when the Women's Suffrage Bill was carried, for I believe that women have thought more and accepted theresponsibilities of voting to a greater extent than was ever expectedof them. During the week I was accorded a welcome home in the oldAcademy of Music, Rundle street, where I listened with embarrassment tothe avalanche of eulogium that overwhelmed me. "What a good thing itis, Miss Spence, that you have only one idea, " a gentleman once said tome on my country tour. He wished thus to express his feeling concerningmy singleness of purpose towards effective voting. But at this welcomehome I felt that others realized what I had often said myself. It isreally because I have so many ideas for making life better, wiser, andpleasanter all of which effective voting will aid--that I seem soabsorbed in the one reform. My opinions on other matters I give forwhat they are worth--for discussion, for acceptance or rejection. Myopinions on equitable representation I hold absolutely, subject tocriticism of methods but impregnable as to principle. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

PROGRESS OF EFFECTIVE VOTING. 

My journalistic work after my return was neither so regular nor soprofitable as before I left Adelaide. The bank failures had affected merather badly, and financially my outlook was anything but rosy in theyear 1895. There was, however, plenty of public work open to me, and, in addition to the many lectures I gave in various parts of the Stateon effective voting, I became a member of the Hospital Commission, appointed that year by the Kingston Government to enquire into thetrouble at the Adelaide Hospital. That same year saw a decided steptaken in connection with effective voting, and in July a league wasformed, which has been in existence ever since. I was appointed thefirst President, my brother John became secretary pro tem, and Mr. A. W. Piper the first treasurer. I felt at last that the reform was takingdefinite shape, and looked hopefully to its future. The following yearwas especially interesting to the women of South Australia, and, indeed, to suffragists all over the world, for at the general electionof 1896 women, for the first time in Australia, had the right to vote. New Zealand had preceded us with this reform, but the first election inthis State found many women voters fairly well equipped to accept theirresponsibilities as citizens of the State. But in the full realizationby the majority of women of their whole duties of citizenship I havebeen distinctly disappointed. Not that they have been on the whole lesspatriotic and less zealous than men voters; but, like their brothers, they have allowed their interest in public affairs to stop short at theact of voting, as if the right to vote were the beginning and the endof political life. There has been too great a tendency on the part ofwomen to allow reform work--particularly women's branches of it--to bedone by a few disinterested and public-spirited women. Not only is thehome the centre of woman's sphere, as it should be, but in too manycases it is permitted to be its limitation. The larger social life hasbeen ignored, and women have consequently failed to have the effect onpublic life of which their political privilege is capable. 

At the close of a second lecturing tour through the State, during whichI visited and spoke at most of the village settlements, I received aninvitation from the Women's Land Reform League to attend a socialgathering at the residence of Miss Sutherland, Clark street, Norwood. The occasion was my seventy-first birthday, and my friends had chosenthat day (October 31, 1896) to mark their appreciation of my publicservices. There were about 30 of the members present, all interestingby reason of their zealous care for the welfare of the State. TheirPresident (Mrs. C. Proud) presented me, on behalf of the members, witha lady's handbag, ornamented with a silver plate, bearing my name, thedate of the presentation, and the name of the cause for which I stood. From that day the little bag has been the inseparable companion of allmy wanderings, and a constant reminder of the many kind friends who, with me, had realized that "love of country is one of the loftiestvirtues which the Almighty has planted in the human heart. " Thatassociation was the first in South Australia to place effective votingon its platform. 

My long comradeship with Mrs. A. H. Young began before the close of theyear. A disfranchised voter at her first election, she was drivenfarther afield than the present inadequate system of voting to look fora just electoral method. She found it in effective voting, and fromthat time devoted herself to the cause. Early in 1897 Mrs. Young wasappointed the first honorary secretary of the league. January of thesame year found us stirred to action by the success of Sir EdwardBraddon's first Bill for proportional representation in Tasmania. Though limited in its application to the two chief cities of the islandState, the experiment was wholly successful. We had our first largepublic meeting in the Co-operative Hall in January, and carried aresolution protesting against the use of the block vote for the FederalConvention elections. A deputation to the acting Premier(Mr. --afterwards Sir Frederick--Holder) was arranged for the nextmorning. But we were disappointed in the result of our mission, for Mr. Holder pointed out that the Enabling Act distinctly provided for everyelector having 10 votes, and effective voting meant a singletransferable vote. I had written and telegraphed to the Hon. C. C. Kingston when the Enabling Act was being drafted to beg him to considereffective voting as the basis of election; but he did not see it then, nor did he ever see it. In spite, however, of the short sightedness ofparty leaders, events began to move quickly. 

Our disappointment over the maintenance of the block vote for theelection of 10 delegates to the Federal Convention led to my brotherJohn's suggestion that I should become a candidate. Startling as thesuggestion was, so many of my friends supported it that I agreed to doso. I maintained that the fundamental necessity of a democraticConstitution such as we hoped would evolve from the combined efforts ofthe ablest men in the Australian States was a just system ofrepresentation and it was as the advocate of effective voting that Itook my stand. My personal observation in the United States and Canadahad impressed me with the dangers inseparable from the election ofFederal Legislatures by local majorities--sometimes byminorities--where money and influence could be employed, particularlywhere a line in a tariff spelt a fortune to a section of the people, inthe manipulation of the floating vote. Parties may boast of theirvoting strength and their compactness, but their voting strength underthe present system of voting is only as strong as its weakest link, discordant or discontented minorities, will permit it to be. Thestronger a party is in the Legislature the more is expected from it byevery little section of voters to whom it owes its victory at thepolls. The impelling force of responsibility which makes allGovernments "go slow" creates the greatest discontent among impatientfollowers of the rank and file, and where a few votes may turn thescale at any general election a Government is often compelled to choosebetween yielding to the demands of its more clamorous followers at theexpense of the general taxpayer or submitting to a Ministerial defeat. 

As much as we may talk of democracy in Australia, we are far fromrealizing a truly democratic ideal. A State in a pure democracy drawsno nice and invidious distinctions between man and man. She disclaimsthe right of favouring either property, education, talent, or virtue. She conceives that all alike have an interest in good government, andthat all who form the community, of full age and untainted by crime, should have a right to their share in the representation. She allowseducation to exert its legitimate power through the press; talent inevery department of business, property in its social and materialadvantages; virtue and religion to influence public opinion and thepublic conscience. But she views all men as politically equal, andrightly so, if the equality is to be as real in operation as in theory. If the equality is actual in the representation of the citizens--truthand virtue, being stronger than error and vice, and wisdom beinggreater than folly, when a fair field is offered--the higher qualitiessubdue the lower and make themselves felt in every department of theState. But if the representation from defective machinery is not equal, the balance is overthrown, and neither education, talent, nor virtuecan work through public opinion so as to have any beneficial influenceon politics. We know that in despotisms and oligarchies, where themajority are unrepresented and the few extinguish the many, independence of thought is crushed down, talent is bribed to do serviceto tyranny, education is confined to a privileged class and denied tothe people, property is sometimes pillaged and sometimes flattered, andeven virtue is degraded by lowering its field and making subservienceappear to be patience and loyalty, and religion is not unfrequentlymade the handmaid of oppression. Taxes fall heavily on the poor for thebenefit of the rich, and the only check proceeds from the fear ofrebellion. When, on the other hand, the majority extinguishes theminority, the evil effects are not so apparent. The body oppressed issmaller and generally wealthier, with many social advantages to drawoff attention from the political injustice under which they suffer; butthere is the same want of sympathy between class and class, moralcourage is rare, talent is perverted, genius is overlooked, educationis general, but superficial, and press and Pulpit often timid inexposing or denouncing popular errors. An average standard of virtue isall that is aimed at, and when no higher mark is set up there is greatfear of falling below the average. Therefore it is incumbent on allStates to look well to it that their representative systems reallysecure the political equality they all profess to give, for until thatis done democracy has had no fair trial. 

In framing a new constitution the opportunity arose for laying thefoundation of just representation, and, had I been elected, my firstand last thought would have been given to the claims of the wholepeople to electoral justice. But the 7, 500 votes which I received leftme far enough from the lucky 10. Had Mr. Kingston not asserted bothpublicly and privately that, if elected, I could not constitutionallytake my seat, I might have done better. There were rumours even that mynomination paper would be rejected. But to obviate this, Mrs. Young, who got it filled in, was careful to see that no name was on it thathad no right there, and its presentation was delayed till five minutesbefore the hour of noon, in order that no time would be left to upsetits validity. From a press cutting on the declaration of the poll Icull this item of news--"Several unexpected candidates were announced, but the only nomination which evoked any expressions of approval wasthat of Miss Spence. " I was the first woman in Australia to seekelection in a political contest. From the two main party lists I was, of course, excluded, but in the list of the "10 best men" selected by aLiberal organization my name appeared. When the list was taken to theprinter--who, I think, happened to be the late Federal member, Mr. James Hutchison--he objected to the heading of the "10 best men, " asone of them was a woman. He suggested that my name should be dropped, and a man's put in its place. "You can't say Miss Spence is one of the'10 best men. ' Take her name out. " "Not say she's one of the '10 bestmen?'" the Liberal organizer objected, "Why she's the best man of thelot. " I had not expected to be elected, but I did expect that mycandidature would help effective voting, and I am sure it did. Laterthe league arranged a deputation to Mr. Kingston, to beg him to use hisinfluence for the adoption of the principle in time for the firstFederal elections. We foresaw, and prophesied what has actuallyoccurred--the monopoly of representation by one party in the Senate, and the consequent disfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of votersthroughout the Commonwealth. But, as before, Mr. Kingston declined tosee the writing on the wall. The Hon. D. M. Charleston was successfulin carrying through the Legislative Council a motion in favour of itsapplication to Federal elections, but Mr. Wynn in the Lower House had aharder row to hoe, and a division was never taken. 

Mrs. Young and I spent a pleasant evening at Government House in Julyof the same year, as Sir Fowell and Lady Buxton had expressed a desireto understand the system. In addition to a large house party, severalprominent citizens were present, and all were greatly interested. Onleaving at 11 o'clock we found the gate closed against us, as theporter was evidently unaware that visitors were being entertained. Wewere amused at the indignation of the London-bred butler, who, oncoming to our rescue, cried with a perfect Cockney accent, "Gyte, gyte, yer don't lock gytes till visitors is off. " This was a memorable yearin the annals of our cause, for on his election to fill anextraordinary vacancy for North Adelaide Mr. Glynn promised tointroduce effective voting into the House. This he did in July bytabling a motion for the adoption of the principle, and we were pleasedto find in Mr. Batchelor, now the Minister for External Affairs in theFederal Government, a stanch supporter. Among the many politicians whohave blown hot and cold on the reform as occasion arose, Mr. Batchelorhas steadily and consistently remained a supporter of what he terms"the only system that makes majority rule possible. "

When Mrs. Young and I began our work together the question wasfrequently asked why women alone were working for effective voting? Theanswer was simple. There were few men with leisure in South Australia, and, if there were, the leisured man was scarcely likely to take upreform work. When I first seized hold of this reform women as platformspeakers were unheard of. Indeed, the prejudice was so strong againstwomen in public life that although I wrote the letters to The MelbourneArgus it was my brother John who was nominally the correspondent. Sofor 30 years I wrote anonymously to the press on this subject. I waitedfor some man to come forward and do the platform work for me. We womenare accused of waiting and waiting for the coming man, but often hedoesn't come at all; and oftener still, when he does come, we should bea great deal better without him. In this case he did not come at all, and I started to do the work myself; and, just because I was a womanworking singlehanded in the cause, Mrs. Young joined me in the crusadeagainst inequitable representation. For many years, however, the causehas counted to its credit men speakers and demonstrators of ability andtalent all over the State, who are carrying the gospel ofrepresentative reform into every camp, both friendly and hostile. 

It was said of Gibbon when his autobiography was published that he didnot know the difference between himself and the Roman Empire. I havesometimes thought that the same charge might be levelled against mewith regard to effective voting; but association with a reform for halfa century sometimes makes it difficult to separate the interests of theperson from the interests of the cause. Following on my return fromAmerica effective voting played a larger part than ever in my life. Ihad come back cheered by the earnestness and enthusiasm of Americanreformers, and I found the people of my adopted country more than everprepared to listen to my teaching. Parties had become more clearlydefined, and the results of our system of education were beginning totell, I think, in the increased interest taken by individuals as wellas by societies in social and economic questions. I found interestingpeople everywhere, in every mode of life, and in every class ofsociety. My friends sometimes accused me of judging people'sintelligence by the interest they took in effective voting; but, although this may have been true to a certain extent, it was not whollycorrect. Certainly I felt more drawn to effective voters, but there arefriendships I value highly into which my special reform work neverenters. Just as the more recent years of my life have been coloured bythe growth of the movement which means more to me than anything else inthe world, so must the remaining chapters of this narrative bear theimprint of its influence. 

CHAPTER XX. 

WIDENING INTERESTS. 

During this period my work on the State Children's Council continued, and I never found time hang heavily on my hands; so that when Mr. Kingston met me one day later in the year, and told me he particularlywished me to accept an appointment as a member of the Destitute Board, I hesitated. "I am too old, " I objected. "No, no, Miss Spence, " hereplied laughingly, "it is only we who grow old--you have the gift ofperpetual youth. " But I was nearly 72, and at any rate I thought Ishould first consult my friends. I found them all eager that I shouldaccept the position. I had agitated long and often for the appointmentof women on all public boards, particularly where both sexes came undertreatment, and I accepted the post. Although often I have found thework tiring, I have never regretted the step I took in joining theboard. Experience has emphasized my early desire that two women atleast should occupy positions on it. I hope that future Governmentswill rectify the mistake of past years by utilizing to a greater extentthe valuable aid of capable and sympathetic women in a branch of publicwork for which they are peculiarly fitted. Early in my career as amember of the board I found grave defects in the daily bill of fare, and set myself to the task of remedying them as far as lay in my power. For 30 years the same kind of soup, day in and day out, followed by theeternal and evergreen cabbage as a vegetable, in season and out ofseason, found its way to the table. My own tastes and mode of life weresimplicity personified, but my stomach revolted against a dietary asunvaried as it was unappetizing. An old servant who heard that Iattended the Destitute Asylum every week was loud in her lamentationsthat "poor dear Miss Spence was so reduced that she had to go to theDestitute every week for rations!" My thankfulness that she hadmisconceived the position stirred me to leave no stone unturned for thebetterment of the destitute bill of fare. I was successful, and thevaried diet now enjoyed bears witness to the humanitarian views of allthe members of the board, who were as anxious to help in the reform asI was. My heart has always gone out to the poor old folk whose facesbear the impress of long years of strenuous toil and who at the closeof life at least should find a haven of restfulness and peace in theState for whose advancement they have laboured in the past. 

She was a witty woman who divided autobiographies into two classes... Autobiographies and ought-not-to-biographies--but I am sure she neverattempted to write one herself. There is so much in one's life thatlooms large from a personal point of view about which other peoplewould care little, and the difficulty often arises, not so much aboutwhat to put in as what to leave out. 

How much my personal interests had widened during my absence from homecould be gauged somewhat by the enormous increase in my correspondenceafter my return. American, Canadian, English, and Continentalcorrespondents have kept me for many years well informed on reform andkindred subjects; and the letters I have received, and the replies theyhave drawn from me, go far to make me doubt the accuracy of theaccepted belief that "letter writing has become a lost art. " A fullmind with a facile pen makes letter writing a joy, and both of theseattributes I think I may fairly claim. My correspondence with AlfredCridge was kept up till his death a few years ago, and his son, following worthily in the footsteps of a noble father, has taken up thebroken threads of the lifework of my friend, and is doing his utmost tocarry it to a successful issue. My love of reading, which has been acharacteristic feature of my life, found full scope for expression inthe piles of books which reached us from all parts of the world. It hasalways been my desire to keep abreast of current literature, and this, by means of my book club and other sources, I was able to do. Sometimesmy friends from abroad sent me copies of their own publications, Dr. Bayard Holmes invariably forwarding to me a presentation copy of hismost valuable treatises on medical subjects. Mrs. Stetson's poems andeconomic writings have always proved a source of inspiration to me, andI have distributed her books wherever I have thought they would beappreciated. Just at this time my financial position became brighter. Iwas fortunate in being able to dispose of my two properties in EastAdelaide, and the purchasing of an annuity freed me entirely from moneyand domestic worries. Perhaps the greatest joy of all was that I wasonce more able to follow my charitable inclinations by giving thatlittle mite which, coming opportunely, gladdens the heart of thedisconsolate widow or smoothes the path of the struggling worker. Giving up my home entirely, I went to live with my dear friend Mrs. Baker, at Osmond terrace, where, perhaps, I spent the most restfulperiod of a somewhat eventful life. 

The inauguration of a Criminological Society in Adelaide was a welcomesign to me of the growing public interest in methods of prisondiscipline and treatment. I was one of the foundation members of thesociety, and attended every meeting during its short existence. My onecontribution to the lectures delivered under its auspices was on"Heredity and Environment. " This was a subject in which I had long beeninterested, holding the view that environment had more to do with thebuilding up of character than heredity had to do with its decadence. How much or how little truth there is in the cynical observation thatthe only believers in heredity nowadays are the fathers of very cleversons I am not prepared to say. I do say, however, that with the crueland hopeless law of heredity as laid down by Zola and Ibsen I havelittle sympathy. According to these pessimists, who ride heredity todeath, we inherit only the vices, the weaknesses, and the diseases ofour ancestors. If this, however, were really the case, the world wouldbe growing worse and not better, as it assuredly is, with everysucceeding generation. The contrary view taken of the matter by Ibsen'sfellowcountryman, Bjornsen, appears to me to be so much morecommonsense and humanizing. He holds that if we know that our ancestorsdrank and gambled to excess, or were violent-tempered or immoral, wecan quite easily avoid the pitfall, knowing it to be there. Too readilywrongdoers are prepared to lay their failings at the door of ancestors, society, or some other blamable source, instead of attributing them, asthey should do, to their own selfish and weak indulgence and lack ofself-control. Heredity, though an enormous factor in our constitution, need not be regarded as an over-mastering fate, for each human beinghas an almost limitless parentage to draw upon. Each child has both afather and a mother, and two grandparents on both sides, increasing asone goes back. But, besides drawing on a much wider ancestry than theimmediate parents, we have more than we inherit, or where could the lawof progress operate? Each generation, each child who is born, comesinto a slightly different world, fed by more experience, blown upon byfresh influences. And each individual comes into the world, not with abody merely, but with a soul; and this soul is susceptible toimpressions, not only from the outer material world but from the othersouls also impressed by the old and the new, by the material and theideal. 

"The History of the Jukes" is continually cited as proving the powerand force of heredity. Most people who read the book through, however, instead of merely accepting allusions one-sided and defective to it, see clearly that it forms the strongest argument for change ofenvironment that ever was brought forward. The assumed name of Jukes isgiven to the descendants of a worthless woman who emigrated to Americaupwards of a century and a half ago, and from whom hundreds ofcriminals, paupers, and prostitutes have descended. But how were theJukes' descendants dealt with during this period? No helping handremoved the children from their vicious and criminal surroundings knownas one of the crime-cradles of the State of New York. Neither churchnor school took them under its protecting care. Born and reared in thehaunts of vice and crime, nothing but viciousness and criminality couldbe expected as a result. Without going, so far as a wellknown ex-memberof our State Legislature, whose antagonism to the humanitariantreatment of prisoners led him to the belief that "there wasn't nothin'in 'erry-ditty, ' it was all tommy rot, " I still hold to the belief thatenvironment plays the larger part in the formation of character. Everyphase of criminal reform is, I candidly admit, dealing with effectsrather than causes. Effects, however, must be dealt with, and the morehumanely they are dealt with the better for society at large. So longas society shuts its eyes to the social conditions under which themasses of the people live, move, and have their being as tendingtowards lowering rather than uplifting the individual and thecommunity, the supply of cases for criminal treatment willunfortunately show little tendency to decrease. The work beforereformers of the world is to prevent the creation of criminals bychanging the environment of those with criminal tendencies as well asto seek to alleviate the resulting disease by methods of criminalreform. 

Many interesting lectures were given by prominent citizens under theauspices of the society, which did a great deal to awaken the publicconscience on the important question of criminal reform. The Rev. J. Day Thompson, who was then in the zenith of his intellectual power anda noble supporter of all things that tended to the uplifting ofhumanity, dealt with the land question in relation to crime. He gave atelling illustration of his point--which I thought equally applicableto the question of environment in relation to prison reform--that nopermanent good could result from social legislation until societyrecognised and dealt with the root of the social evil, the landquestion. "In a lunatic asylum, " he said, "it is the custom to test thesanity of patients by giving them a ladle with which to empty a tub ofwater standing under a running tap. 'How do you decide?' the warder wasasked. 'Why, them as isn't idiots stops the tap. '" It was the Rev. J. Day Thompson who first called me the "Grand Old Woman" of SouthAustralia. When he left Adelaide for the wider sphere of service opento him in England I felt that we had lost one of the most cultured andable men who had ever come among us, and one whom no community couldlose without being distinctly the poorer for his absence. 

Just at this time the visit of Dr. And Mrs. Mills created a littleexcitement in certain circles. Their lectures on Christian science, both public and private, were wonderfully well attended, and I missedfew of them. I have all my life endeavoured to keep an open mind onthese questions, and have been prepared to accept new ideas and newmodes of thought. But, although I found much that was charming in thelectures that swayed the minds of so many of my friends, I found littleto convince me that Christian scientists were right and the rest of theworld wrong in their interpretation of the meaning of life. So far asthe cultivation of will power, as it is called, is concerned, I have noquarrel with those who maintain that a power of self-control is thebasis of human happiness. So far as the will can be trained to obeyonly those instincts that tend to the growth and maintenance ofself-respect--to prevent the subordination of our better feelings tothe overpowering effects of passion, greed, or injustice--it must helpto the development of one of the primary necessities of a saneexistence. When, however, the same agency is brought to bear on thetreatment of diseases in any shape or form I find my faith wavering. Though there may be more things in earth and heaven than are dreamed ofin my philosophy, I was not prepared to follow the teachings set beforeus by the interpreters of this belief, whose visit had made aninteresting break in the lives of many people. Truth I find everywhereexpressed, goodness in all things; but I neither look for nor expectperfection in any one thing the world has ever produced. "Tell me whereGod is, " a somewhat, cynical sceptic asked of a child. "Tell me whereHe is not, " replied the child; and the same thing applies to goodness. Do not tell me where goodness is, but point out to, me, if you can, where it is not. It is for each one to find out for himself where theright path lies, and to follow it with all his strength of mind and ofpurpose. Pippa's song, "God's in His heaven-all's right with theworld, " does not mean that the time has come for us to lay down ourarms in the battle of right against wrong. No! no; it is an inspirationfor us to gird our loins afresh, to "right the wrongs that needresistance;" for, God being in His heaven, and the world itself beingright, makes it so much easier to correct mistakes that are due tohuman agencies and shortcomings only. 

I found time to spend a pleasant week at Victor Harbour with myfriends, Mr. And Mrs. John Wyles. I remember one day being askedwhether I was not sorry I never married. "No, " I replied, "for, although I often envy my friends the happiness they find in theirchildren, I have never envied them their husbands. " I think we musthave been in a frivolous mood; for a lady visitor, who was present, capped my remark with the statement that she was quite sure Miss Spencewas thankful that when she died she would not be described as the"relic" of any man. It was the same lady who on another occasion, whenone of the juvenile members of the party asked whether poets had to payfor poetical licence, wittily replied, "No, my dear, but their readersdo!" Although so much of my time has been spent in public work, I haveby no means neglected or despised the social side of life. Visits to myfriends have always been delightful to me, and I have felt as muchinterested in the domestic virtues of my many acquaintances as I havebeen an admirer of their grasp of literature, politics, or any branchof the arts or sciences in which they have been interested. Thisseaside visit had been a welcome break in a year that had brought me anew occupation as a member of the Destitute Board, had given me theexperience of a political campaign, had witnessed the framing of theConstitution for the Commonwealth 'neath the Southern Cross, and hadseen effective voting advance from the academic stage into the realm ofpractical politics. During the year Mrs. Young and I addressed together26 meetings on this subject. One of the most interesting was at theBlind School, North Adelaide. The keenness with which this audiencegripped every detail of the explanation showed us how splendidly theyhad risen above their affliction. I was reminded of Helen Keller, theAmerican girl, who at the age of 21 months had lost sight and hearing, and whom I had met in Chicago during my American visit, just before shetook her degree at Harvard University. 

To all peacelovers the years from 1898 to 1901 were shadowed by theSouth African war. The din of battle was in our ears only to a lessdegree than in those of our kinsmen in the mother country. War hasalways been abhorrent to me, and there was the additional objection tomy mind in the case of the South African war in that it was altogetherunjustified. Froude's chapters on South Africa had impressed me on thepublication of his book "Oceana, " after his visit here in theseventies. His indictment of England for her treatment of the Boersfrom the earliest days of her occupation of Cape Colony was toopowerful to be ignored. I felt it to be impossible that so great ahistorian as Froude should make such grave charges on insufficientevidence. The annexation of 1877, so bitterly condemned by him, followed by the treaty of peace of 1881, with its famous "suzerainty"clause, was, I think, but a stepping stone to the war which was said tohave embittered the last years of the life of Queen Victoria. The onevoice raised in protest against the annexation of 1877 in the BritishHouse of Commons was that of Mr. Leonard (now Lord) Courtney. Notafraid to stand alone, though all the world were against him, the warat the close of the century found Leonard Courtney again taking hisstand against the majority of his countrymen, and this time it cost himhis Parliamentary seat. I have often felt proud that the leadership ofproportional representation in England should have fallen into thehands of so morally courageous a man as Leonard Courtney has invariablyproved himself to be. 

We are apt to pride ourselves on the advance we have made in ourcivilization; but our self-glorification received a rude shock at thefeelings of intolerance and race hatred that the war brought forth. Freedom of speech became the monopoly of those who supported the war, and the person who dared to express an opinion which differed from thatof the majority needed a great deal more than the ordinary allowance ofmoral courage. Unfortunately the intolerance so characteristic of thatperiod is a feature, to a greater or lesser extent, of everyParliamentary election in the Commonwealth. The clause in the FederalElectoral Act which makes disturbance of a political meeting a penaloffence is a curious reflection on a so-called democratic community. But, though its justification can scarcely be denied even by thepartisans of the noisier elements in a political crowd, its existencemust be deplored by every right-minded and truehearted citizen. In MissRose Scott I found a sympathizer on this question of the war; and oneof the best speeches I ever heard her make was on Peace andArbitration. "Mafeking Day" was celebrated while we were in Sydney, andI remember how we three--Miss Scott, Mrs. Young, and I--remainedindoors the whole day, at the charming home of our hostess, on PointPiper road. The black band of death and desolation was too apparent forus to feel that we could face the almost ribald excesses of that day. Ifelt the war far less keenly than did my two friends; but it was badeven for me. No one called, and the only companions of our chosensolitude were the books we all loved so much, and

 The secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind. 

I had hoped that the Women's National Council, a branch of which wasformed in Adelaide a few years later, would have made a great deal ofthe question of peace and arbitration, just as other branches have doneall over the world; and when the Peace Society was inaugurated a shorttime ago I was glad to be able to express my sympathy with the movementby becoming a member. As I was returning from a lecturing tour in thesouth during this time, an old Scotch farm-wife came into the carriagewhere I had been knitting in solitude. She was a woman of strongfeelings, and was bitterly opposed to the war. We chatted on thesubject for a time, getting along famously, until she discovered that Iwas Miss Spence. "But you are a Unitarian!" she protested in a shockedtone. I admitted the fact. "Oh, Miss Spence, " she went on, "how can yoube so wicked as to deny the divinity of Christ?" I explained to herwhat Unitarianism was, but she held dubiously aloof for a time. Then wetalked of other things. She told me of many family affairs, and whenshe left me at the station she said, "All, well, Miss Spence, I'velearned something this morning, and that is that a Unitarian can bejust as good and honest as other folk. "

CHAPTER XXI

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION AND FEDERATION. 

In the debates of the Federal Convention I was naturally muchinterested. Many times I regretted my failure to win a seat when I sawhow, in spite of warnings against, and years of lamentable experienceof, a vicious system of voting, the members of the Convention wentcalmly on their way, accepting as a matter of course the crude andhaphazard methods known to them, the unscientific system of voting sodear to the heart of the "middling" politician and the party intriguer. I believe Mr. Glynn alone raised his voice in favour of proportionalrepresentation, in the Convention, as he has done consistently in everyrepresentative assembly of which he has been a member. Instead ofseeing to it that the foundations of the Commonwealth were "broad basedupon the people's will" by the adoption of effective voting, and thusmaintaining the necessary connection between the representative and therepresented, these thinkers for the people at the very outset offederation sowed the seeds of future discontent and Federal apathy. Faced with disfranchisement for three or six years, possibly forever--so long as the present system of voting remains--it isunreasonable to expect from the people as a whole that interest in thenational well-being which alone can lead to the safety of a progressivenation. 

Proportional representation was for long talked of as a device forrepresenting minorities. It is only in recent years that the real scopeof the reform has been recognised. By no other means than the adoptionof the single transferable vote can the rule of the majority obtain. The fundamental principle of proportional representation is thatmajorities must rule, but that minorities shall be adequatelyrepresented. An intelligent minority of representatives has greatweight and influence. Its voice can be heard. It can fully and trulyexpress the views of the voters it represents. It can watch themajority and keep it straight. These clear rights of the minority aredenied by the use of the multiple vote. It has also been asked--Can aGovernment be as strong as it needs to be when--besides the organizedMinisterial party and the recognised Opposition--there may be a largernumber of independent members than at present who may vote either way?It is quite possible for a Government to be too strong, and this isespecially dangerous in Australia, where there are so many of what areknown as optional functions of government undertaken and administeredby the Ministry of the day, resting on a majority in the Legislature. To maintain this ascendancy concessions are made to the personalinterests of members or to local or class interests of theirconstituencies at the cost of the whole country. 

When introducing proportional representation into the Belgian Chamberthe Prime Minister (M. Bernhaert) spoke well and forcibly on thesubject of a strong Government:--

I, who have the honour of speaking to you to-day in the name of theGovernment and who have at my back the strongest majority that was everknown in Belgium, owe it to truth to say that our opinions have not acorresponding preponderance in the country; and I believe that, if thatmajority were always correctly expressed, we should gain in stabilitywhat we might lose in apparent strength. Gentlemen, in the actual stateof things, to whom belongs the Government of the country? It belongs tosome two or three thousand electors, who assuredly are neither the bestnor the most intelligent, who turn the scale at each of our scrutin deliste elections. I see to the right and to the left two largearmies--Catholics and Liberals--of force almost equal, whom nothingwould tempt to desert their standard, who serve it with devotion andfrom conviction. Well, these great armies do not count, or scarcelycount. On the day of battle it is as if they do not exist. What counts, what decides, what triumphs, is another body of electors altogether--afloating body too often swayed by their passions, by their prejudices;or, worse still, by their interests. These are our masters, andaccording as they veer from right to left, or from left to right, theGovernment of the country changes, and its history takes a newdirection. Gentlemen, is it well that it should be so? Is it well thatthis country should be at the mercy of such contemptible elements asthese?

How often have I longed to see a Premier in this, my adopted country, rise to such fervid heights of patriotism as this?

M. Bernhaert is right. It is the party Government that is essentiallythe weak Government. It cannot afford to estrange or offend any one whocommands votes. It is said that every prominent politician in theBritish House of Commons is being perpetually tempted and tormented byhis friends not to be honest, and perpetually assailed by his enemiesin order to be made to appear to be dishonest. The Opposition isprepared to trip up the Ministry at every step. It exaggeratesmistakes, misrepresents motives, and combats measures which it believesto be good, if these are brought forward by its opponents. It bulliesin public and undermines in secret. It is always ready to step into theshoes of the Ministry, to undergo similar treatment. This is the sortof strength which is supposed to be imperilled if the nation wereequitably represented in the Legislature. In the present state of theworld, especially in the Australian States, where the functions ofgovernment have multiplied and are multiplying, it is of the firstimportance that the administration should be watched from all sides, and not merely from the point of view of those who wish to sit on theTreasury benches. The right function of the Opposition is to see thatthe Government does the work of the country well. The actual practiceof the Opposition is to try to prevent it from doing the country's workat all. In order that government should be honest, intelligent, andeconomical, it needs helpful criticism rather than unqualifiedopposition; and this criticism may be expected from the less compactand more independent ranks in a legislative body which truly representsall the people. Party discipline, which is almost inevitable in thepresent struggle for ascendancy or defeat, is the most undemocraticagency in the world. It is rather by liberating all votes and allowingthem to group themselves according to conviction that a real governmentof the people by the people can be secured. When I look back on theintention of the framers of the Commonwealth Constitution to create inthe Senate a States' rights House I am amazed at the remoteness of theintention from the achievement. The Senate is as much a party House asis the House of Representatives. Nothing, perhaps, describes theposition better than the epigrammatic if somewhat triumphant statementof a Labour Senator some time ago. "The Senate was supposed to be aplace where the radical legislation of the Lower Chamber could becooled off, but they had found that the saucer was hotter than the cup. "

The long illness and death of my ward, Mrs. Hood, once more gave to mylife a new direction. History was repeating itself. Just as 40 yearsearlier Mrs. Hood and her brothers had been left in my charge on thedeath of their mother, so once again a dying mother begged me to acceptthe guardianship of her three orphan children. Verging as they were onthe threshold of manhood and womanhood, they scarcely needed the careand attention due to smaller children, but I realized I think to thefull, what so many parents have realized--that the responsibilities forthe training of children of an older growth are greater and moreburdensome than the physical care of the infant. The family belongingswere gathered in from the four quarters of the globe to which they hadbeen scattered on my giving up housekeeping, and we again began afamily life in Kent Town. Soon after we had settled, the motion incharge of the Hon. D. M. Charleston in favour of the adoption ofproportional representation for Federal elections was carried to asuccessful issue in the Legislative Council. The Hon. A. A. Kirkpatricksuggested the advisableness of preparing a Bill at this stage. A motionsimply affirming a principle, he said, was not likely to carry thecause much further, as it left the question of the application of theprinciple too much an open one. The league, he thought, should havesomething definite to put before candidates, so that a definite answercould be obtained from them. In New Zealand, Mr. O'Regan, a well-knownsolicitor, had also introduced into the House of Representatives during1898 a Bill for the adoption of effective voting. Unfortunately membershad become wedded to single electorates, and when a change was made itwas to second ballots--a system of voting which has for long beendiscredited on the Continent. In France, it was stated in the debateson electoral reform in 1909, for 20 years, under second ballots, onlyonce had a majority outside been represented by a majority inside theChamber, and the average representation for the two decades hadamounted to only 45 per cent. Of the voters. Writing to me after theNew Zealand elections in 1909, the Hon. George Fowlds (Minister ofEducation), who has long supported effective voting, said, "The onlyresult of the second ballot system in New Zealand has been tostrengthen the movement in favour of proportional representation. " AndMr. Paul, a Labour member in the Dominion, is making every effort tohave effective voting included in the platform of the New ZealandLabour Party. Further encouragement to continue our work came whenBelgium adopted the principle of proportional representation in 1898. 

The closing year of the century found the Effective Voting League inthe thick of its first election campaign. There is little doubt thatthe best time for advancing a political reform is during an election, and it was interesting to note how many candidates came to our support. We had an interesting meeting at Parliament House for members justabout that time. An opponent of the reform, who was present, complainedthat we were late in beginning our meeting. "We always begin punctuallyunder the present system, " he remarked. "Yes, " some one replied, "butwe always finish so badly. " "Oh, I always finish well enough, " was thepert rejoinder; "I generally come out on top. " "Ah, " retorted theother, "I was thinking of the electors. " But the doubter did not comeout on top at a subsequent election, and his defeat was probably themeans of his discovering defects in the old system that no number ofsuccesses would have led him into acknowledging. From the two or threemembers who had supported Mr. Glynn in the previous Parliament weincreased our advocates in the Assembly during the campaign to 14. Theagitation had been very persistent among the electors, and theirapproval of the reform was reflected in the minds of theirrepresentatives. We inaugurated during that year the series ofcitizens' meetings convened by the Mayors of the city and suburbs, which has been so successful a feature of our long campaign forelectoral justice, and at the present time very few of the mayoralchairs are occupied by men who are not keen supporters of effectivevoting. 

The Hon. Theodore Bruce's connection with the reform dates from thatyear, when he presided at a meeting in the Adelaide Town Hall duringthe temporary absence of the Mayor. A consistent supporter of effectivevoting from that time, it was only natural that when in May, 1909, thecandidature of Mr. Bruce (who was then and is now a Vice-President ofthe league). For a seat in the Legislative Council, gave us anopportunity for working for his return, against a candidate who hadstated that he was not satisfied with the working of the system ofeffective voting, we availed ourselves of it. So much has been writtenand said about the attitude of the league with regard to Parliamentarycandidates that, as its President, I feel that I ought to take thisopportunity of stating our reasons for that attitude. From itsinception the league has declined to recognise parties in a contest atall. Its sole concern has been, and must be to support effectivevoters, to whatever party they may belong. To secure the justrepresentation of the whole electorate of whatever size, is the work ofthe Effective Voting League, and, whatever the individual opinions ofthe members may be, as an official body they cannot help any candidatewho opposes the reform for which they stand. 

I remember meeting at a political meeting during a subsequent generalelection a lady whom I had known as an almost rabid Kingstonian. Butthe party had failed to find a position for her son in the CivilService, although their own sons were in that way satisfactorilyprovided for. So she had thrown in her lot with the other side, whichat the time happened to gain a few seats, and the lady was quite surethat her influence had won the day for her former opponents. Leaningforward to whisper as if her next remark were too delicate for the earsof a gentleman sitting near, she said, "Do you know, I don't believethe Premier has any backbone!" I laughed, and said that I thought mostpeople held the same belief. To my amusement and astonishment she thenasked quite seriously, "Do you think that is why he stoops so much?"There was no doubt in her mind that the missing back bone had referenceto the physical and not to the moral malformation of the gentleman inquestion. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

A VISIT TO NEW SOUTH WALES. 

Early in the year 1900 the Hon. B. R. Wise, then Attorney-General ofNew South Wales, suggested a campaign for effective voting in themother State, with the object of educating the people, so thateffective voting might be applied for the first Federal elections. Mrs. Young and I left Adelaide on May 10 of that year to inaugurate themovement in New South Wales. During the few hours spent in MelbourneProfessor Nanson, the Victorian leader of the reform, with anotherearnest worker (Mr. Bowditch), called on us, and we had a pleasant talkover the proposed campaign. The power of The Age had already been felt, when, at the convention election, the 10 successful candidates werenominees of that paper, and at that time it was a sturdy opponent ofproportional representation. The Argus, on the other hand, had doneyeoman service in the advocacy of the reform from the time thatTasmania had so successfully experimented with the system. As we weregoing straight through to Sydney, we were able only to suggestarrangements for a possible campaign on our return. Our Sydney visitlasted eight weeks, during which time we addressed between 20 and 30public meetings. Our welcome to the harbour city was most enthusiastic, and our first meeting, held in the Protestant Hall, on the Wednesdayafter our arrival, with the Attorney-General in the chair, was packed. The greatest interest was shown in the counting of the 387 votes takenat the meeting. Miss Rose Scott, however, had paved the way for thesuccessful public meeting by a reception at her house on the previousMonday, at which we met Mr. Wise, Sir William McMillan, Mr. (afterwardsSr. Walker), Mr. (now Sir A. J. ) Gould, Mr. Bruce Smith, Mr. W. Holman, and several other prominent citizens. The reform was taken up earnestlyby most of these gentlemen. Sir William McMillan was appointed thefirst President of the league, which was formed before we left Sydney. During the first week of our visit we dined with Dr. And Mrs. Garran, who, with their son (Mr. Robert Garran, C. M. G. , afterwards thecollaborateur of Sir John Quick in the compilation of the "AnnotatedConstitution of the Australian Commonwealth"), were keen supporters ofeffective voting. Among the host of well-known people who came afterdinner to meet us was Mr. (now Sir) George Reid, with whom we had aninteresting talk over the much-discussed "Yes-No" Policy. We had bothopposed the Bill on its first appeal to the people, and seized theoccasion to thank Mr. Reid for his share in delaying the measure. "Youthink the Bill as amended an improvement?" he asked. "Probably, "replied Mrs. Young, "but as I didn't think the improvement greatenough, I voted against it both times. " But I had not done so, and myvote on the second occasion was in favour of the Bill. 

But, as Mr. Reid admitted, the dislike of most reformers for federationwas natural enough, for it was only to be expected that "reforms wouldbe difficult to get with such a huge, unwieldy mass" to be moved beforethey could be won. And experience has proved the correctness of theview expressed. Anything in the nature of a real reform, judging fromthe experience of the past, will take a long time to bring about. I amconvinced that had not South Australia already adopted the principle ofthe all-round land tax, the progressive form would have been the onlyone suggested or heard of from either party. Politicians are so apt totake the line of least resistance, and when thousands of votes of smalllandowners are to be won through the advocacy of an exemption, exemptions there will be. The whole system of taxation is wrong, itseems to me, and though, as a matter of expediency, sometimes fromconviction, many people advocate the opposite course, I have long feltthat taxation should not be imposed according to the ability to pay somuch as according to benefits received from the State. We arefrequently warned against expecting too much from Federation during itsearlier stages, but experience teaches us that, as with human beings, so with nations, a wrong or a right beginning is responsible to a greatextent for right or wrong development. I have the strongest hopes forthe future of Australia, but the people must never be allowed to forgetthat eternal vigilance, as in the past, must still in the future be theprice we must pay for our liberty. Later, Mr. Reid presided at ourParliament House meeting, and afterwards entertained us at afternoontea. But one of our pleasantest memories was of a day spent with thegreat freetrader and Mrs. Reid at their Strathfield home. I was anxiousto hear Mr. Reid speak, and was glad when the opportunity arose on theoccasion of a no-confidence debate. But he was by no means at his best, and it was not until I heard him in his famous freetrade speech on hisfirst visit to Adelaide that I realized how great an orator he was. Atthe close of the no-confidence debate the triumphant remark of anadmirer that "Adelaide couldn't produce a speaker like that" showed methat a prophet sometimes hath honour, even in his own country. 

Mr. Wise was a brilliant speaker, and a most cultured man, and adelightful talker. Of Mrs. Parkes, then President of the Women'sLiberal League, I saw much. She was a fine speaker, and a veryclear-headed thinker. Her organizing faculty was remarkable, and herdeath a year or two ago was a distinct loss to her party. Her home lifewas a standing example of the fallacy of the old idea that a woman whotakes up public work must necessarily neglect her family. Mrs. BarbaraBaynton was a woman of a quite different type, clever and emotional, asone would expect the author of the brilliant but tragic "Bush Studies"to be. She was strongly opposed to Federation, as, indeed were largenumbers of clever people in New South Wales. Frank Fox (afterwardsconnected with The Lone Hand), Bertram Stevens (author of "An Anthologyof Australian Verse"), Judge Backhouse (who was probably the onlySocialist Judge on the Australian Bench), were frequent visitors atMiss Scott's, and were all interesting people. An afternoon meeting oneffective voting was arranged at the Sydney University, I think, by Dr. Anderson Stuart. We were charmed with the university and its beautifulsurroundings. Among the visitors that afternoon was Mrs. David, acharming and well-read woman, whose book describing an expedition toFunafuti, is delightful. We afterwards dined with her and ProfessorDavid, and spent a pleasant hour with them. 

I was not neglectful of other reforms while on this campaign, and foundtime to interest myself in the State children's work with which myfriend, Mrs. Garran, was so intimately connected. We went to Liverpoolone day to visit the benevolent institution for men. There were somehundreds of men there housed in a huge building reminiscent of theearly convict days. If not the whole, parts of it had been built by theconvicts, and the massive stone staircase suggested to our minds thehorrors of convict settlement. I have always resented the injury doneto this new country by the foundation of penal settlements, throughwhich Botany Bay lost its natural connotation as a habitat forwonderful flora, and became known only as a place where convicts weresent for three-quarters of a century. Barrington's couplet, written asa prologue at the opening of the Playhouse, Sydney, in 1796, to a playgiven by convicts--

 True patriots we, for be it understood We left our country for our country's good--

was clever, but untrue. All experience proves that while it is aterrible injury to a new country to be settled by convicts, it is areal injury also to the people from whom they are sent, to shovel outof sight all their failures, and neither try to lessen their numbersnor to reclaim them to orderly civil life. It was not till Australiarefused any longer to receive convicts, as Virginia had previouslydone, that serious efforts were made to amend the criminal code ofEngland, or to use reformatory methods first with young and afterwardswith older offenders. Another pleasant trip was one we took toParramatta. The Government launch was courteously placed at ourdisposal to visit the Parramatta Home for Women, where also we foundsome comfortable homes for old couples. The separation of old peoplewho would prefer to spend the last years of their life together is Iconsider, an outrage on society. One of my chief desires has been toestablish such homes for destitute couples in South Australia, and toevery woman who may be appointed as a member of the Destitute Board infuture I appeal to do her utmost to change our methods of treatmentwith regard to old couples, so that to the curse of poverty may not beadded the cruelty of enforced separation. Women in New South Wales werestriving for the franchise at that time, and we had the pleasure ofspeaking at one of their big meetings. And what fine public meetingsthey had in Sydney! People there seemed to take a greater interest inpolitics than here, and crowded attendances were frequent at politicalmeetings, even when there was no election to stir them up. It was aSydney lady who produced this amusing Limerick in my honour:--

 There was a Grand Dame of Australia Who proved the block system a failure. She taught creatures in coats What to do with their votes, This Effective Grand Dame of Australia!

The third line will perhaps preclude the necessity for pointing outthat the author was an ardent suffragist! To an enlightened woman alsowas probably due the retort to a gentleman's statement that "MissSpence was a good man lost, " that, "On the contrary she thought she wasa good woman saved. " "In what way?" he asked. "Saved for the benefit ofher country, instead of having her energies restricted to theadvantages of one home, " was the reply. And for this I have sometimesfelt very thankful myself that I have been free to devote what gifts Ipossess to what I consider best for the advantage and the uplifting ofhumanity. Before leaving Sydney I tried once more to find a publisherfor "Gathered In, " but was assured that the only novels worthpublishing in Australia were sporting or political novels. 

I was in my seventy-fifth year at the time of this visit, but the joyof being enabled to extend the influence of our reform to other Stateswas so great that the years rolled back and left me as full of life andvigour and zeal as I had ever been. Our work had by no means beenconfined to the city and suburbs, as we spoke at a few country towns aswell. At Albury, where we stopped on our way back to Victoria, we weregreeted by a crowded and enthusiastic audience in the fine hall of theMechanics' Institute. We had passed through a snowstorm just beforereaching Albury, and the country was very beautiful in the afternoon, when our friends drove us through the district. The Murray was inflood, and the "water, water everywhere" sparkling in the wintersunshine, with the snowcapped Australian Alps in the background, madean exquisite picture. Albury was the only town we visited in ourtravels which still retained the old custom of the town crier. Sittingin the room of the hotel after dinner, we were startled at hearing ournames and our mission proclaimed to the world at large, to theaccompaniment t of a clanging bell and introduced by the old-fashionedformula, "Oyez! oyez! oyez!" Our work in Victoria was limited, butincluded a delightful trip to Castlemaine. We were impressed with thefine Mechanics' Hall of that town, in which we spoke to a largeaudience. But a few years later the splendid building, with many othersin the town, was razed to the ground by a disastrous cyclone. Returningfrom Castlemaine, we had an amusing experience in the train. I had laidaside my knitting, which is the usual companion of my travels, to teachMrs. Young the game of "Patience, " but at one of the stations a foreigngentleman entered the carriage, when we immediately put aside thecards. After chatting awhile, he expressed regret that he had been thecause of the banishment of our cards, and "Would the ladies not kindlytell him his fortune also?" He was as much amused as we were when weexplained that we were reformers and not fortune tellers. I have been agreat lover of card games all my life; patience in solitude, andcribbage, whist, and bridge have been the almost invariableaccompaniments of my evenings spent at home or with my friends. Readingand knitting were often indulged in, but patience was a change and arest and relief to the mind. I have always had the idea that card gamesare an excellent incentive to the memory. We had an afternoon meetingin the Melbourne Town Hall to inaugurate a league in Victoria, at whichDr. Barrett, the Rev. Dr. Bevan, Professor Nanson, and I were theprincipal speakers. Just recently I wrote to the Victorian Minister whohad charge of the Preferential Voting Bill in the Victorian Parliamentto ask him to consider the merits of effective voting; but, like mostother politicians, the Minister did not find the time opportune forconsidering the question of electoral justice for all parties. Iremained in Victoria to spend a month with my family and friends afterMrs. Young returned to Adelaide. The death of my dear brother John, whose sympathy and help had always meant so much to me, shortly aftermy return, followed by that of my brother William in New Zealand, leftme the sole survivor of the generation which had sailed from Scotlandin 1839. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

MORE PUBLIC WORK. 

For the co-operative movement I had always felt the keenest sympathy. Isaw in it the liberation of the small wage-earner from the toils of themiddlemen. I thought moreover that the incentive to thrift so stronglyencouraged by co-operative societies would be a tremendous gain to thecommunity as well as to the individual. How many people owe acomfortable old age to the delight of seeing their first small profitsin a co-operative concern, or their savings in a building societyaccumulating steadily and surely, if but slowly? And I have always hada disposition to encourage anything that would tend to lighten theburden of the worker. So that when in 1901 Mrs. Agnes Milne placedbefore me a suggestion for the formation of a women's co-operativeclothing factory, I was glad to do what I could to further an extensionin South Australia of the movement, which, from its inception in oldercountries, had made so strong an appeal to my reason. A band of womenworkers were prepared to associate for the mutual benefit of theoperatives in the shirtmaking and clothing trades. Under the title ofthe South Australian Co-operative Clothing Company, Limited, theyproposed to take over and carry on a small private factory, owned byone of themselves, which had found it difficult to compete againstlarge firms working with the latest machinery. I was sure of findingmany sympathizers among my friends, and was successful in disposing ofa fair number of shares. The movement had already gained support fromthinking working women, and by the time we were ready to form ourselvesinto a company we were hopeful of success. I was appointed, and havesince remained the first President of the board of directors; and, unless prevented by illness or absence from the State, I have neverfailed to be present at all meetings. The introduction of Wages Boardsadded to the keen competition between merchants, had made the task ofcarrying on successfully most difficult, but we hoped that as the ideagained publicity we should benefit proportionately. It was a great blowto us, when at the close of the first year we were able to declare adividend of 1/ a share, the merchants closed down upon us and reducedtheir payments by 6d. Or 9d. Per dozen. But in spite of drawbacks wehave maintained the struggle successfully, though sometimes atdisheartening cost to the workers and officials of the society. I feel, however, that the reward of success due to this plucky band of womenworkers will come in the near future, for at no other time probably hasthe position looked more hopeful than during the present year. 

During this same year the Effective Voting League made a new departurein its propaganda work by inviting Sir Edward Braddon to address ameeting in the Adelaide Town Hall. As Premier of Tasmania, Sir Edwardhad inaugurated the reform in the gallant little island State, and hewas able to speak with authority on the practicability and the justiceof effective voting. His visit was followed a year later by one fromSr. Keating, another enthusiastic Tasmanian supporter, whose lectureinspired South Australian workers to even greater efforts, and carriedconviction to the minds of many waverers. At that meeting we firstintroduced the successful method of explanation by means of limelightslides. The idea of explaining the whole system by pictures had seemedimpossible, but every step of the counting can be shown so simply andclearly by this means as to make an understanding of the system acertainty. To the majority of people an appeal to reason andunderstanding is made much more easily through the eye than through theear. The year 1902 saw an advance in the Parliamentary agitation of thereform, when the Hon. Joseph (now Senator) Vardon introduced a Bill forthe first time into the Legislative Council. The measure had beenexcellently prepared by Mr. J. H. Vaughan, LL. B. , with the assistanceof the members of the executive of the Effective Voting League, amongwhom were Messrs. Crawford Vaughan and E. A. Anstey. The Bill sought toapply effective voting to existing electoral districts, which, thoughnot nearly so satisfactory as larger districts, nevertheless made theapplication of effective voting possible. With the enlargement of thedistrict on the alteration of the Constitution subsequent to federationbecoming an accomplished fact, the league was unanimous in its desireto seek the line of least resistance by avoiding a change in theConstitution that an alteration in electoral boundaries would havenecessitated. 

To Mr. Vardon, when he was a candidate for Legislative honours in 1900the usual questions were sent from the league; but, as he had notstudied the question he declined to pledge himself to support thereform. Realizing, however, the necessity of enquiring into all publicmatters, he decided to study the Hare system, but the league declinedto support him without a written pledge. Still he was elected, andimmediately afterwards studied effective voting, became convinced ofits justice, and has remained a devoted advocate. Our experience withlegislators had usually been of the opposite nature. Pledged adherentsto effective voting during an election campaign, as members they nolonger saw the necessity for a change in a method of voting which hadplaced them safely in Parliament; but in Mr. Vardon we found a manwhose conversion to effective voting was a matter of principle, and nota question of gathering votes. That was why the league selected him asits Parliamentary advocate when effective voting first took definiteshape in the form of a Bill. When, later, Mr. E. H. Coombe, M. P. , tookcharge of the Bill in the Assembly although the growth in publicopinion in favour of effective voting had been surprising, thecoalition between the Liberal and Labour parties strengthened theircombined position and weakened the allegiance of their elected membersto a reform which would probably affect their vested interests in theLegislature. Mr. Coombe had not been an easy convert to proportionalrepresentation. He had attended my first lecture at Gawler, but sawdifficulties in the way of accepting the Hare system as propounded byme. His experiments were interesting. Assuming a constituency of 100electors with 10 members, he filled in 60 Conservative and 40 Liberalvoting papers. The proportion of members to each party should be sixConservatives and four Liberals, and when he found that by no amount ofmanipulation could this result be altered he became a convert toeffective voting. His able advocacy of the reform is too well known toneed further reference; but I should like now to thank those members, including Mr. K. W. Duncan, who have in turn led the crusade forrighteous representation in both Houses of Parliament, for of them mayit truly be said that the interests of the people as a whole were theirfirst consideration. Before I left for America I saw the growing powerand strength of the Labour Party. I rejoiced that a new star had arisenin the political firmament. I looked to it as a party that wouldsupport every cause that tended towards righteousness. I expected it, as a reform party, to take up effective voting, because effectivevoting was a reform. I hoped that a party whose motto was "Trust thepeople" would have adopted a reform by means of which alone it would bepossible for the people to gain control over its Legislature and itsGovernment. Alas! for human hopes that depend on parties for theirrealization! As time after time I have seen defections from the ranksof proportionalists, and people have said to me:--"Give it up, MissSpence. Why trouble longer? Human nature is too bad, " I have answered, "No; these politicians are but the ephemeral creations of a day or amonth, or a year; this reform is for all time, and must prevail, and Iwill never give it up. "

During my many visits to Melbourne and Sydney I had been much impressedwith the influence and the power for good of the local branches of theworld-famed National Council of Women. I had long hoped for theestablishment of a branch in South Australia, and was delighted to fallin with a suggestion made by the Countess of Aberdeen(Vice-President-at-large of the International Council), through LadyCockburn, that a council should be formed in South Australia. Theinaugural meeting in September, 1902, was splendidly attended, and itwas on a resolution moved by me that the council came into existence. Lady Way was the first President, and I was one of the Vice-Presidents. I gave several addresses, and in 1904 contributed a paper on"Epileptics. " In dealing with this subject I owed much to the splendidhelp I received from my dear friend Miss Alice Henry, of Victoria, nowin Chicago, whose writings on epileptics and weak-minded children havecontributed largely to the awakening of the public conscience to asense of duty towards these social weaklings. In 1905 I contributed apaper to the quinquennial meeting of the International Council ofWomen, held at Berlin, on the laws relating to women and children inSouth Australia, and gave an account of the philanthropic institutionsof the State, with special reference to the State Children's Counciland Juvenile Courts. The work of the National Council in this State wasdisappointing to many earnest women, who had hoped to find in it ameans for the social, political, and philanthropic education of thewomen of South Australia. Had the council been formed before we hadobtained the vote there would probably have been more cohesion and agreater sustained effort to make it a useful body. But as it was therewas so apparent a disinclination to touch "live" subjects that interestin the meetings dwindled, and in 1906 I resigned my position on theexecutive in order to have more time to spare for other public work. 

A problem which was occasioning the State Children's Council muchanxious thought was how to deal effectively with the ever-increasingnumber of the "children of the streets". Boys and girls alike, whoshould either be at school or engaged at some useful occupation, wereroaming the streets and parks, uncontrolled and sometimesuncontrollable. We recognised that their condition was one of moralperil, and graduation to criminality from these nurseries of crime sofrequently occurred that State interference seemed absolutelyimperative to save the neglected unfortunates for a worthiercitizenship. It is much easier and far more economical to save thechild than to punish the criminal. One of the most effective means ofclearing the streets would be to raise the compulsory age for schoolattendance up to the time of employment. That truancy was to a greatextent responsible for these juvenile delinquents was proved by thefact that more then one-half of the lads sent to Magill had committedthe crimes for which they were first convicted while truanting. Moreover, an improvement was noticed immediately on the amendment ofthe compulsory attendance clauses in the Education Act. Truancy--thewicket gate of the road to ruin in youth--should be barred aseffectively as possible, and the best way to bar it is to make everyday a compulsory school day, unless the excuse for absence beabundantly sufficient. Another aspect of the neglected childrenproblem, which Federal action alone will solve, is in dealing withcases of neglect by desertion. At present each State is put to greattrouble and expense through defaulting parents. Federal legislationwould render it possible to have an order for payment made in one Statecollected and remitted by an officer in another State. By this meansthousands of pounds a year could be saved to the various States, andmany a child prevented from becoming a burden to the people at large. These are some of the problems awaiting solution and the women of SouthAustralia will do well to make the salvation of these neglected waifs apersonal care and responsibility. Perhaps no other work of the StateChildren's Council has more practically shown their appreciation of thecapabilities of the children under their care than the establishment ofthe State children's advancement fund. This is to enable State childrenwho show any aptitude, to pursue their education through thecontinuation schools to the University. To private subscriptions forthis purpose the Government have added a subsidy of 50 pounds, andalready some children are availing themselves of this splendidopportunity to rise in the world. The longer I live the prouder I feelthat I have been enabled to assist in this splendid work for thebenefit of humanity. 

The years as they passed left me with wider interests in, deepersympathies with, and greater knowledge of the world and its people. Each year found "one thing worth beginning, one thread of life worthspinning. " The pleasure I derived from the more extended intellectualactivity of my later years was due largely to my association with aband of cultured and earnest women interested in social, political, andother public questions--women who, seeing "the tides of things, "desired so to direct them that each wave of progress should carry thepeople to a higher place on the sands of life. To the outside worldlittle is known of the beginnings and endings of social movements, which, taken separately, perhaps appear of small consequence, but whichin the aggregate count for a great deal in what is popularly known asthe forward movement. To such as these belonged an interestingassociation of women, which, meeting at first informally, greweventually into a useful organization for the intellectual and moraldevelopment of those who were fortunate enough to be associated withit. This was the "Social Students' Society, " of which Miss A. L. Tomkinson was the secretary and I the first President. One of theaddresses I gave was on "Education, " and among others whose addresseshelped us considerably was the Director of Education (Mr. A. Williams). Speakers from all parties addressed the association, and while thesociety existed a good deal of educational work was done. Much interestwas taken in the question of public playgrounds for children, and wesucceeded in interesting the City Council in the movement; but, owingto lack of funds, the scheme for the time being was left in abeyance. 

In the agitation for the public ownership of the tramways, I was gladto take a share. The private ownership of monopolies is indefensible, and my American experiences of the injustice of the system strengthenedmy resolve to do my utmost to prevent the growth of the evil in SouthAustralia. My attitude on the question alienated a number of friends, both from me personally and from effective voting, so intolerant hadpeople become of any opposition to their own opinions. The result ofthe referendum was disappointing, and, I shall always consider, a gravereflection on a democratic community which permits a referendum to betaken under a system of plural voting which makes the whole proceedinga farce. But the citizens of Adelaide have need to be grateful to thepatriotic zeal of those who, led by the late Cornelius Proud fought forthe public ownership of the tramways. 

These years of activity were crossed by sickness and sorrow. For thefirst time in a long life, which had already extended almost a decadebeyond the allotted span, I became seriously ill. To be thus laid lowby sickness was a deep affliction to one of my active temperament; but, if sickness brings trouble, it often brings joy in the tender care andappreciation of hosts of friends, and this joy I realized to thefullest extent. The following year (1904) was darkened by the tragicdeath of my ward, and once more my home was broken up, and with MissGregory I went to live with my good friends Mr. And Mrs. Quilty, inNorth Norwood. From then on my life has flowed easily and pleasantly, marred only by the sadness of farewells of many old friends andcomrades on my life's journey, who one by one have passed "throughNature to eternity. "

Much as I have written during the past 40 years, it was reserved for myold age to discover within me the power of poetical expression. I hadrhymed in my youth and translated French verse, but until I wrote myone sonnet, poetry had been an untried field. The one-sided pessimisticpictures that Australian poets and writers present are false in theimpression they make on the outside world and on ourselves. They leadus to forget the beauty and the brightness of the world we live in. What we need is, as Matthew Arnold says of life, "to see Australiasteadily and see it whole. " It is not wise to allow the "deadbeat"--theremittance man, the gaunt shepherd with his starving flocks and herds, the free selector on an arid patch, the drink shanty where therouseabouts and shearers knock down their cheques, the race meetingwhere high and low, rich and poor, are filled with the gambler's illluck--fill the foreground of the picture of Australian life. Thesereflections led me to a protest, in the form of a sonnet published inThe Register some years ago:--

 When will some new Australian poet rise To all the height and glory of his theme? Nor on the sombre side for ever dream Our hare, baked plains, our pitiless blue skies, 'Neath which the haggard bushman strains his eyes To find some waterhole or hidden stream To save himself and flocks in want extreme! This is not all Australia! Let us prize Our grand inheritance! Had sunny Greece More light, more glow, more freedom, or more mirth? Ours are wide vistas bathed in purest air-- Youth's outdoor pleasures, Age's indoor peace-- Where could we find a fairer home on earth Which we ourselves are free to make more fair?

Just as years before my interest had been kindled in the establishmentof our system of State education, and later in the University andhigher education, so more recently has the inauguration of the Froebelsystem of kindergarten training appealed most strongly to my reason andjudgment. There was a time in the history of education, long after thenecessity for expert teaching in primary and secondary schools had beenrecognised, when the training of the infant mind was left to the leastskilled assistant on the staff of a school. With the late Mr. J. A. Hartley, whose theory was that the earliest beginnings of educationneeded even greater skill in the teacher than the higher branches, Ihad long regarded the policy as mistaken; but modern educationists havechanged all that, and the training of tiny mites of two or threesummers and upwards is regarded as of equal importance with that ofchildren of a larger growth. South Australia owes its free kindergartento the personal initiative and private munificence of the Rev. BertramHawker, youngest son of the late Hon. G. C. Hawker. I had already met, and admired the kindergarten work of, Miss Newton when in Sydney, andwas delighted when she accepted Mr. Hawker's invitation to inauguratethe system in Adelaide. Indeed, the time of her stay here duringSeptember, 1905, might well have been regarded as a special visitationof educational experts, for, in addition to Miss Newton, the directorsof education from New South Wales and Victoria (Messrs. G. H. Knibbsand F. Tate) took part in the celebrations. Many interesting meetingsled up to the formation of the Kindergarten Union. My niece, Mrs. J. P. Morice, was appointed hon. Secretary, and I became one of theVice-Presidents. On joining the union I was proud of the fact that Iwas the first member to pay a subscription. The free kindergarten hascome to South Australia to stay, and is fast growing into an integralpart of our system of education. I have rejoiced in the progress of themovement, and feel that the future will witness the realization of myideal of a ladder that will reach from the kindergarten to theUniversity, as outlined in articles I wrote for The Register at thattime. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE EIGHTIETH MILESTONE AND THE END. 

On October 31, 1905, I celebrated my eightieth birthday. Twelve monthsearlier, writing to a friend, I said:--"I entered my eightieth year onMonday, and I enjoy life as much as I did at 18; indeed, in manyrespects I enjoy it more. " The birthday gathering took place in theschoolroom of the Unitarian Church, the church to which I had owed somuch happiness through the lifting of the dark shadows of my earlierreligious beliefs. Surrounded by friends who had taken their share inthe development of my beloved State, I realized one of the happiesttimes of my life. I had hoped that the celebration would have helpedthe cause of effective voting, which had been predominant in my mindsince 1859. By my interests and work in so many other directions--inliterature, journalism, education, philanthropy, and religion--whichhad been testified to by so many notable people on that occasion, Ihoped to prove that I was not a mere faddist, who could be led away bya chimerical fantasy. I wanted the world to understand that I was aclear-brained, commonsense woman of the world, whose views on effectivevoting and other political questions were as worthy of credence as herwork in other directions had been worthy of acceptance. The greetingsof my many friends from all parts of the Commonwealth on that daybrought so much joy to me that there was little wonder I was able toconclude my birthday poem "Australian spring" with the lines:--

 With eighty winters o'er my head, Within my heart there's Spring. 

Full as my life was with its immediate interests, the growth anddevelopment of the outside world claimed a good share of my attention. The heated controversies in the motherland over the preachings andteaching of the Rev. R. J. Campbell found their echo here, and I wasglad to be able to support in pulpit and newspaper the stand made by the courageous London preacher of modern thought. How changed theoutlook of the world from my childhood's days, when Sunday was a day ofstrict theological habit, from which no departure could be permitted!The laxity of modern life, by comparison is, I think, somewhatappalling. We have made the mistake of breaking away from old beliefsand convictions without replacing them with something better. We do notmake as much, or as good, use of our Sundays as we might do. There is amedium between the rigid Sabbatarianism of our ancestors and theabsolute waste of the day of rest in mere pleasure and frivolity. Allthe world is deploring the secularizing of Sunday. Not only ischurchgoing perfunctory or absent, but in all ranks of life there is adisposition to make it a day of rest and amusement--sometimes theamusement rather than the rest. Sunday, the Sabbath, as Alex McLarenpointed out to me, is not a day taken from us, but a day given to us. "Behold, I have given you the Sabbath!" For what? For rest for man andbeast, but also to be a milestone in our upward and onward progress--aday for not only wearing best clothes, but for reading our best booksand thinking our best thoughts. I have often grieved at the smallcongregations in other churches no less than in my own, and the griefwas aggravated by the knowledge that those who were absent from churchwere not necessarily otherwise well employed. I derived so muchpleasure from the excellent and cultured sermons of my friend the Rev. John Reid during his term of office here that I regretted the fact thatothers who might gain equally from them were not there to hear them. Iwould like to see among the young people a finer conception of theduties of citizenship, which, if not finding expression in churchattendance, may develop in some way that will be noble and useful tosociety. 

In the meantime the work of the Effective Voting League had been ratherat a standstill. Mrs. Young's illness had caused her resignation, anduntil she again took up the work nothing further was done to help Mr. Coombe in his Parliamentary agitation. In 1908, however, we began avigorous campaign, and towards the close of the year the propagandawork was being carried into all parts of the State. Although I was then83, I travelled to Petersburg to lecture to a good audience. On thesame night Mrs. Young addressed a fine gathering at Mount Gambier, andfrom that time the work has gone on unceasingly. The last great effortwas made through the newspaper ballot of September, 1909, when a publiccount of about 10, 000 votes was completed with all explanations duringthe evening. The difficulties that were supposed to stand in the way ofa general acceptance of effective voting have been entirely swept away. Tasmania and South Africa have successfully demonstrated thepracticability, no less than the justice, of the system. Now we get tothe bedrock of the objections raised to its adoption, and we find thatthey exist only in the minds of the politicians themselves; but thepeople have faith in effective voting, and I believe the time to benear when they will demand equitable representation in everyLegislature in the world. The movement has gone too far to be checked, and the electoral unrest which is so common all over the world willeventually find expression in the best of all electoral systems, whichI claim to be effective voting. 

Among the many friends I had made in the other States there was none Iadmired more for her public spiritedness than Miss Vida Goldstein. Ihave been associated with her on many platforms and in many branches ofwork. Her versatility is great, but there is little doubt that herchief work lies in helping women and children. Her life is practicallyspent in battling for her sex. Although I was the first woman inAustralia to become a Parliamentary candidate, Miss Goldstein has sinceexceeded my achievement by a second candidature for the Senate. It wasduring her visit here last May-June as a delegate to the StateChildren's Congress that she inaugurated the Women's Non-partyPolitical Association, which is apparently a growing force. In ageneral way the aims of the society bear a strong resemblance to thoseof the social students' society, many of its members having alsobelonged to the earlier association. It was a hopeful sign to me thatit included among its members people of all political views workingchiefly in the interests of women and children. Of this Society also Ibecame the first President, and the fact that on its platform wasincluded proportional representation was an incentive for me to workfor it. The education of women on public and social questions, so thatthey will be able to work side by side with the opposite sex for thepublic good will, I think, help in the solution of social problems thatare now obstacles in the path of progress. In addition to otherliterary work for the year 1909 I was asked by Miss Alice Henry torevise my book on State children in order to make it acceptable andapplicable to American conditions. It was a big undertaking, but Ithink successful. The book, as originally written had already done goodwork in Western Australia, where the conditions of infant mortalitywere extremely alarming, and in England also; and there is ample scopefor such a work in America, which is still far behind even the mostbackward Australian State in its care for dependent children. 

As a President of three societies, a Vice-President of two others, amember of two of the most important boards in the State for the care ofthe destitute, the deserted, and the dependent, with a correspondencethat touches on many parts of the Empire, and two continents besides, with my faculty for the appreciation of good literature stillunimpaired, with my domestic interests so dear to me, and my constantknitting for the infants under the care of the State Inspector--I findmy life as an octogenarian more varied in its occupations and intereststhan ever before. Looking back from the progressive heights of 1910through the long vista of years, numbering upwards of four-fifths of acentury, I rejoice at the progress the world has made. Side by sidewith the development of my State my life has slowly unfolded itself. Myconnection with many of the reforms to which is due this developmenthas been intimate, and (I think I am justified in saying) oftentimeshelpful. While other States of the Commonwealth and the Dominion of NewZealand have made remarkable progress, none has eclipsed the rapidgrowth of the State to which the steps of my family were directed in1839. Its growth has been more remarkable, because it has beenprimarily due to its initiation of many social and political reformswhich have since been adopted by other and older countries. "Australia, lead us further, " is the cry of reformers in America. We have led in somany things, and though America may claim the honour of being thebirthplace of the more modern theory of land values taxation, I rejoicethat South Australia was the first country in the world with thecourage and the foresight to adopt the tax on land values withoutexemption. That she is still lagging behind Tasmania and South Africain the adoption of effective voting, as the only scientific system ofelectoral reform, is the sorrow of my old age. The fact that SouthAustralia has been the happy hunting ground of the faddist hasfrequently been urged as a reproach against this State. Its morepatriotic citizens will rejoice in the truth of the statement, andtheir prayer will probably be that not fewer but more advanced thinkerswill arise to carry this glorious inheritance beneath the SouthernCross to higher and nobler heights of physical and human developmentthan civilization has yet dreamed of or achieved. The Utopia ofyesterday is the possession of today, and opens the way to the Utopiaof to-morrow. The haunting horror of older civilizations--divorcing thepeople from their natural inheritance in the soil, and filling thetowns with myriads of human souls dragged down by poverty, misery, andcrime--is already casting its shadow over the future of Australia; butthere is hope in the fact that a new generation has arisen untrammelledby tradition, which, having the experience of older countries beforeit, and benefiting from the advantages of the freer life and thegreater opportunities afforded by a new country, gives promise ofultimately finding the solution of the hitherto unsolved problem ofmaking country life as attractive to the masses as that of the townsand cities. As time goes on the effect of education must tell, and thegenerations that are to come will be more enlightened and morealtruistic, and the tendency of the world will be more and more, evenas it is now, towards higher and nobler conceptions of human happiness. I have lived through a glorious age of progress. Born in "the wonderfulcentury, " I have watched the growth of the movement for the upliftingof the masses, from the Reform Bill of 1832 to the demands for adultsuffrage. As a member of a church which allows women to speak in thepulpit, a citizen of a State which gives womanhood a vote for theAssembly, a citizen of a Commonwealth which fully enfranchises me forboth Senate and Representatives, and a member of a community which wasforemost in conferring University degrees on women, I have benefitedfrom the advancement of the educational and political status of womenfor which the Victorian era will probably stand unrivalled in theannals of the world's history. I have lived through the period ofrepressed childhood, and witnessed the dawn of a new era which has madethe dwellers in youth's "golden age" the most important factor in humandevelopment. I have watched the growth of Adelaide from the conditionof a scattered hamlet to that of one of the finest cities in thesouthern hemisphere; I have seen the evolution of South Australia froma province to an important State in a great Commonwealth. All throughmy life I have tried to live up to the best that was in me, and Ishould like to be remembered as one who never swerved in her efforts todo her duty alike to herself and her fellow-citizens. Mistakes I havemade, as all are liable to do, but I have done my best. And when lifehas closed for me, let those who knew me best speak and think of me asOne who never turned her back, but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. No nobler epitaph would I desire.