Chapter 13

The timid man yearns for full value and asks a tenth. The bold man
strikes for double value and compromises on par.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

One is sure to be struck by the liberal way in which Australasia spends
money upon public works--such as legislative buildings, town halls,
hospitals, asylums, parks, and botanical gardens. I should say that
where minor towns in America spend a hundred dollars on the town hall and
on public parks and gardens, the like towns in Australasia spend a
thousand. And I think that this ratio will hold good in the matter of
hospitals, also. I have seen a costly and well-equipped, and
architecturally handsome hospital in an Australian village of fifteen
hundred inhabitants. It was built by private funds furnished by the
villagers and the neighboring planters, and its running expenses were
drawn from the same sources. I suppose it would be hard to match this in
any country. This village was about to close a contract for lighting its
streets with the electric light, when I was there. That is ahead of
London. London is still obscured by gas--gas pretty widely scattered,
too, in some of the districts; so widely indeed, that except on moonlight
nights it is difficult to find the gas lamps.

The botanical garden of Sydney covers thirty-eight acres, beautifully
laid out and rich with the spoil of all the lands and all the climes of
the world. The garden is on high ground in the middle of the town,
overlooking the great harbor, and it adjoins the spacious grounds of
Government House--fifty-six acres; and at hand also, is a recreation
ground containing eighty-two acres. In addition, there are the
zoological gardens, the race-course, and the great cricket-grounds where
the international matches are played. Therefore there is plenty of room
for reposeful lazying and lounging, and for exercise too, for such as
like that kind of work.

There are four specialties attainable in the way of social pleasure. If
you enter your name on the Visitor's Book at Government House you will
receive an invitation to the next ball that takes place there, if nothing
can be proven against you. And it will be very pleasant; for you will
see everybody except the Governor, and add a number of acquaintances and
several friends to your list. The Governor will be in England. He
always is. The continent has four or five governors, and I do not know
how many it takes to govern the outlying archipelago; but anyway you will
not see them. When they are appointed they come out from England and get
inaugurated, and give a ball, and help pray for rain, and get aboard ship
and go back home. And so the Lieutenant-Governor has to do all the work.
I was in Australasia three months and a half, and saw only