Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/60

 who has no one to speak a kind word to him but the sinners under his charge. Good as the West Australia system of transportation has proved itself to be in the towns, where the warders can find companionship in their own class of society, it fails in the bush in this respect. No warder ought to be exposed to even the possibility of being compelled to seek his sole acquaintanceships or friendships in the criminal class; he ought always to have, at least, one man, untainted by crime like himself, to speak to and associate with. It is too much to expect of human nature to ask a man to live alone month after month, without anyone of his own class near him. There is indeed a gaol at Perth, and one rather larger than would usually be required in a town of some 3000 inhabitants, but it is in the less prominent part of the town and easily passed by unnoticed, so that, on the whole, an inobservant person might readily pass a week in the place and never perceive that there was a single convict in the colony.

There are not many public buildings in Perth demanding notice beyond those I have already mentioned, with the exception of two or three pretty chapels, or churches as they are now usually termed, belonging to the Nonconformists, and also the schoolhouse under the Board of Education, which is so built as to be often mistaken for a small chapel, its exterior being so ecclesiastical looking. I have already mentioned the two cathedrals belonging respectively to the Churches of England and of Rome, and need not again refer to either of them. The hotels in the town are comfortable and the charges moderate; the stranger will find the table d'hôte system prevalent in