Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/132



COMPULSORY TRAINING AND SOCIAL LIFE IN ADELAIDE

Adelaide, when we reached it, was like the rest of the Australian continent, celebrating the declaration of war by a tremendous outburst of patriotism; the whole place fluttered with little flags, Union Jacks were on every bicycle or cart or motor-car, loyal crowds were assembling at street corners. We in England have no conception of the depths of feeling that our fellow-countrymen in Australia have for "home." It embraces all those who come out there on a visit, so that instead of strangers in a strange land they feel like a dear and welcome friend returning to his own people. By the evening the occasion had been felt to be so momentous that the youthful male population, with whom the streets were crowded, had celebrated it in some cases to excess, and this was the sole occasion on which we saw anything approaching to intemperance while we were in Australia, or on which the population forsook its habitual and universal beverage of