Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/350

326 Fred promised to do so, and when some time later he wrote out his views he added the following:

"It's very funny to hear the people of one city or colony talk about those of another. Each decries all the rest, and represents his own region as the only perfect one. Talking about the climate, a Sydney man will tell you that the capital of New South Wales is quite exempt from the cold winds that make life unbearable in Melbourne and Adelaide. The Melbourne man tells how you suffer from 'brickfielders' (hot and dusty winds from the interior) at Sydney, and how the poor wretches in Adelaide are perspiring at every pore with a temperature and humidity like those of a Russian bath.

"Each colony has its own postal regulations, its own postage-stamps, and its own rates for letters and other mail matter. New South Wales is a land of free-trade, while Victoria, its neighbor, is a land of protective tariffs; each can demonstrate the advantages of its particular system, and on the other hand each has a minority party that wants its laws patterned after those of its rival. The gauges of the railways are different, so that there is a break at every frontier; consequently passengers are obliged to change trains, and all freights bound across the line must be transshipped. The enactments of the colonial legislatures are often hostile to one another, and sometimes the rivalry expresses itself so strongly that it seems unfortunate that the colonies have a common language.

"None of the colonies has any State Church, and all religions are placed on the same footing. The Episcopalians are the dominant body so far as numbers are concerned, the Roman Catholics are next, and then come the Presbyterians, and after them the Methodists. These are the four great denominations; far below them in numbers and in their order of strength are the Lutherans and German-Protestants, Baptists, Congregationalists, Jews, Bible Christians, Church of Christ, Unitarians, and Free Presbyterians. The Asiatic proportion of the population adds Moslems, Confucians, and Pagans to the list of religionists. Considering the recent settlement of the colonies, the proportion of places of worship to the population will compare favorably with other countries.

"There is a tendency to exclude religious teaching from the public schools, and in place of this there is a wide-spread interest in Sunday-schools, which abound all over the continent wherever it has been settled. In the matter of education the colonies are happily actuated by the same impulse, all believing that it is one of the vital principles