Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/37

 ship. Half the women wore fancy white dresses, and big picture hats The residences here do not seem to be numbered, but each has a name; a flat with four occupants will have four names, and a double house will have two. Out in the suburbs, little houses of two and three rooms will have tremendously big names. And we passed through miles of suburbs where every house seemed to be new: there is no doubt that Sydney is growing rapidly An attraction here at one of the theatres is "Faust," of which America tired years ago. "Marguerite" is exploited after the fashion of "Little Eva" in an "Uncle Tom" show, and somehow it looks ridiculous. "Faust" is a ridiculous play, so far as that goes, and the story of "Marguerite" foolish. One of the bills now being shown in Sydney represents "Marguerite" being transported alive into heaven, by angels, in spite of the devil, who is flying along with the angels, and snorting fire We hear in the United States that there are no labor troubles in Australia; that everything is settled by arbitration. But I see much more about labor troubles in the Sydney papers than I ever see in the papers of America. One of the unions now making trouble is that of the Rabbit Trappers. You may think I made that up, but I didn't: there is really such a union here, and it is just now prominent because of some sort of controversy. Many years ago rabbits were imported to Australia, to afford sport for the people. Conditions are so favorable for rabbits here that they soon became a great pest. Farmers are now compelled to fence against rabbits, and millions of the animals are caught, frozen, and sent to the London market At