Or the old man an' you won't agree ;— * If it ain't-well, I'm blessed !—this start's queer; S ALONZO DE GUZMAN: A LAY OF YE TAMBAROORA DIGGINGS. RICHARD E. LEE. MITE the harsh and clanging cymbals, let the brazen trumpets sound; Bring the bands of howling darkies from the music-halls around : Bid them sing the glowing praises of the Children of the Sun, And especially De Guzman's, as the hero of my fun! Dark as night was bold Alonzo, son of Afric's sultry clime, Stowed away, he lay in silence, till the ocean spread around, Then he joined the hardy seamen of the craft for Sydney bound; Pulled, and hauled, and reefed, and bellowed, till in port the vessel moored, And De Guzman joyful landed, of his liberty assured. Not a moment did he tarry, e'en to take a nip or two To the jolly Flag of Freedom that had brought him safely through; But his swag he quickly shouldered, bade his shipmates all good-bye, G Many weary miles he plodded, many times he went astray; Jeered by ribald bullock-drivers with "Hi! Gollybosh-good day! There all men are free and equal-if they hold a miner's right,— Till his fame, throughout the township, as a mighty bruiser ran. Joyful cried the stalwart diggers, "He's a downright plum, you know; Fiercely delved the bold De Guzman, till he reached the stubborn rock; Then De Guzman marked them drilling, saw them tamp and light the fuse,- Like a Rothschild felt Alonzo, as he straightway sold his share, Gloomy looked the bold Alonzo, as in durance vile he lay, Then rheumatics came and seized him, doubled up his stalwart frame; Smite the harsh and clanging cymbals, let the brazen trumpets sound; Let them sing of bold Alonzo, ebon child of Afric's sun— pile" at Tambaroora, and how very soon 't was done! THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. THOMAS MOSER. F there be one subject which the colonial moralist or social reformer takes for a stock text more often than another it is the lack of "home influence." The newspaper editor, whose ingenuity is sorely tasked to provide material for his periodical dish of literary pabulum, can always find it at hand in penning a wholesome homily upon the demoralisation of the rising generation. The judge, with the perpetually recurring case of some youthful witness appearing before him exhibiting ignorance of the grossest kind, seizes the occasion to address the jury upon the melancholy example of the lack of "home influence" so immediately brought under his notice. The preacher finds a fruitful theme, as he denounces dissipation and immorality, in appealing to Christian sympathisers, if they cannot save the old, at least to guard the young; while clerical and lay orators, who periodically appear on public platforms to plead the cause of orphan and ragged schools, expend their powers upon the evil results arising from the neglect of "home influence” in the colonies. That we as a body are "worse than other Galilæans" may possibly be a matter of opinion; but while we are very properly denounced for our shortcomings, something may be said of the peculiar circumstances under which we live. We may cry peccavimus or apply to our hearts the flattering unction so far as its lubricating effect will act as an emollient— wring our hands at our hard fate, and promise amendment. The question is-What are we to blame? Suppose we begin with the climate. It is trying, no doubt. Our livers are perpetually going wrong, and we help them by stimulants. We work hard to-day, and prepare ourselves for to-morrow's duties by eating hearty dinners at late hours. Paterfamilias at seven o'clock in an evening is generally a used-up man. He particularly wishes that the children should be in bed, and he composes himself to read the daily papers, to smoke the calumet of peace, and thence to bed himself. Take him as a whole, and he is not a family man ; and when his means allow him to retire from business, he finds that his family have grown beyond his control. They know more of the ways of the world than he does; and, in many cases, having been led to look upon him more as the head of the household, and in the light of a general relieving-officer, they know nothing at all about the inner springs of his heart. All the outer characteristics may be plain enough; that he is an affectionate parent, having the interests of his family at heart, ever candid and open with them, eager to counsel and assist them, may be readily understood; but the association of parent and child in its integrity is wanting. The pleasures or sorrows of the child are to him unknown. His companionship is that of a guardian. He loses sight of the great fact that to form the character of a child he must become a child. As the power of any public speaker arises from his capacity to put himself on an intellectual level with his audience, so must he who would influence a child not only use its own language, but adapt himself to its habits, its pursuits, and its sympathies. Now, the question is, what time has the ordinary man of business for domestic duties? The peculiarity of the Northern hemisphere is that a long twilight in summer gives opportunities for domestic reunions after the day's work is completed. The long winter evenings give similar advantages, whereas in the Southern hemisphere the transition from day to night is the work of but, comparatively speaking, a few moments. Hence it is that there rarely is that domestic association betwixt father and child as in the mother country. The training of a family depends in the colonies more immediately on the mother, and who can doubt but that the responsibility is greater than she can bear, and one that she clearly has no right to have imposed upon her to such an extent. A woman's weakness is as soon detected by a child as by a man, and the tender chord is manipulated with cunning by tiny fingers. The child's faults are too often hid from the father, either to avoid annoying him or to save the child from rigorous punishment, and mischief is done this way; or what is more common, when one parent punishes, the other pardons, simply to save himself personal annoyance. The father sees too little of his children as a rule in the colony, and circumstances too often preclude him from seeing more. The tendency to "despise the day of all small things" in domestic economy is, moreover, a serious evil in too many colonial households. There is an absence, generally speaking, of all outside civilising influences. The bark hut and the sapling fence suggest squalor and wretchedness, be the internal economy ever so complete. There is no individuality about the place, and what a child's reminiscence of home hereafter must be, if it is to be fixed by external surroundings, it is difficult to imagine. The traveller from the boundary of one colony to another, or, as he has been termed, "the navigator of the ocean of gum," finds but little change of scene, so far as the artifice of man helps him. One homestead is like another in five cases out of six, and the son of the soil who can boast a peach tree near his hut may be usually considered a remarkably civilised man. 66 It may be asserted that the motto "Homo noscitur ab æde" is as good as Homo noscitur a sociis;" that a man's Lares and Penates, be they ever of such a lowly order, are types of his character. We are fortified in this view from our youth up-from the hour when elderly spinster friends, bent upon training the young twig, indelibly impressed upon our young memories that lovely poem, ""Tis the voice of the sluggard," which, it will be remembered, particularly alludes to the virtuous author of this respectable ode visiting the sluggard's premises. "A man of words and not of deeds" was in a similar childish poem "likened to a garden full of weeds,” and, in a word, the language of flowers played an influential part in childish education. The family garden, of a truth, was "God's acre," and how many lessons, moral and religious, have not been instilled into youthful minds through the medium of the leaf, the bud, and the flower! English Hodge, on his pauper |