Australian Town and Country Journal at KellyGang 25/6/1870 (2)
We didn't long sit up after supper, but wasn't it just cold when I rolled in between the sheets! There was a plentiful load of blankets, and sleep was sound. Goulburn didn't look lively in the morning; neither do I think the railway has benefited the city in this regard so much as was expected. Strolling along, the streets had positively an appearance of desertion, and not a soul was to be seen after leaving the precincts of our hotel.
If Goulburn is so dull at race-time, what must it be at any other? At the station there seemed a large amount of goods coming up from Sydney, and many drays taking them away to all parts of the interior; and no doubt the merchandise traffic will be very large, though that of passengers is but small. I can't help thinking that some alteration in the time of starting the down-mail might be made, so as to enable the people to answer Sydney letters; and, as I am glad to see that the Works Minister is making changes, the present seems a good time to bring these things under his notice; but it wont do to have only one train a day.
My first day in Goulburn was cold enough for snow, but none came down; and the Sydney visitors huddled themselves into their coats and comforters in a most icy style. The next morning a heavy fog and rain brought a change, after which the weather was considerably milder. Looking over the low lands round Goulburn it's quite wonderful to see where the waters have been in flood-time; and between the old mill and the city, the water had been sixteen feet deep on the land where last week they were racing. One could hardly, credit the water marks on the walls of houses, from the roofs of which the inhabitants had been taken in boats when the floods were at their top. Certainly I saw Goulburn under disadvantages; for there was nought but mud, and wet, and cold, while 1 was there; and I must go again at a better time. There are fine buildings and good shops; one of the latter, a saddler's, being quite equal to anything in the same line in Sydney.
Commodious banking-houses and hotels give the main streets a look of solid permanency; and mechanics' institute is a very creditable building which, to the honour of the inhabitants I may say, was open each night I was there, with some improving entertainment, mostly for good and charitable purposes. The butchers' shops are well supplied with beef and mutton, the sheep, which are really splendid, being the fellows of those that were in the Sydney market some weeks back, from Mr Massey, of Gundaroo; and the beef, though not rolling in fat, beautiful in grain and quality, showing the advantage of paddock-fed cattle put into the market without driving. Talking of that, by-the-bye, I wonder who can oppose Mr Badgery, with his cattle yards actually on the line of railway, and his own platform for loading the cattle-trucks.
There's a marbly look about that Goulburn beef that one never sees when cattle have been driven; and I've eaten nothing better for a long, long time. The postal and telegraphic business appears to be very well conducted, and the officials excessively obliging, than which I know of nothing more pleasant for a stranger to meet with in a country town. I never knew Government officers to lose position by civility and politeness to the “many headed" - though I confess these commodities are not always to be met with where the "Silvertail" element is in the ascendant. I did not so find it in the official purlieus of Goulburn.
I had nearly forgotten to tell you of a most extraordinary sight I witnessed one morning, and such a primitive style of burning one's dead I never expected to meet with in the "great city of the south." I saw a funeral on its way to the cemetery. The coffin was in an old dray, drawn by two horses, tandem fashion, driven by a man, who walked alongside and used a waggoner's whip; after the coffin came another old dray, in which sat two women, one of whom drove, and the procession was made up of a score or so of men on horseback. The funeral had evidently come from the country, among the homes of the small agriculturists, for whose prosperity it said not much ; and it certainly was strange to look upon in such a place as Goulburn. I've never been in a much more deadly - lively place than Goulburn is at present; but this arises, of course, chiefly from the late disastrous floods. Business is dull; yet the prices of goods, whether of local production or brought from Sydney, are wonderfully low.
A friend of mine bought a pair of boots in a shop not to be excelled in George-street, at quite twenty per centum under George-street cost; and in purchasing my daily supply of "cut-up" from friend Ball (who combines the tobacco and barberising business, supplying the narcotic weed of good quality, and doing the "professor" arrangement with a light hand and a smooth razor), I discovered that two ounces of good mixture were to be had for 9d, instead of the ls one pays in the crack Sydney establishments. Coming down by the day train, we passed through a large extent of country thickly covered with crooked and useless timber, and whore the soil is rocky, barren, and cold, and the general appearance very uninviting; but when the face of the country began to change, a good deal of "ring-barking" had been done, and some timber felled; and here the plough was already at work or the small patches of the partially-cleared land.
Then comes a fine district, good for either grazing or agriculture, where a very little use of "the stumper" will make a large area available to the farmer-when artificial grasses can be grown to immense advantage, and their introduction will enable the landowners to grow beef unsurpassed in the world. Grass cultivation and bullock-feeding against the country say I, in that Sutton Forest country. It's fine travelling down by that day train; No unnecessary stoppages and delays; a good luncheon before starting; a hot cup of coffee at Nattai; no continual rousing one about for tickets; and arrival in Sydney in comfortable time for tea. I quite recommend the night train up, and the day one down, to any one who makes, as I did last week, a trip into the south country; but I wouldn't give a fig to have to start, at this time of year, onward from Goulburn to Braidwood or Yass, after midnight - though the coaches I saw of Cobb and Company are very good for the purpose, and a great improvement on what one used to go about by in times past. I saw one gentleman start on a two nights and a day trip to the Adelong, and I didn't envy.
COSMOPOLITAN.
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