getting that the breath of life in their fragile frames is but too easily extinguished, and that they have not the power to struggle as older children would against the covering that is poisoning them with their own foul breath.
Our hard day’s work terminated with the case of an old sailor, who, after braving all the terrors of the ocean, came off a long voyage to die of diseased heart in his own bed. The body lay in a small dark room, next to the common living room, and the stench of decomposition was so great that the jury started back in dismay when it was opened for the purpose of his being identified. The practice adopted in this country, and in this country only, we believe, of allowing the dead to remain in the very apartments of the living, is certainly most revolting, and we hope the time is not far distant when the public will seek for the establishment of perfectly ventilated reception rooms for the dead, previous to interment. Those who have witnessed the arrangements in Munich, Frankfort, and other places abroad, for separating the lifeless clay from the living for the short time previous to burial, must see how we are sinning against the commonest hygienic rules, as well as against decency itself, in tolerating our national habit of hugging the dead until we are compelled to relinquish them by their very offensiveness.
Walking home, I wondered how the coroner lived, moved, and had his being without being terrified lest at every turn some little unforeseen occurrence might not bring a brother coroner to sit upon himself. Having seen how lightly accidents occurred, it was days before I could get the thought out of my mind, that we were continually within an ace of our life. In all probability, however, the coroner is the last person in existence to feel these foolish fancies, as death in his experience comes from so many and from such conflicting causes, that the one balances the other, and thus keeps his fears in a happy equilibrium. We are not all coroners, however, and I must confess that for days afterwards I looked much shyer at a crowded crossing than was my wont, and took especial good care to walk outside of ladders. If, however, accidents take place according to a regular law, and we all go out in the morning with a hundred thousandth chance of breaking our legs, a five hundred thousandth chance of being drowned, or say a sixty thousandth expectation of stepping upon a piece of orange-peel and fracturing our skull, we may at least be less nervous about these matters, for, do what we will, the statistician in estimating the number of annual accidents and offences, claims a certain right in us which we cannot avoid or dispute.
AN AUSTRALIAN EXPLORER.
It cannot be doubted that, on the first publication of the strangely adventurous narratives of those hardy seamen who, in the last century, explored the mystery of the southern seas, lifted the veil which had till then obscured the “gateways of the day,” and thereby contributed so largely to the national glory, that portion of our teeming population which had scant sustenance and elbow-room at home, must have heard with delight of the existence of
Sunnier isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea—
wherein abundance and an independence hitherto unknown, awaited all who had the courage requisite to expatriation: and it seems somewhat unaccountable that so many years should have elapsed ere the tide of emigration set toward the new Utopia; and, yet more so, that, while hastening to plant her flag on the great southern continent, England’s first step toward colonisation should have been to convert the fair land into a sewer for the reception and utilisation of the garbage which tainted her social atmosphere.
For a quarter of a century after the establishment of this penal settlement, the colonists were content with the narrow region enclosed between the ocean and the mountain chain parallel to the eastern coast; the vast interior was absolutely unknown; and though the outlines of the continent had been defined by Flinders, as no outlet of any size had been discovered by him—openings in a low sandy coast, so narrow as are generally those whereby the Australian rivers reach the sea, easily escaping observation—it was too hastily assumed that only trivial streams existed, and that the interior was an arid desert. The successful introduction of the merino sheep led to the general adoption of pastoral pursuits by the colonists, and in time the increase of their flocks, and the limited area available for pasturage, incited them to earnest exploration of the surrounding countries. One result of these expeditions was the discovery beyond the Blue Mountains of fertile and well-wooded plains traversed by frequent westward-flowing rivers; and as these ordinarily ran into, and were presumed to be lost in inaccessible morasses, a theory arose that they were eventually drained into a great central sea. The mind is so eager to arrive at definite conclusions, and so prone to generalise alike its knowledge and its ignorance, that in default of proof it is content with theory, and twists what fragmentary facts it may possess into harmony therewith; and a theory tends to discourage those researches which might prove its erroneousness.
In 1831, Captain Sturt, the most distinguished of Australian explorers, crossing the Blue Mountains and embarking on the Murrumbidgee, one of these westward-flowing streams, descended to its junction with one yet larger—the Murray, and this, after flowing west for many hundred miles, was deflected almost at right angles to the south; and, instead of falling directly into the ocean, as Sturt anticipated, expanded into a large, but shallow lake, separated from the sea by a low sandy neck of land, and apparently communicating with it only by a shallow and impracticable channel. This discovery was fatal to the popular theory of an inland sea.
Subsequent examination of the region between the Lower Murray and the Gulf of St. Vincent, led to the foundation of the colony of South Australia, and from consideration of the remarkable facilities for internal trade afforded by the Murray,