the London markets daily, now; the profit to the wool-growers of Australia was instant and enormous.
A telegram from Melbourne to San Francisco covers approximately 20,000 miles—the equivalent of five-sixths of the way around the globe. It has to halt along the way a good many times and be repeated; still, but little time is lost. These halts, and the distances between them, are here tabulated.[1]
| Miles. | Miles. | ||
| Melbourne—Mount Gambier, | 300 | Madras—Bombay, | 650 |
| Mount Gambier—Adelaide, | 270 | Bombay—Aden, | 1,662 |
| Adelaide—Port Augusta, | 200 | Aden—Suez, | 1,346 |
| Port Augusta—Alice Springs, | 1,036 | Suez—Alexandria, | 224 |
| Alice Springs—Port Darwin, | 898 | Alexandria—Malta, | 828 |
| Port Darwin—Banjoewangie, | 1,150 | Malta—Gibraltar, | 1,008 |
| Banjoewangie—Batavia, | 480 | Gibraltar—Falmouth, | 1,061 |
| Batavia—Singapore, | 553 | Falmouth—London, | 350 |
| Singapore—Penang, | 399 | London—New York, | 2,500 |
| Penang—Madras, | 1,280 | New York—San Francisco, | 3,500 |
I was in Adelaide again, some months later, and saw the multitudes gather in the neighboring city of Glenelg to commemorate the Reading of the Proclamation—in 1836—which founded the Province. If I have at any time called it a Colony, I withdraw the discourtesy. It is not a Colony, it is a Province; and officially so. Moreover, it is the only one so named in Australasia. There was great enthusiasm; it was the Province's national holiday, its Fourth of July, so to speak. It is the pre-eminent holiday; and that is saying much, in a country where they seem to have a most un-English mania for holidays. Mainly they are workingmen's holidays; for in South Australia the workingman is sovereign; his vote is the desire of the politician—indeed, it is the very breath of the politician's being; the parliament exists to deliver the will of the workingman, and the government exists to execute it. The workingman is a great power everywhere in Australia, but South Australia is his paradise. He has had a hard time in this world, and has earned a paradise. I am glad he has found it. The holidays there are frequent enough to be bewil-
- ↑ From "Round the Empire." (George R. Parkin), all but the last two.
