Sydney. Street commissionaires would be well patronized, and the municipality might take the hint and issue licences. The horse trams are much patronized, and are, in my humble opinion, infinitely more suited to the busy streets of a city, than the snorting, noisy, smoking, gritty abominations which monopolize the right of way in the busiest streets of the New South Wales capital. But enough of Auckland.
Taking advantage of the Easter holidays, we took out our excursion tickets for the hot lakes, and started on the Wednesday—a merry party of six.
The railway runs on the narrow gauge, but the carriages are comfortable and clean, and are of local manufacture. The employés were not remarkable for either smartness or civility—at least such was my experience. Doubtless travellers are often exacting and inconsiderate; but tact, temper, and urbanity are as essential to a railway porter as to a policeman; and it is after all just as easy to be courteous to a stranger, as rude. The appearance and behaviour of the railway officials here, struck me as being slovenly and boorish. They seemed to deem it incumbent on them, with luggage especially, to completely outvie the ordinary coasting steamboat sailor in the vigour of their haulage and the destructiveness of their handling. The guards I do not include in this adverse criticism, as we found them polite, active, and neat.
The railway stations do not strike one as being
