Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Awful Australian
    The Awful Australian
    The Awful Australian
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    The Awful Australian

    By Valerie Desmond

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The Awful Australian

    Related to The Awful Australian

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Apr 5, 2023

      Readers’ Letters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Readers' Letters

      Jul 26, 2023

      SIR: I have just celebrated my 80th birthday and been much acclaimed by my family and friends. Even the government has got in on the act, as it has increased my state pension by 25p a week. Unfortunately, my village shop has hardly anything to offer

      5 min read

    • Article

      Return Of The Anglo-Irish

      Jul 27, 2022

      Return Of The Anglo-Irish
      3 min read

    • Article

      Michael Henderson on Radio

      Sep 30, 2021

      WE HEAR SO MUCH THESE DAYS about identity, and the conversation is framed in narrow terms designed to keep others out. Shrill voices proclaim membership of religious, ethnic, political, sexual and sporting tribes, as though it comes with a blessing f

      3 min read

    • Article

      Fair Dinkum Dictionary

      Mar 25, 2021

      Fair Dinkum Dictionary
      4 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      May 12, 2023

      Your LETTERS
      5 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Corner

      Jul 26, 2023

      So little, England. Little music. Little art. Timid, tasteful, nice. But one loves it. Loves it. You see I can say I love London. I can say I love England. I can’t say I love my country. I don’t know what that means. The Guy Burgess character in Alan

      1 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 27, 2022

      Alexander Larman (“Sacred Cows”, Dec/Jan) is quite wrong to date “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night” and “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” to the Tudor period. The former first appeared in 1700 and the latter is not found in any printed sou

      3 min read

    • Article

      Fathers Of The Republic

      Sep 28, 2023

      Fathers Of The Republic
      6 min read

    • Article

      Fair Dinkum!

      Oct 5, 2023

      Fair Dinkum!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Misguided And Muddled

      Oct 28, 2021

      ● HOW DOES ONE DEFINE “whiteness”? How can one throw a rope around peoples from different parts of the world, with so many contrasts, and set them marching under a single banner, based on the colour of their skin? Nobody with any knowledge of history

      3 min read

    • Article

      1920s Notebook

      Mar 2, 2022

      THE Roaring Twenties are often seen as a carefree, fickle era, full of fast men driving faster cars, paired with feisty, newly independent women. It was also, however, the decade that gave birth to cornerstones that hold the British way of life toget

      4 min read

    • Article

      Learning To Love Big Brother

      Nov 26, 2020

      Learning To Love Big Brother
      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Mar 9, 2022

      The Oldie, 23-31 Great Titchfield Street, London, W1W 7PA letters@theoldie.co.uk To sign up for our e-newsletter, go to www.theoldie.co.uk SIR: I thoroughly enjoyed A N Wilson’s memories of Auberon Waugh (March issue) and his piece reminded me of the

      6 min read

    • Article

      One Version To Rule Us All

      Feb 12, 2024

      One Version To Rule Us All
      9 min read

    • Article

      Sins Of Omission

      Mar 1, 2020

      Sins Of Omission
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jun 29, 2023

      I greatly enjoyed Samuel Rubinstein’s take-down of Dr Mary Rambaran-Olm and Dr Erik Wade (ANGLO-SAXON EXTREMISTS, JUNE). If woke American activists disapprove of the term “Anglo-Saxon” because it is an exonym (a name not much used by the people to wh

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Federation Of Australia

      Jan 31, 2024

      The Federation Of Australia
      6 min read

    • Article

      People Watching

      Mar 9, 2020

      People Watching
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Modest Man

      Oct 17, 2019

      The Modest Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Readers's Letters

      Aug 23, 2023

      The Oldie, 23–31 Great Titchfield Street, London, W1W 7PA letters@theoldie.co.uk To sign up for our e-newsletter, go to www.theoldie.co.uk SIR: We East Anglians are justifiably alarmed at the prospect of losing beloved Liverpool Street Station (Augus

      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Apr 15, 2021

      Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      Nov 12, 2021

      Your LETTERS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Readersʼ Letters

      Jul 27, 2022

      Readersʼ Letters
      6 min read

    Reviews for The Awful Australian

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Awful Australian - Valerie Desmond

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Awful Australian, by Valerie Desmond

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Awful Australian

      Author: Valerie Desmond

      Release Date: August 10, 2011 [EBook #37022]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AWFUL AUSTRALIAN ***

      Produced by Anna Hall, Nick Wall and the Online Distributed

      Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      THE AWFUL AUSTRALIAN

      The

      Awful Australian

      VALERIE DESMOND

      Commonwealth of Australia:

      E.W. COLE. Book Arcade, Melbourne

      46 George Street, Sydney 67 Rundle Street, Adelaide

      The Only Edition Printed in Australia

      E.W. COLE has been appointed Sole Distributor of A.H. Massina & Co.'s

      Complete Copyright Edition of

      Gordon's Poems

      THEY ARE NOW ISSUED IN TWO STYLES—

      1. Crown 8vo. (size 7½ in. × 5½ in.), large type, with Roll of the Kettledrum, illustrated, and Preface by Marcus Clarke

      CLOTH Binding, 3/6; also extra gilt cover, gilt edges, 5/-

      2. Pocket Edition (size 5½ in. × 4½ in.)

      CLOTH Cover, 2/6.

      FOREWORD.

      There has been so much adulation lately of Australia, Australian institutions, and the Australian people by writers with axes to grind and English politicians with party ends to serve that the people of the Commonwealth have come to believe that they are the salt of the earth, and that their country is the earth. Personally, I am impatient of such credulity, and I think it is time somebody called upon the self-satisfied Australians to show cause why a little more humility and a little less arrogance were not more seemly. With a view to restoring an apparently lost sense of proportion to the press and public of the country, I have written the following pages. If in telling the truth I shame the Australian this book will achieve its object. Should a howl of indignation be provoked, then will the condition of affairs be proved worse than my pen has power to depict, and nothing will be left but to declare Australia past redemption. This is the case for the prosecution.

      VALERIE DESMOND.

      Sydney, July 15, 1911.

      FIGURES AND FACTS.

      By John Scott.

      1. How to Become Quick at Figures, comprising the Shortest, Quickest, and Best Methods of Business Calculations. By John Scott. 2/6, postage 2d.

      2. How to Kill Time, Catches, Tricks, Comicalities, Puzzles, etc., etc. 1/-, postage 1d.

      3. How to Play Games, Cards, Dice, Racing, Lotteries, Dictionary of Gambling, Curious Wagers, How to Make a Book, etc., etc. 1/-, postage, 1d.

      4. The Puzzle King, Amusing Arithmetic, Bookkeeping Blunders, Commercial Comicalities, Catches, Problems, Tricks, etc.; 2/6, postage 2d.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTERPAGE

      —Australian Politics11

      —The Australian Accent15

      —Australian Manners22

      —Miss Australia27

      —Australia for The Australians38

      —The Australian in Society44

      —The Australian at Shirk51

      —The Listless Policeman56

      —The Australian's Parasitical Tendencies58

      —The Australian's Lack of Patriotism62

      —Club Life in Australia66

      —The Australian on the Land70

      —The Australian Titled Person76

      —The Australian at the Breakfast Table80

      —The Australian Poets83

      —The C.Y.A.90

      Chapter I.

      AUSTRALIAN POLITICS.

      This strange, topsy-turvey country, not content with having fruit with stones on the outside, has made the unique experiment of handing over its government to its peasantry! Other lands have at times fallen under the sway of the hoi-polloi, but this has always been temporary, and the result of some hysterical upheaval. But in Australia this has not been the case. The electors calmly and deliberately voted the Labour Party into power in April, 1910, and, since then, two of the six ridiculous States that this country of four and a-half millions has divided itself into have also calmly and deliberately decided, by majorities, to entrust their national guidance to butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers.

      That any body of people should do this—even in a country where every man and woman, irrespective of education, wealth, or social position has a vote—seems unintelligible to the English visitor. It certainly was unintelligible to me at first. It grew more of a mystery when I saw and heard several of the Labour leaders. Then I saw and heard the Liberal leaders, and I no longer wondered.

      Of all the products of Australia, the politician is the least worthy and the least competent. Oratory in this land is in the same embryo condition as gem-cutting or the manufacture of scientific instruments. Generally speaking, there is not in the public life of Australia a speaker who reaches to the standard of mediocrity in England or America. And in speaking, so is it much in the other qualifications that make a politician. The present Prime Minister, Mr. Fisher, I heard in Melbourne just before he left for England. Knowing him to have been a miner, I was prepared. It would be unfair to compare Mr. Fisher with one of our cultured statesmen at home. But put him beside another miner—Mr. Keir Hardie—the comparison is ludicrous. I was told to wait until I heard Mr. Deakin, and, as luck would have it, I did get an opportunity of hearing Mr. Deakin at a social function at Toorak. Mr. Deakin was fluent, I'll say that for him, but to regard him as an orator or even an average public speaker is ridiculous to one accustomed to the polished delivery and deep thought of our English politicians.

      Among the minor members of the London County Council are many speakers who stand head and shoulders over Mr. Deakin. I also heard Mr. Hughes, Mr. Tudor, and that amusing gentleman Mr. King O'Malley while I was in Melbourne, but I must admit that I was not deeply impressed. The great ones of the Victorian State Parliament I missed, which is possibly as well, if

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1