ii4 Australian Life 



observed in Australia is not small, and the Aus- 

 tralian knows how to enjoy himself on these occa- 

 sions. Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day or 

 Anniversary Day (January 26th) presents one of 

 the finest sights imaginable, with its fleets of gay 

 excursion steamers all crowded with happy, well- 

 dressed people. Cheap excursion trains carry 

 picnic parties away to shady gullies, where the 

 creeks bubble pleasantly under the tall tree-ferns, 

 and the air is pure and exhilarating. It is not 

 far from any big city to the seaside, where there 

 are broad stretches of clean sand, and fires may 

 be lighted, and billies boiled in the shady tea-tree 

 scrub. These are the holiday resorts, not of the 

 few, but of the many, and it has to be said that 

 the Australian method of keeping a holiday goes 

 far to justify the frequency of such occasions. 



One of the least agreeable features of the Aus- 

 tralian holiday is the prominence of the larrikin 

 "push." The larrikin has his equivalent in most 

 big cities, and may not differ much in type from 

 the English Hooligan, the American Tough, or 

 the French Apache, but there can be no doubt 

 that he is more in evidence than any of his proto- 

 types in the Old World. The larrikin pushes, or 

 gangs, are recruited from youths of the working 

 class, whose tastes incline in the direction of bru- 

 tality and conspiracy. The old bait of mystery, 

 always so attractive to a certain type of degen- 

 erate, allures many of them to the ranks of the 

 pushes, some of which claim to possess the organ- 



