NORTH AUSTRALIAN HABITS.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 August 1921, Page 7

NORTH AUSTRALIAN HABITS.

ARCHDEACON’S DISCOVERIES. Sydney, July 19. They do s6m ( e extraordinary things in Northern Queensland, according to a statement made by Archdeacon Oakes, a Bathurst man, who has been touring up beyond Charters Towers.

“1 am told,” says the Archdeacon, “that one section of the church here hae a rule that if a clergyman is not available a man and woman may marry themselves, on the strict understanding that the usual ceremony is to be observed as soon as opportunity presents itself. 1 have heard of a clergyman who was summoned to' go into the Northern Territory, to a station some 300 miles beyond Cloncurry, to celebrate a marriage which had been waiting three months for official sanction. He made two attempts to reach his destination, but on each occasion his car was hopelessly bogged, and he had to return.”

The archdeacon said that he found the mining industry in a condition of decline. A factor that militated against the success of the industry was the appalling amount of swindling and dishonesty that prevailed. English capitalists had been robbed to such an extent by unscrupulous speculators that they are now chary about investing their money in the mines, and without large sums the various works cannot be re-started.

There is very little Sabbath observance anywhere in the far North, reports the traveller. “Last Sunday, in a town 1 w r as in, there were three football matches, and one of the teams came 400 miles to take part in the affair. It is a land of far-distances. Some of the hospital patients have been carried as far as .300 miles. I have just heard of one poor woman who travelled for days in a buggy, going toward the hospital, and died when 50 miles from the hospital town.

“One of the most remarkable persons I have met is an old lady who keeps the principal hotel in Charters Towers. She has been 36 years in the business, has never tasted liquor, has' never served a customer in the bar, and the whole of hor large family are total abstainers.”