The birth of the tourist

This is drawn from Mr Darwin's Incredible Shrinking World, a social history of science in the year 1859. Find out more here.

Travelling from London to Rome took 21 weary days in 1843. It took just two-and-a-half days by 1860, and tourism had become a mass commodity. Just as new technology brought fast travel to the masses, so Thomas Cook brought the masses to fast travel. He augmented the technology with group excursions, travellers’ cheques, hotel coupons and round-trip tickets, teaching first a nation, then the world, to obey timetables.

Cook began simply, arranging for a temperance group of 485 people to go from Leicester to Loughborough in 1841 at a shilling a head, with a brass band, speeches and food thrown in. He built up slowly, then left his job in 1845 to run tours full time. By 1848, he was taking parties to Scotland and the Lake District, then running ‘specials’ to see the Great Exhibition in 1851, and private trains to London to see the Duke of Wellington lying in state before his funeral in 1852.

Mr Cook’s train with 28 carriages of paying customers ran across Brunel’s magnificent Saltash Bridge between Devon and Cornwall, when it opened in 1859. Ten years later, he was offering a 105-day tour of Egypt and Palestine, and one of his 1872 brochures is reported to have inspired Jules Verne to write Around the World in Eighty Days. Verne seems to be one of the few writers of his time who was sensitive to how the world was shrinking.

Cook offered a world tour lasting a more relaxed 222 days but Verne’s Phileas Fogg used timetables to find a faster way. In 1859, it might have been possible for a New Zealander to reach London comfortably, via Suez and Marseilles in eighty days, but getting around the world in that time was still a bit of a challenge.

Some travellers had more pressing reasons to travel than ‘merely’ seeing the world, motives like dodging spouses or obligations. The classifieds in London’s The Times of 3 January reveal that people could advertise for missing friends in Australia; a New York enquiry agency offered to provide information about traders or to collect debts. In London, Charles Frederick Field, a former Chief Inspector of the Detective Police of the Metropolis, offered London and Continental Private Inquiries, and access to his New York agent.

Just before Christmas 1859, the New York Times reported that a burglar named Hod Annis had been taken back to Boston. He had been arrested in Philadelphia, and managed to escape the clutches of the law, but he was undone when he telegraphed his mistress to send him money, and the authorities intercepted his requests. His travels had been in vain.

Up until 1859, travel books were written either by intrepid explorers to recoup their costs, or as guides for intending emigrants. With steamships making foreign travel more available, the need for guidebooks grew—Murray’s Guide to Madras and Bombay Presidencies for 1859 was the beginning of a long line of them. The author was Edward Eastwick and the ‘Murray’ who gets more credit than the author was John Murray, the publisher of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. Eastwick advised his readers that on arriving at Madras (Chennai), the trick was ‘to get into a palankeen and be carried to the club, if a bachelor; or if travelling with ladies, to some friend’s house. There are, indeed, hotels which may be repaired to as a dernier ressort’.

Isabella Bird Bishop, who became the first woman member of the Royal Geographic Society in 1892, published her The Englishwoman in America in 1856. She was publishing still in 1900 having started when her clergyman father sent her to America to research American Christianity for him. A relative of William Wilberforce and cousin to John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1848 to 1862, she was well connected enough to get an introduction to John Murray, who accepted her first work, and she never looked back.

After the death of her parents, Bishop sailed for Melbourne in 1872, then visited New Zealand and Hawaii before crossing America and reaching New York at the end of 1873. There were more travels, and she circumnavigated the world three times, a record that few humans could have matched in the nineteenth century.

And it was all down to steam transport. Steamships were also used to take an England cricket team to North America in 1859, the first international tour involving any team sport. England won every match.

Sometimes, travel failed to broaden the mind. An American visitor to Berne had returned claiming that everything in Berne smelled of cheese. ‘Cheese is the Bernese otto of roses’, he grizzled, playing on the words of the then common use of ‘attar of roses’, an oil distilled from rose petals, and still used in many perfumes. Every city had its smells, but the odour of horse dung was common to all of them.

Oersted's experiment

 This is from a book I am about to start pitching:

Hans Oersted is remembered in the name of the unit of magnetic field strength, the oersted. He was also the person who coined the term ‘electromagnetic’. With that sort of introduction, it should not be hard to work out that it was Oersted who first observed the magnetic effect of an electric current. All the same, Oersted was trained in metaphysics (a branch of philosophy), rather than in physics.

Nonetheless, in 1806, he became professor of physics and chemistry at Copenhagen. As well as being the first to prepare metallic aluminium, Oersted is remembered for his discovery of electromagnetism, which he made during a lecture. His discovery of the electromagnetic effect was immediately translated into several languages, though not entirely reliably. The 1826 English source I found for his work contained a contradiction which was not in the 1820 French version I happened to have to hand, so my quotation below is a mix of the two versions.

If he had written in Latin, and we had all been forced to learn Latin, this problem would not have arisen, but even by the 1820s, Latin was no longer universally understood.

The first experiments…were set on foot in the classes for electricity, galvanism and magnetism, which were held by me in the winter just past. By these experiments it seemed…that the magnetic needle was moved from its position by the help of the galvanic apparatus…when the galvanic circuit was closed, but not when open, as certain very celebrated physicists in vain attempted several years ago…

A modern re-enactment of Oersted’s experiment. My choice of the aluminium ruler was deliberate.

You can see the way this worked in the illustration above, but as this is simple enough for the reader to try, let me note that the entire apparatus is one compass, one AA cell, a length of insulated wire and some sticky tape, plus an aluminium ruler which is optional, but it would have pleased Oersted. I bared one end of the wire, taped it to one end of the dry cell (this was sloppy practice but good enough) and bared the other end.

I taped the dry cell to the ruler (or to the rule if you are a pedant), taped the compass to the ruler to stabilise it, and that was it. As you can see, a single dry cell was enough to bring about a noticeable swing. Incidentally, if you reverse the wire (and as a result, the current), the swing reverses, and the same reversal happens if the wire is under the compass.

One of the great continuing arguments in science relates to the need to justify research in advance, usually for the benefit of bean counters, weasels and other parasites, by showing what research is useful for. Even the most useless-looking piece of science can become useful, as Karl Pearson was to discover. Here, Lord Kelvin reflects upon Oersted’s researches:

Oersted would never have made his great discovery of the action of galvanic currents on magnets had he stopped in his researches to consider in what manner they could possibly be turned to practical account; and so we would not now be able to boast of the wonders done by the electric telegraphs. Indeed, no great law in Natural Philosophy has ever been discovered for its practical implications, but the instances are innumerable of investigations apparently quite useless in this narrow sense of the word which have led to the most valuable results.
—Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), 1846, quoted R. A. Gregory, Discovery (1916), 241.

Aside from Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, the main players in the unravelling of Faraday’s electromagnetism include Georg Ohm, Hans Oersted, and James Clerk Maxwell, who brought us to the point where we could see light as an electromagnetic wave, much as Michael Faraday had expected, leading on to George FitzGerald, and then to Heinrich Hertz, Guglielmo Marconi and beyond.

There are also the users of electricity and magnetism, from Joseph Henry and Edward Davy, who both invented an electric relay, Charles Wheatstone, Alexander Graham Bell, and people like Joseph Swan, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla who made our modern uses of electricity possible.

There was far more to magnetism than compasses for navigation. After Oersted found that a variable current in a wire would make a compass needle deflect from its usual direction, André Marie Ampère (1775–1836), found that like currents attract, then he discovered the solenoid in 1826: this was a coil of insulated wire with a current passing through it, and it would be the basis of transformers, electric motors, relays and electromagnets. The most common and audible household use of the solenoid today is probably in the switching systems which commonly turn the water flow on and off in washing machines.

Ampère completed his work while believing incorrectly in two ‘magnetic fluids’, which he called a northern fluid, and a southern fluid. So long as he observed correctly, and so long as his theory allowed him to make sensible predictions to test, it mattered little. Then in 1831, Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, and soon after, invented the very first electric motors.

Following on from this in 1845, Faraday discovered what we now call the Faraday effect, where a magnetic field makes the plane of polarised light rotate. This later influenced James Clerk Maxwell to come up with the idea of electromagnetic radiation, which led to Hertz inventing radio. And it all came from one simple observation by Oersted, a lifetime earlier!

Science is like that…

And that, by the way, is my preferred name for the book.

Of timetables and tourism

I have been busy, cleaning up old books, so here's a bit of new stuff I have written for one of them. 

Despite what my publishers often assume, I am not really an historian. I do, however, write about historical matters, because like any good scientist, I am kin to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Kipling’s mongoose, who always had to “run and find out”. I want to know why things happened, and what made them happen as they did, and not differently. That is why I can argue that without the steam engine and the telegraph, Einstein may not have started the line of thought that led to special relativity.

It all began with a need to synchronise clocks, but nobody needed to do that until railways came in, and timetables were needed to make sure that up and down trains did not collide on the single tracks that were normal. (The single tracks between towns worked because train drivers would pull into sidings to let other trains pass. That is why they needed synchronised clocks and watches.)

Before long-distance railways, the only people who needed accurate times were those on ships who needed reliable time for navigation. The distance of a ship north or south of the equator, its latitude, was measured by taking sightings on certain stars, or on the sun, preferably at noon.

The harder task was finding your longitude, how far east or west you were. British sailors would set their chronometers by the standard time, as measured by the observatory at Greenwich. Using that as a basis, if the sun reached the highest point in the sky four minutes earlier than at Greenwich, you were one degree east of Greenwich, and if noon came four minutes later, you were one degree west of Greenwich.

Up until the 1850s, anybody with a telescope could set a ‘local noon’, but even in a small country like Britain, this system was no longer safe for the railways, and so Greenwich Mean Time was adopted in Britain.

An international convention in 1881 met to establish what we now know as the international date line as the prime meridian, but the convention had a majority of European members, and so the meridian through Greenwich became the standard for time-keeping, simply because it was closer to home for a majority of members. But if that meridian was the base line for timing, it still took more than 30 years for French and German geographers to accept the use of the Greenwich meridian as the base for all world mapping.

Einstein’s thinking about time arose from the needs of steam train drivers, but until the telegraph was available, synchronisation was hard. Without telegraphy, Einstein may not have pursued the deep problems of time and space.

Probably he would have got there, because trains and telegraphs were helpful precursors, rather than what scholars back then designated as sine qua non, a Latin tag meaning without which, nothing. There were many essential precursors like the invention of calculus, and probably a few enabling technologies.

In cities and towns, steam whistles, bells, flags and lights on towers indicated impending or recent arrivals and departures, summoning those to start walking who planned to meet (or be) passengers, and those seeking to send or collect goods or mail.

Timetables also fed tourism, the great leveller, that all too often pulls every culture down to the lowest common denominator, but which also opens the door to the acquisition of knowledge. Mass tourism corrupts, most of the time, causing hordes to rush from ticking Mona Lisa on their bucket list, to watching a “crocodile show” in Australia, or ogling the bare-breasted apsaras at Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat apsaras.

Along the way, though, one learns to drink rauchbier, or to put lemon in weissbier, to gain a degree of cultural perspective. Tourism also eliminates weak vessels, the ones who want to play with grizzly bears or lions, so it has its good points.

The idea of the Grand Tour began in the late 1600s, but as late as 1843, travelling from London to Rome took 21 weary days, though in 1860, steam ships and trains got you there in just two and a half days. In those earlier and slower days, when people went on the Grand Tour, they tried to tick as many boxes as possible, and after Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748, it went on the list of marvels to see. Seeing things like that helped educate people more widely.

The Mona Lisa crowd. This was as close as I wanted to go.

Just as the new technology brought fast travel to the masses, so Thomas Cook brought the masses to fast travel. He augmented the technology with group excursions, travellers’ cheques, hotel coupons and round-trip tickets, teaching first a nation, then the world, to obey timetables.

Cook began simply, arranging for a temperance group of 485 people to go from Leicester to Loughborough in 1841 at a shilling a head, with a brass band, speeches and food thrown in. He built up slowly, then left his job in 1845 to run tours full-time. By 1848, he was taking parties to Scotland and the Lake District, then ran ‘specials’ to see the Great Exhibition in 1851, and private trains to London to see the Duke of Wellington lying in state before his funeral in 1852.

Mr Cook’s train with 28 carriages of paying customers ran across Brunel’s magnificent Saltash Bridge when it opened in 1859. Ten years later, he was offering a 105-day tour of Egypt and Palestine, and one of his 1872 brochures is supposed to have inspired Jules Verne to write Around the World in Eighty Days.

Verne seems to be one of the few writers of his time who was sensitive to how the world was shrinking. Cook offered a tour lasting a more relaxed 222 days but Phileas Fogg used timetables to find a faster way. In 1859, a New Zealander could reach London in comfort in 80 days, via Suez and Marseilles, but getting around the world in that time was still a bit of a challenge.

Some had more pressing reasons to travel, like dodging spouses or obligations. The classifieds in The Times on January 3 reveal that people could advertise for missing friends in Australia, while a New York enquiry agency offered to provide information about traders or to collect debts. In London, Charles Frederick Field, a former Chief Inspector of the Detective Police of the Metropolis, offered London and Continental Private Inquiries, and access to his New York agent.

Before about 1859, travel books were written either by intrepid explorers to recoup their costs, or as guides for intending emigrants. Now steamships made foreign travel more available, and Murray’s Guide to Madras and Bombay Presidencies for 1859 was the beginning of a long line of guides. The author was Edward Eastwick and the “Murray” who usually gets more credit was John Murray, the publisher of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Eastwick advised his readers that on arriving at Madras (now Chennai), the trick was “to get into a palankeen and be carried to the club, if a bachelor; or if travelling with ladies, to some friend’s house. There are, indeed, hotels which may be repaired to as a dernier ressort.”

Isabella Bird Bishop published her The Englishwoman in America in 1856. She became the first woman member of the Royal Geographic Society in 1892 and publishing still in 1900. She started when her clergyman father sent her to America to do research on American Christianity for him. A relative of William Wilberforce and cousin to John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1848 to 1862, she was well-connected enough to get an introduction to John Murray, who accepted her first work– and she never looked back.

After the death of her parents, she sailed for Melbourne in 1872, then visited New Zealand and Hawaii before crossing America and reaching New York at the end of 1873. There were more travels, and she circumnavigated the world three times, a record that few humans could have matched in the 19th century — and it was all down to steam transport. Steamships also carried an England cricket team to North America in 1859, the first international tour involving any team sport. England won every match.

Sometimes, travel failed to broaden the mind. An American visitor to Berne had returned claiming that everything in Berne smelled of cheese. “Cheese is the Bernese otto of roses”, he grizzled, using the then common version of ‘attar of roses’, an oil distilled from rose petals and still used in many perfumes. Every city had its smells, but the odour of horse dung was common to all of them.

But that's another story.

Swimming naked and other scandals

 This is taken from my LONG Australian history, You Missed a Bit, which is much cheaper as an e-book.

Today, swimming is among Australia’s most popular pastimes, but in the 19^th century, ‘bathing’ as it was called was severely restricted. When we read about our Victorian ancestors in neck-to-knee bathing costumes, we assume that was the norm, but originally, public bathing was banned between sunrise and sunset, simply because most people did away with “togs” altogether.

Miles Franklin reflects this practice, even at the end of the 19^th century. On a hot day, she and a number of girl visitors “…went for bogeys in a part of the river two miles distant…”

Aunt Helen…was the only one who bothered with a bathing-dress. The rest of us reefed off our clothing, in our hurry sending buttons in all directions, and plunged into the pleasant water. [i]

Confirming evidence comes from official announcements like the one below, dated 4 October 1810. The key term is found in variants and derivatives of the word ‘indecent’, which was the officials’ code word for ‘naked’. This command was signed by the Governor’s secretary, J. T. Campbell:

A very indecent and improper custom having lately prevailed of soldiers sailors and inhabitants of the town bathing themselves at all Hours of the Day at the Government Wharf, and also in the Dock-yard, His Excellency the Governor directs and commands that no person shall Bathe at either of those Places in future, at any Hour of the Day; and the Sentinels, posted at the Government Wharf and in the Dock-yard are to receive strict Orders to apprehend and confine any Person transgressing this Order. [ii]

On the other hand, it was fully accepted that people would go to a secluded place to bathe, as indicated by an 1817 warning in the Sydney Gazette, about dangerous places near Farm Cove and Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour), where “coral” [in reality tubeworms, Galeolaria] and oysters lined the rocks:

Some of the accidents have been very serious, and in one instance threatened the necessity of amputation. Parents will we trust benefit by this caution, and admonish their children against the unnecessary hazard, as there are retired situations much better adapted to the recreation of bathing. [iii]

In other words, the problem was not the act of bathing, or being naked: it was being seen naked that was the issue. Unobserved open-air nakedness was fine, all the best people did it. At the end of 1821, wealthy parents could enrol their sons at the Sydney Academy, Macquarie-street, conducted by Isaac Wood. The school-house was described as standing on a hill, next to the Domain, in a healthy spot with excellent views.

This House has been erected at a considerable expence, affording to the Pupils every accommodation, with commodious apartments, &c. &c. Its contiguity to the Domain (where the Pupils have a liberty of walking, and, in the season, bathing, &c. &c.) renders it one of the most delightful situations possible. [iv]

There, young Gentlemen, of all ages, would be “…received and educated in the several branches of useful and polite literature, according to their destinations in life.” That said, there was only one school-room, though each student had a separate bed, and would learn English, plain and ornamental Writing, Arithmetic, Latin, French, Drawing, Dancing, Music and Fencing.

Boarders paid £40 a year from the age of ten upwards, and below that, £30—and even that amount was a shepherd’s pay for a year, so these pupils were “upper crust”. Clearly, the habit of bathing in a suitable place was normal for all ages and classes.

Indeed, in 1824, somebody writing as “An Independent Whig” wrote to the liberal newspaper, the Australian, protesting at a sign which had appeared, a fortnight earlier. The sign read:

NOTICE.—All Persons found Bathing, at the Military Bathing-house, and which is fenced in, will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. N. B.—A sentry is now posted to guard the ground and fence and to secure all depredators. [v]

The writer was furious at this high-handed action by the officers of the garrison,

…forbidding any persons bathing at the military bathing-house, not only myself, but I presume the inhabitants generally, would be much obliged by being informed, through the medium of your Independent Paper, if the officers have any legal right to usurp to themselves exclusively, a public place, for their own private use. [vi]

Here, there was no suggestion of indecency. But as the population grew, secluded places became harder to find, and enclosures and bathing machines began to appear. The first was in Hobart in 1829:

The public will be pleased to learn that Mr. Easton has completed a bathing machine, and is well advanced with a second for the accommodation of the inhabitants of Hobart town. [vii]

And it wasn’t only gentlemen who used Easton’s facilities, given this, four weeks later:

We are happy to observe, that the laudable enterprise of Mr. EASTON, in having erected bathing machines, for the accommodation of invalids ordered sea-bathing, and those fond of that recreation, is likely to meet with encouragement—daily remarking several groups of respectable females visiting the same at Sullivan’s Cove. [viii]

In Sydney in 1833, things were apparently getting out of hand, and the Sydney Gazette praised the new orders about bathing:

Years ago we called attention to this. No gentleman could take his wife, sister, daughter or female acquaintance, to any of the public walks adjoining the harbour without keenly feeling the want of some regulation like that which is now in force, and which, we trust, will be strictly enforced. [ix]

Towards the end of the year, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser reported that men had been bathing openly at 1 pm on a Saturday on “the Domain side of the Cove”. [x] That was all very well, said the Sydney Monitor the next month, but where were people to be allowed to bathe? The relevant Act referred to Sydney Cove and Darling Harbour, but was Woolloomooloo Bay included in the list? At that time, swimmers wanting a bathing spot within three or four miles of the town either went through private property, or chose Woolloomooloo Bay.

As a prevention of the indecencies that occurred in Sydney Cove and Darling Harbour, the Police Act is considered an important benefit. But if Woolloomoollo Bay be to be included in the restriction, it becomes a public nuisance, which, however, might easily be rectified by a reservation to a particular spot, and which, when known as a bathing-place, would be avoided by females. [xi]

Perhaps the writer thought women would not wish to bathe, but across the continent, even vice-regal ladies did it. In Perth in 1836, it was announced that the Governor, Sir James Stirling and Lady Stirling and family, would all be visiting Fremantle to go sea bathing.

Captain Scott, the Harbour Master, has a bathing machine in readiness, and others no doubt will soon be prepared, when the number of visitors attracted to this fashionable resort increase. [xii]

The term ‘bathing machine’ was fairly elastic. When a hairdresser named Robinson established a bathing machine at Figtree Sands, Woolloomooloo Bay in 1838, it was soon referred to as “floating baths”. It was “…sixty feet in length, completely roofed in, and provided with dressing-rooms, and other conveniences…”. [xiii]

These were clearly swimming baths, an enclosure off the sea. By 1840, Robinson’s establishment was catering to both men and women, but never at the same time and place.

HOT AND COLD BATHS. Robinson’s Australian Floating Baths, adjoining the Domain and Woolloomoolloo Bay.—J. ROBINSON with great pleasure announces to the Ladies and Gentlemen of Sydney, and its vicinity, that his Baths have undergone a thorough repair and are now ready for use…The great benefits derived from such a delightful recreation as Bathing are too well known to need any comment from the proprietor of the Baths.—Terms Twelve Months £2, Six ditto £1 5s, Three ditto 15s., One ditto 7s., single Bath 1s., warm ditto ditto 2s. 6d. All subscriptions to be paid in advance. [xiv]

As an additional attraction, both baths offered Coffee, Lemonade, Soda Water, Biscuits and Cigars, and Mrs Robinson also had bathing dresses and oil skin caps for sale, though Mr Robinson offered no “bathing dresses” for sale.

In March 1845, the earliest recorded swimming race took place. The competitors were male, the races were around buoys in the harbour, and they started at 6:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m., suggesting that clothing was not involved.

This noble and manly exercise is much practised by our colonial youth; but the merit of bringing together some of our best swimmers to compete for the honour of a prize, is due to Mr. Robinson, who has for some years catered for the public comfort by establishing his baths in Woolloomooloo Bay. [xv]

Over time, other cities became involved, and in 1854, Adelaide was planning two plunging baths, “…that for gentlemen measuring 88 feet by 40 feet, and that for ladies 48 feet 6 inches by 28 feet; besides numerous warm baths, dressing rooms, towel rooms, waiting-rooms, committee-room, engine-houses, residence for bath keeper, &c., &c.” [xvi]

In 1861, Elizabeth Ramsay-Laye was full of praise for the bathing facilities in Melbourne, something which she called one of the gems of the city.

No places could be better adapted for the purpose. Gentlemen have, at some distance from the shore, a bathing ship, from which they may jump into the water and swim a certain distance, buoys being placed to prevent the uninitiated from getting within reach of sharks. The ladies are equally cared for, and the arrangements made for them are most comfortable. [xvii]

Other Melbourne ladies swam from the beach, and a letter to The Argus signed “DECENCY” sounded a note of alarm which reveals in passing that while women wore “bathing dresses”, those swimming at Brighton, if they had no private dressing-box, got changed in the scrub.

A “well-known broker”, a married man, had been hiding in the bushes to peep at the ladies in a state of undress, creeping up to them on hands and knees. On one occasion, he ran off when he was detected, but he had been recognised.

The same ladies met the same wretch near the same place the following morning, and accused him of it, when he again made use of his legs to the best advantage. And I may add, that this fellow, in the garb of a gentleman, will be well ducked if he persist in it. [xviii]

Throughout the later 19^th century, there were more and more reports of “indecency” charges, but the times were changing. In 1890, Dr E. G. Leger Erson delivered a scientific paper in Melbourne on “School hygiene.”

This was mainly about making children aware of the need for good (diffused, not too bright nor too dim) lighting, sewerage, and ventilation, and it also touched on posture, but Dr Erson also wanted to see children taught to ride horses, shoot and swim.

While the writers at the Bendigo Advertiser thought the horse riding part unnecessary, and said shooting was dangerous, they agreed that all children should learn to swim, and offered helpful suggestions, like adapting the dams scattered around the goldfield:

These could be levelled, and the bottom covered with gravel, and a bit of hoarding would be sufficient to protect from the public gaze, while modesty could still further be prevented from being shocked by the boys wearing swimming pants. By this means a great benefit could be obtained at a minimum cost. [xx]

Note how a concern for ‘decency’ has been replaced by a desire for ‘modesty’. Two years later, in 1892, Port Fairy in Victoria proposed to make mixed bathing legal, and the Portland Guardian agreed with keeping up with the times, noting that “some estimable persons will regard it as a very horrible and immodest course of proceeding…” It would, said the paper be a very desirable one, and no more immodest than a family game at tennis or rounders.

Judging by the pictures in the American papers, bathing dresses may be very handsome and becoming costumes, and as to the modesty of the attire—well, honi soit &c. They are Diana’s robes, compared to some of the displays I have blushed to look upon in the theatres and public ball-rooms. [xxi]

Mixed bathing became more popular in the 1890s, and all Australian newspapers reported the Parliamentary debates in the other colonies. One thing quickly becomes clear: in New South Wales, Newcastle had taken the lead in matters of bathing, and they were keeping themselves informed, as a report from Melbourne in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate shows.

In spite of police prudery and the cost of “neck-to-knee” bathing costumes, the residents of Port Melbourne approved of mixed bathing in the open. Their Mayor, Dr Malcolmson, headed a deputation to the Harbour Trust…

The chairman of the trust said they could not interfere with the Police Offences Statute, but as a practical remedy suggested that the residents of Port Melbourne, following the example of other suburbs, should pack the Bench, and fine offenders 1d only instead of the customary 5s. [xxii]

There was debate in the NSW Legislative Council over bathing at Newcastle, and the decision was made to legislate for the whole colony. [xxiii] By August 1894, the battle had been fought, and won, with a Newcastle Borough Council by-law, allowing daylight bathing (but banning mixed bathing).

“Bathing at the Beach: It shall be lawful for all persons, whether male or female, to bathe in the sea at all times and at all hours of the day at those parts or portions of the sea beach within the municipality duly set apart and defined as male and female places. Provided such persons desirous of bathing, being male or female, shall be clothed or covered from the neck and shoulders to the knees with a suitable bathing dress or costume to prevent exposure or indecency; such clothing or covering shall be approved of by the council or other persons employed by the council as caretaker or caretakers. That portion or part of the beach set apart for females or young children shall not be encroached or trespassed upon by any male or males above the age of 7 years, nor shall the part or portion of the beach set apart for males be encroached or trespassed upon by any female or females. Any person infringing the provisions of this bylaw shall be liable on conviction to a penalty not exceeding £1 nor less than 1s. [xxiv]

By 1900, swimming was an Olympic sport, and one Australian swimmer went to the Olympic Games in Paris. While few Australians have heard of him today, F. C. V. (Frederick) Lane won a gold medal for the 200 metres freestyle in 2 minutes 25.25 and a second gold for winning a “200 metres obstacle race”.

This race involved climbing up and down a pole, scrambling over a row of boats and diving under another row of boats, as well as swimming 200 metres. He completed that race in a creditable 2 minutes 38.4 seconds. [xxv] Notably, the race was held in the Seine, where the swimmers had to beat not only the current but the sewage of Paris, which flowed into the river.

---

[i] Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career, ch 17.

[ii] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 13 October 1810, 1, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/628098#pstart6682

[iii] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 5 April 1817, 2, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2177167

[iv] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 29 December 1821, 4, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2180705

[v] The Australian (Sydney), 11 November 1821, 4, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/37072524

[vi] The Australian (Sydney), 25 November 1824, 4, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/37071701

[vii] The Hobart Town Crier, 17 January 1829, 2, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/4218444

[viii] Colonial Times (Hobart), 13 February 1829, 3, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/8644113/666470

[ix] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 28 February 1833, 3, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2210938

[x] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 15 October 1833, 2, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2214382

[xi] The Sydney Monitor, 20 November 1833, 2, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/32145054

[xii] The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 19 March, 1836, 670, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/640502

[xiii] The Australian, 24 July, 1838, 2, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/36857967

[xiv] The Sydney Herald, 13 October 1840, 1, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12866022

[xv] Sydney Morning Herald, 3 March 1845, 2, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12877795

[xvi] South Australian Register, 18 October 1854, 3, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/49197848

[xvii] Elizabeth Ramsay-Laye, Social Life and Manners in Australia, 96 – 7.

[xviii] The Argus, 14 March, 1861, 7, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5698419

[xix] William Morrison Bell Other Countries, vol 1, 279, and E. E. Morris (ed.) Australia’s First Century, 75.

[xx] Bendigo Advertiser, 14 January 1890, 2, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/88979480

[xxi] Portland Guardian (Victoria), 11 March 1892, 3, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/65390320

[xxii] Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 19 March 1894, 6, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/137177795

[xxiii] The Argus, 10 March 1894, 9, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/8731262

[xxiv] Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August 1894, 4, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13965281

[xxv] Sydney Morning Herald, 15 August 1900, 7, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/14330670

The last of the Copywrong Pirates

This is the third and last sample from my revised Monster Maintenance Manual, a book recommended for the very young who want to grow up as cryptic crossword champions.

Go here for the print version, and here for the ebook

Roger Rabid was a very mild-looking person because he was a very mild person. He was born with the name Peter Percival Rabbit, because his parents named him after the famous Peter Rabbit, but his grandfather was an artist and he warned Peter’s parents about copyright law.

“I got into trouble once when I was using the name Rupert Bunny, so put in a Percival to be safe,” he told them.

P. P. Rabbit grew up in his home burrow on Circular Island, embarrassed by his name. He got in the habit of telling people he was named after Padraic Pearse, a famous Irish rebel, but people soon found out that it wasn’t true.

Because P. P. Rabbit hated his name, he hated the copyright law. At a very young age, he decided to run away and become a copywrong pirate.

He wasn’t really sure what a copywrong pirate did, but he thought it was probably damaging to copyright. He hoped it meant smashing up the copyright laws, but whatever it was, it had to be more exciting than living at home, competing with aunt’s flock of lawn moas for a feed of grass, and very occasionally getting some grated carrot.

He decided to go and find a copywrong pirate so he could ask what they did. He worked out that most pirates use ships, and that meant they should be found near the sea, but he wasn’t sure where to look for the sea.

This should tell you all you need to know about P. P. Rabbit. He lived on an island, surrounded by sea, and he had several lucky rabbit’s feet. His mother said they had to be lucky, because they were still part of him.

One day, P. P. Rabbit heard a rumbling while was out walking, then he heard the squawking of parrots, and he decided that a troppo was coming along the road. Off the road he went, fast as he could, right across Circular Island—and fell into the sea.

Thinking quickly, he grabbed a bar of soap out of his pocket. “All I have to do is wash myself ashore,” he bubbled, but the soap ran out, and so did his luck.

Then his luck returned, as a kind old man with an eye patch scooped him out of the water, shouting ‘Aaaaarr!’ as he did. P. P. Rabbit smiled, even though he was cold and soggy.

Going on the eyepatch, if this man wasn’t a copywrong pirate, he must know about them. So as the man rowed him back to the beach, he plucked up the courage to ask a question.

“Thanks,” he said, shaking off the water. “Are you a copywrong pirate?”

“Aaaaarr!” said the man, either winking or blinking. P. P. Rabbit might have been a bit silly, but he worked out that when somebody has a patch, it’s hard to tell a wink from a blink. “That oi be! Me name’s Wrong John Sliver! Why did you ask that?”

“Oh, thank you,” said P. P. Rabbit. “Now can you tell me what copywrong pirates actually do? I think I want to become one…”

The man thought for a moment. “Well, we shout ‘Aaaaarr!’ quite a lot.”

“What does that do?”

“Well, it makes you feel a lot better if you’ve just stubbed your toe because some evil son of a sea-cook just shivered their timbers and didn’t clean up after themselves. Besides that, d’you know what our favourite letter of the alphabet is?”

P. P. Rabbit thought about this. “Could your favourite possibly be the letter P? That’s my favourite letter…”

“No, you hornpiped lump of unspliced mainbrace! It’s R!” bellowed Wrong John. “That’s why all our names start with an R!”

“But your name starts with a W, doesn’t it?”

“Only if you’re a copyright pirate, but we’re copywrong pirates. And I’m the pirate king! Aaaaarr!”

“So you don’t like the letter P?”

“Aaaaarr, we like it a bit. That letter’s the next best, but if you give it a wooden leg, it’s an R. Anyhow, you can’t be called anything Rabbit, so we’ll make that Rabid. Aaaaarr, we’ll call you Roger Rabid.”

Roger was glad they didn’t chop off one of his legs or even one of his lucky feet. Instead, Wrong John tied a lump of wood to one of his own legs. And he didn’t poke out one of Roger’s eyes, he just gave him a patch to wear. “Which eye will I wear it on?” Roger asked.

Wrong John Sliver grinned. “Aaaaarr, we be copywrong pirates! Different eye each day, lad!”

They stood, looking silently out to sea, but the quiet was soon ended with a roar.

“AVAST, YE BLUBBERS!” Roger jumped and turned to see two men with eye patches. One wore a kilt, but Roger noticed that instead of being tartan, it looked as though it had been made from a Hawaiian shirt. The other one held a teapot and wore a garland of leeks with camouflage shirt and pants.

The one in the kilt held his hand out. “I’m Rrrrobert the Brrrruise!” he said in a broad Scots accent. “I jump to contusions quite a bit, while my friend here with the teapot jumps to infusions.”

The other waved his teapot and spoke in a Welsh accent. “I’m Roberts the Brew,” he said. “Care for some tea, boyo?”

Roger nodded.

“Hold your hand out then!”

“Umm, maybe I won’t,” said Roger.

Roberts the Brew shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Roger noticed Long John Sliver was looking unhappy, and glaring at the other two. “What’s this BLUBBER stuff?” he asked them. “I’ve been losing weight!”

Robert the Bruise nodded. “We can see that. We’re just trying to be wrong, like the rule book says.” He pointed at Roger. “This here’s a new member?”

Roger held out his hand. “Roger Rabid,” he said. “Pleased to meet you!”

Robert the Bruise scowled at him. “Are you really pleased?”

Roger nodded. Roberts and Robert jumped up and down, chanting loudly “Keelhaul him! Keelhaul him!”

“Just a moment, lads,” said Long John Sliver. “He’s very new, and I haven’t explained yet.”

He turned to Roger. “See, lad, it’s, aaaaarr, like this. Everything we say has to be wrong, and the punishment for being right is keelhauling.”

“Right!” said Roger, but then he noticed their faces. “Umm, wrong, I mean. I’m sorry—I mean I’m not sorry at all.”

“Aaaaarr,” said Robert and Roberts, smiling. “Bad lad, you’re not catching on quite badly!” said Roberts.

Two more people with eye patches walked onto the beach. One was a good-looking short man with green skin, the other was a beautiful tall lady with blue skin. Long John Sliver introduced them as Richard the Repulsive.

“Which one’s Richard,” he asked.

“We both are,” said the lady. “We are identical twins from Poland. People can’t tell us apart, so we save them having to ask us which of us is which.”

Roger noticed that she had a strong Irish accent.

“And we’ve both got magnetic personalities,” said the short man, in an even stronger Irish accent.

Roger thought he understood now why they were called repulsive. He began to wonder what he had got himself into. “That sounds only a bit more exciting than stamp collecting,” he said.

“We do that,” said the man. “But we only collect forged stamps.”

“Why?”

“Because imitation is the sincerest form of philately.”

“Right,” said Roger, setting off another chant about keelhauling. He decided it was time to do something before they went from chanting to doing.

“Think about it,” he told them. “If it’s right to be wrong and wrong to be right, then every time I’m right, that’s wrong, so being right is more wrong than just being ordinary wrong.”

“I understand that,” said Long John Sliver. Roger realised this meant the opposite, so he took a deep breath.

“Think about it,” he said, “when I’m right, I’m being doubly wrong. It’s like being not unhappy, which is the same as being happy.”

Long John Sliver looked very unhappy. “But two wrongs don’t make a right!”

Roger grinned. “Is that right?”

“Yes, it is. No, that’s wrong. No it’s not, it’s aaaaarr …” Long John Sliver stumbled up the beach, sobbing.

The other copywrong pirates looked at each other as he disappeared. They pondered.

Then, when the copywrong pirates realised how they had been deprived of their wrongs, their lips trembled. Then they went into a huddle. Then they went into the kitchen, where Roberts the Brew taught them how to make tea.

Then they all went off in different directions to open tea shops in seaside villages where they charged pie rates, and there were no more copywrong pirates.

Or were there? I know the answer to that, but it would be wrong for me to say.

Aaaaarr!

Legal notices (for groan-ups):

All the low-fat words in this story were laid by free-range word hens.

All blubbers mentioned in this story were derived from surplus tea shop proprietors.

The tea used by Roberts the Brew was actually an aaaaarr that had come down in the world. It is now feeling much better.

Peter Rabbit has gone freelance, and declined to be part of this story. His role in the back-story was played by a piece of tape, a bunch of keys, and three mice in a tennis sock.

Long John Sliver’s leg was played by the runner-up in the Hollowood Wooden Actors’ Award who wishes to remain anonymous.

The forged stamps were played by themselves, as was the tennis match, but that was in the binding of the book. It was a net gain.

Epimenides was invited to take part, but declined when he found he would have to change his name.

Reference:

Johann Sebastian Bach, The Copy Cantata.