Sunday-go-meetings-and slept.

ACROSS THE STRAITS

We crossed Cook's Straits from Wellington in one of those rusty little
iron tanks that go up and down and across there for twenty or thirty
years and never get wrecked--for no other reason, apparently, than that
they have every possible excuse to go ashore or go down on those stormy
coasts. The age, construction, or condition of these boats, and the
south-easters, and the construction of the coastline, are all decidedly
in favour of their going down; the fares are high and the accommodation
is small and dirty. It is always the same where there is no competition.

A year or two ago, when a company was running boats between Australia
and New Zealand without competition, the steerage fare was three
pound direct single, and two pound ten shillings between Auckland and
Wellington. The potatoes were black and green and soggy, the beef like
bits scraped off the inside of a hide which had lain out for a day or
so, the cabbage was cabbage leaves, the tea muddy. The whole business
took away our appetite regularly three times a day, and there wasn't
enough to go round, even if it had been good--enough tucker, we mean;
there was enough appetite to go round three or four times, but it was
driven away by disgust until after meals. If we had not, under cover of
darkness, broached a deck cargo of oranges, lemons, and pineapples, and
thereby run the risk of being run in on arrival, there would have been
starvation, disease, and death on that boat before the end--perhaps
mutiny.

You can go across now for one pound, and get something to eat on the
road; but the travelling public will go on patronizing the latest
reducer of fares until the poorer company gets starved out and fares
go up again--then the travelling public will have to pay three or four
times as much as they do now, and go hungry on the voyage; all of which
ought to go to prove that the travelling public is as big a fool as the
general public.

We can't help thinking that the captains and crews of our primitive
little coastal steamers take the chances so often that they in time
get used to it, and, being used to it, have no longer any misgivings
or anxiety in rough weather concerning a watery grave, but feel
as perfectly safe as if they were in church with their wives or
sisters--only more comfortable--and go on feeling so until the worn-out
machinery breaks down and lets the old tub run ashore, or knocks a ho