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118
irregularity of its streets, which seem to the stranger
to add to its beauty, are sad drawbacks to the advantage
of trade, to the cleanliness of its streets or the general
comfort of the inhabitants; for though we must in truth
mm, that as to general appearance and situation Hobart
Town stands pre-eminent in beauty as a city, yet when the
stranger enters its streets ,· he is sadly disappointed,
and cannot fail to remark the lack of order and cleanliness
evehere so apparent . When,therefore, one considers the
means \'lhich, during fifty years , were in the hands of the
rulers of Tasmania, and the immense amount of convict labour
ever at their disposal, it seems a matter of great surprise
that to this hour the sideways remain unflagged - that there
is no se\.,rerage of the town - and that an open creek , still
in its original state, is allowed to remain as a receptacle
for every nuisance, and, from the imperfect bridges over it,
likely every season, after heavy rains, to threaten the · city
\'lith an inundation most destructive to life and property.
These evils we trust will soon vanish and when we look at
the large amount of capital in the city and the daily
increasing importance and general wealth of the community,
ere a fe\'1 months glide over us, the interior of the city
will equal the extreme beauty of the bird' s eye view . 2 •
Unfortunately, the evils which Stoney sa\.,r could not be as
easily and quickly remedied as he hoped, since the problems were di fficult
and had their origin in the minds and habits of people. Hobart Town \'las \;
a ne\'1 city, carved out of virgin forest in a ne\'1 land, isolated from the
old world . There was plenty of raw material , both wood and stone; there
\'las an abundance of convict labour to work it .
Free from the
restrictions of centuries of accumulated buildings and traditions , there
was every opportunity to avoid the evils \'lhich beset the cities of England
and Europe .
But its people, habituated to time-honoured traditional ways
brought with them from their original home environment , lacked the
understanding, the kno\.,rledge and the vision necessary to keep it so .
Over ·the years evils icreased steadily, gathering momentum ;
in spite of
isolated, desultory attempts by individuals to attack them, perception and
understanding of them and the determination to be rid of them lagged sadly
behind .
By the early 1850s Hobart Tm.,rn , in spite of its superficial
beauty , could boast that it , too , had a social and health problem
relatively equal in magnitude to that of any city in England, and
sometimes far \'iorse .
In England by 1850 the bad social consequences of
an increasing urban population - poor housing , overcrowding, insufficient
ventilation, lack of sanitation, inadequate water supply and spread of
disease - were recognized and attempts were being made to correct them .
H.B. Stoney A Year in Tasmania (Hobart Town, 1854) , p. 11.