the gates by the divine strength and not by his own.  I think you must concede two things:  First, That in carrying the gates of the city upon his shoulders, Samson did not establish the superiority of his gods over ours; secondly, That his feat is not supported by any but verbal evidence, while Hanuman’s is not only supported by verbal evidence, but this evidence is confirmed, established, proven, by visible, tangible evidence, which is the strongest of all testimony.  We have the sandstone ridge, and while it remains we cannot doubt, and shall not.  Have you the gates?’”

CHAPTER XIII.

The timid man yearns for full value and asks a tenth.  The bold man strikes for double value and compromises on par. 
                                  —­Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

One is sure to be struck by the liberal way in which Australasia spends money upon public works—­such as legislative buildings, town halls, hospitals, asylums, parks, and botanical gardens.  I should say that where minor towns in America spend a hundred dollars on the town hall and on public parks and gardens, the like towns in Australasia spend a thousand.  And I think that this ratio will hold good in the matter of hospitals, also.  I have seen a costly and well-equipped, and architecturally handsome hospital in an Australian village of fifteen hundred inhabitants.  It was built by private funds furnished by the villagers and the neighboring planters, and its running expenses were drawn from the same sources.  I suppose it would be hard to match this in any country.  This village was about to close a contract for lighting its streets with the electric light, when I was there.  That is ahead of London.  London is still obscured by gas—­gas pretty widely scattered, too, in some of the districts; so widely indeed, that except on moonlight nights it is difficult to find the gas lamps.

The botanical garden of Sydney covers thirty-eight acres, beautifully laid out and rich with the spoil of all the lands and all the climes of the world.  The garden is on high ground in the middle of the town, overlooking the great harbor, and it adjoins the spacious grounds of Government House—­fifty-six acres; and at hand also, is a recreation ground containing eighty-two acres.  In addition, there are the zoological gardens, the race-course, and the great cricket-grounds where the international matches are played.  Therefore there is plenty of room for reposeful lazying and lounging, and for exercise too, for such as like that kind of work.