Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians

Front matter

( :i II.IVX s,K,,ll,| : I |V C'l V'lPl'IS) SNV1W '1VKV.1, H'll.tt OM.I, DAILY LIFE ASH ORIGIN OF THE TASMANIANS. uv TAMES BONWICK, F.RG.S. ■ El ■' ■ F HIE ANTIlfCOfOI.OCHAL AM) H'H:-"OLOii I CAL BOi IETI1 LO* DON | M'THOB OF "THE LAST OF THE TASMANIANS LONDON SAMPSON LOW, SON, & MARSTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET 8TAEET M CM CCUCX I :,,l'l: ,,' [Hull, S**.!'!| li I DAILY LIFE AND ORIGIN OF THE TASMANIANS. BY JAMES BONWICK, F.R.G.S. FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETIES, LONDON; AUTHOR OF "THE LAST OF THE TASMANIANS." LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON, & MARSTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET STREET. MOCCCLXX. PEE FACE. In presenting the companion volume of " The Last of the Tataianians," the Author expresses his satisfaction at the reception of his first work, and his hope that the second may meet with similar favour.

In the publication of material accumulated through a course of many years, his motive has been neither the desire of gain nor the hope of praise. He sought to do honour and service to the Colonies lie admires, and to interest Englishmen in the lands where their brethren dwell. Conscious of the imperfections of his undertaking, it has been his honest effort to bring together the most reliable information about the Lost Piace of Tasmania, that men of science in future days may have some record of the tribes now gone from the earth. The subject of aboriginal peoples has but recently engaged the thoughts of students, and its valuable aid is hardly yet recognised by the historian. At the suggestion of a leading English geologist, the sketch of Tasmanian geology has been added. It was thought that the I VI

Preface

. scientific reader of the " Origin of the Tasmanians " might like a further acquaintance with their rocky home. The labours of Dr. Milligan and Mr. Logan will be appreciated, and the contribution of Dr. Topinhard acknowledged with pleasure. Favoured by the approval of the public, other stories of Old Colonial Days may appear, especially those relating to the progress of Eeligion and Freedom. James Bonwick. Acton, Lonuon, January 9, 1370. CONTENT S. PAGE Intellect of the Tasmanians 8 Character 7 Food 14 Native Cookery 1< Cannibalism 23 Dress and Ornament 24 Amusements 28 Tasmanian Songs and Music 29 Dancing and Corrohory 3o Arts and Manufactures *1 Weapons and Wars 42 Drawings and Carvings -1' Huts and Boats 48 Women and Children 55 Nakedness and Modesty " Morals in the Bush 59 Marriage System 6**- Ti-eatment of Wives '3 The Children 77 Government and Number 81 Cause of Small Population 85 Disease 87 Burial 91 Burning of Bodies Q7 Mourning of Friends **" no Physical Appearance Colour of the People 101 The Hair 106 Dr. Topinhard on the Tasmanian Face 113 -i 1 q Stature and Figure l" The Skin and Cicatrices 123 The Skull and its Measurements 126 No Black Child after a Half-caste CONTENTS.

PAGE Language 139 Numerical System I*2 Changing Words after a Death 145 Grammar of the Language ■ • 147 Reduplicative Words 152 Mr. Logan on Tasmanian and Australian Tongues 156 Vocabularies of Tasmanian Dialects 161 Translation of part of Genesis 164 Superstitions 166 Ignorance of a God 169 Witchcraft and the Evil Eye 175 Spirits and Demons 180 " Jump up Whitefellow " 183 Mystical Dances 186 Astronomical Legends . . . . . 188 Sun and Moon Worship 190 Magical Stones 193 Traces of Phallic Worship - . 196 Masonic Signs and Initiation 200 Tasmanian Tradition and Mystic Ideas 202 Origin of the Tasmanians 209 Tlie "One Blood" Argument 211 Varieties of Man 213 Antiquity of the Tasmanian Race 215 A Scotchman like a Tasmanian 221 Papuans and Alfourans 223 Black Eaces in Asiatic Isles 228 The Blacks of Cochin China and Malaya 231 Tasmanians like Aborigines of India 234 African Affinities with the People 237 Black Images in Temples and Churches 239 Philological Argument for Origin 241 Geological Argument for Origin 247 Asia, Africa, and Tasmania once united 249 Connexion of Tasmania and New Zealand 255 Black Eace of the Chatham Isles . 257 The sunken Southern Continent 259 Relics of Tasmanians in Australia 262 Tasmanians before Australians 265 A Sketch of the Geology of Tasmania 267

Appendix

. The Founding of the Colony of Van Diemen's Land . . 297 Name changed to Tasmania LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FACE Two Wild Tasmanians (Mr. Napier's painting) . . . Frontispiece Paraber and Ouriaga (French Sketches) 27 Australian Dancer 37 Tasmanian Ball-Belle 40 Tasmanian Fine Arts 47 Tasmanian Boat 53 Australian Belle 57 Tasmanian sitting 59 Australian Mother and Child — The Tasmanian Bara-Ourou . . 76 Tasmanian Graves 94 Wapperty, a Tasmanian Woman— Patty, the Eing-tailed Opossum . 106 Queensland Native 112 Tasmanian Profile (By Dr. Topiniiari*) 118 Alphonse, the Tasmanian 124 Tasmanian Skull, with Jaw— Female Tasmanian Cranium. (Photographed from one in Author's possession) 135 Tasmanian hair 138 William Lanne, the Last Man 167 Lalla Rookh, the Last Woman 209 Tasmanian Group at Oyster Cove (Photographed by the Bisnor of Tasmania) 250 Map of Tasmania THE DAILY LIFE OF THE TASMANIANS.

Introduction

. The departed race once lived and laughed in the world. There was a time when no thought of the Whites disturbed the rude joys of the Island Barbarians. They lived as others had done before them ; ate the same food, built the same huts, wore the same ornaments, sang the same songs, trembled at the same fears, fought with the same weapons,, and were buried or burnt by the tribe when dead. They knew no past, they wanted no future. But they lived no more independent of society than we live. Their characters were similarly moulded by parental training and the sentiment of their age. Their opinions were governed, as with ourselves, by the circumstances of their birth and the wisdom of their ancestors. As savages, they were content to be obedient to the rule of the elders, and would have been very scandalized at our " Girl of the Period " claiming the supremacy of her own sex.

They were true Conservatives, and not only condemned innovation, but crushed it. The monotony of their lives may not have been greater than ours. Their freedom of movement in the Bush gave them an advantage over the grooves of our modern civilization. The B

INTRODUCTION.

. absence of many comforts was compensated by their ignorance of them. After all, it may be even doubted if the Tasmanian Aborigines did not eat better, sleep better, and laugh more than the majority of our favoured and enlightened Europeans. To tell what they ate and how they built — what they sang and how they danced — what they thought and how they married — what were their ills and how they were buried — is the object of the present work.

Chapter I. Intellect Of The Tasmanians

In comparing the intellect of one people with another, it is necessary to bear in mind the adaptation of mind to the circum stances of life. The city lady, who, though versed in language and skilled in the accomplishments of society, knew nothing of the growth of wheat, might be a subject of merriment to country clowns and rosy milkmaids. The philosopher, who, knowing the circle of the sciences, could not divine how the apple got inside of the dumpling, might be an object of derision in the kitchen. So, while we, with our school-lore, laughed at the ignorant savage — with our tools, mocked his clumsy con trivances — with our arts, despised his raft, his hut, his dress — he, on the other side, was amused at our ignorance of woodcraft, sneered at our deficiency of sight and hearing, and pitied our inability to gain a forest livelihood.

He knew the natural history of his land, and could name both trees and animals, as few Englishmen could do of their own flora and fauna. He was acquainted with many secrets of forest life. If he read not in our books, he traced the characters of the natural world, and knew his lesson well. It is absurd to call the Tasmanian Aborigine an upright walking monkey, a talking brute. As may be seen in the chapter on " Language," he spoke at least a sensible tongue, with a construction full of grammatical beauties and methodical inflections ; but he was deficient in the organ of Number. Still, there have been persons, otherwise learned and refined, who have had a similar infirmity. The English are a calculating people, and have been diligently instructed in the art of figures for many generations, and yet we have not a few who confess to a want of the reckoning art.

The Tasmanians had no monetary transactions to develop the faculty, and their vocabulary was b2 deficient in the expression of numerals. In the previous work the Examination on their Flinders Isle of exile proved their lack of mathematical skill. The same has been remarked with the Australians. In the Aborigines' Friend is an account of an interesting youth brought from Adelaide by Mr. (after wards Governor) Eyre. The particular mental weaknesses of both native peoples are herein described : " Whilst he carefully observed many things, and had an excellent memory for persons, places, and things, as well as for historical facts, he had great difficulty in understanding the grammatical construction of sentences, and more particularly everything relative to numbers, and even greater difficulty in retaining that which he had seemed to master in respect to these subjects."

It should, how ever, be borne in mind that, with all our boasting over the savage, the English are indebted to the ancient Egyptian and Roman for their figures. When I saw the aboriginal boys and girls in the Orphan School near Hobart Town, I inquired of their teacher in what respect they differed from the children of the convicts among whom they were thrown. All of the white race were very inferior in point of physique and intellect to others of their age and colour, of different parentage. They were, however, superior to the dark children in facility of learning arithmetic and grammar, though not so in geography, history, and writing. Two of the coloured lads readily and cheerfully answered my questions in geography, and indicated places on the map with great correctness. They were not kindly treated amidst the many rough boys and girls of the large establishment of Hobart Town, and seemed de pressed, troubled, and sickly.

Death rapidly delivered them from their sorrows at the school. The imitative faculty of the Aborigines was well* developed. A friend told me that on Flinders they would make merry at the expense of our national peculiarities, and successfully mimicked colonial performances in the Black War Line. Though tune was rather defective, time was excellent ; comparison ex ceeded causality; and ideality was less than humour. All the perceptive organs came out strongly. Their illogical minds prevented their understanding or appreciating the doctrinal teachings of their religious instructors. White Captain Freycinet in 1815 thought them reduced to OPINIONS OF THEIR INTELLIGENCE. 5 the " last degree of misery and brutishness," others took a more hopeful view. In the Hobart Town Gazette of April 8th, 1825, there is this opinion : " We boldly venture, without fear of en countering a refutation, to describe them as comprising a very superior mental grade, and as calculated to prove either an eminent blessing or a fatal scourg-e to their fairer complexioned fellow-creatures."

Messrs. Backhouse and Walker state that they " have retentive memories, affording many sufficient proofs that they are far from being deficient in intellect." The Rev. John West said : " They appeared stupid, when addressed on subjects which had no relation to their mode of life ; but they were quick and cunning in their own sphere." Dr. Ross has this testimony : " During all the intercourse I have had with this interesting people, I not only found no want of sense or judgment among them, but, on the contrary, much to admire in them as thinking men, as indued not only with much ingenuity and penetration, but with the tenderest sympathies of the heart, and all the nobler passions that elevate men in the scale of being." The benevolent Mr. Backhouse draws no improper comparison when saying : " It woidd not be more erroneous for one of these people to look upon an Englishwoman as defective in capacity, because she could neither dive into the deep and bring up any fish, nor ascend the lofty gum-trees to catch opossums for her family, than it would be for an Englishwoman to look upon the Tasmanian as defective in capacity, because she could neither sew, nor read, nor perform the duties of domestic life.

Were the two to change stations, it is not too much to assume that the untutored native of the woods would much sooner learn to obtain her food, by acquiring the arts of civilization, than the woman from civilized society would by acquiring the arts belong ing to savage life." While Mr. Latham has such mean opinion of the race as to intimate that their intellect was " too sluggish for the evolution of a superstition," Major Mitchell the explorer said of his black guides : " In most of our difficulties by flood and field, the intel ligence and skiU of our sable friends made the white fellows appear rather stupid." The Rev. Mr. Ridley declares that their barbarian languages " indicate an accuracy of thought, and a force of expression, surpassing all that is commonly supposed to be obtainable by a savage race."

The Hon. H. Keppel vindicates the dark race in the following truthful words : " It has been the fashion with naturalists, and writers who copy their matter from their predecessors, without the trouble either to inquire into the subject or to judge for themselves by actual examination, to place the Australian very low indeed in the scale of creation. A greater mistake than this has never been made. His intelligence is manifested both in the daily concerns of life and in the acquisition of languages." The Rev. G. Mackie, a much esteemed Australian minister, ventures to say : " There is nothing a white man can do but a black man may be trained to do, if the right way be taken." In judging of their mental powers, it is not fair to contrast them with the educated Englishman of to-day. It is true what Mr. Sohier says of their skull : " The sides of the forehead offer the greatest possible contrast with the Grecian, or artistic head ; " and it is equally true that the descendants of Pericles' country men, with all their noble type of head, are now most notorious for blind bigotry, superstitious ignorance, and cruel brigandage.

The Tasmanian was very ignorant of numbers, and yet our very word calculate is derived from stones used for reckoning like savages, and wooden tallies for government receipts were in use here till the reign of George IV. As a reproof to the self complacency of Britons, Cicero's letter to Atticus may be cited : " Do not obtain your slaves from Britain," wrote he, " because they are so stupid, and utterly incapable of being taught, that they are not fit to form a part of the household of Athens." Professor Waitz once said, " A large consumption of indiges tible aliments gives so much work to the digestive organs as to interfere with the development of the intellectual faculties." Another thought an animal diet quite essential to healthy mental action. With capital digestion, and plenty of game, our Abori gines ought, therefore, to have been wise.

After aU, the fact of one man, Walter George Arthur, having received a tolerable education, and having exhibited an in telligence equal to most English peasants, is a proof that the race was not so hopeless as some thought. The chapter on " Civilization of the Tasmanians," in the other work on the " Last of the Tasmanians," may be referred to for further par ticulars of the mental qualities of the people.

Chapter II. Character

Various opinions have been maintained as to the character of the Tasmanians. Indiscriminate slaughter, abominable treachery, unmitigated cruelty, and unbridled licentiousness, have been charged upon them. Shy and distant they ever were. Suspicious of the sincerity of our professions, they never relied upon our friendship, nor sought our society. Conscious of no similarity of views and no sympathy of interests, — constrained to feel their inferiority in warlike appliances and their deficiency in artistic skill, — impelled, too, by a brooding sense of our unjust in vasion of their soil, they never exhibited their most amiable feelings toward us, but felt thwarted, humiliated, and despised in our presence. Yet they who knew them best trusted them most. They were far from being a bloodthirsty race.

It was not necessary for them to establish their claim to manhood by the sacrifice of life, or to be deemed unfit to court a maid until they had killed a man. Mr. Conger, a United Slates agent for the Sioux, reports that " an Indian never becomes a man, according to their laws and usages, until he has struck an enemy, which means, has taken a life." The Tasmanians were more humane. In their very wars they took no scalps ; they injured no women ; they tortured no prisoners, but readily made friends after a short conflict, kindly tended the wounded, and fraternized over a corrobory. The voyagers who examined them with curiosity, and surveyed them with interest, were not indifferent to their good qualities, as may be seen in the previous volume. The Frenchman could say : " Our kind Diemenese left us not for an instant, and, when we pushed off from shore, their sorrow was manifested in the most affecting manner."

And yet he saw reason to complain of more roughness than was agreeable. Labillardiere declared they were mild and affable. The Rev. T. Dove, some time catechist on Flinders Island, has published his views of them. His opinion is that they " have been usually regarded as exhibiting the human character in its lowest stage of degradation. And if our notice be directed only to the meagre sense of accountability which prevailed among them, or rather to the absence of aU moral views and impres sions by which they were distinguished, this estimate is un doubtedly correct. Every idea bearing on our origin and desti nation as rational beings, seems to have been erased from their breasts." Tried by that gentleman's Westminster Catechism, they were sad enough. But compared with other men, as the clergyman found in this world at large, they were not so very fallen, for he adds : " Their social history was rather characterised by the absence of what is venerable and lovely, than by the prevalence of what is dark and revolting.

Harmony and good humour seem generally to have reigned among the members of the same tribe." In short, had he tested them with the Mexi cans, the modern Greeks, the wynds of Glasgow, the Seven Dials of London, or the Rocks of Sydney, he might have dis covered something to their advantage. The French author L. F. A. Maury, writing of the Papuan people of the East, has this observation : " Those who live independent are of a vindictive and perfidious nature : they in general avoid strangers, or feign for them sentiments of friendship, that they may attack them afterwards in the end without warning. Thus they carry an implacable hatred to whoever attempts to establish himself upon their territory ; a hatred which endures even to the last man of their tribe. One ouoht to attribute to this indomitable character the principal cause of their destruction."

So would the Spaniards have written of the Guanchos of Canary, and so hoped the Turks to write of the bold mountaineers of Montenegro. The Normans were shocked at the vindictiveness of the Saxon bands in the marshes of Ely, the English at that of Wallace's followers, the French at that of the Spanish guerillas, the Russians at that of the Circassians And yet history has been allowed to call such conduct patriotic nobility. A generous enemy, Governor Arthur, could venture to describe the Aborigines, in his despatch to the Colonial Office KINDNESS OF THE NATIVES. "a simple, but warlike, and, as it now appears, noble-minded race ;" for, when crushed and nearly annihilated, their heroic qualities were recognised. Messrs. Backhouse and Walker, the Quaker missionaries, had these commendations to give : " They deserve the character of a good-tempered race.

There is nothing that can with propriety be termed immodest in their general deportment. The scrupu lous care they evince not to take anything which does not belong to them entitles them to the character of honesty." No wonder they say : " We took leave of them under feelings of much interest, excited by their kind, affectionate, and cheerful dispositions." Mr. Backhouse elsewhere records an illustration of their delicacy of sentiment, when noticing some women, dressed in frocks of Wallaby skins, and living with sealers, to whom they had addressed some words of kindness. " One of them," he writes, ""presented necklaces of shells to my com panion and myself. These she dropped into our hands as we passed, appearing to wish to avoid receiving any acknow ledgment." Dr. Jeanneret, once Superintendent on Flinders Island, in a letter to me, hits off one of their weaknesses thus : " My Abori gines are happy and healthy, but so frail in purpose that the most ordinary temptation suffices to throw them off the balance, and few eould be depended upon not to resort to that natural law of revenge were they again ill-treated without redress."

Such instability some may attribute to the unfortunate depression of their nose, which was sadly wanting in the Roman type of inflexible prominence. Mr. Clark, the enthusiastic catechist and friend of the race for nearly twenty years, when telling me of his affection for them — a feeling thoroughly reciprocated — assured me that " they were kind, good-natured, and mild." A story of kindness is told. Two men, who were engaged blood-hunting after the Natives, were attempting to cross a flooded stream upon a rude raft they had constructed. Whirling along in the eddying waters, however, their lives were in ex treme perils when two native women saw their position, and with true feminine nature hastened to their succour. They swam off to the current-tossed vessel, and made signs for the Englishmen to get on their backs, and they would convey them to shore.

But, knowing their own cruel errand, they drove off the women, and soon after the raft was dashed against the rocks, and the men perished. They had few crimes against each other. Faults not imme diately punished were usually overlooked. Injuries were soon forgotten. The camp was commonly a scene of affectionate regard. The parental relation was seen in pleasing exercise. Many bore testimony to their love of children. The conjugal attachment had not the romantic character of civilized times, but was not wanting in real kindness. As in almost all countries, they considered the woman to be inferior to the man, and treated her accordingly. The father and son ate of the meal prepared by mother and daughter, and then left the fragments for their repast. But the " Life of Felix Neff " shows that a similar barbarism existed at the beginning of this century in the French Alps, where polished people, while feasting at the board, would occasionally pass a half-gnawed bone over their shoulder to the wife or sister behind.

Their friendship was limited by no distance of time, nor arrested by death. Their grief was sincere and expressive. In sickness they tended with affectionate solicitude, and at bereave ment cherished the memory of the absent by ever-present memorials of their being. A bone suspended in a bag from the neck, as it hung against the breast, reminded the wearer of a former love. So many skulls and limb bones were taken by the poor Natives when they were exiled to the Straits, that Captain Bateman told me, that when he had forty with him in his vessel, they had quite a bushel of old bones among them. Manalagana, who was out with Mr. Robinson, was never once known to speak harshly to Tauleboueyer, his wife. He had the jawbone of a friend covered over with native string, and hung upon his chest. " Undressed hair and dark complexion, Cannot forfeit Nature's claims ; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in White and Black the same.

When Mungo, the Black guide, in 1830, came with the English Roving Party suddenly upon the spot where a massacre of his people had taken place, he became much affected. But when some of the rough Bushmen began kicking the bones MORE MODEST THAN SOME RACES. about, the poor fellow was seized with a shivering fit from the intensity of his emotion. For days he refused food, and appeared wholly given up to melancholy. He was at length forwarded on to Oatland in an exhausted state. In the strength of their emotions, they presented a contrast to the negro. The latter is boisterous in mirth, vehement in grief, but rapidly recovering from a heart affection. The Tasmanian. on the contrary, retained the depth of his feeling, and dwelt upon his sorrow. There are several well-known instances of friends refusing food and dying of regret for a lost one.

The modesty of their behaviour is well attested. Though naked, the women sat so as to preserve a decency of attitude. Young men and lads moved early from camp in the morning so as not to interfere with female movements at rising. Unmarried men never wandered in the Bush with women ; if meeting a party of the other sex, native politeness enjoined that they turned and went another way. It has been said that, unlike the aban doned women of our own people, the native females observed the delicate rules of propriety even in their worst stage of social degradation. Marriageable girls were regarded with care, and the unmarried grown lads slept at fires removed from the families. The practice of the Australians, as described by Grey, was that said to have been the usage of the Tasmanians. " On no occa sion," writes the traveller, " is a strange native allowed to approach the fire of the married." — " The young men and boys of ten years of age and upwards are obliged to sleep in their own portion of the encampment, where they themselves, or more "enerally some of their mothers, build for them two or three huts, in which those related within certain degrees of con sanguinity sleep together."

As a race they were far from being so licentious as some ; in this respect being like other Papuans, whose virtue shines in contrast with their brown Polynesian neighbours. It was absurd for passing travellers to describe character. Dampier, who only glanced at the Australians, wrote about their promiscuous inter course. It is amusing to find in "Smellie's Philosophy" a statement of such indiscriminate connexion alongside of another declaring that the men wear no beards ! They who have lived with the Tasmanians in the Bush speak with respect of their purity in the olden times before contamination with the Whites, and the sacrifice of virtue for a morsel of bread. Of them might be said what James Davis related of the Queensland natives, among whom he lived for fifteen years : " I never heard of such a thing as unnatural crime among them."

Again, he said : "They are so particular that they won't allow the daughter to sleep at the same fire as the son when they have arrived at the age of puberty." Let this fact be remembered also, that, when they suffered so much themselves from the wrongs of their females, they were never known to retaliate in abuse of our countrywomen in lonely huts, though at the time of open warfare between the rival races, and when murder was not uncommon. Dr. Georges Pouchet, of Paris, has this calumny respecting our southern people : " If the English police did not watch very strictly, they would set at defiance every day, at least, in the towns of their colonies, all the laws of public decency without any more thought than the monkeys in a menagerie." This is a cruel injustice ; for, in relation to the offices of nature, they are scrupulously delicate and attentive to the Mosaical injunction on that head.

Captain Stokes does the Australians the justice to say that their rude drawings on rocks and in caves exhibit not " the slightest trace of indecency." Can as much be said for boorish artists in Europe? Dr. Milligan tell us that his Tasmanians " were a people of few words, but of rapid and correct instincts." Mr. Clark, catechist of Flinders Island, spoke to me of their observance of cleanliness in such private duties, and their decency in the conjugal relation. Even as regards the very crimes of the savage Tasmanians, Sir George Grey declared at the last British Association, that from his house to the rear of Buckingham Palace, London, he had recently witnessed more vicious and disgusting sights, and had heard more immoral language, than he had seen and heard in his many years' sojourn with savages.

It therefore ill becomes Messrs. Lesson and Garnot to speak of our southern race having " a sort of moral brutishness, a kind of highly developed instinct, for discovering the good, which is always difficult for them to obtain, seems among them to have taken the place of most of the moral faculties of man." Dr. Milligan, while speaking of the " mildness of their character," has a story of one smiling at the remembrance of the way in which he had NOT WORSE THAN MANY EUROPEANS. 13 speared another Tasmanian many years before. Some such pleasant memories have graced the barrack-room of more civilized nations ; and some inventors of most destructive warlike appliances have been " mild in their character." The Tasmanian was no creature of civilization; and, there fore, while wanting some of our elevation of morals, and while even guilty of crimes of violence, he had not acquired those refinements of commercial fraud and city vices which thrive with modern improvements.