—Ecclesiastes 10:20 OX-WAGONS AND AN OCCASIONAL CARRIAGE STIRRED THE DUST, but most Sydneysiders walked about their business. The patterer watched as a smart curricle went by, whipped along at a cracking pace by a young dandy and splashing through a mess of fresh dung and urine—to the consternation of a pedestrian who received the spray and shook an angry fist. In this part of town, shops and houses of business, some dilapidated, some neatly painted and adorned with flower beds in window boxes, punctuated stands of more impressive private houses in the latest Georgian style. Enterprising street traders noisily hawked oysters, apples and pies, their cries mingled with the exotic calls of parrots perched on shoulders and shopfronts. Parrots were everywhere in Sydney. People flocked to Cumberland Street hoping to hear a bird recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments. Even in the colony’s first breach-of-promise case, the patterer recalled, the court heard that a shy young suitor had taught a parrot to sing, “My heart with love is beating.”
What do You think about Death And The Running Patterer?
