The worst paid of all professions are the clergy, and not only are they the worst paid, but the hardest worked.  The bishops get from L800 to L2,000 a year, but there are very few clergy whose stipends exceed L600, and the majority live and die without getting any higher than the L350 to L400 stage.  Nor have they here the social compensation which they enjoy in England.  There is no Established Church, and their position is not many degrees superior to that of the ministers of other denominations.  The latter, whose wants are naturally less, are quite as well, and on the whole probably better, paid.  If they have any ability, L500 to L700 is easily within their reach, and one or two distinguished preachers get as much as L1,500 to L2,000.

SHOPS.

The principal shops are noticeable for their size and the heterogeneity of their contents.  At first I used to think that this want of specializing was a relic of the days of ‘general stores,’ which still reign supreme in the country towns.  But, on the contrary, the tendency is decidedly to increase the range of retail business rather than to specialize it.  For instance, it is within the last five years that furniture, china and fancy goods have become attributes of all the large drapery ’establishments, and that the ironmongers have gone seriously into the agricultural machinery, clock, china and fancy goods business.  Amongst these ironmongers there are two shops—­Lassetter’s at Sydney, and McEwan’s in Melbourne—­which would attract attention in London; and in Adelaide, Messrs. Steiner and Wendt’s silver-ware and jewellery shops have a style of their own which does them immense credit.  But, on the whole, Melbourne is facile princeps in shops as in everything that may be said to enter into the ladies’ department.  The windows’ in the fashionable part of the town are dressed anew every week, and with a taste which reminds one of Paris.  But in spite of this, the best class of articles are difficult to get, and the few shops that keep them charge almost ridiculous prices.  One would suppose that a better class of things would be obtainable in free-trade Sydney than in protected Melbourne, for while freights and commissions fall equally upon the just and upon the unjust, an ad valorem tariff such as that of Victoria presses very hard upon high-priced goods.  But, as a matter of fact, the metropolitan and fashionable character of Melbourne more than counterbalances the tariff; and, so far as I can judge, you have as good if not a better chance of getting an article de luxe in the protectionist as in the free-trade city.  Of course the latter is the cheapest, but by no means so much cheaper as the difference in tariff would imply, competition being much keener in Melbourne.