No mention of Australian shops is complete without an allusion to the fruit and vegetable shops and markets, where every kind of fruit and vegetable can be obtained at a very low price; the varying climates obtainable within a small area enabling each fruit to remain much longer in season than in England.

AMUSEMENTS.

The change to a more genial climate and clearer skies has not been altogether without effect upon the temperament of the colonists.  Like the stock from which they spring their ideas of pleasure are still limited.  They are still, above all, a serious people; no disposition to abate this seriousness has shown itself, even in the rising generation.  On the contrary, brought up in a country where idleness is a reproach, they have the serious side of life always before them.  To ‘get on’ is the watchword of young Australia, and getting-on means hard work.  But the more ample reward attaching to labour out here leaves the colonist more leisure.  And this leisure he devotes to working at play.

That ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ is already an accepted maxim, is exemplified by the numerous holidays and the way in which they are spent.  There must be pretty nearly a dozen public holidays in the year.  Saturday is always a half-holiday.  Nine till five are the accepted hours for the clerk; half-past nine till six for the shop-assistant.  The eight-hour system is generally accepted in all classes of manual labour.  Some shops are open on Saturday evenings; but there is a strong movement to abolish this system.  The clerk is rarely called back to work after hours.  In all trades and professions the hours and work of the subordinates are much less than in England.  When a public holiday falls on a Monday, Saturday for most purposes becomes a whole holiday also.  Christmas Day falling on Monday in 1882, business did not begin again till Wednesday.  So on Friday everybody had to lay in their stock of bread and meat to last till Wednesday morning.  In wholesale business, in the professions and amongst the working-classes, the whole week from Christmas Eve to the 2nd of January is practically a holiday.  It is quite useless to attempt to do any business during that period.  In most places it is about Twelfth Day before things get into trim again.  During the first few days of the year the work is done by half the ordinary staff The colonist certainly endeavours to get as much pleasure as he can out of existence.  He has a full appreciation of the value of amusement.  He is not himself amusing, but he thoroughly enjoys amusing himself.