proper.  And here I agree with the colonists.  So long as her work is done for the day, and provided that she does not go to so many balls as to interfere with her capacity for doing her work, I cannot see what impropriety there is in Biddy going to her ball.  No doubt she enjoys dancing, and how can it do her any more harm than her young mistress?  With all the universal love of dancing, which permeates even the strictest Puritans amongst the young colonials, there is very little good dancing to be met with.  People out here do not attach much importance to what are called ‘accomplishments.’  To dance is pleasant, but it would be a waste of time to take trouble to learn to dance well.

A mining population is always a gambling one and a card-playing one.  In Adelaide the old Puritan element still sets its face as steadily as it can against cards as the devil’s playthings; but young Australia will not put up with any such prejudices.  Of course the mining townships are the centre of gambling with cards; but the passion extends sufficiently widely to do a good deal of harm.  ‘Euchre’ is the favourite game, then ‘Nap’ and ‘Loo;’ but it would not be fair to call the Australians a card-gambling people in comparison with the Californians.

NEWSPAPERS.

This is essentially the land of newspapers.  The colonist is by nature an inquisitive animal, who likes to know what is going on around him.  The young colonial has inherited this proclivity.  Excepting the Bible, Shakespeare, and Macaulay’s ‘Essays,’ the only literature within the bushman’s reach are newspapers.  The townsman deems them equally essential to his well-being.  Nearly everybody can read, and nearly everybody has leisure to do so.  Again, the proportion of the population who can afford to purchase and subscribe to newspapers is ten times as large as in England; hence the number of sheets issued is comparatively much greater.  Every country township has its weekly or bi-weekly organ.  In Victoria alone there are over 200 different sheets published.  Nor is the quality inferior to the quantity.  On the contrary, if there is one institution of which Australians have reason to be proud, it is their newspaper press.

Almost without exception it is thoroughly respectable and well-conducted.  From the leading metropolitan journals to the smallest provincial sheets, the tone is healthy, the news trustworthy.  The style is purely English, without a touch of Americanism.  Reports are fairly given; telegrams are rarely invented; sensation is not sought after; criticisms, if not very deep, are at least impartial, and written according to the critic’s lights.  Neither directly nor indirectly does anybody even think of attempting to bribe either conductors of journals or their reporters; the whole press is before everything, honest.  Although virulence in politics is frequent, scurrility is confined to a very few sheets.  The enterprise displayed in obtaining telegraphic intelligence and special reports on the questions of the day, whether Australian or European, is wonderful, considering the small population.  In literary ability the public have nothing to complain of.