Monthly illustrated papers are published in connection with the Argus, the Age, and the Sydney Herald, and also independently by printing firms in Sydney and Adelaide.  The two Melbourne ones are by far the best, but they are very dear at a shilling.  The same may be said of the comic papers at sixpence.  The political cartoons in the Melbourne Punch are often excellently imagined, but the execution is not remarkable, and the reading matter is wretched.  The conceptions of the cartoons are also frequently coarse.  The Society paper has found its way here, via San Francisco.  The most vulgar is the Sydney Bulletin, which is, as a rule, coarse to a degree; but it must be owned that it is also very clever and exceedingly readable—­qualities which its imitators altogether lack.  One knows quite enough about other people’s business here without having papers specially to spread it, and in such small communities the Bulletin tribe are a public nuisance.  But yet they sell freely at sixpence a copy!

The provincial press is, as a rule, feeble.  Ballarat, Sandhurst, and Geelong are the only three towns large enough to support papers of the slightest value outside the place where they are published.  But these small fry are very useful in their humble sphere, and are almost without exception respectably conducted.  How they ‘pay’ is ’one of those things which no fellah can understand.’

There are a number of newspapers devoted to the promotion of the interests of the various religious bodies, the licensed victuallers, and other trades.  The best of these is the Australian Insurance and Banking Record, which is most ably conducted.  The licensed victuallers support a weekly Gazette in each of the principal towns.  The Church of England has two organs, one in Sydney, and the other in Melbourne.  The Temperance party, like their opponents, have three papers devoted to the maintenance of their views, besides which, they get a good deal of side support from the dozen or so of religious sheets.  The licensed victuallers seem to combine sporting and dramatic items with the advocacy of what they call the TRADE, and abuse of the Good Templars.  The latter, however, are still more vehement in abuse, and even less sensible in argument.

Besides the newspaper press, Australia possesses four magazines, two published in Sydney and two in Melbourne.  Of the former, one known first as the Australian, and then as the Imperial Review, is not worth mentioning, if, indeed, it is not ere now defunct.  The other, called the Sydney University Review, a quarterly, has only just come into existence with an exceptionally brilliant number, three articles in which are fully worthy of a place in any of the leading London monthlies.  That it will continue as it has begun I should fancy to be more than doubtful.  The oldest established magazine is the Melbourne Review, started about five years ago.  For