and the Oriental are most to be recommended; after these try the United Club Hotel, or, if you be a bachelor, Scott’s.  The hotels, I think without exception, derive their chief income from the bar traffic, with which, at all but the few I have mentioned, you cannot help being brought more or less into contact.  Lodgers are quite a secondary consideration.  This is very disagreeable for ladies.  The best hotels, moreover, have no table d’hote—­only the old-fashioned coffee and commercial rooms; so that if you are travelling en famille you have no choice but to have your meals in a private sitting-room.  For a bachelor, who is not particular so long as his rooms are clean, and can put up with plain fare, there need, however, be no difficulty in getting accommodation; but anyone who wishes to be comfortable had better live at the clubs, which in every one of the ‘capitals’ are most liberal in their hospitality, and have bedrooms on their premises.  Visitors to the colony are made honorary members for a month on the introduction of any two members, and the term is extended to six months on the small subscription of a guinea a month.  The Melbourne Club is the best appointed in the Colonies.  The rooms are comfortable, and decently though by no means luxuriously furnished, and a very fair table is kept.  The servants wear full livery.  There is a small library, all the usual appurtenances of a London club, and a racquet-court.  The other clubs, though less pretentious, are all comfortable.

Your colonial rarely walks a step farther than he can help, and of course laziness is well provided with cabs and omnibuses.  You can take your choice between one-horse waggonettes and hansoms, though a suspicion of Bohemia still lingers about the latter.  Happily Mrs. Grundy has never introduced ‘growlers.’  The waggonettes are light boxes on wheels, covered in with oil-cloth, which can be rolled up in a few seconds if the weather is fine or warm.  It is strange that victorias like those in Paris have never been tried in this warm climate.  A few years ago Irish jaunting-cars and a jolting vehicle called a ‘jingle’ were much used, but they have slipped out of favour of late, and are now almost obsolete.  The fares are usually moderate, ranging from a shilling for a quarter of an hour to the same coin for the first mile, and sixpence for every subsequent one.  Cabby is fairly civil, but, as at home, always expects more than his legal fare.

Nowhere do omnibuses drive a more thriving trade than in Melbourne, and they deserve it, for they are fast, clean, roomy, and well managed.  The price of labour makes conductors too expensive a luxury, and passengers have to put their fare—­in most cases threepence—­into a little glass box close to the driver’s seat.  This unfortunate man, in addition to looking after the horses, and opening and shutting the door by means of a strap tied to his foot, which you pull when you want to get out, has to give change whenever a little bell is