learn, therefore, that we are men and brethren.
It is really a fact that we are born and reared,
marry and are given in marriage, die and are
buried, in fashions very similar indeed to those
of England: so similar, that many persons never
find the difference. Every race among us does
its best to maintain the traditions of the native
lands. Once a year the petticoated Gael plays
the bagpipe at a Caledonian gathering, capers
between naked swords, "puts" stones, and throws
hammers. These national festivities are held not
only in Melbourne, but in other towns in the colony.
At certain seasons, too, the Irishman in
all his glory is there, and displays the brogue in
glowing oratory at St. Patrick's Hall. I do not
think we have an Eisteddfod, but I know that
the Welshmen do somehow in their own way
rites of the Cymry. So again the Germans,
who are very numerous, hold solemnities of
music and tobacco for the love of Vaterland.
We dutifully follow the old country's example,
and have High Church prigs and Low Church
prigs, who squabble about music and ritual,
and secede, and set up churches of their own,
and piously cut each other in the interests of
Heaven. Tea meetings we have too, and Sunday
schools, and prosperous dissenting bodies:
the Wesleyan church is the finest in Melbourne.
In politics and government we follow home
precedents, though all may not approve of
some alterations we have made in our model,
the British constitution. We have a legislature
which is called a parliament, and which consists
of a legislative council for the Lords,
and a legislative assembly for the Commons.
The Lords are provided with a gorgeous
president; the Commons with a resplendent
Mr. Speaker. We have a mace, and all the
"properties" complete. The serjeant-at-arms
brings up culprits to the bar, where they
make abject submission to the majesty of the
legislature. The hon. member for Mandurang
begs to correct the statement that has just
fallen from the honourable member for Bendigo,
or moves for a return of so-and-so, just as
the thing is done at Westminster. We have a
real ministry, too, which resigns and is
reconstructed, on a moderate computation, five times
a year; and the strength of our Opposition is
refreshing. Among our M.P.s, it is true, are
some who like to call themselves the " 'orny-
'anded sons of toil," whose mission appears to
consist chiefly in abuse of what they call the
"kid-gloved aristocracy." Personality is not
an uncommon seasoner of our debates, and if we
are sometimes found strengthening moral force
with a physical argument between some honourable
members, this little Columbian habit will
wear off in time.

Descending a step, we have our mayor and
corporation, and our ninth of November. Our
civic rulers are much after the English type
as regards capacity of mind and stomach. We
are a community favourable to the sustenance of
quack doctors, who advertise their panaceas as
continuously as the humbugs of your older English
life; and who, which is worse, get into parliament.
Our briefless barrister pines for the shy fee,
and the lower sort of attorney flourishes. We
have a Seven Dials, without its poverty, in the
Chinese district of Little Bourke-street, a place
of torment for the nose; but our streets are free
from the misery and squalor which shock the
stranger in London. We have a Royal Society,
whose members read papers, and quarrel, and
publish their transactions (omitting the quarrels),
quite like European scientific bodies. Of course
we have our upper and lower ten thousands,
though of course, also, it is impossible that class
distinctions should be so strongly marked in a new
as in an old country. Still, the aristocracy of
South Yarra are separated by as great a gulf
from the dwellers in the other suburb of
Collingwood, as that which divides Kensington
from Hoxton. Our swells and belles imitate
those of the original England to the best of
their ability. The swells disport themselves
in Collins-street (the Row and Regent-street
combined) in pegtops, of which Mr. Poole would
not be ashamed; and the belle, with a whale'-
girth of crinoline, and a love of a bonnet, is tasteless
enough to be approved by a Parisian modiste.
We are not so possessed by great ideas of the
future, as to have relinquished those habits in
which we were brought up, of talking about
other people's affairs, and we accordingly indulge
in this little pastime with an amiability
and zest quite European. Our smallest
communities are, as in the old country, the cleverest
in this respect. We really do have balls and
parties, at which we enjoy ourselves with due
British solemnity, in orthodox broadcloth, with
the thermometer at 85 deg. in the shade. As
to other amusements, we have three theatres,
at one of which there are regular opera seasons,
and Mozart and Beethoven, Verdi and Flotow.
At another, Macbeth is now being done, with
the ghosts of Dircks and Pepper. We have a
Tussaud's, a Polytechnic, a Cremorne, and
music-halls; indeed, we are a very musical
people, and keep up a Philharmonic Society,
which gives concerts and oratorios very
decently. We have a capital Botanical Garden,
at which flower-shows are held, and the
rudiments of zoological gardens are developing
themselves.

As to learning and literature, there is a
university in Sydney, and we have a better one in
Melbourne, where the undergrads wear real caps
and gowns, attend or cut lectures, pass or are
plucked, strictly in Oxford and Cambridge
fashion. At these institutions we raise our own
crops of parsons, doctors, and lawyers, and we
have a system of Civil Service examinations
quite in accordance with all modern English
ideas on the subject. We have plenty of schools,
good and bad, and at the head of them stand
the two rival establishments called the Church
of England Grammar School, and the Scotch
College.

Our press is very active. In Melbourne alone
we have three daily, and heaps of weekly, papers,
while the diggings and other up-country journals
are to be counted by scores. These are all