Unfortunately, some working men at home have singularly unpractical ideas about freedom. At least so it appears to us out here at the antipodes, where home questions assume such different relative proportions, and the monthly mail, with its tale of political strife, is so often a weariness rather than a pleasure to read. Franchise questions are trifles compared to land questions out here, and we cannot see the point (even after allowing for rhetorical flourish) of people choosing to call themselves serfs because they have not got votes. It is difficult to understand what conceivable meaning those men could have attached to the word ‘freedom,’ who considered that they were asserting or claiming it by parading the streets at the summons of a Beales. To us, such an exhibition of franchise-worship—if that be what it means—under such a high priest, appears like lingering round a golden calf, when a promised land lies waiting to be claimed. IX. SYDNEY AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. The chief towns of the five principal Australian Colonies are separated by nearly equal intervals. The distances from Adelaide to Melbourne, from Melbourne to Hobart Town, from Melbourne to Sydney, and from Sydney to Brisbane are not very different. That from Melbourne to Sydney is a little the longest of them. It is rather more than a two days’ and two nights’ voyage. To go by land is a tedious and laborious journey, except for those who know the country and its inhabitants very well. Only a small portion can be done by railway, and most of the way is through flat, monotonous country, more or less afflicted with floods, bushrangers, bad roads, and worse inns. Indeed, whenever there is steam communication by water between two Australian towns, it is seldom that there is any other practicable way of going.