Australians are born gamblers. It is in their blood, I suppose, like restlessness, for there are still to be found in Tasmania secluded spots in the middle of the forests, much like the old native “corroboree” grounds where cock-fights used to be held by the convicts in the early days, and every possible stake that could be mustered laid on the contending birds. Now the tiniest children bet, and bet on anything and everything, while the newspaper boys have a bit on each important race or football match, and an intricate system of gambling with cigarette cards. I think Melbourne is, on the whole, a very sober town—most extraordinarily so—considering the dry heat and the dust. Men go on the “bust,” and “paint the town red,” but there is very little of that persistent soaking that one meets with in London, where the drunkenness, particularly among the women, strikes me as more and more horrible every time I return there. I have been in Melbourne during elections, and high days, and holidays of all sorts, and have always been struck with the good-tempered sobriety of the people. During the five years, 1893–1897, which was a period of general drought in Australia, there was even a further decrease in drunkenness, people having no money, I suppose, for what out here they call “irrigating.” Now that good times have come again the convictions for drunkenness have, unfortunately, also increased. Still, though Victoria drinks more wine than the other States, she consumes considerably less beer and spirits than any, excepting Tasmania. While as for Denmark, which has been held up to her as a model, it consumes 2.54 of spirits per head to Victoria’s 0.67, and 20.6 of beer to Australia’s 11.92. Might it not therefore be suggested that some of the pats of butter, on which Mr. Foster Fraser lays such stress, may perchance have been seen—and counted—twice over? By some irony of fate it seems as if the different vices and virtues in different countries are in the end pretty nearly balanced. England needs a society to protect the health and lives of its children from unutterable cruelties, though it holds up holy hands at the way an Italian treats his horse. It is shaken through its length and breadth at the idea of the Portuguese persisting in slavery, and yet when the women slaves of the North—who, naked to the waist, swing a heavy hammer at chain and nail making for ten hours a day—strike for a princely minimum wage of 2½d. an hour, the Board of Trade decides that they shall go on as they are for another six months—or, if they can be cajoled into it, for yet another six months—or eternity.