ounds in their pocket, and spending
every farthing of the sum--in _one night_--champagne to the mast-head. The
innkeepers make fortunes rapidly. Shall I tell how much Boniface will draw
in a week? No--for you will not believe me. Certainly as much as many an
innkeeper in a country town would draw in twelve months. An innkeeper's
license to Government is thirty pounds per annum. This entitles him to
keep his house open from six in the morning until eleven o'clock at night;
ten pounds more enables him to have open house during the night; and an
additional ten pounds enables him to keep a billiard table. There are a
great many houses with tables and a number of light houses; but, as I have
hinted before, our police courts exhibit abominations, and a police court
is a good criterion of the morals of a people. In the first formation and
early beginnings of this colony, a man having sheep took up his abode in
the interior, on any spot which he considered suitable and agreeable, and
he was called a _squatter_. Now no individual may pasture sheep or cattle
of any kind without receiving a license from Government, for which he pays
ten pounds annually, and making a return every year of all his stock,
servants, and increase--the license, by the way, not being available
within three miles of Melbourne. The holder of such a license is called a
_settler_. A settler is entitled to cut wood upon his own station or run,
for firing for himself and servants; but if he cut it for sale--and we
have no coal here--he pays, in addition to the ten pounds, three pounds
more per annum for the permission so to do.

You shall now receive a faithful account of the settling of a settler.
Suppose him to have a station in the interior, or as it is invariably
styled, "in the _Bush_." The distance is forty, fifty, or it may be eighty,
miles from Melbourne, and the stock consists of from four to five thousand
sheep, and from one to two hundred head of cattle. The settler, in all
probability, has been accustomed in early life to good society, has been
well educated and brought up. Living at his station he sees none but his
own servants, his _chere amie_, (always a part of a settler's stock,) and
perhaps a few black natives, not unfrequently hostile visitors. Business
calls the settler to Melbourne; he puts up at his inn; any thing in the
shape of society rejoices his heart, and forthwith he begins "the lark;"
he dines out--gets fuddled, returns to his inn, f