rn butter, cook a good damper, and mix a pudding. The worst risk you
run is that of getting married, and finding yourself treated with
twenty times the respect and consideration you may meet with in
England. Here (as far as number goes) women beat the "lords of
creation;" in Australia it is the reverse, and, there we may be pretty
sure of having our own way.

But to those ladies who cannot wait upon themselves, and whose fair
fingers are unused to the exertion of doing anything useful, my advice
is, for your own sakes remain at home. Rich or poor, it is all the
same; for those who can afford to give 40 pounds a-year to a female
servant will scarcely know whether to be pleased or not at the
acquisition, so idle and impertinent are they; scold them, and they will
tell you that "next week Tom, or Bill, or Harry will be back from the
diggings, and then they'll be married, and wear silk dresses, and be as
fine a lady as yourself;" and with some such words will coolly dismiss
themselves from your service, leaving their poor unfortunate mistress
uncertain whether to be glad of their departure or ready to cry because
there's nothing prepared for dinner, and she knows not what to set
about first.

For those who wish to invest small sums in goods for Australia, boots
and shoes, cutlery, flash jewellery, watches, pistols (particularly
revolvers), gunpowder, fancy articles, cheap laces, and baby-linen
offer immense profits.

The police in Victoria is very inefficient, both in the towns and on
the roads. Fifteen persons were stopped during the same afternoon
whilst travelling on the highway between Melbourne and St. Kilda. They
were robbed, and tied to trees within sight of each other--this too in
broad daylight. On the roads to the diggings it is still worse; and no
one intending to turn digger should leave England without a good supply
of fire-arms. In less than one week more than a dozen robberies
occurred between Kyneton and Forest Creek, two of which terminated in
murder. The diggings themselves are comparatively safe--quite as much
so as Melbourne itself--and there is a freemasonry in the bush which
possesses an irresistible charm for adventurous bachelors, and causes
them to prefer the risk of bushrangers to witnessing the dreadful
scenes that are daily and hourly enacting in a colonial town. Life in
the bush is wild, free and independent. Healthy exercise, fine scenery,
and a clear and buoyant atmosphere, maintain an exci