nishes
absolute free education. In the other colonies a very small fee is
charged, which is apparently the best policy; since parents and children
will naturally prize more highly that which costs them money, be the sum
never so small, nor will they willingly neglect that for which they are
required to pay.

The result of this educational zeal is obvious to any one, tending as
it does to raise the character of the colonies at home and their good
reputation abroad. The general population forms already a reading
community which supports a large number of excellent bookstores in each
populous centre, besides public libraries, many newspapers, and
well-conducted local magazines. Concerning the newspapers of
Australasia, let us bear appreciative testimony to their general
excellence, to the able and even scholarly manner in which they are
edited, and to the remarkable liberality evinced in the collecting of
news from all parts of the globe. The mechanical appearance and general
make-up of the colonial newspapers is fully equal to that of the best
American and English dailies. In Auckland, New Zealand, with a
population of not more than sixty thousand, including the immediate
suburbs, we saw one of Hoe's large, rapid, completing presses, printing
the "New Zealand Daily Herald" at the rate of fifteen thousand copies an
hour, folding and delivering it automatically ready for the carriers.
The whole work was done by machinery, the roll of paper being suspended
above the press after the latest improved style, so that no "feeders"
even were required.

One is sure to remark the large number of banking establishments in
every city and considerable town throughout Australasia. We were told
that there are thirty joint-stock banking companies in the country, with
some eight hundred branches more or less. These companies pay an annual
dividend of from ten to fourteen per cent to their stockholders. The
existence of so many successful banks in so circumscribed a community is
a matter not quite clearly understood by the author, though upon inquiry
it was found that the style of banking business done here differed
materially from that transacted in populous cities of the Old World. For
instance, the banks here advance money freely upon growing crops, wool
on the sheep's back, and other similar securities that would hardly be
considered as legitimate collateral in America. The usual rate of
interest to borrowers upon what is considered fa