t the powerful
frames and unequalled muscular development of the breed. Leading lives
chiefly devoted to agricultural labour, they enjoy larger intervals of
leisure than is permissible to the labouring classes of Europe. The
climate is mild, and favourable to health. They have been accustomed
from childhood to abundance of the best food; opportunities of
intercolonial travel are frequent and common. Hence the
Anglo-Australian labourer without, on the one hand, the sharpened
eagerness which marks his Transatlantic cousin, has yet an air
of independence and intelligence, combined with a natural grace of
movement, unknown to the peasantry of Britain.

An idea is prevalent that the Australians are, as a race, physically
inferior to the British. It is asserted that they grow too fast, tend
to height and slenderness, and do not possess adequate stamina and
muscle. The idea is erroneous. The men reared in the cities on the
seaboard, living sedentary lives in shops, banks, or counting-houses,
are doubtless more or less pale and slight of form. So are they who
live under such conditions all over the world. But those youngsters who
have followed the plough on the upland farms, or lived a wilder life on
the stations of the far interior, who have had their fill of wheaten
bread and beefsteaks since they could walk, and snuffed up the free
bush breezes from infancy, they are MEN.--

Stout of heart and ready of hand,
As e'er drove prey from Cumberland;

--a business, I may remark, at which many of them would have
distinguished themselves.

Take Abraham Lawson as he stands there in a natural and unstudied
attitude, 6 feet 4 inches in his stockings, wide-chested, stalwart,
with a face like that of a Greek statue. Take Billy May, fair-haired,
mild, insouciant, almost languid, till you see him at work. Then,
again, Jack Windsor, handsome, saucy, and wiry as a bull-terrier and
like him with strong natural inclination for the combat; good for any
man of his weight, or a trifle over, with the gloves or without.

It is curious to note how the old English practice of settling disputes
with nature's weapons has taken root in Australia. It would 'gladden
the sullen souls' of the defunct gladiators to watch two lads, whose
fathers had never trodden England's soil, pull off their jackets and go
to work "hammer and tongs," with all the savage silence of the true
island type.

It is now about seven o'clock. Mr Gordon moves forward. As h