nut, or
cedar. The large round or oval table which stands in the middle of the
room is of the same wood, and so are the card-table, the Davenport, the
chiffonier, and that Jacob's-ladder-like what-not in the corner. In some
houses the upholsterer has stuffed the room with useless tables. Of
course there is a fender and fire-irons, and probably a black
doleful-looking grate, which during two-thirds of the year is stuffed
with paper shavings of all the colours of the rainbow and several others
which good Mother Nature forgot to put into it. On the chimney-piece is a
Louis XVI. clock and a pair of ornaments to match. A piano, tune
immaterial, is a _sine qua non_ even in a middle-class house, but when
Muttonwool has got all these things--in short, paid his upholsterer's
bill--he thinks a ten-pound note should cover the rest of his
drawing-room furniture. Household gods are terribly deficient, and it
would not be difficult to fancy yourself in a lodging-house. There may be
a few odds and ends picked up on the overland route, and a set of
stereotyped ornaments bought at an auction sale or sent out as 'sundries'
in a general cargo; but of _bric-a-brac_, in the usual acceptation of
the term, there is little or none.

As for the pictures, they are altogether abominable. Can you imagine a
man with L5,000 a year (or L500, for that matter) covering his walls with
chromos? The inferior kinds of these 'popularizers of art,' as the papers
call them, have an immense sale here. Even when a wealthy man has been
told that it is his duty to buy pictures, the chances are that he will
attend an auction and pick up rubbish at low prices, rubbing his hands
over what he considers a good bargain; or if he wants to tell his
visitors how much he gave for his pictures he gets mediocre work with a
name on it. A recent number of the _Adelaide Punch_ has a caricature
entitled ''Igh Art in Adelaide,' which though of course a caricature, is
worth quoting as showing how the wind blows: 'Tallowfat, pointing to a
picture in a dealer's shop, _loq._: "What's the price of that there
thing with the trees and the 'ut in the distance?" Dealer: "That, sir!
that's a gem by Johnstone" (a local artist of some merit)--"twenty
guineas, sir." Tallowfat: "Twenty tomfools!" "What d'ye take me for? Why,
I bought a picture twice that size, with much more colour in it, and a
frame half as thick again, and I only paid ten for it! Show us something
with more style."' A few me