rationally and to adapt themselves to the climate, the Sydney folk set an example to the rest of Australia, where the conservative tendencies of the Anglo-Saxon race are in many things amusingly manifest. In Melbourne, particularly, men seem to have given up all attempt to follow the abrupt changes of their climate; and top-hats and heavy frock-coats are common in Collins' Street in weather when "whites" and solar topees should be the only wear. But, speaking generally, the majority of Australians follow English customs in dress and methods of living, totally oblivious of the fact that our customs developed, through many ages, in a comparatively cold country. Beef, mutton, bottled beer, and boiled potatoes, with whisky between meals, cannot be the ideal diet for a hot country; and the blazing plum-pudding is as much a Christmas institution in Australia as in England, though very few of their days, at that season, are favoured with a temperature of less than 100 degrees in the shade.
All the conditions tempt to outdoor life, and in Sydney a great many of the residents, especially young men, establish camps round the picturesque bays of the harbour and live there in tents through the summer. This period in Sydney has the moist and clammy peculiarities of the tropics, but is not subject to the same remarkable changes as in Melbourne, where during my visit there was, on one occasion, within less than forty-eight hours a drop in temperature of over 60 degrees. This is why the Melbourne man despairingly adheres to the traditional stove-pipe hat; while in Sydney there is more of an effort to make the habiliments suit the clime.
One cannot look upon Sydney to-day, then, without feeling quite sure that in trade and social importance she has become the capital of Australia, a position once unquestionably held by its great rival, Melbourne. In the earlier
