Sydney and Adelaide are distinctly superior to English towns of the same size in the matter of apparel; but they will not bear comparison with Melbourne.  On the other hand, gorgeous and flash dresses are very rare in the smaller cities.  If they have not the talent of Melbourne, neither do they share its blots.  They go along at a steady jog-trot, and are content to take their fashions second-hand from Melbourne, but with modifications.  Their more correct and sober taste will not tolerate even many of the extravagances of which London is guilty—­such extravagances, for instance, as the Tam O’Shanter cap, which was warmly taken up in Melbourne.  But with all this good sense, they remain dowdy.

I have said nothing hitherto of married ladies’ dress.  When a colonial girl marries, she considers herself, except in rare instances, on the shelf, and troubles herself very little about what she wears.  As a rule, she has probably too many other things to take up her time.  She has got a husband, and what more can she want?  He rarely cares what she has on, as soon as the honeymoon is over.  There is no one else to please, and I fear that colonial girls are not of those who dress merely for themselves; they like to be admired, and they appreciate the value of dress from a flirtation point of view.  Their taste is rather the outcome of a desire to please others than of a sense of aesthetics.  It is relative, and not absolute.  When once the finery has served its purpose, they are ready to renounce all the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.  And if the moralist says that this argues some laxness of ideas before marriage, let him remember that it is equally indicative of connubial bliss.  Once married, her flirtations are at an end—­’played out,’ if I may use the term.

In another respect the Victorian is the direct opposite of the Parisienne.  If you leave general effects, and come to pull her dress to pieces, you find that the metal is only electro, to whatever rank of life she may belong.  The general appearance may be pleasing, but in detail she is execrable.  Not but that the materials of her dress are rich enough, so that my electro simile will hardly hold water; but money does not make the artist.  Let us begin with the bonnet.  Walk down Collins Street at the time of the block on Saturday, and I doubt whether you can count half a dozen bonnets which are both pretty and suitable to the face and head of the wearer. Bien chaussee et bien gantee might be Greek as far as Australia is concerned, and if by chance you see a stocking or any portion of the under-clothing, you will have your eyes opened.  Whatever does not meet the eye is generally of the commonest.  It would be thought a sinful waste of money to have anything particularly good or expensive which other people could not see.  The light of Melbourne is never likely to hide itself under a bushel; external adornment is the mot d’ordre.  Ribbons and laces, or anything that helps to improve the look of a dress, the colonial lady will indulge in freely and even extravagantly; but you must not penetrate her tinsel armour.