wife was not looked on as a hindrance or an expense, but as a help and a comfort,’ says Miss Spence.  ’Girls did not look for establishments; parents did not press for settlements . . .  There was only one carriage in the colony for many years, which though belonging to a private person, was hired for such as wanted to do the thing genteelly . . . .’  Social position depended on character, and not on income.

The same writer lays herself fairly open to the charge of being laudator temporis acti in her description of the present as compared with the past social life of the colonies, though I am quite prepared to agree with her remark, that ’in proportion as the conditions of life become more complex, they should be met by more ingenuity, more culture, and a deeper sense of duty;’ and that ’the suddenness of our accumulation of wealth has scarcely prepared our little community for some necessary modifications of our social arrangements.’  Therein lies the whole source of both what is best and what is worst in the present social life of Australia.  Marriage, though still almost entirely an affair of love, has yet learnt to take L. s. d. into consideration, and none but the lowest class would be satisfied with the kind of furniture described above.  Education has improved and is improving still more, far as it yet is from being up even to the English standard.  More leisure has also produced novel reading with its consequent affectation of aristocratic ideas and prejudices and disproportionate estimate of essentials and superficials.

Already each Australian capital has its ‘society,’ distinguished from the [Greek characters] almost as clearly as in London or Paris.  In its own way, indeed, these societies are more exclusive than those of the older metropolises, which from their very size obtain a certain breadth of view.  For obvious reasons the component parts are not altogether similar, but their governing idea is as much the same as the difference of circumstances will permit.  It would be difficult to define exactly what opens the doors of Australian society, but is the shibboleth any more definite in London?  Distinction of some kind or other must be presupposed.  If that of birth, it must either be allied to rank or have strong local connections.  Is it not the same in London, though, of course, on an infinitely larger and grander scale?  If that of wealth, it must storm the entrance by social expenditure and pachydermatousness to rebuff.  Wealth is, of course, the predominating factor here, as rank in London; because while in the latter case birth calls in wealth to furnish it with the sinews of war, in the former wealth calls in birth to teach it how to behave itself.  Position is of small account, though the line is always drawn at shopkeepers in esse.  Provided the candidate has cut the shop and opened an office, he can be admitted on payment of the social fees, but only gradually and laboriously unless his wealth is beyond criticism.