doing much, although I did try it on crutches. An acquaintance living in the same shanty rarely brought in less than half-a-dozen beauties, averaging 6 lb. each : he usually caught them with live grasshoppers.

Except in the cities and some holiday resorts, the hotel, or rather inn, accommodation in Australia is decidedly indifferent. For men that does not much matter, but when ladies are in the party, the rough, happy-go-lucky style of conducting a hotel is not pleasant. At one, not fifty miles from Melbourne, which had a considerable reputation, my small boy who came with us was rather startled by the servant who showed him his room saying, "You will take your boots off, sonnie, won't you, before you go to bed?"

During my last year in Australia it was considered expedient that I should pay a visit to the French penal settlement in New Caledonia, where the 10,000 convicts and liberés (ticket-of-leave men) caused some nervousness to our colonies. The French authorities in New Caledonia, as I have found them in all other parts of the world, were kindness itself, and showed me and my three companions everything, even the innermost prison of Isle Nou. The system of years of solitary confinement and the dark cell, it is to be hoped, will be abolished: it is simply horrible. To try what the dark cell was like, I got the warders to shut me up in one. It was darkness that might almost be felt, and as for ventilation-I was all but suffocated. This I mentioned when I came out. "Yes," they said, "some prisoners were suffocated; that is why those holes were bored in the bottom of the door to let air in." The guillotine, which is occasionally used, was also shown, and the way it worked, a fagot being employed to illustrate the great shearing

power of the triangular blade. The reckless minds of some of the convicts may be judged from what we were told of one about to be decapitated. He noticed that there was straw in the box into which his head would fall, and asked for his execution to be delayed until the straw was exchanged for sawdust, to which he said he was entitled by regulation! The hospital was like any other; but the lunatic wards, and the antiquated system for dealing with the insane, made one shudder. All those who are sentenced to more than eight years' transportation remain in New Caledonia for life, as do also the récidivistes-viz., habitual offenders, sent from France as such for these there is no hope. On a comparatively small, damp, tropical island, with very few opportunities for improving their condition, it is a wonder that so few commit suicide.

It has lately been decided to improve the defences of the island, which had been allowed to get into a very ruinous condition, and to make New Caledonia a French naval coaling-port. The wisdom of this step seems very doubtful when it is remembered that the island is dependent on Australia for meat and flour, and that the reef openings would not be difficult to blockade. Shut up with 10,000 reckless and starving convicts and several thousand disaffected natives, the garrison would be in an awkward position. The industries of the island, principally nickel-mining, are really in British hands; even the construction of water-works for the supply of the town of Nouméa was being carried out by an English contractor, who brought his own navvies from Australia. The horrors of a penal settlement half a century ago are forcibly shown in Marcus Clarke's novel, 'For the Term of his Natural Life.' New Caledonia is now very much—or

possibly worse than-what Van Diemen's Land was half a century ago. So impressed was I with what I saw and heard of it, that I gave a copy of my paper on the subject to my friend, the French consul-general in Melbourne, hoping for the sake of humanity that it might in some small way help those in Paris who are trying to get transportation beyond the seas abolished. I had the good fortune when in New Caledonia to make the acquaintance of a broad - minded high official, who afterwards stayed on a visit with me in Melbourne. Having a special sympathy with our ancient Scottish allies, the French, and as my wife was La Présidente de l'Alliance Française, we made several French friends in Australia: the officers of the French men-of-war were always our very welcome visitors. Going to and returning from New Caledonia by the long-voyage Messagerie boats, our party was so struck by the comfort and the desire to please on the part of every one that we decided always to go when possible by the Messagerie line, instead of patronising the great English companies, where passengers at times seem to be looked on as necessary evils, permitted to exist for the benefit of the company.

I had almost forgotten an institution which I was able to set going in Victoria, and which I think might be found useful in other colonies-viz., a home for worn-out old soldiers of good character, who have seen much active service and done their share of work as colonial workmen and labourers. There is no Poor Law in Victoria, or, I believe, in any of the Australian colonies, and if the Benevolent Asylum, or the wards for casuals known as the Immigrants' Home, are full,