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miles, out of the Australian total of three millions; whereof they have alienated some four and three-quarters million acres, and still hold twelve million acres in reserve. In 1897 they had under cultivation 500,000 acres, and they broke up new land in that year to the extent of 9000 acres. Yet the bush is so luxuriant, markets so small, and communications so difficult, that the newcomer will usually find it better, on reflection, to buy an existing farm, of which there are plenty for sale, rather than to tackle the virgin forest. The real inwardness of Tasmanian life is clear from a few figures. There are upwards of 60,000 breadwinners in the colony, of whom some 5500 are employers of labour: and in the whole community there are a bare 28,000 habitations, of which near two thousand are slab, bark, or mud huts, tents, or dwellings with canvas roofs, 8000 are of brick or stone, and the balance are either wood, corrugated iron, or lath and plaster shanties. The colony owns 30,000 horses, 157,000 cattle, one and a half million sheep, and 43,000 pigs. Its exports are nearly £300,000 of pastoral produce, nearly £400,000 of agricultural produce, and nearly a million sterling of mineral produce, or an average of about £10 per head, as against imports of £8; figures which compare favourably enough, in Australian finance, with a taxation of £2, 18s., and a public debt of £48 per head. And of the sum of inhabitants, 115,000 are Australian born (107,000 of them born in the colony), as against 21,000 British, 5000 Irish, and 1000 Asiatics. All of which simply means that Tasmania is an old and quiet settlement, colonised many years ago, and troubled with no recent influx of people; where mining, however, is prosperous and advancing; where wages are rather lower, at times, than in the other colonies; where plenty of cleared agricultural land may be rented at from 8s. to