aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

AUSTRALIA. 59
pulpits ; all hastening pell-mell to the diggings. Provisions
•went up, and prices for labor were enormous. The rush
from England seemed a very panic ; and priests quite forgot
the passage, " Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth."
•
Many Americans filled their purses, and
returned to their
native land, preferring the eagle to the colonial lion. The
scene has completely changed. Surface-digging is no longer
profitable ; but the tertiaries and the quartz veins seem
absolutely inexhaustible.
VICTOEIA. — EQUALITY OF THE SEXES.
In citizenship Australia is eminently cosmopolitan. In
the streams of imlnigration to this
English born, have been foremost, the
quarter of the globe, the
Irish second, and the
Scotch third. This close social proximity, these family alliances,
cementing living representatives, will not only break
down old barriers, but ultimately develop an AustraHan
type of people deeply interesting to 'ethnologists.
"Male and female," are they not about equal?
leave no doubt of this fact ;
Statistics
which, by the way, presents an
unanswerable argument against polygamy. Nature's census
says, '• equal ; " and Nature's teachings say, " monogamic
marriage, and chastity in the married life."
Equality in the number of the sexes is one of the first
conditions necessary to the development of any people
into
a full, healthy national growth. There is a sad disproportion,
however, in some portions of Australia. An admirer
of Malthus gave me these figures. In the year 1838, there
were but fourteen females to every one hundred males ; but
at the census in 1861 there were sixty-four females to
every
one hundred males. The disproportion is still less at the
present time. Such inequahty of ratio must necessarily
affect the morals of a country. A recent census assures us
that there are a million and a half more of women than men
in England. What does this mean ? Does not the fact
foreshadow revolution ?