Page:Australian views of England.djvu/30

  argument, such as it is, certainly proceeds for the most part on false premises. But to hear the purblind country journalist squeaking out his horror at the unhappy collision between the European gold-diggers and the Chinese, quite unconscious of the brutal outrages between gamekeepers and poachers which disfigure his own columns every morning, excites laughter where one might otherwise be inclined to weep.

There is little to notice in reference to Australians now in England. I sometimes hear of the movement of your Emigration lecturers. Mr. Dalley, in the early part of this month, was at Southampton and at Portsmouth, and at both places had good audiences. But the poor people of England understand the word "emigration" to mean a "free passive" to some country better than their own, and Mr. Dalley and Mr. Parkes will have some difficulty in making them understand it in any other sense. An old Sidney resident, Mr. Robert Campbell, of Bligh-street, who a short time ago purchased an estate of some 8000 acres on the borders of Berkshire, and settled down to the regular life of an English country gentleman, was a fortnight ago chosen High Sheriff of the