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486 were two hundred and thirty-six thousand inhabitants there. The number has increased ever since with more or less steadiness, and now exceeds a million. In 1854 there were fifty-one females to every one hundred males; now the proportions are eighty-eight to one hundred."

"We went from Ballarat to Sandhurst, another mining city," said Fred in his journal. "It was formerly known as Bendigo, and in old times was the scene of a rush much like that to Ballarat. It has had about the same history as Ballarat, having been wonderfully rich in alluvial diggings, then almost deserted, and finally doing a fine business in quartz mining. In one respect, to-day, it differs from Ballarat; at the latter place the mines are in the suburbs, while here they are right in the city. There is a mine in nearly every backyard; gold is sometimes—so they say—picked up in the street, and is even in the bricks of the houses. The first brick house built in Sandhurst was pulled down and crushed, and the crushing yielded three ounces of gold to the ton; at any rate, that's what they tell us, and they're very earnest about it too.