no Australian Life 



extent, where he can gratify his tastes for garden- 

 ing and poultry-keeping to the fullest extent. 



The cheapness of food is another circumstance 

 in favour of the Australian workman. He can 

 dine, if he wishes, at a cleanly kept restaurant 

 where a substantial meal of meat and vegetables, 

 with pudding to follow, can be had for sixpence. 

 A better served meal, with a small bottle of Aus- 

 tralian wine added, can easily be got for a shilling, 

 and this includes all those extras of bread and at- 

 tendance for which a special charge is made in so 

 many places. These prices argue cheap meat, 

 cheap vegetables, and cheap fruit, so that the 

 frugal housewife can make a little money go a 

 long way when marketing. Fruit, in season 

 especially, is cheap. Fresh grapes, peaches, 

 apricots, pears, and plums can all be bought at 

 prices ranging from twopence to threepence a 

 pound, and all of the very finest quality. I have 

 often seen twenty pounds of ripe tomatoes offered 

 at the door for a shilling, and a ripe water-melon 

 a foot in diameter, with flesh pink and crisp and 

 luscious, for threepence. Sixpence buys three 

 good pineapples from the hawker's barrow, and 

 the wine-flavoured passion-fruit may be had at 

 threepence a dozen. If the Australian workman 

 does not live well, it is because he does not care 

 to, or his wife does not know how to buy. 



For clothing of all kinds, he has to pay high 

 prices, and he does not forget while doing so that 

 he is contributing to the maintenance of the pro- 



