Hobart Town, the capital of Tasmania, is a quiet, hospitable little
town, but a very hotbed of aristocracy--the single spot on the
Australian continent where English exclusiveness can, after the gay
seasons of the large cities, retire to aristocratic country-seats, to
nurse and revivify its pride of birth, without fear of coming in contact
with anything parvenu or plebeian. The town is prettily laid out, with a
genuine Gothic château for its government palace, and elegant private
residences. It seems tame and deserted when visited from Sydney or
Melbourne, but offers just the rest and refreshment one needs after a
season of exhausting labor in the mines of Ballarat.


The rapid growth of the Australian colonies, their remoteness from the
mother country, and the vastness of the territory over which they are
spread, naturally suggest the question whether they are destined to
remain in a condition of dependence or are likely to follow the example
of their American prototypes. On this point the opinion of the count of
Beauvoir is entitled to consideration, as that of an impartial as well
as intelligent observer. He had expected, he tells us, in visiting the
country, to find it preparing for its speedy emancipation; but he left
it with the conviction that, far from desiring a severance of the
connection, the colonists would regard it as a blow to their material
interests--the one event, in fact, capable of arresting their
unparalleled progress. It can only occur as the result of a European war
in which the power of England shall be so crippled as to disable her
from protecting these distant possessions, casting upon them the whole
burden of self-defence, and forcing them to assume the responsibilities
of national existence.