South Australia.—The extraordinarily rapid progress to wealth, power, and importance of the Australian colonies was one of the great wonders of the age. The following account of the condition of South Australia, in 1859, is full of interest to every patriot and every friend of human progress:—“The population was estimated at upwards of 120,000, and the total immigration, from the 1st of January to the 8th of October, had been 3,881. There had been an emigration, however, to the extent of 2,139 persons, leaving a balance in favour of immigration of 1,742, comprising 917 male adults, 579 female adults, 101 male children, and 145 female children. The average number of destitute persons relieved at the public expense in the three months ending the 27th of September was 756. The extent of crown lands sold, from the 1st of January to the 13th of October was 113,731 acres, which realized £150,616—an amount and acreage below the average of former years. The earnings of the government railways—from Adelaide to Port Adelaide, and from Adelaide to Gawler Town—amounted to £37,205 in the first 41 weeks of the present year, being an increase of £1,340 as compared with the corresponding period of 1858. There are 254 permanent ecclesiastical buildings in the colony, besides 104 dwelling-houses and places temporarily used for religious worship; sittings are thus provided for 51,831 persons, and the average congregations are estimated at 41,000. The Wesleyan Methodists provided 16,261 sittings; the Church of England, 6,335 sittings; the Roman Catholics, 4,790 sittings; and the Congregationalists, 6,051 sittings. The remainder were supplied by other denominations too numerous to particularize; but it may be added that the German Lutherans figure in the return to the extent of 5,164 sittings. The total number of children in the various schools in the colony maintained at the public expense was in 1858, 8,237: viz. 4,395 boys, and 3,842 girls. The total number of schools was 182, and the amount of government aid given was £11,329. These figures exhibit an astonishing advance as compared with 1849, when there were only 27 schools, with 848 scholars, and government aid to the extent of £707. There were besides 11,982 scholars in Sunday schools in 1858, and 210 of those institutions were in existence, as compared with 45 schools and 2,563 scholars in 1848.”

Victoria.—The progress of this colony was more rapid and extensive than that of any other in the Australian group. The balance-sheet of the colony for 1858 revealed the following startling facts. The receipts for that year amount in round numbers to £3,000,000, the import duties alone amounting to £1,318,000, the export duty on gold to £316,000, the sales of public lands to £628,000, the rent of public lands and licences of different trades to £331,000, and the postage to £89,000. The surplus revenue was expended by the assembly of representatives in the following manner:—£114,000 for education, £24,000 for scientific purposes, £25,000 for sanitary improvements, £769,000 for useful public works, £25,000 towards the relief of sufferers by the sepoy mutiny, £7,000 for a public library, £8,000 for an university purely secular. After these and similar votes, a cash balance of nearly half a million sterling remained in hand.