Wright's Australian, Indian, China, and Japan Trade Directory and Gazetteer.
(Watkins and Osmond.)—This massive volume contains ton distinct guides ; six of them are Australian ; the seventh takes in India, Siam, and Java ; the eighth, China, Japan, the Philippine Islands, and South Africa ; the ninth, Canada and Newfoundland; the tenth, South and Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies. These give the information which a Post- Office County Directory gives for an English county. The resi- dents and trades in every place, so far as they concern the public for which the guide is compiled ; the population, products, &o., are set down. The utility of the book is manifest. We naturally looked to see some of the facts about the multiplicity of banking establishments. In Victoria, Castlemaine, with 6,000 inhabitants, has five; " 1,031 acres are in cultivation in the vicinity." Charlton, 1,500, has three ; Cheltenham the same ; Cobham, 700, two. In Queensland, Maryborough, with population " about ten thousand," has seven, while our own Birmingham, with nearly half-a-million, has only nine.—Along with this may be men- tioned the Illustrated Official Handbook of the Cape and South Africa. Edited by John Noble. (J. C. Juta and Co., Cape Town.)—The Wealth and Progress of New South Wales. By T. A. Coghlau. (Charles Potter, Sydney.)—This is the tenth issue. The chapter on banking, written before the crash came, is highly interesting. Mr. Coghlan was not wholly satisfied. The form of the accounts especially seemed unreliable. The capital employed in banking in Australia was 235 per inhabitant ; in Franco it is 27 ; in Great Britain, £24; to compare other Colonies, it is £8 in Canada, and .26 in Cape Colony,—Report of Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute. Vol. XXIV. (Royal Colonial Institute.)—The Geo- graphical Journal. (Royal Geographical Society.)
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