At the same time bread was at 3_s._ a gallon; it is now about 1_s._ 6_d._ The wages of an agricultural labourer were 6_s._ a week.

It was gambling, positive gambling, in the staff of life.
No farmer was held in any esteem if he did not keep his wheat ricks till harvest came again before threshing them out: men grew rich suddenly and knew not what to do with their money.

Farmers who had been brought up 'hard,' living like labourers, working like labourers, and with little more amusement than labourers, all at once found their pockets full of coin.

The wheat they had been selling at 5_l._ a load ran up to 50_l._ With their purses thus crammed full, what were they to do?
There was nothing but drink, and they did drink.
In those days the farmer in his isolated homestead was more cut off from the world than the settler at the present time in the backwoods or on the prairies.

The telegraph wires span the continent of America, and are carried across the dry deserts of Australia.