This issue of the Australasian also includes:
An advertisement for 'Dickens's works at English price' available from George Robertson, Melbourne. Works advertised are: The Pickwick Papers, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, The Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist, Christmas Books and Barnaby Rudge.
An advertisement for the June 1868 issue of the Colonial Monthly.
H. T. Dwight, Bookseller, 'near Parliament, solicits inspection of his stock'.
An advertisement for the first three volumes of the Australasian, available from Samuel Mullen, bookseller, Melbourne and Ballarat, Victoria.
The unnamed author provides an account of a day's fishing in the company Aboriginal men, women and children, all of whom are guided by the instructions of Indigenous leader 'King Jacob'.
Q. reflects on the the political situation in the Victorian colony before turning his attention once more to the subject of penny readings. (See also, 'The Peripatetic Philosopher', 16 May 1868).) On this occasion Q. writes that the 'penny reading platform has become a stage for the display of vanity and ignorance, and the pitiful ambition to shine for an hour as a local "star"'.
Jaques provides a detailed report on Walter Montgomery's benefit appearances, particularly his recitals, declaring that Montgomery's rendition of Charles Dickens's 'The Bloomsbury Christening' 'offers one of the most wonderful instances I have seen of facial expression, and the rapidity of the change is no less remarkable than the perfect appropriateness'.
Jaques notes Melbourne's recent theatrical offerings (in less detail than his usual reviews), paying some attention to the production of Dion Boucicault's The Willow Copse at the Duke of Edinburgh Theatre.
An advertisement for Charles Haddon Spurgeon's sermons 'in large quantities', available from Buzzard, Melbourne.
