If Australia during the last century was ‘no place for a nervous lady’, this collection of women’s writings edited by Lucy Frost establishes with simple eloquence that it certainly was no place for a nervous gentleman. Annie Baxter, who obviously has caught Lucy Frost’s imagination writes:

Talented young men-the very elite of any society, we see giving way to this odious dissipation! Many is the heart-ache their friends at home are spared by not being eye witnesses of this – They become perfectly maddened by intoxication – Even the lowest of all men lose all resect for them ... Of what use has been their education – and their abilities! All to be buried in drink!