BY HEEBERT HEATON, M.A., M. COMM. 5 



sensational events, such as the depredations of the bush- 

 rano-ers, the movements of the aborigines, murders, thefts, 

 elopements, or the drowning of messengers while fording 

 flooded streams. The weather occupies much space each 

 week. We hear of settlers selling their wives in order to 

 obtain stock for their farms (7); we watch the rapid pro- 

 gress of horse-racmg towards universal popularity; we 

 learn that very big rats are swarming over parts, of the 

 island, biting children in their sleep (8), and this informa- 

 tion is followed by an infallible recipe for rat poison. Per- 

 sons over seventy years of age marry (9). A tradesman 

 away up country receives a draft for £20, and adds a cipher 

 to make it £200. When charged with forgery, he admits 

 the act, but justifies it by saying that when he was at 

 school he was told that a cipher stood for naught, and so he 

 considers it extremely hard that for notliing he should be 

 charged with a capital offence (10). As the paper ex- 

 panded from two to four columns, voluminous quotations 

 from English and Sydney papers were inserted, the Eng- 

 lish news being four to six months old. The aftermath 

 of Waterloo was recorded at great length ; Napoleon and 

 St. Helena formed favourite subjects; the fate of Murat 

 and Ney was depicted with gruesome details, and en- 

 comiums on Wellington, in prose and poetiy, were always 

 welcomed. The people of Hobart were given dazzling 

 pictures of the introduction of gas lights into London (11), 

 and on the death of any member of the Royal Family, the 

 paper appeared with a deep black border. Columns of 

 "Tlansard" were reproduced when the House of Commons 

 had been discussing colonial matters, and in the issue of 

 April 5, 1817, appeal^ a very interesting extract from the 

 Report on the Condition rf the Distressed Poor in Eng- 

 land. At that time the feai'^ concerning French designs 

 on Australia had abated for a time ; but England, with 

 her innate love of "scares," decided that Russia intended to 

 take up the ambitions of France. The possibility of a 

 Russian descent on India and Australia was seriously dis- 

 cussed by English politicians and writers. Hence, when 

 the Parliamentary Committee suggested remedies for Eng- 

 land's poverty and distress, it urged the importance of en- 

 couraging emigration to New South Wales and Van Die- 

 men's Land, for the purpose of populating the southern 

 lands, and also to provide a "point (Vappui against the 

 encroachments of Russian aggrandisement." This section 

 of the report was quoted at length in the Gazette as soon as 

 the document reached Hobart. 



Apropos of this Russian scare, it is interesting, to note 

 that in 1823 the (^asf^^e recorded the visit of two Russian 



