250 



AUSTRALIA. 



the numerous matters of business wherein (hey have 

 been concerned with the emancipists, their conduct 

 has always been most honourable." 



When convicts arrive in the colony, they are 

 consigned to barracks for their reception, and are 

 ready for disposal as servants to the settlers in all 

 parts of the country. When disposed of to the 

 settler, the convict is provided by him with the 

 in. ans of erecting a hut for himself, if no such ac- 

 commodation exists at the settler's station. The 

 convict receives no wages, but is provided with 

 certain dully rations of food, clothing, bedding, and 

 culinary utensils. The hours during which he is 

 required to work are from six in the morning until 

 six at night, with the allowance of an hour for 

 breakfast and another for dinner. When a convict 

 conducts himself with propriety for a certain length 

 of time, and which is proportioned to the term of 

 his sentence, he is entitled to claim from the co- 

 lonial government what is called a ticket of leave, 

 a sort of warrant or licence, which enables him to 

 live where he pleases, and to employ himself in 

 any legal way he may choose. This, of course, is 

 recalled if he commits any new offence; and many 

 advertisements are from time to time to be seen in 

 the Sydney newspapers, intimating such recall, and 

 naming the individuals. Though, while he con- 

 ducts himself with propriety, the convict's peculiar 

 condition in society is not obtruded upon him by 

 any peculiar treatment, yet the slightest departure 

 from this brings him immediately within the reach 

 of the colonial laws. If refractory, or even merely 

 insolent to the settler, his master, he may be taken 

 before a magistrate, and either flogged, or sentenced 

 to work for a certain period on a short allowance 

 of food, in what are called the government chain- 

 gangs, composed of convicts who have offended a 

 second time, and are, as a punishment, worked in 

 fetters. On the expiry of his original term of ban- 

 ishment, the convict becomes an emancipist, and 

 is then his own master. From an interesting par- 

 liamentary paper, it appears that the average expense 

 of transporting a convict to New South Wales, 

 which was in 182~, '24. Is. 6d., is now consid- 

 erably under 20; and that the average expense 

 of actually maintaining and clothing a male con- 

 vict there in 1821, was 22. 9s. 8d., but that 

 now it does not exceed 7. 3d. 



In order to ameliorate the evils inseparable from 

 the penal system, the colonial government has 

 lately adopted means for procuring the settlement 

 of free and respectable labourers, including all 

 classes of mechanics, with their families. The re- 

 venue derived annually from the sale of crown 

 lands is devoted to this object. At certain ports 

 in the united kingdom, government emigration 

 agents are settled, and to these gentlemen the 

 whole business of collecting and sending off emi- 

 grants is entrusted. 



The number of aboriginal inhabitants in the 

 colony of New South Wales has been estimated at 

 5000. They possess the thick prominent lips, 

 sunken eyes, high cheek bones, and calveless legs 

 of the African, differing however, in the hair, 

 which, except in Van Dieman's Land, and the ad- 

 jacent equally cold coast of Australia, is long and 

 coarse. The nose, though large, is not so flat as 

 that of the African, and the forehead is high, nar- 

 row, and pointed. The features of the women are 

 not altogether unpleasant, which, added to an easi- 

 ness of manner and a harmonious voice (especially 

 in the pronunciation of English) render many of 



them favourites with the while men. Nothing can 

 equal the brutality of these tribes in their treatment 

 of the weaker sex. In order to obtain a woman in 

 marriage, a man lies in wait for her in some place 

 of retreat, knoeks her down with a bludgeon or 

 wooden sword; and, while she is yet besmeared 

 with blood, takes her to his own home, where the 

 nuptial ceremony is completed in a manner too 

 shocking to be described. Polygamy is very gen- 

 erally practised. Both sexes go naked, and have 

 no feelings of shame. In general, it may be >aid 

 that the whole of the aborigines of Australia are 

 of the same stock. Yet their language differs so 

 much, that tribes within short distances of each 

 other have each their own peculiar dialect. In the 

 interior their number seems to be diminishing from 

 famine, war, and the cruelty and encroachments of 

 white settlers; at Sydney and other towns, where 

 they exist chiefly by begging, vice and disease are 

 fast destroying them. The ill-usage which they 

 receive from the colonists in the baek settlements, 

 who, besides depriving them of their fishing sta- 

 tions and their kangaroo grounds, often shoot them 

 relentlessly, like so many wild animals, is a dis- 

 grace to the colour and the creed of the whites; it 

 displays a soul blacker than the skin of the poor 

 negro a creed more cruel than the most savage of 

 his superstitions. So recently as June, 1838, a 

 case occurred in New South Wales, in which eleven 

 convicts, some of them emancipated, destroyed, and 

 afterwards burned the bodies of no fewer than 

 twenty-eight native blacks, men, women and chil- 

 dren, on no other provocation that could be con- 

 ceived than a suspicion of some of the natives hav- 

 ing stabbed some of the cattle in charge of the con- 

 victs. History scarcely furnishes a case equal to 

 this in atrocity ; yet when the culprits were 

 brought to trial in .November, 1838, such is the 

 prejudice of the colonists against the natives, in 

 so little estimation is the life of the latter held, 

 that a jury found, in the teeth of the most satisfac- 

 tory evidence, the whole of the eleven convicts Not 

 guilty ; and it was only on a second trial, on a new 

 indictment, that seven were, with difficulty, pro- 

 nounced guilty, and executed. The heart sickens 

 at the thought of such circumstances; and eyes, 

 which would otherwise rest with pleasure on the 

 bright picture of prosperity which the colony pre- 

 sents, turn with sorrow from its contemplation, 

 when they see it thus shadowed with crime and 

 stained with blood. 



South Australia. South Australia is a large dis- 

 trict of the island, situated on the south coast, ex- 

 tending from 132 to 141 E. longitude, and from 

 38 to 26 S. latitude, and containing nearly two 

 hundred millions of acres. It lies between the 

 Swan river and New South Wales, and may be 

 easily recognised on the map of Australia, by being 

 penetrated from the sea by Spencer's Gulf, and 

 Gulf St Vincent, at the entrance to which lies 

 Kangaroo Island.* It is distant from Britain 

 12,000 miles, namely 6000 miles to the Cape of 

 Good Hope, 3000 from the Cape to the small island 

 of St Paul's, and 3000 from St Paul's to South 

 Australia. This distance may be performed in 

 twelve weeks, but the average length of voyage 

 may be reckoned a hundred days, or fourteen 

 weeks. South Australia possesses a sea coast of 

 1500 miles in extent. The principal harbours 



* This island is 200 miles in circumference. Except for its 

 fine bay. it is of little value as a settleraeut, being overrun 

 with brushwood. 



