OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 233 



parties of the colony, it would appear that those establishments were 

 like bee-hives, the inhabitants busily pouring in and out ; but with this 

 difference : the one works by day, the other by night ; the one goes 

 forth to industry, the other to plunder. 



" To the careless or worse than careless conduct of the overseers, 

 he did attribute a vast proportion of the burglaries and robberies that 

 were committed in the country districts. It had been proved in a 

 recent case that a party of these men had committed a robbery, under 

 such circumstances of aggravation, that sentence of death had been 

 passed upon four of them. 



" The settlers themselves were to blame for many of the crimes 

 committed by convicts belonging to road-parties. It appears they 

 have frequently employed these men, in their leisure hours, or on a 

 Sunday, paying them for their labours in money, which was spent in 

 drink, and so prepared them for crime ; and it also appeared that after 

 using their services in harvest, they remunerated them for their ser- 

 vices, by granting passes for several days more than was necessary 

 for them to return to their gangs, during which time the whole 

 country they passed through is laid under contribution by their depre- 

 dations. 



" Another source of crime was the occupation of the waste lands of 

 the colony by unauthorized and improper persons, both bond and free, 

 who, commencing with nothing, or a very small capital, soon after 

 acquire a degree of wealth, which must lead every reasonable man to 

 the conclusion that they do not get it honestly. 



" The congregation of large numbers of convict servants in the town 

 of Sydney, to which were to be attributed the vast proportion of the 

 burglaries and robberies committed there, the master allowing the 

 convict servants to wander about when and where they please after 

 his work is done. 



" The allowing improper persons to have licensed public houses. It 

 had been proved that a great many robberies had been committed at 

 such places, many of the proprietors of these low houses being not 

 far removed from the class of life in which the prisoners were them- 

 selves placed. 



" Another cause, which comes home to all, is the almost total want 

 of the superintendence of masters over their assigned servants. It 

 had been proved to him that many of the robberies which had been 

 committed are attributed to this alone; also, that convicts, six or 

 seven in number, armed with muskets, and masked, had committed 

 various robberies on their adjoining neighbours. One of them at- 

 tempted a robbery in the middle of the day, on a Sunday, on the high* 



vol. ii. U2 30 



