234 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, ETC., 



road from Sydney to Paramatta, armed with a musket, another person 

 being in his company ; and very many robberies were committed 

 through convict servants being left too much at liberty to roam where 

 they pleased, during the hours of night." 



In Judge Burton's report to the colonial secretary, as to whether 

 juries in the colony have answered the ends of justice, he gives a full 

 account, of the jury system, its formation, &c, some passages of which 

 I shall also quote, as it will tend to show the manner in which the law 

 is administered in the colony, and the difficulties encountered in the 

 proper punishment of crime. 



" In civil cases, such as form the ordinary business of the court, the 

 matters in dispute are so simple as to afford but little field for any 

 undue bias on either side. 



' " It is only in cases occurring between the government and an indi- 

 vidual, or involving some point of political or party feeling, that any 

 trial can be had of the principles of the jurymen, and happily there 

 have been no instances of any such during the time (the last three 

 years) that jury trial has been established. 



" In criminal cases, there is a greater and more constant ground for 

 apprehension of improper influences, and undue bias upon the minds 

 of the jurymen. The prisoners for trial before the court, are chiefly 

 of a class transported hither for crimes committed out of the colony; 

 and persons of the same condition, and others very low in respecta- 

 bility and character, and frequently allied to them, are qualified, ac- 

 cording to colonial law, to serve as jurymen. 



" The qualifications are, a clear income, arising out of lands, houses, 

 or other real estate, of at least thirty pounds per annum, or a clear 

 personal estate of three hundred pounds. 



"The disqualifications as they now stand are: 'Every man not a 

 natural-born subject of the king, and every man who hath been or 

 shall be attainted of any treason or felony, or convicted of any crime, 

 (unless he shall have received for such crime a free pardon, or shall 

 be within the benefit and protection of some act of Parliament, having 

 force and effect of a pardon under the great seal,) or, secondly, if any 

 person who, either while serving under any sentence passed upon him 

 in any part of the British dominions, or after the expiration or remis- 

 sion of such sentence, shall have been convicted of any treason, felony, 

 or other infamous offence.' " 



Respecting the qualifications arising from property, Judge Burton 

 says, " The possession of such an amount as is specified in the act 

 affords no criterion in the colony, where property is notoriously accu- 

 mulated by every variety of dishonest means. It may be a test of 



