236 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, ETC., 



them. A party may be well informed beforehand, who w T ill be 

 summoned on his jury. An opportunity thus offers for the exertion of 

 improper influence. 



" A large proportion of those who have appeared and served are 

 publicans, as many in some cases as eight out of twenty-nine, three 

 having been convicted persons ; in other cases, ten out of thirty-one, 

 five having been also convicted persons ; and again, eleven out of 

 thirty-five, four of them convicted persons. 



" Respecting the large proportion of this class of persons on the jury 

 panels, and the state of crime, and the causes of it, I addressed a letter 

 to his Excellency the Governor, and I now repeat, that the evils arising 

 from the very great number of licensed houses for the sale of ardent 

 spirits, are not restricted to the stimulus which they give to the com- 

 mission of crime, and concealment of it which they afford, but I have 

 found a very great proportion out of the panel of jurymen before the 

 Supreme Court (who actually attend), to be holders of licensed public 

 houses, frequently very low in respectability, to whose houses, prose- 

 cutors, and parties accused, on bail, and their witnesses, bond and 

 free, resort for the purpose of drinking, during the period of time they 

 are in attendance on court ; and a reasonable fear is thus excited for 

 the purity of the administration of justice, which I have had occasion 

 as a judge to see realized. 



" Upon reference to the jury-list of 1835, I have found that the 

 number to be summoned from criminal issues before the Supreme 

 Court is nine hundred and fifty-three, of whom two hundred and three 

 are publicans and innkeepers. The proportion of those who actually 

 serve, far exceeds that number; and in June, 1835, no less a number 

 than two hundred and twenty-four licenses were granted for public 

 houses in the town of Sydney alone. Few of them do not possess the 

 necessary qualifications, and many are highly respectable persons ; but 

 the proportion which they bear to the whole is small." 



The keepers of the low public houses in Sydney, are chiefly per- 

 sons who have been transported to this colony, or are married to con- 

 victs, and many of them are notorious drunkards, obscure persons, 

 fighters, gamblers, receivers of stolen goods, harbourers of thieves, and 

 the most depraved of both sexes ; they exist upon the vices of the lower 

 orders, and inasmuch as there are no licensed pawnbrokers in Sydney, 

 they act as such, but not as occurs in other countries, upon occasion 

 of some temporary pressure on the poor, for some necessary of life, but 

 for intoxicating liquor. 



There is a great unwillingness on the part of respectable persons to 

 appear and serve on juries, arising from a natural repugnance to asso- 



