Australia, its history and present condition Part 13

One cause, unquestionably, of the peculiar prevalence of many of these evil works is the strange elements of which society in Australia is composed. In its lowest rank is found the unhappy criminal, whose liberty has been forfeited, and who is, for a time at least, reduced to a state of servitude in punishment of his offences. Next to this last-named cla.s.s come the _emancipists_, as they are called, who have once been in bondage, but by working out their time, or by good conduct, have become free; these and their descendants const.i.tute a distinct and very wealthy cla.s.s in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. The third and highest cla.s.s is formed of men who have settled as free persons in the colonies, and of their descendants; and between this last cla.s.s and the two first a considerable distinction is kept up, from which, (it has already been noticed,) miserable dissensions, jealousies, and heartburnings, have frequently arisen. To an impartial person, beholding these petty discords from the contrary side of the globe, it is pretty plain that both cla.s.ses are in fault.

It is well known that the system of a.s.signing convicts to various masters has been practised ever since the colony at Port Jackson was first established, and thus the expense of maintaining so many thousands of people has been thrown upon the settlers, who were amply repaid by the value of their labour; by means of which, likewise, the land was brought into cultivation, and the produce of the soil increased. One great argument against the system of transportation, as a punishment, is drawn from this practice of a.s.signment, which, it is a.s.serted, makes the penalty "as uncertain as the diversity of temper, character, and occupation amongst human beings can render it." Certain rules and conditions were laid down for the treatment of convict servants, and if these behave themselves well, they are allowed "a ticket of leave,"

extending over a certain district, within which the holder of the ticket becomes, in fact, a free person; subject, however, to the loss of this privilege in case of his committing any offence. After a certain number of years, the holder of the ticket of leave is allowed to receive a "conditional pardon," which extends only to the limits of the colony, but is no longer liable to be withdrawn at the will of government. The "absolute pardon," of course, extends everywhere, and restores the party receiving it to all the rights and privileges of a British subject.[190]

The custom of a.s.signing male convicts has, however, been discontinued lately in the elder colony, although women are still a.s.signed to the settlers by government, or at least were so until very recently. But besides the employment of the convicts by private persons, a vast number of these are constantly engaged in public works, and to the facility of obtaining labour thus afforded does New South Wales owe some of its greatest improvements, especially in roads, bridges, public buildings, and the like undertakings. It is scarcely to be supposed that employment of this kind, when the men must necessarily work in gangs, is so favourable for their moral improvement and reformation as residence in a private family and occupation in rural pursuits is generally likely to prove; though the contrary notion is supported in the recent Report of the Transportation Committee, since, in the former case, they are under stricter discipline. However, it has always been customary to make the public works a sort of punishment, and private service a reward for convicts; and those that have been returned from the latter with complaints, are usually put upon the roads for at least six months; so that, if this system really stands in the way of the improvement of offenders, it keeps those that conduct themselves well from the beginning quite clear of the bad example of less hopeful characters. It is a sad truth, however, in Australia, as it often is found to be in England, that "the most skilful mechanics are generally the worst behaved and most drunken," and, consequently, most liable to punishment in the public gangs.

[190] See Mr. Montgomery Martin's New South Wales for further particulars on this subject, pp. 168-177.

By way of introducing the reader to the kind of life led by those unhappy beings who labour in Australia at the public roads, and to give him also some idea of the spiritual work which the ministers of Christ's Church in a penal colony may be called upon to perform, the following sketch from a private letter will be not unacceptable:--"In a few minutes I am at the stockade where more than 60 men are immediately mustered; the [Roman] 'Catholics'[191] are sent back to their boxes, the 'Protestants' a.s.semble under a shed, open on two sides, and filled with a few coa.r.s.e boards for tables and forms, where the men get their meals.

Their boxes are wooden buildings of uniform structure, in which the prisoners are locked up from _sundown_ to sunrise. The roof is shingled, the sides are weather-board, the door in the middle is secured by a padlock, and above the door is a grating to admit the light and air, a similar grating being placed exactly opposite to it. The internal arrangements are simple in the extreme, where you see a gangway in the middle, and two tiers of hard planks or dressers for the men to lie upon; their bedding being, I believe, only a blanket. As there is no division to form separate bed-places, the four-and-twenty or thirty men who share these boxes lie like the pigs, and make the best of it they can. When a prisoner has served his time in irons, he is removed to a probationary gang; that which I am describing is an ironed gang. These men are dressed in a motley suit of grey and yellow alternately, each seam being of a different colour; and the irons being secured to each ancle, and, for the relief of the wearer, made fast from the legs to the waist. The whole stockade is sometimes enclosed with high palings, and sometimes open. The service of the Church is performed under the shed where the men a.s.semble for meals. The men behave well or ill as the sergeant in charge takes an interest in it or not. Here the sergeant and a dozen young soldiers are constant at prayers. The responses are given by all that can read, our blessed societies having furnished Bibles and Prayer-books for all. Every change of position is attended with the clank of chains, which at first harrows your soul: but time does wonders, you know; you forget the irons after a while. A full service and a sermon. You hear an application or two from prisoners about their worldly matters,--chiefly from the craftiest, oldest hands; wish them good morning, and away.

[191] "Catholic," a most honoured term in ancient times, has in modern days been very unfortunate. Even now the Romanists misuse it for "Papistical," the Dissenters occasionally use it to signify "Lat.i.tudinarian," and the members of the Church of England are either afraid to use it at all, or else are perpetually harping upon it, as though it were a mere party-word.

"It is now half-past ten: there lies the hot and dusty road before you, without shelter of any kind, and the sun pours down his fiery beams; no cloud, no intermission. If a breeze blows, it may be hotter than from the mouth of a furnace. Well, courage; step out, it is five miles to the other stockade. A flock of sheep,--the dog baying, the driver blaspheming; a dray or two of hay; a few carts loaded with oranges. Up the hill, down the hill, and so on, till, a little after twelve, you arrive at the other stockade. This is a probationary gang, that is to say, it is composed of those against whom complaints have been made by their respective masters, and who are not a.s.signable to other individuals for six months. In this gang are six-and-twenty persons, of whom two are [Roman] 'Catholics.' No motley dress, but all in dark grey; no irons. A corporal and one private for a guard, and both of them exemplary at prayers. Here I have the afternoon service. Generally about this time the wind is up; and here, in a state of perspiration, the breeze gives me a thorough chilling under the open shed; and often clouds of dust come rushing through upon us, as bad as the worst days in March along one of the great roads in England. But the service is attended in a gratifying manner, insomuch that it would shame many home congregations. The corporal here teaches the poor fellows who require it to _read and write_, so that even here we find instances of christian charity, without sinister or vain motives, which may well stimulate us and provoke our exertions."

From this picture of the condition of some of those convicts that are undergoing punishment, we may turn to the more pleasing view, which a gentleman of large property in Australia, Mr. Potter Macqueen, has drawn of the condition of his own a.s.signed servants. Of course, much of the chance of the servant's improvement must depend, humanly speaking, upon the sort of master into whose hands he is thrown, and Mr. Macqueen would appear to have behaved kindly and judiciously to those entrusted to his care. Occasionally a severe example of punishment was made, and extra labour or stoppage of indulgences, as milk, tea, sugar, or tobacco, were found effectual correction for most faults, whilst additional industry was rewarded by fresh indulgences. Of some deserving men Mr. Macqueen had even brought over the wives and families at his own expense. And what, in this world, could be a greater instance of the luxury of doing good than to behold the family and partner of one who has, though a convict, conducted himself well, restored once more to their long-lost parent and husband, and settled in his new country as pledges of his future continuance in well-doing? Marriage, altogether, was encouraged on the estate of the gentleman already mentioned, as a means of recalling the convicts from bad habits, and urging them to industry and good behaviour; and this wise course has been generally rewarded by witnessing their happiness, and receiving their grat.i.tude. During five years of residence in Australia about two hundred convicts and ticket-of-leave men pa.s.sed through Mr. Macqueen's establishment, and the following account is interesting, since it serves to show what _may be done_, even with a convict population:--

Free, or enjoying their ticket, married and thoroughly reclaimed 14 Ditto, ditto, single men 49 Free from expiration of sentence, but worthless 7 Returned home to England after becoming free 1 Well-conducted men, as yet under sentence 62 Indifferent, not trustworthy 29 Depraved characters, irreclaimable 7 Sent to iron gangs and penal settlements 11 Escaped 1 Died 3 Given up at request of Government 2 Returned to Government hospital from ill health 4 ____ 190 ____

To encourage reformation, and check that spirit of idleness which is the mother of mischief, alike in convicts and free people, it is strongly recommended to allow the well-disposed men to profit by their own industry. It is forbidden to pay money to prisoners, at least before they obtain their ticket, but they may be rewarded by tea, sugar, tobacco, Cape wine, extra clothing, &c. Mr. Macqueen had one Scotchman, who, under this system, actually sheared 101 sheep in the day, being allowed at the rate of 2_s._ 6_d._ per score upon all above 25, which is the quant.i.ty fixed by the government rule for a man to do in a single day. And in the same establishment, acting upon like inducements, might be seen sawyers and fencers working by moonlight; and others making tin vessels for utensils, bows for bullocks, &c., in their huts at night.

From this method of management a very great degree of comfort arises, of which Mr. Macqueen gives the following instance in a convict's feast, which he once witnessed. At Christmas, 1837, one of his a.s.signed servants, (who had a narrow escape from capital conviction at home,) requested leave to draw the amount of some extra labour from the stores, since he wished to give an entertainment to a few of his colleagues, all of whom were named and were well conducted men. The party making this application had been industrious and well-behaved, being besides very cleanly in his hut, and attentive to his garden and poultry, so the request was granted, and his master had the curiosity to observe the style of the festival. The supper consisted of good soup, a dish of fine mullet out of the adjoining river, two large fowls, a piece of bacon, roast beef, a couple of wild ducks and a plum-pudding, accompanied by cauliflower, French beans, and various productions of his garden, together with the delicious water-melon of the country; they had a reasonable quant.i.ty of Cape wine with their meal, and closed their evening with punch and smoking.[192]

[192] See a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Australia as she is and as she may be,"

by T. Potter Macqueen, Esq., published by Cross, Holborn, pp. 12-14.

But the picture of the peculiar cla.s.s by which a penal colony is distinguished from all others will not be complete without a darker shade of colouring than those upon which we have been gazing. It is a painful feeling to contemplate the past condition of one portion of the convict population, but it is a wholesome exercise of the mind, and has already produced an improvement in that wretched state. Besides, it surely is only fitting that a great, a free, and enlightened nation should know what is the ultimate fate of a part of its outcast population; nor need Englishmen shrink from hearing the _history_, whilst England herself shrinks not from inflicting the _reality_ of those horrors which have defiled the beautiful sh.o.r.es of Norfolk Island.[193] In 1834 Judge Burton visited this spot, the penal settlement of a penal settlement, for the purpose of trying 130 prisoners, who had very nearly succeeded in overpowering and murdering the military, after which they intended to make their escape. Eight years before this time, Norfolk Island had been first made a penal settlement; and never during all that period had its wretched inhabitants received any such reproof, consolation, or instruction as the Church gives to its members. The picture presented before the mind of the judge was an appalling one, and he can speak of Norfolk Island only in general terms, as being "a cage full of unclean birds, full of crimes against G.o.d and man, murders and blasphemies, and all uncleanness." We know well what bad men are in England. Take some of the worst of these, let them be sent to New South Wales, and then let some of the very worst of these worst men be again removed to another spot, where they may herd together, and where there are no pains taken about their moral or religious improvement, where, literally speaking, no man careth for their souls:--such was Norfolk Island. And what right had England to cast these souls, as it were, beyond the reach of salvation?

Where was the vaunted christian feeling of our proud nation when she delivered these poor creatures over to the hands of Satan, in the hope that her worldly peace, and comfort, and property might be no longer disturbed by their crimes? Had she ordered her fleet to put these men ash.o.r.e on some desolate island to starve and to die, the whole world would have rung with her cruelty. But now, when it is merely their souls that are left to starve, when it is only the means of eternal life that they are defrauded of, how few notice it, nay, how few have ever heard of the sin in which the whole nation is thus involved!

[193] It is right to state here that the cause of a supply of religious instruction having been so long delayed in Norfolk Island is said, by a Roman Catholic writer, to have been the impossibility of finding a clergyman to undertake the charge. See Ullathorne's Reply to Burton, pp. 39, 40. Supposing this account to be correct then, undoubtedly, the English Church must share the blame of neglecting Norfolk Island along with the government, and it is not the wish of the writer of these pages to deny the applicability of the prophet's confession to ourselves: "O G.o.d, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee." (Dan. ix. 8.) Still, even according to Dr. Ullathorne, the penal settlement was established six years before its religious instruction was thought of by the government.

One of the prisoners tried in 1834 was a man of singular ability and great presence of mind, and by him Norfolk Island was represented to be a "h.e.l.l upon earth;" and so it was as far as the company of evil spirits glorying in evil deeds could make it. "Let a man's heart," he added, "be what it will, when he comes here, his man's heart is taken from him, and there is given to him the heart of a beast." Another said, "It was no mercy to send us to this place; I do not ask life, I do not want to be spared, on condition of remaining here; life is not worth having on such terms." Another unhappy being was sentenced to die, and began pa.s.sionately to exclaim and entreat that he might not die without confession. "Oh, your honour," he said, "as you hope to be saved yourself, do not let me die without seeing my priest. I have been a very wicked man indeed, I have committed many other crimes for which I ought to die, but do not send me out of the world without seeing my priest!"

This poor man was a Roman Catholic; he seems not to have known that he might go at once to his Heavenly Father with a heartfelt acknowledgment of his faults, and so he obtained a rude figure of the cross, and in miserable agony p.r.o.nounced before that, as he embraced it, his brief exclamations for mercy. Others mentioned in moving terms the hopelessness of their lot, and another of them spoke also of what rendered the state they were in one of utter despair; and the statement which he made was perfectly true: he said, addressing the judge, "What is done, your honour, to make us better? once a week we are drawn up in the square opposite the military barrack, and the military are drawn up in front of us with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, and a young officer then comes to the fence, and reads part of the prayers, and that takes, may be, about a quarter of an hour, and _that is all the religion that we see_."[194]

[194] Burton on Education and Religion in New South Wales, p. 260.

Urged by appeals like these, which no heart could well resist, Judge Burton reprieved the convicted prisoners, until the whole case should be laid before the government, and at least religious consolation and a.s.sistance might be obtained for those who were to suffer capital punishment. Eleven of the prisoners were afterwards executed, but not without having been visited by ministers of religion, who were sent for that express purpose from Sydney. The kind and christian judge exerted himself in behalf of the outcast population of Norfolk Island, "that modern Gomorrah," as it has been called; and, as usual, improvement in bodily comforts or morals was much more willingly undertaken by those in authority than spiritual reformation. His advice respecting the propriety of diminishing the number of prisoners confined together was speedily attended to. His efforts to procure religious reproof, instruction, and consolation were not so soon successful; they were, however, n.o.bly continued, and at length both Protestant and Roman Catholic chaplains were appointed to the island. But this great object was not gained without _giving offence_. Strange that any party could take offence at efforts of this description, and stranger still that men professing a general regard for religion, and avowedly possessed of consciences exquisitely tender, and of charity unbounded, should, notwithstanding, object to the conscientious and charitable efforts in the cause of religion of which we have just been speaking! However, these impotent struggles have signally failed, and now there are clergy both of the English and Roman Church in Norfolk Island, while the moral condition of the prisoners there is stated to have improved greatly. In 1837 the Rev. Mr. Sharpe was removed thither, at his own request, from Pitt Town in New South Wales, and his labours and ministrations are said to have been useful and effectual. But even here, in this effort to save some of Christ's lost sheep, the unhappy circ.u.mstances of our penal colonies were manifested. When Mr. Sharpe was removed to Norfolk Island, a larger and more important sphere of usefulness, his little parish on the Hawkesbury, was for a time left without a pastor. And this distressing trial is frequently occurring; when illness, or death, or removal, deprives a parish of its spiritual shepherd, for a time at least his place is liable to be left vacant, and his people likely to become as sheep going astray. It appears likewise, from the Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, that an a.s.sistant-chaplain for Norfolk Island was appointed in 1841. There have been two clergymen of the Church of Rome in the island ever since 1838, an arrangement which was alleged to be necessary, in order that the chaplain himself might not be deprived of private confession and absolution.[195] There was no church in the island a few years ago, but a room in one settlement and a barn in the other were the places where divine service was regularly attended. Besides the Morning and Evening Prayers on Sunday, divine service takes place five times during the week, twice in the gaol, twice in the hospital, and once a week for those men who are exempt from work, their sentences having expired.

There may, as has been stated, be much hypocrisy in Norfolk Island,[196] but surely the spirit which was offended at efforts that have wrought even these changes in a spot of extreme moral and religious desolation, may, without breach of charity, be p.r.o.nounced to have been an unclean and evil spirit. Can this language be justly deemed too strong, when the facts already stated are borne in mind; when, (to sum up the whole case in a single example,) it is remembered that in one year, 1838, the colonial government of New South Wales paid 57,740_l._ 11_s._ 3_d._ for its police establishment and gaols, while the very utmost that was spent in providing religious instruction for _all the prisoners_ within the limits of the colony amounted, during the same period, to less than 1000_l._?[197]

[195] The reason given by the Roman Catholic, Dr. Ullathorne, is that the two priests divide the salary, and receive together no more than the one chaplain.--ULLATHORNE'S _Reply to Burton_, p. 76. The reader must bear in mind the different scale of expenses required by a person who _must_ be single, and that of a person who may be, and generally is, a married man.

[196] See Committee on Transportation, 1838, pp. 137, 138.

[197] See Burton on Education and Religion in New South Wales, pp. 287-289. The actual sum there stated is either 725_l._ or 855_l._, according as certain expenses connected with the establishment are included or not.

It is stated on good authority,--that of Sir George Arthur, who was formerly governor of Van Diemen's Land,--that not more than _two_ convicts in every _hundred_ quit the colony and return to England.[198]

The expense and difficulty of procuring a pa.s.sage home operates as a sufficient check to prevent this being frequently obtained; nor, supposing that the English people would act in a kind and christian spirit towards the most deserving men of this cla.s.s, would either they or the nation be losers. If the wives and families of the most meritorious men could be brought out to them at the public cost, what reasonable cause of regret would an emanc.i.p.ated convict feel for his home,--the scene of his crimes and of his disgrace,--in the mother country? And with respect to the great objection,--the _cost_ of such a system,--what would that be compared with the advantage which the rapid increase of an English population in Australia is sure to bring, by creating fresh demands for our goods and manufactures? If ours were a wise and understanding nation, if we would spend a portion of our riches in promoting the morals, the comfort, and the religious instruction of our outcast population, we might, in numberless instances, turn the very dregs of our people into means of increasing our prosperity; we might frequently render those that are now the mere refuse of the earth, happy, contented, loyal subjects; and the blessings of them that were ready to perish spiritually would be continually resounding from the far distant sh.o.r.es of Australia upon that Divine Mercy which would have all men to be saved, and upon that nation which would thus have offered itself to be a willing agent and instrument for the furtherance of this gracious design.

[198] "I think the longer the sentence, the better will be the conduct of the individual," because his only chance of obtaining any degree of liberty is from good conduct. See Evidence of J. MacArthur, Esq., before the Committee on Transportation in 1837. No. 3350-3, p. 218.

Dr. Ullathorne expresses a contrary opinion.

In the present condition of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, with so large a proportion of their population in bondage, and such slender means of moral improvement and religious instruction provided for them by the mother country, it would be unreasonable to hope that the convict population can be otherwise than very bad. There may be many exceptions; and at the end of all things here below, it may be found that some of those poor outcasts, and some of the men who have cast them forth to perish, and now despise them, may fill, respectively, the places of the Publican and Pharisee in our Lord's parable; the convict may leave the throne of judgment justified rather than his master; the poor repentant criminal may be pardoned, while the proud one,--the self-sufficiency of the nation, by which he was transported, and left without further care,--may be condemned. Still, however, the general character of the convicts is undoubtedly bad; and the various modes of deceit and dishonesty practised upon their masters, the love of gambling, of strong liquors, and of every kind of licentiousness prevailing in the penal colonies, would fill a volume of equal size and interest with that which is said to be a favourite book in New South Wales,--the Newgate Calendar. Those that are curious upon these subjects may be referred to the thick volume in blue cover, which contains an account of the labours of the Committee upon Transportation, 1837; but when the evidence therein contained is read, it must be with some grains of allowance; the avowed object of Sir W. Molesworth's motion for the committee, was enmity against the whole system of transportation; and a large majority of those that sat in the committee were, it is believed, of his opinion; at all events, they belonged to his party in politics. So that, before justice can be done to the real state of the convicts, we want to have evidence of an opposite tendency, like that of Mr. Potter Macqueen, already quoted; and before the question, whether transportation is a desirable mode of punishing, or a likely means of reforming criminals, can be fairly decided, inquiry must be made, not respecting what _has been done_, but respecting what _might have been done_, or _may even yet be done_, in our penal colonies.

Before the subject of the convict population is dismissed, it may be well to notice those called _specials_; that is, men of education, and of a somewhat higher rank in life than the generality of exiles in New South Wales. These were formerly treated with great consideration; for, after having pa.s.sed a short period of probation, they were employed as clerks to auctioneers or attornies; nay, the instruction of youth was too often, in default of better teachers, committed into their hands.

Nor was this all. In former times, persons of this description have been very much connected with the public press; and the enlightened people of New South Wales have sometimes, it may be feared, been blindly led by an unprincipled convict, when they imagined that they were wisely judging for themselves. The reformation of these _specials_ is said to be more hopeless than that of other prisoners; and very commonly they are confirmed drunkards. Strange materials these from which to form instructors for youth, trustworthy agents of private property, or leaders of public opinion! However, by the progress of emigration, the influence of these men is now superseded; besides which, they have been gradually removed from the government offices, and those that now arrive are employed in hard labour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONVEYING CATTLE OVER THE MURRAY, NEAR LAKE ALEXANDRIA.]

CHAPTER XIII.

EMANCIPISTS AND FREE POPULATION.

Respecting the next cla.s.s of which the population consists in our penal colonies,--that of emancipists, or persons formerly in bondage as convicts, they appear to be pretty nearly what might be expected of a body of men under such circ.u.mstances. Although there are many honourable exceptions to the general rule, yet it would seem to be a general rule that roguery and industry are usually connected among them; and that where an emancipist is less inclined to be dishonest, he is more inclined to be idle and improvident; while it often occurs that both faults are found together in one person. Of course, it would be vain to hope that _all_ convicts, or even the majority, perhaps, should become completely reformed; but it is sickening to the heart that has any christian feeling, to find descriptions like the following, given by one amply qualified to judge, of the deplorable moral and social state of many of those unhappy men after their time of service has expired. "The newly-arrived convict" (Mr. MacArthur states) "sees examples immediately before him of men, formerly in the same condition with himself, wallowing in licentiousness, and possessed of wealth, ama.s.sed generally by dishonest means, which they continue, in many instances, still to augment, by keeping grog-shops and gambling-houses, by receiving stolen goods, and by other nefarious practices. This is the general conduct of the cla.s.s of emanc.i.p.ated convicts who acquire property, as well as of some unprincipled adventurers in the cla.s.s of free emigrants. There are, however, among the emanc.i.p.ated convicts of property exceptions from this prevalent depravity; rare, indeed, and on that account the more honourable."[199] And numberless, in the earlier history of New South Wales, are the evil consequences which are recorded to have arisen from the necessity which then existed of employing either convicts, or else men recently emanc.i.p.ated, in places of the highest trust and importance.

One striking example may suffice; and it is believed that no injustice is done to the cla.s.s of men now alluded to, when it is stated that the guilty parties were persons belonging to that body. Soon after the departure of Governor Hunter, in 1800, it was discovered that the clerks who were admitted to the registers of the terms of the transportation of the convicts, had altered the sentences of nearly 200 prisoners, on receiving from each a sum equal in value to ten or twelve pounds.[200]

Of these examples the early history of the colony is full; but, in later years, it may be hoped, that time, and public opinion, and the tide of emigration, have combined to render the conduct of persons belonging to this cla.s.s less generally objectionable than it formerly was. The greater portion of the shop-keepers, and what may be called the middling cla.s.ses in Sydney, were emancipists; and their wealth and influence were so great, that, during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836, one-fourth of the jurors who served in the civil and criminal courts belonged to that body. These persons are often very little educated; and young men possessed of from 1000_l._ to 2000_l._ a-year in stock, can sometimes neither read nor write. c.o.c.k-fighting, driving, and badger-baiting, are pursuits that occupy youths of this cla.s.s very frequently; and a showy, tawdry style of dress, engages the attention of the young women.

Certainly, it is not of materials of this kind, that the English const.i.tution would have juries composed; and it is not surprising that so large a proportion of jurors, who have themselves once stood at the bar of justice, should be the means of carrying undue partiality for the guilty into the jurors' box, and also of keeping out of that responsible station all those who can in any way escape its duties.[201] Respectable men will not, if they can avoid it, sit in the same box with men who go in with their minds entirely made up to acquit the guilty, whatever may be the tenor of the evidence to which they have just been listening, whatever the sacredness of the oath they have recently taken. If practical experience is of any real value, then it may safely be p.r.o.nounced that men, who are scarcely fit to enjoy the privilege of sitting upon juries, are certainly at present unprepared for the introduction of a representative form of legislation and government.

The civil juries of New South Wales have held the scales of justice uncommonly even, for they have managed to acquit about 50 per cent. of the persons tried; whereas in Great Britain, and even in Ireland, the acquittals are 19 per cent., and the convictions 81 per cent. A strange, but not unaccountable difference, which, so long as it may continue, will furnish a strong argument of the unfitness of the colony for a representative a.s.sembly. Men that have not the principle to put good laws into execution, are very ill qualified to make good laws, or to elect good legislators. And when, to suit party purposes, a clamour is raised about the injustice of denying fresh "const.i.tutional rights"

to our fellow-subjects in Australia, we may quietly dispose of this (hitherto absurd and mischievous) claim by referring the very parties raising it to the accounts published, under the sanction chiefly of men of their own opinions, respecting the use made of those rights with which the inhabitants of the penal colonies are already invested. When the evils of the system of transportation are to be exposed, the truth may be told respecting the state of the Australian juries;[202] but why should it not be still declared,--why should not truth _always_ be told,--even at the hazard of checking "liberal principles," and delaying representative houses of a.s.sembly for the Australian colonies, until the time when they may know how to use them, so that these may prove a benefit instead of an evil to them?

[199] Evidence of J. MacArthur, Esq., before the Committee on Transportation, in 1837, No. 3371-2, p. 220. The richest man in the colony, an emancipist, was said, in 1837, to be worth 40,000_l._ or 45,000_l._ a year. For an account of the shameless roguery, and drunken folly, by means of which so vast an income was ama.s.sed, see Report of Transp. Com. 1837, p. 14 and 104.

[200] Barrington's History of New South Wales, p. 421.

[201] For the mode in which the law admitting emancipists into the jurors' box was pa.s.sed, see Lang's New South Wales, vol. i. p. 317-320.

"Two absent members of the Legislative Council were known to be opposed to it. Of those present, the governor (Bourke) and five others were in favour of it, while six were against it. The governor gave a second and casting vote."

[202] See Report of Transportation Committee, 1838, p. 31. "A large proportion of the persons who have appeared and served," as jurors, "are publicans," to whose houses prosecutors, parties on bail, or witnesses, resort, for the purpose of drinking, while in attendance upon the court. Once, when a jury was locked up all night, much foul and disgusting language was used; and to gain a release from this a.s.sociation, the disputed point was yielded; "no greater punishment can be inflicted upon a respectable person than to be shut up with such people for a few hours, or for the night."

See Burton's Letter, Appendix to Transportation Committee's Report, 1837, p. 301-2. Dr. Lang's book on New South Wales abounds in wretched puns, but one rather favourable specimen may be given, when, in allusion to the Englishman's right of being tried by his peers, the Doctor styles the jurors above described "_the Colonial Peerage!_"

Respecting the last and highest cla.s.s of society in our penal colonies, the _free population_, no great deal need be said in particular, since, except from peculiar circ.u.mstances, they are pretty much the same in character with the bulk of the population in any other country. But their peculiar circ.u.mstances must, in fairness to the cla.s.s last mentioned, be briefly noticed. Undoubtedly, without any disrespect to emigrants, it may be laid down as an acknowledged fact, that hitherto this cla.s.s, though it has comprised many excellent, clever, and good men, has not usually been composed of the flower of the English nation.

Supposing that things are now altered for the better, time was--and that not many years ago--when "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented," was apt to swell the tide of emigration to our British colonies in Australia. Upon arriving there they found a regular system of _caste_ established; and since as members of the _free_ population they were at once exalted to the highest places, this was a system which in most cases flattered the pride of the settlers. Possibly many of the faults of the emancipist cla.s.s might be traced to the treatment they have received at the hands of the free, and these faults react again as causes and excuses for keeping them at still greater distance than ever. And however natural, however necessary, a distinction of ranks is and must be in every society of men, yet nothing can be more unnatural or mischievous than a system of dividing men into _castes_. Unhappily, this division, the fruitful source of all kinds of evil feeling, has to a great extent prevailed in our penal colonies; and nothing, it may be boldly a.s.serted, except religion will ever root it out. Attempt to continue the exclusive privilege of _caste_ to the free population, and you sow the seeds of a servile rebellion. Open your hands to give concessions and privileges to the emancipists, and you scatter good seed upon the stony rock, you vainly endeavour to satisfy the daughters of the horse-leech. But infuse a christian feeling into all cla.s.ses, get them to meet in the same church, to kneel at the same table, to partake in the same spiritual blessings, and then you may hope that all, whether free or emancipists, will feel themselves to be members of one another, portions of the same body, held in union of heart and soul by means of the same head; "for by One Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into One Spirit."[203]

[203] 1 Cor. xii. 13.

After all that has been stated respecting the three great cla.s.ses into which society in Australia is divided, it need scarcely be added that the taste displayed by many of the inhabitants of the metropolis of New South Wales is none of the purest or best. Gay equipages, dashing horses, tandems, and racers, are among the favourite exhibitions of the wealth of the emancipist. For music or paintings but little taste prevails in Sydney, and for books, except those of a very low and worthless character, there is no great demand. A fine house, a fine carriage, fine horses, plenty of spirits to drink, appear to be thought the chief goods of human life; and among persons in every cla.s.s, the acquisition of money is the one great object. Indeed this last pa.s.sion, the love of gain, can scarcely be mentioned among the perverted habits by which the Australian colonies are infested, since it seems scarcely possible that the worship of Mammon can be practised more openly or carried much further than it is in the mother country. Yet the temptations to prefer gain to every thing else are unusually strong in these settlements. Professions have been abandoned because they are laborious and unprofitable, while clergymen, medical gentlemen, soldiers, government officers, in short, all cla.s.ses of men, have made haste to get rich by holding land and stock. An estate, which originally cost little or nothing, grows yearly in value, without a penny being spent upon it; stock speedily increases at very small cost, for there is abundance of pasture for it; and when the settler finds these means of gaining wealth opened to him, he is too apt to devote all his thoughts and energies to this one object. "I have known," says Captain Grey, "an honourable member of council, and leading magistrate in a colony, take out a retail licence, and add to his already vast wealth from the profits of a gin-shop."[204]

[204] Grey's Travels in Western Australia, vol. ii. pp. 192-3.

The evil spirit of covetousness a.s.sumes to itself various shapes and appearances according to varying circ.u.mstances; and among the characters which it calls into life in Australia, that of a _land shark_ is one of the most remarkable and hateful. When an emigrant arrives at Sydney, he is able, perhaps after considerable delay, to give notice to Government of his wish to purchase some desirable spot of land, which is then selected to be put up to auction; and when it has been duly surveyed, the sale at last takes place. But to the poor emigrant's astonishment and disappointment the land, which he has chosen so as not to interfere with other property, which is unoccupied, and entirely useless both in a public and private sense,--is bid for, and finally knocked down to another at an unreasonable price.[205] This other person is a "land shark," who has gained, perchance, a fortune by regularly attending sales and buying up land that is known to be desired by another. The "shark," true to his name, wishes either to get his opposition bought off by a bribe, or else hopes to sell his bargain at a profit from the unwillingness of his victim to lose any more time or money in gaining a settlement, with the risk of meeting, after all, with a second disappointment. In case of the "shark's" scheme proving unsuccessful, there is only the small trifle required as earnest of the purchase to be paid; of course he never completes the engagement, and in due time, in a year possibly, the land is declared forfeited to the crown again. Such is the occupation of a "land shark," and it would be well if these and similar pests of society were confined, like their namesakes of the ocean, to the more sultry lat.i.tudes, but unfortunately they are not altogether without their ant.i.types and imitators in Great Britain.

[205] The system of starting from a certain fixed sum per acre, named "the upset price," and selling land at whatever it will fetch beyond this, is established in most of the Australian colonies. The fund thus produced is spent in encouraging emigration and providing labourers.

There is another character, which, if not peculiar to Australia, is called into being only in those colonies where a large extent of land in its natural state remains unappropriated to any individuals. The _squatters_, as they are called, are men who occupy with their cattle, or their habitations, those spots on the confines of a colony or estate, which have not as yet become any person's private property. By the natural increase of their flocks and herds, many of these squatters have enriched themselves; and having been allowed to enjoy the advantages of as much pasture as they wanted in the bush, without paying any rent for it to the government, they have removed elsewhere when the spot was sold, and have not unfrequently gained enough to purchase that or some other property. Thus the loneliness, the privations, and the perils of a pastoral life in the bush, have often gained at length their recompense, and the squatter has been converted into a respectable settler. But this is too bright a picture to form an average specimen of the cla.s.s which we are describing. Unfortunately, many of these squatters have been persons originally of depraved and lawless habits, and they have made their residence at the very outskirts of civilization a means of carrying on all manner of mischief. Or sometimes they choose spots of waste land near a high road, where the drays halt to get water for the night, and there the squatters knock up what is called "a hut." In such places stolen goods are easily disposed of, spirits and tobacco are procured in return for these at "the sly grog shops," as they are called; and in short they combine the evils of a gypsy encampment and a lonely beer-shop in England, only from the scattered population, the absence of influential inhabitants, and the deplorably bad characters of the men keeping them, these spirit shops are worse places than would be tolerated in this country. It is stated that almost all the men by whom these resorts of iniquity are kept, are either ticket-of-leave men or emancipists. It is no easy thing to suppress these people, for the squatters, like the black natives, can find a home wherever they betake themselves. And it must be owned, that considerable good has resulted in many instances from these forerunners of civilization having penetrated into a district, and learned some of its peculiarities and capabilities before a settlement in it has been regularly formed. Indeed, it would have been unjust to have been severe with the poor squatter, and his two or three sheep and cattle, when it had long been the practice of the most wealthy landowners in the colony, to send their stock-man with their hundreds of heads of cattle into the bush, to find support exactly in the same way, and without paying anything to government. The rich proprietors have a great aversion to the cla.s.s of squatters, and not unreasonably, yet they are thus, many of them, squatters themselves, only on a much larger scale; nor are they more inclined, in many instances, to pay rent for their privileges than their more humble brethren. It would appear to be the fairest and best way of dealing with these various descriptions of squatters, to endeavour to cut up, root and branch, the "sly grog shops," and road-side gentry, while the owner of one sheep, or he that possesses 10,000, should be equally compelled to pay a trifle to government, in proportion to the number of his stock grazing in the bush, and should likewise have his location registered.

Some regulations of this kind are, it is believed, proposed, if they have not by this time been brought into operation; and thus we may hope, that whatever benefits the system of _squatting_ may have produced, either as an outlet for restless spirits, or as a means of extending colonization, may still be retained, while the numerous evils that have sprung up along with it may be checked or got rid of. Respecting one thing connected with this subject,--the religious knowledge and spiritual condition of these inhabitants of the wilderness and their children, the christian inquirer cannot but feel anxious. The result of christian anxiety upon this matter cannot be better stated than in the words of one deeply interested about it, and well qualified to weigh the subject with all its bearings. After expressing his thanks to that Divine Providence, which had enabled him, quite alone, to travel through many miles of country almost without cultivation or visible dwellings, the Bishop of Australia finishes his account of his visitation westward, in the year 1841, with the following reflections:--"It would be impossible for any one, without personal observation, to comprehend from mere description what a field for future labour is now opening in these as yet uncultivated, unpeopled tracts which I am continually traversing.

But the time is not far distant when many portions of them will be thronged with mult.i.tudes; and in what manner those mult.i.tudes are to be provided with means of instruction sufficient to retain them in the christian faith, I am not able to foresee; as yet, no such provision is made or promised. But when, in pa.s.sing through these scenes, reflections such as these have crowded upon me, and I am unable to return a satisfactory answer to the question, 'How shall this be accomplished?'

I can find no better resource than to silence myself with '_Deus providebit_;'[206] my trust shall be in the tender mercy of G.o.d for ever and ever."