The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-15 00:00:00

The no-discipline of English prisons was faithfully
copied at the Antipodes. The criminals herded to-
gether, and made each other worse. Their gaolers
tried to prevent them from escaping, and some-
times knocked a refractory subject on the head.
Tae so called colony became a hell upon earth. It
cost England an immense sum of money every
year. Bet then the convicts were got out of the
way, and men were not sJ often shocked by hang-
ing matches.
It so happened that among the .officers of the
corps of regimented gaolers at Sydney, there were
one or two cannie Scots. Partly to dispel ennui,
and partly to make money, they imported a few
sheep and rams, and commenced farming. They
engaged to relieve the Governor of the charge of a
certain number of convicts provided he would ob-
tain for them grants of land, and allow them to
employ the men without paying wages. They laid
claim to sundry other privileges, of which the most
important was a monopoly of the rum imported
into the colony. This rum became the currency
with which they paid their way. Most of them.
made fortunes by the sale of their farm produce.
hence arose in time a New South Wales aristoc-
racy, a free commonalty, composed of convicts
whose term of punishment had expired, and a num-
ber of white slaves. Free adventurers from the
mother country began to drop in, hoping to parti-
cipate in the prosperity of the military aristocracy,
and by means of patrons at the Colonial-office ob-
tained grants of land and white slaves. Now began.
a stormy era. The rum-monopoly aristocracy
rose in rebellion against one Governor who would
not obey them, and deposed him. His successors
trimmed and veered between the rum aristocracy
and the expirees, and the convicts, who made com-
mon cause with the latter. One Governor laid
down the law that the colony was founded for the
convicts, and that free immigrants had no business
there. His Excellency introduced a compendious
classification of the inhabitants into convicted
and unconvicted felons. Political asperities were
now combined with the most demoralising social
influences. There were scarcely any women in
the colony. The men were, for the most part,
brutal tyrants or felon slaves. In 1832 the
population had increased to 46,000, but in the
forty-fourth year of the colony's existence it had
not become self-supporting. A Pandemonium in
itself, it was threatening to convert all the islands
of the South Sea into refuges for buccaneers. In
almost every island of the Pacific were to be found
one or two escaped convicts, imparting to the na-
tives the vices without the virtues of civilised
society.
From the English Government there was no
help. The convicts had been got out of sight, and
the " respectability" of England felt comfortable.
A knot of benevolent one-idea e I enthusiasts, whose
whole souls were engrossed with the abolition of
the slave trade and negro slavery in the British.
possessions, had made a lodgment in the Colonial-
office. Their contests with the West Indian plan-
ters inspired them with an aversion for all colo-
nists. Their sole aim seemed to be the establish-
ment of a mother•country despotism in the old
colonies, and the prevention of the settlement of
new.
But there is a vis medicatrix in the healthy con-
stitution of English Society. The increase of free
immigrants, and the horrors of an exclusively penal
settlement, had brought into life a party in New
South Wales which demanded the abolition of con-
vict transportation to that colony. About the
same time the idea that emigration was a panacea
for the evils of a redundant labouring population in.
the old country had taken possession of the minds
of some intelligent leaders of public opinion in
England. From these two sources came motions in
Parliament for committees of inquiry into the
Transportation system, and associations to promote
systematic colonisation out of doors. We have
not time at present to enter into the details of
the agitation of these subjects which pervaded the
country and the Australian colonies from 1836 till
the commencement of the late war. But its fruits
appear in the news brought from Australia by the
Royal Charter, and published in our yesterday's
impression. In Australia there are now some half-
a-million of white settlers. There are six orga-
nised colonies (including New Zealand), with the
prospect of a seventh being soon added at Moreton
Bay. None of these are penal settlements except
VanDiemen'sLand and Western Australia. One-half
of the wool annually imported into Great Britain
comes from our Australian colonies. Melbourne alone
exports annually a hundred tons of gold to Eng-
land. Australia produces grain and cattle more
than sufficient for its own consumption. A rising
sea-borne traffic is carried on from the colonies to
India, China, and the islands of the South Sea.
Australia has its colleges, its schools, its infant,
manufactories, its museums, collections of paint-
ings, and theatres. Above all, it has got respons-
ible parliamentary government. Some relics of
the original taint of the convict settlement may
still be detected, but with every year they are be-
coming less. Something of the lawless spirit of the
pioneers of the desert at time breaks out, but it is
as nothing to what has been witnessed in Califor-
nia. With the same indomitable spirit of enter-
prise that characterises the North American ad-
venturers in now lands, the Australians combine
much of the respect for law and order that charac-
terised the original settlers of New England.
Our aged friend who saw the first batch of con-
victs set sail for " Botany Bay" will not survive to
see Australia a great empire. But he has lived
long enough to be favoured with a Pisgah glimpse
of that consummation. The time when Australia
will be severed from the parent state is yet distant,
but come it must ; and then there will be a third
great nation of English race to hold the balance
between England and the United States. To the
living men of England and Australia it is given to
decide, in a great measure, what shall be the cha-
racter of this third nation. The old country's part
in this great task is obvious : to leave to Australian
energy to develop© Australian resources and frame
Australian institutions, and to rest satisfied with
supplementary efforts to aid the struggles of their
brave countrymen at the Antipodes. What Aus-
tralia is it has become in spite of the thwarting and
cramping influence of successive English Govern-
ments. What Australia is yet to become must be
mainly the work of the Australians themselves, but
let us hope that they will themselves enjoy the
sympathising aid of the English Government, as
they have all along done of the English people.
And let us also keep in mind that the tentative
improvement in our penal la,,v—whe'i led to the
first settlement in Australia—has as yet made very
short and very slow progress.

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LADVER.Tis is m arr. 1 SMUT AND TIE A.li IND SPECTACLE.,
POWERFUL TELESCOPES, OPERA, RACE, AND PERSPECTI V K
Gss.sszs.—Messrs. S. and B. eolomons, opticians, 39, Aliso-
marle-street, Piccadilly.' Observe—opposite the York Hotel.
By tier Majesty's Royal Letters Patent for valuable and
extraordinary improvements in the most powerful awl
brilliant Telescopes, Camp, Racecourse, Opera, and Per.
spective Glasses, to know the distances. These telescopes
possess such extraordinary pokers that some three and a-half
inches, with an extra esa -piece, will show distinctly Jupiter's
moons, Saturn's ring, and the double stars. With the same 1
telescope can be seen a person's countenance three miles and a
half distant, and an object from 16 to 20 miles. They are of
larger andall sizes, with increasing powers accordingly.—Tie
Royal Exhibition, 1851. Valuable, newly-invented ,very small ,
powerful waistcoat-pocket glass, the size of a walnut, by which
a person can be seen and known 1i miles distant ; they answer
every purpose on the race-course, and at the opera houses,
country scenery, and ships are clearly seen at 8 to 10 miles.
They aro invaluable for shooting, deer-stalking, yachting, to
sportsmen, gentlemen, gamekeepers, and tourists. Opera,
nice-course, camp, and perspective glasses, with wonderfn
power. Newly-constructed Spectacle Lenses of the great-
est transparent power. The valuable advantage derived
from this invention is, that vision becoming impaired is
preserved and strengthened, and very aged persons are
enabled to employ their sight at the most minute occu-
pation- - can see with these lenses of a much less magnify
jug power—and they do not require the frequent change•
I td the dangerous effects of further powerful assistance
IPersons can be. suited at the most remote part of the world,
by sending one of the glasses out of their spectacles in a
letter, and stating the distance from the eyes they can read
small newspaper print with it; and those whcr have
not made use of spectacles by stating their age.—Deaf-
nessOrganic Vibrator,' an ex-
traordinary. New
powerful,pisee U. —The
small,nvfly-invented instrument fer
deafness, entirely different from all others, to surpass any-
Probably ever can be,
producedt h i thing of the.
Beingkind tohi.i.
the
hhase
same been enO
colour
ras the skin, is not per-
ceptible ; it enables deaf persons to hear distinctly at church
and at public assemblies ; the unpleasant sensation of singing
! noises in the ears is entirely removed • , and i *Cords all the
39
assistance that possibly could be desired.— , Albemarle-
street, Piocadilly. Observe.-oPPorsite the York Row.