The Sun.
London, England, 1832-09-19 00:00:00

AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE-NEW HOL-

LAND.

We have received a file of New South Wales
papers, from the beginning of the present year to
the sth of May last. They contain no news of
ally great event, otherwise it would probably have
been unnecessary to allude to the journals of
four months when a single paper would have an-
swered the purpose ; but they are far from being
destitute of interest. Their importance, how-
ever, is not of a kind to produce an immediate
excitement, and therefore has been forgotten
amid the discussion of domestic events of a more
trifling nature. Though the greatest colonial
nation that ever existed, there are probably few
nations that take a less interest generally in colo-
nial affairs than ourselves. If an insurrection
takes place among the slaves in the West Indies,
or a mutiny is threatened among the troops in
Hindostan, we are universally alive to a state of
things which threatens our power in those dis-
tant quarters, and which eventually must affect
the fortunes of so many of our fellow-subjects at
home: but unless some extraordinary event of
this kind occurs, the notice of an arrival of a
packet and letters is all that we hear about our
colonies. They are rarely made the subject of
discussion in our daily newspapers or other peri-
odical publications, and many persons are better
acquainted with the colonial establishments of
Athens or Rome, than with those of Great
Britain. Canada may have free institutions, or
may be enslaved, without commanding our atten-
tion ; the Cape of Good Hope is never heard
of, except when some Lord Charles Somerset
excites against him some organ of the colonial
press ; and Botany Bay is nearly as much ba-
nished as the convicts with which it is so abun-
dantly supplied.
The file of papers from this last colony to
which we have alluded gives us some informa-
tion which is new, and reminds us of many facts
which ought to interest every person accustomed
to attend to the progress of civilization, or to an-
ticipate the extension of British laws, British
power, and the British language, over a great
portion of the earth. The people of New South
Wales,execute
of the public lands in the colony,
thoughwhich,
have
ourn o antipodes, are our country-
men, and therefore their distance, or their situa-
tion on the other side of the globe, ought not to
part them from our sympathies. We find among
them an imitation of all our institutions, as well as
our form of government, and our code of laws.
We find among them the establishment ofassurance
societies, of banks, and of theatres. We find
among them the establishment of a legislative
council, whose proceedings are now allowed to
be published. We find among them an ex-
pensive church establishment, which Reform is
beginning to reach. We find among them news-
papers, as well conducted as any of our provin-
cial journals. We find among them a new go-
vernor, NtVell o
a public Ssoleibit oii eh that
f nlna
nshtder
instructions so
is ereemseppe g
new
h
employed
cf
disposal
att vigilantelwe
doubt, will arrest much offi-
cial corruption, and produce extensive colonial
benefit.

But the new institution in which we have felt
most deeply interested is the establishment of the
" Australian College," or literary institution for
the higher branchs of education in Sydney,
founded at the commencement of the present
year. Though the building has only been be-
gun, already some of the professors have com-
menced a course of lectures at rooms provided
for them. When we consider the situation of
this distant colony some twenty or thirty years

" Nunc totus Graia., nostrasque h.bet orhis Athena%
De eondueendo loquitur jam rhetore Thule."
In these papers we see the plan of this " Aus-
tralian College,"—the objects which it purposes
to effect,—the means provided for its execution,
And the opposition which it has already encoun-
tered, or is likely to be obliged to struggle with,
at its origin. In the first instance, the College
comprises four departments-1. That of Eng-
lish, and English literature. 2. A mercantile
departtnent, for arithmetic, book-keeping, and
branches connected with business. 3. A clas-
,ical department, for the Latin and Greek lan-
guages and; literature. 4. A mathematical and
ihysical department, comprehending matheina-
•ics in all their branches and natural philosophy.
Each of these departments is to have at first only
one professor, but the professors may be in-
creased, or the departments extended, according
to circumstances. The prelections which have
already commenced are those of the last depart-
ment,. the College having obtained a consider-
Able apparatus for illustrating the truths of the
physical sciences.
The Colonial-office at home has lent a judi-
cious encouragement to this laudable undertak-
ing, by ordering 3,5001. to be advanced from
the Colonial Treasury of New South Wales,
is a loan towards the building of the College, on
condition that a similar amount of 3,500/„
supposed necessary to complete it, shall be ad-
,Tanced by the colonists themselves. This latter sum
has been raised by shares, among a body of pro-
prietors who seem to have taken the regulations
if the London University, or of the King's
College, as their model. No doubt seems to be
entertained of the success of the enterprise,
unless the Government at home yield to the
Anti-education party in the colony, and withdraw
the promised loan, or throw some other obstruc-
',ions in the way of the completion of the under-
taking.

Those in this country who are best ac-
quainted with the spirit which animates the Co-
lonial-office, will not believe such a change or
such an inconsistency possible, but in New
South Wales the confidence of the public is not
equally firm, when they know the opposition
which the scheme has there already encoun-
tered. The Archdeacon, Mr. Broughton, and
his clergy, for whom a seventh part of the lands
of the colony have hitherto been set aside to
support religious and scholastic instructors, have
hitherto done nothing towards the establishment
of any academical or scholastic institution. They
have even drawn from the colonial Treasury the
immense sum of 18,0001. a year in salaries,
besides the allotments of land in the hands of
the corporation for their benefit. They therefore
felt angry that any thing should be done by
others which seemed to reflect upon their own
inactivity—and their indignation was raised to
:.he highest pitch when they learned that a Pres-
byterian clergyman, of the name of Dr. Lang,
had proceeded from the colony to England, had
waited upon the Colonial Minister, and had
obtained the grant above mentioned, to aid in
establishing a college, which was not to be en-
tirely, like King's College in London, under
church of. England management. Poor Dr.
Lang, it would appear from these papers and
from private letters, has been persecuted and
opposed by these parties ever since his return
with his college library—his college philoso-
phical apparatus—his intended professors—
and his order for a loan on the colonial Trea-
sury. He. has been sent to Coventry, and the
new institution has been decried by the same
class of persons who resist education in this
country. They have even carried their spite or
animosity so far, as to get the following vote of
censure passed upon him by the Colonial Le-
gislative Council:—
" That his Excellency the Governor be requested to
•ommunicate to the Right Hon. the Secretary of Stat,,
the opinion 'of this Council, that the charges against the
Protestant Episcopal Clergy of the Colony, contained in
the letter addressed by D. Lang to Lord Viscount Gode.
rich, were unfounded and unwarrantable ; and that the
publication of the same was a highly improper and cen-
4urable act."

Nobody can mistake the purport of this resolu-
tion, and Lord Goderich would be the most
imbecile of 'mortals if he paid it the least attention.
Its object is to place the new institution under a
stigma, by censuring something which its foun-
der had said about the abuse of those allotments
of land in the colony which ought to have been
devoted to the support of scholastic as well as re-
ligious instruction. That such representations
were not useless is evident from the Order in
Council not to continue such allotments in the
new division of the territory, and thence pro-
bably a source of dissatisfaction against Lang
even greater than that arising from his forestal-
ment of the honour of founding the first college
in New Holland.—Times.

It was laid down as a law last week, in a trial
for bigamy at the Old Bailey, that the accused being mar-
ried to his first wife in a false name made that marriage
Invalid and established the second. This seems contrary
to two hitherto admitted principles—the one, that no man
can take advantage of his own wrong; the other, that
there is no wrong without a remedy.
A SET-OFF.—A few days ago, while a Tory
Baronet and his man Yosxz were on a canvassing excur-
.ion through a certain county, they were overtaken by a
thunder plump, at some distance from shelter, and
were speedily " drooket to the skin." Having reached
he farm-house of a worthy elector, the wo-begone wights
•hook their dripping haffets at the door, and were wel-
comedhboel ianngd Ingle,
proceeded to
toast theyt h
ediorffteodest he
tand
gib el: their nrtdoitiffened joints before the igneous element.
Hu:PcvPkilnieng thawed a little, as the snake did in the husband-
man's bosom, our visiters began to show some signs of life,
ind requested dry stockings from the farmer's wife, which
were brought to them. At length the Baronet found
'ireath to tell the object of his visit, and concluded by soli-
•:iting the farmer's vote and interest at the approaching elec-
'ion. While - the elector seemed cogitating within himself
what answer be should give, he overheard the Baronet whis-
pering to his companion "he's a old Whig that !" He un-
nediately replied, that be would not give the vote to any
,tandidate in the Tory interest. The Baronet and his
•riend looked blue at this reply, and were proceeding to
draw on the farmer's dry stockings, with the intention of
teparting to search for other game. " Stop, stop, gen-
tlemen," said the farmer, " ye may gee andgetstockings
•rae a old Tory P—ye're get nane o' mine." Toe
,tandidate and his man were not a little disconcerted by
,his hint that their " aside" remarks had been overheard,
and proceeded hurriedly to draw on their own stocking,,
wet as they were. " Nor shall ye sit in my house to put
on these either," continued the inexorable fat tiler; " and
if you stay a minute !anger under my roof, I shall call in
j'here was
"and nowaepre-
ptleteal mreinheanldlotnhorausrlaibylee.tco
atchideiddaotoer.
marched beyond the outhouses, barefoot and barelegged,
inwardly swea, ing by their soles that they would never
again call any respectable Reformer ‘• a --- old Whit."
.-.Scotsman.