The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-11 00:00:00

STATE OF SYDNEY,

A gentleman in Brighton has lately received a letter
from the above town, giving a melancholy description of
the state of the colony. The following extracts will be
read with interest :
" Sydney, January 15,1844.
"If you were to witness the alteration that has taken
place in the circumstances of the inhabitants of this
colony since the short time back of my arrival, you
would be thankful that you were yet in Old England ;
many, almost starving now, were then in affluence, and
would be glad to get home again, but hare not the means
of paying their passage, for they cannot get any em-
ployment here, as, in most of the warehouses and offices
still in existence, clerks, &c., are being reduced to the
lowest number, and the masters, instead of lolling in
their carriages and giving grand entertainments, are
at their own desks, and trotting upon a horse's back, or
on their own feet to their homes, divested of the
supernumerary domestics, who once behaved as if they
honoured their employers by condescending to eat, drink,
and waste what the house afforded. In consequence of the
number of insolvent estates, the tradespeople are afraid
to give credit ; they are all advertising goods at ruinously
low prices, but for cash, no more credit. I have bought
sundry articles lately, which I am certain I could not
have obtained in England for two or three times the
price. A large ironmonger's stock has been advertised
at one quarter of the cost price. I bought a handsome
penknife •with pearl and silver handle, fur one shilling ;
scissors I bought at the same reduction. A young gen-
tleman I know is going to work his passage as a com-
mon sailor, not being able to procure his living in any
way ; he is steady, a good penman, a clever architect
and surveyor, yet can get no employment ; his master
having become insolvent, he has lost both his home and
the salary due to him. Mr. All, receives numbers of
letters, requesting his recommendation to offices with
the smallest salary, sonic of the applicants having taken
degrees at the universities, but he has not, and not even
the judges, the power to help them. The income you
mention as still your own is perfect affluence, com-
pared with that of many who were born to
large expectations. Ido not pity some of our
gentry, who came hither to make much more ;'
they should have remained at home satisfied, and left
the•ground open to those who, with all their talent and
perseverance, could not provide for those dependent on
their exertions. The mischief has been that, when a
member of any profession has met with success here,
their friends at home have so published and exaggerated
their success, that numbers, expecting equal good' for-
tune, have inundated the colony, to their own disappoint-
ment and the injury of those already established. Doc-
tors, lawyers, and tutors surround you wherever you go;
many, I believe, wish they had been bred carpenters,
shoemakers, or some other trade that people cannot dis-
pense with. A gentleman told me he had received more
than fifty answers to an advertisement for a tutor at a
small salary, some of them from M.A.'s, and one from an
31.1), for 0,"—Brighton Herald.

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