New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-09-06
An EMBARRASSING CELEBRATIONS.

An EMBARRASSING CELEBRATION.
Arrangements are being made to celebrate
the centenary of New South Wales in 1883.
The colony has much to be proud OF, no doubt.
Its progress during tho last half-century has
been quite phenomenal, and it has had to sur
mount difficulties from which few other
countries have suffered to anything like the
| same extent. But when New South Wales
| comes to celebrate its centenary it will. we
| fear, find that the inevitable process of review
| involved is calculated to revive all manner of
"reminiscences which for obvious reasons must
promote unpleasantness. For when the colony
was founded in 1888 it was simply penal
station. The inhabitants were at first all
people who had left their country for their
country's good. For nearly fifty years subse
queutly the place was used as a dumping
| ground foi Englands criminals, and though a
large proportion of the founders reformed in
the new world and got land and prospered, or
| became rich through commerce, the contests
which were common for at least two generations
between the free colonists and the "eman-
cipists engendered and kept alive animosties
which have even now not wholly ceased
| 1t Is said that o.day many OF the prominent
| people of New South Wales are the direct
descendants of convicts, and probably the
statement is true. While these people are
entitled to credit for having redeemed their
families. il is not to be believed that they
spoint with pride" to their ancestry, or that
they can find any pleasure in the prospect of
celebration which must in the nature of things
involve a thorough overhauling of the past
and raking up of stories about the shady
beginnings of the colony. 1t is indeed possible
that the peculiar conditions obtaining in New
South Wales for so long period may have
evolved special adj ustments. When there
were so many people possessing a common
interest in buryng their past, for instance, all
illusions to ones forefathers might be
expected to be suppressed in the social circles of
the colony, or ut least in those where the
"enmncIpists" held sway. The free colonsts,
no we,er. would be unlikely to neglect 50 easy
way of annoying and humiatiuk their less
fortunately descended neghbors, and so feuds
and bltternesses would be kept up.
The old proverb says that a rope should
never be mentioned In the family of a man
who was hanged, but it would be difficult to
keep to that policy in New South Wales, since
it would be scarcely possible to mention in
general society any kind of crime the reference
to which might not seem to have special
application, and so hurt somebody's feelings.
Fifty years having elapsed since transportation
to the colony was abolished, aud large free
element having entered during that period, it
is probable that the "emancpist" families
have now pretty nearly outlived the mortiiica-
tons nseparable from their original position.
A centenary celebration, however. threatens
to break down the barrier of popular forget
fl l1ess and to freshen all the most disagreeable
and embarrassing memories of the past and in
the circumstances should think the part of
wisdom would DO rather to forego an Oppor-
tunity for Qualification than recall too
prominently the fact that SO many families
which are now the pillars Of the colony had