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those economical causes which produce misery, want, and immorality, in old and densely peopled countries.

In order that the House may form a notion of the amount of crime in those colonies, I will first refer to the summary convictions in Van Diemen's Land in the year 1834. I select that year because there are materials in the despatches of Sir George Arthur from which a more accurate estimate can be formed of the convictions in that year than in any other. The House should bear in mind that the community of Van Diemen's Land was then a very small one. Its population in 1834 did not exceed 40,000, of whom 16,000 were convicts, 1,000 soldiers, and 23,000 free inhabitants; what proportion of the latter had been convicts it is impossible to say. In this small community the summary convictions amounted to about 15,000 in the year in question, amongst which there were about 2,000 for felony, 1,200 for misdemeanour, 700 for assaults, and 3,000 for drunkenness. Eleven thousand of these convictions were of convicts who are summarily punished for all offences to which the penalty of death is not attached. Some of their punishments were very severe, as about 260 convicts received extension of sentence, about 100 were condemned to the penal settlements, 1,000 to the chain gangs, 900 to the road parties, 900 to solitary confinement or the treadwheel, and 1,500 were flogged and received about 51,000 lashes. Amongst the 23,000 free inhabitants, the summary convictions were between 3,000 and 4,000. About 2,200 (that is, nearly one-tenth of the free population) were in one year fined for drunkenness;

200 were fined for assaults, and 800 for offences under colonial Acts. In New South Wales the summary convictions were nearly the same in proportion to population as in Van Diemen's Land.

In order to complete the account of the state of crime in these colonies, I must next refer to the criminal trials before the Supreme Court and quarter sessions. It should be remembered that convicts are not tried before these courts except for offences to which the punishment of death is attached. Therefore a great portion of the following convictions must have been of free persons. On the average of the seven years from 1829 to 1835, both inclusive, these convictions amounted every year to about one in a hundred of the whole population; an enormous proportion; as convictions in England are about one in a thousand, and in Scotland about one in thirteen hundred of the population. A large portion of these convictions were for offences of the greatest magnitude. This appears from the fact that, during the period of which I have spoken, whilst the average population of the penal colonies did not exceed 90,000, the annual number of convictions for murder and attempt at murder were about 34; for rape, seven; for highway robbery and bushranging, 66; for burglary, 50; for forgery, 13; for sheep and cattle stealing, 53; for larceny and receiving stolen goods, 367. The average number of sentences of death were 132 a year; of executions, 52; and of sentences of transportation, 369. Thus in seven years, in these communities, whose population did not exceed one-half of that of Westminster, 923 persons were condemned to

death, 362 executed, and 2,586 transported, without including the convicts who were summarily transported or had their sentences extended, and who probably amounted to twice as many more. And it may be stated, on the authority of Captain Maconochie, Mr. Justice Burton, and of the criminal returns, that crime has gradually increased in those colonies in a greater proportion than population.

In order to give the House a more accurate notion of the state of crime in the penal colonies than these figures will of themselves convey, I will read a short extract from the report of the Committee, in which they calculate what would be the amount of crime in this country if our criminal statistics were similar to those of the penal colonies. They state that in proportion to the respective population of the two countries, the number of convictions for highway robbery (including bushranging) in New South Wales exceeds the total number of convictions for all offences in England; that rapes, murders and attempts at murder are as common in the former as petty larcenies in the latter country. In short, in order to give an idea of the amount of crime in New South Wales, let it be supposed that the 17,000 offenders who were last year tried and convicted in this country for various offences before the several courts of assize and quarter sessions, had all of them been condemned for capital crimes; that 7,000 of them had been executed, and the remainder transported for life; that, in addition, 120,000 other offenders had been convicted of the minor offences of forgery, sheepstealing, and the like; then, in proportion to their

respective populations, the state of crime and punishment in England and her Australian colonies would have been precisely the same." In addition, it should be observed that the Committee have omitted entirely from these calculations any reference to the immense number of summary convictions (some of them for very grave offences), to which I have already referred.

That these statements are not in the slightest degree exaggerated may be proved by the testimony of Judge Burton, who, in the charge already mentioned, gave the following fearful picture of New South Wales. He said: "It would appear to one who could look down upon that community, as if the main business of them all were the commission of crime and the punishment of it; as if the whole colony were in motion towards the several courts of justice; and the most painful reflection of all must be, that so many capital sentences and the execution of them had not had the effect of preventing crime by the way of

example."

It may likewise be stated upon the same incontrovertible authority that there are a great number of crimes committed in New South Wales the authors of which are never discovered. That much crime should escape detection is a fact not to be wondered at when it is known that the limits of location in New South Wales embrace an area greater than the whole of England, and that over this vast territory some thousands of convict shepherds and stockmen roam at large, generally with arms in their hands. I hardly ever take up a newspaper from New South Wales in which there

is not some account of bushranging. For instance, it not unfrequently happens that a runaway convict, mounted and armed to the teeth, will ride up to the residence of a remote settler, and commit a robbery in the middle of the day, the convict servants generally standing by as idle spectators, and refusing to assist their master in any attempt to resist or arrest the robber.

The most atrocious and wanton cruelties are frequently perpetrated by the convict shepherds on the natives. I will mention, as an example, one case which occurred the year before last. In the vicinity of one of the remote cattle stations of New South Wales a body of natives, amounting to about fifty in number, had been residing for a considerable period of time in perfect tranquillity, molesting no one. On a sudden there arrived at this place some eleven convicts. They seized thirty of the unoffending natives, tied them together with a rope, led them away a short distance from the station, and then put every one of them, men, women, and children, to death, with the exception of one woman, whom, on account of her good looks, they kept as a concubine for one of their comrades. The murderers were subsequently apprehended and tried. The first jury refused to convict, though the evidence against them was conclusive. They were tried a second time for the same, though technically a different, offence, and on the same evidence; they were convicted, condemned to death, and seven of them were executed. It may be remarked, as illustrative of the state of feeling in the penal colonies with regard to the natives, that not only did the first

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