as speculations, or often the personal "kit"
only of many of these people, who, unable to
find storage for their things, except at a rent
which would in a few days or weeks swallow
up their whole intrinsic value, are compelled
to sacrifice their property for anything that
it will fetch. In short, there is a disagreeable
effect about this first landing—a kind of
damper thrown upon the hopes and prospects—
a change in the bright ideas originally formed
—a demolition of the visionary castles built
since leaving Europe, which (or I am much
mistaken in the expression of the human
countenance) very few fail to feel on touching
the shore.

From every part of the world as well as
from Great Britain, vessels are daily pouring
in, filled with living cargoes, to swell the
houseless number. I have, not once, but
frequently within the last month, counted in
the daily returns of published arrivals, from
two to three thousand passengers and
emigrants in a single day, and we are told that
this is as yet but the commencement. What
to do with this superabundance of population
is now the great question—where to lodge
them, and how to feed them? Immense
numbers, it is true, hurry at once to the
mines without delaying in Melbourne, and
the once lonely road from thence to Forest
Creek and the Bendigo Diggings, is now
little less thronged than that between London
and Epsom on a Derby day, although
with a somewhat different-looking class of
travellers. Nevertheless, the town remains
crowded to suffocation; every house doing
treble duty by accommodating three times its
proper quantum of occupants—wooden
villages are rising in the suburbs, and encampments
of tents line the banks of the Yarra, or
spring up like mushrooms in the flats adjoining
the town.

The social condition of the colony can never
be much worse than it is at this moment.
The law, enforced as it is by a few underpaid
policemen and a handful of soldiers only, is
almost powerless, at a time when it ought to
display itself in its fullest vigour. The streets
at night are filled with prowling desperadoes,
ticket-of-leave holders, expirees or escaped
convicts from Van Dieman's Land, while the
roads to the mines swarm with mounted
ruffians of the same class, who, under the
name of bush-rangers, emulate in Australia
the doughty deeds of the Dick Turpins and
Claude Duvals who in former times took the
road on our English heaths and highways.
Murders, robberies, and outrages of every
kind are so fearfully prevalent as to have
become wearisome in their constant
repetition, and even the quietest and most peace-
loving individuals in the community cannot
now stir out of their houses after dark, without
carrying with them the protection of
revolver, dagger, or life-preserver. You will
find that the newspapers I send with this
parcel fully bear me out in this description of
the golden age in Australia. I would draw
your particular attention to the Argus of
Monday the nineteenth of October, in which
you will find a detailed account of the
proceedings of a party of five or six armed bush-
rangers, who actually, on a fine sunshiny
afternoon, took possession of the public road
leading from Melbourne to St. Kilda and
Brighton, within three miles of the metropolis,
and for upwards of two hours, robbed
every individual (upwards of thirty) who
passed up and down the road; taking them
afterwards into the bush, tying them together,
and detaining them as prisoners, until they
had brought their day's operations to a
satisfactory conclusion. I might cite numberless
other instances of similar lawless outrages,
but I think that this in itself is a sufficient
specimen of the unprotected state of the
colony, and the insecure tenure by which we
hold our property and our lives.

But what is to be done to improve this
state of things? It is an easy task to blame
the Government for want of forethought in
providing for a crisis, which it was certainly
not difficult to foresee. Still it is easier to
find fault than to remedy the evil. To provide
homes for the houseless without
labourers, and protection to the community
without an adequate police, is a task which
might puzzle the rulers of a far older and
more firmly consolidated community than
ours.

Then as to prospects at the mines—it is
true there are gold escorts coming down,
week after week, with unheard of quantities
of gold, and ships are starting every now
and then for England; perfect sailing gold
mines in themselves. Still, calm statistics,
although less exciting, are, after all, more
certain means of getting at the riches of the
gold fields than such criterions; and
statistics tell us, that there are so many
thousands of diggers at the mines; that the
yield of gold is so many thousand ounces, and
that this yield divided among these people
will not give to each individual as much as
will amount in sterling money to thirty
shillings a week; which sum, at the prices for
provisions now charged, is barely sufficient
for the miner's keep. It is true that it is a
lottery, and has some bonâ fide prizes; but a
little consideration will tell every reflecting
mind that for all those who get more there
must be some who get even less than the
above mentioned average. And such,
indeed, is the case. It requires no prophet
to foretell that thousands of our new arrivals
will soon get heartily sick of the laborious
and ill-rewarded toil, and be compelled to
betake themselves to pastoral and other
pursuits. It is on this result that the squatters
and other persons interested in a plentiful
supply of cheap labour, build their hopes, and
are anxiously looking.

Having depicted the darker prospects of the
newly arrived emigrants at the present crisis,