possess a local superiority for the prosecution of this valuable branch of commerce, which would insure them at least a successful competition with the subjects of those two nations.'-(Wentworth, pp. 317, 318.) The means which Mr. Wentworth proposes for improving the condition of Botany Bay, are-trial by jury-colonial assemblies, with whom the right of taxation should rest-the establishment of distilleries, and the exclusion of foreign spirits-alteration of duties, so as to place New South Wales upon the same footing as other colonies removal of the restriction to navigate the Indian seas in vessels of a small burdenimprovements in the courts of justice-encouragement for the growth of hemp, flax, tobacco, and wine; and, if a colonial assembly cannot be granted, that there should be no taxation without the authority of parliament. In general, we agree with Mr. Wentworth in his statement of evils, and in the remedies he has proposed for them. Many of the restrictions upon the commerce of New South Wales are so absurd, that they require only to be stated in parliament to be corrected. The fertility of the colony so far exceeds its increase of population, and the difficulty of finding a market for corn is so great-or rather the impossibility so clear-that the measure of encouraging domestic distilleries ought to be had recourse to. The colony, with a soil fit for every thing, must, as Mr. Wentworth proposes, grow other things besides corn, and excite that market in the interior which it does not enjoy from without. The want of demand, indeed, for the excess of corn, will soon effect this without the intervention of government. Government, we believe, have already given up the right of taxation, without the sanction of parliament; and there is an end probably, by this time, to that grievance. A council and a colonial secretary they have also expressed their willingness to concede. Of trial by jury, and a colonial assembly, we confess that we have great doubts. At some future time they must come, and ought to come. The only question is, Is the colony fit for such institutions at present? Are there a sufficient number of respectable persons to serve that office in the various settlements? If the English law is to be followed exactly, to compose a jury of twelve persons, a panel of forty-eight must be summoned. Could forty-eight intelligent, unconvicted men be found in every settlement of New South Wales? or must they not be fetched from great distances, at an enormous expense and inconvenience? Is such an institution calculated for so very young a colony? A good government is an excellent thing; but it is not the first in the order of human wants. The first want is to subsist; the next to subsist in freedom and comfort; first to live at all, then to live well. A parliament is still a greater demand upon the wisdom and intelligence and opulence of a colony than trial by jury. Among the twenty thousand inhabitants of New South Wales, are there ten persons out of the employ of government whose wisdom and prudence could reasonably be expected to advance the interests of the colony without embroiling it with the mother-country? Who has leisure, in such a state of affairs, to attend such a parliament? Where wisdom and conduct are so rare, every man of character, we will venture to say, has, like strolling players in a barn, six or seven important parts to perform. Mr. M'Arthur, who, from his character and understanding, would probably be among the first persons elected to the colonial legislature, besides being a very spirited agriculturist, is, we have no doubt, justice of the peace, curator and rector of a thousand plans, charities, and associations, to which his presence is essentially necessary. If he could be cut into as many pieces as a tree is into planks, all his subdivisions would be eminently useful. When a member of parliament, and what is called a really respectable country gentleman, sets off to attend his duty in our parliament, such diminution of intelligence as is produced by his absence, is, God knows, easily supplied; but in a colony of 20,000 persons, it is impossible this should be the case. Some time hence, the institution of a colonial assembly will be a very wise and proper measure, and so clearly called for, that the most profligate members of administration will neither be able to ridicule nor refuse it. At present we are afraid that a Botany Bay parliament would give rise to jokes; and jokes at present have a great agency in human affairs. Mr. Bennet concerns himself with the settlement of New Holland, as it is a school for criminals; and, upon this subject, has written a very humane, enlightened, and vigorous pamphlet. The objections made to this settlement by Mr. Bennet are, in the first place, its enormous expense. The colony of New South Wales, from 1788 to 1815 inclusive, has cost this country the enormous sum of 3,465,9837. In the evidence before the Transportation Committee, the annual expense of each convict, from 1791 to 1797, is calculated at 33l. 9s. 51⁄2d. per annum, and the profits of his labour are stated to be 207. The price paid for the transport of convicts has been, on an average, 371. exclusive of food and clothing. It appears, however, says Mr. Bennet, by an account laid before parliament, that in the year 1814, 109,7461. were paid for the transport, food, and clothing of 1016 convicts, which will make the cost amount to about 1081. per man. In 1812, the expenses of the colony were 176,000l.; in 1813, 235,000l.; in 1814, 231,3627.; but in 1815 they had fallen to 150,000l. The cruelty and neglect in the transportation of convicts has been very great-and in this way a punishment inflicted which it never was in the contemplation of law to enact. During the first eight years, according to Mr. Bennet's statements, one tenth of the convicts died on the passage; on the arrival of three of the ships, 200 sick were landed, 281 persons having died on board. These instances, however, of criminal inattention to the health of the convicts no longer take place; and it is mentioned rather as a history of what is past, than a censure upon any existing evil. In addition to the expense of Botany Bay, Mr. Bennet contends that it wants the very essence of punishment, terror; that the common people do not dread it; that instead of preventing crimes, it rather excites the people to their commission, by the hopes it affords of bettering their condition in a new country. All those who have had an opportunity of witnessing the effect of this system of transportation agree in opinion, that it is no longer an object of dread-it has, in fact, generally ceased to be a punishment: true it is, to a father of a family, to the mother who leaves her children, this perpetual separation from those whom they love and whom they support, is a cruel blow, and, when I consider the merciless character of the law which inflicts it, a severe penalty; but by far the greater number of persons who suffer this punishment, regard it in quite a different light. Mr. Cotton, the Ordinary of Newgate, informed the Police Committee last year, "That the generality of those who are transported consider it as a party of pleasure-as going out to see the world; they evince no penitence, no contrition, but seem to rejoice in the thing, -many of them, to court it. I have heard them, when the sentence of transportation has been passed by the Recorder, return thanks for it, and seem overjoyed at their sentence: the very last party that went off, when they were put into the caravan, shouted and huzzaed, and were very joyous; several of them called out to the keepers who were there in the yard, the first fine Sunday we will have a glorious Kangaroo hunt at the Bay,-seeming to anticipate a great deal of pleasure." He was asked if those persons were married or single, and his answer was, "By far the greater number of them were unmarried. Some of them are anxious that their wives and children should follow them: others care nothing about either wives or children, and are glad to get rid of them.”—(Bennet, pp. 60, 61.) It is a scandalous injustice in this colony, that persons transported for seven years have no power of returning when that period is expired. A strong active man may sometimes work his passage home; but what is an old man or an aged female to do? Suppose a convict were to be confined in prison for seven years, and then told he might get out if he could climb over the walls, or break open the locks, what in general would be his chance of liberation? But no lock nor doors can be so secure a means of detention as the distance of Botany Bay. This is a downright trick and fraud in the administration of criminal justice. A poor wretch who is banished from his country for seven years, should be furnished with the means of returning to his country when these seven years are expired.-If it is intended he should never return, his sentence should have been banishment for life. 'I now appeal to your Excellency,' (he says at the conclusion of his Letter,) whether under such circumstances, any man of common feeling, possessed of the least spark of humanity or religion, who stood in the same official relation that I do to these people, as their spiritual pastor and magistrate, could enjoy one happy moment from the beginning to the end of the week? 'I humbly conceive that it is incompatible with the character and wish of the British nation, that tions and dangerous temptations, when she is daily her own exiles should be exposed to such privafeeding the hungry and clothing the naked, and receiving into her friendly, and I may add pious bosom, the stranger, whether savage or civilised, of every nation under heaven. There are, in the whole, under the two principal superintendants, men, and one hundred and fifty women, and several children; and nearly the whole of them have to find lodgings for themselves when they have performed their government tasks. Messrs. Rouse and Oakes, one hundred and eight 'I trust that your Excellency will be fully per The most serious charge against the colony, as a place for transportation, and an experiment in criminal justice, is the extreme profligacy of manners which prevails there, and the total want of reformation among the convicts. Upon this subject, except in the regular letters, officially varnished and filled with fraudulent beatitudes for the public eye, there is, and there can be, but one opinion. New South Wales is a sink of wickedness, in which the great majority of convicts of both sexes become infinitely more depraved than at the period of their arrival. How, as Mr. Bennet very justly observes, can it be otherwise? The felon transported to the American plantations, became an insu-suaded, that it is totally impossible for the magistrate to support his necessary authority, and to lated rogue among honest men. He lived establish a regular police, under such a weight of for years in the family of some industrious accumulated and accumulating evils. I am as planter, without seeing a picklock, or in- sensible as any one can be, that the difficulty of redulging in pleasant dialogues on the delicious moving these evils will be very great; at the same burglaries of his youth. He imperceptibly time, their number and influence may be greatly glided into honest habits, and lost not only lessened, if the abandoned male and female convicts the tact for pockets, but the wish to investigate their contents. But in Botany Bay, the felon, as soon as he gets out of the ship, meets with his ancient trull, with the footpad of his heart, the convict of his affections, -the man whose hand he has often met in the same gentleman's pocket-the being whom he would choose from the whole world to take to the road, or to disentangle the locks of Bramah. It is impossible that vice should not become more intense in such society. Upon the horrid state of morals now prevalent in Botany Bay, we would counsel our readers to cast their eyes upon the account given by Mr. Marsden, in a letter, dated July 1815, to Governor Macquarrie. It is given at length in the Appendix to Mr. Bennet's book. A more horrid picture of the state of any settlement was never penned. It carries with it an air of truth and sincerity, and is free from all enthusiastic cant. are lodged in barracks, and placed under the eye of the police, and the number of licensed houses is reduced. Till something of this kind is done, all attempts of the magistrate, and the public administration of religion, will be attended with little benefit to the general good. I have the honour to be, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, SAMUEL Marsden.'-(Bennet, p. 134.) Thus much for Botany Bay. As a mere colony, it is too distant and too expensive; and, in future, will of course involve us in many of those just and necessary wars, which deprive Englishmen so rapidly of their comforts, and make England scarcely worth living in. If considered as a place of reform for criminals, its distance, expense, and the society to which it dooms the objects of the experiment, are insuperable objections to it. It is in vain to say, that the honest people in New South Wales will soon bear a greater proportion to the rogues, and the contamination of bad society will be less fatal. This only proves that it may be a good place for reform hereafter, not that it It is a good one now. One of the principal | reasons for peopling Botany Bay at all, was, that it would be an admirable receptacle, and a school of reform for our convicts. turns out, that for the first half century, it will make them worse than they were before, and that, after that period, they may probably begin to improve. A marsh, to be sure, may be drained and cultivated; but no man who has his choice, would select it in the mean time for his dwelling-place. The three books are all books of merit. Mr. O'Hara's is a bookseller's compilation, done in a useful and pleasing manner. Mr. Wentworth is full of information on the present state of Botany Bay. The humanity, the exertions, and the genuine benevolence of Mr. Bennet, are too well known to need our commendation. All persons who have a few guineas in their pocket, are now running away from Mr. Nicholas Vansittart to settle in every quarter of the globe. Upon the subject of emigration to Botany Bay, Mr. Wentworth observes, 1st, That any respectable person emigrating to that colony, receives as much land gratis as would cost him 4007. in the United States; 2dly, He is allowed as many servants as he may require, at one third of the wages paid for labour in America; 3dly, Himself and family are victualled at the expense of Government for six months. He calculates that a man, wife, and two children, with an allowance of five tons for themseves and baggage, could emigrate to Botany Bay for 1007., including every expense, provided a whole ship could be freighted; and that a single man could be taken out thither for 30%. These points are worthy of serious attention to those who are shedding their country. CHIMNEY SWEEPERS. (E. REVIEW, 1819.) Account of the Proceedings of the Society for superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys. Baldwin, &c. London, 1816. An excellent and well-arranged dinner is a most pleasing occurrence, and a great triumph of civilised life. It is not only the descending morsel, and the enveloping sauce -but the rank, wealth, wit, and beauty which surround the meats the learned management of light and heat-the silent and rapid services of the attendants- the smiling and sedulous host, proffering gusts and relishes-the exotic bottles-the embossed plate-the pleasant remarks—the handsome dresses—the cunning artifices in fruit and farina! The hour of dinner, in short, includes every thing of sensual and intellectual gratification which a great nation glories in producing. In the midst of all this, who knows that the kitchen chimney caught fire half an hour before dinner!—and that a poor little wretch, of six or seven years old, was sent up in the midst of the flames to put it out? We could not, previous to reading this evidence, have formed a conception of the miseries of these poor wretches, or that there should exist, in a civilised country, a class of human beings destined to such extreme and varied distress. We will give a short epitome of what is developed in the evidence before the two Houses of Parliament. Boys are made chimney sweepers at the early age of five or six. Little boys for small flues, is a common phrase in the cards left at the door by itinerant chimney sweepers. Flues made to ovens and coppers are often less than nine inches square; and it may easily be conceived, how slender the frame of that human body must be, which can force itself through such an aperture. 'What is the age of the youngest boys who have been employed in this trade, to your knowledge? About five years of age: I know one now between five and six years old; it is the man's own son in the Strand: now there is another at Somers Town, I think, said he was between four and five, or about five; Jack Hall, a little lad, takes him about.Did you ever know any female children employed? Yes, I know one now. About two years ago there was a woman told me she had climbed scores of times, and there is one at Paddington now whose father taught her to climb; but I have often heard talk of them when I was apprentice, in different 'Do you remember being taught to climb chimneys? Yes. What did you feel upon the first attempt to climb a chimney? The first chimney I went up, they told me there was some plumpudding and money up at the top of it, and that is the way they enticed me up; and when I got up, I would not let the other boy get from under me to get at it, I thought he would get it; I could not get up, and shoved the pot and half the chimney down into the yard. Did you experience any inconvenience to your knees, or your elbows? Yes, the skin was off my knees and elbows too, in climbing up the new chimneys they forced me up? -How did they force you up? When I got up, I cried out about my sore knees.-Were you beat or compelled to go up by any violent means? Yes, when I went to a narrow chimney, if I could not do it, I durst not go home; when I used to come down, my master would well beat me with the brush; and not only my master, but when we used to go with the journeymen, if we could not do it, they used to hit us three or four times with the brush.'-Lords' Minutes, No. 1. p. 5. In practising the art of climbing, they are often crippled. 'You talked of the pargetting of chimneys; are many chimneys pargetted? There used to be more than are now; we used to have to go and sit all a-twist to parge them, according to the floors, to keep the smoke from coming out; then I could not straighten my legs; and that is the reason that many are cripples,- from parging and stopping the holes.'-Lords' Minutes, No. 1. p. 17. They are often stuck fast in a chimney, and, after remaining there many hours, are cut out. 'Have you known, in the course of your practice, boys stick in chimneys at all? Yes, frequently. Did you ever know an instance of a boy being suffocated to death? No; I do not recollect any one at present, but I have assisted in taking boys out when they have been nearly exhausted. - Did you ever know an instance of its being necessary to break open a chimney to take the boy out? O yes.- Frequently? Monthly I might say; it is done with a cloak, if possible, that it should not be discovered: a master in general wishes it not to be known, and therefore speaks to the people belonging to the house not to mention it, for it was merely the boy's neglect; they often say it was the boy's neglect. Why do they say The boy's that? climbing shirt is often very bad; the boy coming down, if the chimney be very narrow, and numbers of them are only nine inches, gets his shirt rumpled underneath him, and he has no power after he is fixed in that way (with his hand up). — Does a boy frequently stick in the chimney? Yes; I have known more instances of that the last twelvemonth than before.-Do you ever have to break open in the inside of a room? Yes, I have helped to break through into a kitchen chimney in a dining room.' -Lords' Minutes, p. 34. To the same effect is the evidence of John Daniels (Minutes, p. 100.), and of James Ludford (Lords' Minutes, p. 147.). 'You have swept the Penitentiary? I have.Did you ever know a boy stick in any of the chimneys there? Yes, I have.-Was it one of your boys? It was.-Was there one or two that stuck? Two of them.- How long did they stick there? Two hours.-How were they got out? They were cut out.—Was there any danger while they were in that situation? It was the core from the pargetting of the chimney, and the rubbish that the labourers had thrown down, that stopped them, and when they got it aside them, they could not pass.-They both stuck together? Yes.'-Lords' Minutes, p. 147. One more instance we shall give, from the Evidence before the Commons. 'Have you heard of any accidents that have recently happened to climbing boys in the small flues? Yes; I have often met with accidents myself when I was a boy; there was lately one in Mary-le-bone, where the boy lost his life in a flue, a boy of the name of Tinsey, (his father was of the same trade); that boy I think was about eleven or twelve years old. -Was there a coroner's inquest sat on the body of that boy you mentioned? Yes, there was; he was an apprentice of a man of the name of Gay. How many accidents do you recollect, which were attended with loss of life to the climbing boys? I have heard talk of many more than I know of; I never knew of more than three since I have been at the trade, but I have heard talk of many more.-Of twenty or thirty? I cannot say; I have been near losing my own life several times.'-Commons' Report, p. 53. |