were such
that one-fourth of the jurors who served in the civil and criminal
courts during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836, belonged to their number.
More immorality prevailed in Sydney than in any other town of the same
size in the British Dominions; there, the vice of drunkenness had
attained its highest pitch; the quantity of spirits consumed in Sydney
was enormous; even throughout the whole of New South Wales the annual
average, for every human being in the colony had reached four gallons a
head. Such, according to the authorities already quoted, are the towns
to which transportation has given birth; and such are the inmates
furnished to them by the criminal tribunals of this country.

Your Committee having, in the preceding pages of their Report, discussed
the nature and effects of transportation, and what alterations can be
made in the existing system, now consider that they have submitted the
most unquestionable proofs that the two main characteristics of
transportation, as a punishment, are inefficiency in deterring from
crimes, and remarkable efficiency, not in reforming, but in still
further corrupting those who undergo the punishment; that these
qualities of inefficiency for good, and efficiency for evil, are
inherent in the system, which, therefore, is not susceptible of any
satisfactory improvement; and lastly, that there belongs to the system,
extrinsically from its strange character as a punishment, the yet more
curious and monstrous evil of calling into existence, and continually
extending, societies, or the germs of nations most thoroughly depraved,
as respects both the character and degree of their vicious propensities.
Your Committee, therefore, are of the opinion that the present system of
transportation should be abolished, and will now proceed to offer a few
observations as to the description of punishment which, in their
opinion, ought to be substituted in the stead of transportation.

INDEPENDENCE OF VICTORIA

+Source.+--Port Phillip Gazette

In 1844 New South Wales (including the Port Phillip and Moreton Bay
districts) was granted representative government, but the distance
between Sydney and Melbourne and the disproportion of
representatives made it a farce as far as Port Phillip was
concerned. Melbourne proceeded to demonstrate to the British
Government the necessity for Separation. Victoria was established
as a separate colony in 1851.

_Jan. 3