of a man who worked
during the whole season, as hard and as well as any white man, at getting
in the harvest for some setlers, and who only received bread, and
sixpence a day, whilst the ordinary labourers would earn at least fifteen
shillings. In many instances, they only receive a scanty allowance of
food, so much so, that some settlers have told me that the natives left
them because they had not enough to eat.

"The evil consequence of this is, that a native finding he can gain as
much by the combined methods of hunting and begging, as he can by
working, naturally prefers the former and much more attractive mode of
procuring subsistence, to the latter one.

"Many of the natives have not only a good idea of the value of money, but
even hoard it up for some particular purpose; several of them have shewn
me their little treasure of a few shillings, and have told me it was
their intention to save more until they had enough to buy a horse, a gun,
or some wished-for article, but their improvidence has always got the
better of their thriftiness, and this sum has eventually been spent in
treating their friends to bread and rice.

"Another evil is the very extraordinary position in which they are placed
with regard to two distinct sets of laws; that is they are allowed to
exercise their own laws upon one another, and are again held amenable to
British law where British subjects are concerned. Thus no protection is
afforded them by the British law against the violence or cruelty of one
of their own race, and the law has only been hitherto known to them as
the means of punishment, but never as a code from which they can claim
protection or benefit.

"The following instances will prove my assertion: In the month of October
1838, I saw early one morning some natives in the public street in Perth,
in the act of murdering a native woman, close to the store of the Messrs.
Habgood: many Europeans were present, amongst others a constable; but
there was no interference on their part until eventually the life of the
woman was saved by the courage of Mr. Brown, a gardener in Perth, who
rushed in amongst the natives, and knocked down the man who was holding
her; she then escaped into the house of the Messrs. Habgood, who treated
the poor creature with the utmost humanity. She was, however, wounded in
several places in the most severe and ghastly manner.

"A letter I received from Mr. A. Bussel, (a settler in the southern part
of the