n a hopeless state of
barbarism from which it is impossible for man to emerge so long as he is
enthralled by these customs; which, on the other hand, are so ingeniously
devised as to have a direct tendency to annihilate any effort that is
made to overthrow them.

This people reject in practice all idea of the equality of persons or
classes; they make indeed no verbal distinctions upon this point, and if
asked, were all men equal? they would be unable to comprehend the
question; but there is no race that imposes more irksome restraints upon
certain classes of the community.

CHARACTER OF THE NATIVE CUSTOMS. THEIR GENERALITY.

The whole tendency of their superstitions and traditional regulations is
to produce the effect of depriving certain classes of benefits which are
enjoyed by others; and this monopolizing of advantages often possesses
amongst savages many characteristics which violate all the holier
feelings of our nature, and excite a disgust of which it is divested in
civilized life. In the latter case we see certain privileges even
hereditarily enjoyed; but the weak and strong, the rich and poor, the
young and old have paths of honourable ambition laid open to them by
entering on which they can gain like immunities. While in the savage
condition we find the female sex, the young, and the weak, condemned to a
hopeless state of degradation and to a lasting deprivation of particular
advantages merely because they are defenceless; and what they are
deprived of is given to others merely because they are old or strong: and
this is not effected by personal violence, depending upon momentary
caprice and individual disposition (in which case it might be considered
as the consequence of a state of equality) but it is enforced upon the
natives of Australia by traditional laws and customs which are by them
considered as valid and binding as our laws are by us.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THEIR ORIGIN.

The laws and customs alluded to cannot be considered as mere local
institutions, for travellers and residents in the northern provinces of
the colony of New South Wales describe as existing there usages nearly
identical with those which regulate the proceedings of the natives
occupying the west of the continent. And these testimonies cannot be
doubted for they are incidentally introduced without any theoretical bias
and in ignorance of the conformity they tend to prove. Natives from the
country about the Murrumbidgee have described