ll my characters as existing under the _regime_ prior to the
felicitous epoch of "separation." But to prevent my readers from forming
an erroneous impression of our model colony, I will succinctly furnish a
synopsis of our march of improvement.

The old iniquitous land system has been abolished; and in its place one
substituted similar to what I have mentioned in this work as being the
scheme of Dr. Lang. One of the first acts of the new government was to
sweep away the trite and cumbersome machinery of the old system, by
making nugatory the existing law of the parent colony, and to pass an
act which, for liberality, perhaps stands unequalled. Its main features
are--for pastoral purposes--occupation and settlement, with right of
tenure, subject to a rental of one farthing per acre per annum; and for
agricultural lands--free selection for purchase at the fixed rate of one
pound per acre, with a right to rent in contiguity thrice the quantity
purchased for a period of five years at a yearly rental of sixpence per
acre, with the option of purchase at the expiration of the lease, at
the residue of the purchase money, viz., 17s. 6d. per acre. To all
immigrants paying their own passage, a remission of their passage money
is granted in an equivalent of land. This, with the activity of the
government in throwing large tracts of land into the market, has done
away with a good many of the abuses detailed in our narrative; more
especially the "station jobbing," attributed to Bob Smithers, and the
vexatious detentions to small capitalists desirous of becoming farmers.
Another of its features is the inducement held out to the
agriculturalist to cultivate cotton in the shape of bounties almost
amounting to the value of the staple. The towns have also been benefited
by the establishment of municipalities which have removed many long
standing nuisances. The old forensic injustice, and judicial
burlesques, have been annihilated by the appointment of district police
magistrates; and, in fact, the whole country and people have "gone a
head."

With regard to the incidents of my story I may say that, almost without
an exception, they are facts well known to Moreton Bay people; and,
though I have used some discrimination in their collocation, so as to a
certain extent to shield the actual actors from the public gaze, I have
in no way exceeded the margin of truth. The scene at the "Bullock's
Head," I must guard against any charge of plagiari