The greater portion of the shopkeepers and the middling class
had been convicts, for the tradesmen connected with the criminal
population have an advantage over free emigrants.
Those of the emancipists who were possessed of property had generally
acquired it by dishonest means, by keeping grog-shops, gambling-houses,
by receiving stolen goods, and by other nefarious practices; they led a
life of gross licentiousness; but their wealth and influence 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.
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