Page:Statistics of Australia (Haughton, 1853).pdf/12

 in a population of 65,000 the arrests for drunkenness average twenty a-day throughout the year, being about one in nine of the inhabitants. But this inadequately represents the amount of intemperance; only the most flagrant cases come under the cognizance of the police. The 'drunkard's list' of the police reports might be indefinitely lengthened, for the vice is not confined to the working-classes, nor is it wholly checked by education, nor limited to the male sex; it appears at time in the municipal council, and, more rarely, in the legislature. In those places, however, it must be confessed, it does draw down reproach and exposure; and a recent decision of Supreme Court makes it no libel to publish the name of the offender against decency. But, among the lower class, intoxication is so much a habit that it entails neither reproach nor loss of character. The drunken workman finds employment, and the drunken servant gets a place as easily as the sober one. Many of the new arivals are soon demoralized; they cannot resist the temptations high wages create. Three days' work earns the money for three days' debauchery; and even the skill and strength actually in the colony produce little more than half their proper result. It is even more lamentable to see a class actually degraded by prosperity. Miserable homes, rags and filth, wives savagely beaten, children deserted and starved, all the evils to be found in the over-crowded cities of Europe, may be seen in as great proportion here, where high wages are the rule, and competition can hardly be said to exist. The benevolence of the middle classes has been just called on, to provide a refuge for the homeless children who are running about the streets of Sydney like savages, deserted by parents who might be earning enough—in some instances, are actually doing so—to support them in comfort. An asylum for pauper children will be on of the first-fruits of the golden age in the colony."

The one paragraph in the foregoing letter, I would wish to draw your special attention; it is where the writer says:—

"Three days' work earns the money for three days' debauchery, and even the skill and strength actually in the colony produce little more than half their proper result."

This is a serious condition of affairs, in an economic point of view. Only a few years ago, we suffered much loss at home from a similar cause. Tradesmen seldom went to work on Mondays, so that one=sixth of our effective skill was lost to the country. This evil still exists to some extent, but it has been much lessened by the temperance reformation.

The Times correspondent also writes, that "the continued increase in the revenue is no doubt an advantage."

To me it appears to be a certain loss, even in a pecuniary sense, in so far as it is derived from the vices of the people.

I have it on the authority of a gentleman who held an official situation in Western Australia, and who was so struck with the fearful results of the use of intoxicating drinks there, that he collected