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duration of female life as compared with that of the other sex, and to the fact of the children born being more nearly balanced. Of 75,481 births in the period stated, 38,310 were males, and 37,171 were females, while of 25,821 deaths, 15,987 were males, and only 9,843 females. In deaths among adults the number of men each year is nearly twice that of women; this result being probably due in a great measure to habits of intemperance. Since 1839 the religions of the public emigrants have been recorded, and up to 1840 there appeared to have been 46,869 Protestants, 23,337 Catholics, and 79 other denominations. The schools had increased in the ten years from 167, with 9,040 scholars, to 558, with 25,642 scholars. Of these 558 schools 222 were supported either wholly, or in part, by grants from the colonial treasury, amounting to 16,7967. per annum, the number of pupils in these being 15,426, of whom 6,553 are Church of England, 2,586 Presbyterian, 1,678 Wesleyan, 219 Independent, and 3,313 Roman Catholic. The number of lunatics in asylums on the 31st of December, 1849, was 315 males, (chiefly convicts,) and only 98 females. With respect to crime, the convictions for felony, notwithstanding the population had nearly doubled, had decreased from 662 in 1840, to 543 in 1849, and those for misdemeanour from

170 to 125. There were eight executions in the former year, and only four in the latter. Litigation, likewise, had decreased in a manner still more satisfactory, the cases tried in the Supreme Court having been 555 in 1840, and only 160 in 1849. The declared value of the imports in 1849 was 1,793,420., and of the exports, 1,891,270l., of which 1,238,559. consisted of wool, and 249,9327. of tallow. The shipping entered inwards numbered 898 vessels, with 218,967 tonnage; the total outwards being 907 vessels, with 214,056 tonnage. The revenue was 575,692., and the expenditure 516,5337.

As we have already intimated in the previous chapter, the subject of the gold discoveries is reserved for separate consideration, and therefore we shall not further allude to that subject in the present chapter. But as the effects produced by that discovery are essentially different in the colony of Victoria and the colony of New South Wales, a difference partly due to the diversity of richness in the deposits of gold in the two colonies, and partly to the more consolidated condition of the latter colony as compared with its younger competitor,—it is a point of interest here to state how far the ordinary state of affairs has been affected by the new avenue to wealth which has been presented by the gold "diggings."

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On this point we cannot do better than present to our readers the excellent summary which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, of the 6th of March last, and which so completely informs us on all points with regard to the present state and future prospects of the colony, that it will be unnecessary for us to add another word.

“Our friends in England will naturally be anxious to hear, by the ships now on the eve of departure from Port Jackson, how we are getting on under the new circumstances which have befallen the colony; as we were naturally anxious to hear how the first intimation of those circumstances would be received by them. Both parties have been somewhat disappointed in their expectations. On our side it was generally thought that the tidings of our gold-field would in England be received with considerable excitement; they appear to have been received with considerable sang froid. On their side it was generally thought that the discovery would throw the colony into universal confusion, and put an end to all the usual pursuits of industry; no such results have as yet been witnessed. Perhaps neither party took a sufficiently comprehensive view of the facts connected with the other. On our side it ought to have been remembered that the news would reach England

just as the public mind had become exhausted by the prolonged excitements of the Great Exhibition, and was for the time in a state of nil admirari, on which scarcely anything could make an impression. The people had seen all the glories of the world centered in a single focus, and so dazzled had they been by the resplendent vision, that the glories of the Australian Ophir were comparatively dim in their sight. On their side it ought to have been remembered, that when the discovery was made the colony was in a state of general and almost unexampled prosperity, and when, consequently, the temptation to relinquish a bird in the hand for the sake of running after two in the bush, was not likely to be very maddening in its effects.

"It is not quite ten months since our auriferous treasures were first brought to light, yet within that brief period the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria have each shipped about one million's worth of gold, or two million's worth in all. And when it is considered that this has been the produce of unskilled mining, of labour untrained to the peculiar employment, untaught by science, unsustained by capital; that, in our own colony at least, the number of diggers has ever borne the most insignificant proportion to the extent and richness of the field, and that every day new regions

of auriferous deposit are found in almost every part of the interior, to the north and to the south, as well as to the west, our friends at home may form some estimate as to what Australia is to achieve hereafter, with a population less inadequate to the work she has to do, with the lights of science and experience to direct her operations, and with the aid of capital to give fair scope to her energies.

"And we rejoice to add, that this million of gold produced in New South Wales has been gathered without any serious detriment to our other interests, and with the least possible disturbance of public order and tranquillity. Our cornfields have still been cultivated, our sheep have still been shorn. Our metropolitan city remains a busy scene of commerce, and stately edifices are rising up in her streets. Our mining operations have assumed the character of settled industry; our gold is collected without bustle or confusion, and securely carried to market by the regularly established Government escorts, at a moderate expense to its proprietors; while the quantities brought to town and shipped for exportation are as systematically reported in the newspapers as those of any other of our raw productions. The admirable order which has all along been maintained at our diggings, not by military restraints, but by the good sense

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