IMPORTATION OF CONVICTS. [From the Hobart Town Courier.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 60, 29 November 1845, Page 4

IMPORTATION OF CONVICTS. [From the Hobart Town Courier.]

Probation Department. — A very important notice has been given by the Comp-troller-General in the Gazette. It is an intimation to the holders of Conditional Pardons that they may, if desirous, make application to have the limits of such pardons, which heretofore confined them to this island, extended to the limits of the Australian Colonies and New Zealand. By this regulation so vast an extent of territory will be thrown open to the holders of Conditional Pardons, that they will be virtually free. Sydney, aud its widespreading agricultural districts ; Port Phillip, and its ramifications ; South Australia, Swan River, and New Zealand, give a latitude for vast numbers of conditional men to act very unconditionally ; nor do we see any reason to doubt that very many will include North and South America as within their limits. If the Lieutenant-Governor, with whom the approval rests of adding to the limits ol the Conditional Pardon, allows our best characters only to go, it may be doubted how far this colony will be eventually b.;nefitted by the measure. If, on the other hand, his Excellency decides with the object of lessening the superabundant prisoner population chiefly in view, the effect of transpoitation as a punishment will become, both here and at home, more ineffective as such than ever. We shall await with curiosity the effect of this notice upon our neighbours, especially the South Australians, whose country so abounds in rich ores, that they undermine their own territory and the Tasmanian character with equal celerity.

Van Diemen's Land Probationers. — Already has Melbourne began to feel the presence of the Van Diemen's Land probationers, and it would be only fair for the Tasmanian government when they send us the off-scouring of its prison population, to let us have something in the shape of a pecuniary grant to enable us to maintain the additional police force we will necessarily require by the presence of so many of our neighbours. The "batch" brought by the Swan has far outrivalled any former cargoes, for they played some pranks through the town on the night of Monday, which would do honour even to so many Norfolk Islanders. It appears they scattered their division in various parts of Melbourne, — the first act being the hunting from his beat Tyrrell, the watchman in Little Bourke-street, and upon his remonstrating with them, and saying he was only a private watchman, one of them replied, that as he was a sort of a trap, he might expect the same treatment as any other b y constable. About two o'clock on Tuesday morning, as twp gentlemen were passing the post-office, they were assailed by a shower of brick-bats, and had a most providential escape. There is one peculiarity attending this newly imported gang, — namely, that they have introduced with them some of the fair sex, one of whom enacted the part of an infuriate demon through Little Collins-street the same nurning. She was in a state of the most savage intoxication, and her desecration of the Almighty was most horrifying. In such a state of things, a single constable is worse than powerless, and it is therefore evident to our chief constable that no matter how wedded he may be to the " solitary system," he must give way to circumstances. In the case of the last occurrence to which we have alluded, this woman was cursing and swearing in the presence of some dozen men, all of them equally drunk and debased as herself ; but of what use would one constable be 1 Could he attempt to apprehend any of them ? If so, it would be almost an act of madness on his part. Something, however, must be done to render the constabulary as efficient as possible. The abstraction of three district men will be a material weakening of the force. At all events it is too bad that the people of Melbourne should be subjected to insult and outrage by the arrival of scores of persons who came here for no other purpose than to indulge those lawless acts with impunity, which a penal settlement in a great measure restrains. — Port Phillip Herald.

We perceive that convicts are advertised as receiving conditional pardons " extending to the Australian Colonies, and New Zealand." Is there any register of these men ? Do the police know them ? Or do they walk ashore in Sydney free from any constraint whatever ? — Sydney Herald, 10th July. We understand some of them are walking about the streets of Adelaide. — Adelaide Observer. -