NEW SOUTH WALES AND CRIME.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 81, 14 August 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEW SOUTH WALES AND CRIME.

(From the Arfftts, 3^ 2 \O ; ; mi • c /»rime in the heighi" S if ' SI state of the cquntry which iud'crous the recent agitafcon xn wAk* 4e have been thrown at the prospect of afresh crop of -convicts from England. If 0x Cowpefa statements may be Llied upon, Australia has at her own doors a school of «rime quite acuve and prolific enough to keepup hernormal , penal character, withoat any neces- , sity for importing the article from Europe. In a speech delivered in the Sydney House of Assembly on the 15th in*t. the Chief Secretary made the] following statement in proof 'of 'the ; efficiency of the New South Wales ! lice: _,«ln the course of the ten ■ months ending the 3 1st of December, x ,1862, there bad been 79 apprehensions' for murder and other capital offences ; in the colony, 180 for highway robbery •with arms and mail robbery, 1,149 for manslaughter and assaults, 876 for burglaries and robbery from stores, 116 for forgery and embezzlement, 33 1 for cattle stealing, 192 for arson and wilful damage to property, and 768 for ■other felonies !'* This almost increditable statement lias since, it appears, been challenged by Mr. Cowper himself, who is reported to have tranemitted to England a telegram denying the correctness of his own figures. The world, therefore, is Jeft to choose between the veracity of Mr. Cowper., as the advocate of New South Wales police, and Mr. Cowper, as champion of the fair fame of his .colony. On the whole, it may reasonably be doubted whether tr»e Chief Secretary is so marvellously clumsy an advocate as he now wishes himself to appear. If it is almost beyond belief that Mr. Cowper'soriginal figures could be true, it is still more incredible that a gentleman in the position of Chief Secretary of New South Wales should deliberately give utterance to so damaging a statement, unless he had pteviously assured himself of its substantial correctness. Most persons who have studied the character of that astute and slippery gentleman, the dictator of New South Wales, will be inclined to prefer the first effusion of his candour to the matured result of his after-thought. In defending the police of the colony, Mr. Cowper may have overlooked all the consequences of his exuberant zeal; yet, still, it is difficult to credit the Chief Secretary with a deliberate error — or, still worse, 3. deliberate falsehood — in a matter o so much importance. At any rate, on referring to Mr. Cowper's speech, it seems almost impossible to believe that 1m figures are far wide of the mark, except upon the hypothesis of a jjreater and more elaborate fraud than was ever before perpetrated upon tbe head of a Grovernment. Allowing'that there maybe some exaggeration, however, in the number of apprehensions by the police in New ■South Wales, there can scarcely be any doubt but that the number of committals find convictions is absolutely correct. Taking the number of the committed and convicted aloue, we find from Mr. Cowper's speech, that in ten months there were 48 persons committed for murder, of whom 31 were convicted. Of highway robbers there were 57 committed, and 43 convicted. Of persons apprehended for manslaughter, 474 were convicted. Of burglars there were 499 committed; of forgers, 49; of horse and cattle stealers, 115; for arson, 97, and for other felonies, 389. Confessing that many may have es- . ■eaped, and that many crimes were committed which were not discovered, Mr. Cowper urges that his list affords a pretty fair idea of the labours of the police during: the ten months. The general public will agree that it also furnishes a pretty fair test of the labors and the activity of the criminal class in New South Wales. In a population ; scarcely exceeding 350,000 souls, there is perhaps no community in the world which can show a picture like this. ! And yet, unless the New South "Wales police are greatly maligned, the number of the successful and prosperous felons must greatly exceed that of those imbecile creatures who permit them- . selves to fall into the hands of Sir Frederick Pottinger and his men. Messrs. Gardiner and Gilbert still run their prosperous course in the interior. The Mudgee Mail is still robbed about twice in every week. The professions of bushranger and highwayman continue to be successfully practised by Young New South Wales. The journals abound in accounts of the exploits and the adventures of the gentlemen of the road. The Sydney Morning Herald even announces that thiefdom has risen to the dignity of an organised association in New South Wales, having "its correspondents, its journals, and its representatives'' — that it permeates all ranks and callings in life — that it keeps its telegraphic agents — its special reporters — nay, even its members of Parliament. It is admitted that there now exists in the interior " a robber sept, having sympathies and moral sentiments in harmony with pillage and murder." It is probable that at the present rate of progress, there will even be a Gardiner party in. Parliament, and that bushrangers will vie with democrats^ in their claims upon the young patriotism of New South Wales. Taking Mr. Cowper's statistics of the amount of crime actually discovered and punished in New South Wales, and comparing them with the notorious prosperity and success of the felon profession in the interior, we arrive at a picture of the internal condition, of New

South Wales which it is hardly possible to exaggerate. It is no wonder that the respectable journals of the colony deplore the moral state of the colony, and call attention to the serious disgrace and loss which it inflicts upon the community. The evil has been of slow growth, ;and is perhaps too firmly rooted to be speedily cured. Its worst features are the tolerance with which it is borne by the mass of the community, the apology which it finds among a certain party" in the state, and the positive sympathy which it commands among the rural and castoral population of the interior. So long as Gardiner continues a hero, and his deeds are invested with the hues of romance, so long will the felon taint be ineradicable from the colony of New South Wales.