FRIGHTFUL CONDITION OF VICTORIA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume I, Issue 15, 10 November 1852, Page 4

FRIGHTFUL CONDITION OF VICTORIA.

[From the Meliourne Argus."\

Thomai Grint, lata a sergeant in the Greiong Police, has bsen apprehended on a charge of highway robbery. What mischief may nut this man have dono in town, while ho had so much power to do it; but warnings are of no ute to the incapablcs of the Executive. Nothing bat the murder of one ol their own number will induce them to clup on na extra conitablc. The hard working man may have hti brains scattered on the ground ; the indut* trious labourer may, on hit nay homo with tbo proceeds of hit week's toil, be colled upon to moisten the toll with his heart's blood ; the fortunate digger, after gaining a competency, aud while returning homo full of hope, and with bright proipects gladdening his imagination, may be robbed of his all, and converted into a lifeless corpse ; and the honest trader may he murdered for his gains o n the highway ; bat what care the Government — nobody baa yet tried to murder them, and they remain at callous as tho murderer. The awful state of depravity to which the colony is rapidly being reduced, and of which the robbery of men in public houses in broad day, coupled with the notorious inefflcacy of what is called a police force— viz., eleven men on duty to protect nearly 8000 people and their property from at least 100 doable distilled scoundrels, must surely prove to the most careless that it is time to act. There wag a time when we would have ridiculed the idea of ever being on advocate of Lynch law, bnt Lynch Uw we 111 net now have. la Geclong— in Melbourne— at the digging) — everywhere ; it i t our last, our only resource. This ia no idle boast, nor Incautious statement' We do not say 10 to intimidate nor create alarm ; bat looking at the events of the last few months, at the daily perpetration of the most horrible , crimes, at that long black list of murders for which [ no man has ever been tried, at the total inefficiency of police protection, and nt the Hill greater in.

efficiency of those who ought to stand by us like men in such desperate times, wo have coma to the conclusion that Lynch law is a matter of righteous necessity. With all Its abuses, and with all its enormities, the establishment of this wild system of justice would bring about a state of things that would b 9 almost n pirmliflc to tlmt reign of terror which now prevails. Mini] we begin at oner, or should we delay till a few moro victims— pe.rli.ipi our own relatives— are sacrificed to the hloodlliiisty appetites of these wretches 7 Whon every man must guard his friends' slumbers with a loaded gun to | prevent his being murdered.