New South Wales Government Gazette, Fri 28 Mar 1851 1
THE Tickets of Leave of the undermentioned Prisoners of the Crown, have been cancelled for the reasons stated opposite their respective names:—
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Henry Campbell, Randolph, immoral conduct; Criminal Court, Bathurst Bench.
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J McLean,
Prin. Sup. of Convicts’ Office,
Sydney, 27th March, 1851.
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The Sydney Morning Herald, Mon 31 Mar 1851 2
TICKETS-OF-LEAVE CANCELLED.—The following prisoners of the Crown have had their tickets-of-leave cancelled for the reasons stated against their respective names:—
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Henry Campbell, per Randolph, for immoral conduct; Criminal Court, Bathurst Bench.
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DR LEICHHARDT AND HIS PARTY.—The honorable member for the Northumberland Boroughs has placed upon the paper a notice of his intention to move, that an Address be presented to the Governor, praying that His Excellency will be pleased to place upon the Supplementary Estimates for 1851, a sufficient sum for the purpose of outfitting an expedition to proceed in search of Dr Leichhardt and the exploring party under his command. That it is now too late to seek for Leichhardt and his companions, even at Port Essington is, we fear, too certain. Still not only the colonists, but all interested in the progress of geographical science, yearn to know their fate. Many of our readers will remember, that in September, 1846, Dr Leichhardt announced his intention of starting, at an early moment, on an expedition across this vast continent to Swan River; and he thus sketched out the route which he proposed to attempt. Captain Sturt having ascertained the existence of an impassable desert at least as far as latitude 24°. Dr Leichhardt thought of proceeding, at once, to latitude 23°, where he found the Mackenzie and Peak Range on his last journey, and, if that river afforded a supply of water, to follow it up to its source, which he then expected to find eighty or a hundred miles from the spot where he first came upon it. He then calculated on his chance of ascertaining whether the western branches of the supposed water-shed go down to the southward to join the Darling, or whether they turn northward, and for the sources of the largest rivers of the Gulf of Carpentaria. He stated, that if the latter should prove to be the case, he would attempt to proceed westward in and about the same latitude, and endeavour to reach the waters of the north-west coast; and in case of being prevented by want of water from continuing his journey to the westward, or eve to the southward, he would trace his steps down the Mackenzie, and follow the rack of his last journey up to the Burdekin, where it is joined by the Clarke, in latitude 19°12. And then the enthusiastic explorer proposed to follow the latter river, (having, as he said, no doubt to finding the heads of the Flinders after crossing either a table land or a dividing range) and so continue his journey to the Albert, following that river up to ascertain the latitude of its sources and the nature of the country. He then proposed to take a westerly course, coming successively to the heads of the Nicholson, the Van Alphen, the Abel Tasman, the Robinson, and the Macarthur in the ardent hope of reaching the waters of the west coast in, or about, latitude 17°18. And, in the event of his succeeding in this, he would then turn to the south ward and work his way parallel to the north-west coast as far as Swan River. Of the untoward commencement of the proposed exploration; of the return of the party; and of their resumption of their self-imposed, but Herculean task; most of our readers are aware. It remains for us to remind them, that, when propounding his design to his Sydney friends, Dr Leichhardt calculated, that in two years he should complete his journey; but that upward of four years have elapsed since his last departure from the settled districts of New South Wales. To ascertain his fate, there have been several plans suggested. To one we would earnestly invite attention; namely, “to get upon his track and follow it up;” and by this means, whether he has perished, or penetrated to the north-west of Sturt’s Desert, is a question which would doubtlessly be ascertained. We shall anxiously await the forthcoming discussion in Council upon this painfully interesting subject.
GEORGE-STREET MARKET BY-LAWS.—John Kennedy, of Campbelltown, was on Saturday convicted of a breach of the by-laws regulating the George-street Market, in having hawked and sold eggs in the city of Sydney, without having either paid market dues or taken out a license to hawk, and was ordered to pay the amount claimed, with 1s as a penalty, with the cost of prosecution.
CORONER’S INQUESTS.—On Saturday, an inquest was held at Spencer’s, the Dungate Inn, Liverpool-street, on the body of Patrick Carty, aged twenty-four years, then lying dead in Hughes square, Elizabeth street. James Kennedy deposed, that on Saturday, the 22nd instant, deceased complained of an itching in his skin, and of having lost his appetite, and witness went with him to Mr Row, at the corner of Liverpool-street and Pitt-street, who, after hearing the complaint, made up a mixture and some pills; on Monday or Tuesday he complained of a swelling under his ear, which increased until Thursday, his eyes becoming of a yellow colour; on Thursday, he called in Dr Tierney, who prescribed, but without avail, as he expired between nine and ten on Friday evening; his head, neck, and chest, were greatly swollen for about three days prior to his death, and he appeared to breathe with some difficulty. Dr Tierney and Mr Surgeon Nelson having made a post mortem examination of the body, were both of the opinion that the immediate cause of death was water on the chest. The body presented that appearance which some people consider getting into fat, but which is really an unhealthy state of the cellular tissues, causing anasarca, and which arises from an insidious creeping on of a diseased state of some of the vital organs, which frequently cause sudden death. Verdict—Died by the Visitation of God.—On the same day, an inquest was held at Davis’, the Crispin Arms, Clarence-street, on view of the body of John Dickson, aged about forty years, then there lying dead. Deceased was a singer by profession, but for years past had been addicted to intemperance, and was mainly dependant for a maintenance upon Mr Davis, of the Crispin Arms; on Friday evening be complained of being rather unwell, and retired to bed early; about three o’clock on Saturday morning Mr Davis was called up to see him; but before he could reach the apartment, Dickson had ceased to live. Dr Tierney was of opinion, from the history of the case, that death was produced by disease of some internal organ, brought on by excessive drinking. Verdict, died from the effects of previous habits of intemperance.
DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS IN PUBLIC HOUSES.—Previous to the last session of the Legislative Council, Governor Darling’s Act for regulating places of public exhibition and entertainment, (9 Geo IV, No. 14) prohibited in the most peremptory manner the giving any kind of entertainments whatever, whether of the stage, or ordinary dancing or singing, or otherwise, in licensed public-houses. This Act, avowedly passed to meet the then penal condition of the colony, was found to be too stringent as its circumstances altered and improved; and was allowed to remain a dead-letter in the statute-book until last year, when in consequence of certain proceedings before Sir Alfred Stephen (arising out of an information exhibited against the proprietor of Hulle’s Hotel, George-street, for allowing sparring matches to take place in his saloon), the attention of the Legislature was called to the penal provisions of this statute; whereby (to use the Chief Justice’s own words) “the Governor, himself, and his family, if visiting the Royal Hotel on the occasion of a concert or a ball, would, in the terms of the second section, be deemed to be rogues and vagabonds, and be liable and subject to all such penalties and punishment of, rogues and vagabonds.” This state of the law necessarily required immediate revision; but in the Bill which was consequently brought in, and hurriedly passed through its various stages, (14 Vict. No. 23) the Council went to the opposite extreme, and repealed the penal prohibitions, without providing for any of those wholesome restrictions which are in force to this day in England, as regards the allowance of dancing and musical entertainments in public-houses. Hence the rapid increase of “saloons” for these purposes in the lower quarters of the city; and hence so many of those unhappy cases of female deviation which are every week placed among the records of the Sydney Police Office. During the desultory conversation (it could hardly be called a debate) which ensued upon the second reading of the Bill for repealing Governor Darling’s Act, in September last, it was incidentally mentioned that Mr Serjeant Adams, the learned Chairman of the Middlesex Session, had very recently expressed himself in favour of licensed persons being allowed to have dancing and music in their houses. True; but the circumstances under which that experienced magistrate spoke were these:—A servant, who in order to obtain finery for the purpose of visiting certain dancing saloons, had robbed her mistress to some extent, was easily detected and apprehended by reason of the facilities given to the police by the excellent regulations, as regard vigilant surveillance, enforced, in London and its suburbs in all licensed houses where dancing and other entertainments are allowed by express magisterial permission. And the learned Serjeant, speaking of these dancing saloons as “schools of depravity and vice,” said, that the only way of neutralizing their effects was to confine them to houses to which the police had access at all hours. But, in Sydney, by the operation of the Public Entertainment Act of last session, no restriction can be enforced; no permission need be applied for; any public-house can open its rooms with allurements which, to the humbler classes, are fraught with ruinous temptation; and the pernicious consequences are to be found in the infirmary, magdalens, and gaol. It is absurd to talk of the impropriety of interfering with the pleasures of the classes who resort to these places. Their profligacy, not their pleasure, is sought to be checked by the intervention of that necessary surveillance to which Mr Serjeant Adams so forcibly alluded; which was not even hinted at when our hasty legislators, in providing for the pleasurable arrangements of the higher classes, entirely neglected those provisions for the judicious regulation of the amusements of the lower, which all experience shows to be the peculiar care of a paternal government. As it is understood that the last Act for licensing public-houses requires some technical amendments, which are likely to be brought before the Council during the ensuing brief session; it is to be hoped that the obvious evils which the crude law we have been considering has tolerated and permitted, will not be lost sight of by the Attorney-General.
1 New South Wales Government Gazette, Fri 28 Mar 1851, p. 562-3.
2 The Sydney Morning Herald, Mon 31 Mar 1851, p. 3. Emphasis added.