hat Sydney is overrun
with idle labourers in search of employment, while the settlers in the
country are all crying out for help. To such a height had this evil
risen, and to such distress were numbers of infatuated men reduced by
remaining idle in town, that Government was recently applied to for its
interference, and actually paid the expense of sending hundreds of men
into the country, where they got immediate employment, which they might
have had many months before, had they been reasonable in their demands.

It is remarked all over the Colony, that the emigrants generally are
very difficult to satisfy in the matter of rations; and that the man who
had been the worst fed at home, was the most difficult to please abroad.
An Irishman is generally found the chief grumbler here; a Scotchman
ranks second; while an English peasant, who has all his life fared
better than either, is found, in Australia, to be most easily satisfied.
I do not attempt to explain or account for this; I have, however, not
only frequently observed it, but have heard my neighbours make the same
remark. I hired an Irish labourer and his wife, to whom I gave the
following pay and rations:--22l. a year to the man; 12l. a year to his
wife; weekly between the two, 14 lbs. of beef, 20 lbs. of flour, 3 lbs.
of sugar, 6 oz. of tea, and 4 oz. of tobacco. With this allowance, for
half of which thousands of families in England would be thankful, the
couple were not satisfied, and actually complained that they had not
enough to eat. It was summer time when they came to my farm; and they
were warned, that the blow-flies would destroy their meat, if it was not
covered up: they were too lazy, however, to take the slightest care of
it; and, as I saw their second week's allowance lying on a table the day
after it was served out, covered with a mass of blow-flies, I took them
severely to task for their wanton waste and neglect. But it was of no
avail. And this couple had lived upon potatoes and butter-milk all their
lives! It is but just to add, that, on mentioning to a major in an Irish
regiment, whom I subsequently met in China, the difficulty usually found
in satisfying his countrymen in New South Wales, he expressed his
astonishment, and remarked that the reverse was generally found to be
the case with Irishmen in the army.

Several ships with emigrants from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland,
arrived at Sydney during the years 1838 and 1839. These people we