all the men by whom
these resorts of iniquity are kept, are either ticket-of-leave men or
emancipists. It is no easy thing to suppress these people, for the
squatters, like the black natives, can find a home wherever they betake
themselves. And it must be owned, that considerable good has resulted in
many instances from these forerunners of civilization having penetrated
into a district, and learned some of its peculiarities and capabilities
before a settlement in it has been regularly formed. Indeed, it would
have been unjust to have been severe with the poor squatter, and his two
or three sheep and cattle, when it had long been the practice of the
most wealthy landowners in the colony, to send their stock-man with
their hundreds of heads of cattle into the bush, to find support exactly
in the same way, and without paying anything to government. The rich
proprietors have a great aversion to the class of squatters, and not
unreasonably, yet they are thus, many of them, squatters themselves,
only on a much larger scale; nor are they more inclined, in many
instances, to pay rent for their privileges than their more humble
brethren. It would appear to be the fairest and best way of dealing with
these various descriptions of squatters, to endeavour to cut up, root
and branch, the "sly grog shops," and road-side gentry, while the owner
of one sheep, or he that possesses 10,000, should be equally compelled
to pay a trifle to government, in proportion to the number of his stock
grazing in the bush, and should likewise have his location registered.
Some regulations of this kind are, it is believed, proposed, if they
have not by this time been brought into operation; and thus we may hope,
that whatever benefits the system of _squatting_ may have produced,
either as an outlet for restless spirits, or as a means of extending
colonization, may still be retained, while the numerous evils that have
sprung up along with it may be checked or got rid of. Respecting one
thing connected with this subject,--the religious knowledge and
spiritual condition of these inhabitants of the wilderness and their
children, the christian inquirer cannot but feel anxious. The result of
christian anxiety upon this matter cannot be better stated than in the
words of one deeply interested about it, and well qualified to weigh the
subject with all its bearings. After expressing his thanks to that
Divine Providence, which had enabled him, quite alone, to tra