029 - Hunter Valley Manuscript - July 1833

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Description(029.jpg) Recto Cap 3 5 The absurd [onis] representations that have been made at home, of the frequency of robberies by bushrangers, have doubtless deterred many persons from emigrating to this colony. At present such an [event] is scarcely ever heard of, and is fully as absurd as the Parisians calling Londoners a city of suicides without looking into their own Morgue, where they would soon find the suicides of Paris exceed those in London - Whilst Botany Bay has the eyes of the world fixed on it as a Penal Settlement and if some desperate character amongst the many thousand culprits sent there happens to break his bonds and commit some trifling depredation to support his existence, the Press teems with wonderful stories of this Graour or Corsair and the whole prison population are considered in arms and [anarcky] established - On the contrary there is scarcely a country in the world where the citizen or [husbandman] can [hoe] in greater security than in the wilds of Australia - The writer has been about three years settled on the Hunter and during that time with the exception of a Barbers apprentice who ran away from his Lawful master at Sydney and appeared on the Hunter on horseback with a black face, robbing a few hen roosts and one dray of a keg of rum, he has not heard of one single depredation committed by a bushranger in that district - Whilst the only runaway who has succeeded in hiding himself from the police is a man of the name of Barber - who lives with the black natives beyond the range of civilised society - This man has by some artificial means made his skin resemble that of the blacks and has adopted all their habits of life, and very surely shews himself amongst his old comrades - but his life is perfectly innoxious for the settlers have nothing to fear from him, nor is it believed than many of them would lead to his apprehension - Whilst writing the above a paragraph in the Sydney Herald [conferius] the opinion above given with regards to the impracticability of runaways subsisting Datenot specifiedSourcehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/uon/2666332552/

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SubjectNSWHunter ValleySettlerNew South Wales historyNSW historyAustralian historyMaitlandNew South WalesAustraliaFlickr Commentspelio: One of many great records you have!

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