One does not, however, hear in Sydney of the wholesale corruption, the taking of palpable 10_l._ notes, universally attributed to several legislators of the sister colony. The present Ministry of Mr. Martin and Mr. Parkes, in spite of some recent failures in finance, is generally described by reliable people as about the best since the existing Constitution came into force; and as the Opposition is weak, and contains few, if any, men of ability, the Government can do things pretty much in its own way. But other Administrations have been less powerful, and when they felt themselves tottering have, in order to prolong their lease of office a little longer, been sometimes by no means fastidious in the means they employed to obtain support. Different people were to be conciliated in different ways, and one of the results was the creation of a certain number of _Windmill Magistrates_. Lest the term _Windmill Magistrate_ should be unintelligible to those who are not fully initiated into the mysteries of colonial democracy, perhaps I should explain that there have been persons aspiring, and not always in vain, to the honour of being magistrates, whose early education was not very comprehensive, and who, not being able to sign their names, were in the habit of affixing their mark x instead. The supposed resemblance of this mark to the sails of a windmill suggested the term. Whatever be the cause or causes, the Legislative Assembly certainly is not held in much respect. It is in vain that its members strive to assert their importance by voting themselves free passes on the railways and a Members’ Stand at the races. The leading Sydney paper, ‘The Sydney Morning Herald,’ has been publishing a series of articles, appearing two or three times a week, entitled ‘The Collective Wisdom of New South Wales,’ in which all the bad grammar, bad language, and extravagant and unbecoming behaviour of the Members, not mentioned in the reports of the debates, are chronicled and commented on. The following observations are from a leading article (not from one of the series I have alluded to) in the same paper,[12] which is as temperate and well conducted as any in Australia:—