Truly the state of New South Wales was at that time terrible. Crime was extraordinarily prevalent. Morals were loose and drunkenness was the besetting sin of the colony. It affected all classes. Drunken people were to be seen in all directions, men and women fighting in the streets, and riotous conduct everywhere. At the Rocks--the Seven Dials of Sydney--scenes of debauchery were repeated and always disgraceful. In the upper classes, at the hotel bars, the same tastes prevailed; and the gentry fuddled themselves with wine, just as the lower orders did with rum. This _penchant_ for drink was curiously contagious. Free emigrants who came out with sober habits were soon as bad as the old hands. Of course among the convict class the drunkenness knew no bounds. The favourite drink was rum--not fine old Jamaica, but East Indian, fiery and hot--which was handed round undiluted in a bucket at all regular "sprees." Often assigned servants were found downstairs hopelessly drunk while host and guests waited upstairs for dinner, the roasts being in the fire and the meat boiled to rags. Even good servants, fairly honest and capable, could not resist the bottle. The hardest drinkers were the "old hands," or convicts who had finished their terms and had become free. These fellows worked hard for a year or two till they had put by some £40 or £50, then posted off to Sydney to squander the whole in one big debauch. They stood treat to all,--rum flowed like water,--and if the money did not go fast enough they called for champagne. "It is, in truth, impossible to conceive," continues the same writer, "the lengths to which drunkenness proceeds and the crime it leads to, not only to obtain the means of gratification, but as a consequence on indulgence." To purvey to the universal thirst there were dram-shops and publics by hundreds everywhere. Licenses were seldom, if ever, refused, even to persons of unknown character. For them it was quite sufficient to get the good word of the chief constable--himself an old convict. He was not above a bribe, and his recommendation always carried the day. "In no city of the world," says Byrne, "are there the same proportion of public-houses, paying high rent, and doing an excellent business.... From high to low--the merchant, mechanic, and labourer, all alike are a thirsty community. The bar-rooms of the hotels and inns are as much crowded as the taps of the dram-shops. Drink, drink, drink, seems to be the universal motto, and the quantity that is consumed is incredible; from early morning to night it is the same--Bacchus being constantly sacrificed to."