The numbers are decreasing both of officers and men. The head convict establishment is at Freemantle, and the glory of Freemantle is over. The men are no longer allowed to work on distant roads, because the gangs are expensive when kept at a distance. Everybody is talking of retrenchment. The Home Office is still called upon to pay, but can no longer get rid of a single ruffian in this direction, and of course looks closely to the expenditure. In Western Australia generally much blame is thrust upon the government at home because of its parsimony, and hard things are said of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, because it is supposed that he has ordered the withdrawal of the gangs from the roads. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer is a vigorous man, but I hardly think that his vigour has gone so far as this. The retrenchment has probably sprung from the zeal of officers here, who have felt it to be both their duty and their interest to respond to the general demand for economy expressed by their superiors at home. But still there is money coming, and still there is work done; and it may be that this will last till the colony can exist and prosper without further aid. In this respect great good has been done. Whether more of good or more of evil has befallen Australia generally from its convicts, is a question which will not be decided to the satisfaction of the English world at large for many a year to come,--though the day for a general decision will come. But this may be said of the system with certain truth,--as it may of all human institutions,--that now, when the sweets of it have been used and are no longer sweet, the advantages are forgotten and the evils borne in mind. The Bill Sykes physiognomy of a large proportion of the population is to be seen daily throughout Western Australia. And the roads and buildings are also to be seen. But men remember whence Bill Sykes came, and why; but they forget how they got the roads and buildings.