This reference to the past was intended to contrast favorably with the present (1820), but drunkenness was not greatly diminished: the bucket and pannikin still were in request at more remote parts of the colonies, and their use was recommended as a "measure of police," to prevent the drunkards from robbing each other. Poured into a bucket, none could be unfairly abstracted--_all_ shared alike; but had it not been so arranged, some rogue of the party would have removed some bottles, when the rest were off their guard; and thus reserved for himself the pleasures of intoxication, when the others were obliged, for lack of spirits, to be sober!] [Footnote 105: Bigge, however, states, that Marsden himself was a trafficker in spirits, and felt naturally opposed to the profuse competition he encountered; yet the reader will recollect that this was the common article of barter--its use universal, in even the most correct society; and that it was rather to the disorderly habits of the houses which vended it, than to its consumption, that the most rigid moralists of the day would object.] [Footnote 106: Letter to Lord Sidmouth.] [Footnote 107: _Surgeon-superintendent Reid's Voyages to New South Wales._] [Footnote 108: Cunningham. The following is a picture of things as they were:--"The madames on board, occupy the few days which elapse before landing in preparing the most dazzling effect, on their descent upon the Australian shore." "With rich silk dresses, bonnets _a la mode_, ear pendants, brooches long, gorgeous shawls and splendid veils, silk stockings, kid gloves, and parasols in hand, dispensing sweet odours from their profusely perfumed forms--they are assigned as servants. The settler expected a servant, but receives a princess."--_Mudie's Felonry._ This is doubtless the language of caricature; but the extravagant pretensions of many, could be scarcely exaggerated.] [Footnote 109: Bigge.] [Footnote 110: Bigge.] [Footnote 111: Bennet, p. 77.] [Footnote 112: _Phillip's Voyages_, 1789.] [Footnote 113: Macquarie's commission.] [Footnote 114: _Abstract of the Emigrant and Emancipist Population in the year_ 1820, _with a schedule of Property belonging to them_: _compiled from the statements of the Emancipists._