It can scarcely be imagined that there is a being in human form, how hardened soever his heart may be, that could contemplate a scene like this, and be unmoved. It was well observed by an ancient writer, “that a virtuous man struggling against adversity was an object worthy of the admiration of the Gods”; what then shall we think of a woman, a frail woman, driven from the society of every friend, and the endearments of her native land, in whom the principles of virtue are as it were resuscitated, making a noble stand against the most powerful inducements that can influence the mind, but at last forced to yield to a necessity that would have relaxed the most rigid nerve, that would have subdued the most vigorous resolution? Is it fair to thrust weak women into such a state, and afterwards expect their lives to be pure? Who would rationally look for uncontaminated minds among females who were driven, in some measure, to an indiscriminate association with thieves of the worst description, men whose unlawful gains enable many of them to live in a manner as dissolute and far more luxurious than they had ever done at home? It may at first view appear strange, but the fact is indisputable, that the public-houses in Sydney, although fortunately reduced recently from sixty-seven to twenty-five, still evidently too numerous in proportion to the population, are as much frequented as almost any of those in the British metropolis. A notion of the customary run of those houses may be formed from the gains of the persons who keep them being sometimes so enormous as to enable them to accumulate in about three years’ time what they consider a fortune. How the persons frequenting those houses obtain money to purchase beer and spirits, both of the worst kind, at a price vastly beyond the London rates, is matter of astonishment; yet so constant among the convicts is the habit of drinking, that one can scarcely pass through the streets of Sydney without meeting some of them in a state of intoxication. They are, it is true, under the watchfulness of a police said to be extremely active,—and in many respects this representation is correct; but the fact is as above stated; I have seen women in a state of inebriety too shocking to describe, and this occurring at almost every hour of the day.