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POLICE AMBITION AT SORELL.
To the Editor of the Colonial Times.
SIR-There is, at present in operation, an
attempt to induce the inhabitants of Pittwater
to contribute towards the projected erection of
a new Police-office at Sorell ; it is however
much to he hoped, that the people of the district
possess more sense than to allow themselves to
he duped into any such folly, as the erection of
buildings almost exclusively for convict purposes.
If the inhabitants of Pittwater have money to
spare for public undertakings, it would certainly
he far preferable to devote such resources to the
restoration of the Hope Bridge, and the repair
of their local roads, to neither of which rpully
essential works has the Government afforded
the least effectual assistance throughout the
number of years the district has been settled.
It is nevertheless true, that several persons
have already been weak enough to submit to
the imposition ; how these persons, with the
certain prospect before them of a total inter-
ception of communication by land transit with
Hobart Town, during the ensuing winter, in
consequence of the neglected state of the road
between Sorell and Richmond, and the complete
wreck of the Hope Bridge, can thus tamely
surrender, their money for a most useless and
ridiculous object, the only end and tendency of
which is the gratification of the vanity of an
individual, is as difficult to imagine, as is the
presumption of those who attempt the extortion.
It would be an evil of quite sufficient magnitude,
were the Government to squander the
public money in any such absurd and unnecessary
work, even without having recourse to assistance
from local contributions, and had this
latter expedient emanated from the Government
after its withdrawal of the convict labour from
the-Hope Bridge, it would have amounted to
little short of a direct insult to the community
of the district.
The Police duties have for years been performed
saiittf.ctorily and efficiently with no
better, nay, even much worse, than the present
accommodations and if the Police Department
be not satisfied with such, which are, in fact,
amply sufficient for every useful purpose, and
adapted for the performance of far more extensive
duties than the trifling police business occurring
at Sorell, he must, forsooth, require
an establishment of greater magnificence, to
exalt the importance of the new Assistant Police
Magistrate ; or if the present Police Bench be
not sufficiently imposing to satisfy the ambition
of that functionary, then let himself or the Department
incur the expense of providing a new
one, or (as his duties are almost entirely devoted
to the coercion of the convict population) let
the Government with its convict labour, itself
undertake the burden Yours, etc,
H. G.
March 29, 1848.
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