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LAND.
97
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a
month ; if he has been some time in the colony, it will he three months
before it is brought to auction. His difficulties now begin. If he has
made his selection-near some one who, for reasons of his own, is not
anxious for a neighbour, he will be opposed at the sale, and his land
be run up to a price far beyond its value. If this be not the case, in
all probability the survey of the land will not have been completed
within the period, and delay will take place on that account. Supposing
that neither of these circumstances happen, the intending purchaser
has another difficulty in a number of vagabonds, who infest the sale
room for the purpose of extorting a douceur from the purchaser,
in order to buy off their opposition, though they have not the least
intention of buying the land. If he do not satisfy them, they will run
up the price in the same way that a London broker does in auction rooms
when he sees a person buying on his own account. This, in Sydney, is
penal; but although a few convictions of fraudulent opposition have
taken place, the system is in full force. One of these convictions was
that of a man who, at the time, was one of the most reputedly wealthy
merchants of the city, but who had stooped to this method of turning an
honest penny at the expense of an emigrant. The intending emigrant
will, after this exposition, agree with us that the less he has to do
with Government sales the better ; indeed, from the system pursued, and
from the ridiculously high price of one pound per acre for
land, the best of which has been picked years ago, the Government has
contrived to bring the land-fund to a very low ebb.
If
it be known that the newly-arrived emigrant have any money.with which
he desires to commence farming, and the more so if, as is often the
case, he have a letter of introduction to a landowner, he is pretty
certain to take land on a clearing lease. The mere fact of delivering a
letter of introduction in Sydney, would be considered tantamount to his
being simple enough for anything, and he really runs a fair chance of
being done, as he certainly will be if he take the advice offered to
him on any terms. A lease of a small cleared farm, on very
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