In the commencement of the year 1796, a play-house was opened at Sydney, under the sanction of the governor, who, while he laboured to promote the public weal, was not less anxious to extend to individuals the enjoyments and privileges which were compatible with the good of the colony.  Towards the close of the same year, the houses in Sydney and Parramatta were numbered, and divided into portions, each of which was placed under the superintendance of a principal inhabitant.  The county of Cumberland was assessed, a few months afterwards, for the erection of a country gaol; and the peaceable inhabitants of the colony had the speedy satisfaction to perceive a building of such utility put into hand; for such had been the recent increase of crimes, and so greatly had the settlement been annoyed by the desperate and atrocious conduct of the disorderly part of the community, that it became an object of necessity to adopt some stronger measures than those which had hitherto been put in force, to secure the prosperity and tranquillity of a community which was now so rapidly growing in extent and importance.  A town-clock was also erected in Sydney, a luxury which had been hitherto unknown, and affords evidence of the gradual maturation of the settlement; and, indeed, the whole of this enumeration is calculated to impress the reader with an idea of the rapid strides which the few last years had enabled the colonists to make in the path of respectability.  The natives had been, of late years, perfectly reconciled to their new countrymen; and, although their attachment to their accustomed habits and situations induced them to abstain from taking up new residences, and from mixing indiscriminately with the Europeans, they had become comparatively social, and commenced an intercourse which was calculated to rivet the prosperity of the colony.  Those insulting attacks and sanguinary recriminations which had disgraced the earlier years of the establishment, no longer existed, to disturb the tranquillity and excite the alarms of the settlers; many of the convicts had reformed their lives, and, instead of being examples of depravity, had turned to habits of industry, and endeavoured to benefit that society on which they had formerly preyed; while the apprehensions of famine had entirely vanished before the improvements in the agriculture of the country:  the stock had increased wonderfully; the granaries and storehouses were amply supplied; and the ground brought forth more produce, as its nature became better understood, and the most advantageous methods of tillage were discovered.