There are two fairs held half yearly, one in March and the other in September; they were instituted about five years since by the present governor, and already begin to be very numerously and respectably attended.  They are chiefly intended for the sale of stock, for which there are stalls, pens, and every other convenience, erected at the expence of the government; for the use of these pens, etc. and to keep them in repair, a moderate scale of duties* is paid by the vender.

This town has for many years past made but a very inconsiderable progress compared with Sydney.  The value of land has consequently not kept pace in the two places, and is at least L200 per cent. less in the one than in the other.  As the former, however, is in a central situation between the rapidly increasing settlements on the banks of the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers, and the latter the great mart for colonial produce, landed property there and in the neighbourhood, will, without doubt, experience a gradual rise.

The public institutions are an Hospital, a Female Orphan House, into which it is intended to remove the orphans from Sydney, and a factory, in which such of the female convicts as misconduct themselves, and those also who upon their arrival in the colony are not immediately assigned as servants to families, are employed in manufacturing coarse cloth.  There are upon an average about one hundred and sixty women employed in this institution, which is placed under the direction of a superintendant, who receives wool from the settlers, and gives them a certain portion of the manufactured article in exchange:  what is reserved is only a fair equivalent for the expence of making it, and is used in clothing the gaol gang, the reconvicted culprits who are sent to the coal river, and I believe the inmates of the factory itself.

There is also another public institution in this town, well worthy the notice of the philanthropist.  It is a school for the education and civilization of the aborigines of the country.  It was founded by the present governor three years since, and by the last accounts from the colony, it contained eighteen native children, who had been voluntarily placed there by their parents, and were making equal progress in their studies with European children of the same age.  The following extract from the Sydney Gazette, of January 4, 1817, may enable the reader to form some opinion of the beneficial consequences that are likely to result from this institution, and how far they may realize the benevolent intentions which actuated its philanthropic founder.