Hello, Lesley and Listers -- I will give attention here to a topic of general historical interest. I have decided to submit some remarks about pastoral licensing and leasing laws as a development from references I have seen in an extract from Michael Cannon`s "Who`s Master? Who`s Man?" which Lesley posted on 1st June this year under the heading "Description of Sydney" in response to an enquiry by John and Lyn Read. John and Lyn were asking about living conditions in Sydney in 1838. I have had my attention caught by Mr Cannon`s quoted passages referring to grazing activity in remote areas. In 1838 the water in Sydney`s Tank Stream had long been abandoned as unfit for human consumption. The Tank Stream had lately been superseded by a facility planned in the 1820s by the surveyor and engineer John Busby on behalf of the colonial government. The tunnel known as Busby`s Bore had been carved through sandstone by convicts and brought fresh water from what is now the Centennial Park area to Hyde Park. In other respects, conditions in terms of public health continued to be unsatisfactory. With all due regard to the beautiful harbour and a weather pattern less severe than what was available in the old country, I think it can fairly be said that life in central Sydney in 1838 would have been a problem because of squalor and disease and many people would have had a longing to escape to the suburbs or go bush. I will now mention some legal arrangements ordained in Sydney concerned with matters a long way out of town. The final paragraph of the work Lesley posted on 1st June referred to Governor Bourke`s action in 1836 which had the effect of allowing grazing licences to be issued in respect of Crown lands lying beyond the "Nineteen Counties" which Governor Darling had specified in 1829 as the Colony`s limits of settlement. Governor Darling`s action was referred to in the third-last paragraph. I will point out a difference of form between the 1829 and 1836 measures and have a go at outlining some later developments in the regulation of pastoral occupation of land in New South Wales. The situation seems to have been as follows -- The zone known as "the Nineteen Counties" was also commonly referred to as "the limits of location". In the early 1830s there was some minor enlargement of the limits of location extending beyond "the Nineteen Counties". Governor Darling issued his 1829 prohibition of settlement beyond "the Nineteen Counties" as a directive from his own office without any participation on the part of the Colony`s unicameral parliament the Legislative Council. The minor enlargement of the limits of location in the early 1830s occurred in the same way under the same governor. Governor Bourke`s action in 1836 involved the passing by the Legislative Council of an act under which grazing licences for Crown lands beyond the limits of location were granted from 1837 until the introduction in 1848 of a leasing system authorised by an 1846 act of the London parliament as supplemented by an order in council issued in 1847 by Queen Victoria pursuant to the 1846 act on the advice of the Queen`s ministers. The leasing system introduced in 1848 was eventually superseded by leasing arrangements provided for in the bicameral New South Wales parliament`s Crown Lands Occupation Act 1861. Regards, Andrew Fogarty Casino N.S.W.