AustLit

This editorial begins: 'The Public is respectfully informed, that new arrangements having been made by the proprietor of the Omnibus and Sydney Spectator, for the conduct and management of that publication, from the present number, the system on which it has heretofore been carried on will be completely altered'. The writer continues that the newspaper will be 'conducted on different principles to those on which it formerly relied' and says that the present proprietor will not be 'accountable for the sins of our predecessor'.

The writer goes on to denigrate the other Sydney newspapers of the day, including the Sydney Herald, the Australian, the Chronicle, the Observer and the Sun. Without 'wishing to be too severe', the other papers are accused of failing to furnish 'all that is expected or looked for by the Sydney public'.

The future object of the Omnibus will involve satirising 'the lesser follies and frailties which abound', but the paper will not descend into 'malicious innuendo', 'obscenity' or 'indecency'. The Omnibus has 'one end in view': 'to use the words of a great master of our craft ... "to reprove folly, to check vice, and to amend the morals of the town".'