the convicts, than to any objections that can be raised to a sound system of transportation. We are unable to follow Captain Crofton through the details of his most valuable evidence, to none of which can we take any exceptions; on the contrary, we are highly pleased with his system of gratuity," his mode of education and lectures, and his gradual tests of reformation accompanied by a certain amount of confidence in the convict.

The next point of novelty suggested by Captain Crofton is that transportation (or "deportation" as he calls it) should be confined to such convicts only as show themselves actually reformed, in short, that it should be treated as a reward instead of a punishment. This proposition we conceive contains the elements of answering all the objections that have been raised by the colonists to the reception of convicts, and it also tends to afford the most lasting boon to the convict. We hold that transportation to a young and rising colony is, to a reformed convict, essentially a reward, as opening up a field not only for well paid labor, but also for acquiring position in the social scale, and, perhaps, considerable property. An inquiry into some of the Convict Colonies, Australia and Van Dieman's Land, would disclose many instances of these men, in defiance of maladministration, rising to good position and in some cases to vast opulence, or, as we heard a representative of Her Majesty once express himself, in addressing a meeting, they have become "Lords of Waste and Princes of Forests." These results have, however, been far more limited than they certainly would have been, had such a suggestion as that thrown out by Captain Crofton been acted upon from the beginning. Heretofore, the system has begun at the wrong end, the worst characters were selected for immediate shipment, or what is is more to be deplored, all classes were indiscriminately mixed and sent off together. We have, hereafter, to point out some of the consequences arising from this mistake, which will also assist us in determining the principal causee of the opposition set up in the colonies.

Western Australia is the field selected by Captain Crofton as the future home of the reformed convicts-he suggests that place, we presume, for the same reason that will compel us to agree with him-namely, the want of any other; we, however, have our objections to this particular locality in eonsequence of its proximity to those places which have suffered

so much from the former system, and whose free inhab itants will look upon the convict, not in the light of his reformation, but, as one of the old villanous stamp ; however, we must accept this as the only colony now left to us for the purpose. Separated from the above objection, there are many advantages attendant on the selection of Western Australia calculated to give the experiment a fair trial. A wide field exists there for the disposal of the convicts; we believe we are not far wrong in saying that the territory comprised in Western Australia embraces an area about eight or nine times as large as the United Kingdom, with a favorable climate, and a soil of at least average quality. The want of laborers is also much felt, which want will increase as the resources of the Colony are developed-and if sufficient inducements to free settlers are held out, that developement will keep pace in sufficient activity to afford full and profitable occupation to all the reformed convicts that England can ever produce.

Our space will not admit of the discussion of the plans by which we would propose to follow out in Western Australia, the work of reformation so ably carried on here by Captain Crofton and his colleagues, or the means we would adopt to give the convict a lasting interest in his own good conduct, after he had regained his liberty, and to secure his anxiety for the welfare of his new homebut, intending to return to the subject on a future occasion, we will for the present content ourselves by examining the former system of transportation, with its results to the colonist and to the convict, and as we are about to do so from personal observation, and to bring the experience of many years to strengthen our inquiry, we hope we may thus throw some light on the principal cause of failure under the old system, and assist those persons whose inclination and oppor tunities may enable them to promote a better state of affairs for the future.

Before, however, proceeding with our examination, we are anxious to point out one indispensable provision which must be made in order to secure Captain Crofton's proposition a fair trial -we allude to the interval that must elapse between the period of the convict's being selected for deportation and his arrival in Western Australia. The test of Reformation in its most dangerous application will not have commenced until the convict is placed under new control, and has started on his voyage. Here the work of former conversion will be destroyed

unless far different means than those heretofore adopted be brought to meet the difficulty. We believe that irreparable injury has in hundreds of instances resulted to convicts from the want of proper superintendence and employment during the long period of the sojourn at sea, and unless both are now provided, even for the reformed convict, we apprehend that much damage and injustice will be done to him. This voyage and its associations have been and will be found quite subversive enough to destroy all the improvement effected by training in the Reformatory Institutions, unless some counteracting influence be brought to bear; therefore, the danger should be guarded against, as it can be, by a little foresight and extra expenditure. If this be not done the preliminary reformation might as well have been let alone; and if the former mode of disposing of these men on board ship, and afterwards employing them abroad, be still persisted in, we shall have another round of agitation from the Colonies, the Reformatory Movement will be there looked upon as a failure, and those very men who have been selected for good conduct will be banished from the scene where so many anxious for their moral and intellectual improvement, are laboring, to be subjected to the most trying ordeals of temptation. Let us hope, then, that full provision will be made for the employment and improvement of those men while at sea, and, above all, that their spiritual advancement will be fully provided for.

We have now to turn our attention to the former administration of the Convict System, and to the remnant of it still existing in the Colonies; and we believe that in that administration will be found more of the evils than can be traced to the innate depravity of the convicts, and that to it may be, as already stated, attributed the opposition given by the colonists to the reception of any more of those unhappy beings.

In order, therefore, to lay before our readers the state of the case, as it existed to our knowledge a few years ago, we must trace the career of the convict from the period of receiving his sentence to his final destination abroad.

He was first transferred to the hulk, to await the despatch of a convict ship; and, during his stay in this temporary floating prison, he was associated with other convicts of more or less depravity, from all quarters, with every imaginable class of offence, each, consequently, bringing his quota of viciousness to fill up the aggregate of this floating Pandemonium. The same association, with somewhat less restraint, continued throughout

the entire voyage, and in this state, from two to three hundred convicts remained during a passage of seldom less than six months, under the superintendence, medically, morally and spiritually speaking, ofone naval medical officer. True, there were military on board, but they were only to prevent riot, and perhaps mutiny and a general massacre; but the moral guidance, we can ́ not say training, of these men for the months referred to, was entirely, we believe, under the care of this solitary medical gentleman. This living cargo of crime, like a herd of condemned souls on their way to Tartarus, was crowded in the hold of the ship, where every species of transportable offence was blended, and in one common association were mingled, for mutual contamination, the adepts in all the vicious phases of an iniquitous career.

Of course, there usually were, as there must be, many of the number who were not as yet deeply dyed in guilt, or acquainted with the arts or deep laid schemes by which many murders, burglaries, forgeries, larcenies, and a hundred other such deeds, are successfully accomplishedstill, there was no guard against free and frequent intercourse. The effects of this were painfully evident in the after life of some of these fallen, but yet not unredeemable, beings. Many commenced the voyage, in a measure, unacquainted with evil deeds, or a tithe of knowledge of what depraved humanity is capable; with but one fatal, perhaps repentant step, across the threshold of crime, yet they arrived at their destination fully initiated in all the plans and arts by which their more guilty companions had carried on their lawless course for years. Some who had heretofore been versed in but one species of crime, came out of this companionship well skilled in all, and sometimes endued with a yearning to try their hands again in some more dexterous scheme than that whereby they had received their own sentence of banishment. It has been an observable fact to us, that, whenever these men were allowed to congregate for conversation without the restraining presence of some one in authority, the subjects discussed were the modes in which villany may be most successfully practised, and the law "dodged"; here the greatest ruffian was the greatest hero; and never did one of our country's real and admired heroes, on returning with his justly earned laurels, recount with more honest and allowable pride the deeds by which "fields were won," than would some of these misguided and fallen beings boast of their wicked deeds successfully practised,

and crime made a "lucrative profession." The ear, at first shocked by the dreadful recital, received a daily, nay hourly, tuition; gradually it became accustomed to the poison; the early shock was now followed by an interested attention, as the plan of crime after crime unfolded. The interest increased, as in a novel, when the next character comes upon the stage, to tell of his deeds of evil daring and reckless adventure, combined with plaus and stratagems, which throw the last half mythical recital into the shade. The early abhorrence of these tales and their heroes was gradually turned to admiration for the men who could conceive and execute such great achievements; the ear was thus taught to believe that the greatest crime was the greatest virtue, that the greatest criminal was the greatest hero; and, stage by stage, lesson by lesson, the man who entered the convict ship, with little of crime and its mode of accomplishment to disturb his future career and reformation, leaves it well instructed in all the arts which constitute a thorough villain. Thus far, while the law had punished its transgressor, the mode of its administration had. taught him to despise its purity, and to further transgress it without compunction; his mind being at the same time rendered callous to its moral excellence, and well instructed how to sin, and yet evade its enactments.

We recently printed in THE IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW an article on Prison Discipline, from which we extract the following description of one of the scenes enacted by these unhappy people when allowed uncontrolled association. Our attention was directed to this Article subsequently to having written the foregoing observations, and it therefore affords additional evidence of the evils arising from the systein which we so much condemn :

The scenes which take place in gaols of this description, especially at night, when fourteen or more are locked up together in one room, without inspection, and with such light only as the moon and stars furnish through the grated windows, baffle all description. Gambling with stealthily fabricated dice or cards for the next day's food, fighting, singing vile songs, reciting tales of villany and debauchery, teaching or concocting crimes, with the most virulent oppression of the few who may be better disposed, are the common features of the horrid scene. If there be men who have a turn for the drama, plays are acted, and the most solemn scenes of the Court of Justice are the popular subjects. The most guilty criminal is the one most looked up to.

"In the assize (writes a prisoner) there was a considerable num.