Only 14 men incorrigible out of 586.

Their conduct on board ship may be ascertained from the reports of the surgeon superintendants of the ships in which they have been sent out. It will be recollected that heretofore the association of convicts on board ship had been invariably demoralising in the highest degree, and their conduct outrageous. Now what has been the case with Pentonville prisoners during the voyage? Up to the end of 1847, eight ships had been sent out with prisoners from Pentonville: and in every one of these eight instances the conduct of the convicts is stated to have been excellent, uniformly well-behaved and orderly.

Their conduct when landed in Australia is, however, the great touchstone. At first they were sent to Van Diemen's land, which at that time was as bad a place as could have been found. The failure of the probation system was at its climax; and from the falling off in the demand for labour, there was no opening for fresh arrivals. Consequently, some of them, almost unavoidably, relapsed into vicious habits: the remainder were sent on to Port Philip. From the concluding observations in the Report upon those left in Van Diemen's Land, it appears that, of the inferior classes of Pentonville prisoners, only 7 per cent. 'misconducted themselves in such a manner as to expose them to any penalty whatever; from which it may be reasonably inferred that the offences of the exiles have been less.'-Report of the Commissioners of Pentonville, 1848, p. 34.

On the 20th April, 1848, the exact number of men and boys landed at Port Philip, was as follows:

Of course in so large a number there will have been many temporarily, and some permanently, ill-conducted: but the statement concerning them in the Chaplain's Report, taken from the Report of the Pentonville Commissioners just quoted, is very encouraging. Mr. Charles Cooper, who went out in the Joseph Somes with 248 men, to Port Philip, towards the close of 1847, wrote to the commissioners of Pentonville to the same effect two months after his arrival. We regret that we have not space for the details. The Deputy Assistant Commissary General, writing to Earl Grey from Port Philip on the 10th May, 1848, urges the

Mr. Latrobe to Sir C. Fitz-Roy, 20th April, 1848.

propriety of placing, for a time, the new arrivals under more restraint in a country, where temptations of every kind surround them; but adds:-After watching narrowly the conduct of 'the men already landed, now amounting to upwards of 1600, I ' am confident that exiles may be rendered a very safe and very ' useful people.' The authorities in Western Australia have received, from time to time, prisoners from Pentonville, and boys from Parkhurst; and have very recently asked for an increased number.

We have treated this question of separate confinement at some length, because, in our judgment, it is the basis of the whole system. Mr. Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham; Mr. Clay, the Chaplain at Preston; and almost all persons who have any practical knowledge on the subject, are as confident as Mr. Field, that it is an indispensable condition to all improvement. The following points respecting it appear to us to be established. We have the power of inflicting upon felons the severest known sort of imprisonment, for a period of twelve months, without detriment to mind or body. Along with this, we can subject them to such moral influences, that, at the end of the twelve months, we are able to put a great majority of them in intercourse with each other without mutual injury; and that, even in the trying situation of a convict ship, (a much severer test than being thrown together in regular hard labour on shore,) they will conduct themselves with decency, order, and propriety. Finally, under these improved conditions, a very large proportion of them are willingly received in our colonies; and, when there, lead an honest, industrious, and useful life, supporting themselves, and contributing to the prosperity of their adopted country.

We now turn to the second stage of punishment,-the period of compulsory labour. A year's imprisonment, however severe, ending in simple expatriation, is not a sufficient punishment in the more aggravated felonies, with the view of either deterring or reforming. It is therefore to be followed up by compulsory labour for whatever length of time may be requisite to fill up the measure of the sentence. Now, it is admitted, in the first place, that, in order to enable prisoners to bear prolonged punishment, they must be associated together. Labour in association seems also to afford the means of carrying on an essential part of the process of reformation, which is in abeyance while the prisoner is in separate confinement. Moral and religious impressions may be made, and penitence felt, and good resolutions formed in a cell; but these can only grow or be confirmed by practice. They must be braced and hardened by exposure to actual temptations;

temptations strong enough to exercise them, not too strong to overpower them. When the convict is finally set at liberty, his freedom will bring many a difficulty with it; and good resolutions will yield to strong temptations, unless the conscience has been. trained, by actual conflict, to overcome weak ones. This peculiar discipline may be best applied by a well-administered system of associated compulsory labour. Moreover, the profit upon combined labour is so large as to be of importance. Labour in separation is, of course, of little value. It may be as much as 107. a year, or as little as 21., according to circumstances. But, in association, Colonel Jebb considers that the value of each man's labour, when favourably directed, will be worth 2s. a day*,-more than enough to defray the whole current cost of the establishment.

For many years our gaol system was as great a failure in its attempts at setting prisoners to work in company, as in its attempts at reformation. The buildings were unsuitable, the supervision faulty, the religious instruction inadequate, the discipline either blindly severe and vindictive, or weakly lenient; while the prisoners were not subjected to previous probation and seclusion. But these, again, are evils of administration, not of principle. In nearly all cases they may be removed; in many they have already been greatly diminished. At Norfolk Island, where evil had reigned more fearfully than on any other spot in the known world, the reduction of the numbers from 2000 to 500, and the appointment of an efficient superintendent, secured at least decency and subordination. In Van Diemen's Land, where the probationary gangs were little superior to the Norfolk Island men, similar reforms were introduced with the same effect. When once the annual supply of convicts had been cut off, and the establishments weeded of inefficient officers, the changes were followed by a diminution of grave offences, and by order, regularity, and steady work; although, from other causes, moral improvement could not be looked for. And, to show what economy there is in any system by which good conduct can be obtained, Sir William Denison was able to reduce his military strength from 1400 to 650 men, and render a whole regiment available for service in India.

We have also had experience of the labour of convicts associated together on board the hulks. This is confessedly the worst part of the whole system. We trust, the time is approach ing when floating prisons will be finally abandoned, and convicts placed in buildings on shore, where individual separation at night

* Surveyor-General's Report, 1847, p. 189.

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may be strictly carried into effect, as is now done at Portland. A ship is necessarily a bad prison; and the expense of repairing these old vessels is enormous.

At home we have two hulk establishments, — one at Woolwich, and the other at Portsmouth. In the former there are about 850 men, distributed among an old seventy-four gun ship, two frigates, and a hospital ship: in the latter there are about 900 men, occupying two seventy-fours and a hospital ship; in addition to which is a hulk appropriated to the reception of incurable invalids, and fitted to hold 400 men; so that altogether there is accommodation for 2150 convicts, of whom the greater part work in the dockyards. Although we believe that many of the provincial, and even some of the metropolitan prisons, present prominent points of a far worse character than are discoverable in the hulks in respect of damaging intercourse and mitigated punishment; yet, to a great extent, there are evils existing in the hulks, inseparable from their construction — because the men are brought into too close contact, and effective supervision by the officers cannot, at all times, be maintained. The lower gun decks and the orlop decks are given up to the prisoners. A gallery runs fore and aft amidships on each deck, and is divided from the wards, or bays, by iron bars, forming a secure railing on either side. From these railings to the ship's sides extend the bays, which are separated from each other by bulk-heads, and, in general, each embraces two port-holes. In the day-time the hammocks are removed, and tables are put up, where the prisoners take their meals in messes of about fifteen men. Order and decorum are preserved, and intercourse between the prisoners is permitted. No great mischief can take place at these times;-nor, indeed, is it in the broad light of day, when the officers' eye is upon them, that they prepare schemes of villany; besides, they are then occupied by external objects. But darkness brings them comparative security from observation. As the hammocks are slung in the usual manner to the upper beams, in lines parallel to the galleries where the warders patrol, those prisoners alone who are immediately adjacent to the railings can be seen. Night, therefore, is the time for evil communication between these evil spirits, with the invariable and acknowledged effect of mutual deterioration. So long as separation at night is wanting, no discipline can prevent this mischief, no school teaching can lessen it, no chaplain's preaching can countervail it. Happily, the Government has announced that this species of imprisonment is a temporary expedient; only to continue until some other system can be established free from those objections which, in the hulks, are so

patent and so powerful. At Gibraltar there are two hulks, containing ahout 300 men each, and a convict barrack on shore containing 300 more,-in all 900 men, -chiefly employed in ordnance and naval works. At Bermuda there are four frigates and a hospital ship, with accommodation for 1750 men employed in the dock-yard, and on the fortifications, and other ordnance works. It is, we believe, in contemplation to build a prison on shore, sufficient to contain the whole number.

When convicts are working in dockyards in gangs, and accompanied by armed sentries, there must necessarily be a waste both of power and time. They cannot well be employed as handicraftsmen, and are chiefly occupied in the removal of heavy weights, anchors, masts, timbers, and stones. But there

is an essential difficulty in applying compulsory labour to work which cannot be measured; where it is, therefore, done by the day, and not by the task or piece. It is impossible to obtain exertion from convicts in such cases, because there exists no test of their labour, according to which reward can be given or punishment inflicted. The value of their labour, when employed on day work, is not therefore much; though probably equal to the cost of their maintenance. Until of late years, the condition of the hulks was a discredit to the country. Owing to the crowded state of the ships, there was neither separation nor classification - there was no adequate moral superintendence, the expenditure on moral and religious instruction being less than one-ninth of what it is at Pentonville for the same number of men. The work was dull, continuous, and devoid of any stimulus; the discipline was conducted on the old principle of appealing to fear only. But a better system has been introduced; and, though not so good as it ought to be, and though much remains to be done, a great change has already taken place.

The efforts that for several years have been made to improve the discipline of the convicts employed on the public works at Bermuda and Gibraltar, notwithstanding all the disadvantages under which they have taken place, have been attended with a degree of success sufficient to justify the expectation, that employment of this description may become a very useful part of the punishment of the majority of offenders. Already, under the system which has been adopted at Gibraltar and Bermuda, notwithstanding the want of proper buildings, and the difficulty, under the disadvantage of insufficient space, of applying adequate means of moral instruction, the good order, and the industry of the convicts, have become very remarkable.' - Earl Grey to Sir W. Denison, 27th April, 1848.

All experience, however, of compulsory labour by criminals shows, that the attempt to enforce discipline and hard labour by punishment alone, leads to a great deterioration in the moral