The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-03 00:00:00

RitTANNIA.

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Tllll 1,111010. UPSIDE DOWN.-Mew by Mr. Albert
NW% the Greta Vance, and lUDs MGM—Hawing by Male C
Nspban.—And IHE MOTHER'S DYING CHILD. Yrs. 8. Lane.

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zo-awasow Mandag, A. To.....Aftarnooo, Sh. Ma.

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3.

THE last number of the Curaill Magazine con-
tains some suggestions on the treatment of crimi-
nals which deserve consideration both from their
intrinsic value, and from the fact that the writer has
himself been a convict in Western Australia. His
account of this settlement helps in • great mea-
sure to explain the apparently exaggerated hos-
tility which the continuance of transportation has
excited in the other Australian colonies. He de-
scribes the convict who is out on a ticket-
of-leave as having no opportunity for refor-
mation, and every opportunity, or rather every
temptation, to drunkenness and license.
" The spirit-shop is one of the first things that stands
" in his way as he leaves prison ; and though he
"may not cross the river without the formality of
"a pass, he may enter the dram-shop and get
"drunk without hindrance." The only obstacle
which it is attempted to interpose, is the exaction
of a very high license from the publican ; but if this
was intended to force him to fix the price of his
liquor above the convict's means, the expedient
has signally failed. Its only result has been to
introduce extensive and most mischievous adultera-
tion, and the unfortunate purchaser gets drugged
as well as drunk. But facilities for debauchery
appear to be the only privileges which a ticket-of-
leave implies. In all other respects the convict
leads a life which, though it is not reformatory, is
still " peculiarly hateful ;" and his first and strongest
desire is to leave the colony behind him. The only
thing which keeps him there at all is his expecta-
tion of a conditional pardon. If it were not for
this, he would start for the South immediately he
is " on his ticket," for the physical obstacles of
the land journey across the continent, great es
they undoubtedly are, are insurmountable only to
individuals. He refrains from making the at-
tempt, because he hopes in a short time to be free,
within certain limits, to go to some place he likes
better; but if it were not for this single motive,
the period for which he is out on leave would
be spent in Melbourne or Sydney. It
is possible, of course, that this descrip-
tion may be considerably exaggerated, but
we can easily imagine that even a possibility of
this kind might be exceedingly unwelcome to the
people of Victoria or New South Wales.

Our whole later system of transportation has
been infected by the fatal error of confusing two
opposite theories of the nature and effects of the
punishment. Transportation was formerly regarded
as • means of inflicting more severe suffering on
the criminal than it was possible or convenient to
do at home. Fur a long time, therefore, it was
the most dreaded of secondary punishments, and
human misery reached so high a pitch in Norfolk
Island that men sometimes murdered their keepers,
or one another, simply because they wished to be
hanged. At length, however, Englishmen began
to see that there was an inconsistency in driving
criminals to what was virtually suicide, because
their crimes were not heinoua enough to deserve
capital punishment ; and as the rapid growth of
the Australian colonies coincided with this change,
another view of transporation came into fashion.
Its object now was to give a man • better
chance of reformation than he could
hope for in • settled country. In Australia
it was thought he might learn to lead a new life ;
in England he was certain to relapse into his old
one. If there was one thing plainer than another
in connexion with this new theory, it was that it
could not be applicable to the same class of
criminals with the old one. The man not yet
habituated to vice might have • fair chance of
doing well when removed beyond the reach of old
companions and old associations. But there
was no such probability of amendment in
the case of a hardened offender, and con-
sequently when transportation ceased to be re-
garded as purely penal it ought no longer to have
been applied to him. Instead, however, of
making any such change, we went on just as before.
The long-sentenced men, of whose reformation
there was little or no chance, were carefully
shipped off to Australia ; the lesser criminals were