The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-16 00:00:00

qhe prelSO•

MAILS.

The mail. for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Gibraltar,
will be made up on the morning of the 17th ikeember.
'[hr West India mails, excluding ,bur for alexia), Honduras, and
the Havannals, will be matte up on the morning of the 17th December.
Tb. overland mail, for Gibraltar, Maim, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Urpt, Aden. Ceylon, India, Hong-Kong, and China, via Southampton,
will be made up on the evening of the 19th December.
The overland closed TAU+, rio Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Hong Kong,will be made up on the
evening of the 24th December.
The mail. for New South Wale., Van Dlemen's land, and New
Zealand will he made up on the evening of the Ile December.
The mails for Rriti•h North America, Bermuda, and the United
States, will be made up on the evcniart of the 4th January.
The mail. for the Brasibt, the River Plate. Monte Vtdeo, Pernam-
buco, Bahia, Ma rein, and Buena. Ayrc., will be dispatched on the
evening of the 4th January.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
R. M., Ilminster.—There WAS no mistake in our quotations of the
Glasgow sham market on the 9th inst.
What Amino states relative to the French expresses is not the fact.
Advertiaereents intended for l'Ae keprese, Landon evening paper,
•must be at the Moe by T.O o'clock on the day of publication.

111011 WATER AT LONDON-BMWS.
Two DAT. Morning, min. past —; afternwrt, 16 Wm past 0.
To-Moanow —Morning. 37 min. past 0; Afternoon, 0 min. peat 1.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 16.
CONSIDERABLE anxiety and doubt have prevailed,
both at home and in the colonies, as to the intention
of the government in respect of the great questions of
transportation, convict-discipline, and the entire
system of secondary punishments. From the known
opinions, indeed, of those of the ministers who have
paid most attention to the subject, and who, from
their positions, are called upon to examine and to
weigh, and form a decision respecting it, a pretty
certain inference might have been drawn, that the
whole system of transportation would be suspended,
and a bread experiment made, which might serve as a
guide and a step to its total abolition. This much,
indeed, might have been inferred from a reply of Sir
GEORGE. GREY'S, late in last session.
Such a measure was in complete accordance with
the recommendations of the committee of 1838.
That committee, however, limited its recommendations
to prohibiting transportation to districts already set-
tled. A mixed experiment was therefore made, after
abolishing the system of assignment, of sending con-
victs to isolated spots, from whence they might be
employed either in probation gangs, or later with
tickets of leave, to improve, or furnish labour to, no
very distant settlement.
With this was coupled a doubly penal colony for
the refractory convicts in Norfolk Island.
We need not say how both portions of this ex-
periment utterly failed. The horrors of Norfolk
Island arc too shocking to be credited, or even re-
corded. The evils brought on the unfortunate free
colonists of Van Diemen's Land are told in their
petitions, and in their condition. The failure of all
the ends of transportation, with respect to convicts
themselves, has been equally manifest; and the
enormity of the failure, proceeding from the utter
impossibility of enforcing discipline, or preventing
the most gross immorality in probation gangs, toge-
ther with the equal impossibility of finding profitable
work, has absolutely necessitated some bold and
decisive measures.
Such measures, we are glad to learn, and from
undoubted authority, have been taken. They are—
first, the suspension of all transportation for male con-
victs during two years. Female convicts are to be trans-
ported as before. The necessity of diminishing the
mass of convicts in Van Diemen 's Land, in order either
to effect their reform, or to render their labour profit-
able, is too obvious to need proof. There are at present
about 30,000 convicts in Van Diemen's Land, who may
be classed as follows ;
On ticket of hare 7,250
Passholders
In probation gangs 10,500
Instead of allowing them to be recruited by 4,000
new convicts annually, as would be the case did
transportation continue, the above numbers will be
allowed to thin by the usual course, the ticket of
leave men in certain numbers obtaining conditional
pardon, and probably 8,000 of the other classes ob-
taining tickets of leave. The diminished numbers
be found in employment partly by individuals,
rest by the government. As the system of road-
making has not been found efficient, those who cannot
employed on either colonial or government work,
11 be engaged in the building of villages, and the
cultivation of ground around them, two acres being
allotted to each cottage, and the industrious having the
privilege of purchasing a cottage and garden at ten
years purchase of half the rent.
Such is the plan for finding work for the mass of
convicts already transported. And we need scarcely
add that, coupled with it, and with the suspension of
transportation, is the abandonment of the proposed
colony of North Australia.
A more important and difficult consideration has
been to fix upon that system of secondary punish-
ment which will at once have the effect of deterring
crime, withoutdebruting the convict, and of giving fair
opportunity for reform, without, at the same time,
rendering him a pet, and thus making his condition and
prospects an invidious contrast with those of our
moral and domestic population.
The first year after conviction is to be spent by the
criminal in seclusion, as practised at Pentonville.
A second term is then to be passed under the dis-
cipline of the silent system.
It I. only after having passed' through these, that
convict enters on the probation system, a portion
which is based upon the ideas of Captain
Macostoe 14 T P

new

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gtZ.llant humanitarian is, how-
The system of this Punishment is not
ever, by no means fully allot.44

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41
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