The Express. — 1864-12-03 (London, England)

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3.  THE last number of the Curaill Magazine contains some suggestions on the treatment of criminals 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 measure to explain the apparently exaggerated hostility which the continuance of transportation has excited in the other Australian colonies. He describes the convict who is out on a ticketof-leave as having no opportunity for reformation, 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 adulteration, and the unfortunate purchaser gets drugged as well as drunk. But facilities for debauchery appear to be the only privileges which a ticket-ofleave 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 expectation 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 attempt, 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 description 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 consequently when transportation ceased to be regarded 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