severe system is, to deaden the faculties, both corporeal and mental -to extinguish the perceptions of right and wrong-to rob virtue of its charm, and vice of its hideousness-to bring down the man almost to a level with the brute-at once to strip him of the means to obtain and the capacity to relish the purer enjoyments of his nature to remove him from the associations of civilized lifeto reduce him to what is worse than the savage state, for he retains all the habits of artificial existence, and the appetites of the natural one, without the principle left to regulate or restrain either."(p.p. 25, 26.)

د: And again

"The more severely the wretched convict is punished, and the longer he is confined, the more necessary does it become to confine him still longer; for every day makes him more and more unfit to be set at large-the less likely is he rendered to reform and become an honest member of society. We bring ourselves into a distressing dilemma by arriving at this conclusion. Is it then the case that while we have been endeavouring to punish offenders and to check crime, we have been actually strengthening and extending the means of its propagation? We fear the answer must be in the affirmative. In all parts of the world, wherever punishments have been most severe, there crimes have been most numerous and of the darkest stain. At Macquarie Harbour, where the discipline of the convict is of a very severe kind, instances have occurred in which men have committed murder with no other intention than to be brought up to Hobart Town for trial, and to be executed! In the prison called the Bagne at Toulon, where the restraints and deprivations are described as still more terrible, murders, or attempts at murder, with a similar object in view, occur almost weekly. Yet the miserable convict on the very eve of his dreadful deed will joke, and laugh, and dance, and sing, though loaded with chains, as if indifferent to his wretched-his hopeless state. Does his spirit rise then above his fate, that he seems thus joyous in misery? Alas! No, he has no spirit to be sensible of joy as it exists in the natural breast. His ebullition is but the empty froth produced from the very dregs of debasement. Neither his joke, nor his laugh, nor his dance, nor his song, bears the smallest resemblance to that of innocent life. It is an empty sound-a mere animal expression, more void of feeling than the low of the ox or the roar of the hungry lion."-(p.p. 27, 28.)

Highly colored as this may appear, it entirely meets our own views upon this momentous subject. As the object of penal discipline should be the reformation of the offender, as well as his punishment, and as there is more joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine persons that need no repentance, the chief and paramount purpose of Prison Discipline ought unquestionably to have especial reference to this important end. By viewing public punishment in this manner, we divest it of much of its coarse brutality, and imbue it with a philanthropic and even an

engaging interest. If, then, the holy purpose of reclamation be an object of paramount interest, as respects the public, other measures than those of extreme severity must be resorted to, and diligently pursued. It is not the lash, nor the fetter, nor the solitary cell, nor the ignominious brand that will work any salutary reformation in the breast of the sinner: but measures, more arduous of accomplishment, and infinitely more mild and multifarious in their cha

racter.

As regards the extreme penalty of the law-the punishment of death, we object to it upon two grounds; first, it is inefficient as an example: and, secondly, in very many instances, by no means effective as a punishment to the offender. Our Essayist, however, goes rather farther than this, and seems to view its infliction in many cases, as a matter of mercy to the criminal. "It appears,' he says, "but too clearly, that there is even a mortal punishment beyond that of death, and which is the more dreadful, as it leaves the wretched sufferer, while perception lasts, the melancholy prospect of the dreary intellectual void into which he is about to be hurled. That this is no fanciful or ideal picture, the experience of every day evinces. It has fallen to our lot to be present at the execution of a large proportion of the malefactors, who, for the last eight or ten years have suffered the extremity of the law in Hobart Town, and the apparent apathy with which the unhappy men met their fate, was always to us the most humiliating part of the spectacle. Their lips would utter with apparent sincerity, the invocations prompted by the clergyman, but the heart that should give them expression, was too plainly wanting-they were empty sounds -the soul in a certain sense was already gone-the main part of the executioner's duty was performed to his hand-the kernel was already consumed, the outer shell only remained. They went through the most sacred ceremonies of religion-they sung psalms, they ate a most abundant meal-they heard the summons of the sheriff-their arms were pinioned-the halter put about their neck -they heard the solemn and affecting words of the funeral service as the pastor walked before them to the scaffold-the cap was brought over their eyes, and they dropped into eternity with more indifference than the ox goes to the slaughter. Vice and its consequences had completed their subjugation.

"Yet this shocking debasement is often mistaken for a calm and resigned temper the epitaph of nine out of every ten miserable men condemned to death, is that they died resigned to their fate,' and they might well be resigned to a fate of which they had so faint, so indistinct a perception."-(p.p. 29, 30.)

With regard to its effect as an example, we know, full well, that it is perfectly nugatory. We know, too, that it is a common occurrence at the executions in London, for the comrades and accomplices of the condemned criminals, to plan extensive robberies and depredations, at the very foot of the gallows on which their late companions are suspended.

From this then, does it appear that the punishment of death has any terror-any moral effect upon the surviving miscreant ?No! The public exhibition of a young man dying resolutely is rather a fearful display of courage, than an awful warning against crime. The precious contents of the Newgate Calendar afford ample and most abundant proofs of this; for the depraved adore what is game,' and to them a daring death is rather a sharp stimulant, than a dreadful shock to their vices. The halter sublimes the ruffian, and makes him a hero on the scaffold; the gallows, indeed, is but the tree on which desperate courage hideously blossoms. The convict's piety in the condemned cell is insincere while a chance of reprieve remains, and the moment he escapes the rope, back he rushes to the herd with impatient velocity. As to example, then, capital punishment is none-even the very hangman at Hobart Town, was conveyed, on a recent occasion, drunk to the watch-house in less than two hours after he had slung the rope round the necks of his five victims! "Oh!-but" it may be said, "he is so used to the business." Granted. And, therefore, the very frequency of the exhibition, tends most materially to nullify its salutary influence as a warning.

But independently of all this, there is something supremely awful in taking away even under any circumstances-the life of a human being; and, although the condition of society may render expedient, in some instances, the example of that extreme penalty of the law, still we should be certified of its efficiency, as an example, and resort to it only in those cases, which are marked by peculiar and unpardonable atrocity.

The most interesting portion of this able Essay, connected with ourselves as inhabitants of this Colony, is that which is devoted to the consideration of the Prison Discipline pursued here; and, we must think, that too much stress is placed upon its severity. The worthy author generalizes too much, and argues from what the system might be, rather than what it is. He builds all his reasonings on extreme cases, and when he maintains that transportation is a very severe punishment, he forgets that he has drawn his deductions from some of the most atrocious instances of crime, that have ever occurred in the Colony. Thus, in speaking of a miscreant named Williams-one of those bad-hearted villians, whose crimes ran abreast with their punishment-and who, after running the gauntlet of the most severe Colonial discipline, was sentenced to Macquarie Harbour for three years; speaking of this man, he says: "Arrived at Macquarie Harbour, the wretched man's punishment is rendered as severe as almost any circumstances on earth may be supposed to admit. Shut up at night within a wretched hovel on a rock in the ocean, where the only symptom of comfort is that which security alone presents: as soon as the prisoners are called from rest in the morning, they are fed with a dish of porridge composed of flour and water, with a little salt. They then embark in boats, and row for several miles to the wood-cutting

!

stations, where they continue to work until their return at night, when they are supplied with the only substantial meal they receive during the twenty-four hours. Their labour consists in cutting up the trees, growing near the coast, into heavy logs, which they slide or carry on their shoulders to the water's edge, and form into rafts. During the greater part of this duty the convict has to work up to his middle in water, and even in the woods, from the moist and swampy nature of the country, his employment is of the most disagreeable and harassing kind."-(p.p. 39, 40.)

We know not what the friends of the people "at home"-those sensitive pseudo-philanthropists, who are ever ready to advocate the cause of the wretched, when they do not deserve their commiseration-will say to this horrid description; but one caution we must give them,-let them not imagine, that all the convicts in Van Diemen's Land are subjected to this rigid discipline. Out of 11,042 prisoners only 422 were, in October last, at the two penal settlements of Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur-a very small proportion it will be seen, of the whole number. But we must show them how the general mass of the prisoner population-the assigned servants, namely are treated in the Colony; and we shall do so in the words of our Essayist:

"We will suppose him, (the convict) on his landing, assigned to the service of an agricultural settler, who receives him from the hands of the Principal Superintendent, and from that moment his course of discipline commences. As his new master conducts him to his home, he gives him an outline of what he has to expect; he convinces him, that it is only by a close adherence to his duty,-by the faithful and honest discharge of the labour allotted him, that he can escape sinking into a condition, far worse than any he had witnessed in England. As he goes along the road, he perhaps remarks a gang of offenders at work, who have fallen to that state. Every thing indeed he sees and hears, impresses him in the strongest manner. He learns more practical instruction in one day, than he did probably in all his former life, during all the opportunities he might have had,-for he is most sensibly convinced, that his own interest is at stake, and he listens with great eagerness to all that is told him. He is speedily set to work, and he as soon finds that the only way to escape censure or renewed punishment, is at once to resign himself to his condition, hard as it may be, and to strive every nerve by the full performance of his task, to give his employer satisfaction. He is watched and admonished at every step. He cannot commit the least inaccuracy, but it is observed and corrected, while, at the same time, he has the satisfaction of knowing, that if he does right—if he uses his best endeavour to do well in his new occupation, his conduct is observed and appreciated. His duty is for the most part very laborious, and he is liable to be called upon even in the middle of the night, upon any necessary occasion or emergency. If he is set to break up new land, for instance, to cut or saw down trees, to grub up their roots,

especially if he is unused to manual exertion, no labour perhaps in any country can be more severe."-(p.p. 56, 57.)

66

This is a pleasing and very pretty picture, particularly that portion of it which describes the care and solicitude of the master for his newly-assigned servant. The practical information" which he learns on his journey-the "great eagerness" with which he listens to all that is told him-the watching and admonishing "and all that sort of thing," as Jonathan would say, are impressive illustrations of the convict's new existence. To be sure, the assigned servant is liable to be called upon, even in the middle of the night, " upon any necessary occasion or emergency;" but as this is an affliction, incident to every servant, bond or free, we must not consider it in any manner as a drawback upon his general advantages. And what a lovely notion does this convey of the conduct and character of the "agricultural settler!" These, too, are more elaborately set forth in the following extract:"The moment his master receives him (the convict) into his hands from the Government, he applies himself with all his energy to reform him he lays down to him the daily line of his conduct, in the strictest manner-he cautions him at all points he watches his conduct day and night-he encourages him by explaining to him the alleviating consequences which a series of good conduct will obtain for him-he carefully separates him from the contamination of bad associates, or, if he permits him a companion, he places him under the supervision of one, either free or bond, in whom he can confide, and who will assist in carrying his intentions with regard to him, into effect. The convict, to be sure, is for the most part fed without restriction, and is well enough clad and lodged at night; but, beyond this, he has not the smallest indulgence. If he even possess money, which he has brought with him from England, or if he have friends and connexions who would be disposed to give him any, he has no opportunity of touching it."(p.p. 58, 59.)

We wish we could conscientiously subscribe to the correctness of this statement, but we cannot, neither, we are quite sure, can our readers.

In the first place, where is the master, who, upon receiving an assigned servant, applies himself with all his energy to reform him? Is this the chief object of an agricultural settler's intention, in obtaining a convict labourer? Are "settlers" of any description so marvellously kind and considerate as to have so much at heart the reformation of their assigned servants? We say, at once, and unhesitatingly, that no such thing is the case. When a "settler"-agricultural or otherwise, applies for a servant, he does not want him for the purpose of exercising his reforming talent upon him; but he wants him to dig, to plough, to cut down his trees, and, generally, clear his land, or to wait upon him in some serviceable capacity; and if he does not do this, to his master's satisfaction, he gets him punished, or perchance, returned to the Go

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