so rapidly effected. Hence, the discipline adopted in Government prisons is far superior to, and partakes more of the reformatory character, we speak generally of course, than that pursued in County and Borough gaols. The result of this superiority developes itself in a very unequal and prejudicial manner as respects the two classes of prisoners,-those sentenced to transportation or penal servitude, and those sentenced to a period of imprisonment. The former are at once placed under the control of government, and subjected to an admirable system of reformatory discipline; the latter remain in the county gaol, subject to a far different and greatly inferior course of management, if we except the treatment adopted in prisons, such as that at Reading. The consequences of this inequality are very serious; a criminal who commits some great and heinous crime punishable by transportation or penal servitude, is subjected to the correcting influence of reformatory discipline, his morality is improved, his education attended to, the truths of religion are instilled into his heart, he learns some useful trade, and leaves the Government prison a reformed character. On the other hand, the criminal who commits some offence not quite so serious, but which nevertheless subjects him to imprisonment for a period, perhaps of three years, passes his time in pernicious association, his morality becomes debased, his mind corrupted, the truths of religion are stifled in his heart, his hours are passed in idleness, or what is worse, in shot-drillan exercise, irritating, degrading, unequal and demoralizing― and finally leaves the County gaol adegraded out-cast from society. To show that we have not been guilty of exaggeration in the above statement, we need only refer to the last Report of Messrs. Galwey and Corry Connellan, Inspectors General of Prisons in Ireland. They observe :

"A prisoner, for instance, sentenced to four years penal servitude the minimum period of this punishment-will be forthwith placed in separation, and will be subjected to a code of regulations combining punative and deterrent treatment with reformatory advantages, such as moral and religious correction, and industrial teaching. On the other hand, a criminal sentenced for the same offence, according to the discretion of the judge or assistant barrister, to imprisonment for three years, or some approximative term, will be confined in the ordinary gaol, deficient as it may be in almost every one of the above requisites."

"He will pass his time in association' by day and night, receiv ing or communicating contamination, and in almost total idleness, if hard labor be not added to his sentence; the means of instruction

both in handicrafts and in rudimental education, being too frequently unattainable among turnkeys, who are selected without reference to their fitness, at the mere will of the sheriff, himself a temporary officer, charged with the custody of the prisoners, but not with the administration of the establishment. Some of our gaols, we are happy to admit, are honourable exceptions to this description; but wherever a more favourable condition exists it is to be attributed to the personal efforts of the Board of Superintendence, and of the local authorities acting in unison with them, and not to the operation of any common and paramount control."

These imperfections, although, of course, they affect disadvan tageously the whole body of prisoners, press with greater severity upon the females, for whom, as we have repeatedly urged, the accommodation is disproportionately inadequate; and upon the juveniles, requiring, as they do, a mode of treatment widely different from that suited to adults."

According to our present course of practice, it would appear therefore, that we do not apply the reformatory process until we have exhausted every means within our power to contaminate the criminal by vicious association. It would seem as if we wanted to procure characters of the worst possible description, to prove what separation and reformatory discipline can do; and, like the sentimental villain, in one of Bulwer's novels, who knocks his victim down, and over the prostrate body dwells on the excellency of mercy and humanity, we reflect with complacency on the superior discipline which awaits the degraded victim of vicious association, in the convict prison, and dwell with satisfaction on our own enlightened views.

The superiority of the discipline in use in convict prisons, is as creditable to the government and the gentlemen immediately connected with those establishments-we speak of the establishments in England-as it reflects a just and deserved reproach on the several grand juries who direct the management of our county gaols. The pernicious inequality which exists in the treatment of criminals in County gaols and in Government prisons, absolutely holds out an inducement to the commission of crime; and yet this inequality is in a great measure attributable to the apathy of our grand juries on the subject of prison discipline. They refuse, through a false notion of economy, to avail themselves of the advantages offered by an admirable act of parliament-the 3 & 4 Vic. chap. 44, and hence the improvements in County and Borough gaols in Ireland, are characterised by the luspectors General of prisons

in their last Report-that for the year 1853-as "scanty, imperfect and partial." Now if the evil results of this apathy and obstinacy, or whatever else it may be called, on the part of our grand juries in Ireland, were only visited on themselves, we could afford to smile and pity the imbecility which carried with it its own punishment; but the fact is, either government must stand still in the cause of reform, until the grand juries have also made some progress, an alternative which we fear will amount to a postponement sine die of useful measure every of reform, or something must be done to stimulate them to activity. It is all very well to endeavour to awaken public opinion, to point out to grand juries the course it is their duty to adopt, and to suggest the reasons which ought to influence them;-this is as much as we can affect to do, and we have done it to the best of our ability-but if this method fails, some other means must be adopted to secure the performance of those duties in the cause of social amelioration which are properly their own, but from which they appear anxious to escape.

Though experience has long since proved transportation to be insufficient to reform the guilty or deter the criminally disposed, it has continued during a period of seventy years to be the chief secondary punishment inflicted for the commission of crime: its history is inseparably connected with that of the convict question. We propose therefore to lay before our readers a narrative of the systems heretofore adopted, to enable them to decide upon the necessity which has so long existed of some change, and to conclude our observations with a review of the present condition of the modified system lately introduced.

By an act of Parliament passed in the eighteenth year of the reign of Charles II., Judges were for the first time empowered to exile for life to any of his Majesty's possessions in America, the moss-troopers of Cumberland and Northumberland. Subsequently, transportation became more general as a secondary punishment, and compulsory labor at the place of exile was after a time added; at a later period, an interest in the labor of each prisoner, during the period of his sentence, having been conferred by the 4 George I., cap. 11, upon the parties who contracted to transport them, convicts were usually sold to the planters, and employed by them upon their estates. The loss of our American dependencies

terminated this system, and the question at once arose, how prisoners sentenced to transportation should be disposed of for the future. Some recommended the establishment of vast Penitentiaries sufficiently large to contain the probable number of criminals at home, and indeed it is to be regretted that measures were not then adopted for placing the whole system of secondary punishment npon a proper basis, and grappling, once for all, with the difficulty; while others advised that all transported felons should be dispatched to the western coast of Africa, and turned loose among the savage inhabitants-a proposition sufficiently inhuman to insure its immediate rejection. The discovery of Australia, "the land of convicts and kangaroos," about this period by Captain Cook, prevented the necessity of either of the above proposals being discussed, and afforded an opportunity of solving the difficulty, of which the Government of the day gladly availed themselves. The great distance from the mother-country, the paucity of its inhabitants, the fertility of its soil, and the improbality of a return when once the convict was landed on its shores, appeared to offer great and lasting advantages which Government was unwilling to disregard, and it was forthwith determined that in this distant region, a new colony should be founded, for the sole purpose of receiving transported felons. The future historian of Australia, in tracing the dark and gloomy details of its early years, will find abundant materials to excite the sympathy and interest of his readers, ample matter for reflection in investigating the effects of convict immigration on its social progress and development, and abundant cause of complaint in the conduct of the parent state, in consigning its colony to an infancy of wretchedness and profligacy, immorality and vice.

As soon as the above determination was arrived at, an act was passed in the 24th George III., empowering his Majesty to appoint to what place beyond the seas, either within or without his Majesty's dominions, offenders should be transported, and on the 6th December, 1786, two orders of Council were issued, which duly appointed the eastern coast of Australia, and the neighbouring islands, for that purpose. The subsequent act of 5 George IV., c. 84, commonly called the transportation act, conferred a like authority, and the two Australian Colonies of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, Norfolk Island and Bermuda, were finally selected.

In

pursuance of the orders of Council of the 6th December, 1786, to which we have just referred, an expedition consisting of two frigates the "Sirius" and "Supply," three store ships, and six transports, conveying 565 male, and 192 female convicts, with soldiers and officers, numbering in all about 1,000 souls, left England on the 13th May, 1787. Its destination was a small bay on the eastern shore of Australia, named by Sir Joseph Banks, Botany Bay, from the fertility of the soil and the variety of new plants which were there discovered by that distinguished naturalist who had accompanied Captain Cook in his voyage. At this place they arrived towards the conclusion of the same year. It was soon discovered, however, that the bay was badly supplied with fresh water, and in other respects unsuited to the purposes of a penal settlement. Captain Arthur Phillip, under whose guidance and control the expedition had been placed, determined to proceed further along the coast, in the hopes of finding a more convenient locality. The result of this step was the discovery of Sidney Cove, one of the finest and safest harbours in the world, and navigable by the largest vessels, at a distance of fourteen miles from the sea; here the convicts safely disembarked on the 26th January, 1788, a day memorable as that on which our Australian Colonies started into life, and upon which the nucleus of a great empire, whose destinies are wrapped in the obscurity of the future, was established,—an empire speaking the AngloSaxon tongue, and governed according to the spirit of AngloSaxon institutions.

The penal establishments of Norfolk Island and Moreton Bay, the latter having been continued only for a short period, were reserved for the worst description of convets, generally speaking those convcted of capital offences at home or other crimes accompanied with violence, or for those who were from time to time re-transported from New South Wales, for offences committed in the colony. Norfolk Island was first made a penal station in the year 1826. It is one of the most beautiful spots in the world,-Major Wright has described the timber with which it abounds as "magnificent," and the Island itself as a "paradise"-but it soon became the scene of the foulest crimes, and of a ferocity which it is impossible to describe. The discipline to which the convicts were subjected was of the most severe and cruel nature, in fact, to use the words of one of the wretched