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encouraged to aspire.

Of course, in all criminal prisons we must expect a certain percentage
of incorrigible characters, who under the best training cannot be
brought under control; but the bulk of those in the old Singapore jail,
and we had often as many as two thousand at a time, were well behaved,
and gave evidence of the good influence of a course of discipline upon
them; for when they were advanced to a ticket-of-leave, and thrown again
on their own resources, they very rarely a second time came under the
cognisance of the police, but peaceably merged into the population, and
earned their livelihood by honest means.

We have one word to say in reference to the employment of these convicts
as warders over their fellow-prisoners; a system, so far as we are
aware, then unattempted either in Europe or America, even in a modified
form. We do not, however, see why, in the case of well-behaved and
suitable European convicts sentenced to long periods of penal servitude,
some might not be placed in certain such positions of trust under free
warders; and as the new prison rules for our jails may possibly involve
a large increase in the warder staff, it has occurred to us that the
system might have a trial to a limited extent; but we are, of course,
not in a position to speak with any authority upon the subject as
affecting our own prisons. In our case, with the exception of two or
three European warders, the whole warder staff were convicts; and at
first, certainly, there was the fear that so large a number of convict
warders might side with the convicts, when a rule they might have
thought repugnant to all, was introduced by the governing body. There
also appeared the danger that discipline might be undermined by a system
of favouritism, especially amongst men of the same caste, or that they
would shut their eyes to breaches of the rules.

None of these apprehensions were, however, experienced; but, on the
contrary, these convict warders were always the first to apprise the
authorities of any contemplated attempt at escape, or of any ill-feeling
that might be brewing amongst any particular class, or breach of prison
rules; so that, in a great measure, they acted in the double capacity of
both detectives and police. It was only upon very rare occasions that a
convict warder had to be disrated; and the punishment amongst them
consisted for the most part in fines for want of vigilance and attention
to detail, and such li