t costly is poverty; and the extent of poverty,
by its sufferings, vastly increases the amount of crime. You have heard
the expenses of poverty. The cost of crime in England and her penal
establishments exceeds a million and a half."--_Speech of Francis Scott,
Esq. M.P._

(21) "The circumstance which must first strike any person as
extraordinary, in regard to the expatriation of criminals from this
country, is the choice of the station to which they have been sent. That
a country which, like England, is possessed of an almost boundless
tract of unsettled fertile land within four weeks' sail of her own
shores, should, in preference, send her criminals to a territory which
cannot be reached in less than as many months, thus multiplying the
expense of their conveyance, is a course which requires for its
justification some better reasons than have ever yet been brought
forward."--_A. R. Porter, Esq., Progress of the Nation._ This system
has, we believe, come to a close, and Gibraltar and other places fixed
upon; (some in Great Britain); but her convicts ought not to be employed
at home if it can be avoided, as they of course perform the work that
would be performed by the labourers of the country, many of whom are
thus thrown out of work.

Since the year 1824, a considerable establishment of convicts has been
kept up in Bermuda, employed in constructing a breakwater and in
perfecting some fortifications at Ireland's Eye. The number at present
(1836) so maintained is about 1000.

(22) And why should not English convicts be sent to work in the Rocky
Mountains? We all know that the highest peak of Great St. Bernard is
11,005 feet above the level of the sea, and is covered with perpetual
snow. Between the two main summits runs one of the principal passages
from Switzerland to Italy, _which continues open all winter_. On the
most elevated point of this passage is a monastery and hospital, founded
in the tenth century by Bernard de Monthon. The French army, under
Bonaparte, crossed this mountain with its artillery and baggage in the
year 1800; and here Bonaparte caused a monument to be erected to the
memory of General Desaix, who fell in the battle of Marengo. If, then, a
monastery and hospital have been established since the tenth century,
and are still to be found in the old world at such an elevation, and in
such a climate, what objection can there be to the establishment of a
convict post, under similar circumstances,