n to repeat the offence, or to pursue a career of crime,
but rather disposed to redeem their character, and live an honest and
industrious life. Yet this class of prisoners are condemned, in
addition to the loss of liberty and character, to live in constant
contact, for years it may be, with the professional thief and
house-breaker, the burglar, and the garotter, who has been frequently
convicted, and whose whole life is spent between the prison and the
"cross." The natural and inevitable result of this is contamination.
Even in the case of men possessing high principle and of great moral
fortitude the effect would be deteriorating and pernicious. With men of
weak resolution, strong passions, and a comparatively low standard of
morality, the consequences cannot be doubtful in the majority of cases.
They gradually lose self-respect, cease to think of reformation or
amendment, in time they come to envy the hardened stoicism and
"gameness" of the practised ruffian, learn his language, imbibe his
notions of life, and finally resolve, since character, self-respect,
and all else that bind them to morality and virtue are lost, that they
will compel society to make amends for the ruin it has brought upon
them. It is from this class I am persuaded that the ranks of our born
and bred convicts are so largely and so constantly supplemented. Yet
how easily and how speedily might this source of supply be diminished,
if not altogether closed.

The old Transportation Act, although it may not have provided for any
such separation as that I have just indicated, and although it was
based on what I consider pernicious principles, was undoubtedly the
most effectual plan for getting rid of our criminal population, and in
its operation the most merciful to the prisoner of any of our recent
parliamentary enactments. Had its provisions been efficiently and
judiciously administered, we might still have been sending convicts to
our colonies. But the business of exporting our "dirty linen" was
grossly mismanaged. The merchant who hopes to succeed as an exporter
must study carefully the class of goods suitable for the market he
proposes to supply, and send only those he is confident will be
approved of and meet a ready sale. But our prison authorities, by some
fatality, so organized the system of selection of convicts for
transportation that those who were, of all men, the very last a young
and virtuous community would seek, were forced upon them,