THE ADVANTAGES OF TRANSPORTATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5537, 25 December 1878, Page 2

THE ADVANTAGES OF TRANSPORTATION.

William Howitfc, in a paper written with a view o£ advocating a return, to tlio punishment says :—“ln Victoria I used to see Sir William Denison, the Governor of Tasmania, daily abused by the Press as a despot and a slave-driver, because he employed the convicts upon public works, When I went over there great was my astonishment at the beautiful cultivation of the island—a perfect garden—and the civil, orderly, and kindly working population. Calling on the Governor, he asked mo where I landed, ‘ At Launceston that is at the opposite end of tho island. ‘And you found, in coming hither, excellent roads, a well appointed coach, good bridges, smiling villages, and wellcultivoted lands?’ ‘Yes; all, and most admirable.’ ‘ That is all the result of convict labor.’ Sir William took mo to the window and showed me a splendid port, where vessels of 800 tons were lying. ‘ Had you come here agfew years ago,’ said Sir William, ‘you would have found that a shallow pool, and [the grooms washing their horses* legs there.’ Ho said ho was about to make a second port of equal capacity 1 when the clamor was raised against transportation. The Bill passed, and all his means of improvement were cut off. In Tasmania, I rode alone through the most wild and solitary parts of the country, through woods aud mountains, where there was little population but convict shepherds .and herdsmen and their convict wives. I was once compelled to pass the night in the hut of an Irisji convict who, with his Irish convict wife, might have murdered me, and thus, far away from the ordinary tracks, have secured my money and my horse. There was not tho slightest danger. It was not an Italy, old in so-called civilisation, but still the haunt of the On the contrary, these former criminals did all in their power for my comfort and that of my horse, and tho next morning the man went a considerable way through tho woods to show mo tho pass in tho mountains. On reaching the house of tho friends whom I was going to visit, I found that they had not a servant, man or woman, who was not a convict, and yet never locked a door at night J In fact, Tasmania and Now South Wales were far more secure than Italy, outside its town gates, is even now, after all tho improved conditions of the now Government* Such are the miraculous powers of regeneration existing in conditions of hope, of elbow-room, of removal,

from the fatality of evil companionship, of the healthy spirit of nature, and the fair beokonings ahead of home life, family ties, peace, and competence. As Mr. Falkiner remarks, the London pickpockets generally proved the most active and effective shepherds and herdsmen. Not only, as he observes, have their faculties been sharpened by their former life, but theft is no longer a necessity, nor even a possibility, for them, but activity is their necessity. The solitude ia an awe to them. They must be on the stir to lose the sense of it, and thus give all their attention to their charges. It is a curious fact that Barrington, the celebrated Dublin pickpocket, became one of the earliest and moat esteemed magistrates of Sydney."