IN DAYS OF OLD.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8862, 12 July 1907, Page 1

IN DAYS OF OLD.

While many writer* and speakers, £ from Marcus Clarke onwards, have j always been ready to denounce the old-time convict system (says the I Sydney Morning Herald), very few have taken the trouble to point out the good points of an arrangement whereby thousands of men and women who would inevitably have led lives of crime had they remained in Great Britain were able to become reputable members of society. This a pect of the case was, however, referred to recently in Sydney at the annual meeting of the Prisoners’ Aid Association. “I am old enough,” said Sir Henry Stephen, “ to be able to look back to the days of assigned servants. I have memories of a number who were employed on a small esiaie belonging to my uncle, and I can say that no more faithful servants could it have been possible , to find than those same convicts who 'had been sent out from England. I have also a very clear recollection of one of the most faithful men who ever lived. He was assigned to my father, and came over with us from Tasmania to Sydney. I knew him for years, and he was always the same. The women also became good servants, and people to-day wonder how they came to be lifted up into a decent position. What happened was this: An assigned servant would come to his master and ask him to go to the Parramatta Asylum to choose a wife. The master would probably say, “ What sort of a girl do you want ?” “ Oh,” the man would reply, '• I would be perfectly content with your choice.” (Loud laughter.)