Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/32

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TRANSPORTATION

truth, in which its administration has been grossly mismanaged, in the Australian penal colonies. Having been led, after a residence of upwards of thirteen years in these colonies, to view the subject in a somewhat different light from that in which it has thus been viewed by the Archbishop of Dublin; and having been enabled to ascertain, from long experience and careful observation, the real character and tendency of transportation, as a species of punishment, apart from those accidents, arising solely from the grossest mismanagement, which have, unfortunately for the empire, made it assume for the time a totally different character, and exhibit quite an opposite tendency; I propose in the sequel of this treatise to state the result of my experience and observation, and the grounds of the opinion I have formed.

The efficacy of transportation, whether as a means of preventing crime or of reforming criminals, must evidently depend entirely on the manner in which the transported criminals are managed; that is, on the character and efficiency of the penal discipline to which they are subjected, and on the circumstances in which they are placed, both before and after the termination of their period of bondage, or penal servitude, in the place of their transportation: in other words, transportation must either be efficacious for the