and at his suggestion alone will relaxations or indulgences be granted to any member of them.

My present estimate is, that provision ought to be made for placing the probation gangs in Van Diemen's Land on a footing which will admit of the maintenance and employment of a number of convicts at one time, amounting to 8,000. This large number of prisoners may be divided as at present, into gangs of from 250 to 300 men each. They must be hutted, or quartered in situations where they can undertake and execute in concert, works of public utility. With a view to co-operation in such works and in order that they may live under one common superintendence and control, their settlements must be in the vicinity of each other; while, on the other hand, that vicinity must not be so close as to admit of easy communication between different gangs, or any concert between them to resist the authority under which they are placed

In subordination to the comptroller there will be employed, for the superintendence of the probation gangs, first, religious teachers, being clergymen of the Established Church or Wesleyan methodists, or Roman-catholic priests. Every such teacher will be liable to immediate suspension from office by the comptroller, subject to the Governor's ultimate decision.

There will also be attached to each probation gang an overseer, with such subordinate officers as may be neces sary for giving effect to his authority. But until the comptroller himself shall have been appointed, I shall abstain from entering upon any detailed statement of the extent of this establishment.

It will be the duty of the comptroller to establish all necessary rules for the employment of the probation gang. All such rules must be laid before the Governor, who will be authorized either to disallow them altogether, or to suspend the execution of them provisionally.

Weekly returns will be made by every overseer and by the religious teacher to the comptroller, in which report a statement is to be comprised of the good or bad conduct of every member of each of the probation gangs. From such reports will be compiled periodically some account of the character of each man, reduced to some scale of

numerical notation, from which may at any time be drawn an estimate of the claims of each on the indulgence of the Crown, or of the just liability of each to an enchanced rigor of punishment.

After a convict shall have passed through the probation gang, he will next proceed to the third stage of punishment, and become the holder of a probation pass. But no convict may enter on this stage except on two conditions. Of these, the first is the obtaining from the comptroller of convicts a certificate of general good conduct, to be drawn from the records already mentioned; and secondly, the having fully served in the probation gang during the whole of the period for which the convict had been placed there.

The essential distinction between the third stage and those which preceded it will be that the holder of a probation pass may, with the consent of the Government, engage in any private service for wages, such wages to be paid and accounted for as subsequently mentioned.

The contract for private service is to be void unless made with the Governor's sanction, either previous or subsequent, and is, by the terms of it, to be terminable at the Governor's pleasure.

The holders of probation passes are to be divided into three classes. The difference between the members of the three classes will consist in the different rules under which they will be placed regarding their hiring and wages. Those who may be in the first or lowest class must obtain the previous consent of the Governor to any contract of service. Those who are in the second or third classes may engage in any service without such previous sanction, provided that the engagement be immediately reported to the Governor for his subsequent sanction. Again the members of the first class will receive from their employers one-half only of their wages; the members of the second class two-thirds only of their wages; but the members of the third class the whole of what they may so earn. The wages kept back from the members of first and second classes must be paid by the employer into the savings bank. For the expenditure of the wages actually paid to him, the holder of the probation pass, of whatever

class, must account when required by the comptroller of convicts, or by any person acting under his authority.

The holders of probation passes are to be arranged in the three classes already mentioned by the Governor, at his discretion. He will have regard to length of service, to good or bad conduct, and to every other circumstance which should influence his decision; and he may, if he shall see cause, degrade the holder of such a pass from a higher to a lower class.

In case of gross misconduct, the Governor may resume the probation pass, and send back the convict to serve in the probation gang. But whenever he shall have recourse to any such exercise of authority, it will be his duty to make a special report to the Secretary of State for his information, and for his sanction of the proceedings.

The proportion of the wages earned by the holder of a probation pass, and paid by the employer into the savings bank, is there to be detained until the convict shall have been transferred into the class of holders of tickets of leave, when, and not before, it is to be paid over to the convict. But in the event of a convict forfeiting his pro bation pass by misconduct, the whole amount of the deposit is to be forfeited to the queen. It will in each such case remain to be determined how far any part of the forfeiture may be subsequently remitted in favor of the convict himself in case of amendment, or in favor of his family if the convict should die before any remission of the forfeiture.

If the holder of a probation pass should be unable to obtain employment in any private service, he must return to the service of the government, to be employed without wages, receiving merely the ordinary rations of food and clothing. Such persons will not be worked in company with convicts in the probation gangs, nor will they be continued in the service of the government after they can obtain an eligible private service.

Holders of probation passes thus lapsing into the service of the government, must not be so employed, except in one or the other of the two following modes; that is, either, first, in the making and repair of roads, or secondly, as members of jobbing parties hired out by the govern

ment, for the performance, under the direction of the comptroller of convicts, of agricultural labor for the behoof of some private person. Such jobbing parties for the performance of rural works by contract are to be composed exclusively of the holders of probation passes. The contracts are to be made by the comptroller, and all the earnings of the jobbing parties so employed are to be paid to the commissariat chest, to the credit of the Lords of the Treasury.

The prohibition of employing the holders of probation passes in the service of the government for hire, or of so employing them in any other mode of labor than one or the other of the two modes already indicated, must be considered as a peremptory and inflexible rule.

The holders of probation passes will be incompetent to maintain any suit or action against any person whatever. But at the instance of a person so situated the comptroller of convicts will sue his employer, if necessary, for the amount of any wages earned by the convict and unpaid. The holder of a probation pass will, in like manner, not be liable to any civil suit or action by any person. If the pass-holder should be indebted to his employer in any sum of money, the employer may, with the consent of the comptroller of convicts, but not otherwise, pay himself the amount of that debt by withholding from the convict any proportion of his earnings which, according to the preceding regulations, may be payable to the convict himself.

The holders of probation passes are all to be placed under the special superintendence of some magistrate residing in the district within which such pass-holders may be employed. Every pass-holder is to be inspected by such magistrate once at least in each month, and the magistrate is to make monthly reports to the comptroller of convicts of the result of every such inspection.

There is no absolute limit, saving only the continuance of the sentence, which must necessarily terminate the continuance of a convict in the class of holders of probation passes. The transition from that class into the class of holders of tickets of leave, is always to be a matter of grace and favor, and never a matter of strict right.

The fourth stage through which the convict must pass before obtaining a pardon is, that of the holders of tickets of leave. The essential condition of this class is, that they possess what may be termed a "probationary and revocable pardon," valid in the colony in which it is granted, but of no avail elsewhere.

No convict can obtain a ticket of leave before half of the term of the original sentence shall have expired. In the case of persons sentenced for life, that indefinite term shall, for the purpose of this computation, be counted as twenty-four years.

Further, no person may be transferred from the class of probation pass-holders into the class of ticket-of leave holders, until he shall have held the probation pass for a term equal to the difference between half the sentence and the shortest period at which, under that sentence, the convict might have arrived at the stage of a probation pass-holder. The rule thus stated with a view to precision, will at first sight appear obscure. An illustration will dispel that obscurity: Thus, suppose the case of a convict for life, or, as has already been explained, for twenty-four years; half of his sentence is twelve years; the shortest period at which, under his sentence, such a convict could have reached the stage of a probation passholder, would be six years, for he must have passed four at Norfolk Island, and two in the probation gang. Deduct those six years from the twelve years already mentioned, and there will remain six years; during which the convict must, according to the rule already given, hold his probation pass. More briefly, it may be stated thus, namely, that one-half of the term of the sentence must be passed in one or other of the three first stages of ishment. But supposing that by misconduct the length of the first or of the second stage may have been increased, no decrease will on that account be permitted in the third stage; on the contrary, in the case supposed the whole term of punishment in the three first classes would endure for a greater period than one-half of the original sentence.

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The fifth and last stage which a convict can reach during the continuance of the term of his sentence is, that of