106
2.
This measure is no doubt one of unusual importance, especially as the New Gaol at Stone Cutters' Island is now nearly completed, and was already advanced to accommodate all the prisoners who were on the Island sufficiently.
3.
To leave a new prison erected at a very great cost not less than between $60,000 and $90,000 all expenses included, and to revert to the old Gaol in Victoria is a step which requires explanation - especially as the Gaol at Stone Cutters' Island had originally been built with a view to keeping pace with the supposed increased requirements of the Colony.
4.
In my predecessor Sir Hercules Robinson's despatch No. 131 of the 25th June 1862, he expressly dwells on the rapid increase of population in the Colony and consequent increase in the average number of prisoners which had risen from 262 in 1858 to 520 in 1862.
5.
The fact of such rapid increase at a rate much beyond that of the population, viz. from 75,503 in 1858 to 125,511 in 1862, seemed to me suggestive of other causes than those arising solely from increase of population. I will presently advert to those causes, but I here draw attention to the still more rapid increase as shown by the enclosed returns till on the 31st October 1865 there were 614 prisoners.
Page 107 appears to be missing, but the text continues from the content of page 106.
8354/62
Jhas: 88
N2131
1878/62
N.O.
70187/32
262
$20
725
5 Aclosures 3172.
GR1178/1922/32(III)
XCR(85)72
...
131
262 in 1858.
few years in Gaol, from
WW