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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference :-

885

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

October 7, 1837.

No. 309 of 1838.

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assumed the government, and from the first, devoted himself to an earnest study of the Transportation system. In the following October, Commous Paper, before, therefore, he could have heard of the appointment of the Partia- mentary Committee, he furnished a report upon the subject, accompanied by very voluminous minutes from the principal officers of his Govern- ment; and returns intended to show the moral condition of the convicts. The practical propositions at which he arrived were, that in lieu of the system then existing, it would be advisable--.

July 6, 1838, Commons' Paper, No. 412 of 1841. p. l.

İbid. p. 80.

Sept. 10, 1840, ibid. p. 105.

1st. That primary gangs should be established in which all con- victs, on their first arrival, should undergo a period of punishment.

2nd. That the assignment of convicts as domestic servants should be discontinued, from which would follow-

3rd. That assignment in towns should almost entirely cease.

4th. That convicts in assignment should be required to wear a badge.

5th. That tickets of leave should be divided into two classes:-the 1st class to entitle a convict to become a servant, but not to set up in business. The 2nd class to be tantamount to a revocable pardon.

These propositions were approved by Lord Glenelg, and, with the exception of the fourth, were carried into effect by Sir J. Franklin.

In February 1839, Sir J. Franklin proposed some further regulations, subsidiary to his new system. The chief of these were-

Ist. That the primary gangs should consist of about 300; should be conducted on the Separate system, and be employed in opening lands, &c. in remote districts.

2nd. That a superintendent and six overseers should be appointed to each gang.

3rd. That each gång should be attended by a Protestant minister. 4th. That the gangs, though isolated, should be sufficiently near to admit of their being regularly visited by a magistrate appointed for that purpose.

5th. That a daily record should be kept of each man's conduct, to be posted weekly in a ledger.

6th. That additions to or subtractions from this account should be made by magistrates, acting judicially, for any specially good or specially bad conduct on the part of a convict.

7th. That a convict, having a good record for a period equal to one- tenth of his sentence (a life sentence being reckoned at twenty years). should be permitted to go into service, under certain restrictions."

8th. That, in the event of his being unable to obtain or to retain employment, he should return to his own gang, or to one made up of con- victs in the same circumstances as himself.

9th. That convicts having conducted themselves well in private service for two, three, or four years, should receive tickets of leave.

10th. That convicts should not be permitted to engage as domestic servants till they had acquired a ticket of leave.

Lord J. Russell did not object to these regulations, but contenting himself with laying down the following general rules, viz. :—

1st. That as the chief object of punishment is example, a fixed period of imprisonment should be imposed on each convict as punish-

ment.

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2nd. That the severity of the punishment should be gradually relaxed,

but not in the midst of society. And-

3rd. That prisoners, while working their way back to society, should

be exposed to some of its temptations.

he left Sir J. Franklin to carry out the plan proposed by himself in October 1837 and February 1839.

The first steps towards bringing the new system into operation were Sir J. Franklin, taken by Sir J. Franklin in March 1841, but it was not till the following April 15, 1841. July that the system was fully organised. On the 9th of that month, Sir July 6, 1841. J. Franklin, in reporting the arrangements which he had made, expressed Commons' Paper. his opinion" that no system of convict discipline which he had hitherto No. 158 of 1843, "heard of, is so likely to afford lasting benefit to the criminal, as well as to PP. 28-36, et org.

society;" and that, "so far as he could be, he was confident of the

" result." The only addition to the regulations already detailed was, the division of the gangs of from 250 to 300 men into three classes, and the further subdivision of those classes with corresponding relaxations, so as to afford a very minute classification of the convicts. The management of the system was entrusted to Captain Forster, who had for some years held the office of Chief Police Magistrate. The total number of convicts in Van Diemen's Land working in probation gangs on 12th May, 1841, exclusive of boys, was 1504.

On the 1st April, 1842, Sir J. Franklin made his first report, the Ibid. system having then been in operation nearly a year. He stated that

discipline is improved, and there is much less crime than usual." He urged the necessity of sending out overseers and religious instructors; and stated that a sufficient number of convicts had passed through the first stage of probation to form a gang under the second-stage, which he was about to organize. He proposed to give to this second gang some small immediate indulgences, and to hold out to them the prospect of greater. But even at this early period he appears effect on the free population, of the great increase of the convicts; for to have anticipated the he observed, “I cannot but perceive that the prospect of a well-supplied "labour market, offered by the arrival of large numbers of convicts on short sentences, together with the disallowance of the Contract system of immigration, will very probably combine to place the free immigrant in "a far less favourable position than that which he expected on leaving his "native country."

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"

P:

72.

In the following July he reported that the rapid arrival of convict- July 22. 1842, ships had caused him considerable anxiety and embarrassment, and that ibid. p. 75. he was about to adopt a new principle in the disposal of the probationary gangs. He added, "The returns which I have regularly caused to be made "to me have shown that discipline has been improved; still I cannot disguise "from myself that the benefits which I anticipated from the manner in "which I proposed to carry out this system, have not been so fully obtained "as I could have wished." When, however, I consider that the number of "convicts transported since the establishment of this system has greatly "exceeded that which I was led to expect, I see no cause whatever for dis- couragement, but only for renewed exertions in perfecting the plans which experience and daily reflections have suggested to me.”

In a subsequent despatch dated in November 1842, containing a report on such of the conviets as were then about to emerge from the probation gangs, his doubts as to the working of the new system come out more distinctly. "These men," he observed, “were far from indicating, by their conduct, the moral improvement which 1 had anticipated; and "it was not without extreme concern that I discovered that they not only "had not acquired habits of labour, order, or subordination, but that they "had actually shown a disposition to mutiny."

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When Sir John Franklin's despatch of 22nd July, 1842, arrived*, the

Sir J. Franklin's despatch arrived 14th November, 1842. Lord Stanley's despatch announcing he New Regulations is dated 25th November, 1842.

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