Our Convicts

By Mary Carpenter.

“The English and the Irish Convict Systems -were both founded on the Act of Parliament of 1853. The object of that Act ^vaa to make such changes in the system adopted towards Convicts, as would prepare them for discharge in oiu' own country, since our Colonial provinces were virtually closed against them, "Western Australia only consenting still to receive a small number annually. "We have seen that in England the system has hitherto been a failure, but have traced that failure, not to the principles on which that and the subsequent one of 1857 were founded, but to certain omissions and additions which were incompatible with the successful working of the principles. We now proceed to the examination of the Irish Convict System, which has fully developed the principles of both those Acts. The results of the ten years during which it has been in operation demonstrate, beyond any possibility of doubt to an impartial observer, not only the truth of tlio principles embodied in the Acts of Parliament, but also of those moral principles which are so embodied in it as to constitute its peculiar features, and of the excellence of the machinery by which these are brought into action. The wonderful combinations of all these by the founder of the system,Sir Walter Crofton, demands from us very close investigation of its principles, and examination of its details.

London: Longman, 1864. vol. 2. 389p.