ndustry: the meals were regular, and
habits of devotion and cleanliness were promoted. But when the boys were
submissive and diligent, they were not forbidden to be happy: they were
made tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, boat-builders, masons, and
gardeners. Some became acceptable apprentices, were lost sight of as
prisoners, and are now known only as respectable men. Such boys,
however, were protected from contamination, from the moment of
conviction. Those who mingled indiscriminately with the prisoners,
surpassed them in mischief and wickedness. When landed they were placed
in the barracks: some, not more than ten years old, blended the trickery
of boyhood with the villainy of age, and had scarcely arrived a week,
before they were tied up to the triangles and punished with the cat.
Lord John Russell, yielding to humane suggestions, collected a
cargo of juveniles from the various prisons, and appointed a
surgeon-superintendent, who never lost sight of their moral welfare. The
care was not unavailing: Captain Booth reported that a large proportion
passed through his hands without incurring even magisterial correction,
notwithstanding the most trivial disorders were punished. The
reformation of adults may admit of scepticism, and be tolerated as a
topic of ridicule: but children, taught to steal earlier than to speak;
who received the first lessons of crime on the lap of a mother; who
never heard of God, but from the lips of blasphemers--or of right, but
as the fair distribution of spoil, were surely entitled to compassion.
The sympathies of man cast penal science to the winds, and scorn to
preserve the inexorable temper of legal vengeance, to save the rich from
peculation, by the moral immolation of infant robbers. They are orphans
cast upon a nation's mercy; for though nature gave them the claims of
children, she did not secure them an interest in a parent's heart.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 201: Collins.]

[Footnote 202: _Mudie's Felonry of New South Wales_, p. 27.]

[Footnote 203: Savary wrote a novel, called _Quintus Servington_, 3
vols. It professes to detail his life: it sets out with a gypsy
prophecy, delivered at his birth, which gave warning to his father that
his son would be in danger between his thirtieth and fortieth year; but,
passing that period, safely reach a happy old age!]

[Footnote 204: Arthur's evidence: Murdoch's ditto.]

[Footnote 205: While its foundation was digging, a murder was committed
i