inning. Nothing is required to prove this but a critical inspection of
their 'police sheets.' In the court-house at Hobart Town, a youth, E----
G----, aged 19, was on his trial for a capital offence. The crown
prosecutor referred to the prisoner's _bad character_ as exhibited by
the unusual number of offences on his police sheet. The judge asked to
see the parchment. While looking at it, G---- said, 'Your honor, the
whole of them wouldn't make one ---- good one!' For a few moments the
judge continued to examine the record, and then flung it on the floor of
the court-house with an expression of disgust at the childish nature of
the 'trifling offences' set down as serious crimes."--_Review of Dr.
Hampton's First Report on Norfolk Island: By Rev. T. Rogers._ p. 21.]

[Footnote 252: Despatches, 30th September and 7th November, 1846.]

SECTION XXIV.

But Van Diemen's Land was the chief sphere of the probation system. The
colonists, at first, were not indisposed towards the experiment: the
promise of an unlimited expenditure and a boundless supply of labor
reconciled them to its gigantic proportions. It assumed the air of
philanthropy: Sir John Franklin, when he announced the first outline of
the scheme, referred to the redemption of the negro slave, and
said--"that England was about to incur a large expenditure in the
attempt to emancipate her erring children from the infinitely more
degrading slavery of crime."[253] This picture was fully borne out by
Sir James Graham, who observed, in reference to the probationer--"New
scenes will open to his view, where skilled labor is in great demand;
where the earnings of industry rapidly accumulate. The prisoner should
be made to know that he enters on a new career. The classification of
the convicts in the colony (of Van Diemen's Land), as set forth in Lord
Stanley's despatch, should be made intelligible to him. He should be
told that he will be sent to Van Diemen's Land: there, if he behave
well, at once to receive a ticket-of-leave, which is equivalent to
freedom, with the certainty of abundant maintenance, the fruits of
industry."[254]

In describing the probation system it is not necessary to do more than
state its general aspects and acknowledged results. The publications in
the colonies and the official documents substantially concur, and with
minute controversy history has no concern. To view the subject with the
prejudices of a party would be treason to those important