niversally passed over to the adjacent
communities.

The comptroller-general attempted to carry out the supplementary plan
ordered by Lord Stanley. Agricultural establishments were formed; but
this only provided for the probationers. The passholders were entitled
to enter the service of the settlers. To detain them twenty miles from
the nearest farm-house, was to extend indefinitely the first stage of
punishment; but when drafted to the settled districts, they could not be
employed,[262] except for the benefit of the colony, and against this
resource the decision of Lord Stanley was imperative.[263]

The hiring depots were placed in settled districts or chief towns. The
stage of rigid discipline being past, the convicts were not required to
labour with diligence, or suffer much restraint. They were now deemed
fit for society, and it was merely the fault of their numbers that many
were unemployed. They were permitted to roam about in search of casual
employment--to spread themselves over the country. They were allowed to
expend the money they acquired in temporary service, and while any
remained they were unwilling to accept an engagement. Thus they were fed
and clothed, and lightly worked: they were free from care, their time
was running out, and they were objects rather of envy than
commiseration.

The official reports of the probation system forwarded to
Downing-street, were not unfavorable. Lord Stanley asserted in his
place, "that from all he could judge the system had been productive of
the most beneficial results, and that the general conduct of the
convicts had been most satisfactory;"[264] but in his despatch to the
governor, he complained that, amidst an abundance of statistics, the
notices of moral success were "slight, unimportant, and few."[265]

The operation of the system was, however, well known to his lordship.
The under-secretary, Sir J. Stephen, with extraordinary exactness,
described the actual condition of the prisoner population--"living, not
by a healthy competition for employment, but by an habitual and listless
dependence on the public purse." He depicted the apathy and indolence,
the low tone of moral feeling, the lamentable and degrading habits
which prevailed; and asserted that in the hands of Lord Stanley, were
proofs of an existing state of convict society, such as would be
contemplated with deep solicitude. It may not be impossible to reconcile
in detail these official and parliamentary