stimulus up to
the paying point--the point when he becomes convinced in his own mind
that honesty is the best policy. His prospects on liberation would then
be very different from what they are under the present system. He would
then be suited for being a colonist. It would have been proved to his
own mind that he could make a living by honest industry, and in most
cases this is the all-important consideration. Removed from his old
associates, placed in circumstances where money can be made by
industry, and still keeping the cost of his transportation against him
to be paid out of the first of his own free earnings, society would
then have done its duty by him. I wish to impress this strongly on
those who take an interest in the subject of criminal reformation; and
therefore repeat, that if we can prove to the thief's own satisfaction
that he can earn an honest livelihood, at work agreeable to himself and
suited to his abilities, we shall do much towards making him an honest
man. But, let us starve him and lash him, and tyrannize over him, and
we shall send him to the grave or the gallows; and if we combine
statuesque and compulsory Christianity with such treatment, we make him
in addition a hardened unbeliever and atheist. And yet hitherto we have
sent such men prematurely into the other world, in such condition of
soul and body, with as great complacency as if the blame were all their
own.

The next case I shall notice was a very different one indeed. The
prisoner had been a clergyman in the Church of England for upwards of
twenty years, and during that long period had discharged his duties to
the satisfaction of his flock and his superiors in the church. I
believe he had made an imprudent second marriage. His wife was beneath
him in social position and being inclined to habits of extravagance had
incurred debts which his small income could not meet. He used funds
entrusted to his care by some society for the purpose of liquidating
these debts, intending to replace them when his stipend became due.
These funds happened, however, to be wanted much sooner than had been
customary, he was not able to produce them, and the consequence was
penal servitude for a very long period. I could not help pitying the
prisoner. He had never rubbed shoulders with the world. An occasional
evening with the Squire's family or in the homes of the less exalted
among his parishioners, had been almost his only opportunity of gaining
a knowle