eral of Fremantle:--'The issue, under his
Excellency's sanction, of a small allowance of tobacco, has been
appreciated as a very great boon, and has prevented many
irregularities. It also furnishes an excellent means of punishment for
minor offences--that is, by its stoppage.' We can well believe this.
We know positively that prisoners will undergo any risk to get even a
morsel of tobacco, and would gladly sacrifice a day's food for it. It
is almost incredible what an intense longing for tobacco arises in the
minds of those forcibly restrained from the indulgence.

Several 'tickets-of-leave' had already been granted at Fremantle; and
on this subject we are presented with a mass of remarkable and
instructive information. The reader is probably aware, that convicts
in prison, before quitting England, are subjected to a term of hard
labour--proportionate in duration to the length of their sentences of
transportation--and to a further term of hard labour on arriving in
Australia. When the latter term has expired, if the prisoner has
conducted himself well, he is presented with a ticket-of-leave, which
confines him to a certain district, where he may engage to labour for
his own benefit under an employer. He does this, however, under very
strict rules, and the least transgression is punished severely. If,
for instance, he leaves the district, he is liable to be apprehended,
and summarily convicted by a magistrate, who may sentence him to
labour in irons; or he may forfeit his ticket-of-leave, and relapse
into his former situation as a convict. Or if he at all misconducts
himself, or is insubordinate, his employer may carry him before a
magistrate, and have him corporally punished. A list is given of the
convicts who obtained tickets-of-leave at Fremantle, with their
trades, and the names of their employers, and the wages they were to
receive. A groom received L.12 per annum; a carpenter, L.14; a
labourer, L.1 per month; a blacksmith, L.1, 8s. per month; a mason,
L.1, 10s. per month; and a brickmaker, L.2, 10s. per month. Each
ticket-holder must pay to the comptroller-general the sum of L.15, for
the expenses of his passage out to the colony. No ticket-holder,
unless under very special circumstances, gets a 'conditional pardon'
till one-half of his sentence, from date of conviction, is expired;
nor will he receive a conditional pardon till the whole of the L.15 is
paid. 'Wives and families of well-conducted ticket-of-leave me