+ IN NEW SOUTH WALES. BY WILLIAM WESTBROOKE BURTON, Esq. ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THAT COLONY. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY J. CROSS, 18, HOLBORN, AND SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, STATIONERS' COURT. A Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to "inquire into the System of Transportation, its efficacy as a Punishment, its Influence on the Moral State of Society in the Penal Colonies, and how far it is susceptible of Improvement," having examined the matters referred to them, have made their report to the House; in which Report they have stated their opinion, founded on evidence produced before them, to be, "That the two main characteristics of Transportation, as a punishment, are, inefficiency in deterring from crime, and remarkable efficiency not in reforming, but in still further corrupting, those who undergo the punishment; that these qualities vi of inefficiency for good, and efficiency for evil, are inherent in the system, which therefore is not susceptible of any satisfactory improvement; and lastly, that there belongs to the system, extrinsically from its strange character as a punishment, the yet more curious and monstrous evil of calling into existence, and continually extending societies, or the germs of nations most thoroughly depraved, as respects both the character and degree of their vicious propensities." Without admitting this conclusion to its full extent, the facts contained in the following statement may form a proper appendage to the testimony produced before the Committee, as shewing a chief cause of the partial failure in one of the Penal Colonies, of that system which had for its professed object not merely the punishment but the reformation also of offenders, and of that state of society which is represented by the Committee in such an unfavorable aspect, to have been the long continuing "deficiency |