Many of the exiles are now men of large income.--"The dwelling in which we breakfasted to-day," says the traveller, "was that of a person who had been sent to Siberia _against his will_. Finding that there was but one way of bettering his condition, he worked hard, and behaved well. He had now a comfortably furnished house and a well-cultivated farm, while a stout wife, and plenty of servants, bustled about the premises. His son had just arrived from St Petersburg, to visit his exiled father, and had the pleasure of seeing him amid all the comforts of life, reaping an abundant harvest, and with _one hundred and forty persons_ in his pay!" He adds, "In fact, for the _reforming_ of the criminal, in addition to the punishment of the crime, Siberia is undoubtedly the best _penitentiary_ in the world. When not bad enough for the mines, each exile is provided with an allotment of ground, a house, a horse, two cows, agricultural implements, and, for the first year, with provisions. For three years he pays no taxes whatever, and for the next ten, only half the full amount. To bring fear as well as hope to operate in his favour, he clearly understands, that his very first slip will send him from his home and family, to toil in the mines. Thus does the government bestow an almost paternal care on the less atrocious criminals." Yet with this knowledge before the British Government,--for we must presume that they had not overlooked the condition of the Russian exiles; and with the still more impressive knowledge of the growth of our Australian colonies, and the improvement of the convicts; the new-fangled and most costly plan is now to be adopted of reforming our criminals by keeping them at home! Thus we are to save the national expenditure by building huge penitentiaries, which will cost millions of money, and to secure society from depredation, by annually pouring out from those prisons, as the time of their sentences expires, the whole crowd of villany to live on villany once more;--making the very streets a place of danger, and filling the country with hungry crime. The only argument on the opposite side is, that the free settlers are offended by finding themselves in a population of convicts. But to this the obvious answer is, that the colonisation of Australia was originally intended as a school of reform--that the convicts have been to a great extent reformed, which they never would have been at home--that the convicts were in the colony first, and that the settlers going there, with their eyes open, have no reason to complain.