compulsory," and he deprecated the introduction of the passport system into Australia. It was held that the conditions existing in the colony made such an act necessary, and it was therefore re-enacted without amendment.[13] It is worthy of note, as illustrating Colonial Office procedure of that day, that it was the paid officials, and not the public, who were consulted in this matter. The facts being as I have stated, the wonder is not that large numbers of prisoners "took to the bush" but that all did not do so, and the more we study the early history of the convict settlements the less we feel inclined to blame the early bushrangers, however savage or atrocious their actions were. But we have not yet quite escaped from barbarism. In spite of the positive evidence that flogging brutalises and does not reform it is still continued. We also continue to hang criminals, although there is no proof that it deters crime or effects any good whatever. I do not belong to any society for the abolition of capital punishment. I may admit that perhaps there may be men whose death is desirable or expedient; but, if it is so, if there are men unfit to live or whose death might add to the happiness or security of the majority, then I think that we might extend to our fellow creatures, however ferocious or abandoned they may be, the mercy which we show to savage or superfluous dogs and cease from torturing them in their last moments. Hanging has had a sufficiently lengthy trial in Australia if it has not in England. Old residents in Sydney or in Hobart Town or in any other locality where penal settlements have existed can point out numbers of places where the gallows has been erected, and in some cases trees are still standing where numbers of men have struggled away their last few moments of life. This, however, is not the place to enlarge upon this subject, but the story I have to tell shows a lamentable waste of life, and many even of the more notorious of the bushrangers have exhibited qualities which might under happier conditions have fitted them for useful work. This is specially true of the earlier bushrangers who were the victims generally of unjust laws. Of the later ones, the native-born bushrangers, it is impossible to speak in the same terms. They were not driven to crime by want or oppression, but they were the vicious products of a vicious past. Their crimes were due to vicious environment and education, but they are gone now and, if we may draw some lessons of utility for the future, even their lives may not have been altogether wasted.