any charge against him, and the report might not be true. At length the Chief Justice (the late Sir Alfred Stephen) wrote to the Sydney newspapers. His letter appeared on June 23rd, 1874. Sir Alfred said that the end and aim of all punishment are, first, the preventing of individuals, and secondly, the deterring of other individuals, from the committing of similar crimes.... Sentences aggregating thirty-two years had been passed in a time of great excitement, and the punishment seemed to have been measured more in view of the crimes he was supposed to have committed than with reference solely to those which were proved against him.... He could not say whether the reported reformation was sincere, but he thought that the prisoner had been sufficiently punished and, therefore, recommended a conditional pardon. Emanating from such a source, this opinion carried great weight, and almost coincident with its publication, the Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, afterwards Lord Rosmead, laid before the Executive Council six petitions signed by a number of well known and responsible persons in various parts of the colony praying for the release of the convict Gardiner. He said it was true that no hope of an absolute remission of his sentence had ever been held out to him, but in the Governor's minute of December 5th, 1872, it had been implied that if the prisoner continued to conduct himself well he might hope for remission at the end of ten years. Official returns were laid on the table showing the number of prisoners still in penal servitude for highway robbery. The prisoner whose case attracted most attention next to Gardiner was William Brookman. His parents were said to be respectable. He was only seventeen years of age when he was charged on January 16th, 1868, with wounding with intent to murder. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to fifteen years' penal servitude. It was said to have been his first and only attempt at highway robbery, and he had never previously been arrested or charged with any offence against the law. At the time of this enquiry he had served six and a-half years of his sentence. The other bushrangers in gaol were:--Samuel Clarke, sentenced April 18th, 1866. Served five years, one month. No previous conviction. Daniel Shea, sentenced November 6th, 1865. Served eight years, six months. Previously sentenced for two years for horse stealing. William Willis, alias Dunkley, sentenced May 16th, 1866. Served eight years. Three previous convictions for horse stealing, of nine months, eighteen months, and six months respectively. Alexander Fordyce, sentenced February 23rd, 1863. Served eleven years, nine months. No previous conviction. John Payne, sentenced January 14th, 1868. Served six years, six months. No previous conviction. James Jones, sentenced March 31st, 1864. Served ten years, one month. No previous conviction.