With respect to the carrying out of a system of transportation, such as formerly existed in the British colonies, especially Australia and Van Diemen's Land, the following modifications seem to be advisable:-- 1. The abandonment of the convict to the employer, i. e. the "assignment system," must be entirely given up, as the prisoner by such an arrangement degenerates into an article for speculation, out of which it must be the task-master's interest to get as much as he can, so as to be able to return him upon the hands of the State so soon as his capacity for labour begins to fail. The convicts who were thus "assigned" in New South Wales, stood to their employers in the same position as negro slaves in the Southern States of North America, or the island of Cuba. They were fed like beasts of burden, without the slightest remuneration for the heaviest work. The State had, it is true, a right to punish the criminal, but it seems to us unjust in the extreme to make him the slave of his fellow-man. Accordingly this practice was the source of unutterable mischief, and was followed by most deplorable results as regards the moral development of the colony. 2. The case is very different when the labour of the criminal, instead of being devoted to the aggrandizement of a private individual, finds its expansion in forwarding parochial or national public works, in clearing and cultivating tracts of land, and preparing them for the future labour of free colonists, in the laying out of roads, in the erection of churches, schools, hospitals, and barracks, in the construction of docks, quays, &c. &c. So soon as private interest disappears,--so soon as the energies of the criminal are no longer made available to put money in the pockets of private speculators, but are utilized for the general good, by far the greater number of those minor drawbacks will disappear, which press with all the more force on the compulsory labourer, in proportion as he feels conscious that he is regarded by him who has purchased his labour not as a FELLOW-MAN, but as a CHATTEL, to be employed while he is of any value, and then to be cast aside, as one might throw a dried twig into the fire. What may be accomplished in this direction, even in colonies of comparatively recent foundation, is evidenced by the splendid roads of Cape Colony, traversing mountain passes 6000 to 8000 feet high, the numerous public buildings in Singapore, Hong-kong, Sydney, &c. Edifices, which in consequence of the high price of free labour, might not have been erected under the lapse of many years, actually at present rear their imposing forms like so many ornamental memorials, now of the worship of the loving Saviour, now of our charitable duties to the sick and afflicted, but all serving to instruct and civilize the rising generation!