So much for the framework--the bones, so to speak, of the new system; let us see, next, something of the living tissues with which it was filled up. Speaking broadly, it may be laid down that the plan of treatment inaugurated by Colonel Jebb and his colleagues, was based on persuasion rather than coercion. This, indeed, they openly admitted. They were not advocates for a "purely coercive and penal discipline." They conceived that there was sufficient punishment without that; the convicts suffered enough in the "long periods during which they remained under penal restraint," and there was further discomfort in "their eventual deportation to a distant colony, and the somewhat severe restrictions to which they are subjected when they gain the boon of a ticket-of-leave," these regulations being drawn up at a time when transportation was still practised, though only to a limited extent. The directors of convict prisons hoped, therefore, to accomplish their object by reward and encouragement rather than by strictness and terror. They desired to put it plainly before every convict that if he would but continue quiet and obedient, he would be sure to benefit in the long run. It was really worth his while to be good, they said, and they encouraged him by the statement: "It will convince us that you are on the high road to reform, and the sooner we are convinced you are reformed, the sooner you will be set at large." Everything was made to depend on conduct--good conduct--in other words, the mere formal observance of rules, a submissive demeanour, and a readiness to echo, even with hypocritical hearts, the lessons the chaplains taught. The word "industry" was tacked on to "conduct," but only in a subordinate sense, and so long as the convict was civil he might be as lazy as he liked.