The tardy development of the colony has been shown as it was at an earlier date. Twenty years more and it still lags behind. After forty years of occupation, with an average total of from eight to ten thousand able-bodied criminals available, but little progress has been made. The colony is still but sparsely provided with roads. The internal communications are barely fifty miles in length; one road, fit only for two-wheeled traffic and thirty miles in length, connects Noumea with Bailoupari, and there are some short roads in the agricultural settlement of Bourail. There are as yet no railways and no network of telegraphic wires. All of the transit from point to point is performed by small coastwise steamers. Bourail is the show place where the _forçats_ blossom into the emancipists, and where penal labour is replaced by individual effort of the state-aided freedmen, the criminal who has expiated his offence and is now to make himself a new life. Liberal assistance is given to those who intend to do well. After fair assurance of amendment, the forger or assassin, the unfortunate felon who got into the clutches of the law, gets a new start, a concession of land with capital advanced to stock it, materials to build his home, tools and agricultural implements, six months' food, and seed to sow the first harvest. Some of them thrive and prosper exceedingly; it is much the same as in early Australian days, but no doubt to a lesser degree, for not a few fail and must return to servitude with more successful comrades or free settlers. There are those who champion the system as the best solution of the disposal of the worst offenders who cannot be rehabilitated under the conditions existing in a country long settled. The logic is a little weak perhaps, and it is difficult to concede that crime should be the official avenue to state assistance. A good story is told of one reformed criminal who prospered exceedingly and was congratulated by the governor of the colony when he came up to receive the prize awarded for raising first-class stock. He was reminded how by the fostering care of a paternal government he had been transformed from the degraded _forçat_ into an honest owner of property. The ex-convict was moved to tears, but his emotion was caused by his regretting the time he had lost before he came to benefit by the change. "Had I had any idea of the good fortune awaiting me," he whined, "I would have arrived here ten years sooner." In other words, he would have qualified ten years earlier by committing the deed which resulted in his transportation--cutting his wife's throat.