The boons extended to the reformed one are not limited to a life of ease and comfort in the colony. Rehabilitation may be earned, and with it permission to return to the mother country with the restoration of civil rights. Several have sold their farms and effects to the colony, and have gone home to France as _rentiers_. Their reappearance hardly tends to emphasise the deterrent effect of penal exile. That the conditions in New Caledonia were until within the last few years in many respects more encouraging, and that the labour of the colonists was increasingly productive, may be gathered from the following extract from the London _Times_ in 1890: "The governor states that agriculture, which has hitherto been of only secondary importance, seems to be entering upon a period of rapid development under the influence of the fresh means of action afforded it by the immigration from the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia will produce this year 400 tons of coffee, while it is expected that in four years' time the production will exceed 1,000 tons. The cultivation of the sugar cane and of wheat is also making good progress.... The governor reports that what New Caledonia is most deficient in is labour, but he adds that the work done by the convicts, and especially at the Thio penitentiary, is much more satisfactory than that of the convicts in Guiana, while the men who have served their time and who choose can always find employment at wages from 4s. to 5s. a day, and at piece work they in many cases earn 10s. a day." Some ten years later reports continued to be favourable as to the prosperity of New Caledonia. According to the governor, the population was steadily increasing and the demand for the minerals mined on the island was so great that it could not be satisfied. In 1903, however, the _Times_ published a news item stating that "emigration from France has practically ceased and numbers of colonists have left," the cause of the exodus being the high taxation and great cost of living. In the same year, the agent-general for South Australia wrote to the French government pointing out how anxious Australia was to see the use of New Caledonia as a penal settlement abandoned, and a date fixed after which prisoners should not be sent to the Pacific. CHAPTER XII PENAL METHODS IN THE UNITED STATES No common system--Each state takes care of prisoners in its own way--Prisons under the control of the general government--Lack of system not altogether without advantage--The "Pennsylvania System" _versus_ the "Auburn System"--Other prisons--Convict _versus_ free labour--Prison newspapers--The Elmira Reformatory--Similar experiments in other states--Obstacles to prison improvement--Institutions for juvenile offenders--Children's courts--Advantages and disadvantages of juvenile institutions--Interesting experiments.