expatiating on the miseries of exile, at the same time, and perhaps in the same place, some active agent of emigration may be found magnifying the advantages of the new country; lauding the fertility of its soil, and the beauties of its climate; telling of the high wages to be there obtained, the enormous fortunes that have been made; and offering to eager and willing listeners, as a boon and special favour, the means of conveyance to that very place to which the convict in the dock has been sentenced for his crimes." But all the arguments against transportation are now as clear as noonday. It failed to reform, except in a curiously liberal, unintentional fashion; it was no punishment; it was terribly costly; and as it was carried out was, at least for a time, distinctly injurious to the best interests of the colonies in which it took effect. Archbishop Whateley summed up the situation in forcible language in his "Thoughts on Secondary Punishment." "In any of the leading requisites of any system of secondary punishment transportation was defective. Thus, it was neither formidable--in other words, the apprehension of it did not operate as much as possible to deter men from crime, and thus prevent the necessity of its actual infliction--nor was it corrective, or at least not corrupting--tending to produce in the criminal himself, if his life be spared, and in others, either a moral improvement, or at least as little as possible of moral debasement. Nor, lastly, was it cheap, so as to make the punishment of the criminal either absolutely profitable to the community, or at least not excessively costly. In all these requisites transportation had been found deficient, but chiefly in the most important, viz. in the power of exercising a salutary terror in offenders." CHAPTER V THE PROBATION SYSTEM Reform in system of secondary punishment--Convicts still to be sent to the antipodes but after passing through various stages of improvement--Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, chosen as sole future receptacle of convicts who are to pass through probationary treatment--Real imprisonment--Removal to Government gangs--Conditionally at large--Ticket-of-leave--Absolute pardon--Development of Norfolk Island--Its degeneration--Domination of the "Ring"--Port Arthur--Convicts in excess of the resources of the colony--Ominous prospect.