addition to the loss of liberty and character, to live in constant contact, for years it may be, with the professional thief and house-breaker, the burglar, and the garotter, who has been frequently convicted, and whose whole life is spent between the prison and the "cross." The natural and inevitable result of this is contamination. Even in the case of men possessing high principle and of great moral fortitude the effect would be deteriorating and pernicious. With men of weak resolution, strong passions, and a comparatively low standard of morality, the consequences cannot be doubtful in the majority of cases. They gradually lose self-respect, cease to think of reformation or amendment, in time they come to envy the hardened stoicism and "gameness" of the practised ruffian, learn his language, imbibe his notions of life, and finally resolve, since character, self-respect, and all else that bind them to morality and virtue are lost, that they will compel society to make amends for the ruin it has brought upon them. It is from this class I am persuaded that the ranks of our born and bred convicts are so largely and so constantly supplemented. Yet how easily and how speedily might this source of supply be diminished, if not altogether closed. The old Transportation Act, although it may not have provided for any such separation as that I have just indicated, and although it was based on what I consider pernicious principles, was undoubtedly the most effectual plan for getting rid of our criminal population, and in its operation the most merciful to the prisoner of any of our recent parliamentary enactments. Had its provisions been efficiently and judiciously administered, we might still have been sending convicts to our colonies. But the business of exporting our "dirty linen" was grossly mismanaged. The merchant who hopes to succeed as an exporter must study carefully the class of goods suitable for the market he proposes to supply, and send only those he is confident will be approved of and meet a ready sale. But our prison authorities, by some fatality, so organized the system of selection of convicts for transportation that those who were, of all men, the very last a young and virtuous community would seek, were forced upon them, whilst those for whom there was a constant demand, and who would have regarded transportation and liberation abroad as the opportunity for escaping from social prejudice, of retrieving their lost character, and of commencing anew a life of honesty and industry, were condemned to pine in the prisons at home, and in too many cases, to adopt a career of crime when their sentences expired. The first and great commandment the prison authorities regarded in their selection was, that the prisoner should be physically healthy, sound in wind and limb; and the second was, that he should have been a certain time in prison at home after receiving his last sentence and conducted himself well whilst there. No