There is, of course, a theory that the punishment of crimes should be proportionate to the difficulty of their detection, the chances of immunity being counterbalanced by the risks of heavy punishment. But with these insurance-cards there is more difficulty in committing the crime than in detecting it. The cards are collected every half-year; and, if the collection is efficient, there are not any cards about from which old stamps can be detached. I suppose the Legislature understands the workings of the criminal mind, but I sometimes wonder whether men can be deterred from crime by dread of seven years penal servitude, if they are not deterred by dread of five. If they reckon things up at all, they probably pick out the biggest crime they can commit for any specified sentence--“may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb”--and then act accordingly. Fines would be far better than imprisonment in very many cases, that is, substantial fines with time allowed for payment by instalments. If this man had been fined £50, it would have helped the public revenue. As it was, the public had to maintain him for nine months and stopped his doing any useful work--and he was a hard-working and pains-taking man. Prisons are expensive things; and many of our prisons might be closed and a big revenue raised from fines, but for this silly craze for sending everyone to gaol. I have a letter to my grandmother, 1 June 1843, from a nephew who had gone out to Australia and settled at Sydney. “Our county, Cumberland, in which Sydney is placed, will next month be the arena of a very spirited contest. We send two members, and there are four candidates, one of whom (the most monied man, a large distiller) tho’ now Free, was sent a Convict. We immigrants think it impudence of him to offer as a candidate, and the other party are as strong in his favour. I really think he will be elected, tho’ the Press teems with his crimes, the number of lashes received, and so on: his five associates were hanged. These people have an hatred to immigrants, and will not support them if they can deal with one of their own sort, and so frequently we see them get on much better than if they had come to the colony of their own free will.” In spite of Convict competition this relative of mine did pretty well out there. In a letter to my father, 9 July 1874, he says that he has managed to put by £100,000 in the course of thirty years: all of it made by steady work, and none by speculation.