As to the treatment of the men at this establishment, there can be no doubt that it should be held to be free from any charge of harshness. The question is, whether the men be not too well treated. The food is sufficient, and very good. The work is always lighter than that done by free labourers. The utensils and bedding are good. Everything is clean. The punishments are light and infrequent. Flogging still does take place, but very rarely. The men, if they behave well, are allowed more hours of amusement than fall to the lot of freemen;--and have as many means of amusement as most free labourers. It was only half-past five in the evening when I saw the men marshalled at the end of their day’s work to receive their tobacco. Why a man who had come from England with a life-sentence against him should receive tobacco, whereas a colonial prisoner sent in for six months should have none, I could not understand. In the old days, when Norfolk Island was the doubly penal establishment attached to our first penal settlement at Port Jackson, when the managers of these prisons had not yet learned the way to extract work from unwilling convicts without flogging them, penal servitude was no doubt a horrid punishment. Chains and the scourge, darkness and bread and water, were then common. That wretch whom I saw at Tasmania,--who told me that for forty years he had never known one day’s freedom,--had been made what he was by the old system. I do not remember that he had ever been a thief, but he had always been a rebel. The manner of the thing is altogether altered now, till one finds one’s self driven to ask whether punishment so light can be deterrent. As regards our connection with the colonies, the question is not one of much importance, as we shall never send another convict to Australia. I cannot finish this chapter without giving the copy of a certificate which was handed to me by a policeman at Albany, just as I was about to leave the colony:-- “I hereby certify that the bearer, A. Trollope, about to proceed to Adelaide per A. S. N. Co.’s steamer, is not and never has been a prisoner of the Crown in Western Australia. “(Signed) ------ “Resident Magistrate.” It is perhaps something of a disgrace to Western Australia that the other colonies will not receive a stranger from her shores without a certificate that the visitor has not been a “lag.” Such a resolution on their part must remind the poor Western Australians grievously of their disgrace. So many have been convicts, that the certificate is demanded from all! But I think that they should not charge a shilling for it, and thus raise a revenue out of their own ill fame. It was not my fault that South Australia demanded the certificate. Considering all the circumstances, I think that they should give the passport, and say nothing about it. CHAPTER III. PRESENT CONDITION.