Families placed in the free colonies were provided each with a house, barn, and stable, a couple of cows, sometimes sheep, furniture, clothes, and other stock, of the estimated value, including the land, of 1,600 florins (133_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ sterling), which was charged against them as a debt to the society. They were bound to work at wages fixed by the society, to wear the uniform, and conform to the rules of the colony, and not to quit its precincts without leave. A portion of their wages was retained to repay the original advance made by the society; a further portion to pay for the necessaries furnished to them from time to time, and the food for their cattle; and a portion paid to them in a base money of the colony, to be expended in shops established by the society within its limits. At first each family of colonists worked on its own farm, and managed its own cattle, but it was found that the land was uncultivated, and the cattle died for want of attention or food; and in 1828 the society took back the cattle, and employed all the colonists indiscriminately in the general cultivation of the land of the colony. “From this time,” says M. Ducpétiaux (p. 624), “the situation of the colonist who is called free, but is in fact bound to the society by restrictions which take from him almost the whole of his liberty for the present, and deprive him of all hope of future enfranchisement, has resembled that of the serfs of the middle ages or of Russia. It is worse than that of the Irish cottiers, who, if they are fed like him on potatoes and coarse bread, have at least freedom of action and the power of changing their residence.” Those colonists who had obtained a gold or silver medal, as a testimony that they could support themselves out of the produce of their own farms, were excepted from this arrangement, and allowed to retain the management of their farms, paying a rent to the society; but at the date of M. Ducpétiaux’s communication (10th December, 1832), the greater part even of them had been forced to renounce this advantage, and to fall back into the situation of ordinary colonists. Four families were all that then remained in this state of comparative emancipation. The inhabitants of the mendicity colony were from the first subjected to the regulations ultimately imposed on the free colonists, with the additional restriction of being required to live in common on rations afforded by the society; the only respect in which, according to M. Ducpétiaux, they now differ from the free colonists. Count Arrivabene visited these colonies in 1829, and then predicted their failure. The three years which elapsed between his visit and the report of M. Ducpétiaux were sufficient to prove the accuracy of this prophecy.