At the dinner-table that day most of the talk I caught concerned the convicts and the Australian settlements. Captain Barrett told the doctor that he considered his address to the prisoners deuced fine. The doctor bowed. ‘What makes criminals, sir?’ asked Captain Sutherland. ‘The dislike of honest labour,’ answered the doctor. ‘It’s the mothers who make the criminals,’ said the lieutenant. The doctor viewed him sternly. I do not think he loved these discussions. ‘Don’t the magnetic character of an iron ship depend upon the direction of her head while building?’ said the lieutenant. ‘I have seen but one iron ship, sir,’ said Captain Sutherland. ‘Well,’ continued the lieutenant, ‘it’s so with the baby before birth: the mother may choose her own compass bearings for the child--virtue or vice, as may be. ’Tis the mother has the building of the bairn, look you, Ellice. If she don’t go right whilst the bairn’s putting together, be sorry for the little ’un. He’s booked in irons and a gray suit for a shiny land.’ ‘Fudge,’ said the doctor. The captain, however, seemed impressed by the lieutenant’s opinion, and continued to look at him. ‘Did you ever have charge of an uglier lot, Ellice?’ asked Captain Barrett. ‘I don’t recognise human ugliness,’ answered the doctor. ‘Is the egg bad? That’s it; never mind the look and colour of the shell.’ ‘What becomes of a convict when he dies?’ said the lieutenant. ‘What becomes of the ripple when it breaks upon the shore?’ answered Captain Sutherland. ‘Do convicts really stand any chance out in the colonies, do you think?’ said the lieutenant. ‘An excellent chance,’ said the doctor. ‘Too good a chance!’ exclaimed Captain Sutherland. I pricked my ears. I was then at the end of the cuddy waiting till the gentlemen should have done with certain dishes which it would be my business to carry forward. ‘How is a rogue to establish himself?’ asked Lieutenant Chimmo. ‘There’s plenty to be done,’ answered the doctor. ‘Labour is always in demand. When a man is on ticket-of-leave he may live where he pleases.’ ‘They are much better used than our labourers at home,’ said Captain Sutherland. ‘What about the chain-gangs?’ exclaimed Captain Barrett. ‘The chain-gang is punishment,’ said the doctor. ‘It is hard work, but not harder than the toil of many an honest man at home for a famishing wage. Not harder than the labours of a French fishwife, for example.’ ‘I would rather work in a chain-gang than dig in a coal mine,’ said Captain Sutherland. ‘A convict’s hired out as a servant by the Government to the applicant, isn’t he?’ said Captain Barrett. ‘Yes. You must be a landholder if you apply. I’m speaking of New South Wales,’ answered the doctor. ‘You must hold three hundred and twenty acres for every one convict you get. Seventy-five convicts are the limit. No man may have more.’