Notwithstanding, this condition--unknown to the population at home--afforded no warning. The victims were uncompensated--the great majority unreformed. Thus, employers preferred new hands to those passed through this discipline of suffering. Such as rose in society, were seldom really respectable; they neither regretted their crimes, nor offered atonement. But if the prisoner was injured, the colonist was not less so. Social virtues were discouraged; all classes were contentious and overbearing: the police, ever prying into the business of life, thus intermixed with penal systems, filled the colony with exasperation, from which not even the mildest spirits could escape. He did not propose to abolish transportation, but that the government by its own officers should both punish and reform; that the prisoners, when restored to society, should stand in the relations of free men to all except the crown, receiving wages at the current rate; and if restrained in their expenditure, not for punishment, but for safety--"the chains of paternal authority" thrown over them, "to protect them against themselves." Maconochie sent to Sir G. Grey a Summary of his Report, containing his opinions of existing systems: at his request it was at once handed to Lord John Russell, who again, conveyed it to the committee then sitting upon the subject of transportation. Although substantially agreeing with his report, _the summary_ condensed, and therefore rendered more flagrant, the charges against the colonists, and his description of the condition of the prisoners still more revolting. This _Summary_ appeared in an English newspaper. Hitherto the discussion had been confined to official circles or to select correspondence: it was now open to the world; and the colonists found, with astonishment, that the reform proposed was radical, and that the opinions of the reformer were wholly adverse to the existing systems.