"On the very road to their respective places of assignment the women are told of the easy retirement of the factory, and advised to get themselves sent there, without having to obtain the consent of an assignee master. "Offers of marriage are made to some of them from the waysides; and at their new habitations they are besieged by suitors. "The hapless settler who expected a _servant_, able, or, at least, willing to act perhaps as house and dairymaid, finds he has received quite a _princess_. "Her _highness_, with her gloved and delicate fingers, can do _no_ sort of work! "Attempts are made to break her in, but in vain. 'If you don't like me, send me to the factory,' is the common retort; and the master, having no alternative, takes her before a Bench of magistrates, by whom she is returned to Government, and conveyed to the factory accordingly. "The author, amongst the _favours_ of this kind that have been conferred upon himself, once received a Dulcinea who, in addition to her other finery, brought such a cargo of hair, tooth and nail brushes, Macassar and other hair oils, otto of roses and botanical creams, cosmetics and scented soaps, that she might have commenced as a dealer in perfumery. She would have spent half her time at her toilette, and the rest in playing off the airs of a fine lady! She was quite indignant at not being allowed an exclusive dressing-room; and the more so as the _dear_ doctor, during the passage, had considered her much too delicate to endure any sort of hardship, and had been so kind and considerate as to insist upon her using two kinds of tooth brush, lest the hardness of that first applied should injure the enamel of her teeth!" The colonies at last rebelled against having the criminals of England imported, certainly not to their benefit, and were successful, the Cape in 1849, and Australia generally in 1864; but a shipment of convicts was made to West Australia as late as 1867. Taken altogether, crime, in this reign, was much the same as in any other, excepting the offences of Burkeing and body-snatching, for the sake of providing the anatomical schools with subjects--details of which are too loathsome to read--and the crimes themselves have now no existence. [Illustration: Decoration.] BY THE SAME AUTHOR.