Principles that should regulate Penal Colonies. 83 



North America, or the island of Cuba. They were fed like 

 beasts of burden, mthout the slightest remuneration for the 

 heaviest work. The State had, it is true, a right to punish 

 the criminal, but it seems to us unjust in the extreme to 

 make him the slave of his fellow-man. Accordingly this 

 practice was the source of unutterable mischief, and was fol- 

 lowed by most deplorable results as regards the moral de- 

 velopment of the colony. 



2. The case is very different when the labour of the 

 criminal, instead of being devoted to the aggrandizement of 

 a private individual, finds its expansion in forwarding paro- 

 chial or national public works, in clearing and cultivating 

 tracts of land, and preparing them for the future labour of 

 free colonists, in the laying out of roads, in the erection of 

 clmrches, schools, hospitals, and barracks, in the construction 

 of docks, quays, &c. &c. So soon as private interest disap- 

 pears, — so soon as the energies of the criminal are no longer 

 made available to put money in the pockets of private 

 speculators, but are utilized for the general good, by far the 

 greater number of those minor drawbacks will disappear, 

 which press with all the more force on the compulsory la- 

 bourer, in proportion as he feels conscious that he is regarded 

 by him who has purchased his labour not as a fellow-man, 

 but as a chattel, to be employed while he is of any value, 

 and then to be cast aside, as one might throw a dried twig 

 ilito the fire. What may be accomplished in this direction, 

 even in colonies of comparatively recent foundation, is evi- 



G 2 



