REVIEWS. 423 



ject is so complete that the cause for wonder is not the failure of the 

 system; but, that any other result should ever have been expected. 



Under the best conceivable system, the re-absorption into society of 

 those who have undergone penal-discipline is attended with serious 

 difficulty. Under a system so faulty as the present English one has been 

 shown to be, only the worst results could be anticipated ; and, the 

 chapter on that subject accordingly establishes the danger and mis-- 

 chief of the Ticket-of-leave System. 



The chapter on transportation seems chiefly intended to show how 

 to the extent that it is still possible, in Western Australia, by good 

 regulations in the colony, a proper selection of subjects, and the use 

 of good influences during the long voyage, some good use may yet be 

 made of a punishment no longer possible or desirable in its old form. 

 A large portion of the second volume is devoted to the Irish Convict 

 System, founded on the same Act of the British Parliament, in 1853, 

 which originated the English System ; but, with so different a result, 

 that whilst the one, from certain unfortunate mistakes, must be re-- 

 garded as a lamentable failure, the other is a cheering proof of the 

 practicability of reformatory-discipline, and of the adaptation to hu- 

 man nature of those wise and humane principles which had recom- 

 mended themselves in theory, but which the many were afraid to 

 apply in practice. Let the nations of the world profit by the example 

 of Ireland, and let the name of the originator of its penal-system be 

 enrolled among the benefactors of mankind. As, directing attention 

 to all that is contained between them, we shall quote the opening and 

 concluding passages of Miss Carpenter's three chapters on the Irish 

 Convict System. 



" The English and the Irish Convict Systems were both founded on the Act of 

 Parliament of 1853. The object of that Act was to mate such changes in the 

 system adopted towards Convict?, as would prepare them for discharge in our 

 own country, since our Colonial provinces were virtually closed against them, 

 "Western Australia only consenting still to receive a small number annually. We 

 have seen that in England the system has hitherto been a failure, but have traced 

 that failure, not to the principles on which that and the subsequent one of ISST 

 were founded, but to certain omissions and additions which were incompatible 

 with the successful working of the principles. We now proceed to the examina- 

 tion of the Irish Convict System, which has fully developed the principles of both 

 those Acts. The results of the ten years during which it has been in operation 

 demonstrate, beyond any possibility of doubt to an impartial observer, not only 

 the truth of the principles embodied in the Acts of Parliament, but also of those 

 moral principles which are so embodied in it as to constitute its peculiar features. 



