OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 227 



self-command, by the latter of which he may give satisfactory proof 

 that he deserves a restoration to his privileges in society. He does not 

 proscribe punishment, but on the contrary believes it indispensable 

 to induce penitence and submission ; he regards it as necessary as a 

 deterring example, and not for a vindictive end. 



An entire reform, or a self-control tantamount to it, can, in his 

 opinion, be obtained only by specific punishments for the past, and 

 by a training for the future. To effect this latter he proposes to 

 group prisoners together in associations, made to resemble those of 

 common life as closely as possible, subdividing them into small 

 parties or families, as may be agreed on among themselves, with 

 common interest ; that they shall receive wages in the form of marks 

 of commendation, which they may exchange at will for immediate 

 gratifications, but of which a fixed accumulation should be required 

 before receiving freedom. He thus hopes to prepare them for society 

 in society, giving them a field for the exercise and cultivation of 

 social virtues, as well as for the voluntary restraint of vices. 



Captain Maconochie deems the union of punishment for the past, 

 with training for the future, as totally incompatible with each other, 

 and, therefore, thinks that the former must in all cases precede the 

 latter, and be effectual of itself. He argues, that success in medical 

 treatment by beginning to administer restoratives before the disease 

 is eradicated, might as well be expected as reform while punishment 

 is undergone ; and that it is just as necessary to prepare for society in 

 society, as to train man by a preliminary education to the useful 

 employments of life ; that it seems idle to expect that mere theoretical 

 instruction, however strongly enforced by short but severe suffering, 

 should be sufficient to enable persons advanced in life to guide their 

 future conduct, as it would be to hope to teach a trade, or any other 

 practical employment, by abstract rules ; and that moral lessons, to be 

 taught profitably, require a field of progressive experimental applica- 

 tion just as much as engineering. 



On these elementary principles Captain Maconochie founds his 

 plan of convict management, to which he applies the name of 

 " Social System," and trusts for its success to the application of 

 moral force in the place of physical coercion. He considers that 

 hitherto the reform of culprits has not been thought the principal 

 object in regulating their treatment. 



The object of deterring from the commission of crime has been the 



