Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/98

 could a single magistrate order a heavier punishment than fifty lashes.

Before Macquarie's time a Bench, which usually consisted of three magistrates, had ordered floggings of three hundred lashes, and sometimes a resident magistrate in a distant part of the settlement exercised the powers of a Bench. But such cases had been exceptional.

The usual punishments were flogging, imprisonment in the gaols and hard labour in the gaol-gangs, solitary confinement on bread and water, or transportation to the coal mines at Newcastle. Except in the last case, the duration of a punishment ordered by the magistrates never lasted more than a year and seldom so long. Before Macquarie, all severe magisterial sentences had been reviewed by the Governor before being put into execution. Under his administration, however, an alteration was made in this system. All the proceedings of the Sydney magistrates were laid before him immediately after their meetings, and even the slightest sentences had to be approved by him. But apparently no similar supervision was exercised over the magistrates of other districts. Even the quarterly returns of all fines and punishments ordered by them on delinquents of every description was very irregular, and the details recorded very scanty. Transportation to Newcastle was carried out differently. The magistrates simply committed and the Governor allotted the term for which the prisoner would be kept there, and on the report of the Commandant that term might be lengthened or curtailed. Occasionally, however, the Superintendent of Police at Sydney sent a man thither without the Governor's order if he thought it necessary to separate him at once from his companions. But neither