Page:A lecture on the evils of emigration and transportation.djvu/22

18"triangles this time, my back was in such a dreadful state, that the doctor ordered that I was to be flogged over the breech. After I came back from the chain-gang, my master seemed a little better to me for a week or two, and then began as bad as ever. Often when he and I have been out in the night, shooting opossums, I have levelled the gun and put my finger to the trigger. I hardly knew which to shoot, the opossum or my master. I used to think I should not mind being hung for him, but I should not like to go to hell for him, and this prevented me shooting him.'"

1850 Tickets of Leave.—An indulgence given for good conduct, after serving in the Colony as I have before stated—4, 6, or 8 years, according to their sentences, without committing any offence. The Secondary Punishment Bill, lately passed in England, has made a material alteration in the convict's condition, more particularly those sent out under second convictions; with respect to those who are called "Educated Convicts," their condition is wretched in the extreme, they are sent immediately on their arrival to a penal settlement, without any hopes of a remission of their horrid sentence. I always thought the intentions of the Home Government were reformation, and not perpetual punishment and misery to offenders—and why men of education should be singled out as objects of especial wrath, I cannot conceive.

3847 Men employed in Public Works.—Under the head of public works, is understood all Colonial improvements carried on by Government, such as making and repairing of roads, building of bridges, erecting public buildings for the different departments of public business, &c. The men employed in these works are deprived of every kind of indulgence, and are subjected to the most harrassing [sic] fatigues, their allowance of food is barely sufficient to support nature under unremitting exertions. They work from sun-rise to sun-set, Saturday excepted, when they leave of at noon, to wash their shirts ready for Sunday's inspection. They live in huts, dispersed over the country, near the place of work, under the superintendance [sic] of an overseer and generally a military guard.

349 Constables.—Men situated as the policemen of this town, and it is unto men of this description that the Government entrust the lives and property of the emigrant; they are possessed of far more power than the same class of men in England; owing to the