Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/87

 will have been made of; and who it is that posterity will then curse for bringing this mildew on the social intercourse of the world; who it is that will be answerable for the injury done by it to human virtue and human happiness at a tribunal more distant, but more awful even than posterity.”

How our transportation system appears in the eyes of Europe may be judged of, by the following extract from “Remarks of the French Commissioners on the American System of Secondary Punishments:”

“Society in Australia is divided into different classes, as distinct and inimical to each other as the different classes of the middle age. The criminal is exposed to the contempt of him who has obtained his liberty; he, to the outrage of his own son, born free; and all, to the pride of the colonist whose origin is without blemish. They resemble four hostile nations meeting on the same soil. We may judge of the feelings which animate these different members of the same people, by the following extract from the Report of Mr. Bigges:—‘As long as these sentiments of jealousy and enmity subsist,’ says he, ‘the introduction of trial by jury into the colony must not be thought of. In the actual state of things, a jury composed of former criminals cannot fail to combine against an accused person belonging to the class of free colonists; in the same manner, juries chosen from among free colonists, will always think they show the purity of their own class in condemning an old convict against whom a second accusation should be directed.’”