Page:The Statistics of Crime in Australia (IA jstor-2338612).pdf/14

 West Australia at Port Adelaide. In the following year the numbers rose to 438, and in 1857 to 629; making a total of 1,336, of whom probably one-half were, in colonial phrase, either "conditional pardons" or "expirees." The check administered by the Act was decisive, for in 1858 the number was reduced to 184; in the next year to 156; and the year after to 114. In consequence of the Victorian and South Australian Acts, the captains of traders were unwilling to take passengers to either of these colonies from West Australia, and generally preferred to go to Sydney, at which port no such Act was in operation. The South Australian Act did not, like that of Victoria, extend to expirees, but only to the conditional pardons. The Home Government have intimated, within the present year, that this "conditional pardon" expedient of convict colonies, which has been so vexatious to their neighbours, is to be entirely abrogated.