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 CHAPTER VIII.

fifth cause of the comparative failure of the transportation system, as it has hitherto been administered, is the enormous evil that has resulted from the transportation of educated or gentlemen convicts to the penal colonies, and the frequent and ample opportunities which individuals of this class have hitherto enjoyed in these colonies, of not merely defeating the intentions of the law in their own particular case, by converting a state of intended punishment and degradation into one of extensive influence and positive enjoyment; but of also counteracting the natural tendency and operation of the punishment of transportation in a