store at Barladong. He did not return as usual; a week passed, and the basket was brought to me by a stranger, with the tidings that our carrier was a détenu. He had been as exact as usual in executing his customers' commissions, but had, somehow or other, failed to get clear of Perth without forfeiting his liberty.
Such incidents were sometimes laughable, but they had also a very grave side, for the inevitable effect of this state of things was a general lowering of the standard of morals throughout the colony. Crime was such an every-day affair that its constant recurrence was looked on as a matter of course, and of no great importance unless the delinquent had transgressed the rights of property. Moral character was therefore but little considered, and, provided that a woman had not been caught thieving, she was styled "respectable," and judged worthy of being entrusted with employments for which in England her manner of life would have rendered her totally ineligible. We seemed to have come out of pure fresh air into a close and contaminated atmosphere, while those whom we found living in it seemed unconscious of the taint, and to think us unreasonable for making any objections.
As to the causes assigned by the convicts and their friends for their banishment they were many and curious, but their chief interest centred in the fact that trial by jury seemed to have answered no other end, generally speaking, than that of getting the wrong man punished. One convict, according to his wife's statement, had been "sent out" only through keeping a cart and letting it out to hire. Certain parties chartered it, assigning no
