any religious service. For the loan of an amusing book or two the convict constable will always be glad to undertake a walk of ten or twelve miles, and the warder of the party is equally glad to give him leave of absence for such a purpose.
Railway publications, Waverley novels and newspapers are devoured by the convicts, but they will not read religious books unless the pill is so well gilded by secular incident that it is swallowed for the sake of the tale; and, sad though it may sound, it is nevertheless true, that a surer symptom there cannot be of a man being worse than his fellows than his asking a clergyman for any book of which the subject is solely religious.
A ticket-of-leave man came once to our house to beg that he might be allowed a seat in church near the pulpit, on the plea of his being deaf, adding, "though if I only hear the text I can always tell what the sermon will be." Sermons, one would imagine, must have been superfluous to so well-informed a person, and, judging from his position as a convicted felon, it would appear that they had been useless also.
As to the effect which is produced by convict servants upon the personal comfort of masters and mistresses, it appeared to me that the trials undergone by heads of households from this cause in Western Australia often far exceeded the crosses and annoyances which were wont, as I have heard, in former days to beset West Indian owners of domestic slaves. There is no need to enlarge upon the risk which the settlers' children run of contamination from their fathers' labourers; and an anecdote that we heard from a neighbour, in whose family there had lately
