riably the case. I have occasionally witnessed the husband, forgetful of his inferiority, exercising his marital authority in a very unbecoming manner, to which the wife submitted, with meek and dutiful obedience.
The educated convicts are now not so well situated as in former times, when they were assigned to professional, or mercantile men, or employed as clerks in Government offices. From their education and acquirements, they obtained good situations, gave themselves airs, and lived like gentlemen; but these halcyon days are now gone, and the specials (as they are called) are neither assigned to private individuals, nor are they admitted into Government offices, nor are they sent into the interior, to live in indolence—but they are sent to a penal settlement, where they are compelled to work at tasks suited to their strength and delicate constitutions. That this is an exceedingly judicious regulation, no one, excepting those who are likely to come under its operation, will deny.
There has lately been a great deal of discussion in the colonies, as to the utility of having penal settlements, where, as many say, much expense is incurred, without adequate advantage; and, according to their opinion, the criminals confined there might be more usefully employed in making roads, bridges, &c., in the interior, where they could be kept as strictly, and at far less expense, than they are, according to the present system.
Prisoners who misconduct themselves, are liable to be punished in a variety of ways;—by the infliction of corporal chastisement, by being sentenced to an irongang, to a penal settlement, or by an addition to their original sentence. A single magistrate cannot order a prisoner to receive more than fifty lashes; but flogging, although awful and degrading in name, is often a mere farce;—the witnessing of the infliction being usually left to a constable, who is frequently a greater rogue than the culprit, towards whom, of course, he has a strong fraternal feeling. I have, on more than one occasion, accidentally seen exhibitions of this kind, when jesting, and
