John Dunmore Lang

“ Neither is it at all necessary to point out the manner in which gradations of punishment could be established in the different modes of employing convict labour above-mentioned, commensurate with the different degrees of criminality in different convicts. ”

“ Such an officer should, by all means, be a civilian, of approved character, of much and tried experience in the management of criminals, and of a sufficiently enlarged and expansive mind to be capable of applying to that important branch of the public service all the improvements of the present enlightened age, whether derived from British, continental, or American experience. ”

“ This, however, is evidently a most unwise arrangement; the duties of a surveyor-general, and of a director of public works, being totally different from those implied in the superintendence and management of convicts undergoing penal discipline. The consequences of such an arrangement are precisely what might be anticipated. The convicts at government labour are by no means under proper discipline, and are ever and anon breaking loose from their overseers, and committing depredations on the free inhabitants of their respective neighbourhoods ”