worked, and of the value of their labour, may
be derived from the report of CAPTAIN TILLY,
of the Royal Engineers, in which he says that
in constructing the new practice range at
Plumstead and Erith Marshes, in 1856, it was found
that a navvy excavated eight cubic yards per
day; a sapper, five; a convict, two. Measured
by time, a convict would thus be upwards of
sixty-six days in accomplishing what a navvy
would execute in ten. MR. MEASOR seems to
suggest a feasible remedy for this glaring evil,
when he says: "Let the convict service be
looked upon, and in every respect treated, in
the light of contractors by the Admiralty and
War Departments. A certain work has to
be done; let the plans of it be given over to
an engineer, appointed by the convict
department, upon whom let the whole application
of the labour rest. Let a fair estimate be
agreed upon between the two departments, the
necessary plant be provided by the convict
service, the work be surveyed as often as is needful
by the engineers of the department for which it
is being executed, and a transfer be made of a
stipulated sum from the accounts of one
department to the other, as progress is made.
There will not then be two sets of officers, one
to control the convicts, the other to employ
them, both with their excuses against the
hindrances of the other, and neither sufficiently
interested in the progress of the work. The
credit of the convict service alone will be at
stake, and a proper stimulus will be carried
downwards to the prisoners themselves."
Supposing a system of this kind to be adopted, MR.
MEASOR further suggests that convict labour
might then be very beneficially and profitably
applied to the construction of the new fortifications
which are shortly to be raised in many
parts of the country. The suggestion is well
worth consideration. It is apparent, however,
that no real reformation can be effected in the
manner of employing convicts, as long as men,
convicted of all sorts of crimes, and in all stages
of their sentences, are kept together in one
prison, and sent together to the same work.

You are right. I should as soon think of
introducing a dog with the distemper into my
kennel, as to admit a thrice-convicted criminal
into the company of once-convicted men whose
good conduct I was anxious to preserve, and
whose morality I hoped to improve.

So far, then, we are agreed. Now for the
mode of convict transportation. It is hardly
possible to conceive a state of things more abominable
than that which commonly occurs on board
transport ships bearing convicts to Bermuda,
Gibraltar, or Western Australia. These ships
are in truth floating hells, and have been so
described by some of the better disposed convicts
themselves. "Could I sum up words, or foul
my mouth with words," says one of them, "I
might be able, perhaps, to give you a feeble
idea of the doings that are carried on in a
convict ship,"—where, as MR. MEASOR tells us,
"three hundred men are packed, like a herd of
condemned souls on their way to Tartarus, into
the hold of a ship, with sleeping berths in two
rows one above the other, giving a space of
about sixteen inches by six feet to each
prisoner;" and where a state of things in
consequence prevails which sets discipline at defiance.
This hideous evil has been over and over again
brought under the notice of the authorities, yet
it is still continued, and no attempt is made to
remedy it.

Could it be remedied?

Why not? There is no reason why some of our
many ships of war, which are now idly rotting in
harbour, should not be equipped for this especial
service, in such a manner as to render the
abuses which at present exist, impossible. This
is what he says in his pamphlet; nor have
I told you anything that he does not say in his
pamphlet, or fails to make quite plain by his
experience, and by facts and figures.

CATTLE FARMERS IN THE PAMPAS.

SOME time ago I sent you a general description
of an estancia, or cattle farm, in La Plata.*
As there is a good deal more to be said about
our way of business, you are now asked to read
a few stray notes from the experience of an old
La Plata cattle farmer who is well contented
with his lot.

* Household Words, vol ii. p. 190.

First let me speak of our native helpers, the
pions, or gauchos, of the pampas. They have
a worse name than they deserve. A stranger
looks askance at the long knife that the pion
carries in his girdle. But it means nothing
more bloodthirsty than the steel that hangs over
the blue apron of the English butcher. It is
part of the pion's occupation to slaughter, skin,
and cut up all the animals consumed on the
estancia, also to take off and bring home the
hide of any horse or cow found dead in the
establishment; also to perform, all the various
cutting operations on the cattle. When following
an animal that has the lasso on its horns,
the lasso may break, and the pion having caught
the broken end will dismount, and by trimming
and pointing the strands with his knife, and
using a nail shaped for the purpose in place of
a marlinspike, splices it quickly, and in half an
hour is again on the gallop. With a bit of dry
hide and his knife the pion can meet any mishap
to saddle and harness, being as full of resources
with that one tool and that one material as a
carpenter with a log and a tool basket. In hot
weather the knife is a scraper for the sweating
horse, a picker for the horse's foot, a parer for
his hoofs. At meal times it is a table knife, a
fork, and toothpick. In case of need it is a
weapon, but it is not carried for deadly purpose
like the stiletto or the bowie knife, or like those
weapons concealed upon the person. The pion
no more hides his "cuchillo," than the carpenter
his adze. But he must trust you well before he
complies, if you ask him to lend it you. When
it is gone from him, he is disarmed in a country
where it is not always safe to be without a