The convict was fined according to a settled scale—
| Marks. | |
| Insubordination … | 20 to 200 |
| Wilful Damage to Property … | 20 to 200 |
| Petty Theft … | 20 to 200 |
| Assault … | 20 to 200 |
| Drunkenness … | 20 to 200 |
| Idleness … | 20 to 200 |
| Malingering … | 20 to 200 |
| Indecency of any Description … | 20 to 200 |
| Insolence to Superior 0fficer … | 20 to 200 |
| Absence Without Leave … | 20 to 200 |
With the marks system was bracketed a system of giving gratuities. No convict immured in the prison had any claim to wages, but as a reward for industry and good conduct a certain gratuity was credited to him. This was determined on the scale that for six marks per diem for a period of seven days, 2d. per day was given. The convict, therefore, obtained 1⅓ farthing for each mark, which, multiplied with the total number of marks he had earned, gave the total sum to which he was entitled. In cases of misconduct the offender forfeited all claim to indulgence; the runaway prisoner was charged with the cost of capture; the prisoner receiving corporal punishment was likewise mulcted. A convict was allowed to spend half his gratuity in tobacco.
It was construed to be a happy day when the ticket of leave period arrived; the convict was now free to obtain employment. The strong prison was behind him; a limited freedom was ahead. He had a little money in his pocket, and no warder to watch him; he might breathe again. His passport, a parchment document, was a precious possession; he must not lose it. Printed on its face were stringent rules which told him that he had permission to enter any service approved by the Resident Magistrate of a district; that he must not leave his district without written authority from the Comptroller-General or Resident Magistrate; that he must report himself every half-year to the Resident Magistrate; that he must produce his ticket of leave to anyone who asked to see it; and that police could arrest him if he loitered in streets or public houses, or was unable to show that he had proper employment. It also contained his registered number, description, age, and condition. He was allowed a fortnight in which to obtain work. If at the end of that period he had been unsuccessful he must return to the establishment, whereupon he was sent to a country depot. A settler in want of a labourer sent to the depot; the convict must accept any wages offered him under penalty of severe punishment, no matter if they be as low as 5s. a month. If he obtained a position himself he must report the fact to the police or Resident Magistrate. He could not on any account pass from one district to another, even on his master's business, without an order either from his employer or the Resident Magistrate. When he entered or departed from a town he must report himself to the police, who notified the occurrence in a book. If he travelled he must keep the usual or direct road, or go by such road as was indicated on his pass. If by the sanction of the Comptroller-General, Resident or Police Magistrate, he was transferred to a new district, he must report his departure and arrival to the police. An employer could dismiss him; he could not leave the employer without an order. He might lodge a complaint against his employer; if the complaint was proved to be frivolous he was liable to have his ticket of leave revoked altogether. He could not work on ships, in harbours, or on whaling craft. The Home Government gave instructions that he was not to enter private service for a less period than twelve months, but they were disregarded as impractical. Every change of residence, district, and master, was written on the parchment.
He might acquire freehold or leasehold interest in land, and maintain an action or suit in courts; but if he at any time was guilty of misconduct his property became the possession of the Crown. He might compel his employer to perform a contract with him; might marry or obtain his wife and family from England free of expense. Though he earned his own living he remained a prisoner of the Crown. He must not be out in the streets after ten o'clock at night. The police could arrest him when they liked, and a magistrate (under Summary Jurisdiction Acts) was able without a jury to sentence him to three years' imprisonment. If he harboured a convict illegally at large he was whipped, or sentenced to hard labour, with or without irons, for a term not exceeding twelve months; if found on board ship without authority a Justice of the Peace might sentence him to twelve months' imprisonment; if he carried firearms without proper permission he was liable to twelve months' imprisonment. For every sentence of a re-convicted felon one quarter of the time must be served in separate confinement, but never less than three months nor more than twelve. Magistrates and police must be fully aware of where ticket-of-leave men were employed in their district. The convict's restrictions were necessarily many; the system had a strong hold of him.
The last stage in this lengthy system was the "Conditional Pardon" certificate. When the ticket-of-leave man successfully passed the Charybdis of restrictions and the Scylla of temptations he received this welcome document. He was eligible to it according to the length of his sentence as per the scales—the periods, supposing good conduct, varied from nine months to four years and a quarter. He was exempt from police supervision, from the Summary Jurisdiction Act; might remove to any part of the world but to the United Kingdom, or (by special legislation) to some other Australian Colonies; the home of his forefathers was shut out him until his total sentence expired. Conditional Pardons were obtainable only from the Secretary of State through the Governor. Their issue was not popular among many of the local officials, nor in the other colonies. Governor Kennedy told Earl Grey's committee, in 1863, that the behaviour of conditional pardon men was less good than that of ticket-of-leave men. There was nothing to prevent a man who had accumulated money by means of extensive forgeries by receiving goods, or by swindling in England, from enjoying his ill-gotten gains in princely style in any Continental city. The eastern colonies often found these men a nuisance. The excitement so general all over Australia caused by gold discoveries attracted large bands of conditional pardon men. There was a double incentive moving them; one was the greater opportunities in eastern colonies from wealth; the other was to remove altogether from a place where they were so well known, where they were sempiternally branded. Mr. R. F. Newland and other witnesses from the eastern colonies informed Earl Grey's committee that conditional pardon men flocked eastwards in hundreds. Their treatment on some of the goldfields, where constitutional law was not established, was often summary and drastic. Crime, the witnesses said, increased until the Governments of Victoria and South Australia were compelled to pass laws excluding them. An Act was placed on Statute Books of South Australia in 1857, and of Victoria some time earlier, restricting this immigration. These measures provided severe punishments and fines on convicts arriving in the colony who were not eligible to residence in the United Kingdom. Masters or owners of vessels were also liable to fines not exceeding, or to one month's imprisonment, for introducing these men. Governor Fitzgerald, in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords, in 1856, expressed the belief that had these laws not been passed, not one conditional pardon man would have remained
