The smaller sort of tenements were continually changing their inhabitants, and I remember one house that was occupied by five different families in as many years, besides sometimes standing empty. Ticket-of-leave holders, as a rule, never seemed stationary for any length of time. They migrated hither and thither, seeking for work or exchanging masters, and often disappeared for a period, having, as they movingly expressed it, "got into trouble." "Getting into trouble" involved a return to the "Establishment"—a word so naturalized in the colony as denoting the Government prison, that a warder's child once asked me in the Sunday school whether "John Howard had not been a great man for going about to see Establishments?"
Most of the convicts had learned, or more properly speaking had half learned, some handicraft or trade in the jail which they followed when they came out; but their customers were always liable to suffer inconvenience from an unexpected suspension of the business. A broken window has, perhaps, made us uncomfortable, and the glazier has been sent for to come and mend it. The fact of my messenger returning with, "Please, ma'am, the glazier can't come, for he has got two months," would be sufficient intimation that we must patch up our window, and wait for our tradesman's enlargement.
One of our released acquaintances commenced the business of carrier between Barladong and Perth, and for some little time executed our commissions with praiseworthy zeal and punctuality. On one especial occasion I had entrusted him with the task of procuring me a clothes-basket, which was a luxury unattainable in any
