apostolic administrator of the local church and missions. Dr. Brady denied this, and for some months members of the church were divided in their allegiance. The people were on the rack of excitement, and serious allegations were published against either party.
The Roman Catholics held a meeting in the Court House, Perth, in May, 1852, to appoint trustees to the church property. Dr. Brady, who occupied the chair, refused to accept an amendment against his own election to such a position, and so it was asserted, unjustifiably declared himself elected, and dissolved the meeting. His Grace, Archbishop Polding, Metropolitan of the Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Province of Australia, came from Sydney to settle the dispute. He delivered a pastoral address to the Roman Catholics of Western Australia, and authenticated reports that Dr. Brady had been degraded, excommunicated, and confined by order of the Pope in the prison of St. Angelo, while in Italy a few months previously.
Dr. Serra became the bishop in 1852, and in July Archbishop Polding addressed a letter to Dr. Brady, ordering him to proceed to Rome, and threatening that if he remained in Western Australia he would be declared "separated from the Church of God." Dr. Brady pleaded that certain promises had not been fulfilled, that his private effects had not been restored, that he could not pay his debts, and that if he tried to leave the colony he would he arrested for debt—a proceeding that "would dishonour the sacred character of a bishop."
The matter was taken into court, when Dr. Brady sought to recover from Dr. Serra private goods and chattels. The case was decided in favour of Dr. Serra. A letter was read in court which purported to be sent by Archbishop Polding to Cardinal Franzoni, asking that Bishop Brady be allowed a pension in Rome.
Dr. Serra afterwards visited Rome, and Father Salvado officiated as bishop in his absence. During 1853 Bishop Salvado proceeded to Europe, and returned with priests and monks for his New Norcia mission.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE CONVICT SYSTEM.
1854
SYSTEMS—THE GRADATIONS OF CONVICT SYSTEM—ARREST—TRANSPORTATION—AT THE ESTABLISHMENT—DAILY ROUTINE—CLOTHES; FOOD—OFFICERS; RULES AND REGULATIONS—ESCAPES—PUNISHMENTS—PRIVILEGES—COUNTRY DEPOTS—ROAD PARTIES—SCALES OF SENTENCES—MARKS SYSTEM—CONVICT CONSTABLES—GRATUITIES—TICKET OF LEAVE; ITS RESTRICTIONS—CONDITIONAL PARDON—SUCCESS OF SYSTEM DEPENDENT ON OFFICERS—TRANSPORTATION COURTED—REFORMATION—CRIME—CLASS OF CONVICTS—CONVICT WOMEN—ATTEMPTED ESCAPES; INSUBORDINATION—RESULTS OF SYSTEM ON COLONY; EXPORT, REVENUE, IMPORTS, EXPENDITURE—DEVELOPMENT OF RESOURCES; WHEAT, WINE, HORSES, CULTIVATION GENERALLY, W00L, TIMBER, WHALING, GUANO, FOOD STUFFS IMPORTED, AND PRICES—PUBLIC WORKS; PRISON, INVALID DEPOTS, ROADS, BRIDGES, G0VERNMENT HOUSE, LIST OF WORKS—AGITATIONS—GOVERNOR FITZGERALD RETIRES AND GOVERNOR KENNEDY ARRIVES—CONCENTRATION AND HIRING DEPOTS—GAOL AND POLICE EXPENDITURE—FREE EMIGRANTS-PASSAGE MONEY—THE DRINK QUESTION; REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT AND WANT OF CONFIDENCE—CESSATION OF CONVICT INTRODUCTION FEARED—LAND LAWS ALTERED AND IMPROVED—WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION—SAVINGS BANKS—GRAND JURIES ABOLISHED—INSOLVENCY ACT—MIGRATION TO VICTORIA—PROSPECTING FOR GOLD—LEAD AND COPPER MINING—STEAMBOAT SERVICE ON SWAN—STEAM MAIL SERVICE—RELIGIONS—EDUCATION—NATIVES—DEATHS—OFFICIALS—EXPLORATION; AUSTIN; A.C. GREG0RY; FRANK GREGORY, AND S. TRIGG AND FRANK GREGORY AND J.S. ROE IN THE NORTH-WEST; PARKERS, DEMPSTERS, AND OTHERS IN THE EAST.
OF systems there is no end. The universe vibrates with systems; interdependent and comprehending the ruthless laws of infinite space, the cool night breeze, the morning dew on the wild flower, the horrid nest of deadly bacilli. Newton and Darwin traced schemes of nature, Draper and Spencer those of peoples. The nation is made up of systems; the religionist has his system, the father of a family his. The list could be pursued indefinitely.
But of all the nations' systems, the strangest and saddest and coldest is the convict system. There, so it is said, is the purest of all democracies; its members have found bottom, where all stand equal. The Western Australian convict system was evolved from a past, and often fatal, experience in the United Kingdom and certain colonies. From the moment that the East End man, who had committed a burglary, was arrested in London, he was clutched by a system. A congeries of laws hedged him round; complex, yet working together with a singular simplicity of effect. He was arraigned before a judge, convicted, sent to an English prison, forced into a convict ship, and passed on to a gaol in Fremantle, 16,000 miles away. The discipline was so effective that he became a mere unit in a system, a piece in an automaton.
Convictism in Western Australia did not possess the revolting features characteristic of it in Tasmania, New South Wales, and Norfolk Island. In those places the early convict system, instead of being a corrective, and stimulating a regular moral balance, was largely a school of vice, in which the prisoner often became more degraded than he was in the United Kingdom. If not a criminal at heart at home, he was too likely to become a hardened man under the influence of the system. Instances of herding together, stringent discipline on unsystematic lines, and revolting cruelty were common in those early annals. Sydney Smith cleverly puts it that "in Botany Bay, the felon, as soon as he gets out of the ship, meets with his ancient trull, with the footpad of his heart, the convict of his affections, the man whose hand he has often met in the same gentleman's pockets—the being whom he would choose from the whole world to take to the road, or to disentangle the locks of Bramah. It is impossible that vice should not become more intense in such society."
In Western Australia, while the records contain numerous stories surcharged with bestial history, while the proportion of morally reformed men was comparatively small, a system was inaugurated which encouraged the unfortunate to rise on stepping-stones, which reduced the opportunities for diabolical inhumanity. And what surprise need there be that a certain strain of hopelessness runs through these annals of the colony when we remember the exquisite ruffianism that was vomited from the nauseous crime-breeding slums of Great Britain. Convicts were parasitic on the healthier system of the nation; they were removed and erected into a separate system.
The system began, so far as Western Australia was directly concerned, in the choosing of the particular men who were to be transported. A certain number of men were to be despatched; the
