up there as fresh and as vigorous as if it had not been conquered at Paramatta.  Lady Franklin and other ladies communicated with Mrs. Fry, showing her the great need that still existed for her benevolent exertions in that quarter.  From these communications it seemed that the assignment of women into domestic slavery still continued, in all its dire forms.  When a convict ship arrived from England, employers of all grades became candidates for the services of the convicts.  With the exception of publicans, and ticket-of-leave men, who were not allowed to employ convicts, anybody and everybody might engage the poor banished prisoners without any guarantee whatsoever as to the future conduct of the employer toward the servant, or specification as to the kind of work to be performed.  Those convicts who have behaved themselves best on the voyage out were assigned to the best classes of society, while the others fell to the refuse of the employers’ class.  As it was a fact that a large proportion of the tradesmen applying for servants were convicts who had fully served their time, it may be imagined how lacking in civilization and integrity such employers often were.  But if the condition of the convicts was hopeless after their assignment to places of service, it was, if possible, more hopeless still in the home, or “factory,” in which they were first received.  Some of the letters before referred to cast a flood of terrible light upon the condition of the poor wretches who had quitted their country “for that country’s good,” even when under supposed discipline and restraint.  A passage from one of these letters reads like an ugly story of “the good old times!”

The Cascade Factory is a receiving-house for the women on their first arrival (if not assigned from the ship), or on their transition from one place to another, and also a house of correction for faults committed in domestic service; but with no pretension to be a place of reformatory discipline, and seldom failing to turn out the women worse than they entered it.  Religious instruction there was none, except that occasionally on the Sabbath the superintendent of the prison read prayers, and sometimes divine service was performed by a chaplain, who also had an extensive parish to attend to.

The officers of the establishment consisted, at that time, of only five persons—­a porter, the superintendent, and matron, and two assistants.  The number of persons in the factory, when first visited by Miss Hayter, was five hundred and fifty.  It followed, of course, that nothing like prison discipline could be enforced, or even attempted.  In short, so congenial to its inmates was this place of custody (it would be unfair to call it a place of punishment) that they returned to it again and again when they wished to change their place of servitude; and they were known to commit offences on purpose to be sent into it, preparatory to their reassignment elsewhere.