Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: April 30, 2025
Major de Winton, an officer who served for some years on Norfolk Island, has mentioned that a prisoner by good conduct received a ticket-of-leave after he had been twice sentenced to death, thrice to transportation for life, and to cumulative periods of punishment amounting to over a hundred years!
The "ticket-of-leave men" that is, convicts who, having served out a portion of their term and been favorably reported for good conduct, are permitted to go at large and begin life anew form a distinct class, and exert a widespread influence by their wealth, benevolence and commercial enterprise.
Fortunately, General Rolleston's gardener had just turned him off; so he offered the post to his eloquent correspondent, remarking that he did not much mind employing a ticket-of-leave man himself, though he was resolved to protect his neighbors from their relapses. The convict then came to General Rolleston, and begged leave to enter on his duties under the name of James Seaton.
Need I tell you I prayed for those two night and day? A convict's prayer it was a forger's prayer, a thief's prayer; but a father's prayer to a pitiful Father for his children. "After ten years I received a `ticket-of-leave, and was free to return home. But I could not do it yet.
"Look here," said he; "you keep up a good heart, and get as many V G's as you can. Then you'll get out on ticket-of-leave in fifteen years: it ain't as if you were a lifer." He meant it for consolation; but this unvarnished statement of the very best that could by possibility befall poor Richard seemed only to deepen his despondency.
Spriggs, sipping his tea, "I wrote to Scotland Yard and told 'em that Augustus Price, ticket-of-leave man, was trying to obtain a hundred and ten pounds by false pretences." Mr. Price, white and breathless, rose and confronted him. "The beauty o' that is, as Bill says," continued Mr. Spriggs, with much enjoyment, "that Gussie'll 'ave to set out on his travels again.
The province of Victoria not only refused to admit them, but passed a law to prevent any ticket-of-leave men from other provinces from entering her territories. This very year the Government threatened to withdraw its subsidy from the Peninsular Company if their vessels continued to take in coal in those western parts of Australia where convicts are admitted. What!
I sat under them for twelve years, and during that time I wrote a great quantity of criminal literature. When a convict of good conduct in Pentridge was entitled to a ticket-of-leave, he usually chose the Western district as the scene of his future labours, so that the country was peopled with old Jack Bartons and young ones.
Stanley Fyles felt rather like a ticket-of-leave criminal, instead of a law officer, as he gazed out from the doorway of the frame hut, which formed the temporary quarters of the police, far out on the western reaches of the valley, five miles above the village of Rocky Springs. He knew he was there to prove himself.
In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, no written character should ever be held sufficient. A personal interview with his late master or mistress is indispensable. This gives a little trouble, no doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for such a purpose, must indeed be grossly selfish, and when they engage a ticket-of-leave man for their butler get no worse than they deserve.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking