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 |3rebmtton of Crime 
 
 THE ENGLISH CITIZEN: 
 
 fliS RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 
 
THE PUNISHMENT 
 
 AND 
 
 PKEVENTION OF CRIME 
 
 BY 
 
 Col. Sir EDMUND F. DU CANE, 
 
 K. C. B. , R. EL 
 
 CHAIRMAN Or OOMMMUOVEM OF I 
 CHAIRMAN OF DIRFCT0R8 OF PRISONS, INSFSCTOR-OKNRRAL OF MI LIT ART PRISONS, 
 BURVKTOR-ORMRRA1. OF PRISONS 
 
 iLontron 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1885 
 
UM1 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Criminals and Punishments .... 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Punishments in the Middle Ages -Capital Execu- 
 tions ....... 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Gaols in Former Times .... 80 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 Modern Prisons ...... 65 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Transportation ...... 110 
 
 334228 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Penal Servitude . . . . .152 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Supervision Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies 193 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Preventive System Juveniles Reformatories 
 
 Industrial Schools . . . 199 
 
 Index . ... . . .233 
 
THE PUNISHMENT 
 
 AMI 
 
 ^PREVENTION OF CRIME 
 
THE PUNISHMENT 
 
 AND 
 
 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 CRIMINALS AND PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 ( tana may very well be compared with physical disease, 
 and the mode of proceeding for repression of the one is 
 in principle the same as for the other. The most ell' 
 mode is to remove its causes, which often have their 
 origin in our social condition, and more often in the 
 absence or weakening of those moral restraints by means 
 of which society is kept together. But when this mode 
 fails, or when we omit, from want of knowledge or other 
 cause, to apply it, we are obliged, for the protection of 
 the community, to resort to such methods of curing it as 
 may prove most effectual. According to the principles 
 which have long been accepted in England, these methods 
 must be founded on a combination of penal and reform- 
 atory elements applied in their proper circumstances, 
 and in their due proportions. 
 
 The object of the penal element is more to deter 
 
,?., /PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 others than for the effect on the individual subjected to 
 the punishment. In accordance with the observation 
 addressed by a Heath judge to a criminal on whom he 
 was passing sentence " You are sentenced to be hanged, 
 not because you stole the horse, but in order to prevent 
 others from stealing horses." On this subject the 
 Bepoii of the Directors of Convict Prisons,. 187 3, contains 
 the following observations: "When everything has 
 been done to deter from crime or reform the criminal 
 there will still remain a certain class whom it is hopeless 
 to influence, and who must be dealt with in course of 
 law, not for much' result on themselves, but to carry out 
 the principle of justice, and mainly to deter others. 
 Such characters may probably be set down as in a certain 
 sense mentally deficient. The following extracts from a 
 paper by Dr. Nicholson in the Journal of Mental Science 
 points out this peculiarity of the criminal mind, and 
 supports the idea, which has been elsewhere broached, that 
 the fact of certain prisoners being repeatedly reconvicted is 
 no proof that the system of a prison is defective ; the truth 
 being that if by punishing those who have an incurable 
 tendency to crime we can deter fresh recruits from 
 joining the ranks of the criminal class, the object of 
 punishment is effected; and obviously if we could 
 possibly arrive at the result that all- convictions were re- 
 convictions, and none of them first sentences, we should 
 be in a fair way to putting an end to crime altogether. 
 
 " And this quality of reflection* is certainly feebly 
 represented in criminals generally. Many of them do 
 not, and some possibly cannot, comprehend their own 
 'position or realise their true self-interest as social and 
 responsible beings; and their actions are but too fre- 
 
i.] CRIMINALS AND PUNISHMENTS. 3 
 
 quently prompted by what appears to them the expediency 
 of the moment. Speaking proverbially, they form a class 
 of fools whom even experience fails to teach. The 
 lessons of the past profit them not as guides for the 
 future. Apart from the question of their natural prone- 
 ness to evil, the frequent misdemeanours of criminals, 
 whether in prison or out of it, in spite of such punish- 
 ment as ought to prove deterrent, is either an evidence of 
 a strange indifference to pain or else it shows that the 
 impression left by the punishment, if it has not faded ' 
 altogether, is at least so weakened as to be useless even 
 if recalled when the individual is again about to commit 
 himself ; i.e. the memory has no record of the pain, or 
 the feeble residue which it preserves of it goes for 
 nothing in the face of the emotion or other cause of 
 misconduct. 
 
 " Professor Bain, working out the balance of actual 
 and ideal motives in reference to the repeated commission 
 of crime, says : We must suppose, what is probably 
 true of the criminal class generally, a low retentiveness 
 for good and evil the analytic expression of imprudence, 
 perhaps the most radically incurable of all natural defects.' 
 This formula, ' a low retentiveness for good and evil,' is 
 well adapted to form a groundwork for the explanation 
 of many of the vicious displays of imprisoned criminals. 
 It implies scant powers of reflection, and indicates a 
 state of moral weakness and possibly of moral depravity; 
 and upon such a basis a healthy or strong exercise of 
 the will can hardly be looked for. Hence it follows that 
 in some cases even an ordinary emotion, in the absence 
 of the moderating influence which a deliberative volition 
 should exert, leads to the commission of acts as unreason- 
 
4 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIMK. [am*. 
 
 able and as destructive as those committed at the in- 
 stigation of a violent emotional impulse, whose course 
 an ordinary will is found to be incapable of resisting 
 or controlling." 
 
 An examination of the criminal population as a whole 
 has led some skilled observers to express the opinion that 
 in mental and bodily constitution male prisoners are 
 below the average of the population of which they form 
 a part; and the same may be said of female prisoners 
 though in a less marked degree. It must, however, be 
 admitted that while the general criminal population 
 may be thus described, there are always to be found 
 among criminals, in prison or out, a number of persons 
 of great skill and cleverness, qualities which, since they 
 are not restrained by any moral considerations, tempi 
 them perhaps to measure themselves against the law, but 
 which fortunately do not always and completely protect 
 them; for their own moral defects, such as indolence, 
 dissipation, treachery, etc, help to defeat their com- 
 binations and restore the balance in favour of the com- 
 munity. There is also good foundation for the obser- 
 vation that the able and intelligent criminal seeks the 
 aid of the weaker-minded men and women in hii enter- 
 prises, and contrives sometimes that they shall sutler in his 
 place. The weak-minded, insane, and epileptic criminal 
 are specially addicted to certain crimes, such as ; 
 and to crimes indicating a preponderance of the animal 
 nature, often marked by violence. And both these two 
 classes of incurable criminals, the one who deliberately 
 adopts a course of crime in reliance on his own power of 
 evading detection, and the other who is a criminal because 
 he is weak-minded or imbecile, must be dealt with on 
 
I.] 
 
 CRIMINALS AND PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 different principles from those others who may by 
 appropriate treatment be deterred or reformed. 
 
 The connection between age and the tendency to 
 crime is worthy of attention. In a census of the convict 
 prison population in 1873, it was shown that, whereas 
 the ages of the general population above fifteen years 
 are in the following proportions : 
 
 
 Pbofoktiom rn cnrr. 
 
 15 to 24 
 
 y.urs 
 Inclusive. 
 
 MtoM 
 
 yeare. 
 
 35 to 44 
 yean. 
 
 If to M 
 
 yens. 
 
 45 to 64 
 year*. 
 
 ad 
 
 upwjtnls. 
 
 Males . 
 
 IYnuks 
 
 29 3 
 28-4 
 
 22-9 
 23-2 
 
 177 
 177 
 
 13*9 
 137 
 
 9-2 
 93 
 
 7*0 
 77 
 
 the ages of the population of the convict prisons are as 
 follows : 
 
 M..l,-s . 
 hVnial.-s 
 
 15 4 
 
 397 
 417 
 
 19-2 
 23 8 
 
 8*5 
 127 
 
 3 8 
 6 3 
 
 1-6 
 
 1-0 
 
 It appears, therefore, that that part of the population 
 which is between twenty -five and thirty -four supplies 
 far more than its proper proportion to the convict 
 prisons. This may therefore be called the "criminal 
 age." It appears also that the criminal age begins and 
 ends later in females than in males. 
 
 These observations are confirmed by an analysis made 
 in the present year, and it appears from a similar analy- 
 sis of the population of the Local Prisons that in them 
 persons between twenty and thirty are in an unduly 
 large proportion. 
 
6 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [CHAP. 
 
 The fact of the large decrease of crime continuously 
 after the age of thirty-four is well worthy of note; whether 
 it arises from the moral feelings being in some individuals 
 developed later than ordinarily, or in a desire after I 
 certain age for a quieter life than the risk and excitement 
 of crime can offer; but it would seem to warrant the 
 inference that a vast amount of crime would be put ;m 
 end to if those persons whose career evidences in them 
 marked criminal tendencies could either be locked up or 
 kept under supervision until they had passed, say the 
 age of forty, supplying thus in the interest of the public 
 that self-control in which they are obviously deficient* for 
 there can be little doubt that most of the undetected 
 crime which much exceeds that which is followed by 
 punishment is committed by persons of this class. 
 Many of them might thenceforward become respectable 
 members of society. 
 
 It is also worthy of observation that the proportion 
 of male convicts convicted of serious crime ia much 
 larger than females, in fact 9 to 1 ; the proportion of 
 males to females convicted of minor crimes is only I 
 tol. 
 
 The explanation of this probably is that the oceaptJ tan 
 of females is not generally such as to lead then 
 commit those offences against morals which bring them 
 under the operation of the criminal law, and especially 
 does not expose them in an equal degree to the dan 
 of committing the more serious offences. 
 
 The conditions of the problem will, on the whole, lie 
 found to justify the conclusion that reformatory influences 
 should predominate in dealing with the younger criminals 
 those whose minds and character are still unformed and 
 
i.] CRIMINALS AND PUNISHMENTS. 7 
 
 undeveloped ; that in the older and more hardened the 
 penal element should have the first place both on 
 account of its effect on themselves and its influence in 
 deterring others; and that for incorrigibles the only 
 mode of protecting society against them is that they 
 should be entirely removed from temptation which they 
 cannot withstand, and be made use of as examples to 
 others. 
 
 As to the amount of punishment which should be 
 inflicted it is probable that nothing can be prescribed 
 further than that it should be the least amount \n hi< h 
 will effect the above objects; and from this point of 
 view the stereotyped custom of assigning the periods of 
 5, 7, 10, 14, and 21 years' penal servitude (a custom no 
 doubt derived from the days of actual transportation), to 
 the exclusion of the intermediate periods of years, is 
 difficult to justify, and may even defeat the great object ; 
 for there is much evidence to prove that, after six or 
 years, the deterrent effect diminishes on the pris- 
 oner who endures it, and is therefore likely to be less 
 on those who hear his account after his discharge than if 
 he had come out before getting used to his position. 
 The use of certain stereotyped periods for sentences of 
 imprisonment might perhaps also be reconsidered, for 
 intermediate periods now very seldom made use of 
 might no doubt often be sufficient for their purpose. 
 
 The punishments which now can be legally enforced 
 are Death, Penal Servitude, Transportation, and Imprison- 
 ment with or without Hard Labour ; Confinement in a 
 Reformatory, Police Supervision, Whipping, Fine, Putting 
 under Recognisances. To these should be added, as a 
 preventive and not as a punishment for crime, Confine- 
 
8 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [en. i. 
 
 ment in an Industrial School. Death being now inflicted 
 on rare occasions and corporal punishment quite excep- 
 tionally, a description of our penal and preventive s\ 
 is for the most part a description of the system adopted 
 in the various institutions in which persons are confined 
 for the purpose of checking crime. 
 
 It would be impossible to understand our present 
 penal and preventive system, or to appreciate the reasons 
 for many of its characteristics, without some knowledge 
 of what has gone before, and of the experience on which 
 it is founded. 
 
 Those who have been much engaged in practically 
 conducting affairs of any magnitude will know how 
 frequently it happens that every course which can be 
 adopted has its attendant disadvantages, and that a 
 judicious decision as to which course shall be followed tfl 
 only to be arrived at by balancing the advantage 
 disadvantages of each. Nothing is more common than 
 to find afterwards that persons whose attention haa 
 attracted only to some disadvantage in the system finally 
 decided on, discuss it without being aware that any 
 alternative would introduce still greater evils. This 
 consideration makes it the more desirable to record tin 
 steps by which the existing practice and system have 
 grown up, to bring their results to the test of unim- 
 peachable facts, and to show the various evils to which 
 penal establishments are liable, and the errors which 
 we must carefully endeavour to avoid in the farther 
 progress we should hope for and endeavour to effect 
 
 a 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PUNISHMENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES CAPITAL 
 EXECUTIONS. 
 
 Tin: punishment! chiefly made use of by our forefathers 
 were of the kind that are described as " short and sharp," 
 though sometimes very durable in their effect on the 
 person subjected to them. The Criminal Law, which 
 no doubt the Romans introduced into and left in then 
 islands, was remarkable in comparison with that which 
 
 led it for the mercy which tempered its justice 
 if the use of torture, and the punishments inflicted on 
 slaves, and the punishments for witchcraft and parri- 
 cide, are left out of consideration. They seem to have 
 
 i at a level of humanity and good order which 
 was not again touched in England till long after the 
 present century had begun. Even in gaol the accused 
 were not to be subject to any duress, nor were women 
 to be imprisoned in the same room with men. The 
 case of any prisoner was to be heard within a month ; 
 and even if a postponement was then asked for, it was 
 in no case to extend beyond a year. By the laws of 
 the twelve tables it appears that substantially Roman 
 punishments consisted of death, fines or money com- 
 pensation, flogging, and outlawry. A capital offence 
 
10 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [CHAP. 
 
 did Dot necessarily mean one which was punishable by 
 death, but by loss of civil condition degradation from 
 freedom to slavery, or deprivation of the full privileges 
 of citizenship, compulsory service in mines, and the 
 working of the hand-mill and transportation were not 
 uncommon. 
 
 Under Constantine most humane and enlightened 
 principles prevailed. The judges were well looked a 
 Slaves might be chastised with a slender rod, but not 
 with a cudgel. Convicts condemned to the games or to 
 mines, which involved loss of freedom, might not be 
 branded on the forehead, but on other parts of the 
 body. Punishment by inflicting a mortal wound with 
 a sharp weapon or by poison, torture, starving, h 
 ing, mutilation, throwing from a height, were forbidden, 
 "for these," said the Emperor, "are the cruelties of 
 the ruthless barbarian. " 
 
 With the invasion of the barbarians and the dis- 
 lx appearance of Roman order and civilisation an entire 
 change came over the spirit of the Government. 
 sides death, fines, and flogging, mutilation was a com- 
 mon punishment; men were branded on the forehead : 
 their hands, feet, and tongues were cut off; and after 
 the Danish invasion still more horrible mutilations v 
 practised, though Canute enjoined them in order that 
 " Christian men might not for too little be put to death, 
 but rather to some gentle punishment" For the greater 
 offences eyes were plucked out; the nose, ears, and 
 upper lip were cut off"; the scalp was torn off; a female 
 slave guilty of theft was burned alive ; and men were 
 even flayed alive. William the Conqueror made pro- 
 visions of much the same sort, also with the object of 
 

 ii. 1 PUNISHMENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 11 
 
 restricting the practice of hanging, though afterwards 
 the ideas of humanity seem to have changed, and it 
 was considered more merciful to hang a culprit than to 
 cut off an important member. For many or most 
 crimes, however, fines were inflicted in Saxon times 
 on a first conviction, but death for a second ; and for 
 certain crimes death followed a first conviction, the 
 mode of death decreed in Ethelred's laws being, " Let 
 1 1 i in be smitten till his neck brake." 
 
 Under the influence of the Roman Church clerics 
 were exempted from punishment by lay courts, and so 
 from capital punishment. Moreover, the rich could com- 
 i; i ute their punishments for a fine ; and the persons and 
 property of the rich were protected by heavier punish- 
 iii'-nts on those who attacked them than the persons 
 or property of the poor. The slaves incurred the 
 punishment of death or mutilation for the most trifling 
 offences. 
 
 In Sir James Stephen's History of the Criminal Law, 
 from whirh I have gathered much valuable information, 
 a clear account is given of the punishments formerly 
 ami now in force. Death was at common law the 
 punishment for all felonies except petty larceny and 
 
 mayhem. For misdemeanours fines, whipping, and im: 
 
 prisonment were the punishment The claim of the ] 
 Church to judge all clerics, known under the name of ( 
 "benefit of clergy," led to the exemption of a large / 
 class of persons from the operation of the law imposing 
 capital punishment on felons ; for although at first \ 
 applicable only to clerics it was afterwards extended to \ 
 all who could read except women and a few others, and 
 finally 1705 to all persons. But meanwhile the 
 
y a 
 
 12 PUNISHMENT k PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 exemption itself had been taken away in the case of 
 many crimes. This had been done to a considerable 
 extent under the Tudors, and much more during the 
 eighteenth century; but in the latter period capital 
 convictions were generally followed by pardon con 
 ditional on transportation. In the reign of George IV. 
 benefit of clergy was abolished entirely, and capital 
 punishment also for many crimes which were excluded 
 from benefit of clergy. But even when benefit of cl< ; 
 was fully in force it could only be claimed for i 
 offence, unless the criminal was actually in orders ; and 
 the first offence could easily be established by the brand 
 M for murder, T for theft. 
 
 In mediaeval times whipping, branding, mutilation, 
 and dismemberment, and disgraceful public exposure, 
 were the common physical punishments short of death. 
 Those who refused to plead were, until 1772, pressed, 
 i.e. heavy weights were placed on their prostrate bodies 
 till they gave in or died ; or in the time of Queen Anne 
 their thumbs might be tied together till they en 
 their plea. From 1772 such persons were by law 
 treated as guilty; but in 1827 the law provided 
 they should be treated as having pleaded "not guilty. 
 and tried accordingly. 
 
 Branding was inflicted on convicts who claimed 
 benefit of clergy when convicted of capital Crimea, 
 for which the sentence was hanging, and consisted in 
 scaring the offender with hot iron on the brawn of 
 the thumb, marking a murderer with M, and Othen 
 T. In the reign of William and Mary the bunding 
 was directed to be on the most visible part of th 
 cheek, near the nose. Vagabonds were branded with I 
 
fi.J PUNISHMENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 13 
 
 V ; idlers with S for slave. A church brawler lost his 
 ears, and was branded F for fighter or fray -maker ; 
 sometimes a hole an inch in diameter was made in the 
 gristle of the right ear. 
 
 Mutilations were sometimes inflicted with great 
 cruelty. When an offender had his ears nailed to the 
 pillory it was sometimes done so that by the motion of 
 his body he was forced gradually to tear them off. 
 
 William Prynne lost his ears by sentence of the Star 
 ( 1 1 umber for seditious publications. The Earl of Dorset 
 in pronouncing sentence expressed his personal opinion 
 that he should be loth he should escape with his ears, 
 " Therefore I would have him branded in the forehead, 
 -lit in the nose, and his ears cropt too." Three years 
 later he lost the remainder of his ears, and was branded 
 S L seditious libeller on both cheeks. 
 
 Mutilation was, however, almost abandoned by the. 
 end of the sixteenth century, except that of cropping the 
 ears ; but late in the reign of Henry VIIL an Act was 
 passed declaring that for striking so as to shed blood 
 within the King's Court the penalty should be the loss 
 of the right hand, as it had been for many crimes before 
 the Conquest The ceremony for carrying out this 
 punishment was most carefully devised and elaborate, 
 invoking the attendance and assistance of the sergeant 
 of the woodyard to furnish the block and cords ; the 
 master cook to perform the operation ; the sergeant of 
 the larder, the sergeant of the poultry, and the yeoman 
 of the scullery ; the sergeant farrier, the chief surgeon, 
 the groom of the salcey, the sergeant of the eury, and 
 the yeoman of the chantry ; the sergeant of the pantry 
 and the sergeant of the cellar all of whom performed 
 
U PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [CHAP. 
 
 certain services of comfort or cure to the unfortunate 
 sufferer. 
 
 It was no doubt the remembrance of the legal 
 infliction of the punishment of slitting the nose which 
 suggested to some of the officers of Charles II.'s guard 
 to waylay and punish Sir John Coventry in this way for 
 some joke about the king's partiality for actresses, and 
 this crime thenceforth, by an Act called the Coventry 
 Act, was made felony, without benefit of clergy. 
 
 The pillory was in use much later on. Williams, the 
 publisher, who reprinted Wilkes' North Brtion, No. 45, 
 stood in the pillory in 1765 for an hour. Lord Cochrane 
 was sentenced to the same degradation in 1814, but the 
 sentence was not carried out It ceased to be a punish- 
 ment, except for forgery, in 1815, and was applied in 
 the case of Dr. Bossy in 1830; but in 1837 it was 
 altogether abolished. 
 
 The stocks were a comparatively mild form of public 
 disgrace. They are traced back to a statute of K< 1 v. 
 III., in which they were declared to be a ptmkfan 
 for unruly labourers. Soon after every village had 
 stocks near the church, and brawlers, drunkards, 
 vagrants, " hedge tearers," and other disorderly persons, 
 were exposed in them, and it is said that in his hot 
 youth Cardinal Wolsey occupied the distinguished 
 position they offered. They were in use till 1860 at 
 least, when one John Gamble of Stanningly, suffered thi< 
 punishment for six hours for Sunday gambling. 
 
 For women scolds the branks or gag and the ducking 
 stool or tumbril were authorised punishments; and the 
 ducking-stool was used at Leominster in 1809. 
 _- Fines, imprisonment, and whipping, are the puni>h 
 
n.] PUNISHMENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 15 
 
 ments for misdemeanour by common law, though many 
 misdemeanours are punishable by transportation and 
 imprisonment with hard labour. The punishment of 
 whipping was commonly awarded to men guilty of petty 
 thefts. Women were whipped besides being put in the 
 pillory. Usually women were flogged in private, but 
 not always, even up till the end of the eighteenth 
 century ; the men in public, sometimes in the gate or 
 the market-place of the town, or for 100 or 200 yards 
 through the streets. 
 
 Whipping has never been abolished by statute, but 
 tically is applied only in cases in which it is specially 
 authorised by statute. 
 
 Justices in petty sessions may order a boy under 
 fourteen to have twelve strokes with a birch rod for 
 simple larceny or attempting to upset railway trains, and 
 for certain offences under the Summary Jurisdiction 
 Act, 1879. 
 
 Courts of assizes or quarter sessions may order a boy 
 under sixteen to be whipped for certain indictable 
 offences ; the number of strokes and the weapon are not 
 prescribed in the Act, but must be specified in the 
 sentence. In 1863 an Act was passed under which a 
 judge of assize might order boys over sixteen and men 
 to be flogged for robbery with violence, or by two or 
 more, or for attempting to choke (garroting). For any 
 of these offences one, two, or three floggings may be 
 ordered, as an addition to any other punishment, with 
 an instrument not prescribed in the Act but to be 
 specified in the sentence, the number of strokes not to 
 exceed fifty. A boy under sixteen may be subjected to 
 whipping for the same offences, the instrument to be a 
 
16 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [cnw. 
 
 birch rod and the number of strokes not above twenty- 
 five. 
 
 The punishment of death has been inflicted in various 
 manners in different countries and in different periods, 
 sometimes with great brutality and torture. In England 
 the death penalty was carried out by hanging, burn 
 or the axe ; only during a few years of Henry VIII.'s 
 reign was boiling to death made lawful for poisoning 
 Burning was the punishment for heresy and for petty 
 treason, viz., such crimes as the murder of a master by 
 his servants, etc. It was thus inflicted on a woman for 
 coining in 1788, and not till 1790 was the ordinary 
 punishment of hanging substituted for it, though Utterly 
 the burning was mercifully preceded by hanu 
 
 It is perhaps difficult for any person brought up 
 among our modern ideas to realise the free use made of 
 the penalty of hanging in the time of our fore fat! 
 down even till a very recent date. It is difficult to get 
 at any statistical facts as to the number of persons so 
 executed in remote times in any period ; but Coke 
 the time of Elizabeth) remarks on the large number of 
 persons hanged, and seeing how the effect of punishment 
 was weakened by its uncertainty, he observed that 
 many offended on hope of pardon. 
 
 Sir James Stephen, in his work on the // 
 Criminal Law, quotes the Records of Assizes and Quarter 
 Sessions at Exeter in 1598, and shows that in the calendar 
 of that year there appear to have been 74 sentenced to 
 be hanged in the year out of 387 tried. He says, "It 
 we allow for each of the forty counties an average of 
 only 20, this would give 800 persons hanged in the year 
 in England." The population of England was then under 
 
ii.] CAPITAL EXECUTIONS 17 
 
 5,000,000. As giving a view of the mode of disposing 
 of prisoners, the Record of Lent Assizes may be quoted. 
 "At this there were 134 for trial 17 sentenced to be 
 hanged, 20 flogged, 1 6 pardoned, 1 1 claimed benefit of 
 clergy, and were branded and discharged. " 
 
 I;i 1750 alarm created by the increase of crime rose 
 to a panic; in the year following no less than 63 
 were hanged in London alone the small London of 
 those days. But Parliament could devise no better 
 means of checking crime than by increasing the number 
 of capital felonies. u If a country gentleman," said 
 Burke, " can obtain no other favour from Government^ 
 bi is sure to be accommodated with a new felony 
 without benefit of clergy." In September 1783, 58 
 were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, in December 
 following 24. In Lent 1785 there were at Kingston 21 
 capital sentences and 9 executions ; and at Gloucester 
 16 such sentences and 9 carried out; there were 7 
 executions at Warwick, 6 each at Winchester and 
 Salisbury, and 5 at Shrewsbury. The total in England 
 alone were 242, of whom 103 suffered. 
 
 The celebrated Bow Street runner, Townsencl, in 
 evidence given in 1816 before a Parliamentary com- 
 mittee, said that between 1781-87 he had seen as many 
 as 12, 16, or 20 hanged at one execution. Twice he 
 saw 40 hanged at one time. " Plunder had got to such 
 an alarming pitch that a letter was circulated among the 
 judges and recorders then sitting, that His Majesty 
 would dispense with the recorders' reports, and that 
 the most criminal should be at once picked out and 
 ordered for execution." 
 
 Parliament, however, did not lose faith in their 
 
 C 
 
18 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap 
 
 remedy, and accordingly by 1797 the number of capital 
 offences without benefit of clergy was 160, and it rose 
 to 222, when the efforts of Sir S. Romilly for reform in 
 this matter succeeded only so far as to have pock 
 picking, which was capital if above one shilling, taken 
 out of the list of capital offences. In 1811 he Tailed in 
 his Bill for withdrawing the offence of stealing from 
 bleaching-grounds from the list of crimes then punish 
 able by hanging; and in 1812 the same ill success met 
 his Bill relating to soldiers and sailors found begging : 
 so also in 1813, 1816, 1818, he failed in his most 
 moderate desire to abolish capital punishment for steal- 
 ing to the value of 4s. from shops. In 1833 a child of 
 Dine was sentenced to be hanged for poking a stick 
 through a patched-up pane of glass and stealing twopeo 
 worth of paint, but he was not executed. 
 
 In 1829, however, thanks to the discussion of the 
 question, the practice had been so far modified that only 
 24 were hanged in London for crimes other than 
 murder. 
 
 Between 1832 and 1835 a sweeping and general 
 change was at length made by immensely reducing the 
 list of capital felonies, and further reductions were made 
 in 1837 and 1841. 
 
 From 1832 to 1844 none were hanged for any other 
 crime than murder. In 1861 the law was ma<l to 
 correspond with this practice by abolishing that pun- 
 ishment for seven other crimes which till then could 
 legally be so punished, so that now murder and treason, 
 piracy with violence, and setting fire to dockyards and 
 arsenals, are the only crimes for which death can be 
 pronounced. 
 
ii.] CAPITAL EXECUTIONS. 19 
 
 Numerous, however, as were the capital executions 
 in the times referred to, culprits being strung up in 
 batches at Tyburn, it would be far from correct to 
 suppose that a sentence of death was mostly followed 
 by execution. In 1805 only 68 persons were hanged 
 out of 350 sentenced to death ; and though in 1831 no 
 less than 1601 persons received that sentence it was 
 only carried out in 52 cases, and of these 52 murder was 
 the crime of 1 2 of the offenders. 
 
 The contrast between the punishment awarded and 
 that which was actually endured if the capital sentence 
 was commuted was almost ludicrous, and justifies Coke's 
 opinion that criminals reckoned on the commutation, so 
 that the penalty and sentences lost their terrors. For 
 instance, of 1 7 persons capitally convicted at Newgate 
 in 1835-36, 2 suffered, 2 had three months' imprison- 
 ment, and the rest various terms. 
 
 Sir James Stephen says that when all restrictions on 
 benefit of clergy had been removed by the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century the punishment for all common 
 offences became slight. If a man was not hung he was 
 discharged, or at most imprisoned for a year without 
 hard labour. 
 
 It has been stated above that in 1833 the number of 
 executions in England and Wales was 52; in 1831 it 
 was 68 ; in 1836 it had fallen to 17, and from then to 
 the end of 1883 there have been in the forty-seven years 
 557 persons executed, or an average of 12 a year nearly; 
 the smallest number in any of these years was 4, in 
 1871 ; and the largest was 22 in each of the years 1863, 
 1876, and 1877. During these years the population 
 of England and Wales has risen from 15,103,778 to 
 
20 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [CHAP. 
 
 26,770,744. The course of the changes by which 
 during this period the law has been brought more 
 nearly to accord with the sentiments which govern*] 
 the practice is very striking. In 1836, 1837, and 1838, 
 there were 954 sentences to death but only 31 executions. 
 Thence till 1862 there were 1395 sentences and 2G1 
 executions; thence till 1883 there were 524 sent 
 and 207 executions. While the population, therefore, 
 has nearly doubled, the average number of executions 
 has remained about the same, but the number of 
 sentences has enormously decreased. 
 
 The carrying out of a sentence of execution is the 
 duty of the sheriff, a privilege which has been reserved 
 to them by successive Acts of Parliament, although the 
 charge of the King's Prisons, which formerly was one of 
 his duties, has been gradually withdrawn from him and 
 vested in other authorities. 
 
 A culprit in England who was sentenced to be 
 hanged used formerly to be taken on a cart to the 
 place of execution, where a gallows had been erected, 
 and the execution was effected by drawing away from 
 under him the cart in which he was standing, aft<i tin* 
 rope had been fastened round his neck. Very fre- 
 quently the place in which a murder was committed 
 was selected as the scene of punishment ; but in London 
 for many years, and till the end of the eighteenth century, 
 Tyburn was the place in which hanging was performed, 
 except in the cases of pirates, who suffered at Execution 
 Dock. The murderers were, by 25 Geo. II. cap. 27, 
 only allowed one whole intervening day between sen- 
 tence and execution, except when the sentences were 
 passed on Friday, when the execution was to be on 
 
ii.] CAPITAL EXECUTIONS 21 
 
 Monday. During the interval they were fed on bread 
 and water. So far as concerns Newgate, other crimi- 
 nals sentenced to be hanged were kept a long time in 
 suspense as to their fate, as it had to be discussed and 
 settled by the King in Council, so that the decision was 
 seldom given in less than six weeks, and sometimes not 
 for months. Once during the illness of George III. no 
 less than 100 persons were in Newgate waiting the 
 decision on their capital sentences. 
 
 In February 1817 Mr. Bennett found in Newgate 
 5 who had been sentenced in July previous, 4 in 
 September, and 24 in October. During this period 
 the prisoner led a dissolute, brutal life ; the chances 
 of Ins escaping the penalty were considerable, and 
 surrounded as he was, in consequence of the state of 
 prison construction and administration, by associates 
 who gave themselves up to a life which violated all 
 order and decency, and abandoned themselves to all the 
 low pleasures which they could procure in gaol, he 
 treated the sentence of death with habitual and inex- 
 pressible levity, threw in his lot with them, and sought 
 their applause for his spirit and indifference to his fate. 
 Tin- chaplain, if he took any trouble about him, found 
 that in such surroundings his efforts could be of no 
 avail. He reserved his force for the condemned ser- 
 mon, at which the prisoners whose sentences were not 
 commuted attended, sitting round a coffin, if they could 
 not get off on some pretext an ordeal which they 
 dreaded, and when the chaplain held forth for their 
 edification and that of the other prisoners who attended, 
 and of the spectators who came to enjoy the cruel 
 pleasure. This latter scandal was in 1825 put an end 
 
22 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 to at Newgate, but an exception was made for the last 
 time in 1840 for the benefit of some sensation-loving 
 persons, who desired to see the wretched Courvoisier on 
 that occasion, a crowd of whom were admitted by 
 ticket, including a few ladies. Some of the more 
 callous or defiant prisoners gave a farewell dinner-party 
 before they were hanged, dressed themselves with great 
 care for the ceremony, were particular in such items as 
 having "a white cockade" if in London, took their last 
 drink at St Giles', and took care to comport themselves 
 on the long journey from Newgate to Tyburn and at 
 the gallows so that spectators might say they "died 
 game." The spectators came sometimes in great crowds, 
 ribald, reckless, and brutal; sometimes sympathising 
 with and cheering, sometimes execrating, deriding, or 
 throwing missiles at the criminal, but little affected for 
 any good purpose, for picking pockets went on under 
 the gallows. The ordinary attended on the journey 
 (sometimes an amateur would come and dispute with 
 him the right to minister to the culprit), and when all 
 was over made a profit by selling the account of the 
 execution. 
 
 The scandalous scenes created by the procession, and 
 the delay caused by the dense crowd lining the way 
 and accompanying the cart (Lord Ferrars took a terrible 
 three hours on account of the crowd all along the 
 journey), led to the execution being ordered to take 
 place in the great area before Newgate. This change 
 was not without its opponents. Dr. Johnson observed, 
 11 Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of innovation. 
 Executions are intended to draw spectators ; if they do 
 not they do not answer their purpose. The old method 
 
ii] CAPITAL EXECUTIONS. 23 
 
 was most satisfactory to all parties ; the public was 
 gratified by a procession, the criminal was supported by 
 it. Why is all this to be swept away?" Newgate 
 was first used on 3d December 1783, when 10 men 
 were executed. From this time the cart process was 
 replaced by a new arrangement The prisoner was 
 placed on a platform, the rope adjusted, and the plat- 
 form by the drawing of a bolt suddenly fell in from 
 under him, leaving him to hang by his neck and die by 
 strangulation. If, as sometimes happened, his weight 
 was not sufficient to ensure this, the hangman or even 
 the spectators added their own weight The Governor 
 concluded the proceedings with a breakfast to certain 
 officials and persons of distinction, whose curiosity had 
 led to their being invited to view the proceedings. 
 
 The executioner was formerly sworn in to do his 
 duty, but the office does not appear to have been in 
 England a permanent post. It was held in such disre- 
 pute that v. i v often some criminal had to be engaged 
 to fill it The hangman was not allowed to enter tin- 
 gaol even to receive his wage, but was paid over the 
 gates, the "toilette" or pinioning being performed by 
 the " yeomen of the halter." 
 
 The duty of carrying out the sentence devolving on 
 the sheriff, it rests with him to find the operator, and, 
 in modern times at all events, the same man has been 
 generally employed by all sheriffs. Calcraft, who was 
 usually employed up till 187 1, was paid by the Corpor- 
 ation of London 1 : Is. per week as a retaining -fee, 
 and an extra guinea for each execution. He had 
 2s. 6d. for each flogging he carried out, and an allow- 
 ance for "cats" and birch rods. He also had from 
 
24 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 the county of Surrey 5 : 5s. retaining-fee, and 1 : Is. 
 for each execution, and 10 for an execution in the 
 country. 
 
 The proceedings at an execution are now regulated 
 by an Act passed in 1868, under which executions ceased 
 to be carried out in public. It was decided after full 
 consideration that the scenes at a public execution writ* 
 so demoralising that they could no longer be tolerated ; 
 they collected all the scum of the neighbourhood, and 
 were little less disgusting than the former practice of 
 the procession to the distant place of execution, while 
 the deterrent effects were certainly no greater. From 
 that time, then, they have been carried out inside the 
 gaol, the persons bound to be present are the sheriff, 
 the governor, the chaplain, the doctor, and such other 
 prison officers as the sheriff requires, and any magis- 
 trates for the jurisdiction the prisoner belongs to, 
 any one of the prisoner's relations, or such other 
 persons, as the sheriff or (the visiting justices, the latter 
 now replaced by) the Commissioners of Prisons, think 
 proper to admit, may also be present. The Com mis 
 sioners of Prisons have decided to leave this privikgt 
 to the sheriff alone. After the execution a coroner*! 
 inquest is held on the body to establish for the public 
 satisfaction that the person sentenced has certainly been 
 hanged, and certain persons have to sign a certificate to 
 this effect. The certificates, etc, have to be exhibited 
 for twenty-four hours at least near the entrance of the 
 prison. The Secretary of State is empowered to main 
 rules to be observed at the execution, both to guard 
 against abuse, give greater solemnity, and for notifying 
 outside that the execution is taking place. The fol- 
 
n] CAPITAL EXECUTIONS. 25 
 
 lowing are the rules made accordingly in August 
 1868: 
 
 1. For the sake of uniformity it is recommended 
 
 that executions should take place at the hour of 
 8 A.M. on the first Monday after the interven- 
 tion of three Sundays from the day on which 
 sentence is passed. 
 
 2. The mode of execution, and the ceremonial at- 
 
 tending it, to be the same as heretofore in use. 
 
 3. A black flag to be hoisted at the moment of 
 
 execution, upon a staff placed on an elevated 
 and conspicuous part of the prison, and to 
 remain displayed for one hour. 
 
 4. The bell of the prison, or if arrangements can be 
 
 made for that purpose, the bell of the parish or 
 other neighbouring church, to be tolled for 
 fifteen minutes before and fifteen minutes after 
 the execution. 
 
 The actual mode by which death is brought about 
 in the operation of hanging is one of much practical 
 importance, in consideration of the universal feeling, 
 that all painful scenes and all unnecessary and prolonged 
 pain to the criminal should be avoided. Death by 
 hanging may result from contraction of the wind-pipe 
 producing suffocation, or of the blood-vessels producing 
 apoplexy, or by rupture of the spinal cord which pro- 
 duces instant death, even if the necessarily accom- 
 panying shock to the nervous system does not do so. 
 It is perhaps difficult to determine which of these is 
 accompanied by the smallest amount of pain, but the 
 latter is no doubt quickest in effect, and so the least 
 
26 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 horrible to those who are obliged to be spectators. It 
 is effected by a proper adjustment of the rope, and by 
 a sufficient length of drop so proportioned to the weight 
 of the body as to give such momentum as will rupture 
 the ligatures of the spine, and the increase in length of 
 drop is the difference which makes the change between 
 the mode generally adopted up till 1874 and since. 
 This system is not without its dangers, for the rope may 
 break, or the criminal may suffer the torture of haying 
 his flesh torn by the strain, so that the precise Length 
 of the necessary drop has become a subject of scientific 
 calculations as well as of practical experience. 
 
 The practice of exposing the bodies of murderers 
 others in chains, as a terror and example, commonly 
 prevailed at one j>eriod, and was legally authorised in 
 1832, though it had then ceased to be ordinarily 
 followed. 
 
 By a law passed in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 bodies of murderers were given over for anatomical 
 purposes, and in 1829 this course, which also had been 
 very usual, was prescribed for all. Instances oocorred 
 of this proceeding being followed by the regnecitation 
 of the body. In 1832 these laws were superseded by 
 one directing that the bodies should be buried within 
 the precincts of the gaol, the course prescribed also by 
 the Act of 1868 above referred to. 
 
 In former days the signature of the king in council 
 on the death-warrant was, so far as the jurisdiction of 
 the Central Criminal Court extends, necessary to justify 
 the sheriff in carrying it into execution, but on the 
 Queen's accession it was thought proper to relieve her, 
 by Act of Parliament, from a duty so painful to any 
 
ii.] CAPITAL EXECUTIONS. 27 
 
 woman, and to a young girl, as Her Majesty then was, 
 so impossible. Her Majesty succeeded to the throne 
 on the 20th June, and on the 17th July an Act was 
 passed to assimilate the practice of the Central Criminal 
 Court to that of other courts in England and Wales in 
 this respect. It enacts that in future no report to Her 
 Majesty shall be necessary in capital cases, and directs 
 that the judge shall order the place and time of execu- 
 tion, not being more than twenty-one days nor less than 
 seven from the date of the ord- 
 
 A very remarkable circumstance occurred in 187 8 in 
 connection with this subject which illustrates the un- 
 noticed survival of various anomalies among us. The 
 Isle of Man is a separate kingdom, and the laws of 
 Great Britain are not of necessity the laws of that little 
 island, for they are framed by the Court of TymvaltL 
 One of the laws passed in 1817 requires the king's 
 warrant to the lieutenant-governor for an execution, 
 ami the omission to provide for this case escaped notice 
 until 1872, when a wretched man joined his mother in 
 a petty quarrel with his father, of seventy years of age, 
 about a small property. After going to law they com- 
 promised the matter, and the father was to receive a 
 0OW from the son, but before this was carried out the 
 son went to the father's cottage and killed him with a 
 pitchfork. The man was sentenced to be hanged, and 
 Her Majesty was called upon to approve the sentence, 
 which, it is needless to say, her strong sense of duty and 
 regard for the constitution enabled her to do, under the 
 advice of the Home Secretary, but, as it will be correctly 
 imagined, with much strain on her feelings. 
 
 A sentence of death passed by court martial in the 
 
28 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 United Kingdom can only be put in execution with the 
 express sanction of the Crown, which must approve the 
 sentence of every General Court Martial, by which alone 
 a sentence of death can be passed. The Crown has 
 power, however, to assign to some other authority the 
 power of approving sentences by General Courts 
 Martial. 
 
 There are people who object to the principle of 
 capital punishment on various grounds, and who some- 
 times deny its efficiency as a deterrent When the 
 capital sentence was very common, and when those 
 who suffered were paraded through the town as heroes, 
 and still more when it was common that such a sentence 
 was passed and not carried into effect, it might be 
 natural that it should fail in its effect, but when not 
 weakened by these defects of practice, it can hardly be 
 doubted that a possible murderer is often restrained by 
 the thought of the probable consequences of his contem- 
 plated crime. It is not often that one can get at the 
 mind of such a person, or hear the reflections which 
 pass among the criminal classes in the freedom of pri- 
 vate intercourse, but chance brought to light on one 
 occasion of late years the workings of the minds of men 
 of this class. A convict in prison in Western Australia 
 found means of surreptitiously passing out a letter to a 
 friend in England. When the letter arrived the friend, 
 for reasons which may be surmised, was not to be found at 
 the address given. It therefore came in the usual course 
 to the dead letter office ; thence, in due course, it was 
 returned to the authorities of the prison in which it had 
 been written, and was duly examined and reported. It 
 was found that the writer was informing his friend that 
 
ii.] CAPITAL EXECUTIONS. 29 
 
 in the colony there was a law which made a murderous 
 assault on a warder a capital offence, and he commented 
 on the fact in his own words thus : " They top (i.e. 
 hang) a cove out here for slogging (le. striking) a bloke 
 (i.e. a warder). That bit of rope dear Jack is a great check 
 on a man's temper." It would be difficult after this to dis- 
 pute the deterrent effect of the fear of this punishment. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 GAOLS IN FORMER TIM IX 
 
 Sir James Stephen thinks that imprisonment was not 
 mentioned in Anglo-Saxon laws as a punishment, though 
 it was referred to as a way of securing a person who 
 could not give surety. Although it became a common 
 law as well as a statutory punishment, yet gaols were 
 no doubt formerly used more as places of security than 
 of punishment 
 
 The Assizes of Clarendon (1166) and Northampton 
 (1176) provide for the apprehension of criminals, for 
 their safe custody before trial, and for their punish in. nt 
 when found guilty. It appears, however, that difficult irs 
 arose from the fact that some counties possess^! no 
 gaol or " prisoners' cage," and the deficiency had to be 
 made good at the king's expense. These cages were to 
 be constructed within the king's castles in fortified 
 towns, and there their successors remain to this day at 
 York, Lancaster, Cambridge, Oxford, Chester, Norwich, 
 or on their site, as at Newgate. Under the common law 
 all gaols belonged to the king, and by 5 Henry IV. cap. 
 10 it was enacted that none should be imprisoned by 
 any Justice of the Peace, but only in the common gaol, 
 saving the franchise of those who had gaols. These 
 
OUT. hi.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 31 
 
 franchises embraced very extensive powers of criminal 
 jurisdiction, in some cases even that of life and death. 
 The town of Halifax is said to have exercised this power 
 up to 1650, using an instrument of execution like a 
 guillotine. The Manor Court is said to be a survival 
 of a time when a baron possessed a prison into which 
 he could throw "handhaving and backbearing thieves 
 before he hanged them." The common gaols were 
 under the control of the Sheriff, but the franchise 
 prisons, owned by great noblemen and ecclesiastics, 
 were no doubt managed by them, and those of towns 
 and liberties, who were allowed by their charters to 
 have prisons but had no sheriffs, by the governing bodies 
 of such towns, etc. 
 
 A curious relic of these customs existed till quite 
 recently, Lord Bristol claiming till 1877 the appoint- 
 ment of the gaoler at Bury, as being vested in him and 
 not in the Justices. 
 
 In the time of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth 
 bridewells and houses of correction were instituted, 
 at first rather as hospitals or charities than for actual 
 punishment, but very soon as places of confinement for 
 vagabonds, harlots, and idle persons. By James L cap. 
 4 it was enacted that one of these establishments 
 should be provided in every county, and the Justices 
 under whose management it was placed were directed 
 "to provide mills, turns, cards, and such like instru- 
 ments foT setting idle people to work." 
 
 Gradually the practice became established (by 1715) 
 of committing criminals of all classes to those houses 
 of correction, and the general system of punishment by 
 imprisonment grew up ; but the use of houses of cor- 
 
32 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 rection for all classes of criminals was not legal till 
 made so by 6 Geo. I. cap. 19. This union was carried 
 to further completion by 5 & 6 Will. IV. cap. 38, 
 under which even sentences of death might be earned 
 out in them ; but still the difference in the origin of the 
 two classes of establishments was marked by the <li> 
 tinctions that debtors could be committed only to the 
 gaol, while vagrants could not be committed to the gaol 
 but only to the house of correction. Common sense 
 again went in advance of the law, and united the two 
 buildings under one roof, and placed them both under 
 the same governing staff, but further it could not go, 
 for the law made the gaol under the jurisdiction of the 
 Sheriff, and the house of correction under that of tl it- 
 Justices. 
 
 But besides imprisonment, there was, from the tim. 
 of Charles II., transportation, and all those systems of 
 punishment which grew out of it, and this punishnn -nt, 
 by reason of circumstances which will be described, has 
 followed a course quite distinct from the other, and 
 in buildings or establishments specially legalised for this 
 purpose, thus forming a third species of prison in addi- 
 tion to the common gaol and house of correction, so that 
 a description of this portion of our present penal system 
 must be divided into two parts, corresponding to the 
 two divisions into which it has been separated by the 
 history of events, and by the laws passed to provide 
 for circumstances as they have developed. 
 
 Imprisonment " with hard labour " was introduced by 
 statute, 16 Geo. III. cap. 43, as an alternative to ti im- 
 portation. The practice of punishing by imprisonment 
 having become established, the necessity of conducting 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 33 
 
 it under some kind of system, and subject to such super- 
 vision as should prevent cruelty or abuses arising from 
 ignorance or evil motives, became gradually apparent, 
 though it took a good deal more than a century to force 
 itself so completely into the public mind as to establish 
 the standard of human treatment and high sanitary 
 oondftjon now required in prisons. 
 
 The condition of prisons in former times is of interest 
 and importance now as showing what our present laws 
 rad system have redeemed us from ; and unpopular 
 though it may be to throw any doubt on the suffi- 
 ciency and the perfection of local management, it is an 
 in' intestable fact that it has only been by interfering 
 with, compelling, and overruling the administration of 
 local bodies that these grievous evils have been at length 
 redressed. Nor should there be any surprise at this, 
 for a number of small disunited bodies of various degrees 
 of enlightenment are not likely all to attain of them- 
 selves to the highest standard of knowledge or high 
 feeling, and the advanced condition of some few localities 
 coincidently with a very imperfect condition among 
 very many, show that something more than the mere 
 example which is given by one local body to another 
 is necessary to bring about the adoption of the best 
 and most perfect methods of administration of affairs 
 committed to their management. The feeling which 
 gave force to the dislike of the gradual supersession 
 of the local authorities by the Central Government in 
 the administration of prisons is the counterpart of that 
 which led the local justices to resist the intrusion of 
 the King's judges in the early days of the consolidation 
 of the kingdom under the Plantagenets, who, setting 
 
 P 
 
34 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [OUT. 
 
 themselves to suppress crime and improve the adminis- 
 tration of the law, ordained the system under which 
 judges periodically perambulate the country to hold 
 assizes and deliver the gaols. These circuits were 
 held at first at intervals of two and three years, but the 
 local opposition so far prevailed at one time as to ex- 
 clude them from every county for seven years at I 
 time. 
 
 The advantages of local government are indeed 
 obvious, and most of the disadvantages alleged against 
 it arise from the local area being too small, or from con- 
 fusing local management with amateur and inexperienced 
 management. On all such matters it is a question for 
 consideration whether the advantages of increased effi- 
 ciency, which should come from the transfer of manage- 
 ment to persons with wider experience from the 
 stronger current of life which is created by uniting 
 small bodies with larger ones, and from the uniformity 
 which cannot be attained by the action of numer 
 independent bodies, are so great as to counterbalance 
 the educating process which the smaller local bodies or 
 individuals gain from employing themselves in managing 
 these affairs, and the interest or contentment which is 
 sometimes secured by putting such matters into the 
 hands of persons individually known in their localities. 
 The wise solution of the problem is no doubt to combine 
 the two where it is possible, and we shall see farther 
 on how this has been effected in regard to the prisons. 
 
 Those who desire to obtain an adequate idea of the 
 state our prisons were in "up to a time within the 
 memory of men still living " may read the reports of 
 the societies which laboured for their reform, and those 
 
in] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 35 
 
 of the inspectors finally appointed, and Major Griffiths' 
 full volumes of the Chronicles of Newgale, which contain 
 a mass of research relating to prisons generally, from 
 which I have gathered some very interesting and useful 
 extracts. The following summary will suffice for present 
 purposes. 
 
 The raid! and administration of the prison depended 
 a 1 most entirely on the gaoler. He was appointed by 
 the proprietor of the prison, and had the right of claim- 
 ing certain fees from the prisoners for their maintenance 
 and for the enjoyment of certain privileges or exemp- 
 tions ; and the payment of these fees, sometimes ex- 
 orbitant, was secured to him by the right, frequently 
 exercised, to detain the prisoner after the Court of Law 
 had ordered his discharge. 
 
 As these fees varied according to the accommodation, 
 and as certain exemptions could be purchased by them, 
 they formed a source of emolument sufficient to justify 
 the gaoler, according to the principles of the time, in 
 purchasing his place from the proprietor of the gaol 
 The keeper of the Duke of Portland's prison paid him 
 eighteen guineas per annum for a prison which consisted 
 of one room with cellar under it, which Howard recorded 
 had, at his visit, not been cleaned for months, nor had 
 the prison door been open for weeks. 
 
 This principle was considered so natural and regular 
 that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1561) the office of 
 Warden of the Fleet was granted as an emolument to Sir 
 Jeremy Whitshed and his heirs for ever. Afterwards the 
 patent was repealed, and one Higgins got the office "by 
 giving 5000 to the late Lord Chancellor Clarendon," 
 and he ultimately sold it to Messrs. Bambridge and 
 
36 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [< hai>. 
 
 Corbett for 5000. The income of the Warden of the 
 Marshalsea debtors' prison was 3000 to 4000 a year, 
 derived from fees and charges to debtors for necessaries. 
 The presentation to this office was bought up by the 
 Crown by 27 Geo. II. for 10,500. The income of the 
 Warden of the Fleet was 2372 from similar sources. 
 A fee at entrance called garnish, amounting to 1 : It, 
 for debtors, 10s. 6cL in Newgate for criminals, was 
 supposed to provide coals, candles, brooms, etc. ; another 
 fee was paid at discharge. In Newgate the fee for a 
 prisoner who desired to be placed on the " State " side 
 was 3 : 3s., and 10s. 6d. a week for a bed. Thirty 
 guineas a week was known to be charged for accommo- 
 dation in the gaoler's house. The cruelties lead in- 
 to murder, which the above-mentioned Bambridge and 
 Corbett practised on the prisoners in order to make the 
 bargain pay, led to an inquiry by a Committee of the 
 House of Commons, and to the more full exposing of 
 the iniquities of the system in seven trials for murder 
 and one for theft, which were instituted in 1730 in 
 consequence against the Keepers of the Fleet and Mai 
 shalsea; also to an Act of Parliament to remedy them 
 in 1729, which, however, seems to have largely failed 
 in its object. 
 
 Gaolers' fees were abolished by law in 1774, and it 
 was ordered that they were to be paid by salary, but 
 the Act continued to be evaded for some time in this 
 respect, as it seems it was necessary again to abolish 
 them by Act of Parliament in 1813. The transportation 
 Acts sanctioned that which was in principle the founda- 
 tion of the evil by practically selling the prisoners 
 sentenced to that punishment to the contractors, who 
 
in] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 37 
 
 undertook to remove them to America or elsewhere, 
 while the Justices, who up to 1783 carried into effect 
 the Hulks' Act, under which the hulks were placed in 
 charge of an overseer, acted on similar principles then, 
 and long after, for they allowed the overseers to be the 
 contractors for the supply of the necessaries for the 
 prisoners in them. 
 
 The governors of the local gaols having to make 
 their income out of the prisoners naturally desired to 
 limit their expenditures in assistants, and, therefore, 
 appointed prisoners as " wardsmen " in charge of the 
 others ; moreover, these wardsmen bought their places 
 of the gaoler, and they were therefore given not to the 
 fit, but to the highest bidder. 
 
 In order to extract money from the prisoners, the 
 practice was to iron them heavily unless they paid for 
 lighter irons, or for their entire removal some of them 
 being so heavy that walking, and even lying down to 
 sleep, was difficult and painful. Those who could pay 
 for it were allowed superior accommodation to that 
 which was given to those who could not and at New- 
 gate it was said, even so late as 1836, by the Inspector, 
 that the inability to pay the ward dues exacted for 
 better accommodation consigned many petty offenders 
 to the place where they unavoidably met with further 
 contamination from the society of the most abandoned 
 and incorrigible inmates of the gaoL All these matters 
 were regulated by the prisoner wardsman. 
 
 The issues of food entrusted to the wardsman offered 
 farther opportunities of extortion or bribery, for it was 
 issued in the lump, and either scrambled for or might 
 be unfairly divided. The wardsmen, too, had the privi- 
 
38 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 lege of selling tea, coffee, sugar, beer, and tobacco, 
 they charged a fee for the use of knives, forks, and 
 plates, and easily found means to harass those who did 
 not give in to their extortions. They were made, for 
 instance, to wash and swab the floors, forbidden to pass 
 a chalked line on the floor, and so debarred from the 
 fire to warm or cook by, and made subject to a multi- 
 tude of petty rules invented to annoy them. The privi- 
 lege of keeping a tap in the prison was also one of the 
 sources of the gaolers' emoluments, and, as unlimited 
 drinking was allowed, the scenes of drunkenness and 
 debauchery may be imagined. 
 
 Unrestricted freedom of communication between 
 prisoners was permitted males and females were mixed 
 together and the prisoners' families and friends, in 
 eluding burglars and prostitutes, were admitted t 
 the day among them ; not only did these add to the 
 scenes of debauchery in the prison, but gambling was 
 carried on, burglaries were planned, money coined, and 
 notes forged, inside the prison. It has even been alleged 
 that prisoners were let out at night to rob for the profit 
 of the gaoler, and the gaol was a receptacle for stolen 
 goods. Those who could read might enjoy the flash 
 literature brought in by those purveying newspapers, 
 who sold tobacco at the same time. Swearing and had 
 language was of course common, and fighting, even to 
 the extent of inflicting great bodily injuries while 
 leap-frog and fly- the -garter were the more innocent 
 occupations of the prisoners. 
 
 The women, who, like the rest, were under the con- 
 trol of male officers only, sat about on the stones of the 
 yard at Newgate, " squalid in attire, ferocious in aspect, 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 39 
 
 begging, swearing, fighting, singing and gaming, danc- 
 ing and dressing up in men's clothes, so that their ward 
 came to be described as ' Hell upon earth.' " 
 
 Even in chapel the prisoners were not made to be- 
 have with decency, but talked and greeted each other 
 aloud, and the chaplain, even if desirous to fulfil his 
 duties, found it to be impossible. Supervision in the 
 i ue being thus absent or ineffective, at night matters 
 became worse, and the officers were in fact afraid to 
 visit during these hours, in spite of orders that they 
 should do so. To maintain some kind of discipline, 
 certain prisoners were armed with " a flexible weapon," 
 lid Hogarth's prints exhibit the gaoler threatening poor 
 "Kate Hackabout" in her fine clothes with a stick. 
 
 lerly prisoners were chained down to ring bolts, 
 r jrisoners were even chained down to rings and bolts 
 to make up for the insecurity of the prison. Even in 
 1823 prisoners for assize in one gaol were double ironed 
 on first reception, the irons weighing nearly ten to four- 
 teen lbs., and thus fettered at night, they were chained 
 down in bed, the chain being fastened to the floor and 
 to the leg fetters of the prisoners. This lasted from 7 
 
 ill 6 A.M., and for six months or more an innocent 
 person might suffer this treatment, for there were but 
 two gaol deliveries in the year. Howard found in the 
 Bishop of Ely's prison prisoners chained down on their 
 backs to the floor, across which were several iron bars, 
 with an iron collar with spikes about their necks, and a 
 heavy iron bar on their legs. This being, reported to 
 the king, he " was much affected, and ordered immediate 
 inquiry and redress." To enable the reader to appre- 
 ciate these facts, it may be stated that at the present 
 
40 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 time the heaviest irons which can be used weigh only- 
 six lbs., and these cannot be applied except in very 
 special cases of necessity. 
 
 The common practice of ironing prisoners was justi- 
 fied not only on grounds of security, but as the only 
 means by which prisoners could be distinguished from 
 visitors, and prevented from leaving with them when 
 they were turned out of the prison at night. 
 
 The diet of the criminal prisoners was wretched in 
 the extreme, except for those who could pay for some- 
 thing better than was given to those without means, 
 " bread boiled in water, a pennyworth of bread per 
 diem," a fourpenny loaf, and so on. Criminal prisoners 
 in the common gaol were originally dependent on 
 charity, but from the time of Elizabeth they were 
 maintained by a small allowance of Id. or 2d. a day 
 from the county, or seven or eight ounces of bread 
 Prisoners sentenced by the Judges to transportation 
 were entitled to 2s. 6d. a week from the Exchequer, but 
 not those sentenced by Quarter Sessions. 
 
 Those in bridewells were supposed to maintain them- 
 selves by their work, but, as no means of working were 
 provided, they depended on charity or starved. Debtors 
 were dependent entirely on charitable gifts and be- 
 quests, many of which remain to this day, and tiny 
 were worse off than the felons, though by law the 
 creditor who incarcerated his debtor should have fur- 
 nished 4d. per diem for his maintenance. A box hung 
 outside the prison to receive the gifts of the benevolent, 
 and in Exeter the prisoners were marched about the 
 streets soliciting charity, the produce of which tiny 
 were, as Howard relates, once robbed of by t licit 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 41 
 
 keeper. The charitable doles were supplemented by 
 food seized as improper for sale, light weight, etc. In 
 short, they were insufficiently supplied with water, air, 
 and light, and many of the visitors who thronged and 
 crowded the gaol came to bring food and necessaries to 
 their friends. 
 
 As to the clothing worn by the prisoners, it is de- 
 scribed as ragged, squalid, and filthy, they were seen 
 with no stockings and no soles to their shoes, even in 
 the depth of winter ; their bedding consisted of a couple 
 of ragged rugs, and they lay on stone or oak floors ; when 
 the prisons came to be densely crowded, each prisoner 
 was allowed a width of eighteen inches to sleep in, and 
 the floor was frequently covered. Cleanliness was, of 
 
 i se, absolutely neglected a pump in the yard was 
 the only means of washing supplied, under which those 
 prisoners were forced whom their fellows found intoler- 
 ably offensive even to them. 
 
 The wretched state of the buildings their unfitness 
 for their purpose, and the overcrowding which occurred 
 in tli. hi lay at the root of much of the evil condition of 
 the prisoner, and reform in this matter was the first 
 essential to any improvement In 1755 the Common 
 Council of London said that the prison in Newgate was 
 habitually overcrowded with victims of public justice 
 under the complicated distresses of poverty, nastiness, 
 and disease ; neither water, air, nor light being furnished 
 in sufficient quantities. The prisons are described as 
 not water-tight, the windows not repaired they had 
 no glass, only oiled paper. Nevertheless, in 1785 the 
 population of Newgate Prison amounted to nearly 600 ; 
 in 1801 there were 275 debtors and 375 felons; while 
 
42 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [ciiai\ 
 
 in 1802 there were 720 ; in 1813 there were 340 on the 
 debtor's side, built for 100 j in the female felons' ward 
 120 in the space which was intended for, but probably 
 inadequate for, 60 ; and later on it is said as many as 
 1200 prisoners were lodged within the space of three- 
 fourths of an acre. The overcrowding was partly due 
 to the delay in removing prisoners sentenced to be 
 transported. In Bristol Prison in 1818 was a vault in 
 which prisoners were confined level with the rivet and 
 very damp. The smell was something more than can 
 be expressed by the word "disgusting." The only 
 ventilation of this "dark, cheerless, damp, unwhole- 
 some cavern" was by a kind of chimney, which the 
 prisoners stuffed up, and which the turnkey had never 
 known to be opened. Kidderminster gaol consisted of 
 one damp cold room, into which air could gain admission 
 only through a grating level with the street. This 
 grating was also used by the friends of prisoners to 
 carry drink to them through quills or reeds. 
 
 But worst of all was the moral contamination which 
 resulted from the necessarily close unregulated asso 
 tion in which the prisoners, innocent and guilty, corrupt 
 and hardened, male and female, sick and well, were 
 herded together; and, besides the dreadful overcrowd 
 ing, the other unwholesome sanitary conditions of pi i 
 life. We read of an unfortunate man of the law having 
 to sleep between a highwayman and a murderer ; and 
 the poor man, who could not fall in with the ways of 
 his associates, being harassed by false charges, ami 
 brought up before a mock judge who sentenced him to 
 the "pillory," i.e. tied with a chain about his neck. 
 Even the mistaken ideas of kindness increased these 
 
ni.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 48 
 
 evils, for not only were crowds of visitors allowed, as 
 already described, but the debtors, who made up the 
 larger part of the population, were allowed to have 
 their families in with them, and they of course consorted 
 with the felons. 
 
 The results of this condition of things in the propa- 
 gation of moral disease was not to the eyes of those 
 days at all apparent, but the physical disease was im- 
 pressed on them from time to time in a manner which 
 should have awakened attention if medical science and 
 humanity had not both been on a low level. 
 
 The gaol fever, as typhus was bhen called, the in- 
 evitable consequence of the overcrowding, misery, and 
 neglect of all sanitary requirements which characterised 
 til.- prisons, was known to have prevailed from 1414. 
 It is described as a contagious, putrid, very pestilential 
 fever, with tremblings, twitchings, restlessness, delirium, 
 and sometimes frenzy or lethargy ; and with livid pus- 
 ind purple spots. 
 
 At the Black Assizes at Oxford in 1577 the Lord 
 Chief Baron, the sheriff, and 300 more died within 
 forty hours from the fearful disease communicated to 
 the court by the prisoners brought up for trial before it 
 the disease spreading into the city and neighbour- 
 hood caused many more deaths. Several other occasions 
 are on record when similar results followed ; and Lord 
 Bacon calls " the smell of the gaol the most pernicious 
 infection next to the plague. When prisoners have been 
 long and close and nastily kept, whereof we have had 
 in our times experience twice or thrice, both judges that 
 sat upon the trial, and numbers of them that attended 
 the business or were present, sickened upon it or died." 
 
44 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 But though the cause was thus clearly known and 
 capable of remedy " prisoners long and close and nastily 
 kept " the disease was still allowed to originate those 
 fearful calamities, and no doubt to kill multitudes in 
 the prisons whose death created no sensation or even 
 notice. In 1730 at Taunton some prisoners brought 
 from Ilchester gaol for trial infected the court, and the 
 Lord Chief Baron, the sergeant, the sheriff and some 
 hundreds besides, died of the gaol distemper. In Lond< KB , 
 in May 1750, 100 persons awaiting trial were crowded 
 mostly into two rooms 14 by 7 by 7 feet high, besi<l i 
 some in the bail dock many had long been confined in 
 the foul wards of Newgate. The court itself was only 30 
 feet square and crowded, and from the dock and rooms 
 beyond an open window carried the infection across 
 the court to the bench. The Lord Mayor, an alderman, 
 and two judges, speedily died, and forty more, includ- 
 ing under-sheriffs, bar, and jury, fell victims. It m 
 naturally be supposed that the results of this terrible 
 malady were not confined even to the neighbourhood of 
 the courts and gaols where it originated or first showed 
 itself. It was the practice in these days to pardon 
 criminals on condition of their enlisting in the army, 
 or serving in the navy ; and distant bodies of troops 
 were infected either by these recruits or by the escorts 
 bringing back soldiers temporarily in prison. The first 
 English fleet sent to America lost by it above 2000 
 men. 
 
 The Acts of Elizabeth and James I. already refe r red 
 to seem to have been the first which recognised the 
 advantages of requiring prisoners to perform some work 
 instead of passing their time in idleness j and in the 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 45 
 
 1 9 th year of Charles II. was passed an Act which enjoined 
 justices to provide prisoners with work. 
 
 The Parliaments of the last century, impressed with 
 the increase of crime and other considerations, passed a 
 considerable number of Acts intended to prevent the 
 mischief arising from having no employment in prison ; 
 to ensure the proper construction of prisons with a view 
 to separating classes of prisoners, who would suffer 
 morally by close communication; and to prevent the 
 dreadful epidemics and ill health which a bad sanitary 
 condition entailed not only on the inmates but on others 
 who were brought in contact with them. The Act 1 4 
 Geo. III. cap. 59 contains clear regulations to pre- 
 vent overcrowding and ensure cleanliness in order to 
 guard against the gaol fever, and the justices were 
 ordered to provide sufficient space, including an in- 
 firmary, and to have the walls of each room scraped and 
 whit cwashed every year ; but these injunctions were dis- 
 regarded. Some Acts of the same tenor had been passed 
 in the previous century, but without much result ; and 
 though various philanthropists endeavoured through 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to promote 
 improvements in prison management, among whom 
 Howard stands out prominently as the chief apostle 
 of prison reform, the effect had been confined to some 
 few localities where the local magistrates were more 
 than usually enlightened, such as in Sussex in 1785 
 under the guidance of the Duke of Richmond, and in 
 Gloucestershire from 1783 under Sir G. 0. Paul, who 
 established a system which nearly approached the best 
 we have now arrived at in spite of the difficulties he 
 encountered from the immobility of his brother magis- 
 
46 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 trates ; but all his arrangements and improvements were 
 by 1819 swamped in the deluge of crime which charac- 
 terised the early part of this century, which was due, in 
 part at least, to bad criminal laws, and bad poor laws 
 badly administered. 
 
 In 1778 an Act of Parliament approved the adoption 
 of solitary imprisonment, with labour and instruction, 
 which, it affirmed, would deter and reform better than 
 transportation, and this Act prescribed the size of cells, 
 which were to be not less than 10 by 7 by 9. 
 
 In 1784 an Act was passed providing that prison 
 regulations should be passed for general guidance, and 
 that prisoners should be classified as follows, and kept 
 quite separate: (1) Convicted felons; (2) person > 
 charged with or suspected of felony ; (3) convicted mis- 
 demeanants ; (4) persons charged with or suspected of 
 misdemeanour ; (5) debtors ; and that in each of these 
 classes males should be quite distinct from females. 
 
 Howard found that the justices did not care to do 
 more than look at the outside of the gaol, and that the 
 sheriff only cared for the safe custody of the prisoners ; 
 and he urged, among other important suggestions, that 
 the magistrates should take some interest in their prison, 
 and should visit, inspect, and supervise it in turns to 
 detect and prevent abuses, and to institute a good sys- 
 tem of administration. In 1791 an Act was passed 
 enjoining justices to visit and inspect their prison three 
 times every quarter, and to report in writing to the 
 Quarter Sessions on its state. 
 
 In 1814 the appointment of chaplains was made 
 compulsory. 
 
 In 1813 prison reform had the great advantage of 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 47 
 
 being taken up by some members of the Society of 
 Friends, and through them of the united support of an 
 energetic, wealthy, and philanthropic body. In 1817- 
 was formed the Society for the Improvement of Prison 
 Discipline, which had several "Friends" among its 
 leading members. Its reports record that in 1818 there 
 were 518 prisons in the United Kingdom, to which 
 more than 100,000 prisoners were committed in the 
 year, and that only 23 of these had been subdivided as 
 required by the 24 Geo. IIL cap. 54. The Society 
 reported that 59 prisons had no division between males 
 ami females, 136 had only one division for this purpose, 
 68 had only two, etc In 445 prisons no employment 
 of any kind was provided The overcrowding was 
 excessive in 100 gaols; in the space for 8545 there 
 had been crowded 13,057. In Newgate the accumula- 
 tion of prisoners awaiting transportation had amounted 
 in 1785 to 600 persons. 
 
 The labour and influence of Mrs. Fry should be 
 recorded in any account, however brief, of the course of 
 prison reform. It was in 1813 that she first visited 
 Newgate and saw the terrible condition of the female 
 prisoners as clearly described, and " the abandoned 
 wickedness which everything bespoke." "The beggings 
 gaming, fighting, singing, dancing, and dressing up in 
 men's clothes, in Hell above ground. '" By personal inter- 
 course and visitation she formed these wretched women 
 into classes, tamed, instructed, and humanised them, got 
 them to work, induced them to adopt rules, and enlisted 
 them on the side of order, and effected results so extra- 
 ordinary as to render a visit to the female department of 
 Newgate one of the fashionable sensations of the day. 
 
48 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 This result was of more than questionable id- 
 vantage, and when it came to such a point that at the 
 religious services held by the ladies there were twenty- 
 three visitors, many of them gentlemen, to twenty-eight 
 prisoners, it could not be doubted that there must be 
 a considerable admixture of bad effect as well as good 
 on the prisoners. The irregular authority which had 
 been necessarily conferred on the ladies in order that 
 they might be able to carry out their reforms, which 
 would never have been effected but for their volunteer 
 zeal, faith, and self-sacrifice, became a source of difficulty 
 so soon as the regular authorities in the prison had bean 
 stimulated to do their duty, and shown how to set about 
 it, and, in fine, the common experience was repeated, 
 the successors of the first apostles of this movement, 
 their equals, perhaps, in zeal, sentiment, and humanity, 
 were not their equals in judgment, and were not recog- 
 nised as having the same claims to attention as those 
 who had worked the original miracle. Until this time 
 arrived, however, there was ample scope for the labour 
 of all the force of the prison reformers. 
 
 In 1823-24 were passed the important gaol Acts 4 
 Geo. IV. eap. 64 and 5 Geo. IV. cap. 85. These Acts 
 proposed to provide not only for the safe custody and 
 punishment, but for the preservation of the health, and 
 improvement of the morals of the inmates; it enforced 
 the employment of all, including " hard labour " for some, 
 provided that males and females should be absolutely 
 separate, that the classification of prisoners before referred 
 to should be carried out, that female prisoners should be 
 under female officers, and that there should be daily 
 religious services and instruction by schoolmasters in 
 
m.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 49 
 
 reading and writing. The use of irons except in urgent 
 necessity was forbidden, and every prisoner was to sleep 
 separately, if possible in a separate cell. 
 
 The Prison Discipline Society kept the subject con- 
 stantly in view, and little by little the local authorities 
 aroused themselves to the necessity for adopting the 
 improvements enjoined by the Act, but the provision of 
 separate sleeping cells, and even of sufficient associated 
 accommodation, was still, for the most part, neglected, 
 and bedding and clothing still denied in some prisons. 
 The rules and practices in the different prisons still varied 
 excessively ; even the hours of labour were in one prison 
 seven, and in another ten and a half. The use of the 
 tread-wheel became very general, and even females were 
 in some cases made to drive it 
 
 The diet, of course, varied ; in some bread alone was 
 given ; in others, meat, soup, gruel, and beer ; in some 
 a money allowance was paid ; and in some cases the 
 diet given could be supplemented by the earnings of the ' 
 prisoners, of which they had at their own disposal a 
 proportion which varied at each prison. 
 
 The Act was not made to apply to the gaols of the 
 smallest local jurisdictions, which most needed reform, 
 because Mr. Peel, who introduced it, hoped that they 
 would themselves adopt the only possible reform which 
 could be effectual, namely, to sweep their gaols away 
 and combine with some larger body. This was naturally ( 
 a slow process, for there were 170 boroughs, cities, towns, 
 and liberties having criminal jurisdiction, and 160 of 
 them had prisons, most of which were in a terribly bad 
 condition. 
 
 By 1835 the unwearied exertions of prison reformers 
 
50 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 whose statements were sifted and substantiated by a 
 Committee of the House of Commons in 1831, and of 
 the House of Lords in 1835, had so far educated the 
 public mind as to cause the Government to pass an Act 
 5 & 6 Will. IV. cap. 38, framed largely on the recom- 
 mendations of the latter. 
 
 The House of Lords' Committee had pointed out the 
 truth, which seems so obvious as not to need demonst ra- 
 tion, that a sentence of imprisonment should be carried 
 out uniformly wherever it might happen that the criminal 
 was confined, and to this end that the rules of pj i 
 v should be subject to the approval of the Secretary of 
 State, an important alteration, for they had hitherto 
 been considered to be the province of the judges of 
 assize; that the prisoners should be furnished by the 
 authorities with a suitable diet, to be approved by the 
 ^ Secretary of State, and should have no other food ; that 
 they should not be furnished with money for any pur- 
 pose; that tobacco should be forbidden " as a stimulating 
 luxury, inconsistent with any notion of strict discipline, 
 and the due pressure of just punishment" ; that prison 
 officers should have no profit from prisoners' eann 
 that letters and visits to prisoners should be allowed 
 only under restriction and limitations ; that religious 
 and literary instruction should be insisted on ; that the 
 power of prisoners employed in positions of trust should 
 be controlled and limited; and, above all, that the 
 system of classification hitherto enforced should be re- 
 placed by the entire separation of prisoners, except 
 during divine service, labour, or instruction, as the best 
 means of preventing contamination and ensuring proper 
 discipline. On their recommendation there were ap- 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 51 
 
 pointed Inspectors of Prisons (a security which had been 
 urged without effect at least a century before) for the 
 purpose of ensuring the fulfilment of the requirements 
 of the law on various points relating to the treatment of 
 prisoners and prison discipline. These inspectors, of 
 whom there might be five for Great Britain, had power 
 to visit all prisons, to inquire into all matters therein," 
 and to report annually to the Secretary of State. A 
 uniform code of rules and a uniform diet were drawn Op 
 by a committee of inspectors under the Under-Secretary 
 of State, circulated by authority of Sir James Graham, 
 and finally adopted 
 
 This Act was followed in a few years by another 
 passed in 1839 2 & 3 Vict cap. 56 which gave the 
 
 tary of State certain power over the designs of" - 
 new prisons or the alteration of old ones ; and though 
 this Act did not compel, it permitted the confinement 
 of each prisoner in a separate cell, and left the justices 
 to adopt this or an improved system of classified 
 association. It provided that where separate cells 
 were adopted they should be certified fit for use in all^ 
 respects, and ensured that on this most important 
 department of prison management, which is so vitally 
 connected with security, health, morality, discipline, and 
 economical administration, the prisons should be con- 
 structed on the best plans and with the most perfect 
 details which experience could devise. To aid the 
 Secretary of State, and to advise the local authori- 
 ties in these matters, a further Act passed in 1845^ 
 7 & 8 Vict cap. 50 authorised the appointment 
 of an officer under the name of Surveyor -General of 
 Prisons, to whom all plans of proposed prisons, or 
 
52 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [CHA*. 
 
 alterations of old ones (including police cells), are 
 referred. 
 
 The important part which prison construction playi 
 in the creation of a good prison system will be evident 
 to any person who visits prisons in certain foreign 
 countries, where prisoners are still herded together night 
 and day, where cleanliness, order, and supervision MM 
 almost impossible, where foul odours from neglect of 
 sanitary conditions meet one at every turn, and where 
 ventilation is as little regarded as in that prison (the 
 Borough Compton) in which the turnkey avowed that 
 " the smell on opening the door was enough to knock 
 down a horse." This very condition the present writer 
 experienced in visiting a military prison abroad in com- 
 pany with the general commanding in the province, and 
 it was curious as an illustration of the way in which 
 such conditions come to be accepted as part of the 
 natural order of things, that this high functionary un- 
 dauntedly walked into a dark cell in which a soldier had 
 been locked up for a long period, and from which on 
 opening the door there proceeded such a stifling, foul, 
 and peculiar smell as might fairly be described in the 
 language of the English turnkey in 1818. 
 
 As a corollary of the Act of 1839 the Government 
 determined to construct a model prison, which should 
 be an example both of construction and discipline to the 
 whole country, and this was carried into effect by the 
 building of Pentonville Prison, under the supervision of 
 Mr. Crawford, Mr. Whitworth Russell, the two first 
 inspectors, both very prominent prison reformers, and 
 Captain, afterwards Sir Joshua, Jebb, R.E. 
 
 In this prison, commenced in 1840 and opened in 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 53 
 
 December 1842, each inmate was furnished with a sepa-' 
 rate cell lighted by a window looking into a spacious 
 court, and supplied with fresh air (warmed when necessary 
 by passing through channels heated by hot-water pipes), 
 which was drawn through by extraction flues in order 
 to keep it pure and wholesome. In sanitary matters 
 the construction was much in advance of the time, and, 
 in fact, was almost up to the present level of sanitary 
 construction. 
 
 Facilities for economical and effective control and 
 supervision were created by building these cells in rows 
 and tiers, opening on to galleries round long corridors, 
 the corridors uniting in a central hall, so that the 
 general plan of the prison was radiating. 
 
 Pentonville prison at its first construction contained 
 520 cells, and cost 90,000, or 180 per cell. Its 
 plan and mode of construction have been followed 
 illy in England and in foreign countries as well. 
 
 The general design was not the sole invention of the 
 builders of Pentonville, for the radiating plan with sepa- 
 rate cells had been adopted in Rome in the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century at San Michele, the virtues of 
 (} nation in monastic establishments perhaps suggest- 
 ing its application for taming and reforming prisoners. 
 Mr. Blackburn had about 1789 designed for Howard, 
 who perhaps had seen San Michele, a model prison at 
 Liverpool on the radiating plan, and forty or fifty more 
 were constructed on the same plan in various parts of 
 Great Britain, the relative merits of the circular plan (of 
 which some examples still remain) and the radiating plan 
 having been long a subject of discussion among prison 
 reformers. But the prison which probably was in 
 
54 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 the minds of the projectors of Pentonville was that at 
 Cherry Hill, Philadelphia, which had been designed by 
 Mr. Haviland with greatly improved arrangements about 
 1829, and this had been visited and reported on by the 
 Commission which visited the United States in 1834 to 
 glean the result of the experiments which had been 
 carried on in that country in prison construction and 
 prison management. 
 
 An interesting chapter might indeed be written on 
 the subject of prison construction and its bearing on 
 health, as well as on other more special considerations, 
 but space will not allow to do more than refer to the 
 principal types which have been adopted. 
 
 The point which seems to have been principally in 
 the minds of the designers of the earlier types w$M to 
 provide for the security of the prisoners by massive con- 
 struction, and for their supervision by placing the house 
 of the Governor in the middle, the prisoners' cells or 
 rooms being sometimes arranged on a polygon sur- 
 rounding this house, and connected with it by walls 
 dividing the interior into yards for exercise, or some- 
 times arranged in blocks radiating from it but not con- 
 nected with it, and so themselves dividing the BDM6 
 into separate yards. These cell -blocks were never 
 planned, according to the present practice, with a central 
 corridor with galleries on each tier, into which the cells 
 or rooms open but each floor was completely distinct, 
 and the communications between the floors were fre- 
 quently tortuous and restricted. As a sample of this, 
 York Prison, which still exists, may be referred to, and 
 also as an example of wasteful construction, for in it, 
 under the influence, as alleged, of the Rev. Sydney 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 55 
 
 Smith, a prison of most superfluous solidity but of very 
 inferior type in all other respects was built at a cost 
 of 1200 per prisoner. The average expenditure on 
 these gaols was calculated at about 300 per prisoner 
 accommodated. Millbank Prison, which will be here- 
 after referred to, embodied these principles on a very 
 large scale. In the centre is the chapel ; round it are 
 the offices and quarters disposed to form a hexagon ; 
 and on each side of this hexagon, as a base, is built a 
 block, of which the general plan forms a pentagon. 
 Each side of the pentagon comprises three tiers of cells, 
 which look into the inner court they surround ; and 
 in the centre of the pentagon was a tower from which 
 watch and guard could be kept over the inmates. 
 
 The essential feature of the type of prison which 
 tin. illy prevailed, and is now followed wherever there is 
 .in effective prison system, is that of assigning a separate 
 cell to each prisoner. This cell the prisoner under a short 
 sentence or during a limited part of a long one occupies 
 at all times, except during divine service, exercise, or in- 
 struction, unless he is on the tread-wheel ; and during the 
 remainder of a long sentence, at all events at night and 
 during meals, or generally when not employed on regu- 
 lated and associated labour. This system was not adopted 
 without much discussion and strong opposition from those 
 who thought it too unnatural to be justifiable, and whose 
 ideas derived much support from the results on the 
 mental and nervous condition of some prisoners who 
 had been subjected to it, principally in America, owing to 
 the extreme rigour with which it was enforced. These 
 advocated rather the association of prisoners, a condition 
 which they said was more healthy and natural, made 
 
56 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 instruction in trades easier, and afforded better industrial 
 results. The mutual contamination, which all agreed 
 was the great evil to be guarded against, they argued, 
 should be prevented by the enforcement of a rule of 
 rigid silence. This condition of things was, however, 
 obviously no less unnatural than the other, and had the 
 additional disadvantage that the irresistible temptation 
 to break or evade the rule of silence could only be met 
 (and that but partially) by constant punishment or the 
 terror of it. It was settled finally that separation 
 could be carried out without any injury to the mental 
 or bodily health, if accompanied by very easy safeguards, 
 that it was more deterrent, afforded greater opportunities 
 for the working of reformatory influences, and if the 
 industrial results were smaller, this was in some measure 
 compensated for by the smaller staff required to main 
 tain order and discipline. 
 
 In six years after Pentonville was built fifty-four 
 new prisons were built after its model, affording 11,000 
 separate cells. Though the results of legislation had 
 been that prisons were considerably improved as com- 
 pared with those of the early part of the century, there 
 was still very much to be done. The want of the 
 desired uniformity, which implied that very many prisons 
 were still much below the proper standard of efficiency, 
 was by 1850 again forced on the attention of Parliament. 
 The dietaries varied in spite of the advice of the Govern- 
 ment in some they were too liberal, in others too low ; 
 the separate cells were often too small badly ventilated 
 and imperfectly warmed ; in some prisons the inmates 
 had one hour's exercise in a day, in others half a day 
 was appropriated to this purpose ; the employment of 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 57 
 
 the prisoners differed in all degrees between perpetual 
 penal labour of the tread-wheel type, and the extra- 
 ordinary crotchet which was carried out at Reading and 
 iiere, under which "prisoners were employe! in 
 nothing but education," by which was meant literary 
 education. In this prison the inmates learned lessons 
 all <ky, except when exercising, attending chapel, and 
 cleaning cells, etc. As a privilege they might, " when 
 tii. 1 of reading," "pick a little oakum," but this was 
 quite optional, and hard, heavy labour was absolutely 
 forbidden in order that the whole attention might be 
 devoted to literature the establishment was a crirai-. 
 nal university, and acquired the name of the "Read- 
 i ;i,l reading Gaol." As a final climax of burlesque 
 absurdity the Bible was made the principal lesson book 
 (in one prison the solitary prisoners were supplied with 
 nntliing else whatever), and a reformatory influence was 
 supposed to be achieved by requiring the criminals to 
 commit large portions of the Testament to memory.' 
 This result was figured by one irreverent critic to be so 
 effectively achieved that a felon was said to have been 
 so distressed that the end of his sentence interrupted 
 his studies when he had only " got as far as Ephesians," 
 that he came back (under sentence for sheep-stealing) to 
 learn the rest of the Testament. 
 
 A select Committee of the House of Commons in 
 1850 deemed "it their duty to state that several prisons 
 are still in a very unsatisfactory condition, and that 
 proper punishment, separation, or reformation in them 
 is impossible." They recommended that " the Legisla- 
 ture should entrust increased power to some central 
 authority of enforcing uniform adherence to rules laid 
 
58 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 down by Parliament in respect to construction and dis- 
 cipline, and observed that such increased powers would 
 be best exercised by a Board subject to the authority of 
 the Secretary of State." In this they anticipated by a 
 quarter of a century the legislation of 1877. They 
 recommended the entire separation of all prisoners both 
 before and after trial by day and by night, except during 
 hours of labour, worship, or instruction, and that during 
 such hours effectual means should be taken to prevent 
 intercourse between prisoners. Further, that the separa- 
 tion system carried out at Pentonville, and many county 
 and borough prisons, should be applied continuously to 
 all prisoners under sentences not exceeding three months, 
 not mentally or physically disqualified, and to prisoners 
 under long sentences, but not for a longer period than 
 twelve months, after which they should labour in associ- 
 ation, but without intercourse. To carry out this pro- 
 posal they recommended that district prisons should be 
 created by Government, and intended that thereby 
 longer terms of imprisonment might be substituted for 
 transportation. 
 
 The recommendations of this Committee formed t lie 
 foundation for a distinct advance towards our present 
 system both in regard to short and long sentences. 
 
 From 1836 onwards the treatment of those prisoners 
 who were sentenced to transportation aroused much 
 attention, and this branch of the subject must be treated 
 separately. But no further considerable step was taken 
 to improve the ordinary prisons till 1865, when an Act 
 Nvas passed framed on the recommendations of a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Lords, which sat in 1863. 
 Their report commented very strongly on the great 
 
m.l GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 59 
 
 difference in the punishment of prisoners and construc- 
 tion of prisons in different localities ; the imperfection 
 of construction of some ; the absence of light ; and of 
 means, for prisoners when locked in, of communicating 
 with the warders ; the continuance of pernicious associa- 
 tion in many ; the complete idleness in some prisons ; 
 and the variety, as above detailed, in the employment 
 of prisoners, etc The Committee recommended that 
 separation should be the rule in all prisons; that 
 pens! labour of the tread -wheel type should be en- 
 forced, though, if the local justices preferred industrial 
 labour, they should have power to adopt that form 
 luring a portion of the sentence. They pointed out, 
 however, that it would be a great mistake to make 
 industrial work for profit the leading consideration. 
 They also recommended, as a means of making the 
 sentence deterrent, that prisoners should endure " hard 
 labour, hard fare, and a hard bed " ; that to that end 
 they should during a part of the sentence be deprived 
 of a mattress, and sleep on the bed-board ; that dietaries 
 should be more uniform, and more attention given to 
 this subject (in one prison they pointed out that the 
 food was furnished from a neighbouring inn), and the 
 hours of labour better regulated the necessity of which 
 they illustrated by showing that in one prison the in- 
 mates passed fifteen hours in bed. 
 
 They condemned the unrestrained association of all 
 classes in minor borough prisons, where the prisoners slept 
 two in a bed in dormitories, which were without light, 
 control, or ventilation, and the warder afraid to enter 
 after dark. Indeed at this period, as well as formerly, 
 the first step towards improvement should have been 
 
60 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 the closing of many of the minor prisons, for in 1862 
 -there were in England and Wales 193 prisons, of which 
 63 had on an average only 25 prisoners ; 22 had be- 
 tween 11 and 25 ; 14 had between 11 and 6 ; and 27 
 had less than 6. Some even had no inmates at all. 
 
 The Prisons Act of 1865 recognised for the first 
 time the truth that, if uniformity was necessary, it must 
 not be left to the option of the local authorities to con- 
 form or not, and it therefore enacted a code of rules as 
 ""part of the statute, a clumsy expedient adopted to 
 avoid the appearance of superseding local authority by 
 central control, but, in fact, doing it in the most objec- 
 tionable way. As this Act still regulates our prisons 
 it is necessary to set out the principles which it en- 
 forces. 
 /V63 The distinction between a gaol and a house of 
 correction was abolished. The jurisdiction of the 
 sheriff was limited to prisoners under sentence of death. 
 Every prison authority was required to provide a prison 
 containing separate cells for all its prisoners, with sepa- 
 rate divisions for females, for debtors, and for misde- 
 meanants "of the first division" i.e. misdemeanants 
 ordered by the Court who tried them to be so classed. 
 This distinction had been introduced by an Act passed 
 in 1840, in which " first-class misdemeanants" were 
 exempted from the provisions of the Gaol Act of 1839. 
 The separate cells were to be such as could be certified 
 by an inspector of prison to be of such a size, and to be 
 lighted, warmed, ventilated, and fitted up in such a 
 manner as may be requisite for health, and furnished 
 with means of enabling the prisoner to communicate at 
 any time with an officer of the prison. A gaoler, a 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 61 
 
 chaplain of the Church of England, surgeon, and female 
 officers for female prisoners, were to be appointed. 
 
 Much discussion took place as to the meaning which 
 should be assigned to the phrase " hard labour," which 
 clearly does not explain itself, and was first adopted in 
 Acts of Parliament framed before the days of scientific 
 accuracy of expression. The medical definition of it 
 given at the time we are now treating of was such 
 labour as " visibly quickens the breath and opens the 
 pores " ; but this definition, though it probably satisfies 
 one set of ideas on the subject, could not be adopted 
 as the stereotyped mode of enforcing a sentence which 
 could be passed on persons of both sexes, of all condi- 
 tions and habits of life, and for long periods. The Prisons 
 Act, 1865, therefore adopted the course of enacting that 
 hard labour was to be of two classes, first -class hard 
 labour to be at the tread-wheel, shot-drill, crank, cap- 
 stan, stone-breaking, and " such other like description of 
 hard body labour." Any other approved kind of labour 
 was called second class, and the prison authority was 
 required to provide means for enforcing hard labour of 
 these two classes. Every male prisoner of sixteen years 
 of age and upwards sentenced to hard labour was required 
 to be kept at first-class hard labour for at least three 
 months during a period of not more than ten nor less 
 than six hours a day. The justices were authorised to 
 make rules which might keep him at this labour for 
 the entire sentence, or they might, after three months, 
 employ him in hard labour of the second class ; prisoners 
 under sentence of fourteen days or less might be em- 
 ployed all the time in second-class hard labour if the 
 justices desired. Clearly, in respect to the most im- 
 
62 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [chai\ 
 
 portant matter of labour and employment, the Act did 
 not fulfil its object of introducing uniformity. 
 
 The dietaries were to be framed by the justices, and 
 they were to make rules on any other matters, subject 
 to the approval of the Secretary of State. This, and a 
 rule in the schedule directing them to make rules for 
 the classification of prisoners who are not debtors and 
 not criminal prisoners under the Act, is the only 
 provision for regulating the distinction between the 
 treatment of misdemeanants of the first division and 
 others. 
 
 If the justices failed in complying with the Act, the 
 Secretary of State was empowered to stop the contribu- 
 tion made by the Treasury towards the expenses of 
 the gaol, or he might also close an inadequate prison ; 
 * but as he could not do this unless some other prison 
 authority was willing to receive the prisoners, this 
 power was practically of little use. 
 
 Provision was made for the modification of any rule 
 in its application to any prisoner for reasons of health, 
 and generally for the medical care of prisoners and the 
 preservation of their health. A coroner's inquest was 
 to be held on every prisoner who died in the prison, 
 and no person connected with the prison might be on 
 the jury. 
 
 Buildings and alterations of prisons were to be carried 
 out subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, 
 and the appointment of Surveyor -General of Prisons, 
 before adverted to, was continued. Facilities and 
 encouragement were afforded to prison authorities to 
 combine their prisons. 
 
 Visiting justices were to be appointed by the Quarter 
 
in.] GAOLS IN FORMER TIMES. 63 
 
 Sessions to supervise the prison on all points under 
 rules laid down for the purpose, and to see that the 
 Act and the rules of the prison were enforced ; and they 
 were required to report each quarter to the Quarter 
 Sessions. 
 
 Prison authorities were authorised to make a grant 
 to aid a prisoner in finding work on his discharge, so 
 that he might not then find himself subject to the diffi- 
 culties and temptations which arise from want, necessity, 
 and idleness. 
 
 The schedule of the Act comprises a detail of rules 
 for the administration and discipline of the prison ; 
 cleanliness, security, and health are provided for; 
 untried prisoners are to be separated from the con- 
 victed ; spirits and tobacco are forbidden ; debtors and 
 untried prisoners are allowed to procure their own food, 
 clothing, and bedding at their own expense ; each male 
 prisoner is to sleep in a separate cell, or if special cir- 
 cumstances prevented this yet on no occasion are two 
 to sleep in a cell alone ; gaming is forbidden ; debtors 
 and untried prisoners may be allowed to work; and 
 the employment of all convicted prisoners is provided 
 for. 
 
 Daily prayers, divine service, and religious instruc- 
 tion are also to be provided ; and prisoners belonging 
 to various religious persuasions are allowed to receive 
 the ministrations of the ministers thereof. Heading, 
 writing, and arithmetic are to be taught ; but this is not 
 to diminish the hours apportioned to labour. 
 
 Prisoners are allowed to receive visits from and to 
 communicate with their friends under such rules and 
 restrictions as the prison authorities should lay down. 
 
64 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [ch. in. 
 
 The power of punishment for prison offences is 
 restricted to the justices and the gaoler the latter 
 may order an offender to be placed in close confine- 
 ment for three days on bread and water, the former 
 can order one month in a punishment cell, or a con- 
 victed felon sentenced to hard labour may be flogged. 
 Irons or mechanical restraint are only to be used in a 
 case of urgent necessity, and then immediately reported 
 to a visiting justice, and no prisoner may be subject to 
 such restraint for more that twenty-four hours without 
 the written authority of a visiting justice. 
 
 No prisoner may be employed in the discipline of 
 the prison or the service of any officer, or in the service 
 or instruction of any other prisoner. The prisoners are 
 to be informed of the rules applicable to them. 
 
 Strict rules are laid down to ensure the due per- 
 formance of his duty by the gaoler, and as to his power 
 over officers under him. 
 
 The Act concluded by closing the prisons of thirteen 
 boroughs and one liberty, and repealed the previous 
 Acts inconsistent with or rendered unnecessary by this 
 one. 
 
CHAPTER IV. Ifrjb . 
 
 MODERN PRISONS. 
 
 The next great step in the reform of our prison system 
 was the introduction of the Prisons Bill in 1876, and 
 its enactment in 1877. The justification of tnTs measure 
 was that, notwithstanding the Act of 1865, the desired 
 uniformity in the system of punishment had not been< 
 secured, while the facilities for locomotion and travel 
 had become so great that the difference between the 
 effect of the sentences in different localities became very 
 apparent, and was said even to be taken into account by 
 the criminal classes. The buildings, moreover, in many- 
 cases, remained wofully below the proper standard, and 
 the power of the Secretary of State to require improve- 
 ments was found inadequate, or, what had the same 
 result, very difficult to enforce. It was obvious, more- 
 over, to those who investigated the matter, that this 
 ineffective system was also unduly costly, and that both^ 
 defects were due to the impossibility of getting a great 
 number of independent authorities, large and small, to 
 conform in the necessary degree in the details of the 
 system, or to unite their prisons in such a manner as a 
 reasonable regard for economy would have directed. 
 There were still 113 county, borough, and liberty- 
 
 F 
 
66 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 prisons, and these were managed and superintended by 
 about 2000 justices or more. It is obvious that when 
 power and responsibility are shared among so many they 
 become unduly diluted or frittered away ; and the super- 
 vision exercised by such a large body who individually 
 could rarely, and collectively never, acquire the detail 
 knowledge which comes only by accumulated practical 
 experience must, from the nature of things, be very 
 uncertain and imperfect, while a check of this nature 
 is very liable to be delusive. 
 
 The possibility of crying abuses and continuous 
 systematic cruelty existing in spite of, and under cover 
 of, such a check was demonstrated by the revelations 
 made in the investigation into Birmingham Borough 
 "Gaol in 1850, which forms the foundation of Charles 
 Reade's novel and play, Never too late to Mend. Super- 
 vision so liable to be delusive in fact lends itself most 
 easily to the establishment and cloaking of abuses, for 
 it relieves those who are likely to commit them of 
 responsibility, and even provides them with defence 
 the more effective in proportion as the supposed com- 
 bined checking and managing power resides in persons 
 who are powerful and important, and independent of 
 any superior authority. 
 
 It happened that at this moment the Government 
 were desirous of doing something in relief of local tax- 
 ation, and the assumption of the charge for maintaining 
 the prisons afforded a very favourable opportunity of 
 effecting this object, because it was seen that by 
 diminishing the number of prisons and by other pos- 
 sible measures, the burden from which the localities 
 would be relieved would be much more than would 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 67 
 
 be thrown on the taxes when the service had been 
 reorganised. 
 
 But as a natural consequence of transferring to 
 Parliament the duty of providing funds for the main- 
 tenance of prisons, it also transferred to the Govern- 
 ment the complete control of the prisons, and thus 
 ensured the long-desired uniformity, besides introducing 
 that responsibility for their management which attends 
 our system of Parliamentary Government. 
 
 The Prisons Act, 1877, transferred, therefore, the 
 whole of the prison establishments and their contents, 
 except goods manufactured for sale and materials pro- 
 vided for that purpose, to the Government in the person 
 of the Home Secretary. It created a body of Commis- 
 ^aionera to be appointed by Royal Warrant to manage 
 the new department, and placed under them a staff of 
 inspectors and of other officers through whom the 
 necessary personal supervision and control over so 
 many distant establishments could be exercised, and 
 by whom those establishments could be administered. 
 The appointment and control of officers, and all the 
 duties and responsibilities involved in this administra- 
 tion of the prisons, was transferred to the Secretary of 
 State and the Commissioners of Prisons. 
 
 It may naturally be supposed that a change such as 
 this was not made without much opposition from those 
 who, from various reasons, disapproved of the transfer of 
 management from local bodies to a department of the 
 State, in which, indeed, they but repeated the local 
 opposition already referred to as having centuries be- 
 fore been offered to the supersession of the local 
 justices by the practice of sending judges on circuit to 
 
68 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 try offenders, and more recently, at the beginning of 
 this century, to placing the hulks in which prisoners 
 sentenced to transportation were confined under Govern- 
 ment management instead of under local justices, but, 
 as a matter of fact, the organisation actually adopted, as 
 will be seen, retained for the local authorities very high 
 and important functions, for it placed them in the 
 position of a court of justice, before whom the governor 
 could bring any prisoner, of whose ill conduct he might 
 have to complain to them, and to whom the prisoner 
 could appeal if he desired to complain of any oppression 
 or neglect on the part of the prison officials. 
 
 The law as it stood before 1877 placed upon certain 
 bodies, called "Prison Authorities," the duty of pro- 
 viding sufficient prison accommodation, of a certain 
 quality, for the prisoners belonging to their jurisdiction. 
 The prison authorities were denned in the Act of 1865 
 as those local bodies which by statute, charter, etc., were 
 entitled to maintain prisons, and the Act 1877 made it 
 incumbent on them to hand over to the Home Secretary 
 suitable prison accommodation sufficient in amount. 
 
 Sufficient prison accommodation as respects the 
 number of prison cells which the prison authorities 
 had to furnish, was defined as being the average daily 
 number of prisoners maintained by the prison authority 
 during the five years ending 31st December 1876, and 
 each cell was required to be one certified under the 
 Act of 1865 as fulfilling the required conditions. 
 
 In default of having such accommodation to hand 
 over, the prison authority was required to pay 120 
 for every prisoner for whom such accommodation was 
 not handed over. 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 69 
 
 It was successfully contended during the discussion 
 on the Bill, that as all future prison expenses were to 
 be undertaken by Government, those prison authorities 
 who had, in anticipation of probable increase in the 
 number of prisoners, provided a reasonable amount of 
 accommodation in excess of the average of the maximum 
 numbers of the preceding five years, thus saving expen- 
 diture which it was presumed that the Government 
 would have to incur, should receive compensation for 
 the excess which they handed over. 
 
 It would not have been unreasonable to wait till 
 this presumption was justified before saddling the 
 country with this expenditure, but the clause was pro- 
 posed and accepted in Committee on the Bill by a jaded 
 house, and affords a curious little example of our mode 
 of legislation. It resulted in our paying 127,478* 
 for cells built in anticipation of an increase of about 
 1376 prisoners in the average prison population of the 
 particular localities where this provision was made. 
 If this supposition, therefore, was correct, it was reason- 
 able to expect the average prison population of the 
 whole country to increase by nearly 3000 during the 
 ensuing few years, and if all localities had thus pro- 
 vided in advance, the country would have had to pay 
 a quarter of a million, without any necessity at all, 
 for, as a matter of fact, as will be shown later on, 
 the prison population has continuously and largely 
 decreased. 
 
 The sum fixed to clear the local authority of its respon- 
 sibility in furnishing actual prison accommodation, viz. 
 120 per cell, was much below what any prison autho- 
 rity would actually have had to pay for providing the 
 
70 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 accommodation, as the cost of the under-mentioned 
 prisons constructed by the local authorities conclusively 
 demonstrates. 
 
 ~. Cost per Cell 
 
 1 on - exclusive of Land. 
 
 Hull 198 
 
 Manchester 140 
 
 Salford 140 
 
 Birmingham 157 
 
 Winchester 161 
 
 Perth 150 
 
 Lincoln (parts of Lindsey) . . . .192 
 
 Aylesbury 153 
 
 Reading 197 
 
 Wandsworth 198 
 
 Holloway 209 
 
 A new prison contemplated at Maidstone was esti- 
 mated at 185 per celL 
 
 The avowed object of the Act being that the number 
 of prisons should be diminished, and it being obviously 
 probable that from time to time changes would occur 
 which would lead to the abandonment of certain prisons, 
 provision was made for restoring any prison so dis- 
 continued to the authority which handed it over. 
 The arrangement which gave effect to this object WM 
 virtually to constitute the prison a mortgage security 
 for a supposed debt by the prison authority to the 
 Government to the amount of 120 for such number 
 of prisoners as the authority had provided with accom- 
 modation in the prison to be discontinued. Moreover, 
 if the prison authority should have, when the prison 
 was discontinued, received compensation in respect of 
 having provided more accommodation than the Act 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 71 
 
 required, it was required to repay such compensation to 
 the Exchequer before receiving back the prison. 
 
 In rearranging the distribution of the prisons, power 
 was given to the Secretary of State to set apart certain 
 prisons for particular classes of prisoners, and it was 
 provided that if, in pursuance of such classification, a 
 prisoner was moved out of the jurisdiction he belonged 
 to, he should on discharge be sent back thither at the 
 public expense. As the closing of the prison which any 
 authority had provided for its prisoners rendered 
 necessary the assignment of some other prison for that 
 purpose, the Secretary of State was empowered to sub- 
 stitute such other prison accordingly ; and further, a 
 general power was given to the Secretary of State to 
 permit prisoners to be committed to a prison in an ad- 
 joining county. This provision is of obvious advantage 
 in every way, for it enables prisoners to be sent to 
 whichever prison is the nearest and most accessible from 
 the place of committal, and this is in very many cases 
 not the prison of the county. 
 
 The Prisons Act, 1877, abolished the "Visiting 
 Justices" altogether, and transferred the powers and 
 duties of those bodies to the Commissioners of Prisons, 
 who now, therefore, have the sole control of the officers 
 and the administration of the prison in regard to dis- 
 cipline, buildings, contracts, and expenditure of all kinds. 
 It created, however, from among the local magistracy, a 
 body called the Visiting Committee, whose functions are 
 to hear and examine into reports against prisoners, and 
 to award punishments for them ; to report on any abuses 
 within the prison which may come to their knowledge, 
 and to hear any complaints that prisoners may make. 
 
72 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 A curious proviso was inserted here, namely, that such 
 complaint should be heard "in private" if asked a pro- 
 viso inserted, no doubt, on the supposition that prisoners 
 are afraid to complain of ill-treatment, a supposition 
 which everybody experienced in prisons knows to be 
 belied by the number of frivolous and groundless com- 
 plaints which prisoners make, and which quite ignores 
 the consideration that, if any such complaint was kept 
 private from the officer complained of, he could not 
 disprove or rebut it, and that his character and position 
 would thus be at the mercy of persons of lost character, 
 with every motive to discredit their authority and 
 weaken their position. 
 
 The Act diminished the punishing power of the 
 justices by restricting their power of ordering confine- 
 ment in a punishment cell to fourteen days instead of 
 twenty-eight ; and it empowered the gaoler to so confine 
 a prisoner for only one day instead of three. The concur- 
 rence of two magistrates was made necessary to award 
 corporal punishment It also made an important change 
 in the penal character of the whole sentence of imprison- 
 ment, in respect of the period for which first-class hard 
 labour, as defined in the Prison Act, 1865, was com- 
 pulsory. Under the Act of 1865 it might be enforced 
 for any number of hours, not less than six and not 
 more than ten daily, and for the whole of any sentence 
 of three months, or under, it was compulsory, while it 
 might be enforced for the entire sentence, however long. 
 The latitude thus allowed entirely defeated the object 
 of promoting uniformity in prison discipline, and the 
 divergent ideas of various local authorities were further 
 encouraged by the wide interpretation allowed by the 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 73 
 
 Home Office to the injunction which defined first-class 
 hard labour as " tread-wheel, crank, etc. etc., or other 
 like kind of bodily labour," for certain forms of industrial 
 labour were allowed as " of like kind," to a labour of 
 which the chief characteristic was that it required no 
 skill at all, and was almost entirely penal. 
 
 It appeared on consideration that the diversity al- 
 lowed in practice was rendered expedient by the strong 
 and general feeling that the Act of 1865 went further 
 than was necessary in allowing or encouraging this form 
 of penal employment. The Act of 1877 therefore per- 
 mitted the Secretary of State to limit the compulsory 
 period of first-class hard labour to one month, and 
 enabled him by the rules he was empowered to make 
 to enforce strictly and uniformly such amount of penal 
 labour as would be generally accepted as sufficient. 
 
 The rules of the prison in all points were henceforth 
 to be made by the Secretary of State, so that uniformity 
 was at least ensured on regard to diet, clothing, and 
 discipline ; and the rules were to be laid on the table of 
 the Houses of Parliament for forty days before coming 
 into effect. This provision may, of course, paralyse the 
 supreme authority during six months in every year. 
 
 It is a curious fact that amidst all the improvements 
 and ameliorations in the lot of prisoners, which previous 
 discussion had brought about, little or no attention 
 had been paid to the unconvicted prisoner, so that we 
 find Sidney Smith arguing against the justice of the 
 existing practice of requiring them to labour on the 
 tread-wheel. The Prison Act, 1877, requires the Secre- 
 tary of State to make rules for the treatment of this 
 class of prisoner, under which a clear difference should 
 
74 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 be made between the convicted prisoner and one who is 
 presumably innocent, and who should therefore suffer 
 no more inconvenience than is required to ensure his 
 safe custody, to prevent tampering with evidence, or the 
 contrivance of plans for escape, to ensure good order 
 and discipline necessary to be enforced in the prison, and 
 the physical and moral wellbeing of the prisoners them- 
 selves. The Secretary of State was also empowered to 
 make rules mitigating the treatment of persons impri- 
 soned in default of payment ordered by a justice of the 
 peace, and special favour was secured for the offence of 
 sedition, by directing that any person convicted thereof 
 should be treated as a misdemeanant of the first division, 
 a consideration which was also extended to persons 
 imprisoned for contempt of court. 
 
 The prisoner who endeavours to evade the penal 
 effect of his sentence by malingering also found his 
 sympathising advocates in the course of the discussion 
 on the Bill, and was protected in his schemes so far as 
 to forbid the application of any medical test which 
 * would give him pain if he was a malingerer (but not 
 unless) by requiring superior authority for its adoption. 
 In July 1877 the Royal Commissioners who were 
 to carry this great reform into effect were appointed, 
 and begun to prepare for the operation of the Act, which 
 took effect from 1st April 1878. On that day, after 
 due preparation, an order was issued by which 38 
 prisons of the 113 were closed in the month of May, 
 and the reduction has been continued since then, bring- 
 ing the number down to 59. 
 
 Rules were also issued constituting the visiting com- 
 mittees of every prison, who generally consist of about 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 75 
 
 twelve members appointed by the Benches which make 
 use of the prison, but generally assigning only one prison 
 to each Bench for those purposes, though it might 
 actually commit prisoners to two or more prisons. 
 
 Besides providing for the proper distribution of 
 prisons throughout the country, and the assignment of 
 a sufficient staff for each, with duly regulated scales of 
 pay, the most important object of the Act was the' 
 creation of a code of rules, to embrace all matters of 
 discipline, diet, and clothing, and to apply uniformity 
 to all prisons. This code of rules was accordingly 
 framed and laid for the prescribed period on the tables 
 of the Houses of Parliament. 
 
 The duties and functions of the visiting committees 
 are prescribed in these rules, which constitute them 
 generally a judicial body to which a prisoner may appeal, 
 or whose aid the governor can call in to assist him in pre- 
 serving discipline, but give them no power to interfere 
 with the administration, and carefully preserve the undi- 
 vided authority of the Commissioners over the staff. They 
 are required generally to co-operate with the Com- 
 missioners, to inspect the prison, the diets, etc., and in 
 all matters by their presence and their influence to keep 
 a check on the growth of abuses or neglect in the 
 prison, informing the Commissioners of any such which 
 may come under their cognisance. 
 
 They are empowered to permit of certain modifica- 
 tions of the routine of the prison in the case of a prisoner 
 awaiting trial, or a misdemeanant of the first division, 
 or a debtor, if they think that, having regard to his 
 ordinary habits and condition of life, such special pro- 
 vision should be made in respect to him. 
 
76 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 The prisoners awaiting trial are the subject of other 
 rules intended to prevent them from suffering any 
 greater disadvantage than the necessities of security and 
 good order require, and to ensure their having every 
 facility for conducting their defence or procuring bail. 
 
 The rules for misdemeanants of the first division 
 guard against the possible abuse of interest or influence 
 which might lead to an unwarrantable difference in the 
 treatment of prisoners, by prescribing that no prisoner 
 shall be placed in this division except as provided by 
 statute or by order of the court of law which sentenced 
 him. They permit the visiting committees to authorise 
 the modification of certain ordinary rules and routine to 
 suit the special circumstances of any particular prisoner 
 of this class. 
 
 Special rules are also made for debtors an offence 
 which is popularly supposed no longer to be visited by 
 imprisonment, and which, in fact, is so treated only by 
 the fiction that a person who fails to pay a debt when 
 ordered to do so by a competent court commits an act 
 of contempt. The rules made under the Act of 1865 
 to suit the condition of debtors committed under the old 
 laws, which were not repealed until 1869, are, however, 
 held to apply to the class above referred to, who cer- 
 tainly are, if they are justly committed to prison at all, 
 morally nothing less than criminals, since they refuse 
 to pay a just debt which they have means to pay. The 
 rules for debtors are also applied to persons imprisoned 
 in default of finding sureties for keeping the peace or 
 being of good behaviour, or for not complying with an 
 order of any superior court. 
 
 The general rules for the government of prisons 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 77 
 
 provide amply for the cleanliness, good order, and 
 humane treatment of prisoners, which form the subject 
 of detailed instructions, which it would occupy too 
 much space in this work to give in any fulness. 
 
 Under these rules has been introduced a system of 
 managing the prisoners by appealing to their better 
 qualities described as the system of progressive stages. 
 The principle on which this system is founded is that 
 of setting before prisoners the advantages of good conduct 
 and industry by enabling them to gain certain privileges 
 or modifications of the penal character of the sentence 
 by the exertion of these qualities. Commencing with 
 severe penal labour hard fare and a hard bed he 
 can gradually advance to more interesting employment, 
 somewhat more material comfort, full use of library 
 books, privilege of communication by letter and word with 
 his friends, finally, the advantage of a moderate sum of 
 money to start again on his discharge, so that he may not 
 have the temptations or the excuse that want of means 
 might afford for falling again into crime. His daily pro- 
 gress towards these objects is recorded by the award of 
 marks, and any failure in industry or conduct is in the same 
 way visited on him by forfeiture of marks and consequent 
 postponement or diminution of the prescribed privileges. 
 
 This system, the exact opposite of governing by mere 
 fear of punishment, must obviously have a reformatory 
 effect ; and as a means of diminishing the necessity of 
 the more drastic forms of prison punishments, its success 
 has been most marked, as the following returns of 
 punishment before the prisons were transferred to 
 Government, and since its introduction, conclusively 
 show. The number of punishments has diminished from 
 
78 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME. [chai>. 
 
 61,000 to 37,000, and of the dietary punishments from 
 40,000 to 17,000 cases in a year. 
 
 
 _, Daily average 
 S number of Prison - 
 ^ ere in the year. 
 
 ""* Males & Females. 
 
 Jj 
 
 J: 
 
 o 
 
 
 <u.2 
 
 Year. 
 
 -t- 
 
 a 
 
 i 
 
 '5 
 1 
 
 .2 
 ' 
 
 5 
 
 I* 
 
 *i 
 
 to" 
 
 3 
 
 CO 
 
 I 1 
 
 Daily average 
 number of Pan 
 
 mints per 10( 
 Prisoners. 
 
 Year ended Sept. 29, 1868 
 
 17,109 
 
 43,884 
 
 
 .,0,0'.':: 
 
 8-9 
 
 1869 
 
 80,060 
 
 18,014 
 
 47,668 
 
 
 
 66,688 
 
 8-9 
 
 1870 
 
 19,830 
 
 17,984 
 
 46,692 
 
 
 
 64,676 
 
 8-9 
 
 1871 
 
 18,465 
 
 15,234 
 
 B7,8M 
 
 
 
 52,626 
 
 7*7 
 
 1872 
 
 17,505 
 
 14,994 
 
 37,401 
 
 
 
 68,886 
 
 8-1 
 
 1873 
 
 17,680 
 
 15,388 
 
 38,709 
 
 
 
 64,097 
 
 83 
 
 1874 
 
 17,896 
 
 16,331 
 
 40,378 
 
 
 
 66,709 
 
 8-6 
 
 1875 
 
 18,487 
 
 17,853 
 
 80,481 
 
 
 
 57,335 
 
 8*4 
 
 1876 
 
 18,986 
 
 16,212 
 
 18,989 
 
 
 
 59,134 
 
 8'6 
 
 1877 
 
 20,361 
 
 18,263 
 
 88,168 
 
 
 
 57,422 
 
 7'7 
 
 Six months ended 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 March 31, 1878 
 
 20,833 
 
 9,245 
 
 21,986 
 
 _ 
 
 31,231 
 
 8'2 
 
 Year ended Mar. 31, 1879 
 
 19,818 
 
 5,164 
 
 88,880 
 
 16,908 
 
 68,808 
 
 8-1 
 
 1880 
 
 19,835 
 
 2,320 
 
 24,693 
 
 88,660 
 
 49,668 
 
 6'8 
 
 1881 
 
 18,027 
 
 2,407 
 
 21,846 
 
 18,886 
 
 48,188 
 
 6-5 
 
 1882 
 
 17,798 
 
 1,767 
 
 18,895 
 
 17,621 
 
 88,888 
 
 5-8 
 
 1883 
 
 17,876 
 
 1,869 
 
 19,114 
 
 21,400 
 
 48,888 
 
 6 4 
 
 1884 
 
 17,194 
 
 1,494 
 
 18,969 
 
 18,688 
 
 37,095 
 
 5-8 
 
 At the same time the application of the more severe 
 punishments has been kept within strict limits by care- 
 ful regulations in regard to dietary punishments, to 
 the cases in which corporal punishment shall be inflicted, 
 and the implements which shall be used for these pur- 
 poses, to the use of punishment cells and the employment 
 of restraint by irons or otherwise. 
 
 The moral instruction of prisoners is cared for by a 
 chaplain of the Church of England, and when the 
 number of Roman Catholics is sufficiently large by the 
 appointment of a priest of their communion to attend 
 to them. The duties of the ministers of religion require 
 them to visit and admonish prisoners on reception and 
 during their imprisonment; and care is taken that 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 79 
 
 before discharge each prisoner shall be detained in his 
 cell in order that full opportunity may be given for 
 him to receive and reflect on the counsel which may 
 be afforded him, in order to preserve him from crime 
 .in future ; he then also can enter into arrangements 
 with the Prisoners' Aid Society or otherwise for his 
 future destination, and otherwise be fitted for discharge, 
 and preserved from some dangers and temptations 
 attending the change. 
 
 The literary education of the prisoner has formed the 
 subject of very careful consideration. 
 
 Experience has shown that literary education has 
 not the reformatory influence on prisoners which was 
 once expected from it, and that moral and industrial 
 instruction are the most potent of the educational 
 influences which can be employed with that object. It 
 is obvious that it would be bad policy to diminish the 
 deterrent influence of penal discipline in favour of those 
 who are ignorant ; and further, that especial care ought 
 to be taken that the education, whether literary or 
 technical, should be carried out without sacrificing the 
 great moral and disciplinary advantages of the separation 
 of prisoners on which the best modern prison systems are 
 founded. It is clear, also, that the amount of education 
 which could be imparted to persons, who are mostly 
 adults, in the short period for which a sentence of 
 imprisonment endures, could in any case be but small, 
 and although the Government might find it justifiable 
 to incur considerably more expense than the local 
 authorities did in providing an educational staff, it is 
 right that a reasonable limit should be assigned to the 
 standard of instruction which the staff should be 
 
80 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 employed to impart, and that it should devote its 
 efforts to those who were below that standard and would 
 most profit by such help. At the same time it is 
 considered right that every facility and encouragement 
 consistent with the primary object of the sentence a 
 prisoner is undergoing should be given to those whose 
 educational attainments might be above the standard 
 referred to, in order that they might keep up or improve 
 the knowledge they already possessed. 
 
 The following is an outline of the system actually 
 adopted. It will be observed that juveniles have daily 
 instruction in class, care being taken that juveniles 
 awaiting trial, etc., are not brought together in class 
 with the convicted ; that the attention of the school- 
 masters is confined to those adults whose education is 
 below a certain standard, and whose sentences are long 
 enough to make it worth while, with exceptions in the 
 cases of those on whom, for various reasons, it would 
 be obvious waste of labour j that those who are entirely 
 ignorant or in that first stage of education which requires 
 the constant personal attention of the schoolmasters, are 
 taught in class ; that those who are in a higher stage, 
 writing copies, doing sums, learning lessons, carry on 
 their work in their cells, and are visited by the school- 
 masters, by which the evils of association and the dis- 
 traction of attention are avoided. 
 
 One of the chaplains sets out the advantages of this 
 very clearly as follows : 
 
 Classes are, of course, held for the instruction of those who 
 are totally ignorant of reading. In a prison of the size of our own, 
 this is, I fear, unavoidable, though, from a disciplinary point of 
 view, certainly to be deprecated. It is scarcely possible to entirely 
 prevent all communication, and this communication means the 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 81 
 
 spread of corrupting influences. I do my best to make these classes 
 as small as possible. 
 
 Considering that prisoners should look upon edu- 
 cation as a privilege, and convinced of the great advan- 
 tage of preserving the specially penal character of the 
 first month of the sentence, on account of the deterring 
 effect on the criminal, and because it is the foundation 
 of the progressive stage system, by which such a large 
 diminution of prison punishment has been effected, 
 prisoners are not allowed the relaxation which the class 
 or the visits of the schoolmasters afford until they have, 
 by their industry and good conduct, gained promotion 
 to the second stage, which they can do in one month. 
 
 Prisoners are stimulated to endeavour to improve 
 themselves by a regulation that those who desire at the 
 periodical time to exercise their privilege of writing to 
 their friends shall do it with their own hands after a 
 certain period of instruction. 
 
 The chaplains are required to examine prisoners 
 periodically to test their progress. 
 
 The teaching staff, which was entirely absent in a 
 great many prisons under the local authorities, has been 
 increased and distributed according to a definite plan, 
 and now costs 2230 per annum more than under the 
 local authorities, although the prison population is some 
 20 per cent less. 
 
 Summary of Regulations on Education in 
 Prisons. 
 
 All juveniles under sixteen have one hour's instruc- 
 tion daily in class, excepting, of course, any who by 
 statute or rule are not allowed to be mixed with others. 
 
82 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 All prisoners, except juveniles, whose sentences do 
 not fall below four months, are on reception examined 
 by the chaplain and divided into classes as under : 
 
 Class I. Those who cannot read Standard I. of the 
 National Society's reading-book. 
 
 Class II. Those who can read Standard I., but have 
 not reached Standard III. 
 
 Class III. Those who have reached Standard III. 
 
 Prisoners in Classes I. and II., whose age does not 
 exceed forty years, receive instruction in reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, subject to conditions. In special cases 
 prisoners above that age may receive instruction. 
 
 Prisoners found to have no capacity for learning, or 
 who are idle, are excluded from instruction, the latter, 
 however, only temporarily; and prisoners previously 
 convicted may, if found advisable, be excluded. 
 
 Prisoners in Class III. receive instruction only in 
 writing and arithmetic, if they need it, but they are 
 furnished with books, together with slate and pencil, to 
 enable them to improve themselves. 
 
 The limits of instruction are : 
 
 Reading, as far as Standard III. inclusive. 
 
 Writing, as far as transcribing a portion of the book 
 read, and reading what has been transcribed. 
 
 Arithmetic, as far as casting simple money accounts, 
 and mental calculation of small money sums. 
 
 Prisoners in Class I. are taught reading collectively 
 in a room or place provided for the purpose. All other 
 teaching is conducted separately in the cells. 
 
 "When a prisoner can read Standard II. with fluency 
 he is allowed a library book in his cell. 
 
 The lessons given to prisoners in their cells are not 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 83 
 
 less than two lessons weekly, of a quarter of an hour each 
 if possible, with an interval of two days at least. 
 
 The collective instruction consist of two lessons 
 weekly, of half an hour each (exclusive of the time 
 occupied in assembling and removing the prisoners), 
 with a like interval. 
 
 All prisoners receiving instruction are tested by 
 actual examination by the chaplain or assistant chaplain 
 on admission, and prior to their discharge, the results 
 of each examination being recorded by the chaplain in 
 his educational register. 
 
 In order to stimulate prisoners to take advantage of 
 these opportunities, those who are in the second and third 
 class, who are by the rules entitled to write a letter, are 
 required to do so for themselves, and not to have letters 
 written for them except in special cases ; and prisoners 
 in the first class on reception may have not more than 
 two letters written for them except in special cases. 
 
 A uniform diet has been established for all prisons, 
 framed with due respect to both scientific principles and 
 practical knowledge. 
 
 There is perhaps hardly any subject of prison treat- 
 ment on which more discussion has taken place and 
 more theories been broached than that of diets. The 
 House of Lords' Committee of 1862 commented on 
 " the total absence of uniformity and the irreconcilable 
 inequalities in the nature and amount of the food given." 
 At that time there was a dietary recommended by the 
 Home Office in 1843, but only 63 out of 140 local prisons 
 adhered to it, and the dietary framed in 1864, in hopes 
 of promoting greater uniformity, were even still less 
 
84 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 successful, for many continued to adhere to the old 
 scale, and the new was adopted only by 26 prisons out 
 of 114. The following instructions were issued to a 
 committee of medical gentlemen practically conversant 
 with prison administration, who were appointed to frame 
 a diet for general adoption : 
 
 Memorandum of Instructions to the Committee ap- 
 pointed to consider and Report upon the Dietaries 
 of Local Prisons. 
 
 They are requested to consider and report on the 
 subject of diets for prisoners in local gaols, with a view 
 to introducing uniformity as far as possible throughout 
 the various prisons in England and Wales. 
 
 They are requested also to frame diets suitable for 
 the various classes of prisoners specified in the Prisons 
 Acts, 1865 and 1877, distinguishing between male and 
 female prisoners, adults and children, and those sentenced 
 with or without hard labour. 
 
 For this purpose they are requested to examine, so 
 far as may be necessary for this inquiry, any diets now 
 in use in the local gaols, and to satisfy themselves by 
 whatever inquiry they think necessary from all available 
 sources of their respective effects upon the health of the 
 prisoners, as well as their relation to discipline, to 
 capacity for work, and to crime. In carrying out this 
 investigation the Committee are requested to bear in 
 mind the want of uniformity that has hitherto existed 
 with regard to labour and discipline. 
 
 To consider whether it is desirable to frame different 
 diets for different districts, or whether the same scale 
 will serve for all districts. 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 85 
 
 To consider whether it is expedient that prisoners 
 sentenced to short periods of imprisonment should be 
 placed on a different diet from that of persons sentenced 
 to longer periods. In the event of the adoption of the 
 principle of variation of diet with length of sentences, 
 the Committee are requested to report whether, in their 
 opinion, prisoners under long sentences should be placed 
 at once upon the dietary belonging to such sentences, or 
 should pass through these successive dietaries belonging 
 to the shorter sentences. 
 
 With respect to employment, the Committee are in- 
 structed that the provisions of the Prisons Act of 1865, 
 by which first-class hard labour is imposed on all adult 
 male prisoners during the first three months of their 
 sentences, can be, and probably will be, altered under 
 the Act of 1877, by limiting that class of labour to one 
 month, and they are requested to consider whether the 
 diets should vary according as the employment is hard 
 or light. In framing or recommending the dietaries for 
 the several classes of male and female prisoners, the 
 Committee are requested to avoid any approach either 
 to indulgence or to excess, but to arrange that the 
 diet shall be sufficient and not more than sufficient 
 to maintain health and strength ; and to consider 
 whether any rules can be laid down for establishing 
 adequate checks upon the practice of ordering extra 
 diets, or for the guidance of medical officers on this 
 point. 
 
 The Committee are desired to ascertain whether any 
 one of the diets now in use is likely to fulfil the require- 
 ments which may be deemed necessary, and whether, if 
 such a diet be found, it would be expedient to recom- 
 
86 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 mend it for general adoption in preference to framing a 
 new scale. 
 
 The Committee are requested to compare the cost of 
 the dietaries, which they may deem it their duty to 
 recommend, with the actual cost of the dietaries now in 
 use (see Judicial Statistics and Reports of the Inspectors 
 of Prisons). 
 
 The Committee are requested to prepare or recom- 
 mend scales of hospital diet for male and female adults, 
 and for boys and girls. 
 
 Also to consider whether, and how far, a reduction 
 in diet can be made to secure the purposes of punishment 
 for prison offences, and under what system. 
 
 In conducting their deliberations on the important 
 subject referred to them, the Committee are requested 
 to keep constantly in view the various influences to 
 which prisoners are exposed, some of which, such as 
 climate and changes of season, are common to all ; while 
 others, such as loss of liberty and the restraints of dis- 
 cipline, are peculiar to the state of imprisonment. 
 
 They are requested, moreover, in preparing their 
 report, to take into careful consideration the various 
 collateral subjects, such as clothing, temperature, hours 
 of labour, sleep, and exercise, which are especially and 
 intimately related to food supply, and which conse- 
 quently exercise an important practical bearing upon the 
 working of prison scales of diet. 
 
 In order to solve the questions put before them, the 
 Committee were under the necessity of inquiring into 
 the truth of various theories which had found more or 
 less acceptance, one in particular, under which it was 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 87 
 
 considered that the depression of mind resulting from 
 imprisonment should be and could be prevented from 
 having an injurious bodily effect by increasing the diet, a 
 theory which, they pointed out, omitted to take into con- 
 sideration that, " in a large number of cases," imprison- 
 ment, as now conducted, is a condition more or less akin 
 to that of "physiological rest," "of freedom of much 
 worry and anxiety," of abundance of rest, with ample 
 warmth and clothing : compensating effects on the bodily 
 condition, even if depression of mind could properly be 
 counteracted by taking in more food. As regards the 
 question of principle raised in the several paragraphs 
 of the instructions above quoted, they say : 
 
 " 1. The first question, as to the expediency of varia- 
 tion of diet with length of sentence, admits, we think, 
 of a ready reply. It appears to us to be a self-evident 
 proposition that imprisonment should be rendered as 
 deterrent as is consistent with the maintenance of health 
 and strength, whatever may be the sentence, and we 
 think that the shorter the term of imprisonment the 
 more strongly should the penal element be manifested 
 in the diet. It is a matter of universal experience that 
 partial abstinence from food for a limited period is not 
 only safe under ordinary circumstances, but frequently 
 beneficial, and we think that a spare diet is all that is 
 necessary for a prisoner undergoing a sentence of a few 
 days or weeks. To give such a prisoner a diet neces- 
 sary for the maintenance of health during the longer 
 terms would, in our opinion, "be to forego an oppor- 
 tunity for the infliction of salutary punishment ; it would 
 constitute an encouragement to the commission of petty 
 crimes ; and, by thus paving the way to indulgence in 
 
88 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 the more serious class of offences, would assist in the 
 manufacture of the habitual criminal. 
 
 " Without dwelling further upon this subject, we may 
 at once say that we accept the principle of variation of 
 diet with length of sentence as being theoretically sound 
 and practically desirable. 
 
 " 2. The question as to whether prisoners under long 
 sentences should be placed at once upon the dietary 
 proper to their class, or should be made to pass through 
 the successive dietaries belonging to the shorter sen- 
 tences, received the careful attention of the Committee 
 of 1864, and, on referring to the report of that Com- 
 mittee, we find that they embrace the principle ' which 
 commends itself to their judgment as most consistent 
 with common sense and common justice, namely, that 
 all prisoners, without exception, shall graduate through 
 the dietaries proper to all the sentences shorter than 
 their own until they reach the dietary proper to their 
 own class.' They consider that the ends of justice are 
 in a serious measure defeated by at once giving the 
 more guilty criminal a diet which is in striking contrast 
 with that received by a prisoner who has committed 
 some comparatively trifling offence, and they recommend 
 that all prisoners shall commence with the lowest diet, 
 unless specially exempted by the medical officer. 
 
 "The Committee appointed in 1867 to inquire into 
 the dietaries of the county and burgh gaols of Ireland 
 entertain a very different view, and express themselves 
 as follows : 
 
 " What has been termed a ' progressive dietary,' in 
 other words, the placing prisoners sentenced to hard 
 labour during the early periods of their incarceration 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 89 
 
 on the lowest scale of food, has been carefully con- 
 sidered. 
 
 " We have no hesitation in saying that such a pro- 
 cedure must be attended with the worst results. 
 
 " It is at the first period of imprisonment that want 
 of liberty is most keenly felt by the prisoner j there 
 may be remorse for the crime committed which led to 
 imprisonment, or chagrin at the detection of that crime, 
 a craving for the too frequent stimulants; in short, 
 everything combines to depress the vital powers j then, 
 if in addition to these, the allowance of food be barely 
 sufficient to sustain life, how can the hard-labour sen- 
 tence be carried out ? The prisoner cannot do the work, 
 health fails, the surgeon is called for, and extra diet is 
 the inevitable result. 
 
 "Notwithstanding, however, that the first Committee 
 embrace the principle of progressive diets as being ' most 
 consistent with common sense,' and that the second 
 stigmatise it as a 'procedure which must be attended 
 with the worst results,' we find, on further perusal of 
 the reports of the two Committees, that the difference 
 between them is not so great as might be gathered from 
 the contradictory character of the opinions just quoted. 
 
 " We have no hesitation in saying that there is some 
 truth in both creeds, and that a middle course between 
 the two is that which will be found most likely to ensure 
 safety and to be conducive to the attainment of the 
 objects in view. 
 
 " The objections usually raised to progressive dietaries 
 are relevant only to cases in which that principle is 
 carried to its fullest extent ; they refer, in fact, only to a 
 particular system by which the principle is applied, and 
 
90 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 not to the principle itself. The advantages of the pro- 
 gressive principle may be retained without incurring any 
 risk of inflicting injury \ and we shall presently point 
 out the means by which this may be effected." 
 
 They say, " The question as to what is ' sufficiency ' 
 in a prison scale of diet, though often discussed, is prob- 
 ably destined never to receive a conclusive and gener- 
 ally convincing answer ; for sufficiency is not a quantity 
 capable of demonstration. There is, at the outset, the 
 defect inherent in all scales, that a uniform diet is given 
 to persons of various age, weight, height, idiosyncrasy, 
 and physical conformation ; but scales will nevertheless 
 be always rendered necessary by the exigencies of 
 administration, not only in prisons, but in fleets and 
 armies, and wherever bodies of persons must be dealt 
 with in the mass. It is the duty of those who are 
 called upon to frame scales of diet to be guided by 
 averages, and it is the duty of those who use them to 
 provide for exceptional cases by special means. The 
 question of sufficiency cannot be dealt with entirely apart 
 from that of cost ; and we conceive that we should ill 
 discharge our functions if we were to lose sight of the 
 fact that prisoners are, to some extent, maintained at 
 the expense of those whom they have injured. We feel 
 that we have a duty to the public which cannot be 
 ignored ; and that it should be our object to meet the 
 just requirements of the prisoners without setting up 
 attractions which would be likely to increase the number 
 of committals." 
 
 They say, " The question raised in the fifth paragraph 
 of our instructions, as to 'whether it is desirable to 
 frame different diets for different districts, or whether 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 91 
 
 the same diet will serve for all districts, has received 
 our very careful consideration, and we have deemed it 
 our duty to collect opinions and information on this 
 subject from various sources. We find that the differ- 
 ences in the diet of free labourers in different parts of 
 the country relate less to nutritive value than to the 
 form in which the nutriment is taken, and that the 
 variations in quantity and relative proportions of nutritive 
 elements and proximate constituents, are not considerable 
 in cases in which the amount of work performed is fairly 
 comparable. The diet of the various classes of mechanics 
 and artisans appears to be but little influenced by 
 locality, and in the ranks above them all such differences 
 vanish. We have failed to discover any such contrasts 
 between different districts as to warrant us in trans- 
 gressing upon that uniformity which our instructions 
 inform us is one of the chief objects to be kept in view. 
 If we were to take existing prison dietaries as our guide, 
 we should in some cases find it necessary to make greater 
 differences between two neighbouring counties than 
 between districts hundreds of miles apart. And if we 
 were to be guided by general impressions as to the 
 manifold requirements of persons who have followed 
 different occupations previous to imprisonment, we should 
 bring about 'irreconcilable inequalities' even more 
 serious than those of which the Select Committee of the 
 House of Lords so much complained. We are told that 
 the operatives of Lancashire have larger appetites than 
 agricultural labourers, and we reply that appetite is no 
 criterion as to what is necessary. We are told that 
 miners consume large quantities of meat, and we reply 
 that they also consume large quantities of beer and 
 
92 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 tobacco, but that we should not for that reason be 
 justified in introducing such luxuries into our dietary. 
 Ironworkers are said to be accustomed to * rich ' food ; 
 on the other hand, the Irish labourer, in Liverpool, looks 
 to bulk, and his ideal dinner is half a stone of potatoes. 
 We should find it extremely difficult to gratify these 
 different tastes, and think that no good object would be 
 attained by any attempt to do so. Hitherto, it has 
 been left to the discretion of the local authorities to 
 act upon the recommendations of the Home Office, or to 
 frame and adopt dietaries of their own, subject, of 
 course, to the sanction of the Secretary of State, and it 
 is worthy of remark that the allowance of meat is, in 
 many cases, less liberal to prisoners in the mining and 
 manufacturing districts than to those drawn from rural 
 populations. We have pointed out at page 18 that the 
 Class V. diet of 1843, which is comparatively rich in 
 animal food, serves as the basis of the diet of the longer 
 terms in a considerable number of prisons ; but that it 
 is adopted without alteration, less in mining and manu- 
 facturing districts than in those in which agriculture is 
 the leading occupation. Taking into careful consider- 
 ation all the information that we have obtained on this 
 subject, we are of opinion that there is nothing in the 
 habits of the classes from which prisoners are chiefly 
 drawn to render it necessary that the diet of any one 
 or more districts within the limits of England and 
 Wales should differ from that of the rest." 
 
 As regards extra diet they say, " We find, on perusal 
 of our instructions, that indulgence and excess are 
 referred to as practices which should be restricted, and 
 we are desired to consider whether any rules can be 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 93 
 
 laid down by which adequate checks upon such practices 
 can be established. 
 
 " We are of opinion that, in some prisons, the dietary- 
 scales now in use are, in certain respects, in excess of 
 actual requirements ; and we would point out that an 
 abatement of this excess would naturally follow from 
 the adoption of a dietary which would be de facto 
 'sufficient and not more than sufficient' to maintain 
 health and strength. We find, however, that inde- 
 pendently of the particular scale of diet adopted, there 
 is an excess which takes the form of ' extra ' diet, this 
 extra diet consisting occasionally of articles sent, out 
 from the hospital, but more generally of an additional 
 allowance of bread, or of the substitution of the diet of 
 one class for that of another. It might, a priori, be 
 expected that the issue of extras would bear some 
 relation to the comparative sufficiency or insufficiency of 
 the regular scale of diet, and so it does, but the relation 
 is the reverse of that which might reasonably have 
 been thought probable. As a general rule, we find that 
 extra diet is given most freely, not in those prisons in 
 which the ordinary scale is relatively scanty, but in 
 those in which it fully reaches the average, or is even 
 above it, and we think that this may, in some cases at 
 least, be explained by the fact that the same consider- 
 ations which have influenced the Governing Committee 
 in the adoption of a comparatively liberal scale have 
 also tended to encourage the executive authorities in 
 liberally setting it at nought. We have no reason to 
 believe that the health of the prisoners in establish- 
 ments in which extras are given with a free hand 
 reaches a higher standard than is attained in prisons in 
 
94 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 which the extras are issued with discrimination, and 
 are limited to strictly exceptional cases. In more than 
 one prison it is the rule to issue extra bread to any 
 prisoner who has lost a few pounds in weight, on the 
 assumption that loss of weight is sufficient proof of 
 impairment of health. We agree with the Committee 
 of 1864 that this assumption must be viewed with 
 suspicion, as resting upon an insecure foundation. The 
 same Committee draw attention to a second assumption, 
 namely, 'that the weight of the body is not greatly 
 affected, in short periods of time, by other than dietetic 
 causes,' and we agree with them that this supposition 
 also can easily be proved to be unsound, and 'that 
 fluctuations in weight bearing no sort of proportion to 
 the increase, decrease, or change of diet by which they 
 were preceded are of constant occurrence.' 
 
 " The test of weight has a certain value when made 
 use of as one among other tests of sufficiency or 
 insufficiency of diet ; but to trust to it alone, and to 
 lose sight of the fact that fluctuations in weight are due, 
 not to one, but to many causes, is unreasonable, and 
 must lead to unnecessary interference with discipline. 
 
 " But although we think that much of the extra food 
 now given is unnecessary, we do not recommend the 
 adoption of any rules which would fetter the action of 
 officers who are responsible for the health and wellbeing 
 of the prisoners under their charge. The medical officer 
 should, in our judgment, continue in possession of the 
 power of recommending the issue of extra diet to any 
 prisoner whose bodily condition or state of health is 
 such as to render it necessary to make some addition to 
 the ordinary diet of his class. We have only to suggest 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 95 
 
 that the grounds on which the increase is made be 
 entered in a journal provided for the purpose, and 
 that in cases in which it is necessary to continue the 
 additional diet for a period exceeding one month, the 
 recommendation be renewed, an entry at the same time 
 being made showing the reason for such renewal The 
 responsibilities of the medical officer would thus remain 
 unaffected, his powers in relation to those who are 
 really in need of his good offices would be increased 
 rather than diminished, and he would from time to time 
 be reminded that any departure from the established 
 scale is in itself undesirable, and should not be recom- 
 mended without good and sufficient reason." 
 
 It is not desirable to encumber this work with details 
 of the actual diet adopted, which can easily be ascer- 
 tained by those to whom it is of interest, but it may 
 suffice to say that there is now one diet for the prisons 
 of the whole of England and Wales, that it is believed 
 to be a better diet than the generality of those formerly 
 in use, and that from this and other causes the health 
 of the prisons is certainly higher ; but that from careful 
 study of the ingredients, the cost of food for prisoners is 
 now less than it used to be. 
 
 The staff of the prisons are, of course, all appointed 
 by the Government, and the formation of all the prisons 
 into one department has had the great advantage of 
 opening out to all the opportunity of promotion offered 
 by the wider area. The antecedents of all candidates 
 are carefully inquired into, the most promising are 
 selected, and these are required further to pass the 
 ordeal of Civil Service examination and inquiry into 
 character. The following admirable order, originally 
 
96 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 issued by Lord Palmerston, for application to the convict 
 prisons, has been extended to the local prisons : 
 
 Whereas it has happened in several instances that officers in 
 the convict service have attempted to obtain their promotion by- 
 means of applications from private friends, and whereas such 
 practices are injurious to the good order and discipline of the 
 service, notice is hereby given that all officers of the convict service 
 must understand that their prospects of promotion must depend 
 on the report their superiors may make as to their qualifications, 
 and as to their conduct in the performance of their duties. Merit 
 and not favour will thus be the ground of advancement, and any 
 officer who may attempt to bring private interest to bear for the 
 purpose of influencing the Directors to promote him will be con- 
 sidered as having disqualified himself for the promotion which he 
 may thus have sought to obtain. 
 
 In sanitary matters, especially in regard to construc- 
 tion, prisons were certainly a great deal in advance of 
 other establishments, public or private, and the construc- 
 tion of the prison at Pentonville in 1840, as a model for 
 all others, has resulted in a high standard being main- 
 tained throughout this country. But the natural conse- 
 quence of the local prisons being under so many inde- 
 pendent authorities, of whom many did not appreciate 
 the full importance of the subject, and few were likely to 
 possess knowledge on it up to the highest level attained, 
 was that they did not keep abreast of advancing experi- 
 ence. It became the duty, therefore, of the newly- 
 formed Prison Department to remedy all these defici- 
 encies, and to complete the replacing of the old style of 
 prisons by those of most modern design, where the local 
 authorities had failed to do so. 
 
 A large proportion of the prisoners who form the 
 population of our prisons are of diseased and impaired 
 constitutions, victims of dirt, intemperance, and irregu- 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 97 
 
 larity, and the sins of the fathers in these respects are 
 visited on the children " to the third and fourth genera- 
 tion." The accurate medical examination of these on 
 reception, the cleansing of them and their clothing 
 from vermin and dirt, the due apportionment of labour, 
 and, in many cases, their immediate medical treatment, 
 have necessitated the provision of proper reception 
 buildings, apart from the rest of the prison, where 
 these processes can be carried on, and risk of carry- 
 ing infection into the prison obviated. The hospital 
 accommodation has had to be improved, and separate 
 wards for contagious diseases provided, and gener- 
 ally the medical service of the prison much im- 
 proved. 
 
 A Committee was appointed shortly after the com- 
 mencement of the Act to decide what form of penal 
 or first-class hard labour should be adopted for general 
 use, and the result was that the tread -wheel has been 
 generally introduced. The task of tread-wheel work has 
 been also made uniform, and now instead of a prisoner 
 having in one prison to ascend 7200 feet in a day, and 
 12,852 in another, all have to perform the uniform task 
 of 8640 feet, at the rate of 32 feet ascent per minute dur- 
 ing a period of six hours, divided into two equal portions, 
 in which they work by spells of fifteen minutes' labour 
 and five minutes' resting. 
 
 The Commissioners soon observed the necessity for 
 providing quarters for the warders, etc., in proximity to 
 the prison, and especially the necessity of doing so in 
 towns where the rents are high, and the officers likely 
 to be thrown into undesirable contact with a certain 
 class of the population in their search for lodgings within 
 
 H 
 
98 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 their means. Considerable progress has already been 
 made in this direction. 
 
 A general inquiry into the security of the prisons 
 has led to the removal of many defects which careless- 
 ness or inexperience had allowed to grow up. 
 
 In the designing and execution of all these building 
 works an undeniable economy, both of power and money, 
 has attended the transfer of this duty to the Govern- 
 ment ; for instead of each local authority employing its 
 own architect (paid by commission on the expenditure), 
 whose plans had to be approved by the Surveyor- 
 General before they could be carried out (a process 
 involving trouble and correspondence, and not always 
 ensuring good results), the responsibility is thrown 
 direct on the Surveyor -General himself; and instead 
 of contractors and paid labour being universally 
 employed, very considerable use is made of the 
 prisoners' labour in the buildings and repairs, so that 
 it is estimated that the expenditure in buildings 
 has produced results which would have cost 50,000 
 per annum more than they actually have under the 
 present system. In this department also the concentra- 
 tion of experience and responsibility has had and must 
 continue to have the result of bringing all prisons in 
 this most important matter up to the standard of the 
 highest j but in one respect the Government is at present 
 at a great disadvantage. If a local authority determined 
 to rebuild its prison, or execute any important work 
 connected with it, they could, with Treasury sanction, 
 borrow the money and do the work at once, and spread 
 the repayment over thirty years. This system is not 
 permissible for the Government without a special Act 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 99 
 
 of Parliament, and if many of the local authorities had 
 not during many years continuously made great efforts 
 to furnish themselves with the best type of prison 
 buildings, but had left it for Government to do, it may 
 be doubted whether the country would in any reasonable 
 time havo been in so good a position as it actually is in 
 regard to prison buildings. 
 
 The objects which the Prisons Act, 1877, was in- 
 tended to secure were two, viz. the application to all 
 prisoners, wherever confined, of a uniform system of 
 punishment, devised to effect in the best method that 
 which is the great object of punishment, viz. the repres- 
 sion of crime ; and economy in the expenses of prisons. 
 It may not have been intended to place the administra- 
 tion of prisons under authority more effectively respon- 
 sible to public opinion than the numerous bodies of 
 local justices could be ; but it has no doubt had this 
 further effect, for every occurrence in a prison may now 
 become a subject of discussion in Parliament. 
 
 It is difficult, indeed impossible, to make such com- 
 parisons of the statistics of prisons before and after 
 1878 as should eliminate all causes but those which 
 have flowed from the Act of 1877, and so to show the 
 results of that Act. Some measures have come into 
 force of late years which would tend to increase the 
 prison population, such as the penal clauses of the 
 Education Act, of various Local Acts empowering the 
 enforcement of by-laws by imprisonment, and of the 
 Licensing Acts and the Prevention of Crime Acts; others 
 to decrease it, as the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, 1879, 
 which gave power to inflict fines for some offences in- 
 stead of imprisonment, and allowed magistrates to give 
 
100 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 time for payment of a fine, and made it in some cases a 
 civil debt, in others reducing the scale of imprisonment 
 in default. The closing of several military prisons in 
 1 869, and the committal of some of the soldiers sentenced 
 by court-martial to local prisons, increased the population 
 of the latter somewhat, and the re -establishment of 
 military prisons in 1880-81 diminished it similarly; 
 but these reservations are only necessary so far as to 
 indicate that the figures which mark the great improve- 
 ment which has taken place of late years must be con- 
 sidered as illustrating, but not precisely measuring, the 
 results of the Act. 
 
 The following is a brief comparative summary of 
 various important features in regard to the condition of 
 the local prisons before the Prison Act, 1877, came into 
 operation, and at the present time : 
 
 1. The number of prisons has been reduced from 
 
 113 to 59, while the gross amount of prison 
 accommodation is only reduced from 27,392 to 
 about 23,089. 
 
 2. The number of the staff has been largely dimin- 
 
 ished, and the cost of the staff, and of the 
 maintenance of the prisons, has been reduced. 
 
 This diminution in the staff and its cost is the more 
 noteworthy, because the cost of staff under the local 
 authorities rose continuously from 1857, when it was 
 179,791, to 239,247 in 1878, when it was handed 
 over to the Government; and these amounts did not 
 include all the emoluments (valued at several thousands) 
 of the officers concerned. 
 
IV.] 
 
 MODERN PRISONS. 
 
 101 
 
 Statement showing the reduction in the number of 
 Superior Officers of Local Prisons and of the gross 
 value of their Salaries and Emoluments. 
 
 
 Gover- 
 nors. 
 
 Chap- 
 lains. 
 
 Medical 
 Officers. 
 
 Ma- 
 trons. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Re- 
 duction. 
 
 On taking over /Number . . 
 tin- local pri-J 
 sons in April] Salaries and 
 1878. V emoluments 
 
 When new ar- /'Number . . 
 rangements 
 
 are completely-^ Salaries and 
 carried into emoluments 
 effect. V. 
 
 Ill 
 49,110 
 
 59 
 22,673 
 
 118 
 22,895 
 
 u 
 
 15,286 
 
 112 
 13,605 
 
 59 
 11,596 
 
 110 
 10,183 
 
 56 
 5,347 
 
 446 
 95,793 
 
 233 
 54,922 
 
 ni 
 
 
 MLTM 
 
 -54,922 
 
 40,871 
 
 There is, therefore, a saving of 40,871 per annum 
 in the salaries of superior officers, of which nearly 
 all has been already realised. It must be noted 
 that this has been effected concurrently with an in- 
 crease in the expenses due to the improvement of 
 the position of the medical staff. An increase of charge 
 due to the general payment of Roman Catholic priests, 
 amounting to 1207, is not taken into account in 
 these figures. 
 
 The subordinate staff has also been diminished some- 
 what by the concentration of prisons, but has been 
 increased by the addition of a school staff through- 
 out, and by additions to the clerical staff, prisoners 
 not being allowed now in the offices, so that on this 
 point the change has had its result in improved admin- 
 istration rather than in any marked financial saving. 
 
 A considerable reduction in the charge for ordinary 
 
102 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 repairs has, of course, followed on the reduction 
 in the number of prisons. That item from 1857 
 to 1877 averaged 21,500 per annum. Since then 
 it has averaged 11,425 per annum. It is, of course, 
 possible that, under the local authorities, some ex- 
 penditure may have been charged to this item which 
 should not strictly have been so classified ; and, on the 
 other hand, it is known that items of considerable 
 magnitude did not pass through the prison books, and 
 so were not recorded in the returns from which the cost 
 of prisons in former years is ascertained. 
 
 It will easily be understood that the reduction in the 
 number of prisons must have resulted in a saving in 
 fuel and light, but the total cost of these items is so 
 much influenced by the market prices of the year and 
 the character of the season that it is impossible to say 
 how much effect the closing of prisons alone has had j 
 but some instances of the result of careful supervision 
 may illustrate the effect of this consequence of the 
 Prison Act. 
 
 The consumption of gas in seven prisons has, by care, 
 been reduced from 15,009,710 feet to 12,673,400 feet 
 in a year. This would amount for these few prisons to 
 nearly 300 per annum. 
 
 The consumption of coal and coke in six prisons 
 has been reduced in like manner from 5833 tons to 
 5238 tons. This would amount to about 240 a year. 
 
 At one large prison, by concentrating the cooking 
 and baking arrangements, and also by reorganising the 
 steam boilers and engines and by other improvements 
 of that nature, a saving of 886 per annum in fuel and 
 staff has been effected. 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 103 
 
 As one of the instances of the saving which has 
 resulted from the system of administration introduced 
 after the Prison Act, may be mentioned an economy in 
 conveyance of prisoners sentenced to penal servitude. 
 Under the local authorities each prison sent its prisoners 
 to the convict prisons without any reference to what 
 other prisons might be doing, and consequently single 
 prisoners, accompanied by two warders, constantly 
 came up from distant prisons, although some adjoining 
 prisons had men to send up who might conveniently 
 have been taken charge of by the same escort. The 
 Commissioners have adopted a plan of collecting the 
 prisoners of each locality in certain centres and send- 
 ing them all together periodically. It is anticipated 
 that there will be a saving of some hundreds of pounds 
 a year in travelling by this arrangement, which could 
 not have been adopted except under present con- 
 ditions. A saving in hiring officers to replace those 
 on escort will also follow. 
 
 In the matter of cost a comparison between one 
 year and another is so much affected by fluctuating con- 
 ditions, such as the price of provisions, etc., and the 
 number of prisoners, that such comparisons require a 
 great deal of correction ; moreover the accounts of cost 
 before 1878 are most imperfect and unsystematic. Mak- 
 ing, however, the best of our material, and taking the 
 aggregate or the average of a number of years, it is 
 found that the gross total expenditure from 1st April 
 1878 till 31st March 1885, and of a corresponding 
 number of years preceding 1877, exclusive in both cases 
 of certain items which do not properly enter into the 
 comparison, is as follows : 
 
104 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 Under local 
 authority 
 
 Under govern- 
 ment . . . 
 
 1870-71 
 
 
 456,760 
 
 1871-72 
 
 
 452,100 
 
 1872-73 
 
 
 479,990 
 
 1873-74 
 
 
 484,659 
 
 1874-75 1875-76 
 
 
 474,719 J 485,479 
 
 1876-77 
 
 
 496,870 
 
 Total of 
 7 years. 
 
 
 3,330,577 
 
 1878-79 
 
 
 396,352 
 
 1879-80 
 
 
 450,956 
 
 18S0-81 
 
 
 437,074 
 
 1881-82 
 
 
 386,113 
 
 1882-83 i 1883-84 
 
 
 400,729 389,791 
 
 1884-85 
 
 
 381,400 
 
 
 2,842,455 
 
 There has been already, therefore, an economy amount- 
 ing to hard upon half a million of money, in spite of 
 certain increases of expenditure for the improvement of 
 the service. Moreover a large number of valuable sites 
 occupied by unnecessary prisons have been set free for 
 more useful purposes. 
 
 3. The religious needs of the Roman Catholic 
 
 prisoners have been more generally provided 
 for by the more extended employment of paid 
 Roman Catholic priests. 
 
 4. A uniform treatment and discipline has been 
 
 applied to all prisons founded on the most 
 approved experience. 
 
 5. A uniform and improved dietary has been intro- 
 
 duced into all prisons, and the means of cooking 
 have been much improved where necessary ; 
 while the diet is better, though less costly, and 
 improved supervision tends to prevent waste. 
 
 6. Sanitary requirements have received considerable 
 
 attention ; and less money, by a considerable 
 amount, is spent in medicine. 
 
 All prisoners are, of course, completely cleansed in 
 their persons and so far as possible, the clothes of all are 
 washed before their discharge, besides being disinfected 
 and freed from vermin. A somewhat remarkable illus- 
 tration of the domestic condition of the criminal popula- 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 105 
 
 tion, tending to show a close connection between a low 
 moral and a low social condition, is afforded by a report 
 of the "sanitary danger arising from the exceedingly 
 dirty condition of a large number of prisoners on their 
 reception, both as respects their bodies and their 
 clothes." The governor of Clerkenwell prison reported 
 that he found extreme difficulty, notwithstanding the 
 most strenuous care and precaution, in guarding against 
 vermin ; that prisoners are received covered with lice, 
 so that they drop off going down the passage ; and that 
 he had been told by a prisoner that he had broken a 
 window in order to get into prison to be cleansed of 
 his vermin. 
 
 7. The yearly average death-rate for the five and a 
 
 half years ended 31st March 1878 was 10*8 per 
 1000, while for the six years ended 31st March 
 1885 it was 8*2 per 1000. 
 
 8. The yearly average number of suicides in the five 
 
 and a half years ended 31st March 1878 was 
 17*6, while in the six years ended 31st March 
 1885 it was 13*8. 
 
 9. The yearly average number of cases in which 
 
 corporal punishment was inflicted in the five 
 and a half years ended 31st March 1878 was 
 in 3 per 1000, while for the six years ended 
 31st March 1885 it was 9*8 per 1000. 
 
 10. The yearly average number of cases in which 
 dietary punishment was inflicted in the five and 
 a half years ended 31st March 1878 was 40,770, 
 while fcr the six years ended 31st March 1885 
 it was 19,820, and much fewer in late years, 
 
106 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 since the system of progressive stages has been 
 more fully taken advantage of. This diminution 
 in the number of cases of this class of punish- 
 ment has been effected notwithstanding that the 
 severity of these punishments has been dimin- 
 ished both by the Act and by orders. 
 
 11. A greater variety of employment has been intro- 
 duced, many new industries being now followed 
 in substitution of that of mat-making, and sup- 
 plies for prison use and buildings formerly fur- 
 nished by free labour and contract are now made 
 by prison labour. 
 
 12. The accounts have been established on a clear 
 and uniform system, the necessary stocktakings 
 and other proper checks against misappropria- 
 tion have been introduced. The employment of 
 prisoners as clerks a most undesirable feature 
 of the former management, adopted no doubt 
 from motives of economy, has been put an 
 end to. 
 
 13. The amount of money granted for aid to pris- 
 oners on discharge has been increased from a 
 yearly average of 3801 to 7280. The grants 
 to prisoners through the direct agency of the 
 Aid Societies is fixed, provided that certain con- 
 ditions are fulfilled, at 4000, as compared with 
 a yearly average of 1791, which was formerly 
 given by local authorities through those insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 The concentration of administration of all prisons 
 has made it possible to collect certain statistics showing 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 107 
 
 the general flow and disposal of the prison population 
 to be as under from an average of six years : 
 
 The average number at the beginning of the 
 
 year has been 18,033 
 
 Number received yearly .... 193,485 
 
 Number removed to convict and other local 
 
 prisons, schools, and reformatories . . 8,125 
 Discharged on pardon or commutation, license, 
 termination of sentence, or commitment 
 
 and bailed after committal . . . 185,504 
 
 Removed to lunatic asylum .... 164 
 
 iped ....... 5 
 
 Died from natural causes .... 152 
 
 Committed suicide 14 
 
 Executed 12 
 
 They also show the fluctuation of crime in different 
 months and different years, which may be of use in 
 tracing the causes of crime, indicating the means of 
 diminishing it, and testing the success of those which 
 may be adopted. They certainly dispel certain in- 
 correct ideas on the subject, for it has been very com- 
 monly alleged that crime prevails in the winter months, 
 when employment is less plentiful and the comfort 
 afforded by a prison acceptable, than in the summer. 
 This is shown to be as far from the truth as it is 
 possible to be, for taking the prison population as 
 the measure of the prevalence of crime, it is found from 
 combining into an average the observation of seven years, 
 that while the prison population is about the same in 
 June and December, it is always above that number 
 from June to December, and always below it from 
 December to June ; it rises to its highest point about 
 October and falls to its lowest about February; the 
 highest population of the year is about 600 above the 
 
108 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 June and December level, and the lowest is 1000 
 below it, making a total difference between October 
 and February of 1600 prisoners, or about 10 per 
 cent. 
 
 The fluctuations in the average population of pris- 
 oners, during a term of years, measured in the same way, 
 are very remarkable. I have been able to obtain accu- 
 rate statistics from 1851, and have compared the average 
 fluctuations of pauper population with that of the 
 prisons. There does not appear to be any correspond- 
 ence between the two if the outdoor and indoor pauper 
 population combined are considered, but a remarkable 
 coincidence for a term of years, and an equally remark- 
 able divergence afterwards is revealed if the indoor 
 pauper population are compared with the prison popu- 
 lation. Both fell from 1851 to 1853, and both then 
 commenced to rise. The pauper population attained its 
 summit, and commenced falling in 1856, the criminal 
 did the same in 1857; both fell till 1860, and then 
 commenced rising; both rose till 1863, and then com- 
 menced falling; both then fell till 1866, and then 
 commenced rising. The criminal population rose till 
 1869, the pauper population rose till 1870, after these 
 dates both fell. In 1872 commenced a complete 
 divergence after twenty years of complete correspon- 
 dence, for at that date the pauper population continued 
 its downward course till 1876, while crime continued 
 to rise till 1877, and at these two dates the pauper 
 population began to rise and the prison population 
 to fall. The rise in the pauper population continued 
 till 1883, as did the fall of the prison population, and 
 only after the latter year did the direction of the fluctua- 
 
iv.] MODERN PRISONS. 109 
 
 tion again correspond, for in that year both the pauper 
 and the criminal population fell. 
 
 During the part of the present year, 1885, which 
 has yet passed, the prison population has touched and 
 continued at a lower level than we have ever known 
 it ; and, in fact, whereas the prison population was, the 
 day after the prisons were transferred to Government on 
 2d April 1878, 20,442, and in June 1878 the highest 
 known, so far as can be ascertained, viz. 21,030, it has 
 since almost continuously fallen until, in February 1885, 
 it has touched the lowest figure known, viz. 15,484, and 
 on 2d June 1885 it was 15,733; and there is this satis- 
 factory feature about the present condition of affairs, that 
 the prison population has for several years successively 
 continued at a low level, which it never has done before. 
 In fact statistics show that generally the prison popula- 
 tion has alternately risen and fallen during periods of 
 three years ; and we should therefore have expected that 
 the fall which commenced in 1878 would have continued 
 till 1881, and then been followed by a rise till 1884, but 
 in fact the numbers have either continued low or fallen 
 lower during all the seven years following 1877. 
 
 It certainly seems justifiable to infer from these 
 figures that our penal reformatory system has been 
 made effective ; and the remarkably steady and sustained 
 decrease in our prison population of late years must be 
 considered to show that recent legislation with which it 
 so remarkably coincides in point of time has in principle 
 and in execution not only completely succeeded in its 
 object of promoting uniformity, economy, and improved 
 administration, but also in that which is the main 
 purpose of all, the repression of crime. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 That particular form of imprisonment with hard labour 
 which is termed " penal servitude " has a different his- 
 tory to that of ordinary imprisonment, and the present 
 system cannot be understood and appreciated without a 
 knowledge of the transportation system from which it is 
 derived. The following sketch of its development is 
 taken mainly from an article furnished by me to the 
 Nineteenth Century, and here republished by permission. 
 
 It was not established to accord with any h priori 
 reasoning, nor to suit abstract theoretical principles, but 
 has grown up, like most other English institutions, by 
 successive alterations and improvements which have been 
 made in accordance with the varying circumstances of 
 the country and the demands of public feeling, and may 
 be considered the result of the thought and deliberation 
 of some of our greatest statesmen, guided and assisted 
 by the experience of those whose practical connection 
 with the subject has enabled them to study it in the 
 way in which alone reliable information can be gained 
 and sound opinions can be formed. 
 
 The Parliamentary reports and correspondence pub- 
 lished by Government during the period of transporta- 
 
chap, v.] TRANSPORTATION. Ill 
 
 tion give a vast deal of information as to the working 
 of our system of secondary punishments throughout that 
 period, especially that of the Select Committee of 1838. 
 This was a remarkable epoch in the history of the sys- 
 tem, as it was then that it had received its greatest 
 development, so far as respects the number of persons 
 subjected to it the number of offenders who were sent 
 out of the country in 1834 having been 4920, falling 
 gradually to 3805 in 1838. The total number of con- 
 victs sent to Australia during the continuance of the 
 system was 134,308. 
 
 The foundation, or earliest phase, of the punishment 
 appears to have been simply exile or banishment, which 
 required only departure from the realm, but without 
 assigning any particular locality, and attended with no 
 compulsory labour. Compulsory banishment is expressly 
 forbidden by Magna Charta ; but, when it was offered 
 as an alternative against something worse, of course 
 many offenders were glad to accept it, as it were volun- 
 tarily. To the felon who had taken sanctuary the choice 
 of self-banishment was offered with the condition that 
 the hanging he had escaped would be inflicted if he did 
 not depart speedily, or in case he should ever return. 
 The right of sanctuary afterwards came to include the 
 privilege of living within the precincts of the place of 
 sanctuary, free from molestation, to a specified number of 
 persons, but was put an end to by statute in the reign 
 of James I. (though for another century it existed as 
 against civil process in defiance of law), and conse- 
 quently the system of self-banishment, as founded on 
 it ; but before that time, exile or banishment, as it was 
 termed, had been legally established. 
 
112 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 In the reign of Henry VIII. crime appears to 
 have increased to such an alarming extent as to call 
 for special and severe measures of repression. It is said 
 to have been due to the pauperism which followed the 
 abolition of the monasteries ; but as the monasteries 
 merely changed hands, falling into possession of laymen 
 or others, who no doubt continued whatever useful re- 
 munerative work the monasteries had carried on, it is 
 not easy to see how the measure can have created such 
 poverty, unless it was that the funds of the monasteries 
 maintained troops of idlers, who, when their means of 
 subsistence without working were withdrawn, resolved 
 themselves into " great thieves, petty rogues, and vaga- 
 bonds." But, whatever may have been the cause, there 
 is no doubt of the existence of a very great deal of 
 crime, or of the severe measures taken to repress it. 
 
 In the reign of Queen Elizabeth other means were 
 resorted to. The passing of poor laws was designed to 
 remove the temptation to crime presented by extreme 
 and hopeless poverty, and the fulness of the prisons 
 was relieved by banishing those who were subject to 
 such punishment. According to the best authorities, 
 banishment was introduced as a punishment by the 
 Legislature in the thirty-ninth year of Elizabeth, the 
 expense of the banishment to be paid by the counties 
 and boroughs. The same Act encouraged the establish- 
 ment of houses of correction by justices and private 
 persons, on the model of the Bridewell Hospital, a palace 
 near Blackfriars, given by Edward VI. to the City of 
 London, and endowed by him as a lodging-house for the 
 tramps of those days, and for the correction of vagabonds, 
 harlots, and idle persons, and for finding them work. 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 113 
 
 " Transportation " was introduced in the reign of 
 Charles II. , and might be inflicted (1) by the justices 
 at their quarter sessions on incorrigible rogues, vaga- 
 bonds, and sturdy beggars ; (2) by one justice on an 
 offender convicted a third time of attending an illegal 
 prayer-meeting ; (3) by the justices of assize on the moss- 
 troopers of Northumberland and Cumberland. The Act 
 18 Charles II. cap. 3, is to the effect that "benefit of 
 clergy shall be taken away from great known and noto- 
 rious thieves and spoil-takers in Northumberland and 
 Cumberland, or otherwise that it shall be lawful for the 
 justices of assize, etc., to transport, or cause to be trans- 
 ported, said offenders into any of His Majesty's dominions 
 in America." This Act was continued by 17 Geo. II. 
 till 24 th January 1751. Persons on whom this punish- 
 ment was inflicted were at first bound to transport 
 themselves, under penalty of hanging if they failed to 
 do so ; but in this case, as it always will be, a heavy 
 penalty does not compensate for uncertainty of detec- 
 tion, and it was soon found necessary to contract with 
 some person to carry off the transported offenders, the 
 contractor being remunerated by acquiring a right to 
 the labour of the criminals for the duration of their 
 sentences. The practice was legalised in 1717 by 4 
 Geo. I. cap. 2, an Act which authorised transportation 
 as a substitute for other punishments besides that of 
 hanging. The preamble and general tenor of this Act 
 are to the following effect : 
 
 That the present laws are not effectual to deter from crime ; 
 that many offenders to whom the royal mercy hath been extended 
 upon condition of transporting themselves to the West Indies, 
 have often neglected to perform the said condition, but returned 
 to their former wickedness, and been at last for new crimes brought 
 
114 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 to a shameful ignominious death. And whereas, in many of His 
 Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, there is great want of 
 servants, etc., he it enacted . . . that any person convicted of any 
 offence for which he is liable to be whipt or burnt on the hand, or 
 shall have been ordered to any workhouse . . . may be sent to 
 some of His Majesty's colonies and plantations in America. . . . 
 And the court before whom he is convicted shall have power 
 to convey, transport, or make over such offenders to any such 
 person as shall contract for the performance of such transportation, 
 and to his assigns, for such term of years as the Act empowers, 
 and they shall have property and interest in the service of such 
 person for such term of years. Offenders returning before expira- 
 tion of term to be liable to death. The king may pardon an 
 offender sentenced to such transportation, the offender paying his 
 owner. Contractors to give security for performance of contract, 
 and to obtain certificate from the governor of the colony of hav- 
 ing fulfilled it. 
 
 Transportation was established, therefore, as a kind of 
 slave trade, and offenders were put up to auction and 
 sold for the period of their sentences by the person who 
 had contracted to transport them. It is stated that, at 
 one time, the rate was about 20 per head. Some- 
 times the contractor released them on payment of a 
 sum of money, and it was said that some contractors 
 who shipped their convicts at Bristol landed some of 
 them on Lundy Island, a- few miles down the channel. 
 
 It seems that the trade was not without its risks as 
 a commercial speculation. The gaols in which the 
 prisoners had been confined were so unwholesome, and 
 probably the transport ships themselves so crowded and 
 unclean, that the mortality in the cargo was sometimes 
 very considerable. Howard, in his State of Prisons, 
 referring to the many instances he had seen of prisoners' 
 toes rotting from their feet, quotes a letter from Messrs. 
 Stephenson and Kandolf, of Bristol great contractors 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 115 
 
 for transport convicts complaining of this to Mr. 
 Biggs, gaoler at Salisbury, in a letter dated 13th Sep- 
 tember 1774, thus : "Sore feet prove very fatal. The 
 mortality we met with in our last ship, if repeated in 
 this, will so surfeit us that we shall never take another. 
 We lost an immense sum by them, and our ship is de- 
 tained to this moment under quarantine." It appears 
 also that some who were sentenced to transportation 
 were detained in prison ; for Howard mentions one man 
 sentenced to transportation in 1774 who was still in 
 Dolgelly gaol in 1782, others in Newcastle and Morpeth 
 gaols in 1773-76. In course of time, also, the con- 
 tractors found competitors in the African slave dealers, 
 so that, in order to meet their risks, they demanded and 
 received from the county local authorities a payment 
 for each criminal they carried out. Howard, in his 
 State of Prisons, gives the sum paid to each gaoler for 
 expenses of conveyance from the prison, and payment 
 " supposed " to be received by the contractor for trans- 
 porting, which vary from a few shillings to twelve 
 pounds per head, indicating that the practice was not 
 uniform ; but the expense seems to have all been borne 
 by the local jurisdictions until the days of transportation 
 to Australia, or till the establishment of the hulk system 
 in England by 16 Geo. III. cap. 43, and following 
 Acts, which enact that the expense of these establish- 
 ments should be provided by Parliament 
 
 The American colonies, especially Barbadoes, Mary- 
 land, and New York, steadily protested against their 
 country being made the receptacle for outcasts of this 
 description, and the propriety of sending them either to 
 the East Indies or to Africa was discussed, but without 
 
116 PUNISHMENT k PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 result. Time arrived, however, in 1776, when the 
 difficulty could no longer be postponed. The war of 
 American independence, of course, put an end to trans- 
 portation 'so far as that continent was concerned, for 
 the Government did not think it proper to continue to 
 the loyal colonies an infliction which they could no 
 longer force the independent provinces to submit to. 
 The Government of that day thus found themselves 
 face to face with two problems of extreme difficulty, the 
 solution of which did not readily present itself, and which, 
 as the sequel will show, they succeeded only in post- 
 poning. The first problem was that of providing prison 
 accommodation for the large number of prisoners 
 estimated by Mr. Eden, in 1778, to number 1000 
 annually who henceforth could no longer be sent to 
 the old penal settlements, and who would accumulate 
 year by year till a vast total was reached. The second 
 was that of so dealing with these accumulated outcasts, 
 that either by fear of the punishment, or change of dis- 
 position, or in some other way, they should be as little 
 dangerous to society in England, when the time came 
 for their discharge, as they would be if they had been 
 removed by transportation to a life of better oppor- 
 tunities and fewer temptations in the backwoods of 
 America. 
 
 To solve the problem of providing prison accom- 
 modation, Acts of Parliament were passed enjoining the 
 justices throughout the country to provide buildings 
 for increased numbers in the bridewells or houses of 
 correction where it was proposed to place the criminals 
 sentenced to transportation and to retain them under 
 severe discipline, as a separate class, and subject to 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 117 
 
 hard work. To provide for the confinement of offenders 
 pending the more permanent arrangements contemplated, 
 16 Geo. III. cap. 43 authorised their being imprisoned 
 in hulks, and two old hulks at Woolwich were con- 
 verted into prisons where convicts, employed in various 
 works connected with the harbour, dockyard, and 
 arsenal, might be lodged; 1 and, as the justices did not 
 comply with the injunctions as to enlarging the houses 
 of correction, additional hulks were afterwards provided 
 at the other royal dockyards. The hulk system was 
 established as a mere temporary expedient the per- 
 manent system was (see 19 Geo. III. cap. 74) intended- 
 to be that of confining the prisoners in penitentiaries 
 so built as to afford a separate cell to every inmate. In 
 these penitentiaries they were to be compelled to labour 
 in association, and to be subjected to religious and reform- 
 atory influences ; and, if the penitentiary system had 
 been adopted then instead of the hulk system, it is 
 impossible to tell the amount of crime and corruption 
 that would have been avoided, or the benefit that might 
 have resulted both to England and her colonies. The 
 course adopted, however, was that which is not un- 
 frequently preferred when the choice lies between an 
 easy temporary expedient and one involving difficulties 
 in execution, though more permanently useful j and if, 
 in addition to being easy, the temporary course has also 
 the recommendation of being for the moment cheaper, 
 
 1 They commenced the conversion of the Warren into the present 
 Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. A newspaper of September 1777 says, 
 in language which has no tinge of modern humanitarianism, "The 
 place where the convicts are now at work is enclosing on the land side 
 with a brick wall, so that spectators will soon (if not already) be 
 barred the sight of those miserable wretches on the land side, except 
 at a distance. " 
 
118 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 hardly any considerations of solid advantage will en- 
 able the better recommendation to prevail. The peni- 
 tentiaries were not built, but the hulk system was 
 continued, improved no doubt by subsequent Acts of 
 Parliament. By 19 Geo. III. cap. 74 it was made a dis- 
 tinct punishment, which a court might inflict for certain 
 crimes punishable by transportation ; imprisonment in 
 the hulks from one to five years being the equivalent of 
 seven years' transportation, and (not exceeding) seven 
 years in the hulks the equivalent of fourteen years' 
 transportation. 
 
 The temporary expedient adopted in 1776 lasted be- 
 tween eighty and ninety years, for it was not finally 
 put an end to in England until the burning of the 
 Defence hulk at Woolwich, in July 1857, caused the 
 removal of the convicts first to the Unite' hospital ship 
 at Woolwich, and afterwards to Lewes gaol in September 
 of the same year, and ultimately the establishment of 
 the invalid convict prison at Woking, in March 1860. 
 In fact, it had its representative until the convict prison 
 at Gibraltar was closed in 1875 ; for that prison was 
 constructed after the model of a hulk prison, its hospital 
 was a hulk, and many of the greatest evils of the hulks 
 remained in full activity in it until the last. What the 
 system must have been at its commencement and long 
 after, the neglect or ignorance which must have pre- 
 vailed throughout the whole arrangements, may be seen 
 by reference to the official literature of those times. 
 Howard called attention to the condition of the hulks as 
 regards the health of the prisoners, and a public inquiry 
 showed that between August 1776, when the convicts 
 were first put on board the Justicia, and March 1778, 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 119 
 
 out of 632 prisoners who had been received 176 had died. 
 The population of this hulk in 1779 was 256 ; and, if this 
 represents the average of the above years, the mortality 
 was above 30 per cent per annum. Howard, in 1792, 
 remarks the great improvements caused by this public 
 inquiry; nevertheless, from July 12th 1776 to 12th 
 December 1795, a period of nineteen and a half years, 
 out of 7999 convicts sent to the hulks, 1946, or nearly 
 one-fourth, died, mostly of "hulk fever." The inquiries 
 thus set on foot in due course produced their fruit, 
 though not, perhaps, as soon as could have been desired ; 
 but there is no doubt that in attention to sanitary con- 
 struction and management prisons were many years in 
 advance of any other institutions. As a contrast to the 
 figures given above, it may be stated that the mortality 
 in English convict prisons for males is now about 1 3 per 
 1000 per annum; that epidemics originating in the 
 prisons have for many years been quite unknown, and 
 that if any such disease finds its way in from outside, it 
 is speedily arrested and disappears without spreading. 
 
 In regard to morals and discipline, it is difficult to 
 realise anything worse than the hulk system must have 
 been during a great part of its continuance. Every evil 
 prevailed on board these prison ships that can be sup- 
 posed to arise from the unchecked association of men of 
 foul lives and unrestrained passions, with no more 
 restraint tha^ was enforced by gaolers of a very inferior 
 class, with extremely imperfect ideas of discipline. The 
 following extracts from the Eeport of the Committee of 
 the House of Commons, in 1832, on secondary punish- 
 ments, show clearly the state at which matters had 
 arrived at that period : 
 
120 PUNISHMENT & PRETENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 The great principles which your Committee have endeavoured to 
 establish are the necessity of a separation of criminals, and of a 
 severity of punishment sufficient to make it an object of terror to 
 the evil-doer. In both these respects the system of management 
 in the hulks is not only necessarily deficient, it is actually opposed 
 to them. All that has been stated of the miserable effects of the 
 association of criminals in the prisons on shore, the profaneness, 
 the vice, the demoralisation, that are its inevitable consequences, 
 applies in its fullest extent in the case now under consideration. 
 The convicts, after being shut up for the night, are allowed to have 
 lights between decks in some ships as late as ten o'clock ; that, 
 although against the rules of the establishment, they are permitted 
 the use of musical instruments ; that flash songs, dancing, fighting, 
 and gaming take place ; that the old offenders are in the habit of 
 robbing the newcomers ; that newspapers and improper books are 
 clandestinely introduced ; that a communication is frequently kept 
 up with their old associates on shore, and that occasionally spirits 
 are introduced on board. It is true that the greater part of these 
 practices is against the rules of the establishment, but their existence 
 in defiance of these rules shows an inherent defect in the system. 
 The convicts are also permitted to receive visits from their friends, 
 and, during the time they remain, are excused working, and it is 
 stated that instances are frequent of their exemption from labour 
 being extended to several days at the request of their friends. 
 It is obvious that such communication must have the worst effect ; 
 it not only affords an indulgence to which no person in the situation 
 of a convict is entitled, but it allows the most dangerous and 
 improper intercourse to be kept up with old companions, from 
 whom it is most important to disconnect them. The most 
 assiduous attention on the part of the ministers of religion would 
 be insufficient to stem the torrent of corruption flowing from these 
 various and abundant sources ; but, unless the evidence of these 
 witnesses is utterly unworthy of belief, it appears that but little 
 attention is paid to the promotion of religious feelings, or to the 
 improvement of the morals of the convicts, and that, except for a 
 short time on Sunday morning, the chaplains have no communi- 
 cation whatever with them. 
 
 The Committee are of opinion that too much money is placed at 
 the disposal of the convicts ; as, in addition to any which, on 
 coming on board, they may conceal about their persons (and which 
 it appears there is no difficulty in doing), and to what they may 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 121 
 
 receive from their friends, an allowance is made out of the earnings 
 of their labour of 3d. per day to those in the first class, and l|d. to 
 those in the second. Of this the convicts in the first class receive 
 6d., and those in the second 3d. per week, to lay out in the 
 purchase of tea, tobacco, etc., and the remainder is reserved, and 
 given to them when they are liberated from confinement. 
 
 This short sketch of the manner in which a criminal sentenced 
 to transportation for crimes, to which the law affixes the penalty 
 of death, passes his time, which portrays him well-fed, well-clothed, 
 indulging in riotous enjoyment by night, with moderate labour by 
 day, will prepare the House for readily believing that confinement 
 on board the hulks fails to excite a proper feeling of terror in the 
 minds of those who are likely to come under its operation. The 
 minutes of evidence furnish ample testimony that the hulks are not 
 dreaded ; "that life in them is considered a pretty jolly life ; " and 
 that if a criminal can conquer the sense of shame which such 
 degradation is calculated to excite, he is in a better situation than 
 a large proportion of the working classes who have nothing but 
 their daily labour to depend on for a subsistence. 
 
 It may be doubted whether, in the days when the 
 hulk system existed, either the Parliament or the 
 Government understood or felt their duties and respon- 
 sibilities in the matter ; but there can be no doubt that 
 the arrangements they made contained no evidence that 
 they either foresaw or cared to prevent the results which 
 actually followed. The hulks were at first placed under 
 the Local Justices ; the overseer was appointed by them, 
 and the other officers by the overseer ; the maintenance 
 of the establishment was committed to a contractor (38 
 per annum per convict was the charge in 1776, which is 
 actually much above the cost of a convict in these times), 
 and, with reckless ignorance or indifference, the con- 
 tractor was made overseer, carrying out, in fact, the idea 
 of white slavery on which the previous transportation 
 system had been founded. An Inspector of the hulks 
 
122 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 was provided for in the Act of Parliament, but was not 
 appointed until 1802. His duty was to report to the 
 Court of King's Bench, who evidently steadily neglected 
 to exercise any control ; and it was not till after succes- 
 sive encroachments on the part of the Secretary of State, 
 ratified afterwards by Act of Parliament, that any direct 
 control over these establishments was exercised at all on 
 the part of Government. The Inspector was (1815) 
 succeeded by a Superintendent of the hulks, who was in 
 fact a clerk in the Secretary of State's office. This 
 office was abolished in 1847, and for a short interval the 
 duty of management of the hulks was performed by " a 
 Person" with an unnamed office, until in 1850 the 
 Board of Directors of Convict Prisons was constituted, 
 under which all these institutions have since remained. 
 At the period when this fatal temporary expedient of 
 hulks was adopted, an opportunity offered for reviving 
 the transportation system in another continent, and 
 under entirely different conditions. Fortunate would it 
 have been if these differences had been so understood, 
 and the science of penology so far advanced, that the 
 system established could have been worked without the 
 enormous evils which ultimately developed themselves. 
 The first attempt made was to found a penal settlement 
 in Sierra Leone, but this was abandoned very soon on 
 account of the unsuitability of the climate to the European 
 constitution. The eastern coast of Australia, which had 
 been discovered by Cook in 1770 in his first voyage 
 round the world, was next fixed on as the site of a new 
 penal colony, and on the 13th of May_1787 the first 
 expedition, taking 184 males and 100 females in four 
 transports, started from Spithead under Commodore 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 123 
 
 Phillips, and arrived at Botany Bay after a voyage of 
 eight months, including one spent at Eio. The settle- 
 ment was actually formed at Port Jackson, about five 
 miles from Botany Bay, 26th January 1788. 
 
 The average number transported yearly up to 1816 
 was only 474, the total number during those thirty 
 years being 14,236. It is clear from the smallness of 
 this number as compared with the number (1000) for 
 whom Mr. Eden in 1778 estimated we should have to 
 provide, and the numbers subsequently transported to 
 New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, which 
 averaged in the next twenty-one years about 3000 per 
 annum, and amounted in the year 1834 to 4920, that 
 during these first thirty years our penal system was 
 that of the hulks as much as that of transportation. 
 Accumulation in the hulks was prevented by very 
 freely remitting the sentences. 
 
 The Committee of 1838 thus speak of the new trans- 
 portation system as compared with that which had 
 existed previously : 
 
 The offenders who were transported in the past century to 
 America were sent to communities, the bulk of whose population 
 were men of thrift and probity ; the children of improvidence were 
 dropped in by driblets among the mass of a population already 
 formed, and were absorbed and assimilated as they were dropped in. 
 
 In New South Wales, on the contrary, the community was com- 
 posed of the very dregs of society of men proved by experience to 
 be unfit to be at large in any society, and who were sent from the 
 British gaols, and turned loose to mix with one another in the 
 desert, together with a few taskmasters who were to set them to 
 work in the open wilderness, and with the military who were to 
 keep them from revolt. 
 
 The consequences of this strange assemblage were vice, immor- 
 ality, frightful disease, hunger, dreadful mortality among the 
 settlers. The convicts were decimated by pestilence on the voyage, 
 
124 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 and again decimated by famine on their arrival ; and the most 
 hideous cruelty was practised towards the unfortunate natives. 
 
 Such is the early history of New South Wales. 
 Many of the evils certainly might have been provided 
 against, whereas the evils of the hulk system were 
 inherent in it and unpreventible. It has now been 
 recognised that one of the most important and indis- 
 pensable elements of proper prison discipline is a proper 
 construction of the prison, and this could by no 
 ingenuity be attained by any adaptation of an old hulk; 
 and, moreover, the authorities in those days did not 
 try. If they provided for the secure custody of the 
 prisoners, they considered they had done all that was 
 necessary; and they did not attain any remarkable 
 success even in this department. A review of the 
 transportation system as it was actually carried out for 
 many years shows clearly that the only ideas which pre- 
 vailed among those who framed and carried out the 
 system were (1) to get rid of the convict as cheaply as 
 possible, or to keep him as profitably in a pecuniary 
 point of view, and with as little expenditure as possible ; 
 (2) to make the punishment as deterrent as severity 
 could make it, and as the human frame could endure. 
 The very notion of reformation seems hardly to have 
 entered into the thoughts of anybody able to give effect 
 to it. The results produced by this kind of treatment, 
 as shown by the condition to which it brought those 
 who were subject to it, would be hardly credible if they 
 did not stand officially recorded on the most indubitable 
 testimony ; and it will serve a useful purpose to record 
 them now, because from time to time we see a tendency 
 to undervalue reformatory influences, and to rely solely 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 125 
 
 on severity and repression in dealing with our criminals 
 a feeling which perhaps may take its rise from a 
 natural reaction produced by the idea that an exaggerated 
 sentimentality has in its turn prevailed in our system of 
 punishment. 
 
 The penitentiary system, which, as has been stated 
 above, was in 1779 decided on as that which should be 
 definitely established, did not emerge from the region of 
 talk until Millbank Prison was built (1816 to 1821) 
 after an expenditure of 458,000. Imprisonment in 
 the penitentiary was, like imprisonment in the hulks, 
 at first intended as a separate sentence instead of trans- 
 portation ; they both became subsequently places for 
 the confinement of prisoners under sentence of transport- ' 
 ation, in some cases serving there the whole period of 
 punishment (which was not by any means the whole 
 period of the sentence, for an irregular system of 
 pardons was instituted with a view to shortening the 
 periods of detention to those laid down in 1779 as 
 equivalent to various terms of transportation), in others 
 making there only a stay of greater or less duration 
 previous to the voyage to the antipodes. Those who 
 were destined to the latter fate were put for the voyage 
 on board a convict ship, in which, from the nature 
 of the case, they were all mixed up in close contact and 
 companionship, with the most imperfect supervision ; 
 and here, of course, commenced the process of mutual 
 corruption, which necessarily followed from the scarcely 
 restrained intercourse of persons the majority of whom 
 were of depraved or evil habits. 
 
 The following description of life in a convict ship on 
 its voyage out to Australia is derived from an account of 
 
126 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 what occurred on board the Hillsborough, in which Dr. 
 Vanderkemp, with three Moravian missionaries, sailed 
 in 1798 for New South Wales : 
 
 About 240 of these miserable creatures were chained in pairs, 
 hand to hand or leg to leg, with no light but what came in at the 
 hatchways. At first the darkness of the place, the rattling of the 
 chains, and the dreadful imprecations of the prisoners, suggested 
 ideas of the most horrid nature, and combined to form a lively 
 picture of the infernal regions. Besides, in a short time a putrid 
 fever broke out among the convicts, and carried off 34 before the 
 ship reached the Cape, and the ship became loathsome beyond 
 description. 
 
 It was long indeed before the Government recognised 
 its duty to provide every convict ship with a religious 
 instructor or catechist, an improvement first made by 
 Sir James Graham on the suggestion of the Bishop of 
 London (Blomfield). Bibles were furnished for the use 
 of the prisoners, no doubt, but they were not apparently 
 always turned to exactly the purpose they were intended 
 for. On one occasion the convicts were found to have 
 procured a pack of cards to beguile the time, and it 
 turned out that these cards were made by pasting 
 together several leaves of the Bibles, and the artist who 
 designed the court cards had managed to make the four 
 knaves into excellent likenesses of the captain and other 
 superior officers. While mentioning the riot and dissi- 
 pation of which these ships were the scene, it is fair to 
 recall one remarkable instance in which the convicts 
 gave most welcome support to authority viz. on the 
 occasion when the convict guard of Irish soldiers rose 
 in mutiny and attempted to take the ship, when the 
 convicts were actually armed, and kept the guard in 
 custody until the arrival of the ship in some place where 
 authority could be established. 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 127 
 
 When the first consignment of convicts went to New 
 South Wales in 1787 their labour was of course de- 
 voted to raising crops for their own future sustenance, 
 constructing the necessary buildings, and making a 
 commencement of opening up the country. A few of 
 them were set free and received grants of land. An 
 expedition was also sent to Norfolk Island, with a view 
 to growing flax, and subsequently 200 convicts were 
 sent there. This station was abandoned on account of 
 the difficulty of landing there, and the prisoners removed 
 to Van Diemen's Land, but in 1824 re-established as a 
 penal settlement. To Van Diemen's Land, at the 
 mouth of the Derwent, were also removed the convicts 
 who had been sent to form a settlement at Point Nepean, 
 Port Phillip, in 1803, which it had become necessary 
 to abandon on account of the badness of the situation 
 selected by Colonel Collins, who founded it. It is 
 recorded that, during the short time the settlement 
 existed, some of the prisoners escaped ; one named 
 Buckley was never retaken, but he reappeared in 1835, 
 after thirty-two years' wandering among the blacks, hav- 
 ing forgotten his own language. The necessity for 
 providing fresh settlements for the large numbers of 
 convicts who were sent out, and perhaps a desire to 
 forestall the French by taking possession of all parts of 
 the continent, led, in 1826, to the formation of a penal 
 station at King George's Sound under Major Lockyer ; 
 but this was abandoned in 1829. The convicts as a 
 body were idle and negligent ; they quarrelled with and 
 ill-used the natives, and some endeavoured to escape 
 inland, under the impression that they would be able to 
 walk to China. The hand of the Government fell 
 
128 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 heavily on those who disturbed the order of the com- 
 munity, whether convicts or free men. Six soldiers 
 were hanged at one time for making a false key to open 
 a store, and a convict was flogged for pretending to 
 have discovered a gold mine. Whether this was alto- 
 gether a pretence, or whether rather he may not have 
 merely failed to prove his alleged discovery to the satis- 
 faction of the authorities, is, with our present knowledge 
 of the richness of the colony in gold, a fair subject of 
 doubt. When subsequently a certain number of free 
 persons began to establish themselves by emigration to 
 the colony, and to become employers of labour, a system 
 was introduced of assigning the convicts to these em- 
 ployers as practically their slaves. A decision of the 
 judges in New South Wales, founded on 9 Geo. IV. 
 cap. 83, s. 9, established that the assignee had a free- 
 hold in the person of the convict, and that the Govern- 
 ment could not arbitrarily revoke the assignment. A 
 portion, however, were still retained in the service of 
 the Government for the execution of public works, roads, 
 etc., and, as the system developed, a portion were sent 
 to " penal settlements," in which those who were con- 
 sidered exceedingly bad characters were detained under 
 a more severe and repressive discipline. 
 
 In giving an account of the manner in which trans- 
 portation was carried out in the Australian colonies, it 
 would be very tedious and not very practicable to 
 describe in detail all the variations embodied in the 
 successive regulations. Each governor who came out to 
 rule the settlement seems to have modified the arrange- 
 ments according to his own ideas ; some were exceed- 
 ingly severe, others leant to mildness and humanity. 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 129 
 
 Few probably, if any, had any experience before taking 
 up their duties, and they were without that control or 
 assistance which arises from a well-regulated and in- 
 structed public opinion. To these causes, as well as to 
 the difficulties of the situation and the diversion of 
 attention caused by the great war, must be attributed 
 many of those regulations and arrangements which we 
 now know to have been mistakes, and to have led at 
 last to the great increase of crime, and the scandals 
 reported from the colony which forced the matter on 
 the attention of the public and the Government. One 
 doctrine, which certainly struck at the root of the 
 attempt to found a well-regulated community, was that 
 which was laid down by Governor Macquarie, in 1809, 
 that the colony was founded for the sake of the con- 
 victs and not for emigrants, and that therefore the 
 former should be entirely on an equal footing with the 
 latter. The two classes were therefore encouraged to 
 associate socially together ; the ex-convicts were placed 
 in situations of trust, such as jurymen and even magis- 
 trates j and other situations in which character should 
 be of the first importance were filled by the " emancipist" 
 class, such as schoolmasters, clerks in public offices, 
 police, etc. 
 
 The system must have been very costly, for in 1810, 
 by which time only 9000 convicts had been sent out to 
 New South Wales, the total population of the colony 
 was only 10,500, of which 7000 were still convicts, and 
 4000 persons were still fed wholly or partly from the 
 public stores. Up to this time the employers of labour 
 were few, and the demand for labour therefore much 
 below the supply of convicts who had to be disposed of, 
 
 K 
 
130 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 and it was therefore found necessary to tempt settlers 
 to take convicts as their assigned servants by the grant 
 of certain indulgences, such as free gifts of land in 
 proportion to the number of convicts assigned. About 
 that time, however, the suitability of the colony for 
 wool-growing became established. The peace of 1815 
 enabled men to direct their time, attention, and money 
 to projects of emigration ; and in course of time the 
 colonists became so desirous of obtaining the services of 
 the convicts, that the assignment of a valuable convict 
 became a matter of solicitation of the authorities, and 
 led to jobbing and favour which was not put an end to 
 till about 1835. Sir G. Arthur in Van Diemen's Land 
 superseded the Board who had till then conducted the 
 assignment, and appointed a sworn commission to act 
 under distinct regulations framed to ensure the fair 
 working of the system. Until employers could be found 
 for the convicts, the males were retained in barracks, 
 the females in penitentiaries, and employed for the public 
 benefit ; and Sir George Arthur instituted a plan of 
 retaining the most valuable servants, such as mechanics, 
 in the hands of Government, and hiring them out, for 
 the profit of the public, to private employers. Those 
 convicts who came out with very bad characters were 
 also retained by Government, and not allowed at once 
 the advantages of assignment. The convicts unassigned 
 were ultimately divided into six classes, according to 
 their character and conduct, the highest enjoying some 
 partial liberty, the lowest working in irons and in the 
 penal settlements. 
 
 On the satisfactory fulfilment of a certain period of 
 servitude on assignment or in Government employment, 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 131 
 
 a convict could receive a ticket -of- leave, by which he 
 became virtually free in the colony for the rest of his 
 sentence, but was under certain restrictions, such as being 
 confined to a certain district, unless he received a pass 
 to go out of it, being obliged to muster yearly or quar- 
 terly, being prohibited from carrying firearms, except by 
 special permission, etc. This indulgence was first legal- 
 ised by 9 Geo. IV. cap. 83, the granting of tickets-of- 
 leave previously being merely a regulation of the 
 Government, and not sanctioned by any positive law ; 
 and it was regulated by 2 & 3 Will. IV. cap. 62, s. 2," 
 which enacted that the least period in which it could be 
 gained was by serving four years for a sentence of seven 
 years, six years for a sentence of fourteen years, and 
 eight years for a sentence for life, in assigned service or 
 Government employment; but these periods could be 
 increased by misconduct of any kind. Free pardons 
 were also granted to a fourteen years' man after two- 
 thirds of his sentence had expired, and to a life man 
 after twelve years. An application by a convict who 
 had held a ticket-of-leave for six years without interrup- 
 tion, with good conduct, and who was recommended by 
 respectable people in the colony, was usually transmitted 
 for the gracious allowance of the Crown. It may be 
 inferred from an answer given by Sir R Bourke (see 
 App. C, No. 41, p. 234 of the Report of 1838), that, 
 before the regulation of the periods of service laid down 
 in the above Act, the convicts were granted tickets-of- 
 leave to some extent, at the discretion of the Govern- 
 ment, and on application from " influential persons in 
 England." 
 
 The assigned servants were required to live under 
 
132 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 their employer's roof, were not allowed to work for 
 themselves, or to be out at night, or to go anywhere 
 without a pass. It is clear that these rules were not 
 enforced, for convicts were allowed to go and lodge in 
 Hobart Town for three or four days in the week on 
 condition of working for the master for the remainder ; 
 and the masters in some cases encouraged them to evil 
 courses by allowing them entire freedom on condition of 
 their bringing them from time to time a share of any 
 money they could gain. The employers were not bound 
 to do more than provide them with the necessities of 
 life, in the way of food, clothing, etc., on a very liberal 
 scale. To those whose services they were especially 
 desirous of retaining, they found it necessary, however, 
 to give some wages and indulgences, besides shutting 
 their eyes to their irregularities and those assigned 
 servants who had no wages considered themselves en- 
 titled to compensate themselves by pilfering from their 
 masters. 
 
 It is clear that to these men the punishment of a 
 sentence of transportation consisted simply in their 
 being converted into slaves to a private employer for 
 such they were differing only from slaves of the 
 ordinary kind, that their master had only a temporary 
 and personal property in them, and that he could not 
 punish them himself, but must complain to a magistrate, 
 who could order them to be flogged or condemned to 
 work on the roads, or in the chain gang, or otherwise 
 dealt with. A single magistrate had power to order 
 150 lashes until 1833, when he was limited to 50. 
 "In 1834 the number of convicts in Van Diemen's 
 Land was about 15,000, the summary convictions 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 133 
 
 amounted to about 15,000, and the number of lashes 
 inflicted was about 50,000. On the other hand, a con- 
 vict, if ill treated, may complain of his master, and if he 
 substantiate his charge, his master is deprived, of his 
 services ; but for this purpose the convict must go before 
 a bench, sometimes one hundred miles distant, composed 
 of magistrates, most of whom are owners of convict 
 labour. Legal redress is therefore rarely sought for, 
 and still more rarely obtained by the injured convict." 
 The employers, however, did not find corresponding 
 difficulties in getting the law enforced against their 
 convict servants. On the contrary, the facility they 
 enjoyed is exemplified in the story of a convict having 
 been sent with a note requesting that the magistrate 
 would be kind enough to order him to be flogged and 
 returned. 
 
 It is curious to contrast the figures which represent 
 the convict population of the country about that period 
 and at the present time and the amount of corporal 
 punishment found necessary to keep them under control. 
 The convict population of Great Britain, with its popu- 
 lation of about 15,000,000, then consisted of 43,000 
 convicts in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, 
 besides others in the penal settlements ; the convicts in 
 ten hulks in Great Britain, of which the usual number 
 was stated in 1828 to be 3000 or 4000; several hun- 
 dreds in the penitentiary at Millbank ; about 900 (in 
 1838) at Gibraltar, and probably as many or more at 
 Bermuda, about 50,000 in all. This large number is 
 represented now by less than 9000 from our population 
 of nearly 27,000,000 to whom should be added, say, 
 2000 on ticket-of-leave. The corporal punishments in- 
 
134 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 flicted among all these prisoners number on an average 72 
 per annum, which is to be compared with the 158,000 
 lashes assigned by the Committee of 1838 as the number 
 inflicted in one year in New South Wales and Van 
 Diemen's Land. It may be added that the executions 
 in New South Wales, on an average of the ten years 
 ending with 1837, amounted to 65 free and 26*2 bond 
 persons, out of a population which numbered, in 1836, 
 77,096, of which 25,254 were male, and 2577 female 
 convicts, or 327 in the whole of the ten years. 
 
 Two fatal evils attended the assignment system, from 
 the very necessity of the case. First, the result on the 
 character of the employer of having almost despotic 
 power over the persons of his fellow men and women, 
 evinced, as stated by Sir R. Bourke, in an insolent, un- 
 charitable, imperious, haughty, and violent conduct, 
 approaching to inhumanity. Second, the corresponding 
 moral result on the convict, and the great inequalities 
 in the degree of punishment each individual suffered, 
 varying, as it must have done, with the character of the 
 employer, the position of the convict with regard to 
 him, and the nature of the employment he was put to. 
 The system had separate and special evils with regard 
 to the women convicts. Being mostly of depraved 
 characters originally, their vicious propensities cultivated 
 and developed in the transport ships and the factories 
 or penitentiaries, where they lived in free association, 
 and exposed on their release from prison to temptations 
 and opportunities which it was almost impossible for 
 them to resist, they became irredeemably profligate for 
 the most part ; the respectable settlers avoided receiving 
 them as assigned servants ; and they came, therefore, 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 135 
 
 into the hands of the lower class, many being, it was 
 said, notoriously maintained as prostitutes. Other evil 
 results attended the system, not from being inherent to 
 it, but from the manner in which it was carried out, 
 and its intention evaded. It was said to be well under- 
 stood before 1832 that convicts sentenced to transporta- 
 tion arranged that, shortly after arriving in the colony, 
 they should be assigned to persons with whom they had 
 an understanding, and became, in fact, their masters. 
 One flagrant case illustrates this point. A man was 
 transported for robbing a bank. The plunder was suc- 
 cessfully concealed, though the man was taken. His 
 wife brought it out with her, the convict was assigned 
 to her as a servant, and the intended punishment for 
 his crime became, of course, a most successful invest- 
 ment of the proceeds of it. 
 
 Convicts who offended against the laws or regulations 
 of the colony might be sentenced to work on the roads 
 with or without irons, or to be transported to a penal 
 settlement. There were several of these places at vari- 
 ous times, as at Newcastle, Port Macquarie, etc., but in 
 1838 there were only two for New South Wales, viz., 
 Norfolk Island for men only, where in 1837 there were 
 1200, and Moreton Bay for males and females, which 
 contained, in 1837, 300. The penal settlements for 
 Van Diemen's Land were Norfolk Island, Macquarie 
 Harbour, and Tasman's Peninsula, or Port Arthur, where 
 there were, in 1835, 1173 convicts, and there had been 
 others, which were abandoned about 1833. At these 
 places they were not assigned as servants (except a few for 
 the Government officers), but were kept at severe labour, 
 felling trees, making roads, etc., in single or double 
 
136 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 irons. For a long time but one idea seems to have 
 prevailed in the management of these settlements, viz. 
 that of grinding severity. No appeal was made to the 
 moral feelings, no hope held out to the convict, no reli- 
 gious feeling awakened or instilled into him. Mere 
 brute force alone was relied on; and, with a fatally 
 mistaken view of economy, convicts were employed as 
 overseers men, no doubt, generally of low moral tone, 
 who could not gain that peculiar influence which is 
 exerted by those for whom a respect can be entertained. 
 Removal to these places came, therefore, to be much 
 dreaded. The extreme severity, and the disorders and 
 crimes of the foulest nature which were committed there, 
 aroused such horror among the convicts themselves, and 
 their condition appeared to them so hopeless, that Sir 
 R. Bourke stated that he had abundant reasons to sus- 
 pect that capital crimes had been committed on Norfolk 
 Island, from a desperate determination to stake the 
 chance of capital conviction and punishment in Sydney 
 against the chances of escape which the passage might 
 afford to the accused or to the witnesses. 1 To remove 
 this motive a criminal court was established in the 
 island. Unnatural crime prevailed so extensively in 
 Norfolk Island that Sir G. Gipps estimated that one- 
 eighth of the whole were guilty of it ; and Mr. Mackon- 
 ochie could not put the proportion lower than one- 
 thirtieth. Murder seems also to have been rife, so that 
 a discharged convict replied to a question about a certain 
 murder : "I have seen so many that I do not know which 
 you refer to. I have seen msn cut up in barracks just as 
 you would cut up meat. I have seen 21 men executed 
 1 See Report, 1832, p. 30. 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 137 
 
 in a fortnight" for murders committed at Moreton 
 Bay, brought on by the severity of the system under 
 which they were treated. 
 
 More direct methods of procuring their release from 
 these places were of course attempted. Several mutinies 
 occurred at the penal settlements, in which officers and 
 prisoners were killed. Norfolk Island was, about 1826, 
 taken by convicts. In 1834 another mutiny took 
 place, in which 9 convicts were killed, and 11 subse- 
 quently executed. The Rev. Dr. Ullathorne says that 
 when he went into the gaol and announced the names 
 of those who were to die, one after another, as their 
 names were pronounced, dropped on their knees and 
 thanked God that they were to be delivered from that 
 horrible place, the others standing mute. The fatal 
 effect of attempting to escape does not seem to have 
 entirely prevented endeavours to do so. From the for- 
 mation of the establishment at Macquarie Harbour, 
 3d January 1822 to 16th May 1827, there were 116 
 such attempts. Of these 75 were supposed to have 
 perished in the woods, 1 was hanged for murdering and 
 eating his companion, 2 were shot by the military, 8 
 are known to have been murdered, and 6 eaten by their 
 companions, 24 escaped to the settled districts, 13 of 
 whom were hanged for bushranging, and 2 for murder, 
 making 101 of the 116 who came to an untimely end. 
 
 As the idea of reforming the convicts does not seem 
 to have entered into the minds of those who framed the 
 transportation system, and as no chaplains seem to have 
 been appointed even to the hulks till after 1802, it is not 
 very surprising that no kind of provision was *made for 
 religious ministrations or instruction to those who were 
 
138 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 first sent out ; but, as the expedition to Botany Bay in 
 1787 was on the point of sailing, an appeal was made 
 to those in authority, and, through the intercession of 
 the Bishop of London, the Eev. Eichard Johnson was 
 appointed chaplain. No church or chapel was built, 
 however, for six years ; and so little did those in autho- 
 rity consider it their duty to set any example in attend- 
 ing service, that it was not until 1825, after an attempt 
 to enforce attendance by a system of duress and punish- 
 ment had failed to bring more than five or six persons 
 together for the purpose, that the Governor, Sir R. 
 Darling, began regularly, with his lady and family, to 
 attend divine worship on Sundays. Up to 1807 there 
 was only one chaplain for the settlements, excepting for 
 six years out of the nineteen, when there were two, and in 
 1803 a Roman Catholic priest, who was a convict, was 
 set free to enable him to exercise his clerical functions. 
 Many of the road parties and chain gangs were visited 
 only occasionally by a chaplain, and some not at all. 
 Till the year 1836 the settlement of Norfolk Island had 
 never been visited by a chaplain except once in 1791. 
 
 In 1836 this subject engaged the serious attention 
 of the authorities, both in the colonies and in England, 
 and in consequence Acts were passed to facilitate the 
 building of churches and chapels and the appointment 
 of ministers, and the Home Government took on itself 
 its share of the expense of paying and sending out 
 ministers and schoolmasters of various denominations, 
 to provide for the spiritual and educational care of the 
 population for whom they were responsible. 
 
 The alarming increase of crime, which, measured by 
 the number of criminals convicted, had doubled between 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 139 
 
 1817 and 1831, led to the appointment of a Committee of 
 the House of Commons in the latter year. As it appeared 
 from their investigations that transportation was not 
 sufficiently dreaded as a punishment ; orders were given 
 by Mr. Stanley, in 1833, that in future all hardened 
 criminals should serve a large portion of their sentences 
 either in a penal settlement or in a road gang before 
 being assigned to private service, and that the class of 
 " gentleman convicts," whose prosperous condition was 
 thought to be an incentive to crime through the reports 
 of it which reached England, should all be sent to penal 
 settlements, so that they might not escape punishment 
 by the collusive arrangements for their assignment 
 already referred to. 
 
 The Committee of 1838 entirely condemned the 
 system of transportation as it had been carried on, as 
 being unequal, without terrors to the criminal class, 
 corrupting to both convict and colonist, and very expen- 
 sive ; and they recommended punishment in peniten- 
 tiaries instead. Lord Glenelg began by modifying the 
 system of transportation and assignment, directing that 
 all convicts should first pass through the course of penal 
 labour in labour gangs, and that none should be assigned 
 for domestic service or for purposes of mere luxury. 
 The Government also decided that a larger proportion 
 of the duration of the sentence should be passed in this 
 country, to send more convicts to Bermuda (a mere hulk 
 establishment, formed in 1824, and not a place in which 
 convicts were assigned or discharged at the end of their 
 sentences, as in Australia), and to try and improve the 
 discipline in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. 
 In 1840 transportation to New South Wales was stopped 
 
140 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 entirely, and in 1842 a convict (hulk) establishment was 
 opened at Gibraltar, as an addition to the means of 
 retaining convicts, under control, on Government works 
 before sending them to make their own living in 
 Australia. 
 
 In IjyjL Lord Stanley framed the improved system 
 which was intended thenceforth to be followed, in which 
 assignment of convicts had no place whatever. It was 
 termed the Probation System, and was based on the 
 idea of passing convicts through various stages of 
 control and discipline, by which it was hoped a pro- 
 gressive reform would be effected in them, and a desire 
 to do well stimulated by ensuring that such conduct 
 should be followed by improvement in their condi- 
 tion. The first stage was the probation gang in Van 
 Diemen's Land, through which all convicts transported 
 were to pass, with the exception of a few who will be 
 referred to. These gangs were scattered over the 
 colony, and employed on public works, under the 
 control of Government, wherever their services might 
 be required. A schoolmaster or a clergyman was to be 
 attached to each. From thence the convict passed into 
 the stage of probation pass, during which he might, 
 with consent of Government, engage in private service 
 for wages, but, according as their conduct had been in 
 the probation gangs, they were required to pay in to 
 Government a part or the whole of their earnings, to be 
 retained as a security, and to be forfeited if the pass- 
 holder misconducted himself, and they were subjected to 
 other restrictions giving them only a modified liberty. 
 The next stage was that of ticket -of- leave, which gave 
 the same privileges as under the assignment system. 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 141 
 
 The last stage was that of a conditional pardon. But 
 for convicts of whom greater hopes of reformation were 
 entertained, and for those who, on the other hand, were 
 considered of deeper criminality, other stages were 
 added. The first, comprising selected men of not more 
 than seven years' sentence, were to pass a preliminary 
 period, not exceeding eighteen months, in a penitentiary 
 in this country, and, according to their conduct in this 
 stage, to be placed on their arrival in Australia in either a 
 probation gang, or on probation pass, or on ticket-of-leave. 
 The convicts under life sentences, or those whose crimes 
 were of an aggravated nature, and who had been sen- 
 tenced to fifteen years or more, were to commence with 
 the penal discipline of Norfolk Island. 
 
 Pentonville Prison was opened in December 1842 to 
 afford means (with Millbank) of applying that part of 
 the system which was to be carried out in England. 
 
 The probation system was, in principle, a great 
 advance on anything that had been done before. It 
 made a great step towards establishing the separation 
 of the prisoners while under punishment, which is the 
 foundation of our penal system, and, besides recognising 
 the necessity of moral and religious teaching, it laid 
 down rules for general and systematic application, 
 founded on the idea of encouraging convicts to self- 
 restraint and good behaviour it appealed generally to 
 higher feelings than fear, and endeavoured to secure 
 discipline by other means than severity and brute force. 
 It also introduced a certainty into the amount of punish- 
 ment which any convict would undergo, which was 
 entirely wanting in the assignment system. But it had 
 hardly been founded before it broke down from two 
 
142 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 causes one, that suitable means had not been provided 
 for ensuring proper order in the probation gangs. They 
 were herded together in huts under conditions which 
 resembled sufficiently that of the prisoners in the hulks 
 to ensure the same evils prevailing in them. The 
 officers in charge of the gangs were of inferior qualifica- 
 tions, a large number were convicts, and, on the whole, 
 these gangs were characterised by insolence, insubordi- 
 nation and prevailing vice, unnatural crime being proved 
 to exist to a terrible extent. The other was that the 
 demand for labour in the colony was found to be quite 
 insufficient to enable the " probation pass " and " ticket- 
 of -leave " stages to be carried into effect, and this 
 difficulty reacted on and increased extremely the one 
 above referred to ; for it became necessary to establish 
 " hiring gangs," in which the convicts were maintained 
 by Government and employed on Government works 
 until they could find masters, and in these, of course, 
 the evils of the probation gangs prevailed to an equal 
 degree. The stations, no doubt, varied in degrees of 
 badness, but some descended so low that Governor 
 Latrobe could describe them as distinguished by "utter 
 abandonment of all order and decency." 
 
 Under this condition of things it became very doubt- 
 ful whether the new system was really any improve- 
 ment on the old, for assignment, as was argued, at least 
 secured the advantage of dispersion of most of the 
 convicts, with the chance that many would fall into 
 good hands and adopt a respectable mode of life, 
 whereas the gangs became nurseries of vice, and the 
 moral and religious teaching which was rendered possible 
 by their being kept together was quite counteracted by 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 143 
 
 the condition in which they lived; nor were the re- 
 ligious teachers of a sufficiently high order for the work 
 they had to perform. 
 
 Other evils arose from the details of the working of 
 the system. Orders were given that the gangs were 
 not to be employed on works of merely colonial or local 
 advantage unless the colony paid for them, which they 
 did not care to do. It became therefore exceedingly 
 difficult to find employment for the convicts at all, and 
 the gangs therefore became characterised by " excessive 
 idleness." The arrangements also by which it was 
 intended to ensure the Government retaining more 
 control over the passholders, viz. allowing only short 
 engagements, etc., were found troublesome by the em- 
 ployers, and therefore created an additional obstacle in 
 the way of their finding private situations. A new 
 system, such as this was, required, in short, to be 
 developed gradually; but so far was this advantage 
 from being secured, that the numbers poured into Van 
 Diemen's Land during the five years ending with 1845 
 amounted to nearly 17,637, more than double the 
 number sent in the previous five years, and the provision 
 of suitable buildings (that all-important necessity in 
 dealing with convicts) or the securing of efficient officers, 
 who could not possibly fulfil their duties without 
 some training, especially under the new ideas of 
 endeavouring to reform the convict, was, of course, 
 impossible. The emergency created by this failure in 
 the anticipations on which the probation system was 
 founded was so great that it was necessary to adopt 
 temporary means of fulfilling the promises held out to 
 those convicts who had been selected for the training of 
 
144 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 Pentonville ; and the best conducted men were sent to 
 Port Phillip and New South Wales as exiles, instead of 
 with tickets-of-leave to Van Diemen's Land. The con- 
 signments of 1670 sent to New South Wales in 1849 
 were the last which that colony has received. 
 
 In 1846 it was decided by Mr. Gladstone that, at all 
 events, transportation to Van Diemen's Land must be 
 suspended, to give time for recovery from the existing 
 evils and for deliberation on the future, and it was 
 accordingly suspended throughout 1847 and part of 
 .1848. At first the formation of a new convict colony 
 in North Australia was contemplated ; but this project 
 was abandoned, and in the beginning of 1847 another 
 most important step was taken in the formation of our 
 penal system. The discipline and moral training of the 
 separate system had been found so efficacious by those 
 to whom it had been applied in Pentonville as to cause 
 observations to be made by the surgeons-superintendent 
 of the convict ships which took them out to Australia 
 on the tractability and good conduct they displayed 
 during the voyage, and to cause very favourable reports 
 to be sent home regarding them after taking up their 
 abode in the colonies. It was determined therefore by 
 Lord Grey, in conjunction with Sir George Grey, that 
 every convict should undergo the first part of his 
 sentence in a penitential at home, where strict separa- 
 tion, with industrial employment and moral training (on 
 the plan adopted in Pentonville), should be enforced ; 
 that he should then be removed to a prison, either in 
 England or at Gibraltar or Bermuda, where he should 
 be employed on public works, such as the construction 
 of harbours of refuge or works under some public de- 
 
*^ 
 
 S 1 ^ 
 
 v.] TRANSPORTATION. 145 
 
 partment, for a further period of his sentence ; and that 
 he should then be transferred to a colony, with a ticket- 
 of-leave, free to obtain- employment for himself on his y^ 
 own terms (subject only to certain police restrictions), ^7 *^" fNc 
 and ultimately obtaining a pardon conditional on his * > > 
 not returning to the country in which he was con- 
 victed. 
 
 The essence of the change introduced by the " pro- 
 bation system " was that certain portions of every ^ *sT 
 sentence of transportation should be passed in a Govern- 
 ment prison (of one kind or another, for the " gangs " 
 must be considered as prisons), where it was intended 
 the convict should suffer certain definite penal discipline, 
 and be subjected to improving moral influences ; during 
 the remainder he was to be able to hire himself out or 
 employ himself for his own advantage, subject to super- 
 vision, with a view to ensure his adoption of habits of 
 honesty, good behaviour, and industry. The change 
 made in 1847 was, first, that the whole of the convicts 
 under sentence were to pass through the Pentonville 
 system of training; and, secondly, that the other part 
 of the penal stage of the sentence of transportation, viz. 
 that which was passed on public works, was to be 
 carried out in this country, thus ensuring the services of 
 people fully qualified to carry out and superintend the 
 arrangements efficiently, and bringing to bear on them 
 the wholesome check and support of an educated public 
 opinion. The establishments at Gibraltar and Bermuda 
 did not fulfil these requirements, and so far interfered 
 with the completeness of the arrangements. The con- 
 victs were to be sent to the colonies only after going 
 through all this discipline and arriving at the stage of 
 
 L 
 
146 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 ticket-of-leave. In order to ensure suitable employment 
 for those who could not at once be absorbed into private 
 service, the Imperial Government consented to allow 
 colonial works to be executed by the convicts without 
 payment, and in order to counteract the demoralisation of 
 the community which was alleged to result from flooding 
 the colony with large numbers of convicts, principally 
 adult males, the Imperial Government consented to de- 
 vote the land revenue to purposes of emigration. A 
 fund formed by requiring every convict to pay back to 
 Government 15 towards the cost of his passage before 
 receiving his conditional pardon, was devoted to the 
 same purpose, and assistance was given towards sending 
 out the wives and families of convicts. 
 
 It is obvious that the successful working of these 
 arrangements depended on the possibility of the ticket- 
 of-leave men being absorbed into private employment 
 on their removal from this country. A transfer to 
 Australia had come to be considered by very many 
 rather as an advantage than a punishment, and it was 
 held out in the regulations of the prisons at home as an 
 inducement to good behaviour. But transfer from a 
 public works prison at home to a road gang in Van 
 Diemen's Land would be no privilege ; and, moreover, 
 so long as they remained on the hands of Government, 
 a heavy charge fell on the public on account of them. 
 In view, therefore, of the probability that Van Diemen's 
 Land could not absorb all who would be sent out, 
 various other colonies were invited to receive the ticket- 
 of-leave men. The Report of the Committee of 1838, 
 dilating on the results transportation had had on the 
 community of New South Wales, had by this time, 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 147 
 
 however, produced such an effect, that it was considered 
 a stigma to be a "convict colony." The difference 
 between forming a new community almost entirely 
 from the convict class, without any attempt at pre- 
 viously disciplining or reforming them, as had been 
 done in the case of New South Wales, and the new 
 proposal of sending out persons who had been subjected 
 to strict training and discipline to take their places 
 amongst an already existing moral and well-ordered 
 community, did not avail to induce the colonies to co- 
 operate with this country in the plan. Even New 
 South Wales, after much discussion and correspondence, 
 finally declined to receive any more convicts on any 
 conditions, and the Cape of Good Hope actually resisted 
 (to the point of incipient rebellion) the landing of 300 
 convicts who were sent thither from Bermuda in the 
 ship Neptune in 1850, in anticipation of the colony 
 consenting (or, at all events, not objecting) to absorb 
 such a small number. Western Australia alone, which, 
 after struggling for twenty years, was now, with only 
 6000 inhabitants, in a state of utter stagnation, such as 
 the discoveries of gold in the other Australian colonies 
 in 1850 would in all likelihood have soon developed 
 into extinction, almost unanimously petitioned that 
 convicts might be sent thither, as their only chance of 
 obtaining a supply of labour, and no doubt with a view 
 to the benefits they would receive from the Government 
 expenditure. 
 
 Concurrently with these steps, measures were taken 
 tp improve the condition of things among the probation 
 gangs in Van Diemen's Land. The temporary suspen- 
 sion of transportation allowed many of the pass-holders 
 
148 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 to be absorbed and dispersed in private employment 
 no doubt the discovery of gold in Australia made room 
 for the employment of more and by this means a 
 diminution of the number of gangs and a reduction 
 and weeding of the staff of officers of the convict estab- 
 lishments became possible. The gangs were also lodged 
 in buildings admitting of a proper separation of the 
 convicts, and thus unnatural crime was checked. Ample 
 and suitable employment was found so soon as the 
 Home Government undertook to allow of the employ- 
 ment of convicts on colonial works without charge, and 
 a system of taskwork was devised to ensure due industry 
 in the gangs. Possibly, therefore, the system might 
 thenceforward have worked beneficially to all concerned 
 in it ; but the feelings aroused in Van Diemen's Land 
 by the revelations of the years preceding 1846 were so 
 strong and deep that nothing short of an entire discon- 
 tinuance of transportation would satisfy its inhabit- 
 ants. In this they were supported by the neighbouring 
 colonies, and the result was the formation of an 
 " Australian League," pledged to oppose by all possible 
 means the introduction of convicts into any part of 
 Australia. 
 
 At the moment when the feeling of the colonists 
 took this decided turn, the discovery of gold came to 
 add force to their arguments by rendering it more than 
 doubtful whether any punishment could be considered 
 deterrent of which an important part consisted in re- 
 moving the offender to that part of the world whither 
 so many stirring and enterprising men were bending 
 their steps with the assurance of thereby bettering 
 their position. In 1852, then, transportation to Van 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 149 
 
 Diemen's Land ceased altogether, and thenceforward 
 the only outlet for those convicts who had passed 
 through the preliminary stages of their sentences was 
 Western Australia. 
 
 The system followed out in Western Australia 
 was that laid down in 1847, with one slight modifi- 
 cation, viz. that a certain number of prisoners passed 
 about a half of the "public works" period of their 
 sentences in the colony. The ticket -of- leave men 
 were dispersed over the country wherever they could 
 find employers j those who were unable to do so were 
 maintained, at the cost of the Imperial Government, in 
 hiring depots or stations established in all the districts 
 of the colony, and they were employed, after they had 
 put up the buildings for their own accommodation, in 
 making roads, building bridges, and generally executing 
 such public works as the colony required. Each of 
 these establishments or stations had the pastoral care 
 of a chaplain, payment being made for the services both 
 of Protestant and Roman Catholic ministers for this 
 purpose. A large permanent cellular prison was built 
 at Freemantle for those convicts who had not arrived 
 at their ticket-of-leave stage ; the other buildings were 
 principally of a temporary character, in which the men 
 lived in association and slept in hammocks. Latterly, 
 in order to promote the execution of public works for 
 the benefit of the colony, prisoners were sent to these 
 road parties before arriving at the ticket-of-leave stage 
 of their sentence. In order that the free community 
 might not be gradually swamped by the convict element, 
 and with a view to counteracting the evils likely to 
 arise from the introduction of a preponderating number 
 
150 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 of adult males (for no female convicts were ever sent 
 to Western Australia, in accordance with the strongly- 
 expressed desire of the colonists), the Home Govern- 
 ment engaged to send out as many free persons to the 
 colony as it did convicts ; but the intention of this 
 provision was frustrated, and the difficulty of making 
 transportation an essential part of our penal system, 
 under the conditions which had now come to he acknowledged 
 as necessary viz. that the convict element should not 
 be allowed to predominate in the colony was mani- 
 fest when it was seen that not only the free inhabitants 
 of the colony, who were there when convicts were first 
 sent out, but also large numbers of the free immigrants 
 sent out by the Government, shortly left the colony, 
 attracted by the higher gains and greater opportunities 
 presented by the gold fields and the more thriving com- 
 munities of the other Australian colonies, where the 
 value of their labour was not kept down by the com- 
 petition of the imported criminals. It is indeed obvious 
 that an importation of convicts to a colony is incon- 
 sistent with a concurrent free immigration ; for the only 
 object a colony can have in receiving convicts is to 
 obtain cheap labour, and if this object is attained, there 
 is no longer any inducement to free immigration of the 
 labouring class, who must comprise the great bulk of 
 the settlers. 
 
 As a convict settlement, Western Australia in all 
 other respects answered perfectly, and proved the sound- 
 ness of the principles embodied in the rules above re- 
 ferred to as having been laid down by Lord Grey and 
 Sir George Grey in 1847. The community is as well 
 ordered and law-abiding as the mother country ; bush- 
 
v.] TRANSPORTATION. 151 
 
 ranging has never existed ; life and property are per- 
 fectly safe; and there has been no suspicion of the 
 prevalence of the crime which formed such a serious 
 blot in the history of transportation in the other 
 colonies. 
 
CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 PENAL SERVITUDE. 
 
 Transportation continued for some years longer to 
 form a part of our penal system; but from the time 
 when Van Diemen's Land ceased to receive convicts, it 
 no longer formed the foundation of it, but became only 
 an adjunct of no very considerable importance. 
 
 When Western Australia was made a penal settle- 
 ment, it might no doubt have been anticipated that 
 settlers with capital at command might have come to 
 take advantage of the supply of cheap labour, and that 
 shortly the capacity of the colony for absorbing convicts 
 would have increased up to the number to be furnished ; 
 but the discovery of gold in New South Wales and 
 Victoria in 1850 diverted the whole stream of emigra- 
 tion to those colonies, and the prospects of Western 
 Australia becoming, within a reasonable time, capable 
 of serving as the only outlet for our convicts became 
 more than doubtful. The mistake made in Van Die- 
 men's Land, of pouring into the colony numbers far 
 beyond its powers of absorption, was not, of course, 
 repeated in Western Australia, and it was seen that the 
 number that that colony could dispose of was very 
 limited. Nor could the field for employment be kept 
 
chap, vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 153 
 
 open by the departure of men whose sentences had 
 expired to the other colonies of Australia; for these 
 latter passed stringent Acts for the prevention of the 
 immigration of any person who had come out from 
 Great Britain in the condition of a convict. Under 
 these circumstances numerous proposals were made for 
 the formation of a new convict colony, and many un- 
 occupied islands and countries were suggested for the 
 purpose. But this would obviously have been incon- 
 sistent with the principles which, after such a lengthened 
 experience, had been laid down as essential in carrying 
 out this mode of punishment. So long as convicts were 
 in prison or in the hands of Government, they might of 
 course be either in a prison at home or in a prison in a 
 new colony (though experience showed that they would 
 be managed better and certainly at much less cost if 
 this stage were passed at home) ; but when the time 
 came for them to be discharged from prison either on 
 ticket-of-leave or expiration of sentence, a new settle- 
 ment would afford little, if any, prospect of their finding 
 employment or occupation. And even if this difficulty 
 could be surmounted, we should have found ourselves 
 again establishing a community of which the prepon- 
 derating and overwhelming elements would consist of 
 people of the low moral type who compose the criminal 
 class. To enter on such a course as this in opposition 
 to all the teachings of experience, could not of course 
 be thought of, and new arrangements therefore had to 
 be devised, based on the necessity for retaining all or 
 most of our convicts in this country after the expiration 
 of their sentences. 
 
 Thus was originated the Act of 1853, which allowed 
 
154 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 the substitution of a sentence of Penal Servitude, which 
 might be carried out in England, for all crimes punish- 
 able by transportation for less than fourteen years, it 
 being supposed that Western Australia could absorb 
 most of the convicts of the longer sentences. The 
 sentences of penal servitude authorised by this Act 
 were shorter than the sentences of transportation they 
 replaced, as they were intended to correspond to the 
 periods usually passed in prison by a convict under a 
 sentence of transportation. A term as low as three 
 years' penal servitude was authorised, and the practice 
 of remitting part of the sentence by ticket-of-leave was 
 abolished. In 1857 this Act was amended by legalising 
 penal servitude for any crimes which might be punished 
 by transportation, and in order that the invaluable 
 influence obtained by enabling prisoners to gain on sys- 
 tem a certain remission of their sentences might not be 
 lost, the length of sentences by this Act was restored 
 to correspond with the old sentences of transportation, 
 on the understanding that a corresponding period of 
 remission on ticket-of-leave might be granted. Trans- 
 portation thenceforward became no longer a necessary 
 mode of carrying out any sentence, and in deference 
 mainly to the repeated and urgent wishes of the eastern 
 colonies of Australia, no consignment of convicts has 
 been sent to Western Australia since the year 1867. 
 In 1864 these Acts were amended by raising the 
 minimum sentence of penal servitude to five years, 
 and providing that no sentence of penal servitude 
 of less than seven years should be passed on second 
 conviction, but this latter provision was repealed in 
 1879. 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 155 
 
 It has been seen that from the earliest times a sen- 
 tence of transportation has never involved confinement 
 in prison for the whole period. A large proportion of 
 persons so sentenced, including all seven years' con- 
 victs, were retained in the hulks and never sent to the 
 colonies, and these were generally released with free 
 pardons when from half to three-fourths of their sen- 
 tences had expired. The rules made in 1853 and 1857 
 reduced this irregular custom to a ticket-of-leave system, 
 and when an increase of crime, marked by an outbreak 
 of a practice of garroting, occurred about 1863, the 
 public without reason attributed it to this system. It 
 was probably with more reason attributed to the dis- 
 charge within a short period of the flood of criminals 
 who had been pent up during the change of system ; 
 but the Royal Commission in that year recommended, 
 beside the changes embodied in the Act of 1864, a 
 more complete and stringent control over the offender 
 while on ticket-of-leave. 
 
 The foregoing sketch of the steps by which we have 
 arrived at our present convict system will enable the 
 following details of it to be understood. They are 
 intended to combine the principles of deterring from 
 the commission of crime and reforming the offender. 
 
 A sentence of penal servitude is, in its main features, 
 and so far as concerns the punishment, applied on ex- 
 actly the same system to every person subjected to it. 
 The previous career and character of the prisoner makes 
 no difference in the punishment to which he is subjected, 
 because it is rightly considered that it is for the Courts 
 of Law, who have, or should have, a full knowledge on 
 
156 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 these points, to consider them in awarding the sentence ; 
 and if any prisoner were subjected to harsher or milder 
 treatment in consequence of any knowledge the prison 
 authorities might have of his previous character, it might 
 be that he would practically be punished twice over on 
 the same account, and on information much less com- 
 plete than the Court of Law would have at its command. 
 The Government would also always be liable to charges 
 of showing favour to or prejudice against certain partic- 
 ular prisoners ; and any feeling of this kind would be 
 fraught with danger and inconvenience. 
 
 It is also considered, and justly, that the Judge or 
 Court who passes the sentence should know, or should 
 be able to know, the exact effect of the sentence, 
 and this would be impossible if any discretion rested 
 with the executive officers as to the mode of carrying 
 out the punishments. 
 
 A sentence of penal servitude is divided into three 
 principal stages. During the first stage, which endures 
 for nine months in all cases, the prisoner passes his 
 whole time excepting the period allotted to prayers 
 and exercise in his cell, apart from all other prisoners, 
 working at some employment of an industrial or re- 
 munerative character. During the second he sleeps 
 and has his meals in a separate cell, but works in 
 association under a close and strict supervision, at 
 employment suited to him. The third period is that 
 during which he is conditionally released from prison, 
 but kept under the supervision of the police, and liable, 
 for any infraction of the conditions of his release, to be 
 returned to prison, there to fulfil the portion of his 
 sentence which remained unexpired at the time of his 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 157 
 
 release. A stage, intermediate between the public / 
 works and the conditional release, is applied to women, 
 who may be sent for nine months before their release 
 on license to "refuges," establishments managed by- 
 private persons, who interest themselves in preparing 
 the women for discharge, and in procuring suitable 
 situations for them. 
 
 It is not possible here to state in detail the rules laid 
 down for the treatment of prisoners in the three stages, 
 but an outline of the objects which are aimed at may 
 be given. 
 
 The first stage is one of severe penal discipline, during 
 which the prisoner's mind is thrown in upon itself, and 
 the prisoner cannot fail to feel that, however agreeable 
 may have been his previous life, probably one of idle- 
 ness and excitement, he pays dearly for it by the dull 
 monotony, hard work, a diet which is sufficient, but no 
 more than sufficient, and deprivation of every luxury he 
 has been accustomed to indulge in ; and, above all, by 
 the absence of freedom, and the constant supervision 
 which is his present condition, and which form his 
 prospects for some years to come. 
 
 During this time he becomes open to lessons of 
 admonition and warning ; religious influences have full 
 opportunity of obtaining access to him; he is put in 
 that condition when he is likely to feel sorrow for the 
 past and to welcome the words of those who show him 
 how to avoid evil for the future. 
 
 I have said that this stage of a prisoner's sentence 
 endures for nine months, and it may naturally occur to 
 any one to ask, if its effects are both penal and reforma- 
 tory, such as I have described and believe them to be, 
 
158 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 why the same treatment should not be followed through- 
 out the whole of the sentence 1 The reason is, that it 
 has always been held that we must bear in mind that 
 the prisoner should not only be punished and taught 
 what is right, but should be returned to society fitted 
 both morally and physically to fulfil his proper duties 
 in the battle of life. 
 
 It cannot be expected that this object would be 
 fulfilled by his perpetual seclusion in a cell for years, 
 with no communication with his fellows, an artificial 
 state of existence absolutely opposed to that which 
 nature points out as the condition of mental, moral, 
 and physical health, and entirely unlike that which 
 he is to be prepared to follow on his discharge from 
 prison. 
 
 When the system of separate confinement was first 
 established in the model prison at Pentonville, in 1842, 
 the duration of the period of separate confinement was 
 fixed at eighteen months. It was carried out with con- 
 siderable rigour, and results showed themselves which 
 could not be neglected. It was shown incontestably, as 
 the Reports of the Commissioners demonstrated, that 
 the minds of the prisoners became enfeebled by long- 
 continued isolation ; and, after various trials, the pre- 
 sent term of nine months was fixed on as the longest to 
 which prisoners could, with advantage, be subjected to 
 this stage of the discipline. No doubt a modified system 
 of separate confinement suitable to longer periods might 
 be introduced, and it would then be possible to legalise 
 sentences between the two years which is the maximum 
 sentence of " imprisonment," and the five years which 
 is the minimum sentence of " penal servitude "; and this 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 159 
 
 course, which was recommended by the Lords' Com- 
 mittee of 1864, would be easy now that the prison 
 system throughout the country has been made uniform 
 by being placed under the Government. 
 
 The distinction made by the use of the term "im- 
 prisonment," to denote sentences of two years and 
 under, and "penal servitude," to denote sentences of 
 five years and upwards, no longer has any significance, 
 now that they are both carried out in the United 
 Kingdom, and it is misleading, for both classes of 
 prisoners are undergoing " imprisonment," and are 
 equally in a condition of " penal servitude." The only 
 point to be kept in view is that the treatment should 
 be adapted to the length of the sentence. 
 
 The use of the term " hard labour," in imposing the 
 sentence of imprisonment, which is not used in passing 
 one of penal servitude, might also well be omitted, for 
 any prisoner sentenced to imprisonment should be, and 
 is by law, required to labour, under specified conditions, 
 suitable to his health and his capacity ; and, in fact, 
 excepting the specific kind of labour called " First Class 
 Hard Labour," defined in the "Prison Act, 1865," as 
 " crank, tread-wheel, etc., and other like kind of labour," 
 the term "hard" has no particular meaning, and its 
 employment in the sentence makes no practical differ- 
 ence. 
 
 Keeping in view the principle that during his im- 
 prisonment the convict is to be prepared and enabled 
 to lead a reformed life when he is discharged, attention 
 is paid, more especially during the first period, both to 
 his moral, mental, and literary education. 
 
 Every prison has its staff of ministers of religion, 
 
160 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 who, in prisons which contain large numbers, are not 
 permitted to have any other duties, and who, therefore, 
 can devote their whole time to the improvement and 
 advantage of the prisoners placed under their spiritual 
 care. 
 
 The advantage of thus inculcating religious feelings 
 will not be contested by any one ; and, notwithstand- 
 ing the doubts which have arisen from injudicious 
 exaggerations of the results of these influences, and by 
 misconception of* the true position of and functions 
 fulfilled by the chaplains of prisons, it is certain that 
 these advantages are much appreciated by prisoners, and 
 that the exertions of the ministers of religion bear per- 
 haps as much fruit as in the world outside. 
 
 The prison library and educational departments are 
 in charge of the chaplain. Books are supplied to the 
 prisoners, both of a purely religious and of an instructive 
 character ; and those who are uneducated are taught by 
 a staff of schoolmasters at least the elements of reading 
 and writing ; those who have already some knowledge 
 have opportunities and encouragement to improve them- 
 selves. As a knowledge of reading and writing affords 
 so much opportunity for mental and moral improvement, 
 and may have so important an effect on a prisoner's 
 well-being in after life, inducements are offered to 
 prisoners to exert themselves to attain it, by rendering 
 some of the subsequent privileges a prisoner may gain 
 conditional on his being able to read and write. For 
 example, no convict can be promoted to the first class 
 unless he can read and write ; and after he has been 
 under instruction a sufficient time, he is obliged, if he 
 wishes to enjoy the privilege of communicating by letter 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 161 
 
 with his friends, to do it himself, and without assistance. 
 Of course, exceptions to these rules are made in the cases 
 of men who, from age or mental incapacity, cannot be 
 expected to acquire even the elements of knowledge. 
 
 Half-yearly examinations are held, to show the pro- 
 gress each prisoner makes, the result of which may be 
 seen in the Yearly Eeports of the Directors of Convict 
 Prisons, and it is found that many prisoners who had 
 not been able either to read or write when convicted, 
 had learned to do both while in prison j and most of 
 the remainder had made advances in the knowledge 
 which they previously possessed. 
 
 After passing the allotted time in this stage, the 
 convict is removed to a prison where he is employed at 
 labour in restricted association, generally labour on 
 public works, or farming, clearing or reclaiming land, 
 and so on ; but as there are some men who are not 
 adapted for this kind of employment, bootmaking, 
 tailoring, and other indoor employments are also carried 
 on. 
 
 In whatever stage of his sentence a convict may be, 
 he is always provided with a separate cell which he 
 occupies at all times when not at work, at prayers, or 
 at exercise. The sick or invalids are necessarily more 
 associated, but as the infirmaries recently constructed 
 place the great majority in separation, the chances of 
 contamination therein are reduced to a minimum. 
 
 Great pains are taken, however, during the stage of 
 a sentence of penal servitude in which prisoners labour 
 in association, to prevent evil effect from contamina- 
 tion, by the hardened offenders, of those less versed in 
 crime. 
 
 M 
 
162 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 With this object, arrangements were adopted, in 
 1877-78, for separating the worst criminals from the 
 rest ; and moreover, as it was considered that the con- 
 versation which passed between prisoners during the 
 times of exercise was a great medium of evil communi- 
 cation, steps were taken to prevent this bad effect. 
 There is every reason to believe that these measures 
 have had good results. 
 
 In 1879-80, another important measure was adopted, 
 with the same object, viz. the formation of a class in 
 which prisoners not versed in crime should be collected, 
 so that their contamination by old offenders might be 
 impossible. 
 
 Searching inquiries are made in order to ensure 
 proper selection of prisoners for this class ; for it is of 
 the greatest consequence to prevent corrupt and cunning 
 criminals who have evaded convictions, though they 
 have deserved it, from gaining admission into this class 
 and leading the well-disposed among them astray. 
 
 The reports which have been received of the good 
 conduct and industry of these prisoners give reason to 
 hope that this measure will be entirely successful. 
 
 Every convict may, during his sentence, pass through 
 four classes, called the probation, the third, the second, 
 and the first class, and certain selected prisoners are also 
 placed, during the last year of their sentences, in a 
 special class. 
 
 The probation class must last for one year; nine 
 months of it are passed in a close prison, as already 
 stated, the other three months on public works. 
 
 The third and second classes must each last for one 
 year at least, and the remainder of the sentence may 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 163 
 
 be passed in the first class, unless a prisoner is promoted 
 to the special class, into which he may enter during his 
 last year. 
 
 Promotion into each of these classes is followed by 
 certain privileges, and each class wears its own dis- 
 tinctive badge. 
 
 These privileges are necessarily very limited, but still 
 they offer inducements which are much sought after. 
 
 All privileges of increased diet have been abolished 
 since 1864, as it was justly thought that to hold out 
 prospects of food as an inducement to good behaviour 
 was to appeal to the baser feelings, such as a good 
 moral education should endeavour to suppress ; and, 
 secondly, because it was found that unfavourable im- 
 pressions were produced outside by comparing the diet 
 of the prisoner who enjoyed these slight improvements 
 in the quantity or quality of the food with that of the 
 honest hard-working free man, whose scanty means were 
 hardly sufficient to keep himself and family in health. 
 
 The diet, in fact, is fixed at the minimum necessary 
 to enable a man to execute the work required of him, 
 but if he should be idle and not execute the work, then 
 the amount of his food is reduced. 
 
 The advantages offered, therefore, by the higher 
 classes, consist in the more frequent communications by 
 visit or letter with their friends, in more freedom for 
 exercise on Sundays, and in the earning of a higher 
 gratuity of money to be paid on the prisoner's discharge. 
 
 The period which a prisoner passes in each class is 
 measured, not simply by time, but by days of hard work, 
 on the system of marks. 
 
 In addition to the immediate privileges which a 
 
164 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap- 
 
 prisoner can gain by promotion to a higher class, he is 
 offered the still greater, though more distant advantage, 
 of slightly diminishing the duration of his sentence by 
 obtaining " Conditional Release." 
 
 The amount of remission which any prisoner may 
 gain is one -fourth of the whole period he passes on 
 public works, and this remission is gained by industry 
 alone, and not by "good conduct," which, in a prison, 
 can be little more than passive, or abstaining from acts 
 of indiscipline or irregularity. The time has long gone 
 by, if ever it existed, when he could profit by any lip 
 professions of piety or reformation. 
 
 On the other hand, acts of misconduct may be 
 followed by forfeiture of remission, degradation to a 
 lower class, and the consequent loss of privileges gained 
 by industry, as well as by close confinement, reduction 
 in diet, corporal punishment, and so on, and if, by 
 repeated misbehaviour, a prisoner shows that his treat- 
 ment in the close prison has not had its due effect upon 
 him, and that he is not fit for associated employment on 
 public works, he may be ordered to undergo the dis- 
 cipline of second probation for such period as may be 
 thought necessary ; or if during the course of his whole 
 sentence he conducts himself badly, he may be ordered 
 to pass the last six months in separate confinement, so 
 that the deterrent effect of that discipline may be 
 impressed on his mind when he is set free. 
 
 The power of punishing a prisoner is vested only in 
 the Governor and in the Director. 
 
 The limits of punishment in both cases are laid down 
 by the Secretary of State, and no punishment can be 
 awarded without full investigation of the charge, con- 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 165 
 
 ducted in the presence of the prisoner. The Governor 
 has powers sufficient to deal with minor offences, and 
 every punishment he orders is reported to the Director 
 with a statement of the prisoner's offence. 
 
 The Director, whose functions are by statute those of 
 a Visiting Justice, awards punishments for offences of 
 a graver character. Only the Director has power to 
 award corporal punishment, and he only for certain 
 offences defined by the Secretary of State, and after full 
 inquiry on oath conducted in the most formal manner. 
 No unusual punishments may be inflicted. 
 
 Chains, handcuffs, or means of special restraint may 
 not be made use of except under certain defined circum- 
 stances, and under strict regulations, and the use of them 
 is always reported and recorded in a formal manner. 
 
 It can hardly be necessary to add that no officer is 
 allowed to strike or abuse a prisoner. Should he find 
 it necessary, on account of the violence of any prisoner, 
 to make use of his weapons, he is always called upon to 
 show that he confined himself strictly to the necessities 
 of the occasion, or failing to do so he must bear the 
 consequences. 
 
 The effect of the system of rewards and punishments, 
 by which order and discipline are maintained in the 
 prisons, is shown by the following statement of the 
 number of prisoners punished. During the year 1871, 
 of 13,582 males who were in the prisons, 6796 did not 
 break the rules in any way, and 6347 were actually 
 punished. Of 2184 females who were during the year 
 in the prisons, 1414 did not break the rules, and 689 
 were actually punished. 
 
 Fourteen years latter 1884-85 with 13,619 male 
 
166 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 prisoners in the prisons, 8639 did not commit any 
 breach of the rules, and 4980 only were actually 
 punished. Similarly, with 1265 females, 936 kept 
 free of punishment, only 329 being punished. The 
 comparison of these figures shows very satisfactory 
 advance in good conduct among the prisoners ; for, in 
 the latter, the number not infringing the rules was 
 greater by 1843, and the actual number punished was 
 less by 1367; and, in the case of the females, the pro- 
 portion who were free of offence was also larger. 
 
 The return of prison offences also proves that the 
 great bulk of them are committed by a small number of 
 habitual offenders against the rules. 
 
 Out of 27,835 prisoners discharged from convict 
 prisons between 1871 and 1885, only about 1898 failed 
 to earn some remission from their sentences. Many 
 had never misconducted themselves at all, and a large 
 proportion had gone through their imprisonment of 
 many years with only some trifling breach of regulations 
 recorded against them. 
 
 These facts are very significant. The result is not 
 due to an easy and slack system, under which offences 
 are passed over without report and without punishment j 
 on the contrary, it will be apparent, even to a casual 
 visitor, and is well known to those who are more 
 intimately acquainted with the interior of the prisons, 
 that order is strictly maintained in them, and that the 
 discipline is exact without being severe. 
 
 It is evident, in fact, that in this respect, at all 
 events, our system produces the result it is intended to 
 do, but more especially it shows that the organisation 
 of the department is effective, and that the staff of 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 167 
 
 officers perform their duties with resolution and with 
 judgment. 
 
 In order to maintain a strict and exact discipline, 
 without exciting constant resistance, it is above all 
 things necessary that the prisoners should feel that the 
 rules are carried out justly and fairly, that the officers 
 are simply administering the law, and that in case of 
 any abuse of power on the part of an officer, he will be 
 held answerable for it. 
 
 To this end every prisoner has unrestricted right of 
 appeal against the act of those above him ; he may lay 
 his complaint in the first instance before the Governor, 
 who is bound to investigate it, and to place the appeal 
 on record, or he may appeal, either by written or per- 
 sonal application, to the higher authority of the Director, 
 who can, if he sees fit, reverse or modify the decision of 
 the Governor. The Director not coming in daily con- 
 tact with the officers and prisoners, but only visiting the 
 prison magisterially at uncertain intervals, it is, of 
 course, felt that he can give a fresh and an impartial 
 consideration to any question or complaint. 
 
 Besides this, the prisoners have the power of petition- 
 ing the Secretary of State. 
 
 Prisoners may also appeal to the independent visitors, 
 who can, at any time they consider expedient, visit the 
 prisons and inquire into the state of the prisoners and 
 the discipline and condition of the prisons; but they 
 have no power to give any order, or to interfere in any- 
 way with the administration of the prison. 
 
 As a matter of fact, prisoners exercise freely all 
 these rights of appeal and petition. 
 
 The effect of these provisions is, not only that 
 
168 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 prisoners feel that they cannot be unfairly dealt with, 
 but the officers are constantly reminded that they are 
 liable to have to answer for any abuse of their power. 
 
 The plan by which we endeavour to bring before the 
 prisoner, in a form easily intelligible to him, that, as in 
 ordinary life, the advantages held out to him as an 
 encouragement to industry are directly proportioned to 
 his industry ; that he cannot be idle for a day without 
 a corresponding loss j that good conduct is necessary as 
 well as industry, because ill conduct will deprive him of 
 the advantages he would gain by his industry; is 
 effected by a system of recording the industry by marks. 
 It is not possible to set out the details of the system, 
 but the principle on which it is framed, and an outline 
 of the mode of carrying it out may be given. 
 
 To every convict is assigned the duty of earning a 
 number of marks proportioned to the length of his 
 sentence. These marks are awarded to each prisoner 
 according to the degree of his industry : if the prisoner 
 earns them at the lowest rate he will serve out the 
 whole of his sentence ; should he earn the highest rate, 
 he will get off about one-fourth ; if at any intermediate 
 rate, he then will earn proportionate remission. 
 
 The record by marks applies not only to the amount 
 of remission the prisoner can gain from his sentence, but 
 also to every step in the classes he passes through during 
 his imprisonment ; for instance, he is required to pass 
 at least a year in each of the classes, but during that 
 time he must earn a definite number of marks, or else 
 his promotion is delayed; and, further, the gratuity 
 which he earns in each class is calculated according to 
 the number of marks he earns. 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 169 
 
 To ensure a fair value in marks being assigned to 
 each man's industry, not only is a rigid supervision and 
 check maintained on the working parties by the principal 
 warders, the chief warder, deputy governor, and gover- 
 nor, who pay particular and especial attention to this 
 point ; but the prisoners' work is measured by a staff of 
 professional officers, employed for the purpose, who act 
 quite independently of the regular discipline staff, and 
 whose measurements are priced out in money, and afford 
 a check and test of the correctness of the assignment of 
 the marks of industry. 
 
 Every prisoner is furnished with a card, on which, 
 periodically, his earnings in marks are recorded, and, if 
 he feels himself unfairly dealt with, he has free right to 
 complain, and his grievances are investigated. 
 
 In this manner, day by day, week by week, and year 
 by year, he can count and record the progress he is 
 making towards an advance in class, in accumulation of 
 money, and towards conditional release ; and he is made 
 perfectly to see and feel that his fate is in his own 
 hands, and that he has something more to work and to 
 hope for than the mere avoidance of punishment. 
 
 The course followed with regard to the female con- 
 victs is in the main the same as described with more 
 particular reference to the men. They may earn, how- 
 ever, a larger proportion of remission, viz. one-third of 
 their whole sentences ; and to those whose good conduct 
 and character justifies the hope of complete amendment, 
 a further advantage is held out by their being allowed 
 to pass the nine months immediately preceding the term 
 of their release in the " refuges " established and man- 
 aged by private effort, assisted by contributions from 
 
170 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 the Government, which have been already referred to. 
 These "refuges" are not prisons either in appearance 
 or in discipline they are homes, and are intended to 
 afford the advantages of a treatment approaching in its 
 characteristics to that of home influence. 
 
 This being a general view of the course a prisoner 
 goes through in fulfilling a sentence of penal servitude, 
 some slight detail may be given of the manner in 
 which some parts of it are carried out. 
 
 It has for many years been an established principle 
 in English convict prisons to endeavour to instil into the 
 convicts habits of industry, to develop their intelligence 
 by employing them on industrial labour, and to facilitate 
 their entering the ranks of honest industry on their dis- 
 charge, by giving them facilities for acquiring a know- 
 ledge of trades. These objects are fortunately conducive 
 to another very desirable result, viz. that of making the 
 prisons self-supporting in various degrees. 
 
 The employment of prisoners may be made to conduce 
 to any or all of three objects firstly, to create a deter- 
 rent effect on the prisoner himself and on the criminal 
 class ; secondly, to produce a reformatory effect on the 
 prisoner himself; and, thirdly, to recoup, as far as 
 possible, the cost of maintaining the prison. 
 
 The following remarks, made by Lord Carnarvon in 
 
 his address to the Prison Congress of 1872, indicate 
 
 clearly the relative importance of these objects : 
 
 But there is a school which holds and I believe the opinion 
 to be as dangerous as it is attractive that all prison labour ought 
 to be remunerative, and that the great, if not the primary object 
 of a prison is to make it self-supporting. But, as was stated by 
 the House of Lords' Committee in 1863, whatever may be the actual 
 incomings from prison work, "a profitable return from industrial 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 171 
 
 employment ought not to be made the test of prison efficiency." 
 If, indeed, it were so considered, it must lead to a relaxed dis- 
 cipline, and an injurious influence on the mind of the prisoner. 
 Where, indeed, the sentence is of sufficient length, it may have 
 the happiest effects upon the offender ; but it ought to follow upon 
 the harder and more penal labour, and ought not to be made the 
 equivalent for it. Whilst on this subject, I will only add that the 
 actual profits of industrial work must necessarily vary with the 
 circumstances of different prisons. The use of machinery, the state 
 of the neighbouring markets, the class of prisoners, the particular 
 employments, the number of men available, and the consequent 
 power of sub -dividing them for the purposes of work, are all- 
 important conditions ; and in proportion as they are wanting, the 
 less productive and profitable will the returns be. 
 
 The attempt to make prison labour profitable is 
 subject to certain considerable impediments, arising 
 from the individual peculiarities of the prisoner class, 
 the absence of the ordinary stimulus which operates on 
 men in a state of freedom, and the inconvenience and 
 prejudice against Government trading. 
 
 A large number of prisoners are persons who are 
 absolutely unable, or find it extremely difficult, through 
 mental or physical incapacity, to earn their livelihood, 
 even under favourable circumstances. The result of a 
 medical census of the convict prisons on 4th April 1881, 
 giving an analysis of the mental and physical condition 
 of the convict prison population, was to show that a 
 large proportion of prisoners, on account of these con- 
 ditions, would be, even if out of prison, in a greater 
 or less degree a charge on the public. It is hopeless, 
 therefore, to expect them to repay by their labour any 
 considerable portion of the cost of their custody and 
 maintenance in prison. 
 
 Prison labour, moreover, must always be carried on 
 
172 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 under the disadvantage that the worker is without the 
 stimulus afforded by the prospect of immediate resulting 
 benefit. He is, of necessity, housed, clothed, and fed, 
 and modern feelings of humanity have, in fact, led to 
 his being in these matters placed in a better position 
 than many who have not forfeited their liberty, and who 
 are dependent for the daily supply of their necessities 
 on their daily exertions. 
 
 In some foreign countries, where great importance is 
 attached to the object of making the prisons pay, the 
 prisoners are allowed to draw and to expend a certain 
 portion of their earnings on various small luxuries, such 
 as additional and better food, tobacco, etc. ; a certain 
 other portion is set aside for them on their discharge, 
 and the Government takes the remainder. In convict 
 prisons in England a prisoner was at one time allowed 
 to profit, more or less immediately and directly, by his 
 industry, by obtaining more or better food in prison, 
 and a larger sum of money on discharge. This gave 
 rise to a great deal of hostile criticism. It was said 
 that prisoners might enjoy luxuries, such as food which 
 many an honest poor man had to deny himself, and that 
 this, with the fact of his being on discharge, in posses- 
 sion of a sum of money which an honest hard-working 
 labourer would be unable to accumulate, led to a com- 
 parison favourable to a dishonest instead of an honest 
 career. Public opinion, therefore, demanded that 
 prisoners throughout their sentence should have only 
 the barest necessaries in the way of food, and just 
 sufficient money on discharge to enable them to main- 
 tain themselves while seeking employment, purchasing 
 tools, etc. ; and this sound principle was adopted by a 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 173 
 
 Koyal Commission which, in 1863, inquired into the 
 subject of prison management, and has been carried out. 
 
 The only stimulus, therefore, which can be offered to 
 a prisoner is that of gaining by his industry a remission 
 of some portion of his sentence, of improving his prison 
 class, or that of punishing him if he is idle. Even with 
 these means, however, by steady supervision, very good 
 results are obtained. But there are prisoners, chiefly 
 the habitual criminal, who sometimes prefer any punish- 
 ment which involves a partial relief from labour to the 
 steady industry required on the public works. 
 
 The Government is always subject to a great deal of 
 pressure in opposition to its undertaking to manufacture 
 for itself, and still more if it manufactures for the market ; 
 and when these manufactures are carried on by prison 
 labour, a certain specious objection is made on the 
 ground of their thereby competing with free labour, and 
 lowering the wages of free workmen. Of course this is 
 utterly unreasonable; but, nevertheless, it has a con- 
 siderable effect. The particular trade which happens 
 to suffer from the competition of prison labour is 
 naturally loud in its outcries, and can always find 
 active advocates; and, on the principle that every- 
 body's business is nobody's business, this agitation is 
 not counterbalanced by a corresponding agitation on 
 behalf of the public, and in aid of those who act in the 
 public interest. The customs of trade societies are also 
 adverse to the action of Government in this way. 
 
 It is so obvious as hardly to require stating, that, as 
 persons who are earning a livelihood while free are com- 
 peting with somebody or other, so it is perfectly reason- 
 able that they should work, and therefore compete 
 
174 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 equally after being put in prison. I doubt whether 
 such employment should be carried on in prisons as 
 requires the purchase, from public funds, of a large and 
 expensive plant and machinery, the value of work done 
 by which would bear a great proportion to the value of 
 the prisoners' labour, because in such a case it is not 
 merely competition against prison labour, but against 
 Government capital. Many of the disadvantages which 
 attend the system of making prisons into manufactories 
 are avoided by performing in them work required by 
 the Government, either central or local ; and certainly 
 work of this kind should be preferred to any other. 
 
 The most practical way of achieving the three objects 
 to be attained by the industrial employment of prisoners 
 viz., to deter them by its penal character ; to reform 
 them by its operation on their moral feelings ; and to 
 contribute towards the expenses of their maintenance, 
 is to divide the period of punishment into different 
 stages, during one of which the penal or deterrent 
 object should be principally considered : during the 
 other, the reformatory and pecuniary may prevail in 
 various degrees. 
 
 The most effective continuous punishment (besides 
 loss of liberty) which can be inflicted on a prisoner con- 
 sists of strict isolation from the social enjoyment and 
 companionship of his fellows, diet reduced to the barest 
 necessaries, deprivation of all the comforts and luxuries 
 which men of the prisoner class usually allow themselves, 
 such as tobacco, drink, etc. ; and among these I may 
 mention the comfort to many among them of being 
 slovenly, for many of those who visit our prisons 
 remark on the cells as being so " clean and comfortable," 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 175 
 
 whereas many prisoners, if they expressed their ideas 
 on the subject, would call them "clean and uncom- 
 fortable." 
 
 In addition to these is the punishment of hard, 
 dull, useless, uninteresting, monotonous labour. It is 
 necessary to resort to this for its penal effect. There 
 is, nevertheless, a limit to the time during which a 
 prisoner can be advantageously subjected to it, for it is 
 decidedly brutalising in its effects. To men of any in- 
 telligence it is irritating, depressing, and debasing to 
 the mental faculties ; to those already of a low type of 
 intelligence, it is too conformable to the state of mind 
 out of which it is most desirable that they should be 
 raised. 
 
 Labour on cranks, etc., being a purely penal employ- 
 ment, is not carried on in convict prisons as part of 
 the ordinary course, but if a prisoner persistently mis- 
 conducts himself he may, if it is considered suitable to 
 his case, be, for a limited time, employed at turning a 
 crank. 
 
 If a prisoner has any knowledge of a trade which 
 can be followed in prison, he is, if circumstances permit, 
 assigned to such labour, for then the public profits, while 
 the prisoner preserves his skill, and those prisoners who 
 show an aptitude and a desire are selected, when oppor- 
 tunities offer, to learn any trade which is followed in 
 the prison. It is obvious that the number of trades 
 which can be followed in prison is very limited, and if 
 possible the work should be such as cannot be equally 
 well performed by machinery. Prison labour now 
 supplies everything that can possibly be made by it for 
 the prison service, such as clothing of all descriptions, 
 
176 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 bedding, cell furniture, cooperage, officers' uniforms, 
 baskets, printing, bookbinding, cooking, baking, wash- 
 ing, etc. The manufacture of hammocks, seamen's bags, 
 boarding bags, ships' fenders, coal sacks and bags, signal 
 cones, baskets, hand hones, mail bags, stamping pads, 
 labels, twine, boots, uniforms, knitted articles, hearth- 
 rugs, mats and matting, tinware, anchor ranges, and 
 register stoves, is carried on for other Government 
 departments. 
 
 The following are some of the employments carried 
 on in those convict prisons in which the prisoners are 
 kept in isolation for a period of nine months, and the 
 average daily value of their labour, ascertained by 
 measuring their work and assigning trade prices to 
 it: 
 
 Average earnings per day. 
 s. d. s. d. 
 
 Tailoring 1 4 to 2 9 
 
 Shoemaking 13 
 
 Matmaking 7 
 
 Weaving 10 
 
 Knitting . . . . . .03 
 
 Oakum-picking 0$ 
 
 Needlework 5 
 
 1 2 
 
 ,1 1 
 
 11 
 
 o 
 
 10 
 
 >. 1 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 
 0| 
 
 ., o 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 Though it cannot be claimed that the problem of 
 finding remunerative labour for prisoners in this stage 
 has been fully solved, yet some progress has been made 
 towards finding employment which plays its part as a 
 moral reformatory agent on those who unfortunately 
 are subject to prison discipline. 
 
 In the " public works " prisons, where they work in 
 regulated association, the conditions of the work more 
 resemble those which prevail outside, and it is obvious 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 177 
 
 there is more chance of finding suitable work, and of 
 its being such as may be useful to them on the con- 
 clusion of the sentences, of their being taught useful 
 trades, and of the work being made to pay. Outdoor 
 employment is considered best for most of the prisoners 
 in this stage ; it is healthiest both for body and mind, 
 and it is the more appropriate to the circumstances, as 
 generally it requires less skill. 
 
 Some years ago the convicts in England were em- 
 ployed in jobbing work about the dockyards; they 
 worked in chains, scattered in gangs over the yard, and 
 a great deal of the work was mere brute labour, such as 
 dragging heavy loads, which would have been done far 
 better and cheaper by horses. Such work and under 
 such conditions is neither reformatory nor remunerative. 
 Great improvements have since then been made in our 
 system. 
 
 The system inaugurated at Portland, of executing 
 large public works by means of prisoners' labour, is the 
 best that has yet been devised. The Eoyal Commission, 
 1879, on the " Penal Servitude Acts," make the follow- 
 ing observations and recommendations : 
 
 We are convinced also that severe labour on public works is 
 most beneficial in teaching criminals habits of industry, and train- 
 ing them to such employments as digging, road-making, quarrying, 
 stone-dressing, building, and brickmaking, work of a kind which 
 cannot be carried on in separate confinement. It is found that 
 employment of this nature is most easily obtained by convicts on 
 their release, since men are taken on for rough work without the 
 strict inquiries as to previous character which are made in other 
 
 By far the most important work done by the convicts is that 
 performed at the public works prisons. The magnificent break- 
 water and the fortifications at Portland, the great basins at Chatham 
 
178 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 and Portsmouth, and other similar works, which have been mainly- 
 executed by convict labour, testify to the skill with which the 
 system of associated labour has been directed, and are substantial 
 proofs that convicts can be made to repay to the public a consider- 
 able part of the cost of their maintenance. 
 
 No doubt, even if it were not advantageous in a pecuniary 
 point of view to employ convicts on public works of this nature, 
 it would still be most desirable that such employment should be 
 found for them as an essential part of penal discipline ; but it 
 is far more satisfactory that their labour should, if possible, be 
 profitably employed. 
 
 The advantages of acquiring or practising a trade 
 which is so highly appreciated by the prisoners, con- 
 stitute a means of rewarding those who show them- 
 selves worthy of it. The moral effect of such em- 
 ployment is, as has been already stated, greater, and 
 therefore more likely to make the prisoners fall into 
 habits of useful industry than if they were always em- 
 ployed at work which must present itself in the most 
 repulsive form to their minds ; and important works 
 may sometimes be executed by this means, which the 
 public might not be always willing otherwise to under- 
 take, though all can understand the advantages the 
 nation may derive from a judicious utilisation of the 
 labours of men who, whether usefully or uselessly 
 employed, have to be maintained at the public expense. 
 
 The importance of the public works executed by 
 convicts since the system was introduced is exemplified 
 at Portland, where this labour has been employed in 
 quarrying the stone for the construction of the break- 
 water a stone dam in the sea, nearly two miles in 
 length, and running into water 50 or 60 feet deep. 
 They have also executed the barracks and the principal 
 part of the works of defence, batteries, casemates, etc., 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 179 
 
 on the island, which may be considered impregnable to 
 any mode of attack except blockade and starvation of 
 the garrison. 
 
 In executing these works, every variety of mechanics' 
 work necessary in building or engineering has been 
 executed hy convicts quarrying and dressing and 
 placing the stone, all sorts of carpentry, casting and 
 forging ironwork, and so on. The large and extensive 
 plant has also been made and kept in repair by the 
 convicts, including the construction of the large cranes 
 and derricks in the quarries, and the laying of the rails 
 for the quarry waggons to run upon on their way to the 
 place for delivery of the stone. 
 
 The extensive works which have been undertaken of 
 late years at Chatham and Portsmouth, for the enlarge- 
 ment of these dockyards, have been largely carried out 
 by convict labour. At Chatham, the addition to the 
 dockyard covers a space of 430 acres, which is four 
 times the extent of the old dockyard. It occupies the 
 site of St. Mary's Island, the channel which separated 
 the island from the mainland furnishing the position of 
 the three basins viz., the " Eepairing Basin," 21 acres ; 
 the " Factory Basin," 20 acres ; the " Fitting-out Basin," 
 28 acres. The bottom of the basins is 12 feet below 
 the old river-bed, and 32 feet below St. Mary's Island. 
 The latter which was formerly much intersected by 
 creeks, and nearly covered at high water has been 
 raised about 8 feet by tipping and spreading on it 
 the earth excavated out of the basins, etc. The whole 
 island has been drained, and surrounded by a sea-wall 
 and embankment 9200 feet, or nearly two miles in 
 length, principally executed by convict labour. 
 
180 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 In carrying out these works, the prisoners have been 
 employed in excavating, pile-driving, and concreting, for 
 the foundations ; bricklaying, concreting, stone-dressing, 
 and setting, in connection with the construction of the 
 basin walls and entrances ; removing the earth from 
 the area of the basin by means of waggons and incline 
 planes, barrow roads, barrow lifts, and tipping waggons ; 
 loading and unloading materials ; plate -laying ; and 
 attending standing and locomotive engines. 
 
 The basin walls (which show a height of 39 feet 
 from the bottom of basin to the coping) have a height 
 of 50 feet altogether, from the foundation gravel or 
 chalk. 
 
 At Portsmouth similar operations have been per- 
 formed by prisoners in making the large extensions 
 of that dockyard, besides a vast quantity of prelimin- 
 ary work, such as demolishing the old fortifications. 
 
 The bricks used in these works have been made by 
 convicts, to the number of 313,242,260, and the Port- 
 land stone required has been raised and worked by the 
 convicts at Portland prison. 
 
 Work of a proportionally still higher pecuniary value 
 has been done for the convict department, in the build- 
 ing of new prison accommodation, which has been 
 rendered necessary on account of the prisoners who 
 would have been transported having now to be retained 
 in prisons in England; and for the improvement of 
 prisons built on imperfect models. Since 1863 prison 
 accommodation in cells for 4771 prisoners has been 
 erected at convict prisons entirely by convict labour, 
 with a number of accessory buildings, quarters for 
 officers, and so on. The actual cost to the Govern- 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 181 
 
 ment of buildings erected for the convict department, 
 between 1863 and 1885, has been 358,700 ; the same 
 work done by contract would have cost 636,400, 
 showing a clear gain by convict labour of 277,700 
 in this comparatively small department of their labour. 
 In these works the bricks were made, stone was quar- 
 ried and dressed, timber sawn, and iron cast, forged, 
 and wrought from the raw state by prisoners. 
 
 Among these works the largest are a prison at 
 Woking for 700 women, at Borstal for 500 men, and 
 at Wormwood Scrubs for 1052 men. This latter was 
 commenced by a party of 100 prisoners placed in a 
 temporary prison inside a wooden hoarding. All the 
 rest, including the making of the bricks, they have done 
 themselves. They have added new wings to the prisons 
 at Chatham (500 cells) and Portsmouth (200 cells) ; 
 Dartmoor (272 cells), and an extension of two existing 
 wings (318 cells); Parkhurst (535 cells), and Brixton 
 (306 cells). At Pentonville an addition of 327 cells 
 was made under rather peculiar circumstances. The 
 ground space was so restricted that the only way to 
 add to the prison was by raising the roof and adding 
 a story ; and this had to be done while the prisoners 
 continued to inhabit the prison. 
 
 Although all the mechanics' work of these buildings 
 is done by convicts, it must not be supposed that these 
 mechanics are found ready to our hands among the 
 prisoners. Out of 9107 prisoners in custody on 1st 
 July 1882, 3914 were employed at trades, and 3235 
 or 82*6 per cent acquired their skill in the prison. 
 Men thus employed will, it is hoped and believed, be 
 less likely to relapse into crime on their discharge, as 
 
182 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 they will have full opportunities of pursuing an honest 
 calling. Moreover, it is reported that the cases of mis- 
 conduct are much fewer among those prisoners employed 
 in trades than among those who are employed jobbing 
 about, although the latter is much the easier work. 
 
 The following return shows the extent to which 
 employment in trades is carried out in the convict 
 prisons, and the variety of mechanics' work followed 
 and taught : 
 
 Number of convicts in prison, 1st July 1882 9107. 
 
 
 Followed 
 
 Learnt 
 
 Total 
 
 Trade. 
 
 before 
 Reception. 
 
 in 
 Prison. 
 
 employed 
 
 at Trades, 
 
 etc. 
 
 Bagmakers 
 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 Bakers 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 51 
 
 69 
 
 Basketmakers . 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 41 
 
 44 
 
 Bellhangers 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 Blacksmiths 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 33 
 
 66 
 
 Boilermakers 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 Bookbinders 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 29 
 
 34 
 
 Bricklayers 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 187 
 
 232 
 
 Brickmakers 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 Carpenters 
 
 
 
 92 
 
 151 
 
 243 
 
 Chairmakers 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 Chimney-sweeps 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 a 
 
 10 
 
 Cooks 
 
 
 
 
 97 
 
 97 
 
 Coopers 
 
 
 
 ' i 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 Coppersmiths 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 Engineers, mechanica 
 
 i 
 
 
 "i 
 
 
 4 
 
 Engine Drivers . 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 17 
 
 Fitters, engine . 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 Fitters, gas, etc. 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 28 
 
 Fitters, iron, 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 Fitters, ordinary 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 25 
 
 Flax Dressers 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 Galvanisers 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 Carry forward . 
 
 249 
 
 680 
 
 929 
 
VI.] 
 
 PENAL SERVITUDE. 
 
 183 
 
 
 Followed 
 
 Learnt 
 
 Total 
 
 Trade. 
 
 before 
 
 in 
 
 employed 
 
 
 Eeception. 
 
 Prison. 
 
 at Trades, 
 etc. 
 
 Brought forward . 
 
 249 
 
 680 
 
 929 
 
 Gardeners .... 
 
 10 
 
 84 
 
 94 
 
 Grinders .... 
 
 3 
 
 
 3 
 
 Knitters .... 
 
 
 251 
 
 251 
 
 Locksmiths 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 Masons .... 
 
 45 
 
 68 
 
 113 
 
 Matmakers 
 
 
 51 
 
 51 
 
 Moulders .... 
 
 3 
 
 
 3 
 
 Moulders, brass . 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 Moulders, iron . 
 
 14 
 
 "i 
 
 23 
 
 Painters .... 
 
 35 
 
 24 
 
 59 
 
 Paperhangers 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 Plasterers .... 
 
 18 
 
 '*5 
 
 23 
 
 Platelayers 
 
 3 
 
 104 
 
 107 
 
 Plumbers .... 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 
 Polishers, French 
 
 2 
 
 
 2 
 
 Printers .... 
 
 8 
 
 34 
 
 42 
 
 Riggers .... 
 
 2 
 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 Sail or Hammockmakers . 
 
 2 
 
 67 
 
 69 
 
 Sawyers, stone . 
 
 
 91 
 
 91 
 
 Sawyers, wood . 
 
 13 
 
 39 
 
 52 
 
 Ships' fender makers . 
 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 Shoemakers 
 
 85 
 
 482 
 
 567 
 
 Slaters .... 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 Smiths .... 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 Stonecutters 
 
 26 
 
 364 
 
 390 
 
 Strikers .... 
 
 15 
 
 59 
 
 74 
 
 Tailors .... 
 
 109 
 
 634 
 
 743 
 
 Tailors' repairs . 
 
 
 31 
 
 31 
 
 Tinsmiths .... 
 
 i'6 
 
 19 
 
 29 
 
 Turners .... 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 Washers .... 
 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 Weavers .... 
 
 2 
 
 86 
 
 88 
 
 Wheelwrights . 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 Totals . 
 
 679 
 
 3235 
 
 3914 
 
 The department which manages the convict prisons 
 is founded on statutes earlier than that which has been 
 described as creating the Department of Local Prisons. 
 
184 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 The Secretary of State for the Home Department is 
 the supreme head of all prisons. All rules are issued 
 under his authority and with his approval, and must, of 
 course, be consistent with the Acts of Parliament. 
 
 The convict prisons are managed by the Chairman 
 and Board of Directors of Convict Prisons, who were 
 constituted by 13 & 14 Vict. cap. 39, and exercise all 
 the powers formerly vested by Acts of Parliament in 
 the various bodies who managed the prisons placed 
 under their control. As already related, the first prison 
 establishments in England, created specially to contain 
 convicts under sentence of transportation prior to or in 
 lieu of removal to the penal colonies, were the hulks, 
 established as a temporary expedient in 1776; after- 
 wards Millbank was opened in 1816, to which prisoners 
 might be sent for imprisonment instead of being sen- 
 tenced to transportation (34 Geo. Ill cap. 84) ; and 
 Pentonville was opened in 1842 (5 Vict. cap. 29). 
 Special Acts of Parliament were passed from time to 
 time to constitute these establishments, and provide for 
 their administration and inspection. 
 
 The cost of maintaining the prisoners in the hulks 
 was undertaken by the Government in 1779. These 
 establishments were at first managed by local justices. 
 Such supervision as there was over them in their early 
 days was exercised by the Court of King's Bench. 
 Gradually, however, the Home Office seems to have 
 assumed a power of inspection and control, which was 
 legalised in 1815, and their connection with the King's 
 Bench was finally severed in 1825. The supervision 
 was then vested in a paid superintendent (5 Geo. IV. 
 cap. 84): this office was abolished in 1846 (9 & 10 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 185 
 
 Vict. cap. 26), and their management vested in "a 
 person " until it was transferred to the Directors as 
 above related. 
 
 The management of Millbank was, at first, placed 
 in the hands of a special unpaid Committee, then paid 
 Inspectors were appointed (6 & 7 Vict. cap. 26), and 
 subsequently Visitors (11 & 12 Vict. cap. 104). Penton- 
 ville was, when first opened, supervised and controlled 
 by a body of unpaid Commissioners (5 Vict. cap. 29). 
 
 The lists of the members of these Committees and 
 Commissions contain the names of some of the most 
 distinguished men and eminent statesmen of their day. 
 It had not yet been discovered that collecting into 
 a board of management a number of persons with 
 high-sounding names was the least effective and the 
 most irresponsible mode of administration that could 
 be devised, and consequently while passing through 
 these various phases, the management and discipline of 
 prisoners formed the subject of many Committees of 
 Inquiry and Acts of Parliament. As a final result, it 
 was found desirable to substitute for these various 
 disconnected unpaid bodies one paid body, who could 
 devote their whole attention to their important duties, 
 and thus originated the Board of Directors of Convict 
 Prisons. 
 
 It is the duty of the Directors to visit every convict 
 prison periodically. Every prison is inspected monthly 
 some weekly, to see that the orders given are carried 
 out, that there are no abuses or irregularities, to hear 
 appeals or requests from prisoners, and to act magis- 
 terially in trying charges against prisoners. Independ- 
 ent visitors, hereafter referred to, inspect the convict 
 
186 PUNISHMENT & PRETENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 prisons when they think proper, and hear any complaints 
 prisoners may desire to prefer. 
 
 The whole of the financial affairs of the convict and 
 local prisons, the making of contracts, and those adminis- 
 trative duties of conduct and discipline which require 
 the intervention of higher authority than the Governors 
 in immediate charge of the prisons, are performed for 
 the convict prisons by the Directors, and for the local 
 prisons by the Commissioners. 
 
 The necessary funds are voted every year by Parlia- 
 ment, the Directors and Commissioners being respec- 
 tively responsible for their administration according to 
 instructions received. 
 
 Although the various prison departments are consti- 
 tuted under different Acts of Parliament, they are 
 practically amalgamated into one, and in due course will 
 no doubt be entirely. The offices of Surveyor-General 
 of prisons, Chairman of the Directors of convict prisons, 
 and Inspector-General of military prisons, and Chairman 
 of Commissioners of prisons, are, and always have been, 
 united in the same person. The Directors of convict 
 prisons act also as Inspectors of military prisons. 
 
 Each prison has a governor, a chaplain, and a medical 
 officer, and, where necessary, a deputy-governor, an 
 assistant -chaplain, a Roman Catholic priest, and an 
 assistant-medical officer. 
 
 The governor is the head of the establishment; under 
 him are more immediately the discipline staff of warders, 
 etc. The schoolmasters, while more immediately under 
 the chaplain, and the infirmary staff under the medical 
 officer, are nevertheless subject to the governor in all 
 matters of discipline. 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 187 
 
 There is also a clerk of works, or other officer of 
 lower grade, and, according as they are required, perman- 
 ent officers to instruct the prisoners in their various 
 trades, and to measure the value of the work they 
 execute. 
 
 More minute details of the staff at any prison are to 
 be found in the Annual Eeports of the Directors of Con- 
 vict Prisons, of the Prison Commissioners, and in the 
 estimates laid before the House of Commons. 
 
 The detailed instructions to officers, under which the 
 prisons are administered, will be found in the rules for 
 prisons. It must suffice here to say that the spirit of 
 these instructions is, that while it is always to be 
 remembered that the prisoners are sentenced to undergo 
 punishment, the dictates of humanity are to be care- 
 fully kept in view ; that all the officers are to bear 
 in mind that their duty is to reform as well as to 
 punish, and that the conditions to ensure good health 
 of body are to be carefully attended to. These in- 
 structions are by no means allowed to be neglected, 
 and statistics prove the efficiency of the organisation 
 for this purpose. 
 
 From the time when the English Government took 
 seriously in hand the reform of the prison system, nearly 
 forty years ago, their efforts have been directed to 
 forming a good staff of officers as a matter of the first 
 consequence, and these appointments have never been 
 considered the subject of political patronage or private 
 interest. This feature might indeed be considered one 
 of the leading characteristics of the English prison 
 system, and to which it owes in a great measure its 
 success. In introducing it at a time when it was con- 
 
188 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 sidered quite the right and natural thing for a Minister 
 to use public appointments to provide berths for his 
 friends and for their friends, and in enforcing it during 
 all his tenure of office Sir George Grey conferred a 
 lasting benefit on the country, and gave a striking proof 
 of his high mind and public spirit. 
 
 Appointments and promotions in the prisons are 
 made by authority of the Secretary of State, on the 
 recommendation of the Department of Prisons, except 
 in certain cases, in which, either by law or by the 
 authority of the Secretary of State, the appointments 
 and promotions are made without referring each indi- 
 vidual case to him. 
 
 The conditions required of all candidates for appoint- 
 ment are that they shall be suitable as to character, 
 physique, and intelligence. 
 
 Those applicants are preferred who have already 
 filled with credit situations in which similar qualifica- 
 tions are requisite. Confidential inquiries are made 
 from those who are able and competent to give the 
 necessary information as to the manner in which a 
 candidate has performed those duties, and on his 
 general character and disposition in the various points 
 which are of most importance for the position he seeks 
 to fill. 
 
 A large number of applications for the appointments 
 are from men who have left the army, because from the 
 nature of the engagements under which men enter the 
 army, there is always a flow of candidates for such 
 employment as prison and other Government service 
 offers, but there is no rule restricting the choice of 
 officers of prisons to them. Their habits of order and 
 
vi.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 189 
 
 discipline, of rendering and enforcing strict obedience, 
 and their aptitude in dealing with large bodies of men, 
 are unquestionably very valuable qualities for the office, 
 and if not possessed by an officer on joining, would have 
 to be acquired more or less perfectly afterwards. 
 
 All candidates who are nominated to posts in the 
 prison service are obliged, like all other civil servants, 
 to obtain a certificate of qualification from the Civil 
 Service Commissioners, that they fulfil the conditions 
 laid down for each appointment, in respect to character, 
 education, age, etc. 
 
 Subordinate (discipline) officers all enter either as 
 assistant warders or civil guards, and having obtained 
 certificates of the Civil Service Commissioners, are ap- 
 pointed on a probation of three months; if, during 
 that period, they do not show any aptitude for the 
 service, they are discharged with a week's notice. 
 
 Officers in the prison service are not entitled to any 
 advantages or allowances besides their regular pay 
 and allowances; they are not allowed to make use 
 of, or derive any benefit from, the labour of the 
 prisoners. 
 
 The punishments to which officers are subjected con- 
 sist of fines, degradation to a lower rank, or dismissal. 
 Certain special offences are also punishable by impri- 
 sonment, after conviction before a proper court viz., 
 aiding or attempting to aid a prisoner to escape, and 
 bringing into the prison, or taking out, for prisoners, 
 articles not allowed by the rules. 
 
 It may be well to give a short risum'e of the prin- 
 ciples which our experience might be said to have estab- 
 
190 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 lished. They are (1.) That a well-devised system of 
 secondary punishment should provide for subjecting 
 those sentenced to it to a uniform course of penal 
 deterrent discipline. (2.) That every means possible 
 should be adopted for developing and working on the 
 higher feelings of the prisoners, directly by moral, 
 religious, and secular instruction, and indirectly by 
 ensuring industry, good conduct, and discipline, through 
 appealing to the hope of advantage or reward, as well 
 as by the fear of punishment. (3.) That, with a view to 
 deterrence as well as reformation, it is desirable that 
 every short sentence and the first part of every long 
 sentence should be undergone on the separate system as 
 developed at Pentonville. (4.) That before discharging 
 the long-sentenced convict to a full or modified degree 
 of liberty, he should be subjected to further training, in 
 which he should be associated, under supervision, while 
 at labour, but separated at all other times. (5.) That 
 properly constructed prison buildings, providing among 
 other things for this separation, are all-important re- 
 quisities for the success of the system. (6.) That em- 
 ployment should be provided and industry enforced or 
 encouraged for all. (7.) That care should be taken to 
 select and train a good staff of skilled and responsible 
 officials to supervise and carry on the work of the 
 convict establishments, and means adopted to prevent 
 their work being hindered or defeated by the prisoners 
 being brought into close contact on works or otherwise 
 with free men who were under no such responsibili- 
 ties. (8.) That those who on discharge are disposed 
 to follow honest courses should be guided and assisted 
 in their endeavours, and that a careful watch should 
 
V..] 
 
 PENAL SERVITUDE. 
 
 191 
 
 be kept over all till they have re-established their 
 character. 
 
 The following figures show in a concise and striking 
 form the effects of this part of our penal system by the 
 remarkable diminution in the number of persons detained 
 under punishment for serious crime, and its progressive 
 decrease as our system has developed in execution. 
 
 Total number of persons in custody under sentence of Penal Servitude and 
 Transportation in England and the Colonies at the end of the following 
 years : 
 
 Mar, 
 
 Dec. 31, 1869 
 
 11,660. 
 
 1870 
 
 11,890. 
 
 ,. 1871 
 
 11,712. 
 
 m 1872 
 
 11,488. 
 
 1873 
 
 11,061. 
 
 1874 
 
 10,867. 
 
 1875 
 
 10,765. 
 
 1876 
 
 10,725. 
 
 31, 1877 
 
 10,763 
 
 1878 
 
 10,671 
 
 31, 1879 
 
 10,884 
 
 1880 
 
 10,839 
 
 1881 
 
 10,676 
 
 1882 
 
 10,587 
 
 1883 
 
 10,529 
 
 1884 
 
 9,942 
 
 1885 
 
 8,790 
 
 Taken together with the diminution in our local prison 
 population, since those establishments were transferred 
 to the Government in 1878 (see page 109), we had in 
 1885 no less than 5797 fewer prisoners in custody than 
 at the corresponding period of the year in 1878, and 
 there appears good prospect of this diminution being 
 to a large extent permanent. 
 
 Taking the comparison back to the year before penal 
 servitude was introduced, viz. 1852, it is shown in the 
 Reports on Convict Prisons in that year that we were 
 maintaining in Great Britain 8274 convicts, in Gibraltar 
 and Bermuda 2650, in Van Diemen's Land 4762, and 
 in West Australia 1450, or 17,130 in all, besides 5246 
 in Ireland. The convict population of Great Britain, 
 therefore, was then about double what it is now, while 
 
192 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [ch. vi. 
 
 the general population was only two-thirds; and this 
 accumulation of convicts accrued in spite of the fact 
 that those who were sentenced to seven years usually 
 were discharged in this country at the end of three 
 years, and might be at the end of two, and other sen- 
 tences in like proportion, a life sentence involving no 
 more than eleven and a half years or possibly only six. 
 The following table shows the remarkable decrease 
 in the number of sentences of penal servitude during a 
 term when the population has largely increased : 
 
 Average number of sentences of Penal 
 Servitude in England and Wales. 
 
 During 5 years ended 1859 . 2589. 
 
 1864 . 2800. 
 
 1869 . 1978. 
 
 1874 . 1622. 
 
 1879 . 1633. 
 
 During 5 years ended 1884 . 1428. 
 
 Average Population of 
 England and Wales. 
 
 19,257,184. 
 20,369,938. 
 21,680,874. 
 23,087,947. 
 24,700,326. 
 26,213,629. 
 
 During the last three years of this last period the 
 numbers have averaged only 1367, showing a continual 
 downward tendency. 
 
 These figures have a particular interest as showing 
 that the number of sentences for serious crime have 
 considerably diminished since transportation ceased to 
 form part of our system, and might profitably be 
 pondered by those countries which contemplate em- 
 barking in all the difficulties that system involves, 
 under the idea that there is no other way out of their 
 difficulties. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUPERVISION DISCHARGED PRISONERS' 
 AID SOCIETIES. 
 
 It must not be assumed that when a prisoner is dis- 
 charged from prison, having served his sentence or 
 obtained a conditional release remitting some part of 
 it, there is nothing more to be done. He may want a 
 helping hand to put him in the right groove for earning 
 an honest livelihood, and prevent him falling into the 
 hands of those who would lead him astray ; or he may 
 need careful watching and reminding that he has got 
 to regain his character before he can take his place in 
 the community as a man whose crimes have been 
 thoroughly and effectually purged. 
 
 The "Prevention of Crimes Act, 1871," affords the 
 means of fulfilling the latter object. Under section 8 
 thereof any person convicted a second time on indictment 
 may be sentenced to be subject to the supervision of 
 the police for seven years or less after the expiration of 
 his sentence, and during such period he is required to 
 keep the police informed of his residence, and to report 
 himself to them once a month, failing which he is liable 
 to a year's imprisonment with hard labour. A prisoner 
 released from a sentence of penal servitude on remission 
 
 
 
194 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 of a part of his sentence is subject to similar obligations 
 and penalties ; and further, if it is shown that there are 
 reasonable grounds for believing that he is getting his 
 livelihood by dishonest means, or in other ways shown 
 that he is not worthy of the freedom conditionally con- 
 ferred on him, he is liable to be returned to prison to 
 undergo the portion of his sentence which was remitted. 
 A person convicted on indictment after a previous con- 
 viction is also considered not to be entitled for seven 
 years to the presumption of innocence under certain 
 circumstances of suspicion, which is the right of every 
 member of the community whose character is untainted. 
 
 It is obvious that to enable supervision to be effec- 
 tually carried out, and to ensure, so far as possible, 
 that an old offender should, on reconviction, be recognised 
 as such, it is necessary to have a good and complete 
 personal record of the members of the criminal classes, 
 accessible to all police forces and courts of justice. 
 
 With this view the "Habitual Criminals Act, 1869," 
 directed the formation of a central register of criminals. 
 A very wide interpretation was at first given to this 
 direction, and the number of persons registered accumu- 
 lated so rapidly, when all cases were entered in it, that 
 the register was becoming almost useless from its bulk, 
 and it was, moreover, not generally so useful as desir- 
 able, as it was accessible only in London. In 1876, 
 therefore, it was determined to confine the register to 
 prisoners of the doubly -convicted class described in 
 sections 7 and 8 of the "Prevention of Crimes Act, 
 1871," and arrangements were made for printing it. 
 
 The register is now therefore printed and circulated 
 to all police forces and prisons all over the kingdom. 
 
vii.] SUPERVISION. 195 
 
 The printing is done by convict prisoners. The first 
 volume, published in 1876, embraces the period from 
 11th December 1869 to 31st March 1876, and contains 
 the names of 12,164 persons, with 21,194 convictions 
 recorded against them, and the detailed personal des- 
 cription of each one of them. Similar volumes, in 
 continuation, have been published annually. 
 
 By means of the annual volumes the police authorities 
 have at their command, in a most convenient and useful 
 form, all information necessary to establish a primd facie 
 identification of any person suspected of being an 
 habitual criminal, and are thereby able at once to pro- 
 cure direct from the locality or the prison where he is 
 known, any further information, evidence, means of 
 identification, photographs, etc., required. 
 
 It is believed that a list of this character is the first 
 attempt of its kind to furnish generally, to all police 
 bodies and others, information, complete and readily 
 accessible, respecting the class of prisoners against whom 
 they are carrying on their operations. 
 
 In addition to the foregoing, there has been issued a 
 "Distinctive Marks Register," by which the police, when 
 in doubt of, or unable to ascertain the name of, a person 
 in custody, are enabled to trace his antecedents, from 
 the fact that, in a vast proportion of cases, the habitual 
 criminal carries on his person marks which afford a 
 certain clue to his identity. 
 
 These two books give, in the fullest manner, and by 
 two entirely distinct means of identification, the par- 
 ticulars necessary to assist the police in their attempts 
 to check the habitual criminal in his career. 
 
 It is worthy of note that supervision and registry of 
 
196 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 criminals was one of the features of the transportation 
 system, which, therefore, in this as in so much else, we 
 have imitated and profited by and developed in our 
 modern prison systems. 
 
 The duty and advantage of helping prisoners to 
 find employment after expiating their offence in prison 
 was soon recognised when it began to be understood 
 that the community had some duty to, and some interest 
 in, those who had fallen into crime, besides that of 
 terrifying them or revenging itself on them. The first 
 statute in which this principle was embodied was passed 
 in 1792, when judges or justices were authorised to 
 order any prisoner on discharge to be conveyed by pass 
 to his parish, where, of course, he had a claim to be 
 cared for; and in the Gaol Act of 1823 the visiting 
 justices of any prison were authorised to forward 
 prisoners to places where they could find employment, 
 the funds to be provided from bequests and benefactions 
 belonging to the gaol, or from the rates. 
 
 In 1802 societies began to be established for the 
 purpose of aiding prisoners on discharge, and in 1862 
 these societies were recognised by statute in such manner 
 that the justices might hand over to them the money 
 they devoted to the purpose of aiding prisoners, to be 
 appropriated to finding employment for them, and 
 enabling them by loans and grants of money to live by 
 honest labour. 
 
 In 1857 a society was established for aiding prisoners 
 discharged from penal servitude, and has successfully 
 carried on those most useful duties since that time. 
 
 When the local prisons were transferred to Govern- 
 ment in 1878 there existed twenty-nine of these institu- 
 
vii.] DISCHARGED PRISONERS' AID SOCIETIES. 197 
 
 tions connected with prisons in England and Wales, six 
 in Scotland, and only two in Ireland. As many- 
 prisons had no Aid Society in connection with them a 
 great many prisoners left prison without any chance of 
 the aid the justices had been encouraged by these Acts 
 to afford them. 
 
 Since the above date, however, a uniform system has 
 been applied in all localities, and the formation of Aid 
 Societies has been so much encouraged that there are 
 now sixty -three Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies, 
 working in connection with all prisons in England and 
 Wales except one or two, besides forty -two other 
 societies, refuges, and homes. The funds with which 
 these societies work are derived from the gratuities 
 granted to the prisoners under the system of progressive 
 stages, already described, and from an additional grant 
 made by the Government out of a sum of 4000 voted 
 annually. This is distributed among the prisons in pro- 
 portion to the number of prisoners to be helped, but with 
 a proviso that an equal amount shall be provided by 
 private subscription as a guarantee of that local and 
 private interest in the work without which not only it 
 cannot prosper, but evidently might even have a posi- 
 tively mischievous effect, by creating a presumption that 
 " Government " admitted it to be within its proper 
 functions to find employment on discharge for any 
 person who came into prison. 
 
 The sum expended in 1884-85 in gratuities to 
 prisoners amounted to 7280, besides the private 
 subscriptions or proceeds of charities and bequests 
 administered by the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies. 
 The expenditure by the local authorities in 1875, 1876, 
 
198 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [ch. vir. 
 
 and 1877 amounted on the average of the three years 
 to 1791 per annum, and it is reasonable to claim as 
 one of the improvements since 1878 that of introducing 
 throughout the country the practice which before was 
 for the most part confined to the most enlightened 
 among the local bodies. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PREVENTIVE SYSTEM JUVENILES REFORMATORIES 
 INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 
 
 In the downward path which leads to habitual crime 
 the first step is the most important, and to arrest the 
 victim before he takes it the most effectual check on his 
 adoption of that career. In a correspondence between 
 Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Clay, Chaplain of Preston 
 prison in 1853, are given some statistical observations, 
 framed from the best information Mr. Clay could obtain 
 of the age at which the criminal career of those who 
 came under his observations had commenced. He says 
 they " indicate a statistical law nearly of the same charac- 
 ter as you have observed. In looking over my numerous 
 MS. narratives, written or dictated by prisoners, I am 
 led to believe (in respect to actual though undetected 
 delinquency) that 58 per cent first practised dishonesty 
 when under fifteen. 
 
 14 per cent between fifteen and sixteen. 
 8 under seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen. 
 
 20 under twenty." 
 In short, according to these observations, most criminals 
 commenced dishonesty when under twenty years of age, 
 and more than half when under fifteen. Clearly, then, 
 
200 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 preventive measures applied below these ages might 
 reasonably be expected to effect a great check on the 
 development of crime. 
 
 Those who were concerned in dealing with crime in 
 the early part of this century commonly remarked on 
 the dimensions which juvenile criminality was attaining 
 to. Statistics supported their opinions. 
 
 The only preventive measures were the Apprenticeship 
 Laws of the time of Henry VIII., under which children 
 between five and thirteen found begging or idle were 
 compulsorily bound apprentices to some handicraft. 
 
 The training in vice was systematic; young people 
 were employed for the double reason that they could 
 operate in many positions in which an adult would find 
 less facility; and further, the penalty of capital punish- 
 ment would not usually be inflicted on detection. Boys 
 of twelve, fourteen, and sixteen were, however, sometimes 
 hanged ; and a child named Leary who commenced at 
 the age of eight by stealing apples, and progressing 
 through theft of tarts and loaves, robberies of tills, and of 
 trunks, etc. from carts, to burglary, at length becoming 
 the head of a gang was, at the age of thirteen, sentenced 
 to be hanged, but eventually got off with transportation 
 for life. There were said to be in London 200 flash 
 houses frequented by 6000 boys and girls who had no 
 employment or means of livelihood but by thieving. 
 
 In 1816, when the population of London was under 
 a million and a half, there were in London prisons 
 above 3000 inmates under twenty years of age half of 
 these were under seventeen, some were nine or ten, and 
 1000 of these children were convicted of felony. These 
 ages correspond very closely with those referred to above 
 
vin.] JUVENILES. 201 
 
 as the result of the later observations of Lord Shaftesbury 
 and Mr. Clay. 
 
 The full force of these figures will not be felt unless we 
 contrast with them the statistics of the present day, 
 which show that in all England and Wales, with a pop- 
 ulation of about twenty-seven millions, there were on 
 31st March 1884 only 275 prisoners under sixteen years 
 of age, and 3226 between sixteen and twenty -one; a 
 considerable number of both these being, no doubt, in 
 prison temporarily in compliance with the law which 
 requires that the prison shall be the channel by which 
 they shall be sent to a reformatory. 
 
 It is clear enough that to place young people of such 
 an age in ordinary prisons with adult prisoners especially 
 under the imperfect system of discipline then existing, 
 and with the great facilities for contamination by associa- 
 tion which prisons then afforded not only was not 
 calculated to check their criminal tendencies, but rather 
 to develop them, and to deprive the prison of the dread 
 which it ought to inspire. In fact, the system which 
 then prevailed of employing prisoners as wardsmen in 
 positions of authority, would seem to have been almost 
 designed for the purpose of exalting the habitual crimi- 
 nal in the eyes of these young tyros on the profession. 
 As the sins of the fathers are in these matters very 
 decidedly visited on the children, it may be said that 
 the present and past generation have been suffering from 
 the neglect of the one which preceded them to take 
 notice in time of these warnings. 
 
 It was not likely that these truths had escaped the 
 observation of philanthropists before the times above 
 referred to. The Marine Society for clothing waifs and 
 
202 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 strays and sending them to sea commences its history in 
 1756. In the list of reformatory and preventive institu- 
 tions existing in 1884 the earliest founded appears to 
 be the Philanthropic Society's Farm School at Redhill, 
 which was founded in 1788 or 1789 eleven years after 
 Howard published his State of Prisons. Some few 
 other institutions of the same kind were no doubt 
 established soon after, and their promoters were en- 
 couraged by official co-operation, so that in the Park- 
 hurst Act, 1838, it is recited that "Her Majesty has 
 lately exercised Her Royal Prerogative of Mercy in 
 granting Pardon to young offenders who have been 
 sentenced to Transportation or Imprisonment upon the 
 condition of placing himself or herself under the care of 
 some Charitable Institution for the reception and refor- 
 mation of young offenders named in such pardon, and 
 conforming to and abiding by the orders and rules 
 thereof, and whereas the same has been found bene- 
 ficial, and whereas it is expedient that some provision 
 should be made for carrying the same more fully into 
 effect," etc. The law then enacted made the escape of 
 such offenders from such institutions, or refusal to abide 
 by the rules thereof, punishable by imprisonment and 
 forfeiture of the pardon, and in this way adopted them 
 as in a certain sense Government institutions, armed 
 with the authority which belongs to the executive power. 
 The first completely official establishment in England 
 of a prison for young offenders in which to apply to juven- 
 iles a system of treatment distinguished from that applied 
 to adults, by being composed more largely of the reform- 
 ing than the strictly penal element, was when Parkhurst 
 prison, as already stated, was established for juvenile 
 
viil ] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 203 
 
 offenders sentenced to transportation or imprisonment. 
 The preamble of this Act, passed 10th August 1838, 
 observed that it might "be of great public advantage 
 that a prison be provided in which young offenders 
 may be detained and corrected, and receive such In- 
 structions and be subject to such Discipline as shall 
 appear most conducive to their Reformation and to 
 the Repression of Crime," and that " the buildings of 
 Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight, lately used as a 
 Military Hospital and as a Medical Asylum for the 
 Children of Soldiers," might be " conveniently used for 
 such a Prison." 
 
 The Reformatory and Industrial Schools Act sub- 
 sequently passed supplanted this institution by others 
 established on a system which will be described, so 
 that whereas in 1849 there were about 700 young 
 persons at Parkhurst, in 1854 there were only 536, 
 and on 31st December 1864 only 68 no more than* 
 fifteen young convicts having been received in that year, 
 and the number of juveniles sentenced to long terms of 
 imprisonment (who had also since 1854 been received 
 there) did not increase the number enough to justify 
 the retention of the establishment. It was therefore 
 closed in 1864, and since 1866 there have been no 
 juveniles in any Government convict establishment. 
 
 The distinction between a reformatory and an 
 industrial school is very important. The first is a 
 place of punishment for a convicted offender, as well 
 as a place of training, and reception into a reformatory 
 must be preceded by a period in prison of not less 
 than ten days. The industrial school, on the other 
 hand, is purely a preventive or training institution, 
 
204 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 from which the conviction for certain crimes will ex- 
 clude a child. 
 
 Eeformatory and industrial schools are not provided 
 by the State, nor is there any obligation on any Local 
 Authority to provide them or contribute to them, or on 
 any Court of Justice to send children to them, or on 
 managers of such schools to receive the children whom 
 the magistrates commit. 
 
 A reformatory or industrial school may be es- 
 tablished in two ways (a) by private individuals, 
 either as a proprietary institution, or as a charitable 
 institution supported by voluntary contributions; (b) 
 in England by a Local Prison Authority as denned 
 by the Prison Act, 1865 (i.e. Quarter Sessions in counties 
 and Town Councils in Quarter Session Boroughs), in 
 Scotland by a County Board. 
 
 A School Board may also establish an industrial 
 school, and both a Prison Authority and a School Board, 
 or County Board in Scotland, may aid instead of estab- 
 lishing, an industrial school. 
 
 Day industrial schools may, in England, be established 
 by the same means as ordinary industrial schools. 
 
 The steps by which the present Reformatory System 
 has been established are shown in the abstract of Acts 
 passed from time to time, given in the report of the 
 Eoyal Commission on the subject, 1884. 
 
 Reformatories up to 1866. 
 
 Before 1854 the only children legally detained in a 
 reformatory were those under conditional pardon the 
 pardon being given on the condition that instead of 
 
viii. ] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 205 
 
 suffering imprisonment they should be detained in a 
 school of this kind under voluntary management, and 
 not subject to Government rules or under Government 
 inspection. In 1854 was passed the first Keformatory 
 Act applying both to England and Scotland. The 
 reformatory was to be certified by the Secretary of 
 State, and inspected by an Inspector of Prisons. Power 
 was given to the Court convicting the juvenile offender 
 under sixteen to sentence him to detention in a reforma- 
 tory for not less than two or more than five years, in 
 addition to imprisonment in gaol not less than fourteen 
 days. Treasury contributions for maintenance in whole 
 or in part were authorised, and also compulsory con- 
 tributions from the parent, not exceeding 5s. per week, 
 which went in relief of treasury charges. In 1855, and 
 again in 1856, the Act was amended in minor details. 
 
 In 1857 the Act, so far as England was concerned, 
 was enlarged by enabling, for the first time, Local Autho- 
 rities viz. Quarter Sessions in Counties and Councils 
 of Quarter Session Boroughs to contribute towards the 
 establishment of a reformatory, and the same authorities 
 were likewise empowered to contract for the reception 
 therein of children from the local jurisdiction. By section 
 13a valuable modification of the system was introduced, 
 viz. a power to grant licences to the inmates upon 
 probation after at least half of their period of detention. 
 By section 4 plans of buildings were to be submitted 
 to the Secretary of State. 
 
 In the same year the Rev. Sidney Turner was 
 appointed Inspector of Prisons, with special reference 
 to reformatories. 
 
 In 1866 the previous Acts were repealed, and the 
 
206 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 Consolidating and Amending Act now in force was 
 passed, applying both to England and Scotland, and 
 placing the reformatories of both countries practically 
 on the same footing. The most noticeable changes 
 were that by section 4 a special Inspector of Reforma- 
 tories was established ; by section 1 2 the Secretary of 
 State was required to make rules for the government of 
 the reformatory ; and by section 1 4 the important limita- 
 tion of age was introduced, prohibiting an offender under 
 ten from being sent to a reformatory, unless either the 
 sentence was passed at Assizes or Quarter Sessions, or 
 he had been previously charged with an offence punish- 
 able with penal servitude or imprisonment. 
 
 Industrial Schools Scotland. 
 
 The first Industrial Schools Act was passed in 1854, 
 and applied to Scotland exclusively. It enabled a Sheriff 
 or Magistrate to commit vagrant children under fourteen, 
 though not charged with any offence, till they were fifteen, 
 to any reformatory or industrial school or other similar 
 institution, whether established by a Parochial Board or 
 an association of individuals. The distinction between 
 a reformatory and industrial school had not then been 
 formulated. The commitment was not to be ordered if 
 the parent gave security for the good behaviour of the 
 child. In the event of the order being made, the parent, 
 if solvent, was bound to pay for the maintenance of the 
 child, and, so far as he was unable to do so, the ex- 
 pense was made recoverable from the Parochial Board 
 of the parish to which the child, if a pauper, would 
 have been chargeable. 
 
vin.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 207 
 
 The school was to be approved by the Secretary of 
 State ; the rules to be confirmed by the Lord Advocate; 
 and the power of granting aid (towards either the 
 erection of the building or the annual expense of the 
 institution) was given to the Education Committee of 
 the Privy Council (s. 7). 
 
 In 1855 and 1856 the Act was amended in minor 
 details. In 1861 the Acts of 1854 and 1856 were 
 repealed and replaced by a consolidating statute, in 
 which the principal changes were the following : 
 
 The classes of children admissible were enlarged so 
 as to include not only mendicant and destitute children, 
 but children under twelve, charged with an offence and, 
 refractory children under fourteen ; not, however, any who 
 had previously been imprisoned for more than thirty 
 days. Power was given to managers (s. 11) to permit 
 a child to lodge with its parent or any respectable 
 person. 
 
 The powers of the Committee of Education were 
 transferred to the Secretary of State, who was to 
 nominate the inspector (s. 4) ; to approve the rules 
 (s. 17); to recommend the grant to the treasury for 
 maintenance only of inmates (s. 18); and to have power 
 to discharge from the school (s. 15). In certain cir- 
 cumstances (s. 16) the justices also had power to dis- 
 charge. 
 
 The power of the parent to prevent an order being 
 made for the detention of his child by offering security 
 for his good behaviour was not re-enacted. The parent 
 might be ordered to pay up to 5s. per week, and if he 
 applied for committal of a refractory child, had to 
 pay all. 
 
208 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 By section 21 the liability of the Parochial Board 
 was limited so as to apply only to a child who was 
 at the time of his detention, or had been within three 
 months from that date, chargeable to the parish, and 
 was to continue only so long as he remained charge- 
 able. 
 
 The Act was limited to expire in 1864, but in 
 1862 it was continued till 1867, and in 1866 the Scotch 
 and English Acts were consolidated. 
 
 Industrial Schools England. 
 
 The first Act was passed in 1857, three years later 
 than the Scotch Act. 
 
 The school was to be certified by the Committee 
 of Council of Education, and examined by their in- 
 spector (s. 3). The children were to be above seven 
 and under fourteen at the date of their committal (s. 
 2). Detention not to be beyond fifteen. Conviction of 
 vagrancy was to be the initial step (s. 6), and the justices 
 could only make order in default of the parent finding 
 security for the child's good behaviour. 
 
 Power was given by sections 12 and 13 to the 
 justices to discharge the child on the application of 
 the parents or managers, if satisfied that employment 
 was provided for him, or that due security was given 
 for his good behaviour. The managers had power by 
 section 17 to allow the child to lodge at the house 
 of his parent or any respectable person. 
 
 The parent might, by the order of justices (ss. 15 
 and 16), be made liable to contribute to the support of 
 the child up to 3s. per week. No liability was imposed on 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 209 
 
 the guardians; but by section 21 they were empowered, 
 with the consent of the Local Government Board, to 
 contract with the managers for the education of any 
 pauper child. No provision was made for any Govern- 
 ment contribution. In 1860 the powers of the Council 
 of Education were transferred to the Secretary of State. 
 
 In 1861 (the same year in which was passed the 
 Consolidating Act as to Scotch Industrial Schools) these 
 Acts were repealed by a consolidating enactment. The 
 two principal changes were, that power was, by section 
 17, given to the Treasury to contribute towards the 
 maintenance of the children any sum that the Secretary 
 of State might recommend ; and that the contributions 
 of the parents imposed by justices might, by section 18, 
 be as much as 5s. per week, and was required to be 
 for the full expense, where the child was a refractory 
 child sent at the instance of the parents. Rules were to 
 be approved by the Secretary of State (s. 13). The limit 
 of the age of seven was not re-enacted. The condition of 
 conviction and the classes admissible to industrial schools 
 were enlarged, so as to include not only destitute and 
 mendicant children, but children charged with an offence, 
 and refractory children. Those, however, who had pre- 
 viously been convicted of felony were excluded. 
 
 The Act was limited to expire in 1864, but in 1862 
 it was re-enacted, and in 1866 the English and Scotch 
 Acts were consolidated. 
 
 Industrial Schools England and Scotland. 
 
 In 1866 the English and Scotch Acts were consolidated 
 by an Act now in force, the effects of which was to place 
 
 p 
 
210 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 the industrial schools of both countries on the same 
 footing. An industrial school is one in which industrial 
 training is provided, and in which children are lodged, 
 clothed, and fed, as well as taught. The mode of estab- 
 lishing an industrial school has already been described. 
 The same person is to be appointed by the Secretary of 
 State to be the Inspector of Industrial Schools and the 
 Inspector of Eeformatories. Assistant Inspectors may 
 also be appointed. 
 
 On the Inspector's report the Secretary of State may, 
 if the managers desire it, certify an industrial school as 
 one to which children may be compulsorily sent under 
 the Act. The managers may resign this certificate, 
 or the Secretary of State may withdraw it; in either 
 case it ceases to have the privileges of an industrial 
 school. 
 
 Contributions may be made by the Local Authority 
 viz., the Prison Authority of Counties and Boroughs in 
 England and the County Board in Scotland towards the 
 building of an industrial school and towards the main- 
 tenance and management of it. Since 1872 they have 
 been empowered to establish and undertake them 
 themselves, and to contribute to the ultimate disposal 
 of the inmates. Plans of schools and of additions and 
 alterations must be first approved by the Secretary of 
 State. 
 
 The rules of the school are made by the managers, 
 but must be approved by the Secretary of State ; and a 
 child above ten years old not conforming thereto may be 
 imprisoned for from fourteen days to three months, and 
 sent thence to a reformatory school. 
 
 If the child escapes it may be sent back to the school 
 
viii ] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 211 
 
 for a longer period of time, and if above ten years of age 
 may further be imprisoned as above and sent to a 
 reformatory school. Assisting a child to escape is also 
 penal, involving .20 penalty and imprisonment with or 
 without hard labour for not more than two months. 
 The Treasury may contribute towards the custody and 
 maintenance of the children, such contributions not to 
 exceed 2s. per head per week in the case of children 
 committed on the application of their own friends. The 
 local authorities also contribute to the maintenance of 
 children sent to the school by them, and the parent or 
 person legally liable to maintain the child must, if the 
 magistrates determine that he is able, contribute a sum 
 not exceeding 5s. per week, such payments to go in 
 relief of the charges on the Treasury. 
 
 A defaulter can be distrained on, or, if this is in- 
 effectual, imprisoned. 
 
 Section 38 applies only to Scotland, and provides that 
 when a child at the time he is sent to an industrial 
 school, or within three months previous, has been charge- 
 able to any parish, the parochial board and inspector of 
 the poor of the parish of the settlement of the child, if 
 the settlement is in Scotland, shall, so long as he con- 
 tinues so chargeable, be liable to repay to the Treasury 
 all expenses incurred in maintaining him in school to an 
 amount not exceeding 5s. per week. 
 
 The class of children who may be committed to an 
 industrial school are those who are under fourteen years 
 of age, and who are found begging or receiving alms 
 (actually or under pretext of selling); who are found 
 wandering without settled abode, proper guardianship, 
 or visible means of subsistence; who are found destitute 
 
212 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 either being orphans or having a surviving parent who is 
 undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment j who are 
 children of a woman twice convicted of crime, 34 and 
 35 Vict. cap. 112 ; who frequent the company of thieves ; 
 or who come under the provisions of the Education 
 Acts described below. If a child under twelve years 
 of age is charged with a punishable offence, and has not 
 previously been convicted of felony, he may be sent to 
 an industrial school. A refractory child under fourteen 
 years of age may, on the application of its guardian, 
 be committed to an industrial school; and a refractory 
 pauper child, or one either of whose parents has been 
 convicted, may be sent to an industrial school. 
 
 The school to which a child is to be sent must be will- 
 ing to receive it. It is selected by the magistrate, and it 
 must be certified, and, if possible, must be conducted 
 in accordance with the religious persuasion to which 
 the child belongs. If a child is committed to a school 
 not so conducted, it may, on application of its nearest 
 friend, be removed to a school so conducted named 
 by the friend, but, in any case, a minister of the child's 
 religious persuasion may visit it and instruct it in 
 religion. 
 
 The order of detention in the school must not extend 
 beyond the time when the child is sixteen years old. 
 
 The managers may permit a child to lodge outside the 
 school, and may license it for three months at a time to 
 live with a selected person after eighteen months' deten- 
 tion. They may also apprentice it. 
 
 37 7 &38Vict. * n 18 ^ Prison Authorities received power to borrow 
 c - 47, to meet capital expenditure. 
 
viil] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 213 
 In 1880 the scope of industrial schools was much en- isso, 
 
 43 & 44 Vict. 
 
 larged to what is at present an unknown extent by author- c. 15. 
 ity being given to commit any child under fourteen who 
 is found to be lodging, living, or residing with common 
 or reputed prostitutes, or in a house resided in or fre- 
 quented by prostitutes for the purpose of prostitution, 
 or to be frequenting the company of prostitutes. 
 
 In 1870 was passed the Elementary Education Act, wo, 
 
 33 & 34 Vict. 
 
 providing for the establishment of School Boards. This e. 75, 
 
 ss 27 28 
 
 has opened a new phase in the history of industrial 
 schools so far as concerns England. To School Boards 
 were given the same powers of contributing to the 
 establishment and maintenance of industrial schools 
 which Prison Authorities possessed under section 12 of 
 the Act of 1866, and also powers which Prison Author- 
 ities then did not possess of themselves establishing 
 industrial schools. They did not, however, receive the 
 powers which Prison Authorities had under section 36 
 of the Act of 1866, to contract for the maintenance of 
 children 
 
 By section 36 they were empowered, if they thought 
 fit, to appoint an officer to take steps to have children 
 sent to industrial schools, i.e. to enforce the Industrial 
 Schools Act in their district. 
 
 In 1872, by the Education (Scotland) Act, School 35 & 36 Vict. 
 Boards were enabled to establish and maintain certified 
 industrial schools. 
 
 The Elementary Education Act, 1876, carried the we, 
 
 11 c i -n i 39 & 40 Vict. 
 
 movement still further m England : e. 79. 
 
 (a) By multiplying the number of children sent to 
 
 Industrial Schools. 
 
 (b) By the introduction of day Industrial Schools. 
 
214 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 The multiplication of the number of children sent to 
 Industrial Schools was effected by two enactments : 
 
 (a) An enactment (s. 13) making it obligatory on the 
 
 School Authority (i.e. School Boards and School 
 Attendance Committees, section 7) to take steps 
 to send all children to Industrial Schools who 
 were liable to be so sent, unless the School 
 Authority thought it inexpedient. Thus the 
 Industrial Schools Act would be worked to the 
 uttermost. 
 
 (b) An enactment (ss. 11 and 12) declaring it obliga- 
 
 tory on the School Authorities to apply to the 
 justices for orders compelling the attendance at 
 a public elementary school of children over five 
 and under fourteen, whose elementary education 
 was habitually neglected by their parents, or who 
 were found habitually wandering or consorting 
 with criminals or disorderly persons, and en- 
 abling the justices on the breach of such a 
 school attendance order to commit the child to 
 an Industrial School (in the event of there being 
 no suitable day Industrial School as hereinafter 
 mentioned). 
 
 The effect of these enactments was somewhat modified 
 by the provision of section 14, relaxing the restrictions 
 on the licence so as to authorise a licence to be granted 
 in the case of a child sent at the instance of a School 
 Board to an industrial school at any time after the lapse 
 of one month (instead of eighteen months as in other 
 cases), and this whether the child came within the pro- 
 
vin.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 215 
 
 visions of the Industrial Schools Acts or was sent merely 
 for the breach of an attendance order. 
 
 Middlesex has an Industrial School regulated by 
 Local Acts, 17 and 18 Vict. c. clxix., and 38 and 39 
 Vict. c. lxxxvii. 
 
 Certified Day Industrial Schools. 
 
 Day Industrial Schools, i.e. schools where the managers 
 provide industrial training, elementary education, and 
 one or more meals a day, but not lodging, were author- 
 ised by the Elementary Education Act, 1876, which 
 applies only to England ; and by 41 and 42 Vict. cap. 
 xxi. for Glasgow. 
 
 At present there are ten such schools established by 
 School Boards in England and two in Glasgow. 
 
 The former are regulated (1) by the Act of 1876 ; (2) 
 by an Order in Council, 20th March 1877, which was 
 made under the powers of that Act and which applied to 
 them with certain modifications, the provisions of the Acts 
 relating to Boarding Industrial Schools ; (3) by an Order, 
 4th January 1878, made by the Secretary of State also 
 under the Act of 1876 ; (4) by the general regulations 
 which he makes for their governance; (5) by recom- 
 mendations of the Secretary of State of 9th August 1881 
 as to Parliamentary grants j and (6) by a Supplement- 
 ary Order in Council (as to licenses) of 25th October 
 1881. 
 
 The general result is as follows : 
 
 Both Prison Authorities and School Boards have the 
 same powers of establishing or contributing to a day 
 
216 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 industrial school as they have in the case of boarding 
 industrial schools. 
 
 The school may be used for various classes of 
 children : 
 
 I. Children under detention 
 
 (a) Any child who, under the Industrial Schools 
 
 Act, might be sent to a boarding industrial 
 school may be sent to a day industrial school 
 unless he is a child without a home or 
 destitute, or a refractory child sent from the 
 workhouse, cases to which a day school is 
 manifestly inappropriate. 
 
 (b) A child between five and fourteen may, for 
 
 breach of an order requiring him to attend 
 school under the Elementary Education Act, 
 1876, be sent to a day industrial school, but 
 such an attendance order can only be made 
 on a child who is either 
 
 (1) Under the Act prohibited from being 
 
 taken into full-time employment, and 
 the parent must habitually and without 
 reasonable excuse have neglected to pro- 
 vide sufficient elementary instruction 
 for it ; or 
 
 (2) A child found habitually wandering, or 
 
 not under proper control, or in the 
 company of rogues, vagabonds, dis- 
 orderly persons, or reputed criminals. 
 
 These children are sent by order of the Court, ivhich 
 authorises their detention during certain hours of 
 the day. Order to be for not more than three years 
 nor after the age of fourteen. 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 217 
 
 II. Children not under detention 
 
 (a) A child may attend the day industrial school 
 
 by agreement between the managers, the 
 School Authority, and the parent, in pur- 
 suance of an attendance order made by 
 justices on the complaint of the School 
 Authority. 
 
 (b) A child may attend not in pursuance of any 
 
 order of the Court, but by agreement with 
 the managers at the joint request of the Local 
 Authority and the parent. 
 
 These children are not liable to compulsory detention. 
 Order to be for not more than one year or beyond 
 the age of fourteen. 
 
 The expense of maintenance in day industrial schools 
 is taken to be 3s. or 3s. 6d. per week. This expense 
 is met partly by the Treasury contributions, partly by 
 the contributions from the parent or guardians, and the 
 residue is made up by the managers. 
 
 For children under detention the Treasury contribu- 
 tion has been fixed by the Secretary of State practically 
 at about Is. per week, being the maximum allowed by 
 the statute. Contribution has to be made by the parent 
 according to his ability, not exceeding 2s. per week. 
 This sum is collected by the School Board, and paid over 
 to the managers and not to the Treasury. If the parent 
 is unable to pay, the guardians are bound to give him 
 relief sufficient to enable him to pay what, in their 
 opinion, he cannot pay for himself. 
 
 For children not under detention the Treasury con- 
 tribution has been fixed by the Secretary of State practi- 
 
218 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 cally at 6d. per week, being the maximum allowed by 
 the statute. The parent's contribution, which goes to 
 the managers, is fixed by agreement between him and 
 the managers, but it must be between Is., the minimum 
 named by the Act, and 2s., the maximum authorised by 
 the Secretary of State. Nothing in any case is paid by 
 the guardians. 
 
 The statute, however, sanctions Treasury contributions 
 only subject to conditions made by the Secretary of State, 
 and requires that one of these conditions should provide 
 for examination of the children in the standards of pro- 
 ficiency applicable to the Parliamentary grant in public 
 elementary schools. The conditions now in force were 
 issued on 9th August 1881. 
 
 After one month's detention managers may, with 
 consent of the Local Authority, grant a license on con- 
 dition of the child attending a public elementary school, 
 or (in default) a certified efficient school. License to be 
 for not more than three months, but to be renewable ; 
 to be revocable by the managers. (Order in Council, 
 25th October 1881.) 
 
 The provisions as to inspecting, certifying, building, 
 altering the buildings, and making rules for reformatory 
 schools, are substantially the same as for industrial 
 schools; the expenses also are met in the same way, 
 partly from private funds, partly from local rates, and 
 partly from funds provided by the Treasury, and 
 partly by contributions enforced from the parents or 
 guardians. 
 
 The class of offenders who may be sent to a reforma- 
 tory are those who, being under sixteen years old, are 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 219 
 
 convicted and sentenced to ten days' imprisonment or 
 more, but a child of under ten may be sent only if he has 
 previously been charged with a crime or offence, or is 
 sentenced by a judge or Court of General Quarter 
 Sessions. 
 
 The school is selected by the Court which sentences, 
 or by a visiting justice of the prison he is committed to, 
 and the provisions to secure religious teaching according 
 to the offender's persuasion, are the same as in the 
 case of industrial schools. 
 
 The provisions as to licensing an offender committed 
 to a reformatory school, and the penalties for escaping, 
 either from the school or while on license, are similar to 
 those which apply to industrial schools, the period 
 of imprisonment for such offenders not to exceed three 
 months, and persons assisting in an offender's escape 
 are liable to 20 penalty and imprisonment, with or 
 without hard labour, for a term not exceeding two 
 months. 
 
 A young offender sentenced to penal servitude and 
 imprisonment may have the sentence commuted to 
 detention in a ,. reformatory for any period from two 
 years to five years. 
 
 In 1874 prison authorities were enabled to borrow to 
 meet capital expenses of reformatory schools. 
 
 The Prison Act, 1877, which transferred local prisons 
 to the State, expressly saved the power of prison 
 authorities to contribute to reformatories. 
 
 In the case of reformatories the nominal treasury 
 contribution, made on the recommendation of the 
 Secretary of State, is 6s. per week for each child, out 
 
220 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 of a total average cost of about 8s. This contribution, 
 however, is reduced to 4s. for any child who has 
 completed three years' detention, and has attained 
 sixteen. 
 
 The committing authority (i.e. the county magis- 
 trates or the town council) makes, as a rule by agreement 
 with the managers, a grant of Is. 6d. or 2s. 6d. a week 
 for each case sent by them. 
 
 The parent can be ordered by the justices to con- 
 tribute up to 5s. per week, though the actual contribution, 
 in the great majority of cases where any payment is 
 made, is about Is. All such payments go in relief of 
 the Treasury. The residue of the expense of maintenance 
 falls on the managers. It has been determined by the 
 Law Courts that the expense of removing the child from 
 the gaol to the reformatory, and of providing him with 
 a proper suit of clothes, has been transferred by the 
 Prison Act, 1877, from the Local Authorities to the 
 Treasury. The Treasury accordingly makes a clothing 
 allowance of <1 on admission; also an allowance for 
 cases on license of 2s. a week for thirteen weeks, and 
 Is. a week for the next twenty-six weeks. 
 
 The statistics of the expense of these schools between 
 the years 1859-1882 are as follows : 
 
 
 No. in 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 School ex- 
 
 Paid by 
 Treasury. 
 
 
 
 Subscrip- 
 
 Total 
 
 Year. 
 
 clusive of 
 
 Parents. 
 
 Rates. 
 
 tions and 
 
 School 
 
 
 those on 
 License. 
 
 
 
 Legacies. 
 
 Expenditure. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1859 
 
 3276 
 
 57,681 
 
 1604 
 
 2,602 
 
 16,169 
 
 72,893 
 
 1869 
 
 5480 
 
 82,357 
 
 3240 
 
 18,042 
 
 7,730 
 
 118,419 
 
 1882 
 
 6601 
 
 87,242 
 
 5918 
 
 23,711 
 
 5,956 
 
 134,204 
 
15 12 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 14 12 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 221 
 
 Mr. Eogers estimates the total ordinary cost of 
 reformatories per head at 7s. 6d. to 8s. per week, or 
 19 :10s. or 20 :16s. per annum, and the parents' 
 average share of the burden at 1 per annum, or 
 5 per cent. 
 
 The Treasury, at 6s. per week, gives 
 Less parents' contribution 
 
 Add average clothing allowance . 
 
 Total ordinary contribution from the State 
 
 In the case of industrial schools the Treasury contri- 
 bution is made on the recommendation of the Secretary 
 of State, and has been varied from time to time. 
 
 The present scale is as follows, out of a total cost 
 of about 7s., or in the case of schoolships 8s. : 
 
 For any child above ten years of age, 5s. or 3s. 6d., 
 according as the school was established before or after 
 1st March 1872, and this allowance in either case is 
 reduced to 3s. for any child who fulfils the double 
 conditions of being fifteen years of age, and of having 
 been four years in detention. 
 
 For any child in ships (except the London School 
 Board ship Shaftesbury, established after March 
 1872), 6s. 
 
 The exceptional rates are : 
 
 s. d. 
 
 For any child sent under sub-section 2 of sec- 
 tion 11 of the Elementary Education Act, 
 1876 3 6 per week. 
 
 For any child between six and ten years of 
 
 age .......30,, 
 
222 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 For any child employed outside the school s. d. 
 during the whole day, provided he earns 
 at least 2s. 6d. a week . . . .26 per week. 
 
 For any child sent for breach of an attend- 
 ance order under sub -section 1 of section 
 11 of the Elementary Education Act . 2 ,, 
 
 For any refractory child sent by its parents 2 , , 
 
 For any refractory child sent by a work- 
 house or pauper school . . . .00 ,, 
 
 For any child under six years of age . .00 
 
 An allowance is also made to certificated teachers 
 after a year's approved service, viz. : 
 
 Male. Female. 
 
 For a teacher holding a parchment 
 
 certificate 20 15. 
 
 For a teacher not holding a parchment 
 
 certificate 15 10. 
 
 The parent can be ordered by the justices to contri- 
 bute up to 5s. per week, but any payment which he 
 makes goes in relief of the Treasury. The committing 
 authority makes weekly grants for each case sent under 
 agreement with the managers. These vary from 2s. 6d. 
 to Is. 6d. from the Magistrates, and from Is. 6d. to 7s. 
 from the School Boards. 
 
 In England no charge can be imposed on the poor 
 rate except where School Boards draw their precepts 
 from it or children are committed at the instance of 
 school attendance committees ; or refractory pauper 
 children are sent on the application of the guardians. 
 In Scotland, when a child, at the time of his being sent 
 to school, or within three months then last past, has 
 been chargeable to any parish or Parochial Board, the 
 inspector of the poor of the parish of the settlement of 
 such child (if the settlement of the child is in any parish 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 223 
 
 in Scotland) is, so long as he continues to be chargeable, 
 liable to repay to the Treasury all expenses incurred in 
 maintaining him, not exceeding 5s. per week. 
 
 The residue of any expense not defrayed from any of 
 these sources falls on the managers. There is no cloth- 
 ing allowance from the Treasury, nor any allowance for 
 cases on license. 
 
 The statistics of expenditure in the industrial schools 
 for the years 1864-1882 are as follows : 
 
 Year. 
 
 No. in School 
 
 exclusive of 
 
 those on 
 
 License. 
 
 Paid by 
 Treas- 
 ury. 
 
 Parents 
 
 and 
 Parochial 
 Boards. 
 
 Rates. 
 
 School 
 Board. 
 
 Sub- 
 scrip- 
 tions. 
 
 Total 
 Expendi- 
 ture. 
 
 1864 
 1869 
 1874 
 1882 
 
 1,668 
 6,974 
 11,409 
 17,461 
 
 
 
 15,887 
 
 74,102 
 
 134,333 
 
 170,473 
 
 
 
 1,189 
 
 3,607 
 
 9,093 
 
 16,993 
 
 
 
 21,057 
 20,651 
 42,727 
 
 
 
 19,925 
 59,584 
 
 
 
 33,741 
 48,608 
 30,919 
 
 
 
 138*, 408 
 252,845 
 338,200 
 
 Mr. Rogers estimates the total ordinary cost of in- 
 dustrial schools per head at 7s. to 7s. 6d. per week, or 
 18 : 5s. to 19 : 10s. per annum, and the parents' aver- 
 age share of the burden (including the Parochial Board 
 payments in Scotland) at a little more than 1 per 
 annum, or 5 per cent. 
 
 In 5s. cases the Treasury gives .... 
 Less parents' and Parochial Board's payments . 
 
 Net cost to Treasury . 
 
 But the average cost to the Treasury is about 
 Less parents' and Parochial Board's payments 
 
 Net cost to Treasury 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 
 
224 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 The action of the Reformatory Schools in respect to 
 the number of juveniles taken in hand by them, and 
 their cost, is shown by the following figures from the 
 Report of the Royal Commission, 1884 : 
 
 Admitted from 1854 to 1881 inclusive 32,575 males, 
 
 7754 feme 
 
 Discharged 
 
 
 To employment or service . . 8,857 ,, 
 
 3422 
 
 To friends . 
 
 
 8,679 ,, 
 
 1959 ,, 
 
 Emigrated . 
 
 
 
 2,108 ,, 
 
 133 ,, 
 
 Sent to sea . 
 
 
 
 3,924 
 
 
 Enlisted 
 
 . 
 
 
 631 
 
 
 As diseased . 
 
 
 
 347 ,, 
 
 166 
 
 As incorrigible 
 
 
 
 202 
 
 89 
 
 Transferred 
 
 
 
 680 
 
 274 ,, 
 
 Died 
 
 
 
 729 
 
 280 
 
 Absconded 
 
 
 
 898 
 
 220 
 
 While there remained on 31st December 1880 
 
 In school 
 On license 
 In prison 
 Absconded 
 
 4571 males, 1067 females 
 870 137 
 16 1 
 
 63 16 
 
 The Report from which these figures are derived 
 also states that the number of children in ordinary 
 Industrial Schools on 30th September 1881 was 15,798. 
 
 The Statutes in force in Ireland differ from those 
 which apply to Great Britain in some respects. 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 225 
 
 Difference between the Reformatory Acts in Ireland 
 and Great Britain. 
 
 English 
 
 29&30 
 Vict. c. 117. 
 
 Sect. 14 . 
 
 Sect. 18 . 
 
 Sects. 20 
 and 21 . 
 
 Sect. 14 . 
 Clause 4 
 
 Clause 5 
 
 Irish Act, 
 
 31 &32 
 Vict. c. 59. 
 
 Sect. 12 
 
 Sect. 26 . 
 
 Sect. 19 
 
 Sect. 12 
 
 I. The minimum sentence of imprisonment to be 
 passed on a young offender, previously to being sent 
 to a reformatory in England, is ten days. In Ire- 
 land it is fourteen. 
 
 II. Managers of reformatory schools in England may 
 grant licenses for three months to young offenders 
 after the expiration of eighteen months of the re- 
 formatory sentence. In Ireland not until they have 
 completed half the period of sentence, and then the 
 license may be for twelve months. (In Great Britain 
 the Treasury makes an allowance to managers of 
 reformatories of 2s. a week for thirteen weeks, and 
 Is. per week for twenty-six weeks for each inmate of 
 their school that is placed out on license. This 
 allowance is not granted to managers of reformatories 
 in Ireland. ) 
 
 III. In England young offenders who have been sen- 
 tenced to imprisonment for absconding or wilful 
 breach of rules in the reformatory are liable to be 
 detained in the school for a period equal to so much 
 of the sentence as remained unexpired at the time 
 of his escape or misconduct. In Ireland, when the 
 period of the original reformatory school sentence 
 has expired, the young offender must be discharged 
 from the school irrespective of the time he has been 
 absent as an absconder or in prison. 
 
 IV. In Ireland the clauses which require a young 
 offender to be sent to a school under the exclusive 
 management of persons of the same religious per- 
 suasion as the parents of the child, are much more 
 strict than in England, and the inmates of the school 
 must all be of the same religious persuasion as the 
 managers. In England the statute does not con- 
 template the same strictness, and children of differ- 
 ent religions may be inmates of the same school. 
 The 14th section of the English Act, however, directs 
 that a minister of the same religion as the juvenile 
 may visit and instruct him each day at a certain 
 
226 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 English 
 
 Act, 
 
 29&30 
 
 Vict. c. 117. 
 
 Irish Act, 
 
 31&32 
 Vict. c. 59. 
 
 Clause 5 
 Sect. 4 . 
 
 Sect. 14 . 
 Clause 2 
 
 Sect. 12 . 
 
 Sects. 20 
 and 21 . 
 
 Sect. 25 . 
 Sect. 32 . 
 
 Sect. 28 . 
 
 35&36 
 Vict. c. 21, 
 Sect. 4 . 
 
 Sect. 19 
 Sect. 24 
 
 hour to be fixed by the Secretary of State. This 
 clause does not exist in the Irish Act. 
 VI. No substantial addition or alteration shall be 
 made to or in the buildings of a certified reforma- 
 tory in England without the approval in writing of 
 the Secretary of State. No similar clause exists in 
 the Irish Statute. 
 
 IX. An offender under ten years of age can only be 
 sent to a reformatory school in England by a judge 
 of assizes or a court of quarter sessions, or in Scot- 
 land by a circuit justiciary or sheriff, unless the 
 juvenile had been previously charged with an offence 
 punishable with penal servitude or imprisonment. 
 No such clause exists in the Irish Act. 
 
 X. In England the managers of a reformatory may 
 make rules to be submitted to the Secretary of State 
 for his approval in writing before being enforced. 
 This clause is omitted in the Irish Act. When ap- 
 pointed inspector of reformatory schools I drew 
 up rules for the management of reformatories, 
 which, however, not having legal power to enforce, 
 were not accepted by the managers. 
 
 XI. Young offenders who abscond or are refractory 
 can be imprisoned for six months in Ireland, but 
 only for three months in England. 
 
 XIV. In England the Secretary of State can remit 
 payment of parental moneys. In Ireland the pre- 
 siding justices only have that power. 
 
 XVI. In England the Secretary of State may send a 
 young offender sentenced to penal servitude or im- 
 prisonment, on conditional pardon, to a reformatory 
 for a period of not less than two or more than five 
 years. This clause is not in the Irish Act. 
 
 XXVIII. A prison authority in England may contri- 
 bute towards the cost of the purchase of land for 
 the site of a reformatory school, the establish- 
 ment or building of the school, the alteration, en- 
 largement, or rebuilding of a certified reformatory. 
 No such powers are given in the Irish Act. 
 
 A prison authority in England may themselves under- 
 take any work towards which they are authorised 
 by Act 29 & 30 Vict. c. 117 to contribute, viz., 
 the alteration, enlargement, or rebuilding of a cer- 
 tified reformatory school, or towards the support 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 227 
 
 English 
 
 29&30 
 Vict. c. 118. 
 
 35&36 
 Vict. c. 21, 
 Sect. 4 . 
 
 Sect. 5 
 
 of the inmates, or towards the management of such 
 school, or towards the establishment or building of 
 a school intended to be a certified reformatory, or 
 towards the purchase of land required either for 
 the use of an existing certified reformatory, or for 
 the site of any school intended to be certified, sub- 
 ject to the provisoes contained in said Act. 
 A prison authority in England may contribute towards 
 the ultimate disposal of any inmate of a certified 
 reformatory established under the Act 35 & 36 
 Vict. c. 21. The expenses incurred in carrying out 
 this section may be defrayed out of the rates. This 
 Act does not extend to Ireland. 
 
 Difference between the Irish Industrial Schools Act 
 and the Statutes in Force in Great Britain. 
 
 English 
 
 Act, 
 
 29&30 
 
 Vict. c. 118. 
 
 Irish Act, 
 
 31 Vict. 
 
 c. 25. 
 
 Sect. 11 
 
 Sect. 13 
 
 Sect. 12 
 
 II. In Great Britain no substantial addition or altera- 
 tion can be made to or in the buildings of a certified 
 industrial school without the approval in writing of 
 the Secretary of State. Plans and estimates to be 
 sent to him for his approval. No such clause exists 
 in the Irish Act, nor is it necessary, as the building 
 must, in Ireland, be erected by managers at their 
 own expense, there being no legal authority to de- 
 fray the cost of buildings out of local rates as in 
 other parts of the United Kingdom ; besides, in 
 Ireland the numbers in the schools are limited by 
 the rules, and not by the amount of accommodation 
 provided. 
 
 III. In Great Britain a prison authority may contri- 
 bute towards the alteration, enlargement, or rebuild- 
 ing of a certified school, or towards the establishment 
 of a school intending to be certified, or for the 
 purchase of land, either for the use of an existing 
 school or a school intended to be certified, or to- 
 
228 PUNISHMENT & PEEVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 English 
 
 29&30 
 Vict. c. 118. 
 
 Irish Act, 
 
 31 Vict. 
 
 c. 25. 
 
 Sect. 12 . 
 
 Act 35 & 
 36 Vict. c. 
 21. Sects. 
 7,8, and 9. 
 
 Sect. 9 
 
 Sect. 36 
 Sect. 37 
 
 Sect. 38 
 
 wards the management of a school, or the support 
 of the inmates. 
 
 Under the Act 35 & 36 Vict. c. 21, in England the 
 prison authority may themselves purchase land for 
 the site or use of an industrial school. They may 
 establish, build, alter, or enlarge the school, and may 
 pay for its management and the support of the in- 
 mates out of public rates. They may contribute to 
 the ultimate disposal of the inmates ; and if in a 
 borough, the school may, under certain circum- 
 stances, be transferred to a School Board. 
 
 In Scotland a County Board may contribute to any 
 certified industrial school, with the consent, and in 
 the manner provided by the Prisons (Scotland) 
 Administration Act, 1860, respecting contributions 
 to reformatories. 
 
 In Ireland the grand jury of a county, or of the county 
 of a town, or the town councils of the boroughs of 
 Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, may appoint a com- 
 mittee to enter into an agreement with the managers 
 of a certified industrial school for the reception, 
 maintenance, and keeping in such school of children 
 ordered to be sent from such county or borough in 
 consideration of such periodical payments as may be 
 agreed upon with such managers. The 10th section 
 directs how the money is to be raised. These are 
 the only sections in the Industrial Schools Act 
 (Ireland), which authorise money to be contributed 
 out of local rates towards the support or maintenance 
 of children in industrial schools. 
 
 In England a prison authority may also contract with 
 managers for the reception and maintenance of chil- 
 dren sent from the district of the prison authority. 
 
 IV. In Great Britain the guardians of the poor of a 
 union, or the board of managers of a district pauper 
 school, or the parochial board of a parish, may, with 
 the consent of the Poor Law Board in England and 
 Board of Supervision in Scotland, contribute such 
 sums as they think fit towards the maintenance of 
 the children in certified industrial schools admitted 
 on their application. No similar provision is con- 
 tained in the Irish Act. 
 
 V. In Scotland the parochial board and inspector of 
 the poor of the parish of the settlement of a child 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 229 
 
 English 
 
 29&30 
 Vict. c. 118. 
 
 Irish Act, 
 31 Vict. 
 c. 25. 
 
 Sect. 38 . 
 
 Sect. 16 . 
 
 Sect. 35 . 
 Sect. 17 . 
 
 Sect. 18 . 
 
 Sect. 20 . 
 
 Sects. 14 
 and 15. 
 
 are liable to repay the Treasury all expenses in- 
 curred in maintaining a child in an industrial 
 school, not exceeding 5s. per week, which can be 
 recovered in a summary manner before a magistrate. 
 No such clause exists in the Irish Act. 
 
 VI. If a parent or step-parent or guardian of a child 
 under fourteen years of age represents to two justices 
 in England, or to a magistrate in Scotland, that he is 
 unable to control the child, the magistrates may 
 send the child to an industrial school. The contri- 
 bution by the Treasury cannot exceed 2s. per week for 
 such child. These clauses are not in the Irish Act. 
 
 VII. On it being represented to two justices, or a 
 magistrate, by poor law guardians or the managers 
 of a district pauper school, or by a parochial board, 
 that a pauper child, under fourteen years of age, is re- 
 fractory, or is the child of parents either of whom has 
 been convicted of a crime, or offence punishable with 
 penal servitude or imprisonment, and that it is 
 desirable that he be sent to an industrial school, the 
 Bench may order him to be sent to such a school. 
 No such clause exists in the Irish Act. 
 
 VIII. In England, when determining the school to 
 which a child is to be sent, the magistrates are 
 required to endeavour to ascertain the religious per- 
 suasion to which the child belongs, and if possible 
 select a school conducted in accordance with such 
 religious persuasion of the child. Should the school 
 be not conducted in accordance with the religious 
 persuasion to which the child belongs, a power of 
 appeal is granted to the parent, step-parent, or 
 nearest relative of the child, against the decision of 
 the Bench, and upon proof of such child's religious 
 persuasion, the application of the appellant, who 
 may name another certified school in Great Britain 
 to which he desires the child to be sent, shall be 
 granted if made within thirty days. 
 
 In Ireland no child can legally be sent to any in- 
 dustrial school except one under the exclusive 
 management of persons of the same religious per- 
 suasion as the parents or guardians of the child, or 
 that to which the child belongs. Under the 15th 
 section a power of appeal is granted similar to that 
 in the English Act. 
 
230 PUNISHMENT & PREVENTION OF CRIME, [chap. 
 
 English 
 
 Act, 
 
 29&30 
 
 Vict. c. 118. 
 
 Sect. 40 
 
 Sect. 50 
 
 Irish Act, 
 
 31 Vict. 
 
 c. 25. 
 
 IX. In Scotland orders for parental contribution for 
 the maintenance of their children in an industrial 
 school shall have the effect of an order made in 
 each week for payment of the amount, and magis- 
 trates are authorised to grant order of arrestment 
 under which it is lawful to arrest weekly for pay- 
 ment of such weekly sum, the arrestment to attach 
 not only to the wages due and payable, but also to 
 the wages current. 
 
 In Ireland no person can be arrested for a debt in- 
 curred under the Industrial Schools Act for the 
 support of his child. 
 
 XII. Expenses incurred in England by a prison author- 
 ity, or in Scotland by a county board, are defrayed 
 under the provisions of the Prisons Act, 1865, and 
 the Prisons (Scotland) Administration Act. No 
 similar provision is in the Irish Act. 
 
 In Ireland the cost to the public of reformatories was 
 thus apportioned in the year 1881, the number of 
 inmates being about 1149 : 
 
 Treasury. 
 
 Rates. 
 
 Subscriptions. 
 
 Profits. 
 
 18,125 
 
 7822 
 
 529 
 
 2095 
 
 Which gives roughly the proportionate cost per inmate : 
 for boys per week 8s. 6d., for girls 10s., thus apportioned 
 on the year's expense : 
 
 The Treasury. 
 
 Rates. 1 Private Sources. 
 
 Profits. 
 
 16 
 
 7 nearly 
 
 10s. 
 
 2 nearly 
 
 The parents' contribution in 1881 amounted to 663, 
 or say 10s. per head. 
 
 The industrial schools, Ireland, cost in 1881 as 
 follows, for about 5750 inmates : 
 
viii.] REFORMATORIES INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 231 
 
 Treasury. 
 
 Rates. 
 
 Subscriptions. 
 
 Profits. 
 
 73,437 
 
 25,073 
 
 6098 9857 
 
 The parents' contribution in 1881 amounted to 529, or 
 say 2s. per head. These figures may thus be divided and 
 show roughly the proportionate cost per inmate : 
 
 Treasury. 
 
 Rates. 
 
 Subscriptions. 
 
 13 
 
 4 : 10s. 
 
 1 
 
 It appears clear, therefore, that in Ireland far more 
 children are sent to industrial schools than in Great 
 Britain in proportion to the population, and that their 
 cost is a heavier burden on the public than in the latter 
 case. The Koyal Commission for 1884 say, " It is certain 
 that the certified industrial schools in Ireland are regarded 
 as institutions for poor and deserted children rather than 
 for those of a semi-criminal class, and the result of this 
 feeling is that the managers of many of these institutions 
 refuse to take children who have been found to have 
 committed a criminal offence, and who might legally be 
 convicted of that offence and sent to a reformatory. 
 All taint of criminality having been removed from the 
 schools, numbers of children are sent to them who do 
 not always come under the provision of the Act, and 
 who are sent merely on the ground of destitution. There 
 can be no doubt that many children are sent to the 
 industrial schools in Ireland who would not be so sent in 
 England ; whilst in consequence of it, it is to be appre- 
 hended that numbers of children who are proper sub- 
 jects for these institutions are left on the streets as waifs 
 and strays." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Act, 1877, Effects of Prison, 99. 
 
 Administration of Convict Prions, 
 184. 
 
 Age at which Criminal Habits com- 
 mence, 199. 
 
 Ages of Criminal Classes, 5. 
 
 Aid to Discharged Prisoners, 63, 
 106, 193, 197. 
 
 Alternative Prisons, 71. 
 
 Appeals and Petitions by Prisoners, 
 75, 167. 
 
 Appointment of Staff of Prisons, 
 67, 187. 
 
 Assignment System, 128 et seq. 
 
 Benefit of Clergy, 11, 19. 
 Branding, 12. 
 
 Bridewells and Houses of Correc- 
 tion, 31. 
 Buildings of old Gaols, 5, 45. 
 Buildings, Cost of Prison, 69, 98, 
 
 Chains, Handcuffs, etc., 165. 
 
 Chaplains, 46, 137. 
 
 Classification of Prisoners, 46, 62, 
 
 162. 
 Closing of Prisons, 64, 70, 74. 
 Clothing in old Gaols, 41. 
 Commissioners of Prisons, 67, 74. 
 Committee, 1831, House of Lords', 
 
 50. 
 Committee, 1850, 58. 
 Committees, Visiting, Important 
 
 Functions of, 68, 74. 
 Complaints of Prisoners, 72. 
 
 Construction of Prisons, 41, 52, 54, 
 Contamination, Moral, 42, 161. 
 Convict Prisons, Directors of, 122, 
 
 165, 184. 
 Correction, Houses of, 112. 
 Cost of Prison Buildings, 69, 98, 99. 
 Criminals, Characteristics of, 2, 97. 
 Criminals, Habitual, 193-4. 
 Cruelties practised in Gaols, 36, 39. 
 
 Danish and Saxon Criminal Laws, 
 
 10. 
 Day Industrial Schools, 215. 
 Death Penalty, 16, 134. 
 Death Penalty, Effectiveness of, 28. 
 Death-rate, 105. 
 Debauchery in Prisons, 38. 
 Debtors, etc., 74-76. 
 Deterrent elements, 59. 
 Diet, 40, 49, 62, 83, 104, 163. 
 Diminution of Crime, Great, 107, 
 
 191. 
 Duration of Sentences, 7. 
 
 Economy resulting from Prisons 
 
 Act, 1877, 100. 
 Education in Prisons, Moral and 
 
 Literary, 57, 79, 159. 
 Emigration, Free, Concurrent with 
 
 Transportation, 150 et seq. 
 Employment of Prisoners, 44, 85, 
 
 106, 170. 
 Execution, Legal Authority for an, 
 
 26. 
 Execution, Mode of Carrying out 
 
 Sentence of, 20. 
 
234 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Expenses of Reforma-"\ 
 tories, y 204 
 
 Expenses of Industrial 
 Schools, 
 
 
 Fees, Gaoler's, 35. 
 Female Convicts, 169. 
 Fever, Gaol, 43. 
 Fluctuations in Crime, 107. 
 Friends, Society of, 47. 
 Fry, Mrs., 47. 
 
 Gaol Acts, 1825, 48. 
 Gaol Acts, 1835, 49. 
 Gaol Acts, 1839, 51. 
 Gaoler's Fees, 35. 
 Gaoler's Offices sold, 35. 
 Gibraltar Prison, 118. 
 Gratuities to Prisoners on Dis- 
 charge, 163, 197. 
 
 Handcuffs, Chains, etc., 165. 
 Hard Labour, 32, 159. 
 Howard, 45. 
 
 Hulks, Administration of, 121, 184. 
 Hulks, Establishment of, 117. 
 Hulks, Great evils of, 118. 
 
 Imprisonment, Solitary, 46. 
 
 Industrial Schools, 199 et scq., 204, 
 220. 
 
 Industrial Schools and Reforma- 
 tories, population of, at various 
 times, 223, 224. 
 
 Industrial Schools, History of Leg- 
 islation on, 204. 
 
 Instruction, Moral, 63, 78, 104. 
 
 Ireland, Reformatories and Indus- 
 trial Schools in, 228, 229. 
 
 Ireland, Use made of Industrial 
 Schools in, 231. 
 
 Justices, Visiting, 62, 71. 
 Juvenile Crime in Former Years, 
 200. 
 
 Labour, Penal, 59, 61. 
 Law, Present, of Industrial Schools, 
 209, 219. 
 
 Local Administration, 34. 
 
 Malingering by Prisoners, 74. 
 Mark System, 168. 
 Mediaeval Punishments, 12. 
 Millbank Prison, 125, 185. 
 Misdemeanants, First-class, 60, 76. 
 Mutilation, 13. 
 
 Norfolk Island, Horrors of, 136. 
 Number of Persons hanged at 
 various Periods, 16, 134. 
 
 Objects of Punishment, 1. 
 Officers, Quarters for, 97. 
 
 Parkhurst Prison for juveniles, 
 7, 201. 
 
 Penal System, 154 et seq., 190. 
 
 Penal and Reformatory elements, 6. 
 
 Penitentiaries, 117. 
 
 Pentonville Prison, 52, 141, 185. 
 
 Pillory, 14. 
 
 Population, Criminal, now and for- 
 merly, 133, 191. 
 
 Prevention of Crimes Act 1871, 193. 
 
 Prison Act, 1865, 58. 
 
 Prison Act, 1877, 65. 
 
 Prison Act, 1877, Effects of, 99. 
 
 Prisons Alternative, 71. 
 
 Prisons, Closing of, 64, 70, 74. 
 
 Prison Punishments, flogging, etc., 
 64, 72, 77, 105, 132, 164, 165. 
 
 Prisoners, Unconvicted, 73, 75. 
 
 Prisoners, Complaints of, 72. 
 
 Probation System, 140. 
 
 Progressive stages, 77. 
 
 Punishments which are now legal, 7. 
 
 Qualification of Staff of Prisons, 
 188. 
 
 Reformatory and Penal Elements, 
 6. 
 
 Reformatories, 198 et seq. 
 
 Reformatories and Industrial 
 Schools, Population of, at vari- 
 ous times, 223, 224. 
 
 Refuges, 169. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 235 
 
 Register of Habitual Criminals, 194. 
 Register of distinctive marks on 
 
 Criminals, 195. 
 Roman Criminal Law, 9. 
 Rules of Prisons, 60, 73. 
 
 Sanitary Matters, 43, 96, 104. 
 Saxon and Danish Criminal Laws, 
 
 10. 
 Sedition, 75. 
 
 Separate System, 144, 158. 
 Separation, 59. 
 Sexes, Proportion of the, among 
 
 Criminals, 6. 
 Society, Prison Discipline, 49. 
 Solitary Imprisonment, 46. 
 Staff of Prisons, 95, 99. 
 Stages, Progressive, 77. 
 Stocks, 14. 
 Suicides, 105. 
 Supervision of discharged Prisoners, 
 
 193. 
 Surveyor - General of Prisons, 51, 
 
 98, 186. 
 
 Ticket-of-Leave System, 131, 155, 
 164. 
 
 Transfer of Prisons from Local 
 Authority to State, 68. 
 
 Transportation, Origin and history 
 of, 111, 113 et seq. 
 
 Transportation, Greatest develop- 
 ment of, 111. 
 
 Transportation, Resistance of Colo- 
 nies to, 147. 
 
 Unconvicted Prisoners, 73, 75. 
 Uniformity of Punishment, 73, 155. 
 
 Visiting Justices, 62, 71. 
 Visiting Committees, Important 
 
 functions of, 68-74. 
 Visitors of Convict Prisons, 167. 
 Visits to Prisoners, 38-42, 63, 163. 
 
 Western Australia, 147 et seq. 
 Whipping, 15. 
 
 Works, Public, executed by Con- 
 victs, 177. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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