i-liforniaj ional lity T 1443d 1872 I UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES LAW LIBRARY liliic^, U^iU'iyyyj DEFECTS CRIMINAL ADMINISTRATION PENAL LEGISLATION GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, WITH REMEDIAL SUGGESTIONS. Issued by The Howard Associatiox, London, /or distribuh'on at the International Prison ('oncress, J^dy, 1S72, and chpirhprf. LONDON: Published by V. K KITTO, r., BTSH01\'^GATK WTTTTorT. E.C. T Tl443<i R BARRETT & SONS, Printers Siiiifc^ ^n^ 13. MARK LANE. | | LONDON. E.C CONTENTS. Introductory Observations ... Parliamentary Obstacles ... Coutradictory Conmiittees ... Neglected " Commissions "... Executive blunders ... The Home Secretary's Distractions Anomalous conclusions Dangerous centralisation " Under consideration" Suggested improvement The Judges and the Mauistuacv Excellent local magistrates ... Clerical Justices Sentences Repeated sbort terms Cumidative sentences Intermediate homes ... First cautions Magistrates' Bail City " Custom of Apprentices" Needless imprisonments Clerk's Fees ... Eeform of sentences ... Excessive sentences ... Shorter terms of penal servitude Prison Directors, Inspectors and other Officials Prison and Criminal Ixeports and Statistics ... The Police ... Arrests of innocent persons ... T)ralors in stolen goods 793655 IV CONTENTS. PAGF. County and Bokough G.vuls ... ... ... ... 58 Prison Act of 1865 63 The Treadwheel ... ... ... ... ... ... 66 Profitable Prison Labour ... ... ... ... ... 71 Alleged competition .. . ... ... ... ... ... 73 The honest matniakiM-s ... ... ... ... ... 75 Skilled Labour ... ... ... ... ... ... 77 Needless local gaols ... ... ... ... ... ... 78 County audits ... ... ... ... ... ... 79 Caol Reforms kequikeu ... ... . . ... ... 7U The Convict Prisons ... ... ... ... ... 80 Mr. C. F. Coffin's observations ... ... ... ... 82 Convict gangs ... ... ... ... ... ... 85 Convict labour and " profits" ... ... .... ... 87 Letters from an e.vconvict ... ... ... ... ... 89 Imbix'ile convicts ... ... ... ... ... ... 99 Reforms ix Convict Prisons needed ... ... ... 103 Ihe Irish Convict Prisons ... ... ... ... 105 Lusk prison farm ... ... ... ... ... ... 106 Spike Island prison ... ... ... ... ... ... 107 Xeglected instruction ... ... ... ... ... 110 I'"amine figures ... ... ... ... ... ... 112 I^'cmale convicts ... ... ... ... ... ... 113 [ntemperance ... ... ... ... ... ... 115 1 )esiderata in Irish prisons ... ... ... ... ... 116 Irish county and borouoii gaols... ... ... ... 117 Irish dietary ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 119 British Colonial Prisons ... ... ... ... ... 120 Transportation ... ... ... ... ... ... 122 Criminal Lunacy ... ... ... ... ... ... 124 Suggested reforms ... ... ... ... ... ... 129 Anomalous Infliction of the Capital Penalty... ... 130 More voluntary visitation of prisons ... ... ... 133 Pelioious motives and aims ... ... ... ... 136 T)r. Colin Browning... ... ... ... ... ... 136 Christian principk-s a.'^ a test and basis ... ... ... 144 PREFACE. Two Committees — those of the Howard Association and the Loudon (Central) Committee of the Inter- national Prison Congress — having requested Mr. Tallack to prepare a paper on the Defects of the Criminal Administration of Gi-eat Britain and Ireland, the following work has been accordingly drawn up, both for distribution at the Congress and for circulation by the Howard Association, amongst prison authorities and others at home and abroad. It embodies, in a comprehensive but condensed form, the information and observations collected by and for the Howard Association. Repeated and extensive visitation of prisons, at home and abroad, anil nnich conference and correspondence with the VI PREFACE. most competent authorities in Europe and Ameiica, have also furnished materials for these pages. A principal object in their preparation has been to recall public attention to those Christian principles which were the basis of the labours of Howard, Fry, Buxton, Ducpetiaux, Suringar, and others — both Protestant and Catholic — principles from which, under the influence of some popular writers and journalists, and of satirists of the Sydney Smith school, there has been during the past quarter of a century a considerable retrofjresaion, in spite of some collateral progress. Particular attention is invited to the course which has been here taken of running counter to the rose- coloured views of the British system recently and repeatedly propounded by some "oflScial authorities," and especially in reference to the radically rotten principle of gang labour in the Government convict prisons, and even, partially, in the chief convict prisons under " the Irish System." The decision of no authority (whether of individuals or of Congresses) can be accepted as fmal which does not proclaim decided hostility to this too prevalent principle of corrupting gang association in prisons. PKKFACR. Vll Many otlicr imjiortrint siibjects in connection "witli ciiminal treatment are also treated of in this work. The ntmost care has been taken to do justice to the labours and merits of the many ^vorthy and meritorious officials (both principal and subordinate) who are engaged in carrying out our defectiye system. Measures, not men, are criticised — principles, #ot individuals. The Mork is commended to the careful consideration of its readers, and it is earnestly hoped that the Divine blessing may rest upon it. DEFECTS IN THE CRIMINAL ADMINISTEATION AND PENAL LEGISLATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, WITH REMEDIAL SUGGES- TIONS. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. Although the administration and jurisprudence of the United Kingdom are, in many respects, praise- worthy, they are still disfigured by dark defects, especially in the departments of criminal treatment and penal legislation. But, in general, it is not individual members of the Executive, whether Statesmen, Magistrates, or prison Officials, who are to blame for these blots. It is rather the faulty system and still prevalent popular indifference that must be regarded as the causes of existing evils. Indeed it may be fairly admitted that nowhere in the world are there to be found more conscientious Statesmen, more impartial and incorruptible Judges, more diligent and disinterested Magistrates, or more humane and well-disposed prison and police Officials, than many who hold these positions in Great Britain and Ireland. Nevertheless, numerous and serious are tbe imperfections in onr criminal administration. B And it is the more needful now to call attention to these defects, because of late there has been mani- fested, by Parliament and the Press, and especially by the Home Secretary and his prison directors or inspectors, a strong disposition to ignore short- comings and to depict in rosy-tinted colours a system ^Yhich is really very weak, deficient, and crude, from its highest to its lowest departments. In several recent speeches in Parliament, and in Government "Blue-books," notes of triumph have been sounded, for example, in praise of the adminis- tration of the convict prisons, the alleged decrease in crime, the presumed efficiency of the Cen- tral Executive in regard to the general repression of offences, and so forth. These pfeans having been taken up by an influential portion of the Press and re-echoed by persons who have accepted them with implicit confidence, it is allowable, and may be very useful, to criticise their accuracy. PARLIAMENTARY IRREGULARITIES AND OBSTACLES. To commence with a source of weakness in the highest departments of administration, it may be stated that a most objectionable inconsistency and feebleness characterise the manner in which Par- liamentary inquiries on criminal matters have repeatedly been taken in hand and disposed of. Hence contradictory conclusions are from time to time arrived at, resulting in zigzag legislation and in retrogression from principles previously laid down after long and careful experience by other legislative committees. Thus the two years Committee of the House of Commons, in 1887-38, after a most com- prehensive and careful investigation, reported most decidedly against the Transportation system, stating that " the two main characteristics of transporta- tion, as a punishment, are inefficiency in deterring from crime, and remarkable efficiency, not in reform- ing, but in still further corrupting, those who undergo the punishment." Nevertheless this system continued for many years subsequently, and in 1856 another Parliamentary Committee arrived at a pre- cisely contravji conclusion, viz. "that the punish- ment of transportation is more effectual and deterring, better adapted for the ultimate reformation of con- victs, and more beneficial to the country, than any other secondary punishment for serious crimes that has yet been tried!" Such a self-contradictory conclusion as the latter, on the part of the Legis- lature, was happily counteracted (at least in great degree) by the positive refusal of the Australian colonists to be any longer made a moral cesspool for the British Isles. But this was in spite of, and not in consequence of, Parliamentary and Govern- mental counsels. B '1 A similarly striking example of the fallibility, evec of Parliamentary wisdom on penal matters, was afforded in 1863, as was acknowledged by one of the peers (Earl Cathcart), who said at the North York- shire Michaelmas Sessions that year, " During the late Session of Parliament, a Eoyal Commission and a Committee of the House of Lords were appointed to make inquiries with respect to convict and prison discipline. He served on the Committee of the Lords, l)ut the Royal Commission led them in one direction and the report of the Prisons Committee drew them back in another. He did not think the report of that Committee conveyed the weight of the evidence that was given." He was quite right in saying this ; for the Lords' Committee reported in the teeth of the evidence of the two prison Inspectors, Mr. Percy and Mr. Voules, and of other experienced men, who deprecated treadwheels and cranks and recommended more useful and reformatory industry. But tlicir Lordshii)s sided with a minority of less weight, and hence the defective and weak "penal clauses "' of the Prisons Act of 18G5, which was mainly ])ased ui)on their Lordships' conclusions. In other cases really valuable Parliamentary or Governmental recommendations are left in the limbo of forgotten counsels, and the great amount of time and labour bestowed u])on tliem is practically wasted. Many examples could be given, but it is 5 sufficient here to allude to the Capital Punishment Commission of 1865, which, at intervals, for a year and a half, claimed the earnest attention of leading statesmen, such as the Duke of Richmond, Lord Stanley (now Earl Derhyj, Mr. Bright, Mr. G. Hardy, Mr. G. W. Hunt, Mr. (now Lord) O'Hagan, and others. They agreed unanimously to a number of recommendations, not one of w^liich has subsequently been carried out by enactment. The only recom- mendation since enacted is that for the privacy of executions ; but on this point the Commissioners were not unanimous. In every other respect this important Commission has been virtually ignored and shelved. When a hen lays an egg she leaves it a while, walks about and cackles ; but then she takes care to return and hatch it. Similar wisdom is by no means always shown by legislative committees and commissions. They sit patiently indeed, and an- nounce their conclusions far and wide by Blue-books and the Press. But this done, the " egg " is too often left to addle. Such addled " eggs " are, however, exceedingly costly and detrimental to the public interests. A further source of the parHanuMitary neglect and nmddlement of criminal (piestions consists in the almost unlimited license afforded to some loquacious and gossipping legislators who are ])erinitted to (lis- tract the attention and waste the time, of the House of Commons especially, to an intolerable extent. Some of these gentlemen indeed scarcely endeavour to conceal that their object in so doing* is absolutely to impede and delay the course of measures not agree- able to themselves. In other instances the motive is excessive personal vanity and a morbid craving for notoriety. In the last Session of the British House of Commons, 357 speeches were delivered by four members only ! This makes nearly ninety speeches for each of the four in the few months during which the Session continued. It is im- possible thus to commit with any advantage all the minute details of criminal or other legislation to 600 or more gentlemen, every one of whom is at liberty to talk to any extent about them. Such a plan would l)c both ruinous and ridiculous in any large mercantile firm. What great engineering or commercial establisbment would regularly collect the hundreds of its officers and assistants to discuss, ill full conclave, every detail, down to a penny iiioiise-trap or a farthing candle ? But such an Ml)siird mode of procedure characterises the British Parliament. And, as a natural consequence, a state of things ensues which was described by the Marquis of Salisbury, in Parliament last year, as "the feeblest Executive and the slowest Legislature in the world." Nor is this all. For comparatively few members of either House are practically acquainted with the principles and necessary details of criminal treat- ment. Many an able politician may be a perfect ignoramus as to the principles of crime-prevention ; and the opinion of statesmen eminently qualified to guide a Cabinet may be absolutely worthless as regards the requirements of prison discipline. But it seems to be considered, by most Englishmen, that any man who has a coronet on his head, or M.P. appended to his name, is thereby necessarily enabled to manage any one of the important departments of State. Hence, for example, we see city bankers or rural magistrates appointed Lords of the Admiralty. And hence it is not to be wondered at if the results are the sending out of sea-coffins like the Captain ship of war, which recently foundered with 4UU men on board, or floating sieves like the Megcera, which narrowly escaped a like fate. Similar unadapted- ness obtains too frequently in the Parliamentary or Governmental disposal of the criminal adminis- tration . And yet another obstruction to progress consists in the exceeding difficulty of obtaining or carrying any legislation at all on criminal matters. Mr. Bright has compared the overcrowding of legislative measures to the attempt to drive six omnibuses abreast through narrow Temple Bar. But, every Session, the vast clainiy of the various national needs compel not merely SIX, but several hundred objects to be brought before Parliament ; and the Legislature, being thus over- crowded, finds it impossible to do justice to more than a very few out of its many objects. All the rest must be neglected. This evil is becoming increasingly detrimental to the interests of the country. The crowd of measures brought ])efore Parliament every Session resembles the rush of passengers on board a small mail steamer. The empty berths and sofas are occupied immediately, and the majority of the travellers have to squeeze or roll together, whether sea- sick or otherwise, as best they may. It is true that several criminal measures have passed within the last few years, as, for instance, the '* Habitual Criminals Act." But this was a Govern- ment Bill ; and even as such its jDassage was not an easy one. But such measures, when introduced by private members, are usually thrust to the wall. For every Session, the paramount claims of ecclesiastical, military, and diplomatic business, receive the chief notice of the Legislature ; and, in the great crowd of other questions, the department of criminal legis- lation has a poor chance of attention. It is much the same with sanitary and other measures. These Parliamentary obstacles in the way of ob- taining reforms in criminal legislation are the most difficult to remove, or even to suggest a remedy for. Perhaps all the improvement that can be expected — at least for many years — is in the direction of entrusting more implicitly the details of bills to committees, for which some practical acquaintance with the subject shall be deemed more necessary as a qualification than heretofore. And great advantage would be derived if, in the case of every such Committee, the opinions and sug- gestions of prison officers, police, and philanthropic or specially observant private individuals, were more carefully sought, with an impartial reference, to the attainment of truth in all the information desired. This would only be carrying out more regularly the present occasional plan of summoning witnesses, as adopted mainly for railway bills and similar measures. But such extra-parliamentary wisdom and advice might be much more simply resorted to than under the present system, with its array of counsel on either side, and its exhaustive reports. Some limitation to morbid Parliamentary loquacity should also be imposed, and a ite plus ultra of, say. two dozen speeches at most, in any one Session, or of so many dozen hours, imposed upon all Members, to avoid in any circumstances the intolerably wasteful infliction of ninety harangues from several indi- viduals of either House. And very useful also would be the disposal of nmcli of the })resent Parliamentary business by local courts or assemblies. For example — 10 ill the case of docks in Cornwall, or railways in Northumberland, who are likely to know best what is needful — the people of the locality, or a mixed crowd of legislators assembled from Connemara, John O'Groat's House, Anglesea, and other distant places ? It is no wonder that the Irish clamour for " Home Rule." Many of the affairs of Ireland, England, and Scotland are legis- lated upon by gentlemen who are no more conversant with them than with the requirements of the Antipodes. Reforms and increased economy of time by such modifications of Parliamentary arrangements are urgently needed, and would greatly promote im- provements in CRIMINAL LEGISLATION, aiid ill all other departments. THE HOME SECRETARY'S DISTRACTIONS. But, it may be replied, that the subject of criminal administration is mainly committed by Parliament to a special department of the Executive Government — the Home Office. This is true. But the Home Office itself also suffers grievously from a condition of permanent glut. To such an extent has this occurred, that to judge from the habitual sneers and complaints which have been launched, from all (piarters, at the successive Home Secretaries for the past ten or fifteen years, it would appear as if each statesman holding that position had publicly written 11 himself down a fool ; so egregious have been the blunders, or so greatly annoying the delays, which have characterised Home Office procedure. And yet Sir George Grey, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Hardy, and Mr. Bruce, the recent Home Secretaries, are all conscientious and able statesmen. But they cannot perform the impossible ; and it is absolutely impos- sible to give due attention to the numerous and promiscuous subjects which have been placed under their jurisdiction. The Home Secretary ought to be mainly, if not solely, the Minister of Justice for the nation. That function is quite enough to claim his utmost attention, and to exercise all his talents, inasmuch as it is his duty to prepare and work through Parliament needful measures of Criminal Law, to consider and devise reforms in that depart- ment, to exercise an efficient vigilance over all the county and borough Gaols of the kingdom, and over the proceedings of local Magistrates and Recorders. The Convict Prisons and their Directors are still more immediately and absolutely under his control. The Inspectors of all prisons report to him; Eeformatories, Industrial Schools, and the oversight of discharged or Habitual Criminals, are also under his supervision. The Judges and their Courts, the Police, the Con- stabulary, and the stipendiary Magistrates, form also important classes of functionaries, of whose duties lie has to take more or less cognisance. The pecu- 12 liarly responsible and delicate task of advising the Sovereign in cases of Capital Sentences devolves exclusively upon him. Surely all these things are an abundant charge for the most powerful and talented Minister. But, in addition to all this, there are now crowded upon him the functions of a Ministry of Health and of Civic Administration. Thousands of matters relating to the Health of Towns, Mines, Sewage, Gas, Cab Regulations, Water Supply, Lunatic Asylums, Trades Unions, Liquor Licences, together with business affecting the Cattle Plague, " Contagious Diseases," and the public Morals, are also thrust upon him. Hence he resembles, but on a very large scale, one of those miscellaneous vendors to be found in rural districts, in whose shop may be purchased groceries and crockery ware, drapery, coals, salt and medi- cines, toys, butter, sweets, boots, hats, and wheel- barrows. And it is not to be wondered at if, in dealing with such persons, the customer sometimes finds amongst his tea an admixture of gunpowder or blacklead, varnish upset over the drapery, or leeches crawling amongst the earthenware goods. But just as miscellaneous and incongruous also are the objects under the Home Secretary's care, from magistrates to sewers, from police to cabs. During the ]")ast two Sessions of Parliament, tw^o subjects, alone, of national agitation — the Liquor 13 Laws and the Contagious Diseases Acts — have been forced upon the Home Secretary's attention to an extent which has largely absorbed his time, and necessarily interfered with the due performance of his special functions as a Minister of Justice. Alter- nate deputations of brewers and teetotalers, doctors and agitating ladies, have kept him going in those tracks almost exclusively. Such subjects of course require due attention ; but it by no means follows that the Home Secretary, of all men, is the person to be burdened with them. The incongruity of some of these Governmental arrangements is most absurd. These ridiculous compounds of promiscuous business, however, mainly characterise the Home Office, although not exclusively, inasmuch as the Minister of Education, for example, is also entrusted with the oversight of national Vaccination ! Seeing this existing muddle of Home Office duties, it is no wonder that during the past few years we have witnessed so many blunders, or curious escapades, emanating from that Department, such as tlie memorable prohibition of mob meetings at Hyde Park, Charing Cross, or elsewhere, followed imme- diately by hasty and ignominious surrenders on the part of the Home Secretaries. It is no wonder that both brewers and teetotalers, doctors and aefitating ladies, grumble and sneer alternately at these functionaries as ignorant, stupid, incompetent, or u indolent, or all combined. It is no wonder, again, if mad criminals are hanged as sane, or sane ones reprieved as mad, or if even occasionally a presum- ably innocent man be executed. Nor is it any wonder that the Home Office suffers a chronic siege of petitions and deputations in the case of almost every capital sentence, or that its decisions have long ago passed into the realm of matchless irregularity and chaos. It is instructive just to glance at merely two or three out of the many complaints urged against this Department, in the past year alone. (But first it must be acknowledged that Mr. Bruce personally is at least not inferior to his predecessors in the Office. He is a just and honourable statesman, of estimable character. But the duties imposed upon him, as Home Secretary, render it utterly impossible for him to do justice as such, either to the nation, or to his own reputation.) Lord Houghton complained, in the columns of the Times a few months ago, that "there are in the pigeon-holes of the Home Office many valuable mea- sures fully prepared, but which lie there for any num- ber of Sessions for lack of time and opportunity." The Saturday Review (August 19, 1871) remarked — " Mr. Bruce has followed, without intermission, the career of unmitigated blundering which he has pursued over since ho came into office. He has gone 15 on with that mehxncholy process of taking things into his 'consideration,' which is the grave of every promising project of social reform." It then exposes in detail the defects and absurdities of various measures crowded upon, and hastily prepared by, the Home Secretary. The same journal also says — "The management of the Home Office is hopeless. Mr. Bruce never does anything, by any chance. He never carries a bill that is more than a wretched fragment of a measure." At a Permissive Bill Meeting at Exeter Hall, London, April, 1871, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, M.P., said — "We are told that the Home Secretary has grappled with this question. Well, he is always grappling with something. (Laughter.) He is always preparing, or preparing to prepare, or pre- paring to prepare to prepare, some measure or other. (Laughter.)" These chronic delays and delusions of Home Office action are in reality no laughing matter, but a cause of bitter disappointment to almost every class of social reformers, and an extreme injury to the national interests. The public security, and the respect for law, are also seriously impaired by the anomalies of action, forced upon the Home Secretary by his promiscuous and swarming duties. Especially is this the case with regard to the disposal of Capital Sentences. 16 In some instances the most atrocious murderers are spared from the gallows through the intercession of powerful and influential persons whose repre- sentations the Home Secretary cannot well with- stand ; and in other cases poor and obscure wretches, without friends and with no " interesting" specialite in their circumstances, are hanged, although semi- imbecile, or perhaps totally insane. For example, there was the case of Townley, convicted for a murder near Derby. His relatives were in good circumstances, and were able to set on foot very powerful intercession. The judge and jury found him guilty, setting aside the plea of insanity. A medical commission was appointed to examine him. They also reported him sane. Increased pressure was put upon the Home Secretary, and a second Com- mission was appointed who pronounced the prisoner insane ; whereupon his sentence was commuted. And, to crown all, a third Commission again decided that he was not insane ! It was now too late to hang the miserable man, but after about a year's im- prisonment he terminated his own life by suicide. About the same time as Townley's respite, a poor man in South wark, named Wright, committed a murder under circumstances of great provocation on the part of the victim. Large bodies of his fellow working men interceded for his life, but in vain. He was hanged. In the same year, 1864, a man named 17 Hall innrdei'ed his sweetheart at Birmingham. The case closely resembled Wright's (the girl having boasted to Hall of criminal intimacy with another man). Strong representations were made to the Home Secretary on his behalf ; but at first unsuc- cessfully. Then general j^ublic interest at Birming- ham, and elsewhere, was aroused in Hall's favour. One memorial signed by 60,000 persons was sent up from Birmingham, and several deputations, one of which, it was said, included twelve members of Parliament, waited upon the Home Secretary. He yielded at last, and the man's life was spared. Soon afterwards, in 1866, a youth of only 18, named Bradley, was hanged, in spite of many pitiable and extenuating circumstances. It appeared that he had also been brought up in the midst of misery and crime, had never received the slightest moral or religious education, and had always been without a home or a friend. (In other cases youth alone has been successfully urged as a plea for commutation.) In the same year, 1866, a murder of the worst kind, at Preston, was followed by a commutation. The murderer killed a woman in a most brutal manner. He first knocked her do^^•n at the foot of some stairs, and stamped upon her, tlien dragged her up stairs and flung her down again to the bottom, kicking her violently, so that she died. Being aided by persons whose political influence was very powerful at Preston, 18 stroug intercession was made for him on the plea of drunkenness. This plea is illegal, and has re- peatedly been refused in other cases. But in this instance it was allowed by the Home Secretary, and, to the surprise even of the interceding parties, the murderer's life was spared. Numbers of such extraordinary anomalies of the spasmodic and zigzag action of the Home Secretaries could be adduced. Undue Centealisation. — The distracting variety and pressure of the Home Secretary's duties not only render it impossible for him to do justice to even a considerable portion of them, but tend to beget ill him a sort of apathetic indifference to the claims of the public service. This is an abso- lute necessity of the present mischievous condition of Home Office requirements. And it is even coolly and candidly acknowledged by some, at least, of the officials. A recent letter, written in 1872 by a gentleman holding an office under Government, states, " You do not over-estimate the pressure brought to bear upon us on cvciif question ; but I am surprised to see in the Home Secretary, and find in my own duties, how easy it is to bear it, if you simply ignore and despise it." So this is the admitted effect of the present system. The func- tionaries of the central and highest departments of State, to whom the nation looks, and rightly looks, I 19 for a due consideration and able performance of the public service, are, at least in the Home Office department, in the way of being rendered callous and " casehardened" by the thousandfold duties imposed upon them, and are led to remark of the public cry, when calling for attention to these duties, '' How " easy it is to bear " {f yon siniphj ignore and despise it!" Ignore and despise the public voice ! This reminds one of the spectacle, occasionally, but happily not often, presented by the captain of some noble ship which has struck upon the rocks amid the breakers and is doomed to inevitable destruction. Distracted by the calamity, and perhaps exhausted by pre^dous anxieties and fatigues, he now resigns himself to a condition of mingled stupor and despair. Officers, passengers, and sailors, in turn, appeal to him in vain for help or counsel. Sinking down in the least crowded corner, he replies, " The difficulties are inextricable. Don't trouble me any further. Do the best you can for yourselves. AMiat can I do ? How can I save you '? For goodness sake, tease me no more ! Only let each look out for himself!" And then with ti shy eye and stolid countenance he beholds first one mast and then another crash over the ship's side, sees each huge billow sweep away its drowning victims, and liears unmoved the shrieks and gruiuw of the wretched charge committed to his care. c 2 20 Happily there is no danger of the great " ship of State " in England coming to such a dismal fate. But why ? Mainly, under God's good Providence, because she has hitherto steered clear of the reefs of excessive centralisation, and has been manned by a noble company of sons, self-reliant, and to a large extent self-governing. But in so far as centrali- sation is relied upon, reefs have been approached, and if the " ship of State " still breasts the waves safely and in triumph, she has had grave warnings as to the shaping of her future course. The fate of some of her " boats " at any rate, as the Caj^tain and the Megan-a, has been an instructive lesson of tlie danger of reliance on central departments, phan- tom "Boards," distracted "Heads," and merely ideal •' supervision." And in the Home Office department in particular, the fiascos of the Hyde Park railings, the Charing Cross meetings, and the blundei's of Licence Bill and other abortions, all indicate, not only the pre- sent failure of the department, but the absolute national disasters which would ensue if it were entrusted with more duties to increase still further its bewilderment. Yet there are not wanting, on the part of many superficial minds, demands for more centralisation of national functions, and in particular for more Home Office control of jirisons and criminal matters. 21 More control of some sort is certainly needed, ])nt not by the Home Office — a thousand times no ! Centralisation has been suffered to run wild in a neighbouring noble country. For t\yenty years wise critics in Parliament and on the Press have pointed the linger to France and her autocrat, saying, " Look there, blundering John Bull ! Look at France ! See how completely, how neatly, how supremely, all the local authorities and all indi- vidual freedom are subordinated to, and controlled by, the central Government in Paris. What unity of action ! What military decision ! What astute and reticent Governmental ability ! " Very good, Messieurs the critics, but how about the results of all this ? What was the practical working of these twenty years of emasculation of the individual energies of Frenchmen ? What was the central trunk good for when the energies in the myriads of leaves and branches had been absorbed and with- d]-awn into that centre '? The answer to the enquiry is — the crash at Sedan and the culminating disasters of blazing Paris in May, 1871. That awful lesson of the fatal deadliness of ex- cessive centrahsation should ever be remembered and practically improved by our own aiid other nations. Nothing is more fallacious than the popular idea of the superior wisdom and ability of central depart- 22 iiieiits of Groveniment, and especially in the case of the distracted and glutted Home Oifice func- tionaries. '' Her Majesty's Government have the matter under their consideration," is a fine sounding phrase, conveying the idea of consultation at grave cabinet council boards. Central "boards" of Govern- ment generally consist of an overworked, or else indo- lent, member of Parliament, and several individual clerks, perhaps neither more v.ise nor foolish than any two or three men who may happen to be passing their ofhce window. One lesson to be derived from our distracted Home Office administration is, that so far as the duties of criminal control and restriction can be entrusted to able and intelligent heal magis- trates and other district officials, they should by all means be so continued. And in so far as the Prison Act of 1865 may have unduly restricted those local authorities, as, for example, by compelling them to the adoption of costly, useless, blundering tread- wheels and cranks, such legislation needs to be repeated and avoided for the future. But, by the way, if Mr. Kinglake's " History of the Crimean War" is veracious, even Cabinet Councils can decide on the most momentous crises of State in a state of after-dinner drowsiness, hardly knowing what documents have really been accepted or issued in their name. Often enough "consideration by the Government " means a pitching the whole sub- 28 ject into a bundle of unanswered papers for months, or, perhaps, something Hke this : — " Mr. Smith (chief clerk), that troublesome member for Blank- shire has been pestering me in the House about bringing in a Bill, and some interfering people have been ^Yriting to the newspapers on the subject, and getting up a stir. What had we best do ? Let me know to-morrow!" Meanwhile the Minister reads the newspaper, smokes a cigar, throws his legs over a chair, signs a bundle of documents almost mechanically, and goes home to dinner, or down to the House; saunters into a club, or out for an airing. The chief clerk perhaps chats a mmute with another clerk, cigar in mouth, and, amid jokes and gossip about the opera, the last ball, or the coming " Derby," suggests a Pioyal Commission or a Parliamentary Committee. " That will shunt these people and their projects for another year or two. Whyever can't they leave all these things to us ? It's our business, and not theirs." This view^ being duly talked over for another minute or two with the Home Secretary next day and approved, " the Government " — that is, merely the one or two clerks consulted — return to their me- chanical red-tape routine, or to the more pressing occupation of a note to the tailor for a pair of new hunting breeches, or a chat over the best play at the theatres to be visited after dinner. So much for 24 Governmental wisdom and " consideration." Not always quite so flippant, but perhaps by no means rarely thus. Reforms Suggested.— More than any other source of improvement, the duties of the Home Secretary require to be greatly diminished and divided. They should be at least apportioned to two departments — a Ministry of Justice, and a Ministry of Health and Civic Administration. Perhaps a third Ministry might be still more useful. Then also a standing consultative Council might with advantage be appointed, to aid the Home Office with its experience and special professional know- ledge. Such a council should consist of a dozen or twenty members, including several judicious magistrates, prison governors, and philanthropists, one or two skilled doctors, merchants, and also an intelligent mechanic or two, or some other persons of practical observant familiarity with general matters. The specialists and practical men on such a council might guard the Home Secretary against the ignorance and blunders from time to time evinced in Bills affecting certain trades or occu- pations ; as for example the recent defective regu- lations relative to pedlars, and the clauses in the Habitual ("riminals Act in regard to the purchase of metal. On a suggestion of the desirability of such a council •25 being recently made to a statesman wlio has tilled the office of Home Secretary, he replied that that official has not too much to attend to, but rather too little time to devote to what comes before him. Well, the latter evil is very nearly equivalent to the former ; the distinction is more verbal than real. But it is evident that no Home Secretary, however able, can possibly find time to attend to the overwhelming •' omnium gatherum " and jumble of business implied by his duties of supervising judges, assizes, magis- trates, police and police courts, sessions, convict prisons and directors, county and borough gaols, and their inspectors, judicial statistics, the revision of capital sentences, cabs, asylums, health of towns, drains, gas, mobs, riots, mayors and corporations, mines, liquor licences, contagious diseases acts, lock hospitals, deputations from ladies and publicans. Parliamentary interpellations, the preparation of l)ills, lloyal Commissions, the appointment of in- numerable officials, and further comprehensive and promiscuous objects. The results cannot be other than we now see them— bewilderment or neglect, haste or apathy, blunders, disappointment, failures, mischievous delays, and a general deadlock in the administration of the department. And so it will infallibly continue to be until these duties are hcttrr dixfrihnted and arrancfed for. 2(5 THE JUDGES AND THE MAGISTRACY. Happily there are few defects to be noted in our British system of Judges and Magistracy. Consider- ing that the best of human arrangements must have some imperfections, the success of this country in securing the services of learned and incorruptible Judges and of diligent and intelligent Magistrates has been, and remains, unsurpassed, if not unequalled, by any other country in the world. The United States, for example — that magnificent country, whose motto is " go ahead " in all things — can show nothing like the dignity and unswerving integrity of the British justiciary and magistracy. In that land one sees, at least occasionally, a Judge in gaol for cor- ruption, and hears, more than occasionally, of such functionaries having accepted bribes. In Great Britai^i such things are almost unheard of, and all but inconceival)le. In the United States one sees over magistrates' front doors " So-and-so, Justice of the Peace." Magistracy there becomes a trade — a means of money-making. The Report of the New York Prison Association (1870), in complaining sadly of the prevalent official corruption in that State, declares that the practice has become general, of the appro- priation, by the justices, without legal right, of a pai*t, or the whole, of the money accruing from the fines imposed l)y them ! " In one county," the treasurer 27 reports, "I have received nothing from lines; they have all hcen stolen hij the justices ! '' Other disgraceful reports are returned from many counties in American States, xinother very suggestive statement as to the American system of judicial administration is afforded by the same volume (for 1870), ^Yllich records that in the State of New York, " out of 3,G24 persons indicted in forty-two counties, only 14 per cent, were con- victed ;" and it is added that " in most cases those who confessed were on trial for their first offence, the old criminals preferring their chance of escape by trial ! ' ' Weak as is her Home Oftice administration. Great Britain can at any rate point with pride to her long and noble line of Judges, from the days, long passed, of Sir William Gascoigne and Sir Matthew Hale, down to the Campbells, Erles, Kellys, Coleridges, Pattesons, O'Hagans, Keoghs, Talfourds, Cockburns, and Bovills of the modern generation. Dignity, learn- ing, integrity, impartiality, and honour adorn their judgment-seats as with a halo of brightness; and long may this state of things continue ! And, notwithstanding the occasional sneers at the " Justices' justice " of the local magistracy, that body also is an honour to the country. It is true that, from time to time, cases unworthy of the magisterial character are reported from provincial Petty Sessions, where some poor child has been sent to prison for 28 picking up an apple, or some destitute old woman committed to gaol for gathering a few shavings from beside a pathway ; but these occurrences are ex- ceptional. Considering the large amount of time and attention gratuitously given to prison superintendence by the Visiting Justices, the interest and ability displayed ])y many of these, and the useful services of other magistrates at Quarter Sessions, and on a variety of occasions, it is abundantly evident that the country is greatly indebted to this patriotic and honourable section of the gentlemen of our land. To whatever county the observer looks, he sees a body of unpaid magistracy, comprising, not merely the representatives of the oldest families, the largest estates, and the wealthiest commercial undertakings, but including also a noteworthy proportion of really public-spirited and hard-w^orking men, who devote their energies and talents, in the most disinterested manner, to the local and general administration of justice, law, and order. These gentlemen form one of the great bulwarks and safeguards of the nation against corruption, anarchy, and crime. May their independence and freedom of action ever be jealously guarded and presei'ved, both by the Legislature and the Press ! Indeed, the spectacle from time to time presented at some of the provincial Quarter Sessions displays a 29 collection of practical experience and business ability on the part of the magisterial benches which is in no way inferior, for general purposes (whilst far superior for local ones), to the wisdom of Parliament. At the Lancashire Sessions, for example, when Earl Derby is presiding, and is surrounded by such magistrates as the Ashworths, Asplands, Rathbones, Gladstones, Birleys, Bremners, Croppers, Hibberts, Watts, Eylands, Callanders, Raffleses, Heywoods, Wilson- Pattens, and very many others, a body of men are gathered together possessing both abilities and dis- positions of the highest order for the public service. Similar interest attaches to the magisterial meetings associated with the prison service of Gloucester, Reading, Durham, Birmingham, Bedford, York, and various other localities. So far from any further transference of function from these local magistrates to the Homo Oilice being desirable, the contrary is needed. The Visiting Justices are, in general, incomparably better qualified to superintend and advise in their own local criminal administration than the distant and be- wildered Home Secretary, and the few red-tape clerks and Inspectors who, in his name, constitute " the Government " (so far as that department of State is concerned). Infinitely superior is the knowledge of district requirements, of criminal treatment, of i)rison discipline and linance. ]K)ssessed by many of 30 the magistracy over that of the Home Office officials. Yet here it may be observed that the services of the Home Office clerks are valuable and faithful, .so far as they can possibly effect the impossible. Such courteous and intelligent members of the staff as, for example, Mr. Everest or Mr. Josephs, of the Criminal Department of that office (or the late Mr. Waddington), are entitled to very respectful appre- ciation by the public. But the very best of permanent clerks, in a central Government office, cannot prevent themselves from imbibing some, if not many, pre- judices in favour of mere red-tape routine, and against needful reforms. Nor can the ablest and wisest of central functionaries be in so good a position for appreciating the best modes of prison discipline as the Visiting Justices and Governors practically and continuously conversant with the subject. Then, also, as to the needs and circumstances of the respective localities, the judgment of distant officials in London is comparatively valueless. The usefulness of the Britisli judiciary and magistracy may be, however, still further perfected in two or three directions. If the magistrates, for example, of the various districts, were to institute annual meetings for mutual conference (as is the case with the Guardians of the Toor in some parts of England) much 1 31 valuabh^ experience might he iiitercliaiiged with advantage. And there are two points in relation to the selection of magistrates which give rise to occasional and not wholly groundless complaint. One is, that there is hardly a fair proportion, at present, of gentlemen belonging to other denominations than the Estab- lished Church of England. And the other consists in a wide-spread objection to the presence of the clergy on the bench of justices. Admirable as are the devotion and official diligence of very many of the clerg}% yet it can hardly be denied that they have managed to achieve a reputation for a somewhat harsh and unsympathising administration of the duties of the magistracy. This, perhaps, arises from their being habituated to regard all manner of trans- gressions and frailty from a mere bookish or scholastic point of view. And from their constant intercourse, whether by their studies or otherwise, with minds of a high order of intelligence, they are apt to place the general standard of moral responsibility too high in regard to many of the exceedingly ignorant and grievously tempted victims of poverty or neglect who often appear before them as offenders. Then, again, there is some incongruity in their being required to pronounce sentences on their parishioners, to whom they habitually stand in the relations of expounders of a Gospel of love, sympatliy, and compassion. 82 This tends, not necessarily, perhaps, but still in many cases, to elicit invidious comparisons and observations which had better be avoided. On these and similar grounds, it 'would probably be no loss, either to the magistracy or to the clergy themselves, if the latter were wholly liberated from duties wdiich certainly sometimes interfere with the other and varied opportunities for usefulness and beneficence of which they abundantly avail themselves. SENTENCES. The subject of sentences, which is associated with the duties both of judges and magistrates, demands special attention. The generality of criminal sen- tences passed in this country are either absurdly too short, or cruelly too long. The former are grossly incongruous in regard to ordinary British common sense, whilst the latter are as inconsistent with the merciful precepts and example of the Divine Founder of Christianity. Fully three-fourths, and sometimes even more, of the prisoners committed to the county and borough gaols, are only sentenced to terms not exceeding three months. A large proportion are only sentenced for a few days or weeks. Again, a numerous class of offenders are committed to gaol over and over again for these short terms. It is by no means rare to find persons who have ])eon fifty, or even our 33 hundred, times in gaol. Seutences of week upon week, fortnight upon fortnight, or month upon month, have heen passed upon these miserable beings, without the slightest effect, either of deter- rence or reformation. The whole costly apparatus of arrest, arraignment, and imprisonment, of police, magistracy, and gaolers, is thus wasted in a pecuniary sense, and also brought into contempt, so far as moral influence is involved. These unwisely exces- sive repetitions of little sentences are a cruelty to the offenders, and a costly injury to the ratepayers and to the public generally. The Times, of May 4, 1872, reported the death, in Edinburgh, of an aged man, of eighty-two years, who had been convicted for drunkenness and other offences 350 times. It was calculated that he had spent upwards of forty years in prison. His usual cognomen, "Silly Kelly," im})]ied that he was more or less imbecile. And this is probably the case with many of the constantly recommitted petty offenders. They are " poor weak things, unable to take care of themselves." Then a better classifica- tion of such persons should be adopted, and means taken to ascertain whether they are rather culpable or pitiable. In the former cases, more prolonged punitory confinement should follow, and. in the latter, a treatment calculated to train them to more self-control. D 34 Cumulative Sentences. — The Liverpool magis- trates have recently memorialised the Home Secretary (but, of course, with no perceptible effect) for more cunmlative sentences upon inveterate misdemeanants. They report that during six months of 1871, their Borough gaol received 390 prisoners, each of whom had been committed to that gaol alone at least fifteen times, and four of whom had been sent thither seventy times, or upwards ! It is true that the recent '^Habitual Criminals Act'' and the ''Prevention of Crime Act'' have rendered sen- tences more cumulative for certain classes of offences, and have, perhaps, gone] almost to the opposite extreme from the former undue leniency. But there still remain a number of offences, comparatively minor in their criminality, which should be visited with cumulative or steadily increasing sentences, in some proportion, at least, to the number of their repetitions. For example — assaults and common riot, wilful damage to property, noisy drunkenness, vagrancy, and the like, are still practically exempt from the needful repressive treatment. Intermediate " Homes."— The Liverpool ma- • gistrates wisely and considerately recommend that, in addition to this increase of the terms of im- prisonment, Visiting Justices should be empowered " to transfer any ] risoners who have undergone twelve months' detention, and two-thirds of the time i of their full sentence in a borough or county prison, to any 'Home' ('or Adult Eeformatory'j vrilling to receive the prisoners, and which might be under the management of a certitied Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, and subject to Government inspection." These establishments would be a good preparation for liberty, a stimulus both to self-control and to industry (because any inmate manifesting wilful misbehaviour or idleness would be sent back to gaol to finish his term), and an assistance in qualifying for, and in obtaining, employment on complete restoration to liberty. Inasmuch as it is already in the power of the Home Secretary to recognise such institutions as "prisons'" (as in the case of juvenile reforma- tories), no new or special legislation is necessary before the recommendation can l)e adopted. It has, in substance, long been urged l)y some experienced authorities, and in }nu{ieular by ^fr. T. B. L. Baker, of Gloucester. Such Homes (which might, in the case of adults, often become nearly or wholly self-supporting) would be, in many instances, a suital)le destination for that class of misdemeanants whom the present system of repeated short imprisonments wholly fails to reform or deter, and a proportion of v.hom are semi-inibecile, or in danger of becoming so if continuously left to temptation. FiKST Cautions.— "Whilst re]ieated very short sen- J) 2 30 teuces are so objectionable, the present system might also be improved by adopting the shortest of sentences for the first case of petty crime, or even by the more frequent substitution of a magisterial caution. Many a life-long disgrace, many a ruinous stigma upon the character of minor misdemeanants, might thus be prevented. Indeed, in the case of children and youths, it is an absolute duty to adopt such a merciful plan for first offences of no special magnitude. What a cruelty it is to stigmatise a poor child for life with the prison mark for such offences as stealing an apple or a turnip, or even breaking a window for the first time ! The late venerable philanthropist, Mr. M. D. Hill, whilst Recorder of Birmingham, adopted, for many years, and with most encouraging success, a system of "Magistrates' Bail," with reference to juvenile offenders — especially when brought before him for a first offence. When, in such cases, he had ground lor believing that they were not wholly corrupt, and when a suitable individual could be found kind enough to act as "guardian" and take charge of the young person, Mr. Hill used to hand over the culprit to the care of such, in the belief that this plan afforded a better hope of amendment than custody in the County Gaol. Nor was he mistaken in this expectation, for in his charge to the Grand Jury of Birmingham, in 1848, he reported: — "The intelligent 87 officer at the head of the police informs me that a much greater number of young offenders so disposed of have been withdrawn from evil courses than of those who, having no such advantages, have been consigned to prisons.'' In his charge in 1856, the Recorder stated that, in fourteen A^ars, he had consisfned to their friends, in lieu of im))risonment, 483 young ollenders, and that of this number only seventy-eight had been reconvicted. This is only one'third of the percentage of average reconnnittals of prisoners. It is interesting to find that the persons who A\ere willing to take the oversight of these ^^ouths were chiefly their previous employers. There also exists in connection with the magistracy of '"the City'' portion of the Metropolis a humane and etficient practice (very little known), of ancient origin, termed the ''City Custom of Apprentices" ('described several years ago in an interesting paper by Mr. Benjamin Scott, the Chamberlain of London). By this '-custom," apprentices, on the commission of misdemeanours, are not promptly subjected, as often elsewhere, to public exposure and punishment, sometimes involving their utter ruin, but are, on complaint, first remonstrated with and counselled by the Chamberlain, and, failing this, lyrivatehi im- prisoned by him in the Bridewell for a few days or weeks. By this course many an erring youth has been promptly recalled to a sense of duty. Some 38 such have subsequently received tlie mayoralty and aldermanship. By this means, also, masters who do not perform their duty to their apprentices are authoritatively, but for the most part privately, called to account. This "custom" is in complete accord with the world-wide reputation for liberality and charity justly enjoyed by the British metropolis. Needless Imprisonments. — It is to be wished that such humane and efficient modes of treat- ment were uniformly adopted. But this is by no means the case. Grievous injury continues to be needlessly inflicted by the imprisonment of chil- dren and juvenile offenders for paltry transgres- sions. For example, a l)oy of thirteen was, last year, sent to the Clerkenwell Prison, London, for stealing 2^d. ; after he had been about a fortnight in gaol he died. At the inquest (March 20th, 1871), the Coroner said, very reasonably, that " it was a hard thing the boy should have been sent to prison for so small a crime." The foreman of the jury agreed with the Coroner, and believed such a course '■more likely to increase than to diminish crime." The jury's verdict reported that the boy's death was "accelerated by being imprisoned for a paltry offence." Sue] I an instance is, unfortunately, by no means an isolated one. Indeed, many thousands of the unfortunate classes of prisoners ought not to be imprisoned at all for the petty offences for which 89 they are committed. Fines })iiy;il)l(^ hy instalments, or pecuniary restitution, twofold or more, if necessary, would often prevent life-long careers of crime now consequent on imprisonment, aud permanent loss of character. From one-third to one-half of the prisoners in some gaols are committed through inahility to pay at once trifling tines for petty offences. Hence such are virtually punished for their poverty, and often lose their characters permanently, have their homes broken up, and enter on careers of crime, very expensive and injurious to the community. Per- mission (general and systematic, and not merely ex- ceptional, as at present) to paij such fines hij insUdtiicnts would prevent all this. Mr. Mayhew justly remarks, " the very first principle of enlightened penology is to endeavour to keep people out of prison as long as possible, rather than thrust them into it for the most trivial offences." At Coldbath Fields Prison, not long ago, a poor man (committed for seven days in default of payment of a line of a few shillings) committed suicide through shame and distress of mind. Immediately after his death, his family, not knowing the fatal occurrence, tendered the money for his release. Clerk's Fees. — In connection witli vimt sliort sen- tences, or such as are either needless or cruel, the sub- ject of ^Magistrates' (Merk's Fees, and of other co^is. 40 is also of importance. Very petty offences, visited by lines of a nominally small amount, are, in some dis- tricts, at least, punished most disproportionately by means of these fees. For instance, a group of children were recently brought before a bench of magistrates, in the West of England, charged with stealing apples. The poor little fellows were hardly tall enough to be seen above the " dock." One of the Justices at once put the question to his colleagues — '' Gentlemen, how many of you ever stole apples when you were children?" Every one on the bench admitted his own previous transgression in this respect. Con- sequently the little urchins on this occasion were only fined a few pence each. But this well intended leniency was, to a considerable extent, nullified by the additional costs of the clerk's fees and other impositions. In tiie cases of such small fines the fees often amount to many times the direct fine. Thus the Liverpool Mercuiij recently recorded an instance of an aged farm lal)Ourer, who was found " guilty " of the offence of stealing from a gentleman's grounds a sprig of holly (valued at one penny) to* decorate his window at Christmas. On account of his previous good character and the petty nature of the misdemeanour, tlie poor old man was only lined sixpence; but the "costs" tVom fees, &c., amounted to £1 5s. (kl., and in default of payment the ua'ed man was sent to <j";iol for three weeks ! In 41 many such cases, not only must the magistrates' clerk be })ai(l a fee, but the policeman's mileage must be found by the defendant, and, in some instances, a sum of half-a-crown or five shillings has also to be paid to the i)olicenian on his obtaining a conviction. This is also a temptation to perjury by such ofticials whose interest is thus (and in various other waysj pro- moted not by the decrease, but by the increase, of crime. In reference to many of these petty cases, the evils of the present system in England are thus set forth in a recent able editorial article in the j'ournal just referred to : ''As the matter stands now, a 'marked man ' in the rural districts is at the absolute mercy of the person who has ' marked ' him, be that person the gamekeeper, the bailiff, the steward, the parson, or the squire himself. He may be tracked doA\n by a policeman iriu) is n'tcdnh'tl for (ictiiiuj him cnnvivlcd, sat in judgment upon btj liis prosccnlur, or his pro- secutor's friends ; have the legal points of his case decided by a rln-h irlio rcceircs an I'.rtni fee for findinq himiiuiUij : and finally mulcted in so heavy a sum for costs that he must perforce go to prison, and probably be made to ))ecome the felon all these various functionaries have tried to make him out to be." Such procedure as this, not very connnon perhaps, but still not very rare, is certainly little in accord with an Englishman's ideas of " fair play," or with the grand and beautiful impartiality symbolised and 42 inculcated by the emblematic figure of Justice, blindfolded, and holding in her hands the equitably poised and balanced scales. Keform Needed. — There is, then, both scope and need for a considerable improvement in the general system of sentences in this country as affecting petty or first offenders, and especially in the case of juveniles. This reform being attained it will then be necessary to adopt the cumulative principle, already alluded to, for successive repetitions. The sequence of sentences should run something like the following : — 1. A reprimand or caution with magistrates' bail, but without imprisonment. 2. A small fine, or twenty- four hours' solitary confinement on bread and water. 3. Three months' imprisonment. 4. Six months' imprisonment. The next sentences should be one year's and two years' confinement; then three or four years' penal servitude. Excessive Sentences. — There is reason to doubt either the wisdom or the expediency of the very rapid increase suggested in some quarters, as, for example, ten days, then six months, then seven years' penal servitude, with subsequent police supervision. And this brings us on to the question of long sentences of penal servitude. There is a dangerous tendency at present, even amongst some humanely disposed persons, to advocate a rapid and general recourse, after two or tlu'ce repeated offences, to long 43 sentences of seven, ten, or more years of penal ser- vitude. Siicli inflictions are, except for tlie most heinous crimes, as rape and murder, worse than useless. They are absolutely foolish in their pecu- niary burdens upon the taxpayer, inefficacious in their relative effect, either of reformation or deterrence, and cruelly unchristian in the inconsiderateness and inhumanity of the prolonged slavery of the offender — a slavery incomparably worse than that of the American or even Cuban plantations, because it breaks down, and often permanently breaks up, all ties of kindred, all conjugal and parental bonds, and need- lessly punishes, perhaps with life-long agony, many an innocent relative of the offender. The cruel, ungovernable violator, or murderer, of course deserves prolonged separation from society and kindred. But three-fourths, or even four-fifths of the criminals committed to convict prisons are only guilty of comparatively minor offences, often, for example, of a few thefts of small amount. And a large proportion also of these convicts are more to be pitied than blamed by reason of their niiseral)le antecedents of orphanage, poverty, neglect, and temptation. There is hence reason to fear that many of the sentences of seven, ten, or twelve years of penal servitude, now passed, are both unmerciful, socially unwise, and absolute blunders in reference to civil economv. 4-1 Sucli sentences are doubly to be deprecated, in- asmuch as they consign the conyict for the greater portion of his time to the debasements and gross contaminations of that gang system Avhich remains the chief characteristic of both British and Irish convict prisons, in spite of its unanimous and re- peated condemnation by the most observant and experienced Commissions, Inspectors, and Prison Con- gresses of former years. Whereas under a system, not of crushing soUtude, but merely of industry and instruction, entirely separated from cril companion- ship, and from evil companionship only — with freer communication with officers. Chaplains, School- masters, and lastly, but by no means least, with judicious voJiiuUinj visitors of the stamp of Howard, Buxton, Vvy, and Martin — British con\'ict prisons miglit l)e rendered uiore deterrent, and infinitely more reformatory, than at present — whilst such a (pialitied system of separation (not solitude) would safely and advantageously permit the substitution of two or three years' confinement, for five, seven, or fifteen of the present most objectionable system. Thus many years of imprisonment would 1;e saved to the country, with undiminished security to the l)nl)lic. And further, in many cases the innocent families of tlie convict would have their bread- winners restored to them l)efore they have be- come ])ermanently ])aupcriscd in jioorhouses, and 45 ])elbre tlit'ir iintuntl tien luive becoinc compleicly loosened. All such results as the above are found to accrue, ^vith every advantage, in some excellent sejjarate prisons in Belgium and Holland— prisons equally removed, in their nature, from the debasing gangs of Chatham, Portland, Portsmouth, and Spike Island, as from the horrible tombs for living men which resulted so disastrously in the United States, under the style of '• the solitary system. "' A few oflicial testimonies in support of this view may be given, and from home authorities only — In the last official report of English Convict Prisons the Chaplain of Pentonville, Pev. Am- brose Sherwin, deprecated the recent retrogression in convict treatment by the increased adoption of long congregation in gang labour, and added : "I repeat that iJie majoritij of convicts may be so dis- ciplined by a continuous separate confinement of iti>t longer than tiro tjears, that at the termination of their course they may be restored to society in a condition of mind, and with intentions and prospects, raslhi more fa Co arable for the eoniniiuiily. and l\>v tlicmsrhes, than can be expected from men inured to vice, bv a sojourn of years in regions of congregated crime.'' He also speaks of the safe and desirable results of such a system as comprising, amongst other ad- vantages, '-a vast retrenchment in ex]ienditnre. a 46 diminution of poors' rates, burdened with the main- tenance of convicts' famihes for a series of years ; and a lessening of the misery endured by the relatives, oftentimes most innocent sufferers." The long experienced Chairman of the Visiting Justices of Reading Gaol, Mr. William Merry, writes : " I have no hesitation in saying that all sentences of imprisonment for longer periods than eighteen months may safely be discontinued." Of course he refers merely to ordinary offences, not of a heinous nature, and to imprisonment with entire separation from criminal association in gaols. Other prison authorities state their conviction that three or four years' coniinement, under proper con- ditions, w i]l effect all the deterrence, and more reformation, than terms of seven, ten, and fifteen years. Englishmen, brave and bold as they undoubtedly are, as a race, are, nevertheless, peculiarly liable to run into extremes, under tlio influence of panics and (pidemic disappointments. Tlicy have, for years past, been realising the mischiel's of foolishly repeated sentences of a few weeks or months passed many limes overon the same individuals; andnowthe tendency, even on tiie ])art of some wise men, seems to be to iiisli into the 0})p()site extreme of excessively l)rolonged sentences. But "Via media, via tuta." It is very i)ainful to observe some of these very I 47 long sentences. For example, in May, 1872, two miserable girls were brought before Judge Bramwell, in London. Their crime was a very heinous one. They had savagely assaulted a poor woman whom they beat so violently that she lost the sight of one eye. It was pleaded, and perhaps with truth, that they did not intend to injure her so seriously. How- ever, these girls were both sentenced to penal servitude for life! And, further, the judge is reported to have remarked that " he felt no incrcij" toward the wretched young creatures. In rebuking him for this, a journalist appropriately remarks, " Girls of twenty-one are not so corrupt and cruel unless they have been born and bred among the basest dregs of the vilest population." True. And, therefore, while their punishment should be proportioned to the heinousness of the crime, it should still be tempered with mercy. J3ut it is very difficult to reconcile with either mercy or ]iractical wisdom, a sentence of possihlij fifdj ijcars' duration, even for that crime, upon these sad young women. The iirandest and sublimest of all Judges has declared ''Blessed arc the merciful."" And in these davs, when, even by some in high places, and by ''respectable"' writers, C'liristian principles are sneered at as " sentimental liumanitarianism,"' it is a real consolation to know that there will, on one Ch-eat Day in the future, be manifested the sovereign and irresistible interposition of that Omnipotent 4« Judge, perfect in mercy, but also boundleBs iu power, before Whom all authorities, however high and absolute on earth, must bow, in the most abject weakness and submission, to receive the righteous retribution of His all paramount decision. Nevertheless, and meanwhile, the sovereign com- mands of merciful justice require to be much more generally studied and obeyed than is at present the case, even in the matter of our judicial sentences. PRISON DIEECT0E8, INSPECTORS, AND OTHER OFFICIALS. It is but fair to admit that in Great Britain (and far more in Ireland) there have been secured the services of some highly qualitied prison Inspectors, Governors and other officials. For example, the late Mr. Perry ^\■as an Inspector admirably adapted to his position, and peculiarly efficient in tlie performance of its duties. Nevertheless, in many instances the persons holding these various important functions of prison supervision have been promiscuously '• pitchforked " into their positions, on men- grounds of private interest, or party influence, and with little or no reference to their training and qualifications for such difficult and responsible engagements. Hence the criminal administration lias suffered grievously in many respects, and does still, from ignorance and incompetence in some of 49 its chief controllers. Great Britain is perhaps not nnich, if at all, behind the United States in this matter, but she is far outstripped by Belgium, Holland, Germany, and some other nations, where special ability and practical adaptation are required as indispensable conditions for the holding of offices in the direction of the prison system. Every prison Director and Inspector should be practically and ^Yidely conversant with the principles of criminal management, and should be, moreover, characterised by Christian and humane dispositions. Such men as Maconochie, Jebb and Crofton have afforded excellent practical models for this class. It is also desirable, at least in many instances, that those who superintend i)rison administration should have graduated, so to speak, by i)revious experience ill the subordinate positions of gaol or police duty. And here it may be remarked that the quahfi- cations of some of the able officers of police are unduly overlooked in selections for the posts of prison inspectorship and governorship, whilst mili- tary men are far too c.cclusivehi appointed to these positions. Whilst it is trur tliat some of the best of criminal administrators in the country have been trained in the army, it is also true that that very training has some serious disadvantages in this direction. Such persons are apt to bring with them, not merely an ignorance of industrial training but E 50 sometimes a positive contempt for it, and an exclusive reliance on a martinet-like excess of precision wliicli regards mechanical obedience and automaton regularity as the alpha and omega of prison duty. Mr. Frederick Hill, for many years one of the ablest of prison Inspectors, has appro- priately exposed the folly of this tendency which, in lieu of reformed criminals and diminished re- convictions, merely produces a wonderful display of snow-white floors, nail-heads and door-knobs polished till each becomes a perfect mirror, knives and spoons ranged with mathematical precision, and so forth. Whilst the military men who have become able prison officials deserve due credit, a much wider selection may be made with advantage. The ranks of the police and of the mercantile world could furnish many admirably qualified persons for the direction of our gaols. For example, Mr. Oakley, of Taunton, and Mr. Edwards, of Devonport, two of the best Governors, were trained in the police service. And in these positions also, and not merely in the subordinate ranks of the warders, a much more general acquaintance with industrial training is needed. The costliness, waste, and non-reformatory results of much of the present prison system, are largely owing to the want of such jiractically intelli- gent officers. It has been stated, for example, by an 01 official at one of the English convict prisons, that in that establishment alone hundreds of pounds' worth of shoe leather are Avasted annually iu consequence of the ignorance or indolence of uninstructed officers. The services of well-qualified trade in- structors should be obtained not merely for a lew prisons, as at present, but for every one. The results would amply compensate for,, and cover, the additional expense at first. PEISON ANL> CPJMINAL KEPOETS AND STATISTICS. In the matter of official reports of prisons and criminal statistics Ireland is, again, far in advance of England. The statistical returns of crime, pre- pared by Dr. W. Neilson Hancock, for the Irish Government, are models of intelligent accuracy and ability ; and the annual reports of Irish county and borough gaols, issued by Mr. John Lentaigne and Mr. C. F. Bourke, arc most interesting documents — complete, suggestive, and faithful. AYhat a contrast to these able volumes is afforded by the poor, bald, dry things, purporting to be the Annual Prison "Eeports" of the Inspectors of English and Scotch county and borough gaols ! Since the death of Mr. Perry these reports have greatly fallen off in their quality. For example, that intelligent Inspector used to return full and interesting particulars from each i)rison, as to E '1 52 tlie nmouiit, nature, and distribution of prison labour. His successors have almost wholly omitted this. Perhaps this has been done purposely, in consequence of the complaints recently raised (and with much justice) of the undue and excessive preponderance of mat making in gaols. But if so, it is a most objectionable policy for Government to attempt to ' ' burke ' ' enquiry and legitimate complaints by a mere dexterous " manipulation " of its statistics. Such a course is both undignified and injurious. At present the reports of the English and Scotch county and borough gaols are of very little value, and it may almost be said that the waste-basket is their deserved destination. In the House of Commons, April 9th, 1872, Mr. J. H. Kennaway very properly complained that " it is a waste of money to employ Inspectors who do no moi-e tlian is done at present ; but it is not the fault of Parliament, because by the 4 and 5 William IV., there is power to appoint five Inspectors ; and if that was necessary some time ago, it is still more necessary now." The only excuse for the short- comings of the present system of inspection and reports is, that whereas in Ireland there are two inspectors to about forty prisons, in Great Britain the same number of inspectors have to visit and report oi) about 180 gaols. If the Home Secretary's object ill thus "starving" this prison service is 53 " economy," it is a peculitirly expensive "economy '' in its results, and somewhat akin to that of a penurious patient, who, to save a doctor's fee, becomes an invalid for life. Objectionable as is the English convict system on several accounts, it is but just to acknowledge that the annual statistics of these ten prisons, prepared mainly by Captain Du Cane, are greatly superior, in completeness and candour, to the county and borough gaol reports. And in particular the reports therein contained, by the Chaplains of these estab- lishments, are most valuable documents. Also the annual volume entitled ^' Judicial Statis- tics '' prepared at the Home Ofiice, and signed " F. S. Leslie," is, at any rate, one thing highly credit- able to that Department. The County and Borough Prison Reports urgently need to be brought up to the same level. THE POLICE. A shrewd and suggestive plan is said to be adopted on some emigrant vessels, for promoting the most efficient medical care of the passengers. The ship's surgeon receives, at the end of the voyage, a certain sum for each person disembarked in good health, and nothing for invalids or the deceased. A some- what similar principle would probably render tlie preventive efficiency of the police much greater than 54 the present mode of practically estimating their ser- vices merely in proportion to the numher of convic- tions they obtain. In other words, their interests, and their prospects of promotion, are now rendered, in some degree at least, dependent upon the amount of crime reported, rather than on that prevented, by them. Hence they are under some temptation to be indifferent as to efforts for arresting the causes of crime, and may possibly be induced to regard some portion of the criminal body in the half-kindly way in which a professional ratcatcher looks upon his vermin, some of which he must permit to escape, or avoid catching, in order that his gains may not be brought to an end. Whilst this comparison is perhaps hardly fair to a large proportion of the police, to whom, as a body, the public are greatly indebted for many valuable services, there is nevertheless a decided disadvantage in the present system. And there can be little doubt l)ut that if the remuneration and promotion of the officers and subordinates of the police force were ren- dered, in some degree, dependent upon the absence of crime and disorder, and the non-occurrence of arrests in their respective districts, a very great improvement would result. Disorderly houses, idle persons, and neglected cliildren, would ])e much more sharply looked after. Of course some system of sujiorvision would have 55 to be devised to prevent the mere neglect of a dis- trict, or the mere forbearing to report offences, being regarded as equivalent to the prevention of evil. A few inspectors in plain clothes, paid in proportion to their discovery of police carelessness, would probably effectually counteract any serious inconvenience in that direction, just as the diurnal accuracy of the type setting in the Timeft newspaper is said to be so admirably secured by the infliction of a fine of one shilling per letter wrongly inserted or omitted — the said fines being paid to the examiner who detects the error. Another needed alteration in existing police arrangement is an increased responsibility of the Commissioners or Superintendents for the bungling arrest of innocent persons. Or, at least, immediate l)ail in such cases should be procurable from the police-office until the first examination of the accused before a magistrate. During two weeks in May, 1872, the Metropolitan papers reported eight in- stances, in and around London, of the arrests, by police detectives, of persons afterwards proved inno- cent. In this manner respectable persons, against whom no fair ground even for suspicion could be alleged, have been repeatedly locked up for a night, or more, until their characters could l)e vindicated — such detention being afterwards exceedingly injurious to them. Of course, in such instances there is a nominal right of redress by means of an action for damages. But what is likely to be the gain to a prosecutor in an action against " a man of straw " — a policeman paid about a pound a week ? The oversight (one does not like the despotic and sneaking associations connected with the French word *' surveillance," so commonly used in this con- nection) — the oversight of criminals discharged with tickets of leave, or placed under police supervision, ought also to be placed under a special department of police iitore distinct from the ordinary consta- bulary than at present. The central Superinten- dent ought not to be overloaded with a number of other duties, sufficient in themselves to claim all his attention and energies. There appears to have been some recent Home Office weakness in this direction also. Notwithstanding the frequent assertion that the incognito of well-behaved discharged convicts is care- fully preserved by the police, cases are known which disprove this assertion — at any rate in the round and general manner in which it is often made. Doubt- less many of the police are thus considerate and reticent, but it is also known, from an unquestionable source, that, in a number of instances, cruel injuries have been inflicted on repentant and reformed dis- charged prisoners by malign or chattering police- men. 57 THE POLICE AND DEALERS IN STOLEN GOODS. The '' Vrci'CHtwn of Crime Act,'' of 1871, has very properly increased the powers of the police, and of the law, in reference to the punishment of the har- bonrers of thieves and traffickers in stolen goods — a class ten times more mischievons than the ordinary run of thieves, and also a class so cunning, and often wealthy, as to evade the meshes of the law. Further legislation is greatly needed to place this class more thoroughly under the power of the police. A high authority on this subject, Mr. Edwin Hill, writing since the Act of 1871, says : — " The inefti- ciency of the law (as it now stands) to put down the receivers — and with them their customers, the thieves — is so signal, that I regard it as all but demonstrable that not one case in five thousand of dealing in stolen goods is ever brought to justice. The existing means of repression are a dead failure, and so far as my knowledge goes, no means short of making (by law) the will, and the effort to carry it out, to constitute the crime, as I have suggested, offers any fair promise of success." There is still needed inorc legal I'ecognition of luunij'est criiiiiiidl inlcniioii, and more police power, to bring cases of such nianiftsi iithiitivii before the Courts. 5R In continuing his arguments for this needful re- form, Mr. Hill refers to a recent statement of Mr. George Attenhorough, of London, who mentions that, heing at a remote place in Wales, he made up five parcels of goods, and so disguised them by striking coronets and other marks on the silver, and by packing them in torn and dirty paper, as to give them every appearance of being the produce of theft. Also his letters to the parties asking them to remit the money were purposely made to look like the pro- ductions of illiterate persons. Notwithstanding these circumstances the goods were accepted in each case, and the price the parties chose to give remitted at once, without comment or inquiry ; the parties being obviously content to pocket the profits, reckless as to the manner in which the goods might have been obtained. Mr. Hill remarks: — "Now, as the law stands, these men could not be made amenable. But I ask what clearer proof is needed that they Ijelong to the pernicious class of receivers, without whom, as the adage tells us, there would be no thieves V " COUNTY AND BOROUGH GAOLS. Many improvements liave taken place in these prisons of late years, and, as a whole, they hold a fair 50 comparative position as regards tlie similar institu- tions of other countries. In particular they are greatly superior in their general principles to tlie convict or Government prisons. This superiority is mainly owing to two causes — the separation of pri- soners from each other as a primary hasis of treat- ment, and their frequent supervision by intelligent local magistrates. The county and borough gaols are thus comparatively open to the influences of local observation and voluntary co-operation, at least on the part of a large and widely distributed body of magistrates, many of whom are excellently qualilied for their responsil)I(> duties ; whereas the convict prisons are, in great degree, closed to the healthy ventilation of public observation and local visitation. It is comparatively difficult to obtain permission to inspect them. They are administered by four or five Directors, who are almost irresponsible, except to the Home Secretary, and it is needless further to describe the very imperfect attention and control w^hich his promiscuous and overwhelmingly multitudinous duties permit him to give to the single department of convict prisons. Hence it is evident that many abuses, even of a very serious nature, may arise and continue in the convict prisons without the know- ledge, and largely beyond any control, on the part of the nation. But the boroua'h and count v r/aols are much more 60 favourably circiimstaiiced than the estabhshments which are more fully confided to the stagnating influences of Home Office centralisation, and of a small Board of Direction (chiefly or wholly mili- tary\ permitted to drag along in its own way from year to year, and too jealous of healthy public opinion or criticism. English county and borough gaols are in a toler- able though still imperfect condition ; the convict prisons are bad, wretchedly defective, and, in fact, require reorganisation root and branch, from the highest to the low^est departments of their manage- ment ; and their fundamental system (that of gang labour during the chief portion of the prisoner's time) being radically corrupt, no effective reform can be secured until this root of the evil be removed. But happily, in the county and l)orough gaols, the salutary and wise principle of separation, so strongly urged by John How'ard, and by all the most experi- enced follow^ers in the same field of observation, has 1)een ado2)ted and carried out with at least a tolerable approach to consistency. The Prison Act of 1865 ('admitted by many gaol ofticials to be a mischievous one as to its unwise restrictions on jxiial bibour) was at any rate a useful one, in so far as it extended and I'lirflier enforced tljis principle of scpdratloii. Nevertheless, there has been manifested some tendency to retroiiression. 'The separation of pri- 61 soners from each otln'r, morally iudis])ensal)le as it Is, peremptorily requires to be accompanied by a con- siderable substitution of good com]3any for bad, and by a large amount of religious and secular instruction and profitable industrial occupation. Nevertheless, the increased adoption of separation in British prisons has not been followed by a due measure of these indispensable accompaniments. On the contrary, there has been a considerable retrogression. The chief defects of the county and borough p-aols are— o-reatly insufficient moral and secular instruction, and a prominent neglect of such remunerative occupation as is needful to develop habits of willing industry in the prisoner, and to enable him to earn an honest livelihood on dis- charge. It must be acknowledged that there are several honourable exceptions to these shortcomings in the case of certain gaols where instruction is attended to in a praiseworthy manner, and in others where really rational occupation is carefully fostered or enforced. But, generally speaking, English gaols are still very defective in these particulars. And even as regards separation there is still a large amount of congregate labour uiominally on the sikait system;, by day, in gaols where complete cellular separation is enforced at night. On this point the experienced Chairman of Berkshire Magistrates (already (juoted), ^Ir. Merry, vcnnarks :— 62 '' The law of silence, under such circumstances, it has been found impossible to enforce, so as to prevent communication and contamination, though accumu- lated punishment, even to an extreme, has been tried, and also the opposite extreme of relaxation. Prisoners congregated at ^YOrk together in silence, represent a great day school in which cunning — how to outwit the watchers — is the only lesson learnt hy heart. Besides the frequency of punishment, and duplicity fostered in evading it, a third objection is, the expense of super- intendence. More warders are required than under any other system, fruitless as their surveillance is after all ; and this is a fifth objection, that the end is not accom- plished. Prisoners do communicate, to their mutual and serious disadvantage. Again, there is the evil of universal recognition among the prisoners. Those who have seen each other in prison have established a tie, always strongest on the side of the hardened character, and most fatal to the weaker : if the former wants help in any after exploit of robbery, he has a hold on the feelings and fears of the reluctant prison companion, which principle only can resist. And this Inings me to the most serious objection of all — Where is this principle of resistance to evil to be learnt ? It is good to know that ' Piesist the devil, and ho will flee from you.' But how is he to know this ? In the Silent and Congregated Labour System, the hands only are employed — the head is left too empty, and 63 the heart too hard. After a long day's work, a prisoner is tliiiikiiig of his supper and bed, not of Schoolmaster or Chaplain : and I confess that I grieve above all things, that the hours of imprison- ment should be alIo^vcd to slip away, leaving the prisoner the same ignorant and unimproved animal he was, instead of employing those hours — precious because of the uses to which they may be turned — in applying the remedy at once to the root of the evil —Moral Ignorance." The need for making education a much more pro- minent portion of gaol occupation is proved by one single fact, confirmed by the annual judicial statistics ■ — only five in every hundred of British prisoners can read and write well. For want of knowledge, reli- gious and secular (not the latter apart from the former), the people perish morally, and often phy- sically too. The Prison Act, it is true, provides for instruction, but unduly subordinates it to penal labour (such as the treadwheel), and only permits its communication at sucli timc!^ as tnaij itut interfere icitli the luanii Jiours prescrihed for the said penal labour. Further, even this provision for education is largely evaded. An observant and excellent Chaplain (liev. W. C. Osborne, late of Bath Gaol) remarks on this point : — " In most of our gaols there are oflicers called schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. Frobablv tliev Oi have been a[)poiiitecl as sucli, and have received their salaries under such designations, but in reahty many have been porters, warders, or clerks, giving only a small ])ortion of their time to the work of instruction. This is one of the evils very apt to creep into gaols, and requires the watchfulness of the magistracy to })revent it. Persons are in such places sometimes appointed and paid for one purpose, while they are employed for another. As high walls and barred gates help to hide from the public this wrong, com- mitted against the neglected, ignorant, and helpless portion of our people, the protection of the prisoner's ])rivileges must be sought from their official guar- dians — the Visiting Justices, and the Magistracy of the country. In some gaols the schoolmaster's services are applied in such a manner as to induce the suspicion that he is considered useless and in the way. His instruction seems to be merely tolerated and ])ermitted in compliance with the Prison Act. Not only is his attention frequently directed from the duties of his office, but he is often compelled to in- struct the prisoners at unseasonable times, and in a most inefiicient way. Portions of the ordinary meal hours are in some gaols assigned for the instruction of prisoners, which method naturally tends to make it unpalatable to them, if not to the schoolmaster. In some gaols it is imparted in the cells to individuals one at a time. 05 Aiiotlier mode is that of giving the instruction during the short intervals when the prisoners rest from their work on the tread^^'heel ; and another that of stopping all labour in the prison during one hour in the day, and permitting the schoolmaster to do his best, during that short period, among prisoners of dilierent educational condition. " This condition of things has been occasioned by the spirit, if not by the letter, of recent legislation, which seems to regard merely penal labour as the chief object, the summum bonum of imprisonment. The moralising and civilising influences brought to bear upon prisoners while undergoing punishment, (dthoiKjh never sufficiently exerted, have been greatly lessened since the operation of the Prison Act of i865. The opportunities and means for mental improve- ment have been greatly restricted. The use of pen and paper, and even of a slate, is sometimes denied them, so that they are prevented on Sundays, during the hours allowed for meals and after their day's work is done, from improving themselves by such aids. This is even the case in many places in the treatment of prisoners awaiting their trial, upon whom no penal work can be imi)osed." To this important subject then — the need fornnich more instruction of the ignorant in gaols — and to a repeal of the injurious portions of the Prison Act, the practical attention of magistrates and of the F 66 CTOvenimeiit should be given in mucli greater degree than hitherto. To increase the separation of prisoners from evil, without at the same time sub- stituting the frequent companionship of moral instructors and improving visitors, is both cruel and mischievous. Penal Labour. — Secondly, as to penal labour. The experience of all other countries (and of one im- portant portion of the United Kingdom — Scotland) shows that such prison occupation as the treadwheel, shot-drill, and crank, may be advantageously dis- pensed with. Indeed, these costly blunders are laughed at by intelligent foreigners as amongst the sundry ''eccentricities" which accompany the sterling features of John Bull's character. And with the adoption of more cumulative sentences, there will not be the shadow of an excuse on the ground of alleged "deterrence" for such forms of occupation. Many of the most competent prison authorities deny that they really exert any deterrence, but that they are failures in every way. And facts appear to confirm this For example, the Liverpool Justices re})ort of their gaol (April 25th, 1872), that out of 480 adults sentenced to hard labour, 105 had previously under- gone the treadwheel in that prison. There are also other objections to the treadwheel. The large number of nnin exempted by prison sur- creons from the wheel ])r()ves its danger and unfair 67 application. For example, at Liverpool Gaol, out of 2,565 males during the year 18G9, the surgeon re- ported 399 as unable to undergo the treadwhcel, iu addition to 542 youths exempted by reason of their age. Again, at Coldbath Fields Prison, London, the magistrates recently reported that " more than 25 per cent, of the prisoners are excused the wheel by order of the surgeon." So large a proportion of exceptions proves a very dangerous rule. JVo surgeon whatever can administer such a rule with safety to hundreds of prisoners. It is satisfactory to observe that the experienced and humane chaplain of the Liverpool Gaol, Rev. T. Carter, opposes the treadwheel as a useless failure, and as a dangerous punishment to the weaker and more unfortunate class of prisoners. He is supported in this conclusion by many facts* and observations elsewhere. For instance, at Cold- bath Fields Prison, London (in April, 1872), a prisoner had both his leys broken on the treadwheel. This poor fello^^', sentenced for some misdemeanour to i4 daijs confinement, was thus disabled for hfe. Nor is this a mere isolated case. The wheel is often, if not generally, unfair to the least eriniinal and weaker men. The stronger and liabituatcd '' gaol- birds " are least aftected by it. Again, in Cardiff Gaol, about a year ago, a prisoner (conlhied for neglecting to support his family) was 68 taken off a treachvlieel, ill, but being supposed to be counterfeiting, was punished by a drenching douche bath, and again put on the wheel for about six hours. Before the morning he teas dead. These serious accompaniments of treadwheel labour are not merely exceptional. They are at least so frequent, in one form or another, as to be regular features of the punishment — and very bad features — in addition to its pecuniary wastefulness. Even the shorter terms of imprisonment might be turned to far better account than " grinding the wind," by devoting the few weeks exclusively to education and labour of at least some practical use afterwards. A few weeks ago, a youth of about seventeen was leaving Holloway Prison, London (in which he had already been six times), " Well, and what are you going to do now, my lad ?" asked tha (rovernor. The boy paused awhile, and then burst into tears, saying, ''What am I to do, sir? I have never been taught anythiny hut pichpocketing ." In such cases as this (and they are very numerous) it is not merely arrant folly to rely upon the tread- wlicel, but positively unchristian and sinful. Those well-to-do, well fed, and educated people who talk so glibly of " the necessity of deter- ring " the wretched victims of poverty, ignorance, R)id temptation, and who sneer at all persons who lake IIkmv stand on Christian juinciples as ''Utopian 69 philanthropists," would do well to ponder a certain ancient dictum of unquestionable authority, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Let them reflect on their own probable condition, if abandoned from infancy to the tempta- tions and privations which have been the lot of, at any rate, 75 per cent, of the ordinary class of offenders. Would they have been l)etter ? Is it possible that treadwheels and such like contrivances can either deter or reform the wretched beings who are turned out of gaol no better fitted for earning an honest living than when they entered it ! Mr. Frederick Hill, in his excellent work on " Crime," remarks : — " The basis of all good systems of prison discipline must, in my opinion, be work ; steady, active, honourable work. Unless a p'isoner acquire the knowledge of some handicraft and habits of steady industry — unless, in a word, he obtain the power as well as the wish to live honestly — it is all in vain, and. sooner or later, to crime he will retu7ii." But at present thousands of our prisoners are virtually punished for their poverty, and even made the subjects of cruelty by shot-drill, plank-beds, cranks, and the treadmill, punishments calculated to render the previous dislike to labour permanent. Thus a popular writer represents a pickpocket saying, on leaving a treadmill prison, " Well, I always 70 thought working for one's hving was hy no means pleasant, and after the dose I have just had, I'm hlest if I ain't convinced of it." Another writer observes : — " Behold the human squirrels ! round and round Tramping the never-ending cylinder ; The ' incorrigible rogues,' that wise men send The houses of correction, there to learn That kihour is, in very deed, a curse /" The Chairman of the Visiting Justices of Reading Gaol remarks : — " Berkshire was the first county, in old days, to try the treadwheel, and the first to abandon it as a miserable blunder." The late Mr. J. G. Perry, Prison Inspector, in the twenty-seventh official report to the Home Secretary (1863), remarked: — "The advance which has been progressively taking place in the substitution of pro- ductive labour for that which was merely punitive, has been attended with all the beneficial results anticipated by those who had the best means of forming an opinion on the subject. Besides the general amelioration of character observable in prisoners trained to habits of productive industry to which they had been previously unaccustomed, subordina- tion has been so much better maintained, that corporal punishment for prison offences has almost entirely ceased in prisons on the separate system ; c.rcept in those in which liard labour and crank-mills, 71 oTinding nothing, continue to take tlic ])lace of employment of a useful character." But in spite of this important testimonji and many others of similar weight, the retrogressive Prison Act of 1865 was subsequently passed. Such legis- lative hlindness is a striking illustration of the ])roverb, "With how little wisdom the world is governed !" PROFITABLE PRISON LABOUR. Both in the interests of the prisoner and of the honest ratepayer the labour in British gaols should be rendered more remunerative than at present. Miss Florence Nightingale writes in a recent paper : " It always appears the greatest non seqiritur to give, for instance, to a forger, five years' penal servitude — that is, provision and lodging in prison. What has that to do with his crime ? But if you sentence him to repaij, say twice the amount he had stolen, his sustenance to be repaid meanwhile to the State, out of his earnings, and let him go whenever he had done so, that would be something like a reformatory. But," adds Miss Nightingale, " hitherto the object of our law seems to have been to teach that it is dearer to irork than to steal." Our criminals now fjain by their crimes in many instances, and in all cases tliev secure free board and 72 lodging, without restitution, at the expense of the honest, hardworking taxpayers outside. Even this would he endurable if reformation was secured. But in nine cases out of ten the prisoner leaves gaol no better, if not worse, than he entered, or, at best, not more able to get an honest living than before his arrest. Hence he renews his depredations and mis- deeds, and costs the pubhc hundreds of pounds in cash, to say nothing of outrages on life and limb. In 1868, Rev. David Dyer, Chaplain of Albany Prison, New York (self-supporting), visited the chief prisons of the United Kingdom. He has recently, 1869, pubhshed a report of his observations. After remarking, "I wasrircathj surprised in my visits to learn how veni little the prisons in Great Britain generally yield to their own support ;" he states that he was told that the present system was considered more " deterrent." " I asked if this was the practical residt of this course, and w^as assured it was not, for that the number of recommittals was very large, not less than 39 per cent." It is true that progress is being made in many prisons. At Durham, Leeds, Salford, Swansea, Wakefield, Bedford, Petworth, Holloway, Coldbath Fields, Winchester, York, Newcastle, and other gaols, the amount of prison earnings obtained is exceed- ingly creditable to the Governors and Visiting Jus- tices, especially under the difficulties imposed by the restrictive Prison Act of 1865, and the system of 73 repeated short sentences on inveterate misdemean- ants. The earnings of the inmates of some of these prisons average from M5 to .£10 per annum. Never- theless, the average of all our prisoners is under one shilling a week ; whereas most of them could readily he made to earn a pound a week under a right system. In some of the American prisons the labour of the inmates covers all expenses, including salaries, and actually produces a considerable clear revenue to the State. Thus the criminals are punished doubly, by their hard work (allotted by task) and by being compelled to feel their folly in placing themselves in a position where they must both support themselves by their toil and also pay and support their gaolers for punishing them. Such useful labour becomes not merely reformatory, but also abundantly penal and deterrent. The quality of the dietary, and other conditions of the prisoner's life, being made strictly de]iendent upon the tasks of useful labour he per- forms — any kind of work may be rendered at least as deterrent as treadwheels, and with other advan- tages impossible with the latter. Competition. — The objection sometimes urged, that ])rotitable prison labour competes with honest labour outside, will disappearthe more the matter is examined. The utmost number of prisoners (20,000 daily average in England and Wales amongst more than twenty inillioji persons at liberty), even in full occupation. 74 would probably not affect the large aggregate of free labour to the extent of 6d. per head per annum. And, on the other hand, prisoners, if discharged un- taught and untrained, soon relapse, and cost the public some ^150 per annum, at a low estimate, by their robberies. Besides, every man, whether criminal or honest, has an inalienable right to compete with others by his labour — whether in or out of gaol. And an offender will and imist compete, either by honest labour or dishonest. He has also as much right to compete by a skilled trade as by an unskilled one. Indeed, it is found that teaching criminals skilled trades is one of the surest means of reformation. For in the case of many of the habitual thieves, they neither can nor will, on their discharge, become ordinary unskilled labourers. If they can earn £5 or £10 a week readily by theft (and many can do this), they are not likely to work hard at the lowest drudgery for as many shillings. A skilled trade, or a costly career of depredations, is the only (dternative in many such cases. There is no danger whatever of any injury by prison labour to free labour, provided only that the former does not greatly undersell the latter, and also provided that a tolerable variety of occupations are practised in due proportion in the gaols. Even under the present disadvantages of British 75 prison labour, their inmates are exercised on many useful trades. Tims at Durham Gaol the variety includes the manufacture of rough cloth, flannel, tailoring, cap making, hosiery, ships' " fenders," rugs, shirts, towels, boots and shoes, the cutting of firewood, joinery work, oakum picking, painting, and mat making; at Coldbath Fields Prison, printing, bookbinding, masonry, carpentry, and blacksmith work, also form part of the occupation of the in- mates; in other prisons, basket work, saddlery, brush making, furniture making, and the cultivation of vegetables, are carried on to a considerable extent. A very useful mode of stimulating prison labour is to allow a percentage of the profit both to the oflticers and the prisoners. This plan has, in part, been lately resumed at Preston Gaol by the Justices, with the approval of Lord Derby — the Governor being allowed, in addition to his salary, 2^ per cent, on gaol profits above i;'l,500 per annum. If prisoners can thus be induced to w^ork out a sum of money for their help on discharge, such self-help is much better than the charitable assistance (good as it is) of Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies. But at present one class of workmen — the honest mat makers — are complaining of undue competition, with a real basis of justice for their complaint. Here is a trade which employs few men (only about 4,000 in the Kingdom), and the chief ])ropor- /D tion of prison labour is concentrated on that one trade. This is certainly unfair. In the House of Commons recently, Mr. Samuel Morley (who has found time, amid his almost universal philanthropy, to study prison questions) asserted, and with reason, that the prison-made mats were sold at a great reduction below their real value. An ordinary 10s. mat was bought at one gaol for 5s. The materials alone would also cost 4s. lOd. An eloquent M.P. fa J.P. of Wakefield Gaol) dex- terously tried to parry this and other charges by stating that the officials of his prison regularly com- pare price lists with the ordinary manufacturers and charge the public similarly. By this plausible statement he "took the wind out of the sails" of the M.P.'s who defended the honest mat makers. And no M.P. in the House appeared, at the moment, to detect the fallacy. No one remarked that equal "price lists" may be practically and completely modified by unequal "discounts." For example, a prison mat agent and a free trader wait upon a customer with " price hsts " identical. But suppose the latter says, " This is my real price," and the former whispers, " Fifteen per cent, dis- count," who is likely to get the order ? The honest mat makers assert that the " discounts " on prison mats vary from 2^ to 15 per cent., as com- pared with the nominally equal " price lists." 77 Bui apart IVuiii this coiiyideratioii, mat making is one of the very poorest of trades — one of the occu- pations least likely to find a man bread when set at liberty. Aiid prisoners require to be taught the best and most generally available trades, because after leaving gaol it is far harder for them to get employment at anii occupation than previously unconvicted men of unspotted reputation.* Mat making, therefore, is on every account objectionable as a general prison occupation such as it has now become — thanks to repeated short sentences and the Prison Act of 1865. And, by the way, that same debate on Prison Labour (April 9th, 1872) afforded a caution iu regard to a too implicit reliance upon official and Parlia- mentary wisdom, in other matters than that of the unnoticed " discounts." Mr. J. H. Kennaway (the intelligent and practical M.P. for East Devon, him- * It has somiitimes l)ce)i uLjected tlmt priscn-tiuight tradesmen are, at best, indifferent craftsmen ; but this is only the case with short-term men or under negligent officials. Under good officers prisoners totall}' ignorant of a trade on entry become hrst-rate artificers on discharge. Tliis is specially the case at Portland Con- vict Prison. For example, out of 62 smiths and moulders working there in one ward, 57 were ignorant of any such work on entry. They are now nearly all able artisans, who coidd, if set at liberty, at once earn 35s. to £2 per week. The more difficult work, requir- ing the greatest skill, also excites the greatest zeal and effort on the part of the convicts there. 78 self a Visiting Justice) demanded a revision of our present system of criminal treatment and prison discipline. He denied that things were so rose- coloured in this respect as the Home Office authorities think, and, in proof of his view, showed that, in the last live years, the number of committals to prison (156,330) has considerably exceeded the number of the previous five years (138,441) before the Prison Act of 1865. The Home Secretary attempted to refute this by stating that in one of the last five years, there were fewer committals than in one year of the preceding five ! Apart from the poor arithmetical logic of this mode of statistical selection, both of the years chosen were exceptional years — the one being exceptionally favourable, and the other as much the contrary. Such amodeof" refutation "maybe "smart," l)ut is by no means dignified in a Home Secretary. Needless Gaols. — Amongst further defects which may be noticed in the British prison system, is that of an irregular multiplicity of establishments ; need- less expense is incurred by the maintenance of too many local gaols, some of which are continued as such with an extremely small luimber of inmates. For example, last year, Oakham prison, Kutland, was maintained with six officers and a daily average of six prisoners, the latter costing the county £/ 30 each per annum! I'hesc small })risons should be promptly merged in larger ones. 97 Audits. — Another source of increased economic prison management would be found in the general adoption of a more jiuhlic and independent system of county audits. In Lancashire this plan is stated to have effected a saving of £4,000 per annum, in addition to other advantages. GAOL REFORMS NEEDED. The needed reforms in the British county and l;orough gaols are, then, mainly the following :— 1. The repeal, or modification, of the Prison Act of 1865 ; followed by— 2. A further extension of the separation of pri- soners fostered by that Act ; 3. Much more, and more careful, instruction of prisoners, both secular and religious ; 4. Much more profitable and reformatory labour ; and of a more varied description as a whole ; 5. More cumulative sentences ; but without run- ning into the opposite extreme of too long ones. 6. More facilities for voluntary visitation by judi- cious unofiicial persons, as an aid to the moral elevation of the prisoner, and as a nccessari/ countcrhaliturc to the rigour of his entire separation from cril companionship. 7. Some jtrovision in the \va\- of adult rclbr- 80 niatories, or other " intermediate " establish- ments, for more effectually preparing prisoners for the self-control necessary on discharge, and as a means of facilitating their intro- duction to situations. 8. More consolidation of the unnecessarily nu- merous, and costly smaller gaols. THE CONVICT PRISONS. Allusion has already been made to the very grave defects of the English convict system and its absurdly inconsistent method of treatment (nine months' total solitude at first, followed by years of gang labour, exposed to oaths, vile corruptions and obscenities). These establishments, although making much pro- o-ress, so far as an increase of useful labour is con- cerned, require great alterations, and a Ijetter system of inspection. Their management is, to a large extent, unknown to, and independent of, public notice. Unlike the county gaols, they have no body of respectaljle Visiting Magistrates to exercise an in- dependevt oversight, and, unlike the management of mjiiiy foreign prisons, their system is largely charac- t(;ris(Ml l)y crushing harshness and unintelligent go- vt'i-nment by mere routine. 'I'hc results prove a great failure— abiiiidaiit recommittals ensue, aiid most of I he luiigvr-tciiu prisoners are ruined for life by being 81 rendered (even accuidiiig to the Directors' admission) permanently bedridden invalids. Terrible accidents, broken limbs, and ruptures, are frequent at these convict public works. At one English prison of this class, visited recently, an officer casually remarked, " Nine out of every ten of the men here [many hun- dreds] are ruptured." Another official made a similar statement. Allowing even for considerable exaggera- tion, this shows a very wrong state of things. The pampering of prisoners is not to be pleaded for in any way. On the contrary, tliese should every- where be disciplined into useful self-supporting hard work and honest industry ; but it is quite certain that great abuses do exist in the practically secret wards of the convict prisons. And one of the services of a body like the Howai'd Association, very appropriately consists in maintaining and promoting a continued vigilance in this direction : the more so as it is a frequent, not to say a uniform, practice, on the part of the convict authorities, to ignore complaints, deny al)uses, and represent themselves as exemplarily efficient. That abuses do exist in these prisons, abuii(hiiit illustrations prove — illustrations, however, which, it is needless to say, do not usually come to light in the form of official reports, but mainly by the (*li;ince revelations of infrequent and sjx'cial visitors, or of coroners' in([uests. Thus, a few months ago, a convict at (J 82 Chatham committed suicide by drowning himself, after effectually resisting the attempt made to save him by another convict, who jumped into the water after him. About the same time several convicts in the same prison wilfully mutilated themselves to secure some hospital rest — one purposely crushing his leg under an engine. One of the delegates accredited to the Prison Congress in London, July, 1872, by the Governor of Indiana, Hon. Charles F. Coffin, (but unexpectedly prevented from attending it) a gentleman of the highest respectability, has recently (in 1872) visited the chief prisons throughout Europe. He has recorded his impressions in a series of letters to an American newspaper ; and those impressions, so far as the English convict prisons are concerned, appear to be very un- favourable. Thus, even of Pentonville, which (with Woking) is greatly superior to the gang establishments of Chatham, Portsmouth and Portland, he records : — " We could see but little to soften and reform the men, but rather an apparent Avant of sympathy and kindness." Remarking also on the exclusion of volun- tary phikinthropic visitation, he adds : — " The regular attendance of some kind Christians would do much to soften the rigour of the prison." At Chatham convict prison the same gentleman mentions the (comparatively) small amount of time devoted to the education of the prisoners, and gives 83 instances of self-mutilation. Thus, in the hospital, "one convict had just had an arm amputated, and two others a leg each, who had intentionally thrust them under passing trucks ; one had inserted a piece of copper wire into his leg, which caused it to swell, until amputation was almost necessary before the cause was discovered." It is but due to the physician and some of the officers to add, that Mr. Coffin praises their humanity and courtesy.. But how bad must be the system which produces such results. Mr. Coffin was privileged, as a foreigner, in being permitted to inspect the infirmary. The Secretary of the Howard Association, and other occasional visitors, have found great difficulty in ob- taining a full insight into some of the English convict prisons, even when furnished with a Secretary of State's permit. Again, at Woking prison for invalids (where also Mr. Coffin was much pleased with some excellent officials), he noticed the "considerable number of convicts who have been injured, some of them perma- nently, from overwork in the other prisons." Ruptures, fractures, and other life-long injuries, are painfully frequent in English convict prisons, even by the pub- lished admissions of some of the medical and clerical authorities. Convict labour should be hard, of course, but it should not be so absolutely crushing, as it now is, in many cases, especially considering the G 2 84 considerable proportion of weak-minded and semi- imbecile convicts — who become such rather from here- tlitary misfortune and disease than from deliberate Avickedness, A great variety of testimony cc)ncurs in declaring that the convict prisons are cruelly severe, in spite of many good and humane officials. Thus a discharged conA'it't informed the Howard Association, a few weeks ago, that at one of the English prisons he liad gladly eaten raw herring-heads thrown on a rubliish heap. A writer in the Morning Advertiser, February 6th, 1869, said of convict life : " I proclaim it to be a life of starvation and misery. Are the public aware that at Chatham hundreds of prisoners have been driven, by extreme hunger, to eat such quantities of candles and Russian talloW' that the authorities have had some substance mixed with the tallow of a taste so nauseous that the prisoners cannot keep it on their stomachs V' A Yorkshire magistrate also states that a few years ago he visited another convict prison in this country (at Portland),'"" where a respectable person (not a prisoner) expressed to him his deep pain at liaving had to attend several in- * All improveiiiciit has recently taken place at I'ortland as to the liicLiiry. This jnuson under Mr. Ct. Cliftnu (Governor), and the two Deimty-Governors (Captain Salter and ( 'a[)laiii (,'ook\vort]iy) — three WfU-tpialitied oflicials — is now ronductcd as well, ])rol)ably, as any coiKjrvijiilf prison can Ix- managed under Ihe cxislin*; ivgulations. «rj quests on prisoners whose corpses exhibited extreme emaciation. Some of these statements may have related to exceptional cases, but they plainly indicate a danger of excessive harshness. An indisputable, but very sug- gestive, acknowledgment was made by the C'hairman of Convict Prisons in England in his Annual Keport for 1806, where it is stated that of the life-prisoners " nearly 63 jjer cent, are confirmed invalids, many of them paralysed and bedridden." In a very interesting work, entitled " Six years in the {Convict) Prisons of England" published in 1869 (by Bentley, London), the author (a Glasgow merchant just released from penal servitude) records in a graphic manner many of the abuses of the gang sys- tem, and the almost irresponsible Directorate. It is a painful picture of scenes little knn\^■ll to, and little cared for, by the English people. Keen the ''religions 'pnhlic" seem to jyay scanty heed to these establishments, or to prisons in general. An occa- sional and isolated visitor now^ and then succeeds in penetrating these secluded homes of crime and misery. The writer just referred to thus describes the deaths of convicts in hospital : " Some prisoners expired on the very day for their liberation. Some died screaming aloud that they were poisoned. Maii\- die(l like the brutes, and a very few departed in peace with a ])rayer on tlieir lips. The great majority died as tliey had lived, and were forgotten liv the spectators almost before their bodies had been laid in the iirave.'' 86 The same writer bears abundant testimony to the need for cellular separation, and the double cruelty and corruption of the present gang system. " To the man who belongs to a class of society, with whom loss of society is utter ruin, a convict j)'^^ison is a Hell." As an illustration, he mentions that the convicts take special pleasure in trying to goad into sin any of their comrades who appear to have been influenced for good by the Chaplain — "parson's men " or " Sacrament blokes," as they are termed. " It was a great victory if they could be got to swear on the evening of the Communion day." He also confirms the complaints so often made from various sources as to an unduly pinched diet (consider- ing the hard work exacted). "One convict died lately at Chatham, who had twenty or thirty candle wicks in his stomach when the post mortem took place. There are many men there who eat all the snails and frogs they can get hold of." It is, however, so far very satisfactory to find that the committals to convict prisons are considerably decreasing. But, inasmuch as during the past five years the committals to county and borough gaols have increased considerably, and as a recent Act has put an end to sentences of penal servitude for less than five years, the source of this diminution is to be looked for in an increase of sentences of two years' imprison- iiiciit, iiiid in the still more important preventive lueans uli'orded by the ]lal)irual Criminals Act, and 87 the extension of agencies for the assistance of dis- charged prisoners. The system of congregate labour is radically bad, and despite all the official denials that evil communications take place, there is abundant evidence that great mutual corruption constantly goes on. Indeed, its necessity is self-evident under the circumstances. Then, again, a great increase of useful and profit- able labour must be conceded — owing mainly to the praiseworthy efforts of Captain Du Cane and the encouragement of Mr. Bruce, the Home Secretary (who has not altogether been distracted from remem- bering that there are convict prisons). At Pentonville, Dartmoor, and Woking, great quantities of boots, shoes, tailoring, and other useful occupations, are carried on. And at the public Avorks at Chatham, Portland, and Portsmouth, an immense amount of excavation, quarrying, and masonry, is every year achieved. The estimated value also is immense. But in reality there is reason to doubt whether many, at least, of these so- called "public works " are more profitable to the nation than if the same labour were devoted to Ijuildiim' a huo;e pyramid on Salisbury plain, or transferring Scawfell to the top of Helvellyn.'"' * Sonic of the works at Portland arc more usel'ul than those at some of tlio other convict prisons. The new chnrch there, wholly erected by convicts, is a gem in regard to its style of architectni'e and masonry. It reflects great credit on the designer, Captain Pii Cane, and uj'ou the Portland ofllcials, and the highly .skilled convict artificers. 88 There are about 10,000 prisoners in the ten convict prisons of England and Wales : thus averaging about 1,000 to each establishment. The value of their labour is estimated, hij measure ment, at £185,000 for the last year, or nearly £19 per head per annum. This, if real gain to the nation, would be so far ex- ceedingly satisfactory. But by the infallil)le test of the actual expenditure of taxation upon these prisons, they are almost a dead weight upon the country. For, in spite of all the credited gain, they actually draw from the Exchequer about £300,000 per annum, or £30 per convict. Where, then, is the gain 1 If the Ijulk of their labour met with a good profit by the test of market value — sales to the public for cash actually received from hond fide purchasers, and causing the taxpayer to pay so much less out of his own pocket, then, and not otherwise, it would be reasonable to talk of the " profit " of convict labour. But even in this case, much profit might be " dear at any price," if gained in such a manner, by gang labour, as to corrupt the prisoners instead of reforming them, and to prevent them from being fit for discharge until a needlessly prolonged period. But congregate convict labour must always have this doubly pernicious tendency. Then again, the "mark system" is practically ad- ministered, in the English convict prisons at least, in ^ very irrop-nlnr and ;ir1)itrnrv mnnnor, and in a way 89 which greatly fails to afford a real test of the amount of labour or of the conduct of the convicts. The authorities, of course, assert that the "marks" work admirably, and are well and correctly apportioned. But a number of independent testimonies, and from the convicts themselves, show that in reality the system is very fallacious. Letters from an ex-Convict. — The following extracts from letters to Mr. Tallaek, Secretary of the Howard Association, written in 1872, by an intelligent ex-convict'"' (recently discharged, and now doing well) are quite in accord with other similar accounts, both as to the mark system, the labour, and other features of the English convict system : — "Mmj 11, 1S72. "Sir, — I notice in the newspaper what you say respecting the 'debasing, foolish, and cruel plan of gang labour,' and fully endorse your ideas on that point, and main- tain that, if a prisoner is open to reformation at all, that reformation will be more surely obtained by one or two years of sqmratc confinement in a model prison, than five, seven, or ten years in a convict })rison ; in the former he has no oppor- tunity of speech witli liis fellow-prisoners, in the latter it is quite the reverse ; for instance, the men in the working-gangs (or 'jiarties' as they are now called), good and bad, are all mixed together; boys from sixteen years of age and upwards are put to work witli what are called 'old hands." nu'u who * This convict had not been at Portland. His remarks refer chiefly to Portsmonth and Chatham — eitlier or hotli. 90 have previously done perhaps two or three sentences of penal servitude ; the result is, that they copy (and in some cases even go beyond) the men in their language (and no one but those who have had experience of it, would believe that there was such language), and hear all the men talk about, what they intend to do when they get their liberty, as to the ways of housebreaking, robberies, &c., so that by the time the younger ones get their discharge, they are pretty well posted up in all the rascalities that can well be imagined. I consider the system infamously bad, in not classifying the prisoners according to their character, sentences, &c. " There are plenty of other instances which I could mention wherein a man is unnecessarily and severely punished, and which are totally unknown to our legislators. Here is another evil: the prison rules and regulations are read out to the prisoners the first day in every quarter, and they state that a bad character will be more severely dealt with than a man with a good character ; but this is a fallacy, at least so far as the warders of the working parties are concerned, for they are afraid of getting a knock on the head (which is often done) from a bad man, and consequently do not drive him so much at his work as they do a quiet man, who never gives them aback answer. I have seen many cases of this kind, and very often they will give the former his full number of marks (eight) for his day's work, and only give the latter seven marks, when perhaps the latter has done twice as much M'ork. I suppose, sir, you are aware that, under the Act of 1864, a prisoner earns his remission according to the number of marks he earns per day; of course this is at the discretion of the warder in charge of the party ; and this I also consider a bad state of things, that it should be left in the power of these men to award the prisoners their marks, because they have all their favourites, to whom they give the full complement of marks, and to others 91 wlio are not favourites, and who perhaps work harder, they will occasionally give only seven marks, just according to the humour they are in. Now these warders are nearly all dis- charged soldiers, man-of-warsmen, and policemen, and not at all particular as to cursing the prisoners, which, according to the rules, is not allowed. I do not, sir, pretend to say how this state of things could be altered or remedied ; I am only stating the plain facts of a portion, and a venj small portion, of things which have come under my own observation. Here is another plain fact, and then I think, sir, I have done. If a man Ircaks a limb and the doctor is convinced it was an accident and not done intentionally {and it is done intentionally sometimes), all the time he is in the infirmary he gets eight marks and full diet, and also afterwards, when he is put to what they call light labour, until he is able to do the hard labour, he gets the same marks and rations ; but if a man talxs cold at loork (as in my own case, and which turned to pleurisy) he onUj gets seven marks. After I came out of the infirmary, I was put into a light labour party, and was in it several months and only got seven marks and light labour diet, which on some days of the week is only about half the full diet ; in consequence of only getting seven marks per day for all those months, I lost three months of my remission, that is to say, I had to stay to work up the marks I had lost (throvgh Icing ill and through no faidt of my ovm), and which it took me three months to do. I cannot think that that was fair play, and I had a good character during the whole period of my incarceration, never lost a mark by reports — and that is a very hard thing to steer clear of, a look almost to some of the warders will do it. " I shall now, sir, conclude, hoping you will pardon the liberty I have taken in addressing such a long letter to you, but when I saw the name of the philanthropic institution 92 Avith which you were associated, I could not resist the temp- tation to communicate two or three, out of a score or more, of the abuses which obtain in a convict prison, and Avhich have come under my own observation." In a subsequent letter, May 17, 1872, the same writer (whose language, by the way, is temperate and evidently truthful) mentions further particulars of English convict life : — " The food is not nearly sufficient. In fact some men could eat three times as much. A man goes to bed hungry and gets up hungry, in fact he is always hungry ; and this lasts for, not weeks, nor months, but for years, although the feeling is not so bad after a while, and after you get a little used to it, but still there is always a craving for something to eat. Nine ounces of bread and three quarters of a pint of weak cocoa for breakfast, is a very poor foundation for a man doing ' navvy's ' work ; in summer time he gets it at a quarter to six (in tlie winter about half past six), then the warders go to their breakfast and return about twenty minutes to seven, then to prayers for ten 7mnutes, and out to work at seven. Tlie breakfast is all worked out of him before nine o'clock ; he is then working on his system; it is really surjuising how tlie men do get through so much heavy work on so little food, and it is all hurry and drive (the same inside the prison), not allowed to straighten your back one minute, with a solitary exception now and then. " T have met with two or three good men as warders, more especially when they are new; Init some of them soon become as great tyrants as the old ones, and others who are not to be contaminated leave, I suppose in disgust, for they are driven in tlieir turn liv the officers above them 93 again, sueli as liie principal warders, and chief warder, nearly as much as the prisoners, and they get reported too and fined, nut in marks but money, and are further from promotion every time they are reported. I have heard some of the ' old hands ' say that, at Portsmouth, previous to the 1864 Act, they had a very easy time of it and more to eat, but since this Act came into force, and since they commenced the I )ocks and Harbour Extension, both at Chatham and Ports- mouth, the work is horribly severe, and I do not wonder at some oi' the men, especially long-sentenced men, trying to get away, or attacking the officers. " Tlie convicts talk excessively too on the works — it is not allowed, Init they cannot stop it ; besides an officer is some- times twenty or thirty yards from some of his men. The men sometimes get reported for it, and get a day or two's l)read and water in a half-dark cell, and lose a week's remis- sion, but M-licn they get out they are at it again ; in fact there are plenty of them who would do all their time rather than not talk, especially those London thieves, they are most inveterate talkers, and every other word is an oath or some most abominal)le expression. "As to i'drnuigs, the most a man can earn is £3; whether iiis term is five, ten, or twenty years, it is all the same, ami thai is ixdcl in four or Jive instalments, extending aver dbuiit two months after you get home ; I forget exactly how I got mine, but that is something about it. 1 have heard many of the men say, ' now, if I could get my gratuity all in a " lump " when I get home it might do me some good ; I could get a hawker's licence and a few things and travel al)out the country for an honest living, Imt as it is, there is nothing for it Vnit to thieve again.' "' The liiiste uiid insuilicicncv of the reh'dous and 94 moral *' instruction" of the convicts are thus glanced at : — " At Portsmouth the Catholic chaplain is easily come-at-abk. A prisoner lias nothing to do but drop a slip of paper into a box at chapel any morning, with his name and the number of his cell on it, and the chaplain visits him in the dinner hour ; but the Protestant chaplain is very difficult to get at. The rules state that if you want to see the chaplain, you must give your name and number to the warder the night before. I did so once and was laughed at, and told tliat I could see him on the school nights. They have school in each hall alternately, one and sometimes two nights in the week ; the chaplain makes a flying visit round the desks, and there are generally so many apphcants for an interview, that there is scarcely time to get more than a word with him, particularly on a summer's night, when there is only about liaK an hour for school. I don't wish, sir, to write down the Chaplain, for he is a very nice man, and I believe a very good man, but that is just how the case stands. The Catholic convicts get their ten minutes prayers every morning at chapel, but our ten minutes (at the same time) we used to get in the hall, the men ranged round the landings and in the body of the hall, the chaplain, or one of the schoolmasters, on the bridge ; part of a chapter in the Bible was read, and a few collects, so as not to exceed the ten minutes allowed ; this is just a perfect farce, and very often there was a slight skirmish between two of the men in moving out of the hall." " 3rd Jum, 1872. " Sir, — I notice (in a paper you sent me) what the Ports- mouth chaplain says in his rejjort, finishing with — ' But I 95 must say tliis, that the men here are impressed witli the solemnities of godliness.' Now, sir, this is not all — but nearly all — moonshine. There are of course some exceptions. He does not hear some of the men say, in an undertone, in repeating the responses after him at the commencement of the Litany, 'Have mercy upon our miserable dinners!' instead of ' us miserable sinners.' " A very intelligent man who went with me to Chatham told the chaplain that he could not expect much religion out of men Avith hungry bellies. Then the services on a Sunday morning, what are they? The service— (and as everything- is done in a hurry, as I have said before, and by rule) — commences about a quarter to eleven, and the chaplain (at Portsmouth) has until twelve o'clock, or five minutes past, to finish. Sometimes he will finish reading the prayers by twelve, then he addresses a few loords to the men for the other five minutes. At other times, if the Lessons happen to be long, there are no feio words. " You may depend upon it, there will be no real religion among the men imtil they do give them more to eat, and adopt a different mode of reaching the hearts of prisoners in religious matters, and exercise less tyranny. The majority of the men would be satisfied with a larger allowance even of bread, if it was coarser — anything, so as to take away that incessant craving for sometliing to eat. There are others again, the dissatisfied portion, who would never be satisfied whatever they got, but this is only a small portion. They get a great deal of work, and hard work too, out of the men as it is ; but they would get far more if they were to give them more to eat. There would, of course, be less grumbling and insolence to the of&cers, consequently less reporting: and a man would get his liberty sooner. 90 " The last two years 1 was at Purtsiuuuth there was a great improvement in the meat. "When I first went it w^as more like gutta percha than meat ; the cheese is also better. Of course the men groiol a great deal about the quality still of everything ; in fact, if it was the best meat in the world they would do that. But, for my part, I do not see anything to find fault with in the quality (only the quantity), as it is not supposed to be the first quality of meat ; and for the bread, I would not wish for better under present circumstances. " I notice what you say (in your pamphlet ' Humanity and Humanitarianism ') about eating candles, &c. — that is a fact ; but now they cannot do it (at least at Portsmouth) as formerly, for the officer of each landing (or ^^'ard), say of thirty cells, just receives from the storekeeper that number of candles each night, and distributes a candle to each cell ; formerly they got them frum the store ad libitum. I remember a man at Chatham, working with me in the light labour party, who would eat anything he could get hold of, when we were sieving ashes that had come from the foundry in the Dockyard, and there was refuse from the artisans' diiniers, &c. ; if the men could fall in with any Kussian tallow it was a perfect luxury. " As I told you before, the men's health at Portsmouth is good, and in summer time, owing to the sun, they look well in the face, although very, very thin. AVhen it rains heavily the men don't go out to work ; and one afternoon, when we were kept in owing to the rain, we were all weighed, stripped perfectly naked. 1 think if Mr. Bruce, or some other of our legislators, had been present they would have made some inquiries into such a state of tilings. We were just perfect skeletons. I must not forget to state that the majority, and a very large majority, of the men are rwptnTcd. I don't mean to say that all these were ru])tured by the work, but I should 97 think, it' ilie doctor's hooks nould he seen, tliat most of them were. " I am stating all these facts, sir, in no grumbling spirit, Ijecause I got on myself pretty well ; for I saw from the first that the hest way to get along was to l)ear in mind the old adage about a ' still tongue,' and to adhere to the rules, as well as to give as little trouble as possil)le. And as I wanted to get home again as quickly as I could, I did so, and never lost any time Ijy reports, although I had a solitary one which I will state. All the cell doors are left open when the men go to their work, and there are no prisoners in the hall, except a party of cleaners, accompanied by an officer. One afternoon when we came in from work I missed a comb ; I accpiaiuted the warder of my loss. He said, 'Well, I shall have to report you, as I cannot get another from the store unless I do.' I was brought before the Governor. He did not line me any marks, but reduced my class for a month ; and, as 1 was in my first class, I went from tea to gruel, and IVom l)aked to Itoiled meat, again for the month. .\nd as I Mas nearly due for my special class, I asked the Governor if the report would prevent me from getting it. 'Well,' he said, ' when you become due for it you can see me and 1 -will see about it.' Of course I fully expected to get it, as it was such a trifling report. 1 did see him about it and told him Mhat he said, but he very sunnnarily dismissed me by saying, ' Couldn't think of such a thing ; you have had a report.' However, I saw the Director when he came do^-n, and he granted me my class. "Now, this is another piece of inconsistency in the rules. A man may have a dozen reports the first part of his time, but if he keeps good, and without a report for twelve months previous to his being entitled to his special class, he can get it ; Imt if a man has no report against him until H 98 within that twelve luunths he euiinot have it. This is bad. AVlieii a man is brought before the Governor he asks him what he has got to say, after the warder has made his state- ment. The man tells him. He then says, ' Well, my man, I am bound to believe the officer,' and punishes him accord- ingly. The Governor tries only the lighter cases, and the most punishment he can give is three days' bread and water, wdth, of course, fines in ' marks.' All heavy cases, such as trying to escape, or assaulting an officer, are put back for the Director, who comes dow^n once a month. But this is another farce. They scarcely give you time to state your case when the ofticer at the door calls out, ' Next man,' and you are hustled out. I was so hustled out, when I asked the Director for my special class, before I could get half a dozen words out, with ' cannot grant it,' very gruftly — indeed somewhat lather rougher than that ; but after I had got outside the chief warder, who also stands at the door, called me back, and the Director said, ' As you have had a good character all along you can have your special class.' The soup and gruel were ahvays thicker the day the Director came down. As regards the humanity of convict prison officers, no one can form any idea of what they are but a prisoner who has lieen under them for a length of time ; neither can any one else have any idea how the convicts are driven and overworked. It is a cruel piece of busi- ness to see the men wheeling clay to the brick machines, and to see the officers driving them and making them put such heavy loads in the 1)arrows. No one would believe it unless they saw it. And another thing, a man scarcely knows how to answer them. If he does not give them plenty uf ' Sir ' they threaten to report him for being disrespectful to his officer; on the other hand, if lie is very cidl, they say tlu'V (luii't want any '.so/'/ fioap'; and so the thing goes on. 99 You may be suve, sir, tliey will 1)0 very diftereiit to you or any other visitors wlio give tlu'Ui a call for the i)ur])()S(' of Iookiii<r over the prison." Imbecile or Semi-Imbecile Convicts. —Another blot on the Convict system is the want of due provision for the considerable number of imbecile or semi-imbecile prisoners, who form a larger proportion than is generally supposed. Dr. Thompson, resident surgeon of the General (Jonvict Prison for Scotland, at Perth, states, in a paper on " The Hereditary Nature of Crime," issued in 1870: "The writer has visited the great prisons of England, Ireland, and Scotland ; and in all these tlie authorities, governors, chaj)lains, surgeons, and warders, concur in stating that prisoners, as a class, are of mean and defective intellect, generally stupid, and many of them weakminded and imbecile." He also says : " Intimate and daily experience, for many years, nmong criminals, has led me to the conviction that, 2?i hy far the greater propoi^ion of offences, crime is Jiereclitari/." He adds that this hereditary or con- genital tendency is in most cases associated with some bodily defect, " such as spinal deformities, stammering, imperfect organs of speech, club-foot, cleft-palate, hare- lip, deafness, congenital blindness, paralysis, epilepsy, and scrofula." The juvenile criminals at Parkhurst have been reported by the Covernmcnt Inspector as "deficient H li 100 in physical organisation — a large nimi].)er weak in body and mind." At tlie Exeter meeting of the British Association, 1869, Dr. Wilson read a paper on "The moral imbecility of habitual criminals as exemplified by cranial measure- ments." He reported that he had examined and measured about 460 heads of such persons, and from the observations he had made he had no doubt that habitual criminals were cranially deficient, especially in the anterior lobes of the brain. He says : " The cranial deficiency is also associated with a real 'physical deterioration. Forty per cent, of all the convicts are invalids, more or less ; and that percentage is largely increased in the professional thief-class." Dr. AVilliam Guy, Secretary of the London Statistical Society, and Physician to Millbank Prison (one of the most competent authorities on such a question), has tabulated the "Judicial Statistics" for thirty years. He thence arrives at the following conclusion — that " the criminal population contains a much larger proportion of insane members than the community at large ;" and says (in 1869), " We have at this moment within the walls of Millbank Prison upwards of 200 convicts so unsound in mind as to be deemed fit occupants of special wards, and yet not deemed quite fit for the lunatic asylum." But he remarks : " The lunatic asylum is not only their proper place, but would be a truly economical substitute, in a large number of 101 cases, for the workhouse, the hospital, and the prison/' There is abundant testimony of prison officials that criminals justly require a more discriminative treatment than at present. Mr. K. M. Gover, medical officer of Millbank Prison, reported in 1868, that out of 943 convicts there, 34 were insane, and 218 were " weak- minded," in addition to which there were many epileptics. He added : "I do not concur in the opinion wliich is entertained by some, that invalid convicts have in most cases disqualified themselves for hard labour by indulgence in vicious and ii-regular habits previous to imprisonment. On the contrary, it appears to me that the yreat majoritij of these prisoners are either men of originalbj feeble co institution, or the subject of diseases and infirmities which have been contracted through circumstances over which they have had no control" The physical aspects of convicts have become almost proverbial. Bullet heads, low brows, projecting ears, weazel eyes, and other bodily indications of deficiency, are but too general amongst them. And, in the case even of some of the most ferocious criminals, there have repeatedly been discovered, after death, morbid condi- tions of the brain or other organs, in tlie shape of tumours, cancers, ulcerations, or irritating secretions, which have fully accounted for mental or moral defects. Hence there is reason to believe that some of the most i02 horrible murders tliat have been committed may have been the result of concealed physical causes, or pre- viously unsuspected latent madness. In visiting the imbecile wards of some convict prisons, and seeing the walls padded four or five feet high with thick matting, to prevent the wretched inmates from dashing their heads against the stone- work, the thought almost irresistibly occurs to a Christian man — " It is only by what some would call sheer accident, and others providential exemption, that I am not one of these. If my skull had been shaped as theirs, or had I been brought up amid their priva- tions, here I should in all probability be, as a convicted criminal." Then ought these men to be regarded and treated as if they were merely so many unimprov- able, hateful ])easts, or as much morally responsible as their more favoured fellow-creatures ? Life-term Convicts. — The life-term convicts, chiefly murderers, ought also to be entirely separated from the others and placed in a prison specially adapted to their peculiar circumstances. For example, al- though they work with the short-term men, and are nominally credited with "good marks" and "earn- ings," there is in general no prospect of these being of use to them. Hence hopelessness and despair are apt to take possession of them, conditions most unfavourable to ('hristian or reformatory influence. The main and only object of sparing the lives of this 1U3 class of convicts is, ostensi1)ly, uiercy. Then the mercy ought to be real ; but, under the present system, which, as the Directors admit, completely crushes the majority of life-men into permanently bedridden ivretches, it becomes a question whether the so-called " mercy " is not a greater cruelty, both moral and physical, than the immediate iuHiction of death would be. If these miserable creatures (many of whom commit- ted their crime in a moment of sudden madness or in- toxication, and would never be likely to repeat such a one) are to be kept alive for repentance, their condition should be at least rendered compatible with a fair prospect of religious instructions being received to some good purpose. Such alleviations and rays of hope as are compatible with safe detention and the public security should also be provided. And if this class were all located in one special prison, on an island, or in some remote locality (but under efficient periodical inspection), the various arrangements which Christian mercy claims, even for them, might be carried out in a way which their present mixed and unadapted con- dition precludes. THE NEEDED REFORMS IN OUR CONVICT PRISONS. The alterations chiefly needed in the convict prisons are, therefore — 104 1. An abandonment of tlie congregate gang system, which has been, over and over again, condemned by the best authorities on prison discipline as inevitably corrupting. 2. The adoption of separate imprisonment, with abundant cellular instruction, useful occupation, exer- cise, and both official and voluntary (judicious) visitation. 3. This being effected, the present long sentences may, with safety and benefit to all concerned, he re- duced one-half or three-fourths in duration, thereby causing a vast saving to the nation, with more refor- mation, and the avoidance of the cruel and needless breaking-up of family ties which at present punishes so many innocent relatives of prisoners, and throws additional burdens upon ratepayers. 4. Less uncontrolled inspection, and more combi- nation of the local magistracy and philanthropy with convict administration and visitation. 5. The worst class of convicts, as those guilty of rape or cruelty, to be separated from the others, and subjected to longer terms and more stringent conditions. (Seventy-five per cent, of convicts are guilty of the less heinous offences of theft, &c.) 6. Those confined under life sentences (for murder) shuukl Ije placed in entirely separate prisons, as a class by thciiiselvrH, and under a treatment adapted to their special cu'eunistanccs. 105 7. Imbecile or semi-imbecile convicts, also, should be entirely separated from others, and placed under a much milder and considerate treatment. 8. More provision for the aid of discharged convicts, by aftbrding them the opportunity of earning, in prison, a larger share than at present of the profits of their labour. 9. More regard to be had to special qualifications for the service in the appointment of all officials, from the Directors down to the Warders. THE IRISH CONVICT PRISONS. Ireland is happy in possessing a peculiarly able and specially well qualijied group of men more or less connected with her criminal administration. Lord Chancellor O'Hagan, the late Earl of Carlisle, and Earl Spencer, have manifested, in their high posi- tions, great interest in the improvement of prison discipline. And in this work they have found ex- cellent coadjutors in such men as Sir AValter Crofton, Mr. Lentaigne, the late j\lr. Organ, Mr. P. J. Murray, and Captain Barlow (the present painstaking Di- rectors of Irish Convict Prisons), Mr. Gunning, the superintendent of Lusk prison farm (of whom it may, without liattery, be affirmed that he approaches the standard of perfection, as a ])rison officer, almost as closelv as aii\' man can do), Mr. Ilav and lvc\'. T. F. LOG Lyous, of Spike Island, Mv. Hackett, of Mount] oy, and Mr. Daly, of Lusk. These and other gentlemen, with such subordinates as Mr. Murphy, of Mountjoy, for example, have, in Ireland, reversed the tables as com- pared with England, and rendered the convict prisons far superior to the county and borough gaols, whereas in England it is the latter which greatly excel the former. Lusk Prison Farm is the crown and chief interest of "the Irish convict system." On 170 acres of land the visitor sees seventy convicts (selected for their previous efforts to reform themselves), no longer dressed in prison uniform, no longer surrounded by walls, no longer subject to punishments (except that of being sent back to a severer prison), working hard, for months together, at a variety of occupations, mainly agricultural, and being gradually divested of prison habits and restraints, so as to enter to advan- tage upon a future career of virtue at home or abroad. (About 75 per cent, emigrate.) At Lusk they are enabled to earn enough to provide real help on starting afresh for themselves. Thus a prisoner who had been there for ten years, and who was liberated a few weeks ago, had earned enough money not only to emigrate himself, but was, also, about to take his daughter out of a poorhouse, and pay her passage to America, out of his gains — the 2s. per week, earned by hard sweating toil from morning till night. The Lusk men really do 107 work, and to good piirpose. Their ]ul)()iu' covers, at any rate, the cost of tlieir food and lodging. In four- teen years tlicy have raised the rental value of the land (formerly a swampy common) from 10s. to about £5 per acre. The moral atmosphere of the establishment is excellent, the prisoners voluntarily repressing any tendency to disorder, bad language, or other miscon- duct. They tidy themselves up on coming to Lusk, and begin to " feel like men again." In particular, they greatly appreciate the privilege of uniting with the surrounding population in the services of public worship on Sunday. Two-thirds of the Irish convicts enter Lusk. Of those whose conduct never obtains this privilege, the recommittals are 11 per cent., whereas of those who pass through Lusk only 23 per cent, are reconvicted. (Letter of Captain Barlow to Mr. Tallack, May, 1872.) Lusk is a noble monument of the ability and humanity of Sir Walter Crofton, its founder, and the chief practical organiser of those wise principles previously enunciated by Maconochie, Jebb, and others. Its continued success is, however, also to be largely attri- buted to its excellent officers, especially Mr. Gunning, Mr. Organ, and Mr. Daly. Apart from such as these the best system would have failed. Of Lusk, then, almost uncpalified praise may be spoken. \\\\t other parts of the Irish convict system are (in spite of indiscriminating eulogies) very defective. Si'iKE Island Pkison. — This remark esjxcially ;!}•- l08 plius to Spike Island prison, where the convicts spend the chief jportion of their time. Tlius, a convict sen- tenced for twelve years must spend eight months at Moimtjoy (separate), and at least seven and one-third years at Spike Island (congregate). He may then, if well behaved, spend a year at Lusk, and be liberated^ on licence, after nine years' total detention. So that about three-fourths of the time of Irish convicts is spent at Spike Island. Tliis, therefore, is a prison which should claim at least large attention in all notices of " the Irish convict system." Yet, oddly enough, it has been strangely overlooked and almost ignored, even by respectable writers and speakers. Indeed, most of the visitors to the Irish prisons appear never to visit Spike Island at liU. It is 17U miles, or more, from Dublin, and, therefore, not very accessible. For example, neither of the " Four Visiting Justices" from Yorkshii-e who went to Ireland in 1861, specially to study and write up the system, visited Spike Island ! And even Miss Mary Carpenter, the excellent authoress of " Our Convicts," who has written almost more than any one else on the Irish system, also appears never to have been at Spike. In her volume (dated May, 1872), on "The Crofton Prison System," she writes (and very ably too) 143 pages on the Irish prisons, and yet almost ignores Spike Island prison I Yet this work was specially prepared to inforni the London "Tri^jon Congress" TOO on that system ! At page 124 Miss Carpenter remarks, most truly, " Associated gaols are loorse than merely useless. They are nurseries for crime of the most dan- gerous hind." And yet this talented and excellent lady bestows almost unqualified praise on a system under which the chief portion of the convict's time is spent in the gang labour at Spike ! Again, in 1861, when the Social Science Congress met at Dublin, a large number of the attenders visited Lusk and ^lountjoy ; but it is evident from the speeches, and letters subsequently emanating from many of them, that they also saw nothing of Spike Island. All persons, therefore, who take in hand to describe or study the Irish system should bestow fair attention on its weakest point — the Spike Island gangs. And those who read its unqualified eulogies, should also read the interesting work, entitled "Life among Convicts,'' l)y Rev. C. B. Gibson (Chaplain at Spike Island for about ten years), 2 vols. : London, Hurst & Blackett, 1863. That work has been " pooh-poohed " by some persons, and it certainly fails to do justice to the really valuable labours of Crofton ; l)ut it nevertheless contains much unquestionable truth. It exposes in a grapliic manner the defects and evils inseparable from the congrega- tion of convicts. Thus he records the exclamation of one of the better class of convicts at Spike Island — " The conduct of those with whom I am daily and hourlv associated renders my life so trulv miserable 110 that I every morniug exclaim, ' Even that it would please God to destroy me T " (I. 97.) Again (I. 304) he says, "I believe that a man living in close association for years with convicts, many of wliom have been guilty of manslaughter, and some of murder, learns not to think more of these crimes than other people do of ordinary offences." These remarks coincide with the impressions of Spike received by Mr. Tallack, the Secretary of the Howard Association, who visited that prison last April. They are also confirmed by many facts. For example, a few weeks ago, in May, 1872, one of the convicts at Spike murdered another. When at Mountjoy prison, in Dublin, Mr. Tallack remarked to an officer, that the effect of the separation at that prison must l)e largely nullified by the subse- (juent long admixture of the same convicts in the gangs at Spike. The reply was, " Yes ; we find that some of our men, who have borne an excellent cha- racter here, get corrupted at Spike Island." Again, in visiting Lusk, Mr. Tallack was informed by the authorities that a noteworthy percentage of the convicts who arrived there can neither read nor write. Then, whatever has their " education " been in the long years spent previously at Spike and Mountjoy 1 There ought to be none so ignorant on arrival at Lusk. i\nd tliat tliis does not arise from wilful neglect on the prisoners' part, is proved by the fact that many of the men soon learn to read and write Ill .•it I;usk, merely in eouse(|ueiice of being recjiiircd to .sign their names in receipt for every weekly payment earned by them. This simple requirement is a prin- cipal stimukis to their speedy attainment of the arts both of readino' and writinsf whilst in that final and short stasfe of their detention. o This neglect of instruction at Spike and Mountjoy prisons is the more noteworthy, because the Irish, as a people, are superior, rather than inferior, to the English, in their appreciation of the value of edu- cation. And in some other of the prisons excellent results have already been found to accompany in- creased instruction. For example, at Mountjoy female prison. Miss Lidwell, the well qualified superintendent, reported many years ago, in 1859, " The school has Avrought immense benefit ; it has given healthy occu- pation to the prisoners' minds." " Those who are remarkable for attention at school are seldom to be found amongst the ill-conducted or disorderly." It is true that at Spike Island the convicts are exe- cuting some of the most splendid masonry and dock work in the world— grand sea walls forty feet deep, and from ten to twenty feet thick, of admirably laid blocks of hewn stone. But, inasmuch as this is at the expense of morals, education, and reformation, it would be nearly as '' economical " a use of the money now spent on this work, to shoot it, in bags of gold, deep down into the waters of the lovely Cove of Cork. 112 The gang labour of convicts is dear at any price. The association of men at Lusk is under such excep- tional circumstances, that this hardly affects the general assertion. And even at Lusk there must be the undesira1)le effect of enabling the convicts to re- cognise each other after discharge, and so, by betrayal of antecedents, to ruin a comrade, if so disposed. The officers at Spike Island, as in many other Irish prisons, appear to be very well adapted for their posts. They deserve praise ; but the gang system they have to administer is rotten at the core. It may be replied — How is it, then, that Irish con- victs have decreased from 3,933 in 1854 (the year Sir Walter Crofton became Director) to 1,228 in 1871 '? Another question suggests the answer. How is it that a similar remarkable reduction has taken place in the number of inmates of Irish county and horough gaols in the same p.eriod — gaols which have no " marks " or " intermediate " departments '( The fact is, the Irish Famine of 1847-8 caused a ruiiJi (for very life) to all the gaols — convict or otherwise. After that rush they speedily emptied again. For example, he/ore Sir W. Crofton took office over the convict prisons, the number of prisoners, in Irish county and borough gaols fell ill four years only, from 10,084 (1st January, 1851) to 5,755 (1st January, 1854) and to 2,161 (1st January, 1871).— Vide Official Report of Irish County and Borough Gaols, 1871, p. viii. 113 It is hardly fair, therefore, for the Irish Convict Re- ports, year after year, to begin their table of sta- tistics at 1854, and ignore the equally rapid decrease before that year both in convict prisons and in the Irish gaols conducted on an entirely different system. Apart from Spike Island — its "heart," so to speak — the Irish system is most creditable to Sir W. Crofton and the other Directors. And even at Spike they have done what they can with such an unmanageable system as that of gang labour. There are, also, still at Spike (as in English convict prisons) many wretched imbeciles or semi-imbeciles. And still even at night the convicts are only separated there (as also at Chatham, Dartmoor, Portland, &c.) by tliin partitions of corrugated iron, not reaching (at Spike) to the roof or ceiling, and admitting of even a whisper being heard from partition to partition. Some of these partitions are also open in front (with wire work), so that prisoners in their "cells " can see each other in the light evenings or mornings. Female Convicts. — For Irish female convicts there is happily no Spike Island — but the women's prison of Mountjoy. And for the better class of these there is a sort of imitation of the Lusk principle at the Refuge of Golden Bridge, where about seventy women are employed in several laundries. There are some very good features in the Golden Bridge management ; but 1 114 voluntary visitors are not admitted (in general) to aid the superintendent in reforming the women. And even here there is too much congregation. Criminal women (still more than men) require to be indi- vidualised. One of the most successful of all persons in reclaim- ing and helping fallen or tempted women, is a philan- thropic Quaker gentleman at Birmingham. He effects the work through his wife's instrumentality and that of several suitable ladies, who influence each woman privately, individually. They scrupulously avoid " midnight meetings," " tea-parties," or any other congregating of their charges. " For goodness sake keep us separate ! We want no recognitions, no betrayals, no reminders of the past." This is, in effect, the urgent wish of the women themselves. It appears that, allowing for all the care and praise bestowed at Golden Bridge, much more indi- vidualisation and isolation are requisite even there. Both in the case of the more hopeless female crimi- nals who never reach Golden Bridge, and the men who never attain to Lusk, the same element of " intermediate " treatment and trial, before discharge, might be, with advantage, arranged for. Individualisation. — It may here be remarked that one of the causes of the comparatively small amount of crime in Ireland, and of the diminution of prisoners, consists in the much more considerable individualisa- 115 lion carried out l)y the Catholic clergy than by the Protestant chaplains of English prisons. It is interest- ing to witness the warm esteem and respect manifested towards some of these sympathising friends of the out- casts. They need, beyond most men, the consolations of religion and the element of individualising sym- pathy and counsel. At the same time it is but fair to observe that such religious assistance is too exclusively confined to the few official clergy. Surely many other Christian helpers, both clerical and lay, might with advantage be invited to help in this good work. As to the general influence of the Irish clergy, it is earnestly to be wished that there were more successors to the excellent Father Matthew. Intemperance is the chiefly prevalent offence in Ireland, and if the clergy, as a body, vigorously attempted its repression, they w^ould surely be nble to accomplish a large amount of success.'" On the whole the Irish Convict system is a noble result of the labours of Maconochie, Jebb, Crofton, Organ, and others. It deserves much higher praise than Mr. Gibson has accorded to it ; but it is also * Intemperance. — The Catholic Chaplain of Liverpool Borougli Gaol, Rev. Mr. Nugent, has recently, 1872, directed special atten- tion to eflForts to counteract intemperance, both as to the prisonci's anil those discharged from gaol. His labours have been attended by most encouraging success in thereby preventing relapses into crime. Snob efforts would be similarly useful in other places. 1 -1 116 undeserving of the unqualified eulogy which some other writers have bestowed upon it. The great diminution of criminals in all the Irish gaols — as great in county and borough gaols as in convict prisons — is owing, in the first place, to the departure of the multitudes of poor wretches who crowded into gaol for bare life, at the Famine, and subsequently mainly to the continuous and increasing facilities for emigration. This rush to America is not only draining Ireland of all classes of population, convicts included, but also, by rendering labour more scarce and valuable, decreases poverty, idleness, and other sources of crime. Keforms. — The following are still desiderata in these interesting Irish prisons : — 1. The abandonment of the gang labour at Spike. (The abandonment of Spike prison altogether would be an advantage.) There should be a longer period of separate imprisonment at Mountjoy (under the requisite ameliorations of separation), and no other sequence than an "intermediate" establishment such as Lusk. 2. Much more education of the convicts before coming to Lusk. 3. More separation of the female convicts through- out. ir IRISH COUNTY AND BOROUGH GAOLS. Little need be said of these gaols, as much of what has been remarked about English prisons applies to them also. Here, also, more separation (but not soli- tude) is needed ; far more useful and profitable industry, than at present ; a less lowering diet (at least for the longer terms of imprisonment) ; and more cumulative sentences on old offenders. The two Inspectors, Mr. Lentaigne and Mr. Bourke, have again and again, in successive years, called upon the Government, in their excellent Reports, to intro- duce (by new legislation or otherwise), changes ** so urgently required" (vide their Report for 1871, page XV.). But it appears that sectarian animosities, party squabbles, and foreign afiairs have, as repeatedly, had the precedence of this important home business. The following items from last year's Report of the Directors are suggestive of requisite improvements : — Out of 6,421 female prisoners 1,946 were committed more than once during the year. Of these 634 had been in gaol twenty-one times each or upicards. Nearly 53 per cent, of the 6,000 women are old offenders. One woman was committed to Clonmel gaol twenty times in eleven m^onths ! One woman was seventeen times in custody in the Dublin county gaol last year, and several others fifteen and sixteen times. 118 Lunatics still continue to be occasionally committed to Irish gaols. A most disproportionate number of gaols are main- tained in Ireland for a small number of prisoners. Some of the English convict prisons contain 1,500 prisoners each. Whereas in Ireland there were last year 38 gaols for 2,361 prisoners ! Hence, for example, at Gal way gaol all the prisoners cost £633, and all the officials £1,184, or £550 more than the other charges of the establishment ! At Kilkenny gaol there were 11 salaried officers to 30 prisoners ! The average cost of Irish prisoners is nearly £35 each per annum. Their annual earnings are not as many shillings — £1 3s. 8d. only ! This state of things certainly points to a kind of " Home Rule" greatly needed. (Dundalk prison, under Mr. H. Noble, is an honourable exception to Irish gaols as to its useful industry.) There are several cases reported by the Inspectors (1871) which are thoroughly Irish. Thus in Cork gaol there had been for three years a pauper debtor for a debt of £1 8 ; also another man, a mason, for a debt of £5 13s. 4d., although he had offered to pay his creditors by instalments of ten shillings a week. The latter prisoner had a wife and seven children depending on him. So that there were thus thrown upon the rates for a considerable period ten persons for a united debt of less than £24 — less than the average cost of one Irish prisoner ! Wise men of Cork ! 119 Dietary. — Irish prisoners should be worked harder and fed better. For the longer periods (six months to two years) some animal food is necessary, at least under prison conditions. A free man 7nay get along pretty well without animal food, when the same person would suffer greatly without it, if in gaol for a long term. Prisoners thus stinted may appear tolerably weU for a time, whilst really ruined for life. Several Governors of Irish gaols have informed the Howard Association o of the bad effects of this course of treatment. One of these, an officer of long experience, remarked, " It is murder." He added, " A man, apparently in good condition, said to me on being discharged from prison, ' I shall be a dead man in six months' time ! ' The poor fellow died in four months." The same officer observed, " After two years' imprisonment, many of the Irish are hardly worth 6d. for the remainder of their lives." A Commission of Inquiry on the dietary of the Irish gaols recently reported in favour of an im- provement. But (as is so frequently the case after Government Commissions) no very material improve- ment has resulted. Inspectors. — In Ireland there is a class of local Inspectors of Prisons, not existing in England. These are appointed by the local Visiting Justices. Hence it is against their interests to report boldly and im- partially in case of abuses. It is with Inspectors as 120 with Preachers — they ought to be able with impunity to say to those over whom they are placed, " You are sinners. Such and such things are wrong and must be altered." But if the parties thus addressed reply, " Say that again, and we will stop your pay," there is an end of impartiality and independence. BRITISH COLONIAL PRISONS. The British Colonies are now so nearly independent of the mother country, that their prisons, like their other institutions, are practically beyond British con- trol, and are managed by the local Governments. This is right. They may, however, be just alluded to. In Canada, a Board of Prison Superintendence has been in existence for some years, and has effected many useful reforms. One of the chief prisons (if not the principal), that at Kingston, remains located in a very unhealthy situation. In New Zealand, Mr. James Caldwell, Governor of the Otago prison at Dunedin, furnishes (like the governors of some American gaols) an illustration of the fact that prisoners may, by useful industry, be rendered self-supporting. More separation is, how- ever, urgently needed in his prison. In Australia, thanks to the Colonists themselves, the abominations of the transportation system are almost things of the past. A few convicts, however, still 121 reuiaiii in Tasmania, and about 2,500 in West Australia. Victoria (the most energetic of the Australian Colo- nies) has recently appointed a Commission, whose Report (issued 1871) will jDrobably lead to important improvements in the prison discipline of that and other Colonies in the South. Gibraltar convict prison continues to be an example of the abominations of the gang system in its worst form. Men and warders become alike corrupted, even by official admission. The last Eeport to the Governor (1871) m-ges the British Home Office ''either to break up the establishment, or to reconstruct it upon tlce sejyarate system." Indian Prisons abound in defects, being chiefly on the congregate system. The assassination of the lamented Lord Mayo (Governor-General) at the Anda- man convict prison, in 1872, will probably compel some improvement, at that and other establishments, where the prisoners are allowed almost unlimited op- portunities for mutual corruption, in gangs or otherwise.'"' * By the way, it is a noteworthy fact that Lord ]\Iayo's assassin came from the Pimjaub province, where capital punishment is so frequent tliat 97 persons were there executed in 1870, during which year only six persons were executed in England and Wales. This circumstance does not conhrm the plea of the " deterrence " often claimed for capital punishment. It rather points to the brutalising effect cherished hy the legal cheapening of human life. 122 It is satisfactory to find that Dr. Mouat, and other competent authorities on the subject of Indian gaols, decidedly condemn the evils of the congregate system there. At a recent discussion before the Society of Arts, London, the Chairman of English Convict Prisons, Captain Du Cane, defended this congregate system ; but Dr. Mouat conclusively refuted that opinion. Prison gangs are bad — had altogether, and everywhere. Transportation. — The old Transportation system had many advantages — a new country, opportunity for abundant employment, after discharge, at good wages, with the prospect of rapid independence, and removal from old associations and temptations. But these and other benefits were more than counterbalanced by the horrors of the gang system. The late Mr. James Backhouse, of York, the Quaker missionary to Aus- tralia, once informed the Secretary of the Howard Association that, from what he had seen of convict life, even in some of its hest forms, he doubted whether it were not more merciful to hang men than to commit them to those awful gangs. And even in England, recently, the father of a young man condemned to death for murder came up to London from the country to petition the Home Office for a commutation of the sentence. On consulting Mr. Tallack as to the mode of operation, he was in- formed, by the latter, of the real nature of convict life 128 in the gangs of the Government prisons. On hearing these things, the parent, anxious as he was to save his son, paused in hesitation whether it would not be more merciful to the soul of his wretched child to allow the law to take its course, before the awful demoralisation of congregate gang labour should do its work. And, in 1872, a young man in Sussex, on being sentenced to five years' penal servitude, responded, " Thank you, my lord, but it damns me ! " Possibly, terribly true. Blasphemy, obscenity, unnatural crime, violence, murder, and (often) official cruelty, were the common features of Australian transportation. Eepeatedly the wretched convicts actually committed murder in order to be taken away from their lot, with the probability of being hanged. Even death itself was sometimes welcomed by them as a mercy. There should never be forgotten that memorable evidence of Eev. Dr. Ullathornc before the Parliamentary Committee on Transportation. In 1834, at Norfolk Island, thirteen convicts were sentenced to death at one time. Dr. Ullathorne stated : " Upon entering the gaol, I witnessed a scene such as I never witnessed in my life before. I said a few words to induce the men to resignation, and I then stated the names of those who were to die. And it is a remarkable fact that, as I mentioned the names of those men who were to die, they one after the other, as their names were pro- nounced, dropped on their knees and thanked God that 124 they were to be delivered from that liurrihle place, whilst the others remained standing, mute/' And be it also remembered that, in spite of, and after abundance of, such evidence as this, the Home Government persisted in maintaining Transportation! And only the united determination of the Colonists put a stop to it. Here is another lesson of the mischief of undue centralisation in regard to criminal adminis- tration, whether on the part of the Imperial Govern- ment, or otherwise. CRIMINAL LUNACY. A most urgently-needed legal reform is the removal of the present anomalous system of procedure in cases of real or alleged Criminal Lunacy. On these occa- sions there is often exhibited the unseemly spectacle of public collision between eminent lawyers and the most experienced members of the medical profession. The Law proceeds on the principle that Criminal Insanity is not to be exempted from penal infliction and disgrace, except only in cases of raving madness or fully matured lunacy. It recognises neither the (jradual development, nor the subtle intelligence, which often characterise cases of insanity as dangerous and as uncontrollable as any of the more raving kind. The present law asserts that a knowledge of " the 125 diflference between right and wrong " constitutes just legal responsibility. At the annual meeting of Medical Officers of Asylums, held at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on July 14th, 1864, it was unanimously resolved by those present (upwards of fifty experi- enced doctors) — " That so much of the legal test of the mental condition of an alleged criminal lunatic as renders him a responsible agent, because he knows the difference between right and wrong, is inconsistent with the fact, well known to every member of this meeting, that the power of distinguishing between right and wrong exists frequently among those who are undoubtedly insane, and is often associated with dangerous and uncontrollable delusions." Indeed, the very government of these institutions is generally based on the principle that their inmates have this sense of right and wrong, notwithstand- ing the existence of indubitable and dangerous mental disease. But the Law virtually ignores this fact, and jurists deem pleas of insanity absurd except accompanied by raving or absolutely idiotic symptoms. Hence in many cases the unfortunate victims of a most pitiable disease are judicially punished by penal servitude, and, occasionally, even by the gallows. The charge of absurdity appertains to this Law itself. For what can be more unjust than to brand 126 and punish as convicts those unfortunate persons who, by the inscrutable visitation of Providence, are the victims of disease comparable to inherited blindness, or to the accidental deprivation of a limb I The Spectator recently remarked of the infliction of capital punishment under similar circumstances : — " We might as well hang a man for committing a murder in his sleep." There is no room for doubt as to ihefact of the penal treatment of many victims of mental disease. The Annual Eeports of the Convict Prisons admit that many such are confined in these establishments. And the number of acquittals on the ground of insanity, especially in murder trials, also illustrates the extreme difficulty of deciding upon such cases under the present state of the law. Dr. William Guy, of London (for many years medical officer of convict prisons), recorded in the Statistical Society's Journal, in June, 1869, his analysis of the Judicial Statistics (official) for thirty years (1836 to 1865). In that period out of 1,811 persons tried for murder in England and Wales, 263, or 14^ per cent, were found insane. And hence, in all probability, more than a few insane persons were hanged. A second evil of the present legal treatment of Criminal Lunacy is the consequent unsatisfactory nature of the evidence at trials in many cases of real 127 or alleged insanity, especially where there is a danorer of the infliction of the irrevocable capital penalty. On these occasions it repeatedly happens that eminent medical men are placed in a painful, and, occasionally, even in a ridiculous position, through their cross- examination by counsel who, although very talented in their own profession, may be utterly ignorant of scientific facts and principles. The latter gentlemen, furthermore, are expressly paid to endeavour to elicit replies favourable to the private interest of their clients. Impartial truth thus becomes not the real object of the examination, as it ought to be. Again, similar private interests sometimes lead to the un- seemly employment of medical witnesses as ^arty- advocates rather than as purely scientific witnesses called by an impartial authority, and only^?' impartial ends. Another evil of the existing system (again chiefly con- nected with criminal lunacy in capital cases) is the not unfrequent virtual setting aside of the public trial by jury, by a subsequent trial, conducted in private by the Home Secretary, at the intercession of the friends of the condemned, or of persons to whom the extreme punishment of a presumed insane individual is abhor- rent."^' If the Home Secretary always, as a matter of * In Docember, 1861, two men, named Bisgrove and Sweet, were sentenced to death at the Taunton Assizes, after a two days' careful trial. Subsequently it was discovered that Sweet was 128 course, and unprompted, were to institute such an investigation, it would be immeasurably superior (both on the grounds of impartiality and public security) to the present system. But, unfortunately, such investi- gations generally involve either special " interest " and pressure, or considerable expense. The result is, that a criminal presumed to be insane, but possessing property and friends (as in the case of Townley, the Derby murderer), may secure a post-judicial searching inves- tigation into his condition, whilst a poor and friendless criminal lunatic (other than a raving madman) may pass helplessly to the gallows or the convict gang. In such a case, whilst justice may be said to be " open to every man," it is rather in the sense that Morley's Hotel is " open to all " (who can pay for it). The Capital Punishment Commission of 1865, after eMirely innocent, and tliat Bisprrnve was insane. Certain " anti- hnmanitarians " severely critieised the reprieve of the latter. But the Home Secretary was most fully justified in so doing. It was proved, by official investigations, that Bisgrove had long been insane, and subject to epileptic fits. An illegitimate child, he was badly fed and clothed, and wholly neglected in his education. His health and intellect had always been weak. He had l)een further injured by a violent fright and a sunstroke. At the trial of the Brighton poisoner (Miss Edmunds), 1872, the Judge, in passing sentence, said, " I am bound to say that I believe the juj-y were right in finding a verdict that you were guilty ; and .still more do I believo, that the verdict 'was correct in rejecting the defence of insanity." Yet a few days afterwards this very judge recommended that the prisoner be not executed, on the ground of licr probable insanity ; and she was sent to a lunatic asylum for life ! 129 taking much evidence on the subject of criminal lunacy, concluded to recommend '^further investiga- tion," but suggested no immediate practical steps towards removing the difficulties of the existing state of the law. These difficulties continue to oppose grave obstacles to justice, and ought to be removed by legislation. Reforms. — The following are the alterations chiefly needed in reference to this subject : — 1. A recognition, by the Law, of the abundantly- proved fact that uncontrollable dangerous insanity often exists collaterally with a knowledge of " the difference between right and wrong."" This would modify the criminal responsibility of the insane. They would be held responsible to the extent of secure detention in asylums (even for life, where necessary), but not to the extent of a disgraceful death on the gallows, or a degrading transfer to a convict gang. 2. The proof of insanity in criminal cases should l)e no longer committed to advocates (legal or medical) of private interests, but should devolve upon an impar- tial jury or commission of scientific experts appointed by the Government. The investigation would then be conducted with a dignity alike befitting the majesty of the law, and the scientific experience of the medical profession. (A similar mode of investigation has long been in successful operation in France and certain American States.) K 130 3. Theory being then reconciled with Fact, and Law Avith Science, the national conscience in regard to true justice would be satisfied, and legal administration would secure increased influence and support. Private interference would be superseded by systematic and impartial investigation. The punishment of the sane criminal would be more certain, and the restraint of the insane rendered at once more humane and sure.''' ANOMALOUS INFLICTION OF THE CAPITAL PENALTY. Capital punishment is now almost practically abolished in Great Britain and Ireland, mainly through the irrepressible force of public opinion constantly exerted in individual instances of condemnation, and in consequence also of the exceedingly anomalous con- * In 1869 the Committee of the Howard Association issued a paper embodying the above suggestions on Criminal Lunacy. It was submitted to a few eminent medical men for approval, and at once received the signatures of Dr. Thomas Laycock (Professor in the University of Edinburgh ; President of the Medico-Psychological Association of the United Kingdom) ; Dr. Henry Maudsley (one of the Editors of the Journal of Medical Science) ; Dr. B. W. Richardson (F.R.S., President St. Andrew's Medical Graduates' Association) ; Dr. H. W. Eumsey (Cheltenham) ; Dr. John A. Symonds (F.R.S. , Bristol) ; Dr. Daniel Hack Tuke (Joint Author of Bucknill and Tuke's Manual of Psychological Medicine) ; and Dr. T. Harrington Tuke (FpIIow of the Royal Collpgeof Physicians). i:n tlitioii of tlie ('onliictiiig laws and precedeuts for tlic disposal of murder cases. This irregularity, i)erfectly wild as it is — chaos, in fact — is inevitable until the whole question shall be settled by legislation, either by abolishing the capital penalty altog(3ther, or by classifying murders distinctly in a practical manner, and in conjanction with improved laws on criminal lunacy. Meanwhile it is a sort of lottery, whether a murderer is hanged or not. In the first place, only about 25 p(;r cent, of the persons committed for trial for mur- der are convicted ; and, secondly, after conviction, more than one-half are reprieved and sent to penal servitude. For example, in 1870, out of fifteen sen- tenced to death for murder, other than infanticide, in England and Wales, five were executed, or one-third of the number. In 1871, out of thirteen so sentenced only four were executed. {Vide Parliamentary Ee- turns. No. 84, 1871, and No. 75, 1872.) Out of seven capital sentences passed at the winter assizes, 1871 and 1872, only one was carried out! And whether the advocates of abolition are right or wrong in their views, it is impossible that the present state of the law of murder can result in anything but chaos. For it has been piihliclij condemned hij a Royal ComniUsiou, by Judges, and by Home Sccietarics. The Home Secretary said in Parliament (April 22, 18G9) ; " The judge is constantly obliged to pass a sentence of K 2 132 death when it is quite certain that that sentence ivill not, cannot, and ought not, to be executed. That is the state of the law." For example : At the Oxford Assizes, March, 1870, Baron Martin, in sentencing to death a woman for the murder of her child three years old (not infanticide), said, " The killing of your child is, undoubtedly, murder ; and the sentence is death for such crimes.''" He added, " But as far as lies in my power^ that sentence will not be carried out ! " It can need no further argument to prove the neces- sity for, at any rate, an alteration of the " law " of murder. The question as to the expediency or otherwise of abolishing the capital penalty hardly comes within the scope of this work ; but it may be remarked, in passing, that the experience of many foreign States has shown that the abolition of the capital penalty has increased the certainty of punishment, whilst generally decreasing the crimes. Such has been the experience of its total abolition in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ehode Island, Portugal, Tuscany, Holland, and several of the Swiss Cantons and German States ; and of its virtual or approximate abolition in Russia, Pennsylvania, Maine, Bavaria, Belgium, Wirtemberg, Baden, &c. In these countries the substitution of life-long confinement, or of other severe secondary penalties, has been found practicable and efficacious. And it is admitted that in England the removal of the extreme penalty from :rA all the 150 crimes (except murder and treason) formerly capital, lias been attended with favourable results. But it is of importance to remember that the total abolition of capital punishment ought to be accom- panied, or preceded, by a reform of the convict system, and by the entire removal of murderers from other criminals to a prison specially adapted to the per- manence of their confinement, and to the conditions necessary for the peculiar discipline required under such circumstances. NECESSITY FOR MORE VOLUNTARY VISITATION OF PRISONS. Voluntary visitation of prisons is systematically discouraged (at least in practice) in this country. It of course requires great discrimination as to the admis- sion of persons to visit prisoners. But the experience of England in former years, in such cases as those of Howard, Fry, and others, and more recently in the in- stances of Thomas Wright, of Manchester, and Mrs. Meredith, of Kensington, also the successful encourage- ment of Christian visitors in some of the American, Dutch, and other prisons, point to the value and importance of these agencies. And in proportion as the separate system is extended i:u and completed, tlie necessity for the ameliorating in- fluences of Christian and improving association becomes increasingly urgent. It is one of the most important practical considerations to which the attention of the Government and Magistracy can be directed in refe- rence to the improvement of prison discipline. The Visiting Justices of the borough and county gaols have in a very few instances, of late, encouraged the practice, and with advantage. But, on the whole, little facility is afforded, and opposition to it has been raised (on sectarian grounds) even by some chaplains ! In the Convict Prisons, where such visits are needed more than anywhere, the exclusion of strangers is carried out to a very general extent. Some of the establishmerits are, however, located (almost neces- sarily) in remote places, not easily accessible — such as Portland Peninsula, Spike Island^ Dartmoor, &c. The excellent Hcer Suringar (the Dutch Howard) has of late repeatedly urged the necessity of adding to the separate system this its essential complement and needful adjunct — the frequent, regular visitation of prisoners (separately, of course) by judicious, philan- thropic, and religious persons.* In such visits sectarian objects must of course be guarded against. The diffi- culties arc found, in practice, to be easily avoided, and great l)enefit has usually accrued where the * A local committee of judicious volunteer visitors ought to be pstal»lisliP(l in rDniiPction with crmj jirison. 13,-) plan lias been put in practice — both in Europe and America. Many persons, in all classes of society, might be found suitable and willing, if invited, to aid in this good work. Dr. E. C. Wines and Dr. D wight, of New York, in a joint Report on American Prisons (1867), strongly recommend a wide recourse to such visitation, and quote the physician of the Philadelphia State Prison as declaring — " Here- tofore the persons permitted to visit the prisoners, for the purpose of moral instruction, have been invariably confined to the more educated classes. I believe this to be an error. Among those of our citizens who have less pretensions to intellectual culture (such as humble Sarah Martin, of Yarmouth), many will be found Avho possess every qualification necessary to render their intercourse with convicts highly beneficial. 1 would therefore earnestly recommend that their services be immediately solicited." Dr. Wines and Dr. D wight add — " The ties which prisoners in this way form with some of tile purest and best of their race, of both sexes, feeble as they may appear, are often of ines- timuble value to them after their liberation." This is shown by the large number of ofi"enders who have become respectable and useful members of society through the instrumentality of such volunteer workers in our own and other countries. J3G RELIGIOUS MOTIVES AND OBJECTS IN CRIMINAL TREATMENT. These will be foremost and fundamental in propor- tion as real and permanent success is attained. All systems, however excellent otherwise, will fail unless administered by religious men and in a religious spirit ; and such men have often been able to achieve remark- able results, even with a defective system. A con- spicuous example of this was aUbrded by the labours of Dr. Colin Browning, R.N.'"" He remarks : — " We hear much of various systems of prison disci- 2)linc, as the Separate, the Silent, and the Congregate systems, but unless the Christian system be brought to bear, with Divine power, on the understanding and * Bi'tween tlie years 1831 and 1848, Dr. Browning was engaged as Siirgeon-snperinlenilont of Convict Sliips, during the long voyages l)etvv(^on England and Van Dienian's Land (Tasmania). Nine times Ik; was entrusted with the direction of large parties of these wretched outcasts from their country. Many of them had previously been con lined in the hulks, aTid the ])arties always included a large num- ber of the most depraved and desperate characters. When these were congregated together, within a small space, on shipboard, for periods of four or five months, the diflicidties of management were uecessarily very great. Indeed, the voyages of convicts presented in general such scenes of horrible corruption and riotous insubordi- nation, that the transport vessels were commonly spoken of as " floating hells." But Dr. Browning's parties formed a most reniark- al)l(! contrast to the general rule. Yet he was not furnished with 13: couscieuces of criiiiiiials, every other system, professedly contemplatiug their reformation, must prove an utter failure. We willingly concede to various modes of prison discipline their just measure of importance, but to expect that human machinery, however perfect, can take the place of God's own pkescribed method of reformation, involves not only ignorant presumption, but practical infidelity." the slightest outward advantage or facility beyond other surgeon- superintendents, and in every case he had to contend with the excessive moral obstacle of the close congi-egation of many of the vilest men with others. Whence, then, his exceptional success ? From his practical reliance upon, and application of, the power of the Gospel. From a daily and hourly maintenance of a combination of Scriptural exposition, fervent and intercessory prayer, plain secu- lar instruction and lectures, thorough cleanliness and order, and the strictest, but kindly, discipline. The Doctor says of his convicts : — " I can speak with confidence and gratitude of tlieir behaviour Avhile under my authority, instruc- tion, and discipline. The united prayers of many of God's believing and wrestling people were heard and answered. Not a lash was inflicted, not an iron was seen on the prisoners' decks. The beha- viour of my men, after they had been a few weeks under Scriptural instruction, prayer, and discipline, exceeded, in correctness and superiority of character, that of any other body of men ever com- mitted to my care. Their advancement in Christian knowledge was amazing, though their fearful and most appalling ignorance of the Bible and of Redemption when they came on board was truly astounding and heartrending. It is ditficult to imagine in what part of the United Kingdom such frightful heathenism coiUd have been fostered and reared, until it is recollected how fearful is the want of faithful preaching, ministerial visiting and catechising, and domestic instruction and discipline ; to which must be added, the weakness of faith in professing Clmstians, their deficiency in intercessory 138 Of course, Goveninieiits and mixed legislative bodies can, at present, hardly be expected to evince much decided regard to definitely Christian principles. But individual statesmen, individual magistrates and officers, and individual Christians, may well remember that they have duties in relation to the criminal portion of the community, for the discharge of which God will prayer, and the disregard of that Divine command, ' Let him that hears th say come.'* A number of the 346 convicts, removed by him from Norfolk Island, had agreed to take a terrible revenge on some comrades who had previously been employed as constables over the others. But under the instruction and discipline of Dr. Browning this purpose was entirely abandoned. (Murder was a common crime among the Norfolk Island convicts at that period.) The Doctor landed his large party at their destination without having had a single punish- ment. He remarks : " The men were given to me in double irons ; I debarked them without an iron clanking among them. I am told this is the hrst and only instance of convicts removed from Norfolk Island having had their irons struck off during the voyage, and being landed totally unfettered. They are almost uniformly double-cross- ironed, and often chained down to the deck, everybody afraid of them. I was among them at all hours, and the prison doors were never once shut during the day. To God be all the glory. The Gospel of his well beloved Son, and gracious answers to believing prayer, have been the means. All is of Christ Jesus." Three Governors of Tasmania — Sir John Franklin, Colonel George Arthur, and Sir William Denison (all thoroughly practical and shrewd men) — expressed their high opinion of I)r. Browning and his svstem. * Vide Dr. Browning's work, " The Convict tS/ii/i and bhiglinufs K.rih'sy London : Ilaiuilton, Adams ^ Co. i:r.) hold them responsible. This responsiijility irill stand : it cannot be evaded. These and other duties may have, also, a still higher motive, that of gratitude to God — love to Christ. Notwithstanding the attention and effort bestowed on Missions to the heathen, and other beneficent works — there has been, and continues to be, a notable want OF INTEREST in the religious and general condition of prisoners and convicts at home, by the religious public AS A whole. Of course there are many and honourable exceptions. During the last few years, however, a somewhat greater degree of attention has been bestowed in this direction. The public interest in prison matters and criminal reformation which was awakened into lively activity by Mrs. Fry, Mr. Buxton, Eomilly, and others, ex- perienced a reaction and decay iindeT the succession of withering satires and sneers kept up by such popular writers as Sydney Smith and others, and continued subsequently by some cold-blooded writers and jour- nalists, who, although " moving in fashionable circles," and possessing great influence, appear often to forget that there ever was any such an Authority, on these and other questions, as the Divine Founder of the Christian Eeligion. This feeling has been increased by experiences of disappointment and im})()sturo produ<-o(l bv manv so-called "conversions" of the inmates of gaols, whose 140 parrot-like repetition of texts, artful flattery of chaplains, and occasional tears of apparent contrition, have often been regarded as sufficient and reliable signs of reformation. These disappointing results are, in part, also, the natural fruits of the course too frequently adopted by well-meaning persons, who, with a one-sided zeal, have depreciated as "mere morality" those necessary tests and proofs of sincerity which are afforded by jper- severing honest labour, cojisideratio7i for others, clean- liness, truthfulness, and temperance. When the exhibition of a verbal profession is substituted and accepted for moral effort, the grossest hypocrite can readily outstrip the genuine penitent. By this practical disregard to Christ's own rule, " By their fruits ye shall know them," such sentmieiital applications of theolo- gical dogma have resulted in a general and melancholy failure, which, in turn, has occasioned in many quarters either a hopeless despair of success, or a feeling, too frequent, even amongst Christians, that criminals only deserve and should simply receive, a treatment purely penal, without aim or hope of reformation. Very different, however, are the spirit and tone of Scriptural allusions in this direction. The parable of the Prodigal Son, the Discourse with the woman taken in adultery, the meal " with Publicans and Sinners," the promise of Paradise to the dying thief, and the characteristic declaration that "the Son of Man is 141 come to seek and to save tliat which is lost," all point to a humane policy towards offenders in which real reformation, and practical moral fruits, should be prominently expected and facilitated. Bad as criminals are, they are often " more sinned against than sinning." Early neglect, gross ignorance, overcrowded dwellings, hereditary mental weakness, orphanage, and intemperate examples, have much to do with producing vice and crime ; far more than any voluntary viciousness. The " Judicial Statistics " show that about 95 per cent, are unable to read or write with facility, and a large proportion totally unable ; also that less than 1 per cent, belong to the profes- sional, the trading, and the skilled mechanical classes combined. Hence it is almost entirely the ignorant, the unemployed, and the unskilled, or, in other words, the " unfortunate " classes, who fill our gaols. More particularly the consideration that in many, if not all of the outcasts of society, there remains at least some sparh of Divine origin, some germ of a spirit that may or might be developed into immortal godliness, suggests a course of procedure not only widely re- moved from the sentimentality which contents itself with eliciting questionable or sanctimonious declara- tions of humility, and of spurious, because unfruitful, " faith," but also as diverse from an exago-erated reliance on the efficacy of the crank and the plank bed, the lash and the gallow^s. From the above point 142 of view, too, the words are still partially applicable, in many instances at least, " / was in prison ;" that is, many criminals have glimmerings, not wholly quenched, of Christ's Spirit within them which might be everlastingly revived. Such considerations, such grand expansibilities of the human soul, even in its lowest forms, under the influences of the Gospel of Christ, must ever constitute the surest and strongest basis for efforts for the amelio- ration and best efficacy of criminal treatment, as of all other good works. Mere statistical facts, mere motives of expediency, are not strong enough. Mere utilita- rians can never rival in eflect the more enthusiastic, because more religious, zeal of Howard, Fry, Buxton, Martin and Ducpetiaux (of Belgium). All these saw, even in the most degraded of the creatures of God, those whom Christ had died to save, those who possessed some good qualities or capacities given hij God for everlasting develo'pment, even as in their own case. Howard said of himself : — "I consider that if it had not been for Divine Grace, I might have been as abandoned as these criminals are." And he added : — "A principal object is to make them better men. This, indeed, should always be the leading view in every House of Correction. As rational and immortal beings we owe this to them ; nor can any cmninalitij of theirs justify our neglect in this particular." 1 43 All truly (christian men will share this view. Lnuir ages ago the Apostle Paul iterated and reiterated (especially in the Epistle to the Ephesians''^) the great truth — that even the l)cst of men are only such by the grace of God in Christ— (" Qui salvandos salvas gratis") — the free grace, originating grace, unde- served grace of the all-devising and all-predisposing Supreme Creator. " By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of ijoun^dm^ ; it is the gift of God." (Eph. ii. S.) Faith, grace, and charity, then, being all free gifts (though involving conditions of grateful obedience), originating in God, their bestowment constitutes an obligation and a debt, on the part of the recipients, to extend them to others by those instrumental and humanely intelligent means which are the usual modes of Divine operation. Their reception also forbids the unmerciful and indiscriminate condemnation of the more ignorant and erring classes of mankind as mere brutes, to be only punished, deterred and crushed. " For Who maketh thee to differ from another ? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive ?" (1 Cor. iv. 7.) * " To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. In whom we have redemption through His blood according to the riches of His grace." — (Epli. i. 6, 7.) " The exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness to us tlirougli Christ Jesus."— (Eph. ii. 7.) 144 And though Christian principles may be nowadays ridiculed, even in some influential quarters, and by popular writers, as " old-fashioned," " obsolete," or " humanitarian," they are the only ones which rest on the invincible and immutable basis of eternal Truth. Though decried or ignored, their efficacy is certain, their foundation adamantine. And by them alone all theories and all practice must be eventually tested. In conclusion, it may be safely declared that, the principles of Christianity being the standard, more than a little of the existing criminal administration of Great Britain and Ireland will be found to be " tried in the balances and found wanting." On these prin- ciples the real reforms hitherto attained have been based, and on such principles alone can future progress be firmly established. R. Barrktt & Sons, Printers, 13, Mark Lane. ^l^ilclc, L^i(k^i THE CELLULAR (BUT NOT RIGIDLY SOLITARY) SYSTEM OF IMPRISONMENT, AS CAKKIED OUT AT THE PKISONS OF LOUVAIN, AMSTERDAM, &c. ISSUED BY THE HOWARD ASSOCIATION, LONDON. L O N DON: Published by F. B. KITTO, o, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT, E.C. The following Paper, written after a visit to the Belgian and Dutch Prisons, by Mr. William Tallack, the Secretary of the Howard Association, Loxdon, was prepared, at the request of the Committee of the English "Social Science Association," as a basis for a Discussion on the subject of the Cellular System, at their Annual Congress in 1871, held at Leeds. This Discussion was presided over by the Right Hon. Lord Teignmoutii, and attended by the Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, Bart., ]\I.P., and a number of Magistrates, Prison Officials, and other persons interested in the subject. — The paper is reprinted, by request, for circulation at the International Prison Congress, in London, July, 1872. The Howard Association was instituted (under the patronage of the late Lord Brougiia;\i) for the promotion of the best methods of Prison Discipline, Penal Treatment, and Crime Prevention. Treasurer, R. K Fowlkii, Esi[., M.P. ; Secretary, William Tallack ; Otlice, 5, Bisiioivsgate Street Without, London, E.C. It labours to indoctrinate the public mind with the importance of a rcformaiorij and radically lorcvcntivc treatment. THE (JELLULAii (But NOT rigidly solitary) SYSTEM OF IMPEISONMENT, AS CARRIED OUT AT LOUVAIN, &c. Considering the long controversy for and against the celhilar system of imprisonment, which has con- tinued for more than forty years to excite much interest in the principal ci\alised nations, and con- sidering also the number of practical experiments and Government commissions which have been instituted for the purpose of determining its merits or demerits, it is remarkable that no authoritative conclusion has yet been arrived at in relation to this system, by the chief coimtries of the world. A considerable divergence of conclusions on the subject continues to exist, although it can hardly be disputed that those persons who have devoted the longest and most practical attention to prison disci- pline become, for the most part, increasingly con- 13 -2 vinced of the value and superiority of the principle of the entire separation of criminals from each other. In the United States, where the controversy chiefly originated, it is still maintained, with much firmness of opinion, by partisans of opposite views. The supporters of the Philadelphia system, of absolute separation by day and night (as exem- plified in the Eastern Penitentiary of that city), continue to urge, both by statistics and by appeals to facts, its decided superiority over the system adopted in all the other States of the Union — i.e. congregate silent labour by day, with total separation only by night. In GrREAT Britain, the Coimfij and Borough gaols (for short sentences) have generally adopted a modified cellular system (involving considerable separation by day and total seclusion by night) ; but the Convict prisons (containing altogether nearly 10,000 inmates, committed for periods of five years and uptvards) pre- sent the strange spectacle of a most inconsistent mixture of treatment, the convicts being confined in separate cells for the first nine months of their terms, and then for the long remaining periods they are crowded together in corrupting gangs, contami- nating one another with blasphemies and obscenities. Hence Great Britain has practically arrived at two contradictory conclusions as to the value of the cellular svstem. France has, on the whole, rejected, or refused to adopt, the system, and prefers the plan of congregate labour ; but the French prisons are by no means models for other countries, having many of the worst features of the vile mixed system. Belgium, on the other hand, which (with Holland) may be considered as now leading the van of all nations in regard to prison discipline, has decidedly committed itself to the cellular system, and is converting its gaols, as fast as circumstances will permit, into institutions, in which total separation by day and night is a prominent feature. Holland, after many years of quiet vigilance and study of the systems of other nations, has also pro- nounced in favour of the cellular system. Germany, always foremost in intelligent observa- tion, also appears to be taking a decided stand by this plan. The general European Prison Congresses at Frankfort and Malines gave their full adhesion to the principles of the cellular system. Italy, Spain, Eussia, and some other countries, have not yet sufficiently organised their systems on any permanent basis, so as to be quoted on either side of the controversy. It is most important to observe, that the cellular system, so successfully adopted in Belgium and Holland, is very dilferent from the absolutely solitary mode which, in several American prisons, and notahly at Aubm-n, called forth the trenchant stric- tures of Charles Dickens. The cellular system at first adopted in the United States was but a cruel caricature of the real and proper mode of separation. The rigorous solitary system is an inhuman and un- christian one. It tends certainly to cause madness and suicide. The Cellular System, pi-operly so called, or in its perfection, implies total separation, both by day and night, from other prisoners only, but frequent daily communication with instructors, prison officers, or philanthropic visitors. It also implies due atten- tion to industry, exercise, study, ventilation, food, and the duration of the imprisonment. The modified separate plan of modern British and American prisons is infinitely better than that un- natural and cruel one ; nevertheless, the modified separate, or daily congregate system, is also shown by its results to be very unsatisfactory ; for notwith- standing its expense (about £31 per head per annum in British prisons), the number of recommittals con- tinues to be exceedingly high — 39 per cent., and we liave abundant testimonies as to its grave defects, from authorities practically competent to pronounce an opinion. For example, at the Lancashire Ses- sions, in September, 1871 (Earl Derby in the chair), one of the most active and prominent visiting magis- trates of the county — Mr. Edmund Ashworth— said, that twenty years' experience in that capacity had convinced liim that ninety- nine prisoners out of every hundred leave the gaols worse than they enter them. Another magistrate of much experience — Mr. Angus A. Croll — recently Sheriff of London and Middlesex, writes, in a pamphlet puhlished last year: — "For one prisoner reformed many are cor- rupted. It is to be feared that, in the great majority of cases, imprisonment gives an impetus to the downward course of the convict." Further, it is found that in many of the British prisons a number of their inmates are committed not dozens, but scores, and even hundreds, of times in succession. BELGIAN EXPERIENCE. In Belgium, on the other hand, since the adoption of the new cellular system, the number of recom- mittals to the principal prison, conducted on that plan, has diminished more than 40 .per cent, (the official returns give a still higher number), and I was assured by a prison officer of thirty years' experience in that country, that he knew of no case of a prisoner committed more than six times. And, throughout Belgium, the number of prisoners has been reduced at least 30 per cent, by the new system. The great progress of prison discipline in Belgium and Holland has been no hasty work, but the result of long and very carefully tested experience. Even a century ago, the prisons of these two 8 countries elicited the repeated eulogies of the illus- trious Howard, who visited them again and again, taking nine journeys to Holland, and nearly as many to Belgium. In the former country he found the gaols clean and orderly, with their inmates employed at useful labour (chiefly the manufacture of cloth), of the proceeds of which they received a share to aid them on their discharge. The Dutch motto, which became a favourite one with Howard, was " Make men diligent, and you will make them honest." This object was accomplished by the enforcement and encouragement of useful occupation regulated by piece-work. At the same period, Belgium had established, in the great prisons of Ghent and Vilvorde, the system of entire separation by night, with congregate labour ])y day, which was a vast improvement upon the horrible and almost unrestrained contamination which then, and for a long time afterwards, formed a disgraceful feature in the gaols of Great Britain and of most other nations. Many years after this system had been adopted in Belgium, it was imitated in the United States, and, by a strange ignorance of its origin, it has subsequently generally gone by the name of " the American System," just as the name of the real discoverer of that continent, Columbus, has been ignored in its universal appellation — America. It was in 1775 that Howard paid his first visit to 9 Ghent prison, then newly erected, and its features of useful task-work, with a share in the earnings, by the prisoners, and their complete separation at night, drew from him the exclamation that it was a "noble institution." His second visit there, in the following year, elicited the remark that he seldom envied foreign countries their situation, religion, manners, or government, but that their prisons caused him to blush for England. On his sixth visit to the Low Countries in 1783, he found the prisoners at Ghent in a miserable condition of demoralisation and ill- health. For the Emperor Joseph, at the solicitation of a few private manufacturers, had ordered the useful productive labour of the establishment to be almost discontinued, on the plea of "unfair compe- tition " with free labour. The results were such as might have been expected. The Governor spoke of them as "unhappy changes," and Howard, with his usual plainness of speech, termed the alteration a " vile policy." Two years afterwards, he had an interview with the Emperor at Vienna, and, without any ceremony, complained sharply of the lack of wisdom in many departments of the prisons and other institutions in Austria. The Emperor asked, " Where have you seen any better institutions of the kind?" "There ivas one better," said Howard, " at Ghent, but (he added), not so now." The Emperor started and appeared displeased, but 10 eventually parted from his honest-spoken visitor with cordiality and respect, and promised to carry out some, at least, of his recommendations. The comparatively successful administration of the Belgian and Dutch prisons has continued throughout the present century. But during the last thirty years the Governments of both countries have gradually, but decidedly, adopted their present form of the entirely cellular system. M. DUCPETIAUX AND BELGIAN PROGRESS. The two principal agents in introducing this plan were the late M. Edward Ducpetiaux, of Brussels, and M. W. H. Suringar, of Amsterdam. M. DucPETiAux's attention was awakened to the necessity of further prison reform by his own ex- periences, like Howard. In 1828 he underwent a year's confinement for his writings in favour of Belgian independence. Two years afterwards, on the achievement of that independence, the newly enthroned King Leopold I. (of illustrious memory) appointed M. Ducpetiaux to be Inspector- General of Prisons, an office which he held till his decease in 18G7. During his long tenure of ofhce he devoted himself to the reform of the defects of which he had felt and seen the evil tendency during his own incarceration. In i)articular he had observed that any amount of 11 association with other prisoners not only fostered evil communications, but, which was often more mischievous, ruined for life many of the inmates who had originally been committed for slight offences, by causing them to be i)crmanentlij recogtiisahle, after their discharge, by inveterate and evilly-disposed criminals. For example, Francis (to take any name), an apprentice, imprisoned at first for some theft, amounting to half a crown in value, might be, on his discharge, recognised by Alphonse, an old offender, who would thus have it in his power to brand the said Francis as a " prison bird," and blast for life his character and chances of getting an honest livelihood. M. Ducpetiaux also ascertamed that, in the boxes placed in Belgian prisons to receive complaints from the prisoners, the majority of these complaints consisted of requests to be separated from the horrible companionship of hateful and depraved associates. His mind was further impressed with the amount of punishment needlcsshj afflicted on innocent wives and children by vcrij long sentences of imprisonment passed upon their husbands and fathers — sentences which involved also unduly lengthened pecuniary burdens upon the honest taxpayer, whilst, in many cases, also greatly injuring the criminal by an un- natural and cruel separation from the ties of kindred 12 and the softening influences of parental and conjugal relationships. He reflected that if it should be found that the entire separation of prisoners from communication with others was a punishment to the worse class of offenders, and a safeguard to the better ones, the advantage would be double. The separation would be more punitory and more deterrent to the wilful, whilst more merciful and more curative to the really penitent. Thus shorter terms, with cellular discipline, might safely, and with many advantages, moral and economical, be substituted for longer and less effectual periods of partially associated imprisonment. It was also obvious that contagious and epidemic diseases w^ould be greatly checked by cellular separa- tion, whilst prison riots and rebellions would be rendered almost impossible. Nor would the sneers and laughter of reprobate companions any longer be able to efface from the hearts of the less hardened the impressions made by religious instructors or wise advisers. Thus would there be a special inducement and prospect of success for frequent visitation by such persons, whether officially connected with the prison, or otherwise, as duty or desire might prompt to offer their aid to the prisoners. And, finally, the inmates, anxious for occupation and variety, would become more diligent in their resort to useful handi- craft labour (especially with the additional spur of a 3 share in the profits) and more attentive to the instructive solace of well-selected books. All these advantages, without any proportionate disadvantages, have been found to result from the practical adoption of the cellular system in Belgium, where it has been accompanied by those wise and merciful precautions which were neglected in the very diverse system, bearing the same name, once adopted in America and elsewhere. SUCCESS OF SEPARATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. And it may be mentioned here, by the way, that in proportion as the cellular system (apart from mere idle solitude and united with useful industry and instruction) has been tried in this country, it has been eminently successful. Mr. Oakley, the ex- perienced governor of Taunton gaol, informs me that when he came to that prison twenty years ago it was chiefly conducted on the congregate system, and there were 200 county prisoners in it. Now it is cellular throughout, and the number of county prisoners is reduced to seventy, although the district population has increased, most of the cells being let to other counties. The same gentleman also testifies to the serious mischief which is often wrought merehj hij the contact of prisoners, for one hour or less, when brought together into Court for Arraign- ment before trial, to p]ead guilty or not guilty. For 14 example, an habitual criminal sees near him, amongst the prisoners, a young woman, committed perhaps for a first and petty offence, and possibly not even guilty of that. After their discharge, he may, in walking the streets, recognise the girl at the door, or down the area, of some house where she has obtained a situation. The villain sees a prospect of taking advantage of his brief recognition in court, and at once accosts the girl, reminding her of their having both been in prison at such a time. " For goodness sake," she exclaims in fright, "don't come here. It would never do for my mistress or the other servants to know that I have been in gaol. It might be my ruin." Of course the man cares nothing for this, and the poor girl is obliged to purchase his silence either by direct bribes or by becoming his tool for purposes of robbery. In this way a brief prison recognition often leads to the future ruin of the comparatively innocent and uncontaminated. The system of congregate arraignment in English courts ought to be abolished. THE LOUVAIN CELLULAR PRISON. The Belgian prison which affords the best means of studying the results of the cellular system is that of LouvAiN, which was opened in 1860, and has, from its foundation, been conducted on principles of the most absolute separation of prisoners from each 15 other, by day and by night, in school, chapel, and exercise grounds, ameliorated by the abundant visi- tation of caretakers and instructors, by cheerful industry and recreative exercise in separate garden yards. I visited this prison a few months ago, in company with M. Ducpetiaux's able and worthy successor, as chief inspector of Belgian prisons, M. J. Stevens, who was for seven years the governor of the estab- lishment. At the time of my visit there were 600 prisoners, all as ignorant of each other's faces and careers as if they had been confined in as many sepa- rate houses. They were chiefly occupied as tailors, weavers, shoemakers, bookbinders, and carpenters, the latter and the smiths having cells of double size to accommodate a bench or forge. There is a trades instructor for each branch of industry, as most of the inmates are found to be ignorant of any trade on entry. The warders are mostly conversant with some trade, and are selected not (as is too frequently the case in England) from the ranks of old soldiers, but on account of their experience and practical qualifi- cation for their special occupation. Many prisoners have, with perfect health of mind and body, spent eight or nine years in Louvain prison. I saw and conversed with some of these. The one who had been longest in the establishment was a young man, aged twenty-seven, who had been in con- 16 tinuous separation in his cell for nine years. His crime was incendiarism, and he had been originally sentenced to death, which penalty was commuted to one of twenty years' imprisonment. But inasmuch as the Belgian Legislature has, since the introduction of the cellular system, reduced the scale of all sen- tences, his term will be rather less than ten years altogether. He had three months more to serve when I saw him. Whilst in prison he has learnt shoemaking, writing, reading, and the French lan- guage (having probably only known Flemish before). He has earned nearly £16 for his use on discharge, in addition to as much more with which he has pur- chased food of a better class than the rough and scanty fare supplied gratis. In addition to this, he has earned £40 or £50, or more, for the State, towards the expenses of his maintenance during his term. The Deputy-Governor remarked of him, "He is now a very good fellow !" I saw another prisoner there who had earned for himself as much discharge money (£16) in the shorter period of five and a half years. His term expires in six months. The officer remarked, " He is a very good man ; he will not come again ! " And certain it is that the comparatively large sums of money which the Belgian prisoners can earn (although the valuation of their labour is, as a punishment, much lower than its real worth), cause 17 many of them to start well and easily in permanently honest careers, and in a much more effective manner than the eleemosynary and smaller help of Dis- charged Prisoners' Aid Societies. So far as I have been able to gather it from a number of somewhat varying statistics, the average net cost of each prisoner at Louvain, after deducting the Government share of his labour, is about ten guineas per annum. The cost at Ghent prison is within a few shillings of the same. Hence the direct pecuniary results of the cellular system are not nearly so considerable as those of American self-sup- porting prisons, and hardly equal to those of a few of the better class of English prisons. But the indirect gain is much greater by reason of the moral and preventive results, and the shortened terms of im- prisonment which the system safely and effectually permits. The money earned by Belgian prisoners, and re- tained till their discharge, is never forfeited, even for misconduct. Once earned it is quite secure. I was told that they very often send a portion of their money to their relatives ; thus a parent in prison helps a child outside, or a child contributes to a parent's wants. The articles which may be purchased with the im- mediately disposable portion of the prison earnings are white bread, cheese, bacon, milk, paper, pens, tobacco, Arc. Smoking is only permitted as a privilege c 18 to the better behaved, (luring their hours of exercise in their separate yards, where they are obHged to keep in motion, either by brisk walking, by gardening, or by paving with heavy pounders. Such exercise as treadwheel work, or shot-drill, is never used in Bel- gium or Holland, and is spoken of with contempt. I was anxious to ascertain the effect of the Louvain system upon the health of the inmates, and made careful inquiries on the point. The official statistics show an average mortality of about 1^ per cent, per annum, which is a considerably lower rate than that of the partially congregate prison at Ghent, where it is nearly 3 per cent. In ten years of Louvain experience (with upwards of 500 inmates on the average), there have only been fourteen suicides and fourteen cases of insanity, that is to say, less than two per annum of each in this large prison. This state of things compares not unfavourably with English convict prisons. For example, at Portland prison there were, last year, with 1,500 prisoners, sixteen deaths, four attempted suicides, six cases of insanity induced, and 401 men placed under the surgeon's care for accidents. At Chatham last year the surgeon reported eighteen deaths, out of 1,400 men, 970 admissions to the infirmary, 31,849 " casualties," and 282 accidents, " a large proportion of which " are reported as "of a serious nature." 19 The crushing slavery, debasement, and contami- nation of some of the EugHsh convict prisons, especially Chatham and Portland,''' are a national disgrace. One of the first remarks made to me by the Deputy-Governor of Ghent prison was, " The English convict system is icorth nothing- — icorth nothing.'' Again, at Amsterdam, the venerable M. Suringar, who for forty-seven years has been connected with prison management, spoke with grief and contempt of the British convict system. In the Belgian and Dutch prisons, the inmates are treated with much more respect and Christian consideration than in our English convict prisons. The very important element of religious instruction also appears to be resorted to on a more extended and more kindly scale. In visiting the female prisons at Brussels and Antwerp, I found the women wholly under the care of religious " Sisters," in the proportion of about ten "Sisters " per 100 women. In our own country also, the experience of Elizabeth Fry, at Newgate, of Sarah Martin, at Yarmouth, and of the Catholic Sisters at Dublin and elsewhere, has proved that even for the most unmanageable of all criminals, depraved females, the best and only * This remark applies, in part, even to Spike Island Prison, where the convicts under the greatly eulogised " Irish system" spend most of their time. 20 source of hope consists in their oversight by sym- pathising rehgious women. And, in short, in all cases, it continues to be verified by results, despite the sneers of cynics or sceptics, that " the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation" even to the most hopeless and degraded. VOLUNTARY VISITATION. A principal defect of the Belgian prisons is the absence of provision for the voluntary visits of religious or philanthropic persons, other than the appointed and regular prison ministers. In some of the Dutch prisons arrangements for such systematic visitation, by judicious persons, are a praiseworthy feature. This voluntary visitation by Christian individuals or societies has been perseveringly advo- cated and promoted by M. Suringar and other Dutch philanthropists. This feature constitutes the most noticeable difference between Dutch and Belgian prisons, and might with great advantage be ex- tensively adopted in Great Britain, both in convict prisons and the ordinary gaols. The benefits of such visitation have also been found to be very great in some of the American and Italian prisons. Mr. Jonas, the Governor of New- gate Gaol, who remembers the systematic visitation of Mrs. Fry and her staff of companions, declares that those visits did not interfere with the discipline. 21 whilst they were very useful to the prisoners. Any cause of complaint on the part either of the prison officials or of the visitors, may be, with advantage, referred to the common medium of a magistrates' committee for decision or attention. Sir Walter Crofton informs me that the London Temperance League have recently solicited his aid in procuring admission into some prisons for their lecturers, to address the inmates on the evils of drunkenness. Such lectures could hardly fail to be of service, and it is satisfactory to hear that at least one body of magistrates, at Wisbeach, have opened their gaol to these useful emissaries. THE GHENT PRISON. A few words may be added relative to the Ghent prison. That establishment of 1,265 inmates is chiefly conducted on the English plan of silent congregate labour by day, and entire separation by night. But it has this advantage. One wing of 158 cells is managed on the cellular system of total separation from the other prisoners, but with abun- dant visitation by officers and instructors ; hence Ghent unites the cellular and congregate systems. Those prisoners who abuse the latter, or are detected in communication with others, are transferred to the cellular department for a time, or permanently if necessary. 22 Ghent prison is, periiaps, better adapted for life sentences than Louvain. I conversed with one prisoner who has been confined there for nearly thirty-ftvo years, for murder. He appeared to enjoy good health, both of body and mind. He is now fifty-eight years of age. Another prisoner, whom I saw, had been there twenty-seven years ; and a third (aged fifty-five), twenty-fom- years. He told me his health was good in general, and he greatly enjoys reading. Sm^ely the system which can main- tain criminals thus, for life, in health of body and mind, whilst treating them humanely, making them contribute largely by labour to their support, and giving them opportunity for reformation and repen- tance affords at the same time the spectacle of an abidingly deterrent punishment for murder, and a more Christian and Christ-like method, than cutting them off in their sins by the gallows or the guil- lotine ! But for such life-time prisoners, it is doubtful whether the full cellular system would be humane or successful. Nor is it applicable, unless with very special vigi- lance, to the very young, the aged, or the weak- minded. ADVANTAGES OF THE CELLULAE SYSTEM. Yet for the general class of prisoners, its effects arc at once so reformatory and so deterrent, that the 23 sentences to imprisonment under this system may safely and justly be rendered from 50 to 75 per cent, shorter than those for congregate confinement. Hence another of its great and economical ad- vantages. The Belgian Legislature has enacted laws declaring a general reduction of sentences passed during the continuance of the congregate system. For example, sentences of twenty years under the former system are now reduced to less than ten years, those of ten years to six years, and those of five to three and a half. Finally, the cellular system, as distinguished from the rigours of the former American solitary system, and as characterised by the substitution of good communication for evil, and by a much greater intercourse with officers, instructors, and visitors, than has hitherto been a feature of English prisons, presents the following advantages : — 1. More deterrence than the congregate or semi- congregate system. 2. Infinitely more of reformatory effect and of freedom from corrupting influences. 8. More economy to the State, or the ratepayers, by reason of the much shorter terms of confinement necessary. 4. Less breaking up, or ruin, of the prisoner's family, by reason of shorter separation from them. 5. A better reception of religious and secular instruction in prison. 24 6. A greater impetus to activity in useful and remunerated labour. 7. General exemption from contagious and epi- demic diseases. 8. Greater security from escapes. 9. Far fewer causes for prison punishment, with entire independence of treadwheels and cranks. 10. Greater facilities for the observation and prompt detection of disease or insanityo 11. Protection to the prisoner, on his discharge, from future recognition by other prisoners ; and 12. A greater eligibility for employment and a far more effectual qualification for a career of honest usefulness. NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CELLULAR SYSTEM. But, inasmuch as the best of systems may be liable to the worst abuse if not rightly administered, so the cellular system, to be accompanied by success, as in Belgium and Holland, must be as vigilantly and unceasingly guarded, as it is in those countries, against the neglect or mistakes which would convert it into the rigid solitarjj system — a system as evil as the other is good. And, to prevent misunderstanding, it must be admitted, that although a useful amount of separa- tion has been introduced into the English county and horovgh .i^aols, yet before the entire separation of 25 prisoners from each other can be safely carried out, other important modifications of the present arrange- ments will be necessary. And in particular these three — 1. Much more religious and secular instruction. 2. Much more remunerative and reformatory labour, and more participation in the earnings by the prisoner himself, both as a stimulus in gaol and as a help to an honest start on discharge. 3. Far greater facility than at present for the regular visitation of prisoners (separately) hj judicious volmitanj visitors, desirous of promoting their moral and general improvement.; such visitation to be care- fully guarded from any improper interference with the authorities and discipline of the establishment. When it is remembered that perhaps most of the reforms in criminal treatment have resulted from unofficial sources and yo/^/ifar^ visitors— such as John Howard, Mrs. Fry, Sir Fowell Buxton, Sarah Martin, and many others — it is evident that this great means of usefulness should be carefully encouraged. Yet of late years the gradual tendency has been rather to discouragement and retrogression in this respect. But this increased intercourse of prisoners with (jood and improvimj society is an essential to the complete success of the excellent principle of their entire separation Ironi evil and corrupting association. D 20 THE DISCUSSION. A long and interesting discussion followed the reading of the foregoing paper. Some of the principal observations are subjoined. The Eev. W. C. Osborne, Chaplain of the Bath Gaol, said the separate system was now firmly established in England (in ordinary gaols), and he did not think we had much to learn in the matter of separation from our Continental neigh- bours. The only difficulty was how far it might be infringed upon. He was inclined to think that nine months was the longest period during which a man should be kept in separate confinement. Mr. George Hurst, J.P., Bedford, said his idea of im- prisonment was that it ought to be inflicted with a view to reforming the offenders. Every prisoner ought to be put to some productive labour. The Government, however, seemed to be averse to it in short terms of imprisonment, and only permitted its employment in long terms of imprisonment- In regard to the question of punishment, he thought, whilst tlie first off'ence was one of choice and ought to be punished heavily, the second arose from the man's inability to gain a livelihood, and efforts ought to be made, not so much to punish by long imprisonment as to gain him some employment, if not in this country, by sending him out of the country. As to recommittals, the experience of Bedford Gaol showed that they had diminished and not increased, and he attributed the result to the system of giving tlie prisoners an improving system of labour. Mr. T. B. L. Baker, J.P., of Gloucestershire, said Mr. Tallack's description of the gaols of Holland was the system which he had been working for for thirty-nine years. In 27 ]jristol it was impossible for any one prisoner to have seen the lace of any other prisoner, but in a large county he did not think this strict seclusion was at all necessary. Colonel Ratcliffe, of Birmingham, recommended the intro- duction of prisoners' aid societies, similar to that established in Birmingham. The Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, Bart., M.P., said there was a maximum period beyond which separation could not be carried, and he wanted to know how they were going to carry on and regulate the punishment afterwards. Mr. Tallack said the separation in Holland and Belgium was simply a separation between the prisoners ; but there was abundant communication, very much more than in Eng- land, between the prisoner, the prison officials, chaplains, instructors, and voluntary visitors. Sir John Pakington was glad he had elicited the infor- mation, because if they could only improve the present system so as to enable a man to bear a long imprisonment without injury to Imdy and mind, he thought it was most desirable to do so. Mr. Tallack observed that he had been informed by M. Suringar that the system of which he had spoken could be carried out for forty years if needful. Colonel Oldfif.li) considered tlie cellular system was especially adapted to short inijtrisonments and to children, and he suggested that there should be a system of cellular incarceration at police stations for children, in order to prevent them ac([uiring the stigma of a gaol-bird. Mr. Sperling, vice-cluiinnau of the Cambridgeshire Quarter Sessions, considered it impossible lo introduce trade instructors into small prisons. Dr. Wines, the American Connuissioner to this country on 28 prison discipline, said he thought that when the supreme aim of imprisonment was to make men and women better, morally, mentally, and physically, and everything that constituted mardiood or womanhood, they should come to look upon those who were confined in prisons not so much as subjects of punishment and suffering, as wards of the State, when the State stepped in and took the plaCe of the parent. The education — moral, physical, and intellectual — of the child has been neglected, and the State stepped in and became the parent of the child, or the youth, or the man. He was a ward of the State, and then it was a« simple question of when he had Ijecome changed — when he had given reasonable promise of going out from his imprisonment and becoming an honest, industrious, and useful citizen. As regarded prisons that aimed at reform, he had visited a great many in America, Europe, and this country, and he had met with hut two in the course of his visitation in which he thought that the separate end, the vital and predominant end in view, was reformation. One was the prison of Louvain, and the other the House of Correction of Detroit, Micliigan. The organisa- tion and administration of the Belgian prisons were the most perfect he had seen anywhere, but still he was not an advocate for carrying out that system completely. The Right Hon. Lord Teignmouth (the Chairman) ap- ]ii()\('d tlie establislimunt of a rightly modified cellular system, combined with the principle of more industrial education and greatly increased secular and religious instruction. rriutcd by 11. JJakuiott & Ho.\s, 13, Mark Lane, E.G. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 822 013 9 • w^w-grj,',;;^^ UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles ^^Thisbook is DUE on the last date stamped below. MAY 1 5 1978 PSD 1916 8/77