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.
 
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