judicial sentence, is punishment enough to make them restrain themselves for the rest of their lives. But for those who will not or cannot so restrain themselves, it is necessary, both for public welfare and their own, that a longer restraint should be imposed which may both protect the public from their present dangerous condition, and give the prisoners leisure to Overcome their propensities.

Now, where we find that nine, ten, or thirteen previous convictions for assaults are proved against a prisoner, it cannot but be considered as a blot on cur system. If a man is once unable to control himself, it is well worth trying whether a slight and cheap punishment may not give him control of his actions for the future. If he be told that on his next conviction a very far longer sentence will be given, it will give him greater powers of control. But if these fail, he must be treated either as a hardened offender who, in spite of all warning, will continue to disturb the peace to which the public are entitled, or as a lunatic, who must be kept in safety. If such a course were adopted, as ten days for a first, even though rather serious, assault; three months for a second; and twelve for a third, there would be no such thing as a man thirteen times convicted; and a far smaller number would have to be punished at all.

But the class who commit crimes of violence for the sake of robbery, or to rescue prisoners, are of a different kind. Here we have little commiseration, excepting such as we must feel for all our fellow-creatures, who, from want of education, (by which I mean not reading and writing, but education in steady work and honesty,) have fallen into crime. Living, as I do, in the country, I have had little personal knowledge of men of this class, but there appear certain curious facts about them in which one can hardly be mistaken.

I think it will be found that fifteen years ago a large number of watches, purses, and the like were lost without the owner being in the least aware how they had been taken. Some quiet well-dressed stranger accidentally had stumbled against him and profusely apologized-and the purse was gone. Boys from thirteen to fifteen years old were especially handy in this work; and I knew one who never went out without two respectably dressed men walking before him, and a boy or two following to take whatever he stole. Now, this has nearly ceased. I have not seen a boy in Coldbath Fields Prison, since about 1860 or 1861, who had a hand that could pick a pocket skilfully. As soon as it became the common practice of magistrates to send all boys to reformatories on their second convictions, the highly-skilled thieving became impossible. No boy could attain any proficiency before he was caught a second time, and twelve months' hard work in a reformatory ruined for ever the delicacy of finger necessary for a pickpocket.

I much doubt whether we are not paying for our immunity, or nearly so, from the skilled pickpocket, by the rare but serious out

breaks of garotting and robbery; but I believe that the same remedy will be found efficacious.

This class of crimes of violence, if they are in no degree crimes of passion, are most curiously crimes of fashion. The garotter was never heard of in England till the autumn of 1862. On a sudden it became the fashion, and the streets of London were rendered unsafe for months. It was not that the thieves of London suddenly became more wicked, but a new form of obtaining money had been discovered, which did not require the long apprenticeship of pocket-picking, or the peculiar delicacy of finger, but which any strong and resolute man could acquire in a week's practice, and might carry on with the aid of only two sneaks or cowardly fellows, to keep watch at the ends of the street. There was no wonder that it spread quickly amongst those who had been for years used to thieving in one way or other. Occasionally, indeed, a garotter was found who was not known to the police, but it never appeared to be the custom to make much inquiry as to his previous life.

In the same way, the fact of the City Militia marching, last June, with its band, and drawing a crowd of people round it, appeared suddenly to suggest an easy opportunity for plunder, and at once all the roughs in London took up the fashion, and wherever a band playing, or a target, or shooting for nuts, attracted a crowd, a dozen roughs were found knocking down and robbing men in open day.

The histories of these two outbreaks appear to suggest two remedies to be looked to in future. In the first place, crimes of fashion-of sensation, to use the phrase of the day-will be most easily met by a sensational remedy. My friend Mr. Adderley's Act for flogging garotters was a measure which might probably be used with great advantage, and a single flogging might probably put a sudden stop to a violent outbreak. Its failing, however, is that it must be very rarely used, or it would do far more harm than good. One severe flogging given to boy or man will often check his evil course. If it fails to do so, and a second flogging is tried, it is an even chance whether it do more good or harm-a third or fourth will do only harm. So with the body of roughs. If one or two of the desperadoes of the 3rd of June last had been subjected to Mr. Adderley's treatment, it might not improbably have struck a panic through the whole body, and prevented the subsequent robberiesbut were such a punishment inflicted often, the roughs would be only rendered more brutal.

The thing which I believe really did stop the garotting was not what we should consider a sensational matter, but to those concerned it was eminently so, though the public scarcely knew that anything had been done. It was suggested by Mr. D. W. Harvey, in a letter to the Times, dated November 8th, but was not carried out till some time afterwards. The police were instructed to go quietly round and call upon all the ticket-of-leave men known to be in London. (These men, by the mistaken policy of that day, were supposed not

to be watched by the police. Happily they were so, or our crime would have been doubled.) They informed them that they were known, and that if the garotte continued they would be locked up. The effect spreading through every thieves' den in London was sensational in the highest degree. There was a sudden stop to garotting, or only an occasional attempt by some outsiders; the public or the press turned their attention to other matters, the former happy to forget its fears, the latter having some newer excitement to turn to, and the garotte fever was at an end.

At present, happily, ticket-of-leave men of the old partly fabulous description are, as a cause of terror, things of the past. A ticket-ofleave man under the surveillance of the police is perforce as quiet and peaceable a subject as most that Her Majesty possesses; but the facts of close connexion shown between the former convicts and the garotters-I may add the numerous previous convictions brought against the roughs of last June-all show that the brutal robbers are usually men who have been often previously convicted. Some forty years of pretty intimate acquaintance with a good many criminals has made me feel most strongly the evil caused to the prisoner himself, and to society, by a series of short imprisonments.

Who does not know-who can doubt that a ten times convicted offender is rarely otherwise than a danger, and a pest to society, either by his skill or by his violence? But why should a ten times convicted offender exist? There are now none such amongst our boys where there used ten years ago to be hundreds. There can be none such where it is a rule to send every second conviction to the long sentence of a reformatory. This system lowered the crime of boys from 14,000 to 8,000 in four years, and has reduced crimes of skill Yet, if it be proposed to adopt the same system with men, which would reduce equally the crimes both of skill and violence, we are told that it would be an innovation, and would not leave that ample discretion in the hands of the magistrate, which is so essential to his dignity, and to the meting out of an exact amount of retaliation by which each offence ought to be atoned for.

to zero.

The exact value of this argument I will not here attempt to estimate, but I take it to be a simple fact that were more pains taken to ascertain the previous character of prisoners, (as is done in Gloucestershire and some other counties with little trouble and excellent effect) and were eighteen or nineteen out of every twenty proved first convictions to receive a very short imprisonment-say ten days-with a warning that if caught again they would be imprisoned for twelve months, and if a third time, they would be sent to penal servitude for seven years-were such a system, I say, adopted, the necessary consequence would be that a ten times, or a five times convicted offender could not exist, that a really skilful housebreaker could not exist, and that the hardened and brutal robber would not be likely to exist.

P

PRISON LABOUR.

Is it Expedient and Practicable_to_make Prison Labour Productive and Remunerative? By EDWARD SHEPHERD.

TH

THE benefits proposed in the utilizing of prisoners' labour are, that the habits of industry acquired in confinement may be beneficial to the criminal on his return to society, and that the produce of his labour may materially contribute towards his maintenance in prison. The difficulties to be overcome are

(1.) The gradually increasing expenditure in prisons.
(2.) The short periods of imprisonment.

(3.) The defective arrangement for carrying on productive
employment in prisons.

(4.) The difficulty of providing remunerative labour and a market for manufactures.

(1.) The expenditure on criminals is gradually increasing, and in the latest Government returns the amount for maintenance and confinement of prisoners in the county and local prisons only is upwards of half a million. (See Judicial Statistics, published 1867, p. xxxv.) The average expense per prison is no less than £34. 8s. 8d. per annum for each prisoner, a sum considerably more than that on which many an agricultural labourer has to maintain himself and his family. The profits from productive labour are slightly above £2 per annum only for each prisoner.

In America it is well known that in many cases the prisons are self-supporting, and in nearly all a large proportion of the cost is returned from the labour of the prisoners. America has made two improvements in prison discipline; one, the silent and separate system, which we have imitated in this country; the other, an improvement in the industrial and economical arrangements, which we will hope may also shortly be adopted here.

Belgium is also setting us an example in economical management and productive labour; and in the Pall Mall Gazette of the 13th September is an article, contrasting the expense of the prisons in France with those of England. The comparison omits the expense of building and furnishing, and is as follows:

The central prisons are those to which criminals are committed who have received a sentence exceeding one year.

It is also worthy of remark that, along with this greater economy of management the effects of imprisonment are shown by the percentage of re-committals to be in favour of the French system; the re-committals being four per cent. less than our own.

(2.) The average term of detention of all prisoners does not exceed sixty days, and one-third of the committals are for one month or under.

Under such circumstances, and in prisons as at present constructed, there is no doubt a great difficulty in providing any employment which will be remunerative. In the full consideration of the labour question it is necessary to consider whether some plan of giving longer sentences would not be beneficial.

It is universally acknowledged that short sentences have no deterring or reformatory effect on old offenders. I believe that, for a first offence, a short sentence is as effective as a long one; it would be well, then, to continue short periods for such offenders, but habitual criminals must be subjected to long imprisonment before any change can be effected in their habits. It may perhaps be said that imprisonments should be long or short, according to the offence committed, but the law in some cases does not reason in this manner, but declares that after a second conviction for a larceny the judge is empowered to pass a long sentence of either imprisonment or penal servitude. It therefore takes into account the repetition of the crime in addition to the actual offence. Let this wise regulation be extended to all classes of offenders, and by that means all habitual criminals would be sentenced to lengthened imprisonment, and their labour would thus become valuable. At the same time habits of industry would be formed, the prospect of reformation greatly increased, and, amongst other benefits, they would be removed from the society of the young of their own class, and unable to influence them by their evil example.

(3.) The next difficulty for which I have to try to suggest a remedy is the arrangement or routine of the prison.

Prisoners generally rise at six o'clock. Washing, dressing, cell cleaning, inspection, &c., will occupy some time, and in the interval until eight o'clock, an hour and a half's labour may be performed. Breakfast, half an hour, labour one hour and a half more, until ten o'clock, and then the removal of prisoners to and from chapel, and the time occupied by divine service will take up an hour more, and after that one hour is again available for labour. The time from twelve to one is occupied by dinner, and the period from one to six is broken by one or two hours' exercise, an hour's school, the inspection of the governor, chaplain, and surgeon; all occupying time; so that rarely more than seven hours a day, and frequently only six, are spent in labour. Is it a matter for surprise, when these continual interruptions are considered, that so little work is performed in prisons?