and such grounds are always capable of being stated. Nor is there any reason why the reports of police and others on which the Home Office acts should not be cited as freely as those of prison governors, doctors, and chaplains, in the volume before us.

But while the efforts of the Commissioners, as regards the classification of prisoners, have hitherto been frustrated, they have taken a very important step as regards prisoners between the ages of 16 and 21 years for whom special treatment is now for the first time provided. The rules and details of this treatment are given in the Report before us. "Their object," write the Commissioners, "broadly stated, may be said to build up self-respect." This seems to us to be the true principle to apply to such cases, and if kept steadily in view any defects in the original plan will soon be detected and rectified. A proposal for extending the age for birching is not likely to meet with much favour from persons imbued with this principle, nor indeed is the free use of the birch up to the age of 16 very conducive to the cultivation of self-respect as soon as that age has been reached. Nor is this the only improvement which has been introduced. The abolition of the tread-mill will be regretted by none save those who think that anything that has lasted for a considerable time must be good. The new prison dietary, whether susceptible of improvement or not, is clearly better than the old. The power of earning a remission of a part of the sentence by industry and good conduct has already proved a powerful incentive to both. Why should it not be granted to the unfortunate “lifer" as well as to the person who is committed for a term of months or years?

The treatment of untried prisoners has also been rendered more humane, but in this respect there is still much to be desired. A prisoner who is presumed to be innocent, and is only detained for safe custody-perhaps because from

poverty unable to procure bail-ought, as far as possible, to have all the same facilities for communicating with the outer world, both by letter and by interview, that he would have if liberated on bail. Otherwise, there will often be one law for the rich and another for the poor. The present restrictions are calculated to hamper the prisoner materially in making his defence. Eaves-droppers at interviews, and letters opened, read, and perhaps detained, in order to be given in evidence against the prisoner at trial, are little short of an outrage. What would be said if similar conditions were sought to be imposed on an accused person who had been bailed out? It is also worthy of notice that prisoners for debt in the metropolis are to be sent to Wormwood Scrubbs, a prison for male convicted prisoners, instead of to Brixton, where untried prisoners are to be kept; and the rule for having separate prisons for prisoners of different sexes will apparently be departed from in the case of female debtors.

Professional criminals-in substance professional thieves -also engage the attention of the Commissioners, and it seems that they have recommended to the Home Secretary a mode of dealing with them, the nature of which is briefly indicated and resembles the indeterminate sentences passed in some of the United States, and indeed the life-sentences passed by the Home Secretary when commuting sentences of death-many of these "lifers" having been liberated in a few years. Sentences of penal servitude, it is suggested, might, as recommended by a former Home Secretary, be passed for the maximum term which the present law permits, but carried out under somewhat relaxed conditions, the Home Secretary being empowered to grant a conditional liberation when it was reported that there were good hopes that the prisoner had reformed. To this project there are several objections—the most obvious being that, as the prisoner has no opportunity of stealing while in gaol,

there is no way of forming a well-grounded opinion as to whether he is anxious to turn over a new leaf or not. An accomplished hypocrite would, in fact, have the best chance of liberation. Much, however, would depend on the prison officials who would, in effect, exercise the discretion at present vested in the trial judges. A sanguine and benevolent governor would regard almost every prisoner as a reformed character and recommend liberation accordingly, while one of a gloomy and misanthropic disposition would refuse to entrust any of them with the privilege of freedom. Inequalities would certainly arise, and there would be charges of favouritism and jobbery which would shake the public confidence. It should be observed that these professional thieves seldom resort to violence, nor do they often succeed in making a large haul. They spend a large portion of their time in prison as it is, and cost us almost as much while there as when at large; and even if permanently placed under lock and key, recruits would ere long be found to take their places. The importance of protecting the public against individual depredators has, we think, been exaggerated. It would be very desirable to bring the perpetrator of every individual crime to justice, but we might pursue this end in so objectionable and expensive a manner as to render the remedy worse than the disease. The same remark may, we think, be applied to individual criminals. We have not much faith in reformatories for adults; but even if the professional thief is anxious. to lead an honest life when discharged from prison, how can he do so unless placed in a position to support himself by honest labour? No kind of discharged prisoners would find it more difficult to obtain employment than those released

1 Sir Robert Anderson seems to maintain the contrary; but the fact is, that when a man has once been tried and convicted, he has very little chance of perpetrating extensive frauds. A clever swindler may have succeeded in several large frauds before being convicted, but we cannot treat unconvicted swindlers as professional thieves.

from a reformatory for professional thieves, and the difficulty would be enhanced by police supervision if resorted to. More of the relapses into crime which occur under the present system are due to this inability to earn an honest living than the public is probably aware of; and there is little use in trying to reform a thief, if, at the end of the process, he has to choose between dishonesty and starvation. There is more to be said for indeterminate sentences at the beginning of a career of crime, than after a man has fully embarked in it. Only a small measure of success can be expected from any new mode of dealing with professional thieves, and after making extensive changes in their treatment we might not improbably find that the game was not worth the candle. Improvements in the present system are no doubt possible, and ought to be adopted, but the matter is neither very urgent nor very important. It is satisfactory, however, to find that the Prisons Commissioners do not recommend a vindictive punishment followed by an additional penalty imposed for the protection of the public.

We learn from the Report that the main distinction between imprisonment with and without hard labour is, that in the former case the first 28 days are spent at more or less disagreeable work, "in strict cellular separation." The connection between hard labour and cellular separation is not very obvious, and we suspect the person who passes sentence is often unaware of it. The Commissioners appear to prefer associated labour, controlled by classification. We have never been satisfied as to the merits of strict cellular separation; but if the object be to cut off evil communications, surely its adoption for 28 days, or any other limited period, will not prevent these communications during the remainder of the term of imprisonment. Moreover, it is chiefly the better class of prisoners who require to be protected against evil communications, while those who are sentenced to hard labour belong to the worst class.

There is still abundance of scope for the exercise of common sense as well as humanity in the management of our prisons. A sentence of penal servitude, we believe, commences in the same way as a sentence of hard labour.

Punishments seem, on the whole, to be pretty frequent, and though there is less flogging' than there was some years ago, that punishment is by no means obsolete. We refer to it chiefly, however, on account of the very unsatisfactory account given of the reasons for its infliction, which are tabulated in an Appendix to the Report. During the year 46 prisoners were flogged for breaches of discipline. In all cases but two the offence is set down as "Gross personal violence to an officer," or "to officers" of the prison. Now, 'gross personal violence" may mean anything, from a trivial assault to an attempt to murder, and we can see no reason why in a report which professes to give the details of each case the public should be put off with this miserable modicum of information. (In the remaining two cases the offences were "mutiny" and "inciting to mutiny.") However, we are given another little slice of information in the next column, which is the same in all the 46 instances, viz., "The offence was of so serious a character as to render the infliction of corporal punishment necessary for the due preservation of discipline." Here, again, we think the public might receive some intimation as to the circumstances which rendered the infliction of corporal punishment necessary. And strange to say, in two instances (for there are 48, not 46, in the table), the punishment which the Report declares to have been "necessary for the due preservation of discipline," was not confirmed by the Home Secretary,

1 We refer to flogging for prison offences. One of the defects of the Report is the absence of information as to sentences of flogging passed by Courts of Justice on prisoners convicted of crimes. Appendix No. 3 ought to have contained a statement on this subject and is imperfect without it. But we believe that a much larger number of floggings are due to the Visiting Justices than to the Judges of the High Court.