398 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



transportation was adopted about forty years ago, and still exists 

 in the penal colonies of Guiana and New Caledonia, The French 

 system has strong advocates, and found one of its warmest 

 defenders in Prof. Leveilld, of the faculty of law of Paris. 



The subject of comi3ensation or restitution for injured parties 

 has been commended at previous congresses. It has long been 

 felt that modern laws do not sufiBciently indemnify the victim of 

 crime. The difficulty is to show practically how this may be 

 done. It might be possible to apply a portion of the prisoner's 

 earnings to the relief of his victim, but the amount thus gained 

 would not be large. It is suggested that by combining condi- 

 tional liberation with the idea of reparation much more might be 

 effected. In some respects the laws are harder upon the victim 

 than upon the offender. Thus in France, while in a case sub- 

 mitted to a jury costs are not assessed upon the complainant if 

 the complaint is sustained, in all other cases the complainant is 

 obliged to defray the costs of the process whether for or against 

 him. The congress passed resolutions looking for a change in 

 such laws, and decided to take into serious consideration at its 

 next session, in 1900, various propositions for the relief of the 

 injured party. 



Imprisonment is not the only means of checking crime ; and 

 no question more important came before the congress than the 

 subject of probation for first offenders. On this subject America 

 has some experience to offer, and Mr. Charlton T. Lewis, of New 

 York, and the writer had the honor of presenting to the congress 

 brief expositions of the method and results of the probation sys- 

 tem in Massachusetts. That State now has a probation officer 

 attached to each criminal court in every city and county, and 

 there are seven in the city of Boston. In the year 1893-'94 47,249 

 cases passed under their examination before going into court, and 

 5,317 were placed on probation. This probation system deserves 

 wider attention. One of its most important features is not only 

 the examination by the officer before trial, which induces the 

 judge to place the accused on probation, but the visitation and 

 surveillance exercised by the officers during the probation period. 



In the whole matter of prison administration the congress had 

 the advantage of the presence of a large number of practical and 

 experienced prison directors. Politicians on this side of the water 

 are fond of tampering with the subject of prison labor. But labor 

 in prison was recognized by this, as indeed by every prison con- 

 gress, as an essential element in discipline and reformation. To 

 deprive prisoners of labor is simply inhuman, and in the end 

 results in transferring the criminal from a prison to an insane 

 asylum. The need of special prisons for women with women 

 directors was affirmed, and while the right of a prisoner to wage 



