TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 163 
__ These reforms will involve a better organization of our legal service, a revision of our 
rules of evidence and trial, and the removal of useless technicalities. Thirdly. As we 
approach certainty in the matters of detection and conviction, the less need be the 
severity of our penal code. This suggests a moral consideration. ‘That amount of 
severity is not justifiable which is a set-off against imperfections which we can remove 
from our penal legislation. 
In the Reformatory movement of the present day, the great object of criminal law 
is overlooked. Lord Brougham, e.g., one of the supporters of the movement, lays 
down the proposition, “that all punishment should be conducted mainly with a view 
to reforming the offender*.” From the laws of our moral nature, however, the prac- 
_ ticability of this system must be very doubtful. But its grand error is, that it mis- 
takes its proper object. The inculcation of moral lessons to reform convicts, and the 
infliction of such punishment as will deter others from committing offences, are objects 
so widely apart, that they must be reached by far different roads; and the latter 
objéct, and not the former, is the end of criminal law. 
The Juvenile Reformatories, also, are open to grave objections. Their position is 
unnatural, for they seek to discharge parental duties. Their effects too are mis- 
chievous, for instead of public attention being directed to such means as will assist 
parents in rearing their children, these institutions tend to impress them with the 
notion that they shall be relieved, if not from supporting, at least from caring for 
their offspring. 
We must, indeed, deprecate immoral tendencies in the arrangements of our gacls; 
but the prevention of crime is to be promoted, not by reforming convicts, but by 
improving, materially and morally, the mass of the people, and by the detection, 
conviction, and punishment of offenders. 
| 
4 
On the Progress of Free Trade on the Continent. 
By M. Jotrranp, of Brussels. 
Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Present Prospects of Popular Education in 
Treland. By J. W.Kavanacu, Head Inspector of National Schools. 
On Competition at the Bar. By Professor Lxstiz. 
On Professional Incomes. By Professor LESulz. 
The Land-Revolution in Ireland. By Joux Locke. 
This paper, on the subject of ‘The Encumbered Estates Commission,” was com- 
municated, on a day’s notice, at the request of several Vice-Presidents of the Statis- 
tical Section, and therefore some of the figures could only be considered as_proxi- 
matively correct ; but the results, which the author had anticipatively sketched at the 
Belfast meeting in 1852, and again at Hull in 1853, had been fully verified by the 
‘subsequent success of this remarkable tribunal. 
_ Number of petitions presented up to this date, 4159; number of conveyances 
executed, 7105; total produce of sales, twenty millions and seven-eighths, of which 
about two-thirds, or fourteen millions+, had been distributed. About two million 
_ acres, or nearly a seventh of the available superficies of the island, had fallen under 
_ the hammer of the court; and over that extent the proprietors were increased in 
number about eight and a half-fold. The expenditure on improvements of these new 
and solvent landlords constituted the principal cause of the rise in the wages of labour, 
which were doubled since the date of the establishment of the Commission. During 
_ the eight years of its continuance, from three to four millions yearly were poured into 
_ reproductive channels over the surface of this impoverished agricultural country, #. e. 
_ taking into account the capital jaid out on the land by purchasers, as well as the 
_ * National Reformatory Union ; Authorized Report of Bristol Meeting, 1856, p. 58. 
___ F Cash only.—Investments in Government Stock, and credits to encumbrancers who pur- 
chased, may amount to four millions more. 
11* 
