552 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



It is from no feeling of antipathy to these men such an opinion 

 is expressed. Cruelty and malice may engender a passing feeling 

 of this nature, but for all ordinary crimes a Judge, with any 

 experience, knows how heavily handicapped the man who has been 

 convicted is in any fresh start in life. He is, in a sense, a marked 

 man. He must almost necessarily assume an alias. Under this 

 assumed name he may be fortunate enough to get into a good 

 situation. A friend of his employer recognises him, and at once 

 asks the employer if he knows the sort of man he has in his 

 service, tells of his crime and his assumed name, and the result is 

 his dismissal. It seems hard that his punishment should still go 

 on, but it is difficult to see how his employer's friend could act 

 otherwise. He might remain silent no doubt ; but if he did so, 

 and evil results ensued, his friend, hearing that he had concealed 

 the danger, might justly doubt his friendship. The convict, driven 

 from one place to another, at last unable to get anything to do, 

 constantly watched by the police from the day of his release, and 

 apparently an outcast from society, and seeing no prospect of better 

 things, again relapses into crime, and at last is ranked as an 

 habitual. The aliases he has been obliged to assume to get em- 

 ployment always tell against him with a jury. Judges often have 

 plaintive stories of this kind before them ; some, of course, are 

 concocted, but others are true. For such men, therefore, it seems 

 desirable, for their own sakes as well as that of society, to provide 

 a permanent retreat from their kind, somewhat in the manner 

 suggested by Dr. Strahan. 



tl will be noticed that Dr. Strahan stipulates that only those 

 ■who have been three times convicted of an offence should be so 

 segregated. It may be open to doubt if this test would always be 

 the true one. Attention has already been called to the fact that 

 many convicted murderers have their sentences commuted to 

 imprisonment for life, and after a few years are often again cast 

 loose upon society. Under Dr. Strahan's exception such a convict 

 would escape, Avhilst a poor miserable drunkard, three times con- 

 victed, might be sent to the penitentiary for his life. It is the 

 brutal and the malevolent, the burglar, the garotter, and the 

 violent criminal that society is most interested in excluding from 

 its midst, and where the evidence discloses brutality, diabolical 

 ingenuity, or dclibei-ate malice it may justly be urged that it ought 

 to be in the power of the tribunal convicting to order that, after 

 the expiration of a certain term of imprisonment, such offenders 

 should be separated, as Dr. Strahan proposes, notwithstanding 

 there are less than three previous convictions against them. Of 

 course, in such a penitentiary full provision is proposed, and would 

 be necessary, for classifying prisoners. In some form or another 

 each would have to earn a living, and every effort would be made 

 for their moral improvement, and full opportunity given for them 

 to reform. The merely conforming to the rules of the establish- 



