THE PUNISHMENT OF CRIMINALS. 553 



ment for a given period should not of itself entitle an inmate to 

 his discharge. As a rule, the habitual criminal will earn more 

 good prison marks than the occasional offender. It is a singular 

 phase in the character of the former that their conduct in gaol is 

 almost invariably exemplary, their experience having taught them 

 the necessity of this in order to gain good service time in reduction 

 of their sentences. 



It is evident that the subject of the treatment of habitual 

 criminals gives scope for wide difference of opinion, and for far 

 more detail than can here be entered on. The success of Dr. 

 Strahan's, or any similar proposal, will probably depend upon the 

 character of those who would have the custody of the offenders. 

 Rules as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians would 

 haA'e to be enforced with firmness and inflexible justice, and the 

 inauguration of the system wovdd require the assistance of ex- 

 perienced governors of gaols and others accustomed to the charge 

 of convicted men. Dr. Strahan's suggested reform is of deep 

 interest to all thinking men. It is not one to be hurriedly approved 

 or condemned. As a sympathiser with him in the object he has in 

 view, I shovdd like to see it, or something on similar lines, succeed ; 

 but it is useless to deny that there are herculean, but not, one may 

 hope, insuperable difficulties to conquer — any half-thought out or 

 imperfect effort would be certain to end in disastrous failure. If 

 Australian federation is to be an accomplished fact in the not 

 remote future, then the difficulty would be much lessened, as a 

 suitable central place within the Federal Territory might be 

 selected to test the feasibility of the reform, and the necessary 

 expenditure incurred at the joint expense of the whole of Australia, 

 and the criminals of each colony might be sent to the penitentiary. 

 At any rate they could federate for this purpose. Dr. Strahan 

 proposes that in England the management of these industrial 

 penitentiaries should follow somewhat on the same lines as the 

 public asylums, viz., by a medical director acting under a 

 committee of magistrates, or of the local county council. In the 

 place of the prison warders there would be a staff of instructors, 

 whose duly it would be to teach the young and ignorant, and to 

 see that the idle and indifferent were employed. He proposes 

 there should be a gymnasium, a library, a baud, and a drill 

 sergeant, and, as before mentioned, a strict separation oi the very 

 depraved from the rest, with every encouragement for those of the 

 lowest j^rade to rise step by step to the highest grade, and join 

 those who are qualifying for discharge on parole. He foresees that 

 an outcry against the institution of the indefinite Fentence will be 

 raised in England, but points out that these have already been 

 adopted by several of the United States of America (such as New 

 York State, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania), and also calls 

 attention to the fact that it is not the ordinary responsible citizen 

 that is being dealt with. Coming to the question of cost, he says 



