62 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



Providence he would have been taught to look upon as the 

 natural rewards of activity, prudence, and labour, are crowded 

 around him. He is left to his own thoughts ; his recollections 

 are vicious ; are his anticipations likely to be virtuous ? With 

 ten years to be spent under these circumstances, what will 

 his mind be most likely to be directed to ? Will it not be to 

 means of beguiling his time in sleep or self-forgetfulness, or 

 to evade his compulsory labour 1 Could any way be better 

 contrived to fix a man in a disposition to idleness and va 

 grancy ? His life stagnates, his impulses putrify, his only 

 activity is directed in the search for opportunities of personal 

 gratification which are obtained, we are told, even in 

 ways most horrible and for this purpose his powers of 

 deception are sharpened, or, when unable to offend in act, 

 he seeks in fancy a gratification by gloating over impure 

 images. 



And is this lame, inconsistent, miserable plan, all its details 

 so working at cross purposes, the end of all the philanthropic 

 labours, private and associated, that have been given to the 

 subject during the last fifty years 1 The result, good friends, 

 not the end. Then, in God s name, WHAT NEXT ? 



An answer from Captain Machonochie will be found in the 

 Appendix C, and I beg for it, with all earnestness, the thought 

 ful perusal of my countrymen. It is based on plain, distinct, 

 uncontradictory principles, which are applicable to the punish 

 ment of all criminals, and to the construction of all criminal 

 laws. It is the plan of no closet philosopher, but of a cool- 

 headed, warm-hearted sailor, who was chosen by his govern 

 ment, for his manifest natural qualifications for undertaking 

 the superintendence of criminals, to take charge of one of its 

 most responsible penal establishments. It is a plan that has 

 been well considered, and is ably defended to the minutest 

 details, as the reader, who is willing to study it further, will 



