THE MARK SYSTEM. 189 



in happier or terser terms ; and even when thus stated, the improvement 

 contemplated on existing practice appears immense. But much more 

 when the ulterior consequences are also considered. By substituting a 

 powerful internal stimulus to exertion for that physical coercion which 

 must ever be at best an imperfect external one, while all necessary bond 

 age and suffering as the consequences of crime would be retained, direct 

 &quot; slavery&quot; would be banished from among our secondary punishments. 

 The tendencies of our management would be to good, whereas those of 

 the existing system are &quot; to evil continually.&quot; Men would improve under 

 it, instead of becoming worse. And the administration of public justice 

 would acquire a place among the Christian agencies of our land : it is 

 painful to thinkhow far it is at present removed in operation from any 

 such character. 



But another view may be also taken of the question thus involved, 

 not less interesting. If we look abroad into ordinary life, we cannot but 

 be struck with the resemblance which our present forms of secondary 

 punishment bear to every thing that is in this most enfeebling and dete 

 riorating, and how directly opposed they are to those forms of adversity 

 which, under the influence of Providential wisdom, reform character and 

 invigorate it. Slavery deteriorates long seclusion deteriorates every 

 condition, in a word, more or less deteriorates, which leaves no choice 

 of action, requires no virtue but obedience, affords no stimulus to exer 

 tion beyond this, supplies the wants of nature without effort with a view 

 to them, and restores to prosperity, through lapse of time, without evi 

 dence that such restoration is deserved. Yet this is our present system 

 of secondary punishment. What improves, on the contrary, is a con 

 dition of adversity from which there is no escape but by continuous 

 effort, which leaves the degree of that effort much in the individual s 

 own power, but if lie relaxes his suffering is deepened and prolonged, 

 and it is only alleviated and shortened if he struggles manfully which 

 makes exertion necessary even to earn daily bread and something 

 more, prudence, self-command, voluntary economy, and the like, to re 

 cover prosperity. To this, as yet, secondary punishment bears no resem 

 blance ; but were our sentences measured by labour instead of time, - 

 were they to the performance of certain tasks, not to the occupation of 

 a certain time in evading any, the approximation might be made in 

 definitely close. 



Labour being a vague term, the system next proposes that it be rep 

 resented by marks, the earning of so many thousands of which, in a 



