298 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



the excuse that he was poor. He was sentenced to 

 three months' hard labour." April 4, 1891. 



Now, who will say that it would not have been 

 better "had these men, on their second or third offence, 

 been sent for good to some industrial home or asylum ? 

 Clearly their punishments had had no beneficial effect 

 upon them, and their repeated sentences could only 

 be looked upon as revenge taken upon them by 

 society because of their offences. In the last of the 

 three cases, after an experience of such punishments 

 extending over the respectable term of twenty-three 

 years, the criminal instinct was still so strong that, 

 with g$ in his pocket, he could not resist the 

 temptation to steal three spoons arid three handker- 

 chiefs ! What good we can expect to accrue from 

 the further revengelul " three months " is beyond 

 contemplation. 



Had these three men been sent to a reformatory 

 in their youth, and kept there, not only would society 

 have suffered less, and the country have escaped all the 

 expense of repeated arrests and trials, but probably a 

 considerable number of children of the criminal class 

 which are now with us would not have been called 

 into being. 



The following case shows how hopelessly irresistible 

 is the instinct to crime when strongly developed : 



" At Marylebone, yesterday, William Readhead, a 

 sharp-looking little boy, aged eleven, was charged with 

 stealing a purse containing twelve shillings, belonging 



