PRISONERS OF WAR 



PRISONS 



417 



Coprrighi 1891, 1897, tod 

 1900 In the U. s. by J. B. 

 Lipplncott Compauy. 



century. The act of Napoleon in putting to death 

 the Turkish prisoners of war at Jaffa in 1799 was 

 universally condemned, and is probably the last 

 instance of such barbarity. By degrees the more 

 humane custom of exchanging prisoners came into 

 practice, those not exchanged being kept in con- 

 finement on very poor fare. Notwithstanding 

 frequent exchanges, large numbers of prisoners 

 accumulate during war. In 1811 about 47,600 

 French were prisoners in England, while 10,300 

 English languished in the prisons of France. By 

 the end of the Franco-German war of 1870-71 

 about 300,000 French troops had been sent to Ger- 

 many as prisoners of war, many of the officers 

 being released on Parole (q.v.). 



Prisons. Formerly used for the purpose of re- 

 straint chiefly, it is only within recent times that 

 imprisonment hns been studied 

 as a means by which certain high 

 objects are to be attained, and 

 which therefore ought to be conducted according 

 to recognised principles. It used to be believed 

 that nothing more was required than to ensure the 

 security of the victim or culprit, by chains and 

 fetters if necessary, unless it were to inflict on 

 him some further bodily pains and penalties, the 

 smallest of which was to feed him with ' the bread 

 of affliction and the water of affliction ' ordered by 

 Ahab for the prophet Micaiah. Imprisonment was 

 not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon laws as a 

 punishment, but was enforced when an offender 

 could not find a surety. In course of time, 

 however, it was authorised by the common law as 

 a punishment, as well as specified by statute for 

 particular offences ; nevertheless gaols were actu- 

 ally used more for securing the persons of those 

 committed to them than as places of punishment. 

 Under the common law all gaols belonged to 

 the king, and by 5 Hen. IV. chap. 10 it was 

 enacted that none but the common gaol should be 

 the place of committal for offenders brought liefore 

 a justice of the peace. But there were many 

 4 franchise ' gaols owned by great persons, or by 

 towns and liberties under their charters, which were 

 lawful places for carrying out imprisonment ordered 

 by the persons or bodies to whom these privileges 

 were granted as a part of the criminal jurisdiction 

 placed in their hands. In many cases these bodies 

 Lad the power of life and death. 



In the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Eliza- 

 beth a new description of place of confinement 

 was introduced viz. the ' bridewells ' and ' houses 

 of correction' for vagalionds, &c. By James I. 

 chap. 4, every county was required to provide such 

 an establishment with suitable instruments and 

 appliances in it for setting idle people to work. 

 Another sort of prison is of quite recent introduc- 

 tion viz. the reformatory and industrial school, 

 institutions which are under private management, 

 but derive the greater part of the funds by which 

 they are maintained from public sources, and are 

 subject to certain general rules and conditions 

 intended to secure efficiency and to prevent abuse, 

 compliance with which is ensured by government 

 inspection. These institutions are for the reception 

 of juveniles whom modern philanthropy has rightly 

 and successfully contended should not be confined 

 in the name establishments as adults, nor treated 

 in the way which is most appropriate for the latter. 

 Reformatories are places of punishment for juveniles 

 under sixteen years of age who are convicted of 

 crime, and sentenced to ten days' imprisonment or 

 more. Industrial schools are not places of punish- 

 ment at all, but fire intended to prevent children 

 l"-'Miiiiig criminal* through parental neglect or 

 iiii-ronilnct. A child must ue under fourteen years 

 of age to justify his being sent to an industrial 

 Kchool. There are therefore ( 1 ) prisons to which 

 J'Jl 



adults are sent for punishment and reformation ; (2) 

 prisons to which juveniles are sent for punishment 

 and reformation, called reformatory schools; (3) 

 prisons or places of compulsory detention to which 

 juveniles are sent as a preventive measure, called 

 industrial schools. To the first of these are sent 

 also persons who are charged with a crime to await 

 their trial, and persons committed by county 

 courts for refusing to pay debts which they have 

 means to pay, or by other courts if they cannot 

 find sureties when ordered for any reason to do so. 

 The course of events has led to the prisons of the 

 first of these three classes being separated into two 

 divisions which have a distinct history. One of 

 these comprises the prisons which are governed by 

 the laws relating to places in which criminals 

 sentenced to penal servitude may be confined ; the 

 other comprises the ordinary prisons in which all 

 sorts and classes of prisoners may be confined, but 

 in which, as matters now stand, prisoners under 

 sentence of penal servitude pass only the first few 

 months of their sentences. The former are gener- 

 ally designated convict prisons ; the latter are now 

 styled local prisons. 



The punishment of penal servitude had its origin 

 in the system of transportation, and transportation 

 itself had its origin in banishment or exile. This 

 was expressly forbidden by Magna Charta, but 

 existed nevertheless as a practice, because a crim- 

 inal who had incurred the sentence of hanging and 

 had taken sanctuary to avoid his fate was per- 

 mitted in some cases to escape his punishment if 

 he exiled himself. In course of time the privilege 

 of sanctuary was abolished by law (though its 

 practice existed notwithstanding for some time 

 afterwards), and consequently the system of self- 

 banishment which grew out of it ; but before then 

 viz. in the thirty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth's 

 reign banishment had been legally established by 

 the Vagrancy Act, which gave quarter sessions the 

 power of transportation. 



Transportation was sanctioned by law in the 

 reign or Charles II. as a mode of dealing with 

 incorrigible rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, 

 as a punishment for attending an illegal prayer- 

 meeting after a previous conviction of that offence, 

 and to put down the moss-troopers of Northumber- 

 land and Cumberland. The transportation was 

 not at first enforced by any direct action of the 

 government, but those sentenced to it were left to 

 carry out their sentences by removing themselves 

 to the West Indies or elsewhere under penalty of 

 hanging if they failed to do so ; but in course of 

 time the process became more systematised, and in 

 1718 it was found necessary to deliver them over 

 to a contractor who engaged to take them to His 

 Majesty's colonies and plantations in America on 

 condition of his having property and interest in 

 their services for a specified term of years. They 

 were given over to slavery in fact, and the con- 

 tractor at the termination of the voyage put them 

 up to auction and sold their services to the highest 

 bidder. In 1776 it became no longer possible to 

 send these outcasts to America. Some of the 

 colonies had for years past continually protested 

 against the system ; but the war of independence 

 left no alternative but to put an end to it, and 

 the government had to find some other mode of dis- 

 posing of these criminals, estimated in 1778 at 1000 

 annually. This difficulty originated the practice of 

 confining prisoners in hulks in the Thames or in 

 the harbours of Portsmouth, Chatham, &c. 



This was intended only as a temporary expedient 

 pending the execution of an act devised by Black- 

 stone, Eden (Lord Auckland), and Howard, for the 

 building of penitentiaries in England, which were 

 intended to provide a separate cell for each of the 

 inmates, who were during their imprisonment to be 



