CHAP. xix. THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION. 327 



character; no preparation for an honest life; no means 

 afforded the discharged prisoner enabling him to live an 

 honest life. We have, again and again, been shown 

 what modern penal servitude is like, by educated men 

 who have endured it. They all tell us that it is a hell 

 upon earth; that its tendency is to crush out every hu- 

 man feeling or higher aspiration; and that it sends the 

 majority of those who endure it back to the outside 

 world, worse in character and less capable of living hon- 

 estly than they were before they entered the prison 

 walls. The system is utterly unchristian, utterly op- 

 posed to civilization, or philosophy, or common sense; 

 yet it remains in full force in these last years of the cen- 

 tury, and neither governments nor legislators seem to 

 think it a matter of sufficient importance to devote the 

 necessary time and study to its radical reform. 



It must be admitted that in our prison system we see 

 one of the most terrible failures of the boasted civiliza- 

 tion of the nineteenth century. 



In an allied department, the confinement of the in- 

 sane, there is also much room for reform. Their actual 

 treatment, both in public and private asylums, has 

 undergone enormous improvement during the early part 

 of the century, and is now almost as good as it can be 

 made in large asylums, where there is no possibility of 

 that proper classification, isolation, and individual treat- 

 ment which are essential to curative success. But the 

 great evil lies in the existence of private asylums, kept 

 for profit by their owners; and in the system by which, 

 on the certificate of two doctors, employed by any rela- 

 tive or friend, persons may be forcibly kidnapped and 

 carried to one of these private asylums, without any pub- 



