REVIEWS. 42'1 



"We have traced the course bywhich Convicts have arrived at their present 

 very degraded and dangerous state. Though in some cases a succession of unfor- 

 tunate circumstances, over -which society had no direct control, may have carried 

 on the unhappy victim from one step to another, in each plunging him deeper and 

 deeper in an abyss of crime, from -which he was unable to extricate himself, and 

 for -which society could not be held directly responsible, — yet even in these cases 

 ■we must have perceived that the prevalence of a more Christian spirit in society* 

 of a stronger moral repugnance to evil, of a greater readiness to help the weak, 

 may have arrested the criminal in an earlier stage of his career. But, in the great 

 bulk of the instances adduced, young persons have become gradually hardened in 

 guilt through causes over which they had no control, and for which society is 

 directly responsible. The practice still continues of sending children to prison, 

 though for so long a time it has been declared by the highest authorities worse 

 than useless, and though the existence of schools authorised by the Government 

 renders this incarceration unnecessary. The Workhouses do not yet provide a 

 true home for destitute children, who find themselves better cared for in the 

 hands of justice than in the keeping of those misnamed their guardians. Dens of 

 infamy are still tolerated in our cities, to give to our young children that schooling 

 to vice, which no one gives them to lead them in the right way. The uncertainty 

 of punishment, the glaring defects still existing in our criminal law, allure by 

 impunity or slight punishment to repetition of crime. Society is responsible for 

 all this, and therefore is bound to remedy as far as possible the evils arising from 

 these various abuses. It is, then, our solemn duty , both as members of society 

 and as professing Christians, to endeavour to bring these people to a sense of their 

 responsibility to God and to man, and of their own immortal destiny, — to reform 

 them. 



*' To induce any permanent change in natures so perverted and hardened, it is 

 evident that no merely external means can be of the slightest value. While under 

 compulsory detention they may be bribed or terrified into some degrees of quietude 

 and submission, but their natures are not touched by these means. They return 

 from the monotony and forced propriety of their prison life, only with fresh zest 

 for the exciting career from which they have been for a season snatched. Their 

 long abstinence from intoxicating stimulants is compensated by increased excess. 

 The hated forced labour of their servitude is at once abandoned for the wonted 

 indolence of their old life. All who are acquainted with the histories of criminals 

 are well aware that this is the ordinary result of the present treatment of Con- 

 victs, and hence arises a profound and general disbelief in the possibility of reform- 

 ation among those whose duties lead them to a knowledge of the ' dangerous 

 class.' 



" A different principle of management produces different results, and does effect 

 real reformation, provided all external means are adopted in developing the prin- 

 ciple which experience and sound judgment suggest," 



The argument in this chapter is strengthened by high authority, 

 and by an account of the success attending the plans of Colonel Mon- 

 tesinos, at the prison of Valencia, in Spain ; of Herr Von Obermaier 



