126 



SCIENCJE, 



[Vol. IX., No. 210 



The objection that a parole is a pardon, and 

 must be granted under the laws and conditions 

 governing pardons, Mr. Wines notices at some 

 length. He holds that a parole is not a pardon, 

 for the reason that when a convict is pardoned his 

 liability under the law ceases ; but when he is 

 paroled, and until his conditional release merges 

 into one that is absolute, he is still in the custody 

 of the law and under sentence. This being an im- 

 portant point, Mr. Wines discusses it in detail. 

 He shows, that, if a parole is unconstitutional, so 

 is the time allowance now^ made in almost eveiy 

 state in the union to the convict, for good be- 

 havior while in confinement ; and adds that " the 

 history of the discussion of the indeterminate 

 sentence, both at home and abroad, shows that 

 until this legal, quasi constitutional objection to it 

 is disposed of, no progress can be made in the 

 way of securing a candid and careful consideration 

 of its practical advantages." 



Passing from the legal to the practical side of 

 the question, Mr. Wines claims, that, not only the 

 a priori argument, but the results of its practical 

 workings, are entirely in favor of the system of 

 conditional liberation. Applied in any prison, it 

 affects both officers and convicts. The former 

 have a new responsibility thrown upon them, that 

 of " judging at what moment each convict com- 

 mitted to their care is fitted for the test of charac- 

 ter outside of the prison enclosure ;" whUe the 

 latter, finding his hope and his desire of personal 

 freedom called upon, becomes an efficient and 

 willing co-operator in his own amendment. " The 

 system wakens in the breast of every prisoner 

 who is not sunk in intellectual or moral inbecility, 

 the sense of individual responsibility, and stimu- 

 lates it to the highest degree of activity which he 

 is capable of sustaining." The system is also 

 recommended to students of criminal jurispru- 

 dence, because of the benefits it will confer upon 

 society at large. It lessens the suffering of the 

 family and friends of the criminal, and it dimin- 

 ishes the expense required for his maintenance. 

 It is at once a thorough and the only practicable 

 means of testing the prisoner's reformation in 

 prison. 



Mr. Wines does not overlook nor pass by the 

 practical difficulties which are urged against the 

 adoption of the system he is advocating. He con- 

 siders them in turn. The first of them is " the igno- 

 rance and apathy of the public with reference to 

 every phase of the question of prison discipline." 

 As this has stood in the way of many important 

 reforms before now, and has always had to yield 

 in the end, Mr. Wines declines to give it any seri- 

 ous attention. It will cure itself. To the objec- 

 tion that a prisoner is naturally a hypocrite, and 



that therefore no correct judgment can be formed 

 as to his improved character, it is answered, 

 " How does this apply to the system of conditional 

 liberation any more than to the good-behavior 

 laws now so common ?" In the United States, 

 concerted action on the part of the various states 

 would be necessary, in order to operate the system 

 effectually. No special watching of the paroled 

 convict is desirable, and the writer quotes prison- 

 director Sichart of Wurtemberg, to the effect that 

 police surveillance is undesirable ; for the paroled 

 prisoner should not be subjected to unnecessary 

 mortification. What he requires is protection 

 against any hinderance which may exist to his 

 honorable success ; and in no event should sur- 

 veillance of any description be continued longer 

 than the circumstances of each case seem to re- 

 quire. 



Mr. Wines then develops his ideas as to the 

 classes of convicts to whom the privilege of con- 

 ditional liberation should be granted, the stage of 

 imprisonment at which a parole should be granted, 

 and the authority to whom the discretionary 

 power of granting the parole should be entrusted. 

 Statistics are quoted showing, that, of 1,695 

 paroled prisoners in Bavaria, only 59 relapsed ; of 

 783 in Wurtemberg, only 8 relapsed ; and of 386 

 in Saxony, only 6 relapsed, The statistics on 

 this point gathered from the experience of the 

 New York state reformatory at Elmira, are already 

 known to our readers. 



LONDON LETTER. 



The character of the Friday-evening lectures at 

 the Eoyal institution (the scene of the labors of 

 Davy and Faraday) is probably well known to most 

 readers of Science. The after-Christmas series 

 was opened by Sir William Thomson, who dis- 

 coursed to a brilliant audience upon the probable 

 origin, extent, and duration of the sun's heat. 

 Adopting, apparently unreservedly, Helmholtz's 

 theory of its origin being due to the shrinkage of 

 its mass, owing to gravitation, he pointed out that 

 gravity was 37 J times as great at the sun (at present) 

 as at the earth, and how different, therefore, solar 

 physics were from terrestrial. The mystery of 

 the relation between gravitation and the other 

 properties of matter had hitherto proved insoluble, 

 A body falling through only forty-five kilometres 

 on to the sun's surface, would develop more 

 energy than any known chemical combinations, 

 and hence he relegated such combinations to the 

 domain of the determining influences of merely 

 incidental changes. Much time was devoted to 

 calculations of solar energy from the point of 

 view of the ' mechanical equivalent of heat.' 



