The Ideal State 301 



thinks it is its duty to take account of the wretched is 

 when they have committed a crime. He asks if the 

 judges and others had no duty to them before that ? 

 Since his time we have endeavoured to do something. 

 We try to educate them and give them a better chance ; 

 but in the present state of society it is a very slow pro- 

 cess of betterment. Multitudes are still brought up in 

 an atmosphere of evil and trained to crime, in semi- 

 starvation and foul dwellings ; and it is only when they 

 commit, what we consider, some flagrant act of evil, 

 that we take an active interest in them, and once we 

 commit them to prison we are satisfied in the thought 

 that there our duty ends. As a matter of fact, it is 

 there our duty begins. If we consider their circum- 

 stances there is room for infinite compassion, which can 

 only be satisfied when every means have been taken to 

 remove some of the causes. The bad environment 

 must first be seen to, and we are glad to think is being 

 seen to. The possibility of work for every man and a 

 living wage in return is another necessary reform. It 

 will then be possible to deal effectively with the 

 "Weary Willies" and the "Won't works." The 

 further progress of the spiritual evolution of man must 

 necessarily ultimately remove all crime, not only by 

 raising the whole standard of being but by removing 

 any motive which could act as an impulse towards evil. 

 These same influences must ere long teach us that in 

 punishment there is little satisfaction either to society 

 or to the offender. Its only justification can be that the 

 period of detention is used as a means to re-awaken the 

 higher nature of the prisoner — to show him the direc- 

 tion in which true happiness lies, and take every 

 possible means to prove to him that society is not his 

 enemy but his friend ; that his fellow-men love him 

 and only desire to do him good and get good from him. 

 And to do this he must have a sound environment from 



