22S HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, ETC., 



duty of the law for the protection of society, and the association of 

 prisoners has been deemed morally hurtful to them. 



The Social System proposes to change this course, to one, in fact, 

 directly opposite to it. In criminal administration, according to his 

 views, society is at present placed in one scale, and the culprit in the 

 other, and it is not surprising that the weight of the former should 

 predominate. 



He proposes, that the nature of the punishment should be severe 

 and short ; that it should melt into probation, and this again into 

 entire freedom, by changes as gradual as possible ; thus taking nature 

 as the guide, and copying what occurs on any severe misfortune 

 befalling us, at first overwhelming grief, then a retrospective one, 

 which afterwards slowly gives place to hope and encouragement. 



To carry this out, it would be necessary to have solitary impri- 

 sonment, with moral and religious exhortations inculcated during 

 sequestration from external influences, with permission to work, and 

 instructions in its performance, but without the power of exchanging 

 the proceeds for indulgences; next, separate imprisonment, with the 

 power of exchanging marks of good conduct for gratifications, to be 

 prolonged until the accumulation of a certain number of marks over 

 and above all those exchanged for indulgences, should exhibit the 

 acquisition of habits of self-control. 



To this second stage should succeed social labour through the day, 

 with separate confinement at night, and at length a complete admis- 

 sion to a society, in which the convicts should choose their associates, 

 and be mutually responsible for the good behaviour of each other. 



In passing through such a course of discipline, both of the ends 

 which have been spoken of will be attained. The guilty will be first 

 punished, and afterwards rendered fit for society by reformation and 

 training, and will be thus restored to that state in which he was 

 before he committed the crime, after he has been well tried and 

 found worthy of being re-established in it. 



As far as I could understand, Captain Maconochie was not pre- 

 pared to prescribe the exact manner in which his views were to be 

 carried out, and did not appear to set much value upon the mode, 

 provided his principles were kept, in view. He was of opinion that 

 the principal error in modern penal science is the importance attached 

 to physical arrangement in the construction of prisons. 



According to him, the less stress that is set upon them the better, 



