14 TlMEHRI. 
mistake to abolish it in this colony. The fear of hanging 
has a very deterrent effe6t on the would-be murderer : 
I have some experience in the matter and I say no man 
likes to be hanged, and the most hardened criminals 
show an outburst of feeling when they are told that their 
sentences have been commuted to Penal Servitude for 
Life. Imprisonment is resorted to for two reasons ; first 
as a punishment and example to others, and secondly 
to keep a dangerous criminal out of the way of harming 
his fellow citizens. For the latter purpose Imprison- 
ment as practised in this colony may be efficacious, 
but as a punishment and deterrent it is far from being 
satisfactory : our prisoners are much too comfortable, 
the hard labour infiicTted by the Law as part of the 
sentence is mostly disregarded. None could call the 
constitutional which our Georgetown prisoners take to 
the sea wall and the pleasant pic-nic which they have on 
the slopes of the embankment, hard labour ; and as they 
walk home they are greeted by their friends who find 
opportunity to tell them the news, and slip a bit of 
tobacco or a cake of sugar into their hands as they pass. 
Prisons should be made hateful to the prisoners and not 
as now a comfortable retreat where a man is better 
housed, better fed, with medical comforts and free 
do6lors it he is ill, than hundreds and thousands of 
honest people outside. Although they have innumerable 
opportunities very few of the prisoners ever attempt to 
escape, they know when thev are well off. They 
remind one of a story of an Indian prison where a 
dangerous riot was quelled by the Keeper telling the 
prisoners that if they were not quiet he would turn them 
all out of the prison ; this subdued them at once. Let 
