it is to be feared that, in some respects, he is occasionally involuntarily biassed by a certain jealousy that exists between the English and Irish; though it must be confessed that, although a system may work well in one country, great prudence is requisite in introducing it into another, and perhaps the non-existence in England of many of the police regulations of Ireland may tend to make the English system more efficient. It is evident that in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, the Irish system of prison discipline is more and more appreciated. The reports of the Director-General, Capt. Crofton, have excited great attention, as have also those made by the other excellent and experienced men at the Dublin Congress of the Social Science Association, and especially the admirably practical exposition delivered by Capt. Crofton at the Congress, which made a great impression in favour of the Irish system. Another English publication has likewise been read with great interest, viz., "The Prison Chaplain," a memoir of the Rev. John Clay, in which an important comparison is made between the English and Irish systems with regard to the probationary ticket of leave, and in which (pp. 418 -442) the defects of the English system are practically developed: showing, at the same time, that by means of the probationary ticket of leave, the Irish system affords a better guarantee for public security than can be reckoned upon by the English. Among the recent publications in Germany since 1861,* the following on prison reformation deserve especial mention. 1. A series of publications has appeared respecting the regulations of the Moabit prison in Berlin, according to which the entire administration is confided to the members or Brothers of the so-called "Rauhen Haus," and they are consequently With regard to those published before 1861, the author of the present Report begs to direct attention to his two publications on "Prison ReErlangen, 1858. "The present State of the Prison Ques formation." tion." 1860. the acting overseers and workmasters, under the direction of Herr Visschers, known in England as head of the prison administration in Prussia. Professor Von Holtzendorf,* who was listened to with so much interest at the Dublin Congress, has rendered fresh service by showing, in various publications, from hitherto unknown sources, that these Brothers of the "Rauhen Haus," forming in reality a religious order, may easily become prejudicial in a prison where they alone have the direction, for experience shows that they too generally act from one-sided views; being too much under the influence of a religious, pietistic mysticism, to succeed in the reformation of convicts, they are far too apt to make hypocrites of them, whereas experience proves that nothing but a practical method of straightforward reformatory progress can succeed with criminals. This attack upon a system favoured and upheld by many influential persons, called forth many publications in defence of the Moabit system, especially endeavouring to prove that the apprehensions entertained on the subject were unfounded and imaginary.† 2. A work of Schuck's‡ is worthy of attention. He was himself prison guardian for thirty years, and afterwards for several years Director of Moabit, but was removed, it appears, for not yielding implicitly to Herr Visschers. Herr Schuck defends the Moabit regulations, and in so doing unjustly opposes the appointment of subaltern officers (Unteroffizieren) as sub-directors of prisons. His book, however, deserves attention, for the importance his experience induces him to attach to the separate system; for the comparison he draws between the two prisons of Bruchsal and Moabit, both built on the separate principle; and for certain important observa "The Brethren of the Rauhen Haus, a Protestant Order in the Service of the State," by Von Holtzendorf. Berlin, 1861. † Such as, "The Brethren of the Rauhen Haus," by Herr Oldenberg, Pastor of Moabit. Berlin, 1861. "The Separate System in Prussia," by Böhlan. Weimar, 1861. "The Cellular Prison Moabit," by Ortloff. Gotha, 1861. 1862. "The Separate System as Practised at Bruchsal and Moabit." Leipsic, tions, such for instance as on the reformatory training of the convict under the separate system, and on insanity. 3. The late publication of Fuesslin* must be signalised, the author having been for many years Director of the Bruchsal Prison, in which he took an active part in introducing the separate system. He likewise shows how unfounded are the assertions that have appeared in many of the public papers against the efficiency of isolation as practised at Bruchsal, and how unjust it is to charge that system with producing so many cases of relapse. 4. A work of Götting† upholds the separate system as that best adapted to work moral reformation, and shows in what consists the reformation that can be effected in a prison by means of isolation. 5. A useful work is that by Bauer,‡ for many years Superintendent of the House of Correction at Bruchsal, and who especially directs the industrial department. The dictates of his experience are valuable as to the good resulting from employment being given likewise in solitary confinement; he considers it a means of moral reform. 6. Von Holtzendorf, who labours with so much zeal in the cause of prison reformation, tests, in one of his works,§ the Irish probationary ticket-of-leave system, showing the principle on which it is based, and proving the fallacy of the opposition raised against it on the ground that thereby a sentence of condemnation for a fixed term loses both in dread and force. The author shows that probationary liberation quite accords with the intention of the law in passing sentence of condemnation-that the judge may err in adjudging the penalty, and that in allowing a certain discretionary power, "The Recent False Charges against the Separate System through Misrepresentations of the Results of the System as adopted at Bruchsal." Heidelberg, 1861. "Justice, Life, and Knowledge. For the Educated of all Classes." Hildesheim, 1861. 1861. "Industrial Labour in Prisons." Carlsruhe, 1861. "Discretionary Mitigation of Sentences of Condemnation." Leipsic, depending on the conduct of the convict, we have one of the best means of ensuring a just degree of punishment. The defects he points out in the English regulations, and the conditions he suggests to render probationary liberation efficacious, deserve the attention of English jurists. 7. Dr. Gutsch, physician of the Bruchsal prison, publishes his collected experience on the development of insanity under solitary confinement.* He acknowledges that a considerable number of such cases have occurred at Bruchsal, but that it would be very unjust, on that account, to depreciate solitary confinement as a principle. After careful investigation, it is evident that one half the cases of insanity were of a slight character and curable, that the cures were in the proportion of seventy per cent., in five cases the convicts being decidedly insane on arrival, and the surgeon alone was to blame, who, either from ignorance or negligence, pronounced the individual accountable. In forty-four cases there was evidently a predisposition, independently of imprisonment. In all cases suitable measures were promptly adopted. One cannot, however, agree with the author in advocating that the convict showing symptoms of derangement should continue in the prison, instead of being removed to a madhouse. Among the works that have appeared in Italy on the subject of prison reformation, the following deserve attention. 1. Observations of Director Ambrosoli,† who decidedly pronounces in favour of the separate system, though with the proviso, that the term of isolation should not be too protracted, and that it should rather be employed at the commencement of imprisonment, and with due regard to the best means of ensuring the moral reformation of the convict. Probationary liberation, as a reward for exemplary conduct, he thinks worthy of recommendation. *"On Insanity under the Separate System. From Facts Collected in an Experience of Twelve Years in the Prison of Bruchsal." Berlin, 1862. "On the Penal Code of Italy." Milan, 1862. P. 49. 2. An important publication is that by Sig. Girolamo,* who has been for many years Governor of the Lunatic Asylum at Pesaro, and has consequently had the best opportunities for observing the narrow boundary that often exists between crime and insanity, and how necessary it is to study the laws of the development of human nature, in which similar causes often lead either to crime or insanity. The author shows, in a mass of practical observations, how easily the judge may err, and how necessary it is in passing sentence to have due regard to the individuality of the convict. He pronounces for the separate system; but applied judiciously, isolation acting so differently on different individuals. He very ably shows that the education of the convict in prison ought to be in many respects analogous with the treatment of insanity in a madhouse, and therefore how important it is that the governor of a prison, as well as the physician, should have been trained to physical investigation of human nature. He likewise approves of probationary liberation and the intermediate system. 3. Two works on the efficiency of the separate system in Tuscany are worthy of attention. A physician, Sig. Morelli,† wrote in 1859 a treatise denouncing cellular imprisonment, giving his own experience in the prison of Volterra, with various statistical data, in proof of the deteriorating effect of the system, both physically and morally, and of its by no means answering the desired purpose. In reply to this last, the Governor-General of the Prisons in Tuscany, Sig. Peri, makes it evident that Sig. Morelli's statements are exaggerated. It must be allowed, he admits, that much was to be complained of in the Volterra prison as to the locality, but that the Government had not delayed to * "On Penal Condemnation according to the Modern Penitentiary Systems; and on the Application of Criminal Law." Florence, 1862. "Sanitary Essays on the Penal Régime under the Separate System." Florence, 1859. 1860. "Reply of Sig. Carlo Peri to the Treatise by Dr. Morelli." VOL. XIV.-NO. XXVII. C Florence, |