6.

capital punishment was totally abolished there in 1853, and addsThe fact that no Legislature has since re-established it, and that after a trial of eleven years the people find themselves equally secure and justice more certain than before the death-penalty was abolished, leaves little doubt of the wisdom of its repeal. population of the State in the year 1850 was 305,391 ; in the year 1860 the population was 775,629. With this large increase of population we might naturally expect a large increase of criminal cases, but this does not appear to have been the case."*

Deliberate premeditated murder is the only crime punished capitilly in this State. In a letter addressed to the writer by order of Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, dated Philadelphia, November 17, 1864, it is reported that there is an increasing reluctance of citizens to serve as jurors in capital cases, and it is added, "It is very difficult to obtain a jury in capital cases."

The extensive substitution of secondary for capital punishment for murderers and other criminals in Pennsylvania, is described as a success. The prison system of that State has obtained a worldwide reputation. It is conducted on the separate system, which is, however, neither separate nor silent so far as regards the prisoners having intercourse with suitable visitors, and with the prison officials. But he is entirely separated from other criminals, and occupies a distinct cell and yard.

The letter just mentioned reports-" The treatment of each convict must be individualised to his sui-generis character as best developed and best treated by his individual position-isolated separate position-in a penitentiary. This is the spirit of our system, This gives it its real success. This is the merit of its administration. . . . We have had convicts for 12 and 16 years, and their health and morals have been far better on their discharge than on their conviction. . . . The prerogative of pardon is used with wisdom and discrimination, and the public have not yet suffered injury from its use thus far."

It is further added, respecting the Pennsylvanian "separate system," "After 30 years in full experiment, we find it to be a success beyond all the anticipations of its founders. It lessens crimes, reforms the convict, and improves the individual."

The above and similar testimonies have been here quoted as affording suggestive answers to the inquiry which often arises, "In case of the abolition of capital punishment, what is to be the substitute?" It is shown that various countries have, practically and for long periods, found safe and efficient substitutes. It is further to be remembered, that even in Great Britain far more capital offenders have their sentences commuted than executed. And a substitute is found for these either in life-long penal servitude, or, in the abso

* At the end of 1854 the number of murderers of the first degree confined was 6. At the end of 1857 there were only 8 more, or 14 altogether.

lutely permanent detention of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Nor does it appear that the public practically suffer in consequence, either by an escape of the murderers confined, or by repetitions of the crime on the part of those whose sentences have been thus commuted to permanent confinement.

The writer had prepared, in addition to the foregoing abstracts of foreign experience of the abolition of capital punishment, a similar brief review of the results of the very extensive ameliorations which, during the past 35 years, have taken place in the penal code of our own country. But its insertion here would extend the present paper far beyond the permitted limits. It may be sufficient to observe that the recent penal experiences of Great Britain indicate that the removal of all crimes, except murder and treason from the capital category, has been attended with a marked increase in the certainty of conviction and punishment, and with many other important collateral advantages without a consequent counterbalancing increase in the number of crimes committed.

Having thus briefly glanced at the results of the total or partial abolition of capital punishment in many countries, it appears that they furnish remarkable and repeated proofs that not only in States of small population, but also in the greatest nations of the world, the death-penalty has been dispensed with, more or less, without decreasing the security of life or property, and in many instances with a marked beneficial result in a contrary direction. And, independently of this advantage, the total abolition, when effected, has removed a series of evils and grave inconveniences which are, practically, found to be inseparable from the infliction of death-penalties, namely, a peculiar and excessive accompaniment of difficulty in effecting conviction and punishment on capital charges, resulting sometimes in the absolute acquittal of the most atrocious offenders;-The inevitable occurrence of very urgent but most undesirable importunities on the part of individuals and associations who are often reluctantly necessitated to embarrass the executive to depart from the usual course of the law by commuting the fatal sentence;-The constant raising of pleas of insanity on murder-trials, rightly or wrongly, according to circumstances, but equally bewildering and obstructive whether wellfounded or not;-The excitement of excessive notoriety for the worst of criminals often resulting in a morbid sympathy for the murderer rather than for his victim, and being peculiarly apt to produce immediate repetitions and multiplications of similar horrible crimes; -The occasion, at times, of a mischievous wide-spread impression of administrative partiality or inequitable distinction in the grant of commutations;-The rare, but not inconsiderable danger, of sometimes executing an innocent person by mistake, and of thus inflicting an irreparable injury of the highest kind;-The hurrying of criminals to death without due opportunities for repentance and reformation ;And certainly in very many cases the deprivation of life without a just consideration and regard for the degrading miseries, the orphanage, neglect, poverty, ignorance and hereditary incapacity which

constitute, in part, or altogether, the inevitable antecedents of most criminals, and which, though affording no reason for impunity or for pardon, yet most strongly forbid the infliction of a penalty irrevocable in its nature, and severe in the most awful and unmitigated degree.

REPRESSION OF CRIME.

On Recent Improvements in our System for the Punishment and Reformation of Adult Criminals. By the REV. W. L. CLAY.

SIR

IR WALTER CROFTON'S address to this section, last year, was filled with predictions of various reforms in our penal system, then, as he hoped, impending. The present paper is a record of the partial fulfilment of his predictions.

The controversy on the "convict question," which reached its height at our meeting in London three years ago, is now almost extinct. There is a vast amount of work still to be done to render our system perfect; but as regards the principle on which the work is to be done, we have reached approximate unanimity. Within the last two years the control of our English convicts has passed into fresh hands; and the new directors, coming to their work without any painful necessity for recanting past errors, have frankly accepted the reformatory doctrines for which our Association has so strenuously contended.

In July of last year, as soon as the passing of the new Penal Servitude Act gave them full freedom of action, the directors began their reforms in the prisons for male convicts. By a vigorous turn of the screw, the old lax discipline was tightened throughout; the luxurious diet tables were tolled to the amount of a seventh, the gratuities cut down to a fourth of what they had been, and various other reforms-singly, perhaps, insignificant, but important in their aggregate-promptly effected. The great amendment, however, was the introduction of a real mark system. We used to be told that such a system was in use before, identical with that employed in Ireland; and certainly there was externally some resemblance between the two. But beneath the outward similarity there lurked an essential difference, like that between the watch you wear yourself, and the watch you buy for twopence for nursery purposes -the one would go and the other would not. The system which the new directors, however, have introduced, will work. The convict's period in prison is divided into various stages. He begins in the probation class, passing the first nine months in separate confinement; he is then transferred to a public works prison, where

he finds that he has a certain number of marks to earn before he can recover his freedom. At the rate of six a day, he will just earn his allotted number by the time his sentence expires, and for "a fair but moderate day's work" his wages will not exceed six marks; if, however, he chooses to exert himself rather more, he may gain seven marks, and obtain his liberty so much the sooner ; while "for steady hard work and the full performance of his allotted task," he may win eight marks a day, and thus secure the remission of full one-fourth of his term of servitude on public works. As a further incentive to exertion, the convict's rise from class to class is also made dependent on the marks. By daily industry of eight marks' value he can rise from the probation class to the third in three months, from the third to the second in a year, and from the second to the first in another year, each promotion bringing a slight increase of gratuities and other privileges. The classes are kept wholly distinct, and this alone is an important improvement. Under the old régime, the convicts were all massed together, to the great detriment of discipline; the consciousness of strength which their great numbers-often 1,000 or 1,200-gave them, was one chief cause of the disgraceful outbreaks formerly so common. When he has reached the first, the convict has still the hope before him of reaching a "special" class; and we will trust that before long he will have the yet further prospect of transference to an intermediate prison.

This scheme is obviously sound in its main elements, and there is abundant shrewdness also in its lesser ingredients. The rule, for instance, that men alleged to be only fit for light labour, or else invalided in the hospital, shall be credited with only six marks a day, proves a sharp check on the "malingering" formerly so common. Still the whole system is a snare and a delusion unless The old plan of trusting the work prescribed is really exacted. implicitly to the reports of the superintending warders was palpably futile; but an ingenious device has now been adopted for checking This device has been their reports and getting at the truth. described elsewhere, and as it is a mere piece of executive machinery, not involving any principle, I need not repeat the description. By the courtesy of the directors, I was allowed, some months since, to examine minutely the working of the improved system, and I was convinced that it was thoroughly efficient. As a proof of the wholesome parsimony with which the marks are dealt out, I may mention that on the day I inspected the returns, barely one convict in eight was credited with the full number. Only a fortnight ago a convict at Broadmoor told me that "it was pretty sharp work getting them marks."

To all appearance, therefore, the English Convict System has been radically reformed. There is, however, only one infallible test of a penal system-the number of relapses; and as yet, of course, this test cannot be applied. When a thorough police supervision over the liberates is established and the directors report

themselves so far satisfied with what has been done in this matter-the future career of the great majority ought to be known with perfect certitude. The late directors used to make returns of discharged convicts whom, in their total ignorance of what had happened to them, they charitably reckoned as reformed. I hope that in a year or two their successors will be in a position to give in returns of the convicts whom they know for certain have not relapsed. These returns will be the real test of the system. Eventually, when our penal machinery is complete, the public ought not to be satisfied, unless full three-fourths of the liberates are cured of their felonious propensities. Meanwhile, we have provisional criteria of success in the decrease of sentences to penal servitude, and the improved behaviour of the convicts under detention. To the former I attach less importance. Crime ebbs and flows in a very curious manner, and as yet we are quite in the dark concerning the laws which regulate its fluctuations. At present there is a considerable fall in serious crime, though petty lawlessness is apparently on the increase. It must be remembered, also, that recent legislation has tended to empty the convict prisons and fill the gaols. Still, when we see a decrease of no less than 1,153 indictable offences in 1864, as compared with 1863, and hear that the statistics of 1865 are likely to be still pleasanter; when, recollecting that the convict prisons have been more than once glutted during the last ten years, we learn from Colonel Henderson that a fortnight ago he had 1,136 vacant cells, it is only fair to conclude that the increased stringency of our convict discipline is already exercising a widely deterrent influence on our felonious fellow-creatures. I believe, however, that the behaviour of the convicts in prison is a still better symptom. I can testify myself that the demeanour of the men at Chatham is very different from what it was four years ago. The innovations at first produced murmuring, irritation, and, at Portland, where the indulgence and over-feeding had been the worst, open rebellion. "The unfavourable manifestations," writes the Governor of Portland, in his report, dated February 11, 1865, "are daily growing less, and the prisoners are beginning to exhibit improved industry and a more cheerful obedience to prison rule and discipline."

But the reforms in the system cannot be regarded as final till two great farther improvements have been accomplished. The men when they leave the cellular prisons are often stupid and dull; and we still hear of suicide and suicidal attempts at Pentonville and Millbank. Possibly, nay, probably, these may be accounted for; nevertheless, the discipline at both is not unlikely to develop tendencies to idiotcy or insanity. The recent tightening of the discipline, much as it was called for, has, I fancy, in this respect made matters worse. Not that the discipline is one whit too strict or penal; to begin with, at any rate, I should like to see it sharper still; but it is too dreary and monotonous. The more I see of the separate system, the more I am convinced that it needs some such corrective us is supplied by the use of "marks" to dissipate its torpor, and