full years in lieu of the two, had he been allowed
to choose the better living and comparative
liberty of Portsmouth."

Upon my word I had no notion that these
fellows were so fastidious. I should have thought
that a jail was a jail; and pretty much the same
all over England.

By no means. England in that respect boasts
of variety, and for popularity with the customary
tenantry the convict prisons now undoubtedly
hold the first rank. How little they are
held in abhorrence, and how little the discipline
enforced in them operates as a deterrent to
crime, may be further judged of by the number
of offenders that are constantly returning to
them. During the last year, out of fourteen
hundred prisoners who passed through Millbank
prison, not fewer than three hundred were
identified as having been there under previous
sentences of transportation or penal servitude.
Observe! There—in that one prison and within
the memory of the present warders.

I wonder if three hundred out of fourteen
hundred of life's ordinary travellers would ever
dream of returning to the same hotel! These
penal places must surely be pleasant places.

Money enough has been spent upon them
to make them so; and when I tell you that
the cost of keeping some six thousand two
hundred prisoners in these convict prisons, ten
years ago, was nearly two hundred thousand
pounds, and that in the last year the cost of
maintaining some eight thousand two hundred
was upwards of three hundred and twenty-three
thousand, you will easily comprehend that the
conveniences and comforts of the inmates are
undergoing no diminution as the establishments
grow older.

Three hundred and twenty thousand pounds
odd, for eight thousand men! Why, that's
nearly forty pounds a head—or just double what
a Dorsetshire labourer gets, by the sweat of
his honest brow, for the maintenance of himself,
his wife, and maybe half a score of children.
And the Dorsetshire labourer has not the advantage
of buying the necessaries of life, wholesale,
and by contract, either.

Right! But we won't insist on that part of
the question, lest you should by-and-by tell
me, as some of our philosophers do, that, as a
bird in the cage, a horse in the stable, and a pig
in the pound, is in many respects better off than
the creatures of the same race who run wild, so
it would be a scandal to humanity if a man
deprived of his liberty, no matter for what cause,
should eat, drink, or sleep worse than the man who
is free.

Worse! But he eats, drinks, and sleeps, much
better!

Let us go on. We have seen that as matters
at present stand, the convictions for the graver
class of offences remain undiminished, while
those of a lighter nature are reduced by a third.
That the proportion of reconvictions to penal
prisons is something enormous. And that the
expenses of penal servitude have largely
increased. That being so, the next question that
presents itself is how far does the present convict
system accomplish the great object at which
it professes to aim: that object being the
reclaiming of the criminal?

And the punishing of him too.

Yes, the punishing of him too, as far as the
humanity of the age will admit of anything in
the shape of physical restraint as a corrective of
evil or deterrent of crime; but the prime object
of the system, no doubt, is to send the criminal
out of the prison a better man than he comes in.
Now, what I complain of is, that that object has
not been attained in anything like the degree
that might be secured. In the first place,
there is the absolute want of any sufficient or
positive test as to the reality of an improvement
in the convict's disposition and character.
Nothing is more common than to hear of "a well-
conducted convict." But what does that mean?
Simply a man who has had sense enough to
succumb to exigencies which he cannot avoid—who
has submitted to rules which he knows he cannot
infringe or break, without certain punishment—
who has refrained from being actively
vicious, because he knows it is his best policy
to remain passively virtuous. He is a model of
prison behaviour—in the prison sense of the
term, he is truly a good man. What test
have you that this seeming excellence is real?
And who is the judge whether it be real or not?
Who is the warder? In nine cases out of ten,
a soldier of some twenty years' standing in
the army; as good a judge, perhaps, as could
be found in the world of the correctness and
completeness of external and mechanical
discipline in the human body, but about as bad a
one, to my mind and MR. MEASOR'S, as could be
selected to fathom the workings and estimate the
actual leanings, of the human mind. It is true
that the prisoner may see the governor or chaplain
every day if he chooses to put his name
down for that purpose. It is true, also, that
for some two hours a week he comes under
the instruction of the schoolmaster; but with
these exceptions he has no other trainer, teacher,
or adviser, than the warder, who is bound by
the prison rules not to talk "familiarly or
unnecessarily" with his prisoners, and to treat them
as "persons under his authority."

But a soldier-warder may be a good man for
all that.

Good enough as a soldier, no doubt; and
good enough as a man; but the excellence and
utility of a soldier consist in his obedience to a
purely artificial standard of discipline. He is a
good soldier exactly in proportion as he surrenders
every faculty of soul and body to the movements
of one vast machine. Intellectually he is next
to nothing. His intelligence is for ever in abeyance.
His will is always under the control of
others. He does not govern himself; but others
govern him. How can such a man teach the
duties of self-government to other men?

What sort of warder would you have, then?

Considering that this officer is to bias for
good the future tendency of the prisoner's life
and character, I would have a man of quick