men outside, are at work in this case. For
there is emulation with his fellows, encouragement
from those over him, and above all a sure
and certain hope that his condition, by a little
care and exertion, will be better and better
every succeeding month.  If Mr. Murphy's
conduct has been steady and orderly at Spike
Island, he will only be detained there three
years and four months out of his seven years'
term. If Mr. Callaghan have been similarly
exemplary, he will have to remain seven years and
four months out of his fifteen. At the end of
those terms both will be ripe for the grand
distinguishing treatment of the Irish system—the
"intermediate" stage.

With common criminals, when the day of
enlargement arrives, the doors are flung open, and
they are plunged again into the free world, as
into the open sea. The shock must be about as
sudden; especially after a long confinement of
seven or fifteen years. The change from
restraint to perfect liberty is enough to dislocate
even better balanced organisations; and though
perhaps the terrors of their late place of abode
may be fresh, still it is found on experience
that they are not sufficient. In the way of these
is a Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, which
interposes between the late convict and these
new dangers.

In the Irish system it is arranged, that the
prisoner shall not be rudely plunged into freedom;
but shall climb by graduated steps into
that happy condition. So that almost before
Messrs. Wild and Sheppard shall have been
formally set free, they shall be actually enjoying—
under certain precautions—a sort of liberty;
a sort of amphibious state, where the good and
well conducted shall be, practically speaking,
almost as free as labouring men are, and where
for those only who are inclined to be troublesome
does anything like restraint arise. Such a place
of probation may be accepted at once as
eminently rational, but at the same time considered
as utopian. On the wild common of Lusk, some
twenty or thirty miles from Dublin, in view of
a boisterous sea, is to be seen this strange
spectacle of a prison which is yet no prison, and of
physically free men who are yet morally
prisoners.

On this wild common are the prisoners doing
battle, and severe battle it is, with a stubborn
soil. This "labor improbus" is all the better,
for, as was before remarked, it has a sweetening
wholesome influence, and maketh the heart
honest. Very different, too, this open-air
husbandry to that prison work within the walls of a
jail. For here there is no jail in sight, neither
are there jailers. There is, indeed, an iron
sleeping room not far away which maybe moved
about, and the workmen are watched over by
one or two officers. Above all, they feel that
they are earning their bread as day labourers,
for they are paid by the week the sum of two
shillings and sixpence. In the evenings, after
the hard day's toils, some strange spectacles are
witnessed on that wild bleak common. The
men are seen gathered in one of the large huts
round an intelligent lecturer, who twice a week
gives them entertaining lectures on useful
topics. To reading, which has been previously
learnt, writing and arithmetic are now added;
prizes are given; and such is the taste acquired,
that the sixpence per week he is allowed out of
his earnings often goes in a book.

Finally, Messrs. Murphy and Callaghan, having
served in this intermediate stage, the one for two
years, the other for fifteen months, and having
conducted themselves with propriety, are
informed that the glad day of their liberation is
come, and are set free. Mr. Murphy's term is thus
shortened by twenty-one months, and Mr.
Callaghan's by five years. This is a result they have
known from the beginning; they have worked
their way to it, not through any grace or favour
from authority, but through their own hard
exertions, now creeping forward a little, now thrown
back, but making steadily all the while for a fixed
goal. It is, therefore, resting after a stern probation
and a moral victory. Very different their
moral state from the moral state of those who
have been sunk in the wet slough of despond of
common prison life, and whose only probation has
been that of brute Travaux Forcés. These Irish
convicts come forth not only redeemed but
trained, superior far to the common run of
labourer in this class. So that actually it has
become a qualification for employment to have been
a convict prisoner. But we are not done with
Messrs. Murphy and Callaghan yet.

Though the fall has been broken, and we may
reasonably conclude that our two enlarged
convicts will do nothing to discredit their training,
still it is felt that the public generally have a
certain claim to protection, and that the institution
which is so confident in its own results as
to set prisoners free, should give some guarantee
to the public for its safety: most of all, if that
public be so confiding as to take these enlarged
convicts into its service. Theoretically, then,
we suppose them still in prison, and the excellent
police organisation of Ireland keeps its eye
upon them anxiously; yet not so as to harass. It
is one of the strangest things in the world to
walk round the great thoroughfare of Dublin
and to hear whispered, by one in the secret,
"that man so busy scavengering is a fifteen
years' convict; that man trowelling so neatly
is a seven years' convict;" or to be taken
through a great workshop and pointed out this
man and that, of innocent and honest expression,
as criminals whose sentences are not yet expired.
Such the police note carefully. These " leavers"
must report themselves at stated intervals. A
system, it will be said, demoralising and degrading.
On the contrary, for in this instance as in
the whole previous treatment of the Irish
convict system, the men feel that this comes of
no antagonism to them, but more of co-operation
and protection—protection against
themselves. So when any symptoms of backsliding
are visible—and these usually manifest
themselves in no worse shape than a little drink—
the offender is sent before one of the directors,
who firmly but kindly admonishes. Finally,