"Abolish ticket-of-leave," cries an
indignant public. Yes; but, when we have
abolished it, our thief comes out at last, a trifle
greyer, perhaps, but with the same necessity
for living—that is, stealing—as before. For,
when the law has finished punishing him to
the uttermost, the public then begin to take
his chastisement into their own hands. "He
shall not work for me," cries the employer;
and "He shall not work with us," echo the
employed. "Let the fellow feel that England
has only need of honest men," says the moral
patriot; "I am not going to put a premium
upon crime by helping him," says the
political economist. Amongst these four
indignant classes, our felon cannot afford to stand
idly with his hands in his pockets—in his
own pockets, that is—but straightway puts
them into theirs: to their detriment, as
appears, upon the average, of some three hundred
pounds a-year. Three hundred pounds a-year
plundered from an honest and working public
by their felon, whom, at half the price, they
might have hung, or got emigrated to West
Australia, or imprisoned for life, or have even
reformed! There are many other arguments
of a much higher nature which we might use;
but this one of £ s. D. is intelligible to us all.

The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society is
founded with the intention of giving the felon
a fair chance: it does not profess to make all
rogues good men; it does not propose to lodge
and board destitute criminals in idleness, nor
to create an artificial supply of labour to the
detriment of honest hands—nor, indeed, do
we see any force in the cry against such
societies upon the last ground, unless it be
determined to starve out discharged prisoners
altogether—it does not even aim at neutralising
the heavy disabilities connected with a
criminal career; but its object is to relieve
men, women, and especially children, upon
their discharge from gaol, from an excess of
moral pressure such as men of even high virtue
would fail in resisting, and against which it
is hopeless to expect these persons to bear
up—these, who have been born and bred to
vice and crime, just as an indignant public has
has been born and bred to gentility and
respectability. "Many," says Mr. Burt, the
benevolent chaplain of the prison at Birmingham,
"have no home, or else a bad one, no
work, no friends, and all are without a
character; if they do apply for labour, they
conceal, or deny, their previous imprisonment,
and if they succeed, they are detected
and discharged: they are, moreover,
unavoidably thrown into the most depraving
company, thieves and receivers of stolen
goods who lurk about the gaol in the morning
in waiting for prisoners to be discharged."

The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, the
first meeting of which was held in London
in February last, has taken for its model a
similar institution established last year in
Birmingham. Its operations are carried on
by an agent, whose most important duty
is to canvass employers for work for such
discharged prisoners—recommended to the
committee of the society by the gaol authorities
  —as are unable to procure it by their
own exertions; and as a short time must
often elapse before work is found for them,
they are during that period provided with
lodging and food. It is attempted, therefore,
to procure lodgings in the houses of poor
persons of good character, where these
prisoners may be placed, apart from one another,
between their leaving the gaol and obtaining
work. Prisoners who have been long in
confinement—and it is their case which is
chiefly contemplated by the society—are
generally in possession of a considerable sum
of money, averaging five pounds; and it is
proposed that this should be voluntarily
placed in the hands of the committee as a
guarantee of the man's honesty, and as a
proof of the integrity of his professions.
When, on the other hand, the prisoner is
destitute, and a few tools, a supply of materials,
or a little clothing are needed, the
purchase-money is advanced as a loan, to be
repaid at the discretion of the committee.
The gratuities sometimes afforded by government
to convicts upon their discharge, now
often spent injudiciously, if not actually in
drink, would, if placed at the disposal of a
society such as this, be surely expended much
more advantageously.

Another part of the society's plan is to
give moderate guarantees for a limited period
to bear a master harmless in the event of his
sustaining any loss through the person
recommended to him; but this is only done in
special cases. No felon is to be, by any means,
introduced among honest fellow workmen
under false pretences: the continual fear of
detection, and the consciousness of having
something to conceal, apart from the injustice done
to his companions, having been found to produce
the worst effects upon the criminal himself,
A public appeal recently made to the working
classes at Birmingham, that they should not
refuse a helping hand to their fallen brothers,
has been responded to most heartily,
and several cases have already occurred
of a discharged prisoner received into a
household with the full approbation and
even the Christian welcome of its inmates.

There is no ambition on the part of the
society to do the work of the crowbar and the
jemmy, in setting a confirmed burglar
comfortably inside men's houses, and far less—
for those convicted of crimes of violence are
excluded from its operations—to establish a
professional garotter at the back of a gentleman
at his own dinner-table; its endeavours
will be, and for a long period, of necessity
must be, confined to benefiting those who
afford a reasonable hope of reformation. It
is anticipated that the assisting proper
persons to emigrate may, in time, fall within the
scope of the society; but "it is my earnest
recommendation," says Mr. Burt, "that every