sively read, they placed the soldier by the seaman; thus, while hoary veterans tottered over the grave, and thousands and ten thousands looked a last farewell, the coffin slowly descended into the dark vault-dust to dust-and Wellington was laid alongside Nelson, We have been much struck, and we have reason to believe that the Duke's surviving friends have been much gratified, with a set of verses on the 18th of November, 1852,' from the pen of Lord Ellesmere-an attached and valued member of his Grace's private circle. We wish we could afford a larger extract from this poem-certainly, as far as certainly, as far as we have seen, greatly superior to any other which the occasion has producedbut we must limit ourselves to the following lines. Having alluded in a very feeling and also skilful manner to the most eminent veterans that attended their chief's obsequies, Lord Ellesmere thus resumes the grand point of universal interest:— 'It is that while all these and more have answer'd to the call, No voice again shall answer to the greatest name of all. It is that we shall see no more on yonder esplanade That well-known form emerging from the vaulted portal's shade; That we shall miss from where we stand at many an evening's close That sight which told of duty done and toil's well-earn'd repose: Pursued by murmur'd blessings, as he pass'd upon his way, While lovers broke their converse off, and children left their play; And child or man who cross'd his path was proud at eve to tell, "We met him on his homeward ride. The Duke was looking well. We pass'd him close, we saw him near, and we were seen by him— Our hats were off-he touch'd his own, one finger to the brim." That sight the loiterer's pace could mend, from careworn brows erased The lines of thought, and busy men grew idlers while they gazed. Oh! throned in England's heart of hearts, what meed to man allow'd Could match that homage paid to thee, the reverence of the crowd? Oh! weigh'd with this, how light the gifts by thankful Sovereigns shower'd For thrones upheld, and right maintain'd, and lawless wrong o'erpower'd: Thy single aim was England's weal, thy guerdon England's love!' ART. ART. VIII.-Results of the System of Separate Confinement as administered at the Pentonville Prison. By John T. Burt, B.A., Assistant Chaplain-formerly Chaplain to the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum. 8vo. Pp. 287. 1852. ONE NE of the most engrossing occupations of childhood, as well as one of the most effectual allayers of its superfluous activities, is the business of building houses for the purpose of knocking them down. The small angers and epitomised passions of the tiny republic are wonderfully lulled by a box of bricks or a pack of cards. Even when the hubbub threatens to assume the dimensions of a circular storm, and Jane is screaming for her doll, on which Charles has laid violent hands, because William has run off with his ball—even then the belligerents immediately pause: the constructive faculty is forthwith at play, and the troubled parent is too happy to acknowledge the amorphous mass, shown by the proud architects, as a veritable cathedral, castle, or cottage. Similar infantine conditions of mind seem to be exhibited periodically in that great collective-the public-and to be treated by its rulers after the method of the box of bricks. A sustained clamour has long existed as to punishment in general, and every kind of system enforcing it has been canvassed, adopted, and abandoned in turn. The hanging system, the hard-labour, the solitary, the silent, the separate, and the transportation systems, with their various modifications, have all been taken up and thrown down with such astonishing rapidity as to make one doubt whether there is anything called experience, or whether it is of any use. Blue books and annual Reports, solemn treatises and pungent pamphlets, are to be had by the hundredweight—and yet here we still are, discussing the metaphysics of the reformatory' and the 'deterrent' principles; building our own veritable gaols after our own peculiar views; first taking care to demolish those which our playmates had erected. So that the box of bricks is charged to paternal John Bull, nothing else need give us a moment's uneasiness; we may determine at leisure whether the sudden extinction of life should not, in every case, be rigidly limited to the murdered, and the murderer taken care of, educated, and sent to some milder climate over sea; or we may expatiate on the theme whether corporal punishment is not very un-English-derogatory to the true-born British ruffian and high-spirited burglar, and only fit for our public schools and our warriors. Some wholesome truths, however, do creep out from this weary rubbish. For instance, the public accepted it as a 'great fact that the association of offenders is, and must be, the most efficient efficient nurse of crime, and that our old gaols were merely so many guilds of sin, where, at the heavy cost of the national purse, the young and awkward pilferer could most conveniently study the niceties of the craft under veteran cracksmen, and must almost infallibly acquire an incurable passion for his profession. This principle of association at last came to be felt as the crying evil the stumbling-block to all that class of philanthropists who insist no less on reforming than on deterring the criminal. It alone ripens vicious tendencies into vicious acts: whatever the aptitude may be, the mind usually lacks the force to rush into solitary crime, but awaits for edge and courage from sympathetic corruption and the contagion of example. This conviction of the dangers of associating criminals was brought to a point by the clear Reports of two diligent and thoughtful Prison Inspectors, Mr. Crawford and the Rev. Whitworth Russell, and their advice led to the erection of the great Model Prison at Pentonville, with an express view to a full and fair trial of the separate system.' The arrangement took place in 1842, and Sir R. Peel's government intrusted the experiment to a Commission, consisting of the late Lord Wharncliffe (then President of the Council), Lord John Russell, the Speaker, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Devon, the Earl of Chichester, the Rev. Whitworth Russell, Mr. Crawford, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Dr. Ferguson, and Colonel Jebb. For ten years this institution has now existed, during one moiety of which time the Separate System has been fairly worked out, and the other moiety has been devoted to overthrowing it. From 1843 to 1847 inclusive, the original commissioners enunciated, as they believed, year by year, the results of a most successful experiment; and we may refer to our Number of December, 1847, for a tolerably full account of the Prison as conducted on their principles. The fathers of the scheme both died suddenly in 1847: by a strange fatality, Mr. Crawford fell down dead in the Board-room of the Model Prison and Mr. Russell in the Millbank Penitentiary. Most of the other members retired-but Sir Benjamin Brodie and Dr. Ferguson, who had also tendered their resignations, and had ceased to take any active part in the Commission, were requested to remain, by Sir George Grey, at that time Home Secretary, till some contemplated modifications of the prison-discipline should have been completed. These modifications, however, turned out to be a total upsetting of the original discipline-decreed by Sir G. Grey, in the teeth of the Reports of his own Commissioners, and without the assignment of any reason for such a summary stultification of those gentlemen's exertions and opinions; whereupon, of course, the two medical lingerers finally withdrew. Thus Thus came into regular operation a totally different scheme of discipline, the so-called Mixed System-a system, the merits or demerits of which are undoubtedly wholly due to Colonel Jebb. It was adopted entirely under his influence. An original member of the former Commission, he became, and continues to be, the head of the new one-a Board which now consists of himself, as Chairman, and of two other Directors, amply salaried,* and exercising a patronage over 60,0007. a-year, and the chief control over a gross annual expenditure of about 200,0007. As far as Pentonville is concerned, the present Board, though nominally responsible, is practically autocratic. Most other prisons are visited and reported on by a committee of magistrates, and by gentlemen who, under the name of Prison Inspectors, are unconnected with any of the establishments they watch. Pentonville is exempted from any such intrusion, unless one of the Directors, who happens to be also an Inspector of Prisons, is to be accepted as his own supervisor. The following points characterise the two systems. The basis of the original one was Separation-not solitude-the terrible results of which, in America, forbade any similar experiment here. The principle and rule was the careful separation of the criminal from his fellow-criminals-but not from all intercourse with his fellow-men. He was daily visited by the various officers of the prison. The trade instructor frequented his cell and taught him a craft; he was taught also in the school and in the chapel ;-so that a constant change of mental occupation was afforded to solace his confinement, to prevent that eternal brooding over unpartaken misery which is so likely to disorder even a vigorous intellect, and gradually to reclaim his moral being through the substitution of better habits for those that had led to his misfortune. The term originally assigned to * Colonel Jebb draws only 1507. per annum as Chairman of Directors, while his colleagues respectively get 7001. and 8001.; but the Colonel is in receipt of another salary of 7501. as Surveyor-General-he has 2021. 5s. as military pay-he is also, we believe, Inspector of Military Prisons; 350l. per annum is given him for travelling and incidental expenses as Surveyor-General; and, as Chairman of Directors, he shares with his colleagues 10002. per annum for similar expenses. We do not think that these gentlemen are overpaid, considering the magnitude of their duties and responsibilities. There is an item, however, in the estimates (for 1853), which is startling. We find the salaries of the minor Directors raised from 600l. and 7001, to 7007, and 8001., as above stated-while the warders are still suffering under the annual fine of 1721. 12s. imposed on them for economy's sake, about three years ago, for lodging money. No doubt the public do not suffer by this arrangement-the augmentation of 2001. being nearly balanced by the saving of 1721.; but are the overworked warders equally fortunate? Their duties are constant-night and day; and if they break down before their service time is completed, they lose their retiring pensions, and have nothing but the workhouse to look to. Vide Estimates for Civil Services for the year ending 31st March, 1853, No. III., pp. 10, 11, 12, and 14. this ordeal was eighteen months, but circumstances over which the commissioners had no control extended it in some instances to twenty-two months. In fine, this discipline had been adopted expressly as a careful course of preparation for the carrying out of a sentence of transportation; a sentence of stern sound, but the general effect of which was merely the removal of those prisoners to a spot where they might begin life afresh, with new principles, it might be anticipated, and with new hopes. The changes under the Mixed System were-1. The shortening of the term of separate confinement from eighteen to fifteen, and by and bye, professedly, to twelve months; the fact however being that, as from this last term the time spent at the Millbank Penitentiary prior to the admission of the convict into Pentonville was deducted, the average period of Separation became reduced to about nine months. 2. To make up for this reduced term of separation, a period of associated labour at the public works (Hulks, &c.) was interpolated between the cell and the final transportation. A thorough confusion of the elements of discipline was the consequence of these innovations. Henceforth, in the first place, 10 per cent. of the prisoners were in constant association for the service of the house. The amount of mental culture was diminished; the staff of the prison was pared down, so that efficient supervision was impossible; the terrors of the separate system were greatly lessened; and the instructions of the chapel and the school were neutralized by the companionship and the commentary of felons. Among the reductions for economy's sake was that of the office of Physician held by Dr. Owen Rees, to whose intelligence and zeal the success of the primary system had been largely due; and this momentous and difficult problem, involving nothing less than the life or death of the mind, was confided to the sole care of the inferior medical officer of the prison, the resident apothecary. Thanks to the assistant-chaplain, we are in possession of such data as will permit us to establish a comparison between the two systems, and to substantiate from evidence what we anticipated on à priori grounds-namely, that so much confusion of principles as marks the new set of regulations must lead to a host of evils-in a word, to more madness, more mortality, more expense, and less reformation. The volume before us is rich in facts carefully digested and simply stated. Mr. Burt appears to have been deeply imbued with the merits of the Separate System, and to have been urged by a sense of duty to reproduce in a fuller form those opinions and arguments which he had maintained before the select committee on Prison Discipline in 1850, and which he very properly thought would |