when he comes to reckon the rate of insanity—that vital point of the argument on separation-he takes the rate on the most favourable, i.e. the prison population mode, and omits that which would have given an unfavourable and the true result. What that might have been the reader may realise by supposing the above table of the mortality to have been for insanity; in which case Colonel Jebb would have adopted the rate of insanity as 3 in 1000, when it really was 6. This novel mode of reckoning on the prison-population plan is a gross misapplication of figures. It eliminates the element of time from a problem in the solution of which time is the essential point. When therefore it is required to compare the results of two systems, acting on 'equal numbers in equal portions of time,' such a method as that sanctioned by Colonel Jebb is simply and purely deceptive. Let us but call the emigrants passing through Melbourne to the diggings 'Population '—and The following examples, exhibiting the actual mechanism of these two modes of calculating, will assist the reader in considering the above remarks. For the sake of simplicity we limit the time to one week's observation: we begin with the daily average mode; and suppose that on Jan. 1st. The actual number in the prison was Of which were removed on the same day 500 15 Which number, being divided by seven, gives, as the daily 464-2 If we suppose that 4 deaths or insanity cases occurred in this week, the ratio of either would be 4 in 464, or about 8 in 1000. But the prison population mode of calculating gives a very different result-thus :— As the casualties in the week were 4, their ratio would be 4 in 750, or a fraction more than 5 in 1000 on the prison population. The fallacy under which 5 is made to pass off for 8 is transparent. Take the population of the first day-add to it all the admissions and make no deduction for the removals—and you have your satisfactory report.' a vista a vista of immortality will be opened up to the sojourner of that town, by the evanescent fractional quantity which will then represent the deaths on the Prison-Population plan. Croydon, now actually decimated by drain-fever, may be proved to possess the salubrity of Eden, if the railway passengers rushing through the town are ranked and returned as Population. These, however, were the ingenious views which ensured the erection of the Portland Prison, the fitting up of Dartmoor, the erection of the new prison of Portsmouth, at a cost ranging between one and two hundred thousand pounds; and may lead to the erection of some half-dozen more prisons on the associated system, at a cost of from two to three hundred thousand pounds more. The theory also secured the management of Millbank, Pentonville, Portland, Dartmoor, and the Hulks, patronage to the amount, as we have stated, of 60,000l. a-year, and the chief control over an entire year's outlay of a fifth of a million. But of this enough: let us endeavour to ascertain what the experience of Pentonville really proves as to the insanity question. Does insanity increase with the duration of separate confinement? On that hinges the general applicability of this, the most efficient of secondary punishments. It was, no doubt, the theory or assumption that the length of confinement tended to produce insanity, which led to curtailing the original term of separation from eighteen months to an average of nine. Mr. Burt has worked out this point, and shows that the risks of mental disorder are greatest in the earlier portions of separation, when the criminal is wrenched suddenly from all the stimulus of vicious habits, while all the improvement and the gathering force of reformation tells most in the latter parts of his sentence. If this be true, Colonel Jebb's modifications will have just hit that limit which includes all the chances of madness and excludes all the chances of reformation. From these returns it is plain that the insanity has invariably increased when a greater number of new prisoners have been admitted, and and that it has decreased when the greatest number of old prisoners have been retained in the prison.' The chaplain gives other tables establishing the same conclusions, if possible, still more irrefragably-and he then is well entitled to speak thus : 'These returns are sufficient to show-and the more thoroughly the facts are investigated, the more complete the proof becomes-that, instead of this hypothetical increase of liability to insanity with the length of the imprisonment, there is a positive decrease. "The twelfth month is the period which has been assumed as the limit beyond which separation cannot be safely prolonged. It is necessary, therefore, to compare the amount of insanity which has occurred within, with the amount which has occurred beyond that period. From the opening of the prison to the 31st of December, 1850, a period of eight years, there occurred altogether twenty-two cases of insanity: of these there occurred before the twelfth month, nineteen; after the twelfth month, three. During the same period there occurred twentysix cases of slight mental affection, or delusion: of these there occurred before the twelfth month, twenty-two; after the twelfth month, four. There have also been three cases of suicide: they have all occurred before the twelfth month. When these three classes of affections are taken together, there have been in all fifty-one cases; and of these, forty-four have occurred before, and seven after, the twelfth month.' The preceding passage is so clear as to the comparison between the first twelve months and the subsequent term of imprisonment, that we need not follow Mr. Burt through all his tables. For one of them, however, we must make room. In order to bring out yet more fully the effect of time upon the development of mental disease, he tabularizes the cases as occurring within the first six months of imprisonment, successive periods of the same extent :— or within Mr. Burt proceeds to say:The question will immediately suggest itself to what extent may this decrease in the number of cases during each succeeding period be accounted for by a decrease decrease in the number of prisoners retained for the longer terms?'—and he repeats, under various forms, the grounds of his belief to the contrary, as extracted from the Population Returns of the prison. For example, we have― "TABLE, showing the Terms of Imprisonment at Pentonville of 3546 Prisoners, being the Total Number admitted to the 31st December, 1850, together with the Mental Cases as reported to that date, distributed under Four Periods of Six Months. Among other just remarks on these comparisons of completed terms, Mr. Burt says: The extent to which separate confinement has been prolonged without producing insanity is ascertained; the extent to which the separation might be safely protracted beyond its actual termination is not ascertained. But when the liability to mental disturbance is found to have decreased continuously as the term of separation has been prolonged, the result would, at least as an experiment, justify the extension of the term beyond the original limit of eighteen months or two years, whenever further punishment or reformation is required, rather than its curtailment.'-p. 136. These views of Mr. Burt are not promulgated for the first time. As they were discussed three years ago in the Medical Journals and it can scarcely be doubted that these Journals reached Pentonville-why were they not called for and embodied in the reports of the Board, who are or should act as judges and not advocates? Instead of producing Mr. Burt's facts and reasonings on so vital a point, those of Dr. Baly, the Medical Superintendent of Millbank, are prominently set forth-and they are so exactly modelled on the statistics of Mr. Burt, that they appear to be intended to prove the reverse of that gentleman's known, though unproduced, deductions. But we shall do for Dr. Baly what the Surveyor-General has not done for Mr. Burt, and give this medical authority's table beside our chaplain's : Periods We give Dr. Baly all credit for industry in the compilation of this table-but we doubt whether the doctor's industry is not displayed at the expense of his perspicacity; for, though his data unquestionably establish an increase of insanity keeping pace with the prolongation of separate confinement, the proof unfortunately applies only to the operation of that system in one particular prison-viz. the horrid place under the worthy doctor's personal superintendence. If, instead of losing himself in his figures, Dr. Baly had consulted his good sense, he would not need reminding that, if you want to disturb the mind, you have only to ruin the health; and how efficaciously the air of Millbank can do that Dr. Baly's own returns of Millbank Mortality will show. This awful pile was disused as a place of confinement for long periods, on account of its extreme insalubrity, and hence became a mere halting-quarter for culprits under summary sentence of transportation. These were retained at Millbank no longer than till they could be got on board shipand yet this is one of the spots that have been selected, under the present Mixed System, for convicts undergoing the first stage of probationary discipline. At Millbank the first year of the new system, 1849, gave an actual mortality of 84 in an average daily population of 869 males, which was at the rate of 93 deaths per 1000. This great mortality was partly owing to cholera, but, allowing 34 deaths from that malady, we still have 59 per 1000 as a measure of the unhealthiness of Millbank in an epidemic year. In 1850 the mor tality there was 21 per 1000-in 1851 it was 18.* At Pentonville, during the four years of the original use of the Separate System, it was a fraction above 6, and cholera, we believe, has never appeared in that prison. Dr. Baly's figures, when done into plain language, show that, if you immure a number of wretched creatures in the midst of a foul pestilential marsh, a good many of them will go mad in three months; if you keep them in for six, a larger proportion * Vide Report on Millbank for 1849, pp. 9, 10; Report of Directors for 1851, p. 128; also Colonel Jebb's Report for 1851, p. 112. VOL. XCII. NO. CLXXXIV. 2 L will |