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sources, bearing on our practical administration of criminal law, for the use of the Home Office-whose own multifarious duties and the incessant changes of its chief make it almost impossible that this great subject of social well-being can otherwise receive due attention. All our prisons should be brought under public view and control. The errors of the model prison could not have occurred, had it been subjected to the authority of independent managers, and visited by a board of magistrates or others appointed for watching its workings. Pentonville, as a criminal institution-and Bedlam, as devoted to mental disease-are crying instances of the folly, not to say more, of preventing independent observation and public scrutiny.

For our own part, we are entirely convinced that, if the system of separate discipline is to be finally dropped, the Government and the Nation must make up their minds for the experience on a gigantic scale, hitherto hardly contemplated, of all the evils which always, in all places, have attended the aggregation of criminals. Norfolk Island, or the hulks at home, produce the same results-only it is better that this aggregation had not been under our eyes. Send away your criminals-for, most assuredly, the crowded society of this highly civilised country would not tolerate long the masses of convicts who, if philanthropy be allowed its swing, are ultimately to be let loose among us, in yearly multiplied masses, without a hope of gaining a livelihood but by a relapse into crime. Even now, the expiree who returns from transportation is-nay, it may be said is all but compelled to be the touter to some capitalled receiver of stolen goods, and the prompter and teacher of thieving among the young. If Mr. C. Pearson's system, or any other one based on associated labour, should be adopted, it would, we have not the least doubt, fail on account of the impossibility of efficient supervision. If a large staff of watchers is appointed, the expense will be enormous—if a few, then those few are of course soldiers, who, like the sentinels abroad, must at once shoot down the convict attempting escape. Would even the less sentimental classes of our community bear this?

Although we have not found room for much of Mr. Burt's detail as to the question of comparative mortality under the Separate and Mixed systems, we think we have given enough to satisfy our readers. If not, we beg them to consult the chaplain's book for themselves. In that section he includes also many tables as to bodily ailment generally, and here too his figures come out most distinctly in favour of the original system proscribed by Colonel Jebb. He says:

• Upon

'Upon a review of the whole of the facts adduced, it appears that, under the system of rigorous and protracted separation, at Pentonville, the mortality scarcely exceeded the mortality among the free population; that it was lower than throughout the prisons of England and Wales; that any advantages arising from the exclusion of a few individuals on medical grounds was, at least, counterbalanced by the demoralized habits and previous imprisonment of the convicts; that the health of the prisoners generally was "excellent;" that whatever was lost of robustness or florid looks by eighteen months or two years of seclusion, was regained in a few weeks; that, when a system of associated labour is substituted for prolonged separation, both the physical health suffers more severely, and the number which it is necessary to exempt from the severity of the discipline is also greater; that the mortality, the severe sickness, and the amount of consumption, have all been greater at the Public Works than at Pentonville-the removals on medical grounds very much more numerous.'—pp. 169-171.

So much as to Mortality, Insanity, and Disease generally. It remains to pause a moment on the third great plea of the Jebb partizans-and here we shall acquit our conscience by (with a reference to the volume before us) the following specimens of Mr. Burt's tables. It is only necessary to observe in limine that the average cost of each prisoner throughout the gaols of England and Wales in 1847 was about 297. per annum. For that year it was as follows in the Prisons thus classified :

No. 1.-Prisons carried on wholly or partially on the Separate System.

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Upon looking into the details we think it fair to conclude that the costliness in either class need not be the result of the discipline, but may arise, probably, out of circumstances which admit of economic control-and such Mr. Burt holds to be the case especially with regard to the excess of expenditure at Pentonville itself. In 1848 the average cost of each prisoner throughout England and Wales was 277. 16s. 10d.: the average cost at Pentonville

was

was 351. 11s. 8d. But, if the accounts are carefully analysed, and if so much of the excess is deducted as arises from special circumstances connected with Pentonville, and not at all essential to the separate system, there will appear, as the chaplain asserts -and we think proves—a balance in favour of the Model Prison exceeding 21. per prisoner.-pp. 177-183.

The cost of each prisoner at Pentonville in 1852 is estimated at 247. 2s. 1d.* Compared with the cost in former years, this shows a large reduction. It is stated, however, by Mr. Burt that this reduction arises principally from the lowered prices of provisions; from the prison being kept constantly full, so that the expense of salaries, &c., is distributed over a larger population; from some offices being transferred to another department of the public service; and from other causes not connected with the system. The saving effected by the infringements upon the original discipline is estimated at not more than 17. or 25s. per prisoner (pp. 193, 194). But the saving of a small percentage on our annual gaol expenses will be bought at an immense loss, if, by such economy, an inefficient and nondeterrent discipline is substituted for an efficient and reformatory one. Crime will be increased, and, with it, all those expenses incidental to the administration of criminal law. Our outlays on the police force, on the conduct of prosecutions, on the convict service, &c., will all receive a serious augmentation. In short, the result will be, that, though our gaol expenditure of 600,0001. per annum may be reduced, yet the three millions which are now paid for bringing our criminals into these gaols will be greatly increased.

The Legislature has always aimed at concentration of punishment, so that, in the shortest possible time, the greatest amount of protection to society might be secured. This fundamental principle has been quite overlooked in the working of the mixed system, and a mitigated punishment, extending over a longer time, is substituted for a severer one, acting in a short time. Colonel Jebb, believing that eighteen months of Separate Confinement is too severe, reduces that term to nine months, and gives as an equivalent three or four years of Associated Labour on Public Works. The country, therefore, has all the difference to pay between the cost of keeping on hand for years criminals who would, or might, be discharged in months. This, the money view of the question, is serious enough without reference to the

* Compare table in Appendix to Col. Jebb's Report for 1851; and observe that in that the item of buildings and repairs' is omitted-whereas in the estimate stated above it is included. This item is usually rather a large one-in 1848 it was 31. Os. 4 d. per prisoner.

main thing-the moral effect of the discipline of the separate as compared with that of the associated system.

But then it may be argued that the associated prisoners work, and that their work will have a moneyed value. Let this be granted: what is that value? Mr. Burt shows that, owing to the longer detention of convicts under the mixed system, there will be an increase of about 4000 prisoners in the United Kingdom above the number retained on hand under the separate system. These additional 4000 prisoners must demand an additional outlay for lodging, feeding, and supervising; the yearly cost of each man of them will be about 307.-or 120,000l. for the whole 4000. Allow that, one with another, the annual value of the labour per man is 107., or 40,000l. for the whole, it follows that 80,000l. will have to be paid yearly by the public under the mixed system, which would not be required under the separate. In other words, the expenditure will be equivalent to a perpetual vote of 80,000l. per annum for public works. Mr. Burt is of opinion that any good contractor would finish the work required as cheaply, in a much shorter time than he now can, when he is encumbered with convict labour, over which he has but a limited and divided control, and the individuals furnishing which are, for the most part, unskilled and unwilling workmen.

We are well aware that we have in this paper been dealing with little more than one branch of a wide subject-but we hope even so we may have done something for the correction of prevailing prejudices;—and as to the fearfully complicated controversy concerning the transportation system itself, we shall only say at present with what pleasure we received the disclaimer of any resolution to part with it utterly, which the Duke of Newcastle lately pronounced in the House of Lords. Every one must feel what a burthen of embarrassment the new Government has inherited as to this and indeed every other question at all connected with our position as the parent and head of a vast Colonial Empire. But we will not believe that as to this specific matter the difficulty is such as would be found insuperable by ministers of clear views and steady decision. If none of the old colonies will now take our convicts, we must found new ones on purpose-and when we look at the map it seems, in fact, almost absurd to doubt that for this purpose we have ample resources and opportunities at our command.

ART.

2

Par Jules Maurel.

ART. IX.-1. Le Duc de Wellington.
Bruxelles. 8vo. 1853.

2. Wellington-His Character-his Actions—and his Writings. By J. Maurel. London. Fcap. 8vo.

THIS HIS is a remarkable work, if it were only for its singularity. It is written by a Frenchman, who appreciates the actions and character of the Duke of Wellington, with not only a degree of care, candour, and justice, of which we know few, if any, instances amongst his countrymen, but with a delicacy, a sagacity, and a discrimination which have certainly not been surpassed amongst ourselves. He has of course no new facts to tell wellinformed people in France, or any one in England, but he presents the subject in a point of view sufficiently novel to excite a considerable interest in both countries. We learn from a short preface which the Earl of Ellesmere has prefixed to an English translation, that the name and antecedents of M. Maurel are well known in the highest literary circles of Brussels, where he now resides, and of Paris, where he was formerly connected with that most respectable of sources of public instruction in France, the Journal des Débats. His work (Lord E. continues) will speak for itself; but those who read, while they admire, may be glad to know that the author is a gentleman of high private character, as well as established literary reputation.'

M. Maurel is ashamed of the low-minded, and indignant at the suicidal injustice of his countrymen, who endeavour to diminish a glory to which it would be more reasonable, and in fact more patriotic, to allow its fullest measure, since they cannot deny the great FACT, that it had outshone and finally extinguished that of the Idol of their adoration. But the idol himself it was who bequeathed them the example of this inconsistent and ignoble feeling. Whenever he spoke of the Duke at St. Helena, it was in such paroxysms of rage and rancour that even Las Cases seems ashamed of repeating them. After making an apology for exhibiting his hero in one of these disgraceful fits of fury and falsehood, he thus naïvement accounts for their not being more frequent :

'I remarked,' says he, that the Emperor had an extreme repugnance to mention Lord Wellington's name: to be sure he must have felt awkward at publicly depreciating HIM under whom he had fallen!' (il se trouvait gauche à ravaler publiquement celui sous lequel il avait succombe).-Las Cases, vii. 209.

The alternative of getting rid of the awkwardness, by speaking with common decency and truth of the Duke of Wellington,

does

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