nd cases
innumerable might be mentioned in which prisoners' wives and children
have been assisted and kept out of the workhouse until the release of
the bread-winner. Other societies again provide permanent homes for
destitute offenders on their discharge from prison. All that is
required of persons making use of those homes is, that they shall earn
as much as will cover a portion of the expense of providing them with
food and shelter. For this purpose work is always provided for them,
or if they prefer it, they may find occupation outside and make the
home a sort of temporary resting-place. It is hardly necessary to add
that Prisoners' Aid Societies could effect much more if they were
better supported by the public. The organisation is there; the men to
work it are there; the only impediment to their labours is a lack of
funds. If the possession of adequate funds enabled all the Prisoners'
Aid Societies to establish Homes for discharged prisoners, those
institutions might be made of the greatest service to the cause of
justice generally. It would then be easy to get a return from them of
the number of persons whose criminal life was due to sheer indolence,
and magistrates would have far less hesitation in dealing with them
than they do now. At the present time, it is sometimes difficult to
know whether an offender is willing to work if he had the opportunity,
but the existence of prisoners' homes would soon solve the question.
Reference to a man's record in one of these institutions would at once
place the magistrate in full possession of the facts, and he would be
able to give judgment with a knowledge of the offender he does not now
possess. In this way many cruel mistakes might be avoided; and, on the
other hand, many hardened offenders dealt with in a more effective
manner.

The difficulty sometimes encountered by discharged prisoners in
finding employment, as well as many other evils inseparable from
imprisonment, has, in recent years, led an increasing number of
jurists to the conclusion that every other method of punishment
should, when the case at all admits of it, be exhausted before the
gaol is resorted to. "The very first principle of enlightened
penology," says Mayhew, "is to endeavour to keep people out of prison
as long as possible, rather than thrust them into it for the most
trivial offences." In many instances it is quite sufficient punishment
for a first offender in a petty case to be publicly rebuke