thy Robert Owen, who saw in external
circumstances the great moulders of human character, was obliged to
supplement his doctrine by making the man himself one of the
circumstances. It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts
because they are not to our taste. How many disorders, ghostly and
bodily, are transmitted to us by inheritance? In our courts of law,
whenever it is a question whether a crime has been committed under the
influence of insanity, the best guidance the judge and jury can have
is derived from the parental antecedents of the accused. If among
these insanity be exhibited in any marked degree, the presumption in
the prisoner's favour is enormously enhanced, because the experience
of life has taught both judge and jury that insanity is frequently
transmitted from parent to child.

I met, some years ago, in a railway carriage the governor of one of
our largest prisons. He was evidently an observant and reflective
man, possessed of wide experience gathered in various parts of the
world, and a thorough student of the duties of his vocation. He told
me that the prisoners in his charge might be divided into three
distinct classes. The first class consisted of persons who ought
never to have been in prison. External accident, and not internal
taint, had brought them within the grasp of the law, and what had
happened to them might happen to most of us. They were essentially
men of sound moral stamina, though wearing the prison garb. Then came
the largest class, formed of individuals possessing no strong bias,
moral or immoral, plastic to the touch of circumstances, which could
mould them into either good or evil members of society. Thirdly came
a class--happily not a large one--whom no kindness could conciliate
and no discipline tame. They were sent into this world labelled
'incorrigible', wickedness being stamped, as it were, upon their
organisations. It was an unpleasant truth, but as a truth it ought to
be faced. For such criminals the prison over which he ruled was
certainly not the proper place. If confined at all, their prison
should be on a desert island where the deadly _contagium_ of their
example could not taint the moral air. But the sea itself he was
disposed to regard as a cheap and appropriate substitute for the
island. It seemed to him evident that the State would benefit if
prisoners of the first class were liberated; prisoners of the second
class educated; and prisoners of t