,
sleep, rave, curse, pray, long for death, dash his brains out, go mad if
he likes--nobody knows it. He is dead to the world and buried though
living. They told us that only one man has ever survived a year's
sentence there. Those that survive six months are almost invariably
drivelling idiots or raving maniacs."

It was under similar conditions to these that the assassin of King
Humbert of Italy was incarcerated. Such a system shows a cruel
vindictive rage towards the criminal. Terrible as the offender's crime
may be, society must deal calmly and not lose self-control or give such
an exhibition of its own criminal ferocity.

=The Separate System.=--Under which the prisoners are not allowed to
associate with each other, but receive frequent visits from gaolers,
warders, chaplains, and other persons who are likely to bring beneficial
influence to bear upon them. Each man has his own cell, in which he
sleeps and works. His exercise is conducted in such a manner as to
prevent contact with other prisoners. He is allowed books and given
daily instruction. Under this system perhaps the best results are
obtained.

=The Silent System.=--A system under which the prisoners associate with
one another but are forbidden to communicate. This system cannot be
strictly enforced, and as it converts trifling matters into serious
offences, it makes the prison life a state of petty persecution.

=The Combined System.=--A system which the prisoners are kept apart
during the night but work together during the day. This system has been
adopted in New Zealand, and in the following description of the value of
imprisonment it will be understood that it is to this system that
reference is made.

A man is sent to prison because he has proved himself unfit to be at
liberty. His attack upon society was evidence of this, and society
punishes him by taking away the liberty which he has thus abused. His
dread of the prison increases as he comes under the shadow of its grim
walls, and, once having passed within, a feeling of remorse and
desperation seizes him. Its intensity or weakness will depend upon his
temperament. He is soon told in the most emphatic manner that he is to
regard himself as a felon; that he is to live with felons as a felon and
observe the habits of a felon. He is given a uniform coarse in texture
clumsy and grotesque in appearance and branded over with the broad-arrow
and with his prison number. In this garb it is impossible