but on the
whole, as it is carried out, it is a more innocent piece of deception
than the classification. At the public works, however, there is much
injustice done by it, no allowance being made for a sick man, unless he
has met with some accident. If the "marks" were money, _bona fide_
sovereigns, and if the prisoner were permitted to exercise the
abilities God has given him in order to earn that money, there might be
some sense and justice discernable in the system. As it is there is
neither.

I may here venture to say that we might materially diminish crime and
expense connected with the prosecution and punishment of criminals by
doing away with our convict establishments altogether, except for the
confinement of political prisoners, and those having sentences for
life. In lieu of these I would suggest the introduction of the system
of remissions into our county jails, granting first offenders a
liberal, and third and fourth, an extremely small allowance. Teaching
the prisoners such trades as they are fitted for, qualifying them for
colonists, and selecting the most suitable for emigration. I would also
place the jails and workhouses under one management. Commissioners for
the prevention of crime and pauperism in each county, and subject them
to a rigid government inspection by a board responsible to Parliament
and the nation.

But even this would only be a partial reform. I would have our criminal
laws based upon the old Mosaic principle of "enforced restitution," and
carried out on the Christian principle of making the offender "pay the
uttermost farthing." Then we could fairly and justly retain the idle
and the useless in the net of justice, and allow the willing and
industrious to achieve their own freedom by satisfying the claims of
the law.

Now, when time has been strangled, and virtue repressed, we allow the
worst villains to escape, and all that has been required of them in
prison was civility to officers, obedience to a stupid discipline, and
a few years' work which neither enables them to support an honest
livelihood outside the prison, or contributes in any appreciable degree
to their maintenance inside.

Under the system I propose, every man who stole a sheep would have to
pay the same penalty before he could exercise the rights of
citizenship--no matter whether his character was good, bad, or
indifferent; no matter whether he was rich or poor, a peer or a
peasant, the voice of impartial justice