ay
now be safely abolished in this country. In all countries where
secondary punishments are severe and capital punishments rigorously
inflicted, murders are numerous, and in countries where the machinery
for the detection of crime is defective it may be the same. Earl
Russell, in a late edition of his work on the constitution, expresses
opinions on this subject with which I coincide, but I disagree with him
when he prescribes imprisonment and hard labour as being the most
suitable method of dealing with criminals not capitally punished; I
refer, of course, to imprisonment and hard labour as generally
understood.

There are three systems of imprisonment: the solitary, the separate and
silent, and the promiscuous association of all prisoners at the public
works.

The solitary system feeds the lunatic asylums, the separate system has
its advantages, if not too long continued, and of the promiscuous
association system I have already at some length given my opinion.

In my humble estimation a prison ought to be a place for extracting as
much usefulness as possible out of a prisoner for the benefit of that
society whose laws he has offended; but the "hard labour" in our
prisons is not useful in any sense of the word, either to the prisoner
or society, it is sheer waste of energy, which is in itself an evil,
and it gives the prisoner an aversion to labour of all kinds, which is
another and a much greater evil. Moreover, long imprisonments are
injurious to the prisoner under any discipline. If you take a bird, and
place it in a cage, and next day liberate it, it will ever retain a
dread of confinement; but, if you keep it in a prison for years, and
then open the cage door, instead of the sudden eager flight to freedom,
it will hover round its little prison, perhaps it will even re-enter
it, preferring it to that liberty which it has lost the power to enjoy.
So it is with many prisoners, keep them confined, and accustom them for
years to prison life, such as it is in the most approved "models," or
indeed under any conceivable mode of discipline consistent with
unshortened life in such a place, and they will re-enter the world in a
great measure, unfitted for the business of life.

I remember having a conversation with an intelligent prisoner who was
by no means a criminal at heart. He asked me what means would I
recommend for the destruction of these schools of crime?--for so he
called the convict prisons.

"Sentence Cha