.

a male turnkey visiting a solitary female prisoner? Surely, women can take care of women as effectually as men can take care of men; or, at least, women can do so properly, assisted by men. This want of a matron is a very scandalous and immoral neglect in any prison system.

The presence of female visitors, and instructors for the women, is so obviously advantageous and proper, that the offer of forming such an institution must be gladly and thankfully received by any body of magistrates. That they should feel any jealousy of such interference, is too absurd a supposition to be made or agreed upon. Such interference may not effect all that zealous people suppose it will effect; but, if it does any good, it had better be.

Irons should never be put upon. prisoners before trial; after trial, we cannot object to the humiliation and disgrace which irons and a particoloured prison dress occasion. Let them be a part of solitary confinement, and let the words 'Solitary Confinement,' in the sentence, imply permission to use them. The judge then knows what he inflicts.

We object to the office of prison inspector, for reasons so very obvious, that it is scarcely necessary to enumerate them. The prison inspector would, of course, have a good salary; that, in England, is never omitted. It is equally matter of course that he would be taken from among treasury retainers; and that he never would look at a prison. Every sort of attention should be paid to the religious instruction of these unhappy people; but the poor chaplain should be paid a little better; every possible duty is expected from him—and he has one hundred per annum.

Whatever money is given to prisoners, should be lodged with the governor for their benefit, to be applied as the visiting magistrates point out-no other donations should be allowed or accepted.

If voluntary work before trial, or compulsory work after trial, is the system of a prison, there should be a task-master; and it should be remembered, that the principal object is not profit.

Wardsmen, selected in each yard among the best of the prisoners, are very serviceable. If prisoners work, they should work in silence. At all times, the restrictions upon seeing friends should be very severe; and no food should be sent from friends.

Our general system then is-that a prison should be a place of real punishment; but of known, enacted, measurable, and measured punishment. A prisoner (not for assault, or refusing to pay parish dues, but a bad felonious prisoner), should pass a part of his three months in complete darkness; the rest in complete solitude, perhaps in complete idleness, (for solitary idleness leads to repentance, idleness in company to vice). He should be exempted from cold, be kept perfectly clean, have sufficient food to prevent hunger or illness, wear the prison dress and moderate irons, have no communication with any body but the officers of the prison and the magistrates, and remain otherwise in the most perfect solitude. We strongly suspect this is the way in which a bad man is to be made afraid of prisons; nor do we think that he would be less inclined to receive moral and religious instruction, than any one of seven or eight carpenters in jail, working at a common bench, receiving a part of their earnings, and allowed to purchase with them the delicacies of the season. If this system is not resorted to, the next best system is severe work, ordinary diet, no indulgences, and as much seclusion and solitude as are compatible with work ;-always remarking, that perfect sanity of mind and body are to be preserved.

To this system of severity in jails there is but one objection. The present duration of punishments was calculated for prisons conducted upon very different principles;-and if the discipline of prisons was rendered more strict, we are not sure that the duration of imprisonment would be practically shortened; and the punishments would then be quite atrocious and disproportioned. There is a very great disposition, both in judges and magistrates, to increase the duration of imprisonment; and, if that is done, it will be dreadful cruelty to increase the bitterness as well as the time. We should think, for instance, six months' solitary imprisonment to be a punishment of dreadful severity; but we find, from the House of Commons' report, that prisoners are sometimes committed by county magistrates for two years* of solitary confinement. And so it may be doubted, whether it is not better to wrap up the rod in flannel, and make it a plaything, as it really now is, than to show how it may be wielded with effectual severity. For the pupil, instead of giving one or two stripes, will whip

House of Commons' Report, 355.

his patient to death. But if this abuse were guarded against, the real way to improve would be, now we have made prisons healthy and airy, to make them odious and austere-engines of punishment, and objects of terror.

In this age of charity and of prison improvement, there is one aid to prisoners which appears to be wholly overlooked; and that is, the means of regulating their defence, and providing them witnesses for their trial. A man is tried for murder, or for house-breaking or robbery, without a single shilling in his pocket. The nonsensical and capricious institutions of the English law prevent him from engaging counsel to speak in his defence, if he had the wealth of Croesus; but he has no money to employ even an attorney, or to procure a single witness, or to take out a subpoena. The judge, we are told, is his counsel;—this is sufficiently absurd; but it is not pretended that the judge is his witness. He solemnly declares that he has three or four witnesses who could give a completely different colour to the transaction; but they are sixty or seventy miles distant, working for their daily dread, and have no money for such a journey, nor for the expense of a residence of some days in an assize town. They do not know even the time of the assize, nor the modes of tendering their evi dence if they could come. When every thing is so well marshalled against him on the opposite side, it would be singular if an innocent man, with such an absence of all means of defending himself, should not occasionally be hanged or transported and accordingly we believe that such things have happened.* Let any man, immediately previous to the assizes,

* From the Clonmell Advertiser it appears, that John Brien, alias Captain Wheeler, was found guilty of murder at the late assizes for the county of Waterford. Previous to his execution he made the following confession:

'I now again most solemnly aver, in the presence of that God by whom I will soon be judged, and who sees the secrets of my heart, that only three, viz. Morgan Brien, Patrick Brien, and my unfortunate self, committed the horrible crimes of murder and burning at Bally garron, and that the four unfortunate men who have before suffered for them, were not in the smallest degree accessary to them. I have been the cause for which they have innocently suffered death. I have contracted a death of justice with them—and the only and least restitution I can make them, is thus publicly, solemnly, and with death before my eyes, to acquit their memory of any guilt in the crimes for which I shall deservedly suffer!!!'-Philanthropist, No. 6. 208.

Pereunt et imputantur.

visit the prisoners for trial, and see the many wretches who are to answer to the most serious accusations, without one penny to defend themselves. If it appeared probable, upon inquiry, that these poor creatures had important evidence which they could not bring into court for want of money, would it not be a wise application of compassionate funds, to give them this fair chance of establishing their innocence? It seems to us no bad finale of the pious labours of those who guard the poor from ill treatment during their imprisonment, to take care that they are not unjustly hanged at the expiration of the term.

VOL. 1.-25

PRISONS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1822.)

1. The Third Report of the Committee of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, and for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders. London, 1821.

2. Remarks upon Prison Discipline, &c. &c., in a Letter addressed to the Lord-Lieutenant and Magistrates of the County of Essex. By C. C. Western, Esq. M. P. London, 1821.

THERE never was a society calculated, upon the whole, to do more good than the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline; and, hitherto, it has been conducted with equal energy and prudence. If now, or hereafter, therefore, we make any criticisms on their proceedings, these must not be ascribed to any deficiency of good will or respect. We may differ from the society in the means-our ends, we are proud to say, are the same.

In the improvement of prisons, they consider the small number of recommitments as the great test of amelioration. Upon this subject we have ventured to differ from them in a late number; and we see no reason to alter our opinion. It is a mistake, and a very serious and fundamental mistake, to suppose that the principal object in jails is the reformation of the offender. The principal object undoubtedly is, to prevent the repetition of the offence by the punishment of the offender; and, therefore, it is quite possible to conceive that the offender himself may be so kindly, gently, and agreeably led to reformation, by the efforts of good and amiable persons, that the effect of the punishment may be destroyed, at the same time that the punished may be improved. A prison may lose its terror and discredit, though the prisoner may return from it a better scholar, a better artificer, and a better man. The real and only test, in short, of a good prison system is, the diminution of offences by the terror of the punishment. If it can be shown that, in proportion as attention and expense have been employed upon the improvement of prisons, the