represented (Derbyshire) considerably more than half the criminal offenders were under twenty-one years of age, and during the last seven years 1300 individuals had been tried who were under eighteen, and of these onehalf were under fifteen. Thus boys being sent to jail for they hardly knew what, soon became corrupted or depraved, their sense of shame was destroyed, and they were converted into hardened offenders. The bill was dropped, but I should feel much inclined to adopt its provisions so far as to entrust justices with the power of summary conviction in all cases where the criminal was under sixteen years of age, unless he or his father or his mother or nearest relation should require trial by jury, when the child should be removed to prison to take his trial with others.

One other inquiry remains,-i. e., the cost of the proposed system of deportation. In its first operation an increase of expense would be perceivable, but not to any alarming extent; for it has already been shown that a penitentiary in a country where labor is valuable, and the means of sustenance plentiful, soon realizes a considerable sum from the work of its inmates. But if, as it is most confidently anticipated, the effect of the system would be to lessen the number of criminals in this country, then the saving of expenditure which would arise from this diminution of the number of offenders would more than counterbalance any increase on the other side. So far, at any rate, as "juvenile offenders" go, the increase of expense should not prevent the plan proposed from being tried, if in other respects it is good. If a society, by its lack of care and foresight, allow any of its young population to be in such a state that the wonder is rather that crime is abstained from, than that it is committed, the least which that society can do,-if it demand a penalty for the infraction of its laws,—is to take care that the punished child is placed in a situation which allows him the opportunity of becoming eventually a good man. If England have a conscience, she ought not to be satisfied with less.

We next approach those cases in which, although the criminal be an adult, the circumstances attending the

commission of the offence, the absence of any previous conviction, and the general good character, all betoken a nature but little hardened. Imprisonment has been shown to fail in these cases as in those of juvenile offenders. Deportation to penitentiaries abroad, framed upon the model of the Pentonville prison, but with considerable alteration in many of its particulars, of the discipline which is necessary to be maintained there, is what I'venture to recommend in its stead.

On the cell of each prisoner at Pentonville is affixed the following notice:—~

"Prisoners admitted into the Pentonville Prison will have an opportunity of being taught a trade, and of receiving sound moral and religious instruction. They will be transplanted to a penal colony in classes, as follows:

FIRST CLASS.

"Prisoners who shall, when sent from this prison, be reported by the governor and chaplain to have behaved well.

"These at the end of eighteen months will be sent to Van Diemen's Land, to receive a ticket of leave on landing, which, until forfeited by bad conduct, will in that country confer most of the advantages of freedom. Labor being in great demand, and wages therefore high, the prisoner's knowledge of a trade will enable him, with industry and continued good conduct, to secure a comfortable and respectable position in society. Prisoners who obtain tickets of leave may also, by industry and good conduct, acquire in a short time means sufficient to enable their families to follow them.

SECOND CLASS.

"Prisoners who have not behaved well.

"These, also, at the end of eighteen months, will be transported to Van Diemen's Land, where they will receive a probationary pass, which will secure to them only a limited portion of their earnings, will admit of their enjoying only a small portion of liberty, and will subject them to many restraints and privations.

"THIRD CLASS.

"Prisoners who have behaved ill.

"These will be transported to Tasman's Peninsula, a small colony occupied only by convicts and a military guard, there to be employed in public works in probationary gangs, without wages and deprived of liberty; and their families will not under any circumstances be allowed to follow them. Prisoners will see how much depends upon their own conduct during their confinement in this prison. According to their behavior and improvement here, will be their future position in the colony to which they will be sent."

Such are the words of kindness and consolation which meet the eye of the convict when he is first introduced into this asylum: or his first lessons in reading tell the good in store for him if he behave well. He has the hope of becoming something better; and the means of knowledge and moral reformation are at hand. At Pentonville these have been used successfully. Of 500 men upon whom the treatment has been tried, only five or six have been pronounced incorrigible: and yet among their ranks are many convicted of the most serious offences, and whose previous lives had been one continued series of crime. Eighteen months of preparation are scarcely too long for such as these, and entire separation from all intercourse with each other is necessary. There are evils, however, attendant upon all systems of solitary confinement, which have been already noticed; and no one would seek to impose it except as a lesser evil, by which the greater one of the communication of depraved thought is prevented.

In the case of less hardened offenders many alleviations of this system might be allowed. The sentence, in order to distinguish it from the penalty of "transportation," as now in use, should be "compulsory emigration for life," and the condition of the prisoner should be assimilated to that of the emigrant directly he is rendered fit, and is capable of maintaining himself. For this purpose so soon as he has received from the governor of the prison a certificate of proficiency in the trade or occupation he has

selected, and one of good moral character from the chaplain, a pardon conditional on his not quitting the colony should be granted. These certificates would be ready passports for employment, and instead of being regarded as memorials of former shame, they would be treasured as precious tokens of an improved condition of life. I would propose further, that upon copies of these certificates being sent to the officers of the parish where the emigrant had gained a settlement, it should be compulsory upon them, on the application of the wife, to send out to the colony both her and her children. This would cure many evils: it would be but right as respects the man who has been subjected to a punishment severe in the first instance, and which, without the hope of this alleviation, would be too severe; and to the unoffending wife and children, who have been deprived by the law of their natural protector, it would be only common justice to hold out to them the means of rejoining him: the state of the colony and of the mother country would both be benefited; the parish which would otherwise be burdened with the support of them for years as paupers, would not be prejudiced; and the scandal which now so often occurs from the contraction of a second marriage during the life of the first husband or the living in adultery -transgressions into which the woman is often almost driven by her destitute condition would be avoided. Let the wife rejoin her husband, the children their father, and in a country where labor will win a sufficient remuneration, and temptation to crime is thereby dimin ished, they would form an honest, well-conducted emigrant family.

With regard to female offenders, a similar system might well be pursued. Hitherto the plan of transportation as respects them, has utterly failed. The evidence given before the transportation committee respecting female convicts was truly disheartening; but it must be recollected that they had lost all sense of shame before they left England, and it could hardly be expected that they would conduct themselves better when assigned as servants in New South Wales, or taken to the factory at Paramatta, where but little discipline was maintained.

Let them, however, be removed from this country for a first offence, placed in penitentiaries abroad,-taught occupations which would qualify them to discharge efficiently the duties of an emigrant's wife, or of a good household servant upon their leaving the penitentiary,granted certificates of acquirement and of moral character, and there would be no reason to doubt that the objects of criminal punishment would be attained, with regard to female offenders both juvenile and adult, as completely as has already been anticipated in the case of boys and men, and partly proved by the experience of Parkhurst, Point Puer, and Pentonville. The general rule is a clear one-effectually punish crime in its first outbreak;— delay can only produce a necessity for severer measures, -increased expense to society, greater pain to the of fender, and render after all the success, both in deterring from crime and in reforming the criminal, less certain.

We have thus disposed of the cases in the first subdivi sion of the offences against property considered not upon the ground of the loss which society may have sustained by the perpetration of the offence, but with a view to the kind of human creature who committed it. The second subdivision is more easily disposed of. This, as has already been stated, consists of men who, either by the fault of the present system, or from an insufficient detective police force, have grown gray in guilt. The first of these causes, it is to be hoped, will be ultimately removed; but for many years, the numbers of this class will neces sarily be considerable. I am unable to suggest any plan better adapted to the reform of these offenders than that of transportation under Lord Stanley's orders; cases from among them being selected as at present for the preparatory discipline of Pentonville. The ability displayed by such offenders, while it leaves them less excuse for their crime, renders a severe punishment needful to prevent them from repeating it. With them the profit arising from their criminal course is calculated to a nicety, and against it are set off the chances of detection, and the fear of punishment. They have employed their talents against society, and they cannot complain of being removed to another country where they will have less opportunity of exercis