MEMORIALS OF MILLBANK.* IT is proverbially easier to get into

prison than to get out again.. Our experience has been exceptional, though we have frequently been within prison walls. Our " ticket-of-leave " was an " open- sesame," which invariably set us free in a few hours' time. It was simply a pass from the Directors of Convict Prisons to enter any convict prison in the country when we chose. After repeated visits to our best-known prisons, we have come to several conclusions,. one of which is that our Prison system, like a good deal else, is the outcome of much experiment and patient compromise. Since the- time of Howard, what efforts have been made, and what reforms, have been brought about! Our convicts nowadays are not consigned to common-rooms, to herd together and corrupt each other. The Hulks, with their sad story of lewd disorder and periodic outbreak,. have left no trace to our time, save the memory of the evils which they nourished. Transportation, which for a while held out the hope of an easy way to moralise the lapsed by snaking them the foun- dation of new communities, was soon proved ineffectual ; and once more, instead of "shooting our social rubbish" at the antipodes, we must keep it at home, and try to work it into. shape as best we may. Prison management rose into gigantic importance when the Colonies refused to receive more convicts from the home-country, and thanks to wise legislation and good management, together with well-directed philanthropic effort, which legislators and prison administrators have now learned to. appreciate and to encourage, serious crime was never so low in, the country as it is at present, nor our prisons in a less crowded condition.

The present Convict system of Great Britain may be defined as an effort to make the punitive and reformatory elements in- separable. First of all, after a criminal in England has been con- victed, he goes to what is called a " close " prison, either Penton- ville or Millbank, where for nine mouths he has absolutely ncs communication with any one save chaplain or warder, and sees no one, save at prayers or at exercise, where any attempt at con- versation is a breach of discipline. With his mind thus thrown in upon itself, it is hoped that good impressions may be the more readily made, and that work, begun to beguile the tedium of the cell, may by habit become attractive. At first the period of this

Memorials of Millbank, and Chaplet's in Prison History. By Arthur Griffiths,. Deputy Governor of Millbank Prison. With Illustrations by II. Goff and tha Author. 2 vols. Loudon : Henry S. King and Co.

close " confinement was eighteen months, but it was found to bear so hardly on mind and body that it was reduced to one-half. After the lapse of the nine months, the convict, if able-bodied, goes to Chatham, Portland, or Portsmouth, and is employed in a gang at quarrying, building, or some such labour, the rule of silence being still enforced as far as practicable ; if an invalid, or of weak constitution, then he is despatched to Parkhurst, Brixton, Woking, or Dartmoor, where the lighter crafts of tailoring, shoe- making, mat-making, farm-work, &c., are carried on. He is still

subjected to all possible moralising influences, the work itself being so regarded ; attends school, if not up to a certain standard, is often visited by the chaplain, Protestant or Roman Catholic, is compelled to be cleanly in person and cell, to bathe regularly,

and take exercise daily. With women the process is the same ; and from Millbank they pass on to Woking, Fulham, or Brixton, where, like the men, they work in association.

Captain Griffiths's most interesting Memorials of Millbank

present the most cogent proofs of what we have said as to the tentative and experimental process by which the results of to-day have been reached. Millbank, the product in one respect of the philanthropic wave that was set in motion by the efforts of Howard, was at first an expensive plaything, whereby well- intentioned but too often sentimental gentlemen might try the experiment of unalloyed kindness to criminals. The attitude was purely reactionary, and like all reactionary attitudes, did not have in it "a basis of permanence." As a Penitentiary, which was to relieve the State of a terrible burden, Millbank, after absorbing half a million of money, was declared a failure, and became properly a State prison, in which capacity it has, up to the present moment, been a point round which all the experiments in

prison administration may be said to have gathered. Properly, therefore, these Memorials are a well-condensed history of prison administration during the last century. Nothing could

well be more full of unconscious irony than the picture we have here of the condition of Millbank as a Penitentiary, when contrasted with what it became, say, under Captain Groves, still more with what it is to-day. The Penitentiary prisoners soon discovered their power. They bullied the warders, defied the Governors, who most often exhibited a lamb-like patience ; and in too many cases, it may be safely said that con- finement in the Penitentiary was anything but deterrent. For successful dealing with the confirmed criminal class, nothing is more clear than. that firm, unyielding discipline must be main- tained. Relax that, and they at once defy and outwit you. This, and this alone, seems to be the lesson of Millbank Penitentiary. Intrigues between men and women were frequently on foot in it; -"stiffs," or letters written on odd scraps of paper, fluttered through the corridors, sometimes conveyed to their destination by means of clothes-baskets. The appointment of a Chaplain- Governor did not mend matters, whereupon.Captain Griffiths aeflects, and not without reason :—

"The objects of so much tender solicitude are apt to take the kindness that is well meant for weakness, and wax in consequence insolent and unmanageable. Of the painful failure of all attempts at reformation by these means we have now abundant proof. For years the medicine has been tried; generation after generation has been subjected to its healing powers. Is crime eradicated, or even sensibly diminished -thereby ? Vaccination reduced small-pox ; sanitary precautions, jadi- -cionsly enforced, will ere long combat successfully with epidemic diseases; but have prayer and preaching effected the cure, wholesale -or partial, of the evils they were expected to touch ? Not at all. The reformation attained, except in the rarest instances, has been but tem- porary in character, skin-deep, while below the thick layer of cant and hypocrisy, which overspreads with rapid, fungus-like growth the surface .of the heart, there rankles still the cancerous sore in all its malignity. The fact is, that in seeking to reform the criminal, we have acted much as the surgeon does who would try to straighten a withered limb ; we have begun too late. To be efficacious, our treatment should have been applied when the limb was susceptible ; in other words, if we 'would eliminate the dangerous classes, and stop recruiting for their ranks, we must act against them in the earlier stages,—as children, that is to say, through School Boards and Reformatories."

A somewhat severe judgment, but it is the one to which most wise and disinterested observers have now come. But Captain Griffiths, while he reflects and moralises in this way, knows well how to lighten up his page by lively descriptions even of the kind of thing that he deprecates. The chapter on "Escapes " is as interesting as anything in Balzac or Victor Hugo. The account of the recovery of " Punch " Howard—that indomitable ruffian— is done with more than ordinary vigour and skill. The portrait of Pickard Smith, too, is a powerful sketch of a forbidding subject, given with Rembrandt-like depth of shade

The Governor is almost bewildered, and begs the Committee to get rid of this prisoner. It would be inexpedient to place him amongst other prisoners, and yet that can hardly be avoided soon, owing to the influx

of military and other prisoners. ' As to corporal punishment, he has already experienced it very severely without any beneficial effect. His knowledge of the localities and the present unsafe condition of the prison, owing to the extensive repairs, will breed perpetual attempts, however unsuccessful, to escape.' Soon afterwards Pickard Smith asked to be relieved from his handcuffs. ' What's the good of keeping them on me ? I can always get 'em off with an hour's work.' He was

told they would be fastened behind his back. can slip 'em in front, you know that'—'I threatened then,' says Mr. Nihil,' to fetter his arms as well as his hands, and that seemed to baffie him. To-day I held a long conversation with him, and cannot but lament that the powerful qualities he possesses should have been so greatly perverted. He spoke with great candour of his former courses. He exhibited an affectation of religions impressions, though he acknowledged much of the evil of his own character. By and by I asked him if he wished the handcuffs taken off. He did, much, because they made him feel so cold. Will you promise if I take them off not to attempt to escape?'—'I'll never make another promise, as long as I am here. I have made one too many, and I am ashamed of myself for having broken it.' What am I to do with you ? Where am I to send you ?'—' It's no use sending me anywhere, Sir. If you let me go among the other prisoners, I am satisfied ; from what I know of the place, there isn't a part from which I couldn't escape."

Such a position was the inevitable consequence of the con- ditions under which the Governor was then placed, but it was not conducive either to good authority or to order that a prisoner should in this way dictate his own terms, and be yielded to so far in order to save an official from natural concern for his safe cus- tody. Some of the sketches of the "gentlemen prisoners," too, are admirable. We are not sure whether we should include "A 'Big' Criminal," with whose portrait we are favoured, in this class, and Captain Griffiths does not enlighten us, as we think he might have done. A prison is a rare school for psycho- logical study. That passion of door-hammering, which on one occasion took possession of the women in Millbank simultaneously and held its ground so long, is somewhat hard to account for satisfactorily ; and certainly, to man or woman inclined to advo- cate a return to "Penitentiary" discipline, we would recommend the sketch of Julia Newman, who contrived to outwit all the authorities, slipping off the most complete instrument of confine- ment that the genius of that day could devise, and keeping the whole place for years in a state of uproar.

One of the most hopeful things about prison management in our day is this: that such men as Captain Griffiths are at the head of our prisons. They are ruled by a true spirit of humanity, but it is sobered and directed by experience. The lessons of the past have been duly conned by them. If any one supposes that those who administer our prison system are hard, unrelenting ogres, whose only delight is to deal out hard measure to the poor creatures under their care, we would refer them to this book, after due perusal of which we would advise them to pass on to the later reports of Colonel Du Cane, Chairman of the Directors of Convic Prisons. These breathe throughout a tone of the highest benevol- ence. Himself a soldier, he was compelled, because of his concern for the welfare and the reform of the prisoners, for years to mourn over Gibraltar as the one blot on our prison system, and in spite of powerful military influence against him has procured its aboli- tion at last. If Captain Griffiths's book, so full of information, and so skilfully relieved by incident and the graces of literary finish, does not have the effect of stirring up a yet deeper and more intelligent interest in criminals and reformatory movements, we shall be much disappointed.