Mr. Bruce on Saturday made a very pleasant speech to
the Prison Congress. He maintained that there had of late years been "an extraordinary diminution of serious crime in the inked Kingdom?' He did not pretend to explain all the °anew of this change, but he was inclined to believe that "the efforts of those who had instituted industrial schools, reformatories, penitentiaries, discharged-prisoners' aid societies, and similar institutions of that character, had done their work in lessening crime ; and the , diffusion of knowledge among the people and the, spread bf education had led to greater and higher views, and emigration bad been the means of enabling the people to avoid, to-some degree, that great temptation to crime found in extreme poverty." Nothing could be more pleasant, if it were only true ; but is it fu? or is this only true,—that with the general softening of manners crime is becoming a little more refined, criminals a little more, clever, and the laws a little more lenient? The reforming agencies no doubt have accomplished something, but to say they have made a real impression upon crime is to make a statement which requires proof Mr. Bruce did not supply.
Previous page
