26 NOVEMBER 1927, Page 3

As for the routine within prisons, he believes in "

hard work," but adds that there must be " recreation and amusement " as a reward. When all this has been said, however, there is a type of prisoner who is an enemy of society and who cannot be reformed. As far as possible the types. of prisoners have been sorted : at Maidstone all the convicts are first offenders ; at Park- hurst there is a mixed population, but many are men suffering from some physical or mental defect ; Dartmoor -is the prison of the recidivists. • These last are the men who spend their lives in • and • out of prison. They are unreformable, and we are sure that Sir William is per- fectly right when in describing this " cesspool of English humanity " he says that proved recidivists should be subjected to a better kind of preventive detention. They would be kept apart, as long as may be considered necessary, from the society upon which they habitually prey, but they would enjoy easier conditions than now —a proper concession to their proved abnormality.