PUNISHMENT NOT REFORMATION.
IT is hardly expected that the ticket-of-leave system, suspended by the present Government, will be renewed ; and we have some doubt whether those who advocate the principles of reformatory punishment have been politic in attempting any defence of a sys- tem so crude and so imperfect. Shrink ng from the idea of ex- ceedingly protracted imprisonments, which have not been usual in this country, those who adopted " penal servitude" as a simple substitute for the transportation of convicts, arbitrarily shortened the period of thraldom, and enabled the Secretary of State still further to shorten the period at his discretion, by grant- ing a ticket-of-leave" for the convict to go at large. It was always understood that the right to this ticket should depend upon the moral conduct of the convict in prison. But it has turned out that some of the cleverest offenders are cleverest in assuming that hypocritical appearance of reform, or in carrying on that industry which is supposed to be the test of reformation, and of thus regaining their liberty for predatory purposes. The public, therefore, has had a number of convicts let loose before their lime. A considerable proportion of crimes'of violence are perpetrated by ticket-of-leave men ; and Colonel Jebb, in the letter published some time ago, implied that the suspension of the measure is only the prelude to its abandonment. It may be so ; but if it be, those who have advocated the principles of reforma- tory imprisonment systematized by Captain Maconochie have a perfect right to say that their plan has not been tried. Arbitrary terms of imprisonment, arbitrarily shortened upon imperfect tests of reformation, are no true experiment on the Maconochie plan of consigning the culprit to incarceration of indefinite length, free- dom from which was to be absolutely earned by industry and good behaviour. Mr. Adderley has taken up a third position,* antagonistic both to that of Mr. Hill and that of Colonel Jebb. It is impossible, of course, for any rational mind, unaccustomed to the compromise in which the officials deal, to feel the slightest sympathy with Colonel Jebb's special-pleading. But Mr. Adderley challenges Mr. Hill's arguments, and the very principles of the reformatory system. " Reformatories," he says, for neglected children, but punish- ment for responsible criminals." He assumes that adults, gene- rally speaking, know right from wrong, and that they must be considered past the age in which education could be successfully applied. Education, he admits, involves punishment, " but only as an occasional corrective on the violation of its process." Punish- ment does not involve education. Children who have not been educated—who have not acquired the means of knowing right from wrong—are not really responsible, and should be withdrawn both from the temptations to err and from the operation of a criminal law, by placing them in reformatory institutions. Adults are re- sponsible to the requirements of the State, and if they violate the rights and obligations of citizens they must be punished. It is impossible for the State to enforce the whole duty of man ; it can only enforce its own laws ; and, presuming that education has al- ready enabled the youth to distinguish right from wrong, punish- ment comes afterwards as the effectual deterrer from wrong-doing. The reformator would give such punishment as would impart higher motives and raise the vicious to virtue. The process, says Mr. Adderley, is not to be accomplished by any known means. Education foiling, we must punish • and we must not be misled from the real purpose of punishment by felling in with the general tendency to mitigate the severity of castigation. This mi tion is partly ascribable to humanitarian tendencies, partly also to changes in the state of society which induce men to seek for greater fitness in the forms of punishment • hence the whole question of punishment, in France as well as in this country, is in a transition state, and the uncertainty of means aggravates the uncertainty of punishment. The reformatory pro- cess is destined partly to fail, from its protracted nature, from its mildness, and from its uncertainty ; it diminishes the prompti- tude and certainty which impart to punishment its chief terror.
• Punishment is not Education. A Review ofa Charge on the subject of Tickets- yf-leare, by M. D. Hill, Esg., Recorder of Birmingham. By a B. Adderley,K.P. Published by Parker and Son. Punishment should be concise, speedy, and bitter ; but it should also be specially adapted to the nature of the offence and to the motives which have actuated the offence. In that view, "we must not exclude ignominious punishments, from a simple preju- dice against their demoralizing effect." "Corporal punishment needs not be degrading, but only degraded to the level of the occasion." "How effectually was shame appealed to by the threat of flogging as a punishment to the prurient vanity and mor- bid itch for notoriety which led to attacks on the Queen ; afford- ing an excellent proof of the greater efficiency of adaptation than of severity." The whip, a great resource, has been abandoned, because of its violent andbrutal abuse. Horrible military inffietions with five hundred lashes at a time have occasioned. public feeling to revolt. But the testimony of the most experienced governors of gaols as well as masters of schools is in favour of short, mode- rate, repeated corporal chastisement : say, three lashes a day for a week. Fear, however, is not always an accessible motive in the most depraved; but there is a principle which is wholly and needlessly ousted from our criminal law—that of reparation. The Americans value crimes in dollars, and make punishment ex- piatory by forcing a return of labour equal to the value. So did the Saxons. In France, the " parti civil," that is the injured party, is permitted to interpose, and to assess damages in reparation. "As three-fourths of the larcenies and one-half of all the crimes which occupy our courts and gaols are acts of petty depredation to an amount which most of the criminals concerned in them could easily restore fourfold be- sides paying a mulct in satisfaction of the public cost and interests, there would be no difficulty in adopting to that extent in England so very speedy, so very analogous, and so very convincing and deterring a mode of counter- acting propensities to live on the property of others. Sphere no such means exist—where thefts ave gi g the value of one shilling cannot be met by a forced disgorging of five gs (the vile practice of fees being abolished) —still there may be labour obtained in prison to a similar amount • the pre- judice against valuable labour in prisons having happily subaiden. There is, however, always a danger to be apprehended from profitable punishment. It would puzzle some regular thieves who habitually spend the colder part of the winter in comfortable gaols, amusing themselves with the employ- ments taught them, and who come out thus refreshed for their spring cam- paigns, if they were suddenly subjected to short and sharp compensatory work or payment, varied if need be with moderate flagellation, and then turned out again. They have sense enough to know a losing game—such as having to pay five shillings always, certainly, and immediately, for every shilling obtained by stealing." We have done no justice to Mr. Adderley's argument, which must be sought in his own concise and ingenious pamphlet. It appears to us, however, that Mr. Adderley is not so greatly at issue with Mr. Hill and the reformatories for adults as he supposes himself to be. It is chiefly a question of degree. Work out Mr. Adderley's principle, and it differs in little more than name from Captain Maconoehie'splan. Suppose a thief steals an article of the value of thirty shillings : five times thirty shillings is seven pounds ten ; the thief cannot pay seven pounds ten, and he is sentenced to earn seven pounds ten by compulsory labour. We do not know that Captain Maconochie or Mr. Hill would refuse some kind of scale for different kinds of crime. If a pretium for. offence can be fixed, the condemnation to earn that pretium would be a very fitting sentence. Reparation in this sense involves the two strongest elements in chastisement—frustration of the good to be illicitly taken, and pain as the consequence of the illicit en- deavour. Let any man who is about to steal a shilling feel; from the certain operation of the law, that he will not have that shil- ling, but that he will incur the loss of four shillings, under pain- ful circumstances, for the mere attempt to appropriate the coveted object, and he will shrink from crime as he would shrink from hot iron. That is, supposing the system worked perfectly. It is only a question of form or name, however, if we chew distinction between the condemnation of a man to earn 1800 pennies or 1800 marks. We do not suppose that Mr. Adderley would object to fixing a pretium upon offences committed in prison ; so that if the culprit misbehaved while in custody he might forfeit pennies almost as fast as he earned them, as under Captain Maconochie's system he would forfeit marks ; and the forfeiture for his bad conduct would result in protracting the term of his imprison- ment.
Mr. Adderley's pamphlet, however, belongs to the best style of discussion. The writer pays to an opponent the very highest mark of respect in frankly and vigorously grappling with the ar- guments against him. But while he advocates his own convic- tion with much energy, he does not prejudge the question. He contributes a review which furthers the inquiry and brings it much nearer to a mature and not a onesided conclusion.
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