The International Prison Congress after a good deal of vague,
enfeebling philanthropic talk and a good deal of good businesslike discussion, which bas not been as well reported as it might, separated this day last week. Sufficient attention has hardly been called to Mr. Edwin Hill's able paper on the trade-character of all organised crime,—all self-supporting crime,—which, as Mr. Hill showed, is as much dependent on capital for its support as is the labour of any other employment. There must be capitalists to pay the thieves, and to find a vent for the sale of the products of their thefts, and the true mode of suppressing such crime is, he argues, to strike at the capitalists, who are the springs of the trade, and who are comparatively few and accessible. It is much easier to break up the business of the receivers of stolen goods and the employers of those who steal them, than to catch all the thieves employed ; and it is much more efficient too, for if there were nobody to employ criminal labour, the pauper criminals, having no capital themselves, would be forced into other and better industries.
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