Penological and Preventive Principles. By William Tallack. (Wertheimer and Lea.)—Mr.
Tallack's subjects, as exhibited in his table of contents, include all the questions which are commonly discussed in reference to the prevention and punishment of crime. He starts with the maxim: "All political, social, and even ostensibly philanthropic movements, which disregard or ignore on the primary element of godliness, are manifestly doomed to deceive the hopes they may have raised." He considers "prison systems generally unsatisfactory." But if our prisons are not what might be wished, there is a dismal satisfaction in finding that they are better than our neighbours'. But if France is bad, what are we to say of Russia? Mr. Tallack speaks of horrors which we are unwilling to quote. Even in the United States there are abuses which seem incredible. The chapter on "Life Imprisonment" is especially notable. The question of capital punishment has, of course, to be considered in connection with it. On the whole, life imprisonment, if it is not to be fatal to the reason, must be of the mildest kind. You may shut up a man for life, and if you give him healthy employment and feed him well, and let him have plenty of exercise, you need not turn him into a.
lunatic. Ifut is such an imprisonment in adequate punish- ment for murder ? ' The author would substitute a long period, with supervision afterwards. He remarks, with perfect truth, that murderers are often not the worst offenders. Chap. v. is devoted to "Habitual Offenders," and is full of interesting facts and suggestive remarks. A valuable chapter follows on "Prison Officers," a subject too much neglected. " Systematic Prison Visitation," "Sentences," "Prison Labour," are among the other subjects. There are some particularly interesting statements about the "beggar colonies" of Holland.
In 1886, the Dutch Minister of Justice stated that out of 2,745 beggars and rogues recently sent to these nominally ' penal ' colonies, only 540 were undergoing their first committal thither." In fact, they were far too pleasant abodes, and the beggars desired nothing more than to get back to them. The author is an advocate, for a moderate amount of corporal punishment, and ridicules the idea of its brutalising the wretches for whom it is the appropriate discipline. We read with pleasure the testimony that he pays to the Police. "Many of the English police, both in the superior and the subordinate ranks, are to be numbered amongst the practical philanthropists of the nation." Welcome words, when we read the brutal language in which they are assailed by some self-constituted champions of liberty in the Press and elsewhere.
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