The plan pursued for their reformation has been described as "a gigantic system of coddling." The notion of retributive justice has, of course, no place in it. The efforts of the authorities are directed towards the improvement of the physical health of the inmates by abundance of fresh air and exercise, by pleasant and easy employment, and by a copious— we might, indeed, say a luxurious-diet. The elevation of their minds is pursued by instruction in various branches of knowledge, such as "Drawing, Designing, German, English and American History, Business Law, Arithmetic, Physical Geography, Economics, Political Science." It is sought to compass their moral elevation by an appeal to self-interest through the medium of Utilitarian ethics. Classes of what is called "Practical Morality" are held for the discussion of such questions as "Is Honesty the Best Policy?" "The Ethics of Politics," "The Abolition of Poverty": and the inmates are encouraged to deal with these and similar topics in essays, which are occasionally printed in the weekly journal published in the Reformatory. A paper written by one of them on a a cold snowy day in January, 1888, compassionately described the wretched homes, almost visible from the walls of the establishment, where ill-fed and ill-clad children, and wives of unemployed or weary men were crouching in the cold, and contrasted their lot with that of 'Tallack, Penological and Preventive Principles, p. 99. the convicts, adding: "Here, at this prison, 'tis the dinner hour; up from the great dining-hall below rises the fragrant odour of good food, and the hum of animated voices, with rippling laughter interspersed. The food is hot, and sufficient as to quantity; the apartments are warmed with steam, and after the short day is passed the electric light brightens things for the long evening: long, but not dreary, for books are abundant." The Reformatory library is vaunted as containing "the best contemporary publications, among which they specify the novels of Alexandre Dumas, Eugène Sue, Ouida, Bulwer, Jules Verne, and others. There is also a liberal supply of newspapers and periodicals."2 1 The inmates of Elmira are classified in three grades: "On entry each prisoner is placed in the middle stage. If he does not earn a sufficient number of good marks by his labour, conduct, and studies, he is put down into the lowest grade. But if he obtains a good rank in marks, he is promoted in six months to the highest one. If he remains for six months in this, he may be be liberated on parole for half a year, but he can remove into another State, or out of reach, if he chooses to do so. If his conduct during that period is clearly known to be unsatisfactory, he is recalled to prison for the remainder of his term, if he can be arrested; but if he has avoided misbehaviour whilst on 'parole' he is absolutely re 1 Tallack, Penological and Preventive Principles, p. 99. 2 Ibid. leased from liability to undergo further detention."1 Before the prisoners are "parolled" it is in general arranged, either by their own friends or by the correspondents of the prison managers, that suitable situations shall be secured for them. Mr. Z. R. Brockway, the warden and governor of the institution, states that "so-called indulgences are freely used [there] for their value in promoting reformation." Asceticism appears to be discountenanced. Thus, at p. 48 of the Annual Report for 1898, under the head of "Practical Ethics," the convicts are exhorted: "Let us not confuse the virtues and strength of temperance with the vicious weakness of total abstinence." Such is the new science as practically applied. What are we to say of it? I would first observe that its method of studying criminals, as exemplified in the case so elaborately described by Signor Rossi, would seem absolutely useless. What profiteth it to know that S. C., or any other criminal, or number of criminals-assuming that their account of themselves is true, which is a great assumptionattempted to commit suicide, or had "alcoholic attacks" and "epileptic prison insanity," that their noses are long and crooked, and their median incisors hypertrophied, that they do not believe in any re 'Tallack, Penological and Preventive Principles, pp. 98-100. ligion, and would like the republican form of gov. ernment? Science means a knowledge of the causes of phenomena, and a reasoned exposition of those causes. What science can possibly underlie, or issue from, such a farrago of observations, even if multiplied to infinity? Equally unscientific appears the method pursued at Elmira. Sickly sentimentality seems a truer account of it. And, surely, judged by the standard of the criminal anthropologists themselves, it must be pronounced a ghastly failure. Its modus operandi, apparently, is this: to raise the standard of comfort in the minds of convicts, and to convince them that it will be more advantageous for them not to break the law, or, at all events, not to be found out in breaking it, for the future; it seeks to persuade them to adapt a phrase of Professor Huxley's—that in seeking the laws of comfort they will find the laws of conduct. How far it really succeeds in indoctrinating them with this view, and in leading them to act upon it, is by no means certain. Major Griffiths well remarks: "Trustworthy statistics are not forthcoming. The reports made on those who have been enlarged extend over rather a brief space of time. The supervision is apparently continued for only six months, which is scarcely sufficient to prove permanent radical cure." But even supposing, as the admirers of the system contend, that 80 per cent. of the Elmira men become 1 Secrets of the Prison House, vol. i., p. 12. 1 reformed," who does not see that their reformation-what is called reformation is achieved at the cost of a frightful injury to the community? The first object of penal repression, according to the criminal anthropologists themselves on this they seem pretty well agreed-is the protection of society. Now, the bond of society is obedience to law. And the law is operative through its penal sanction. But the Elmira system renders void that sanction. Punishment, in the proper sense, and that moral disapprobation of which punishment is the evidence, have no place in it. What-taking human nature as it actually is— what must be the effect upon society at large of such a spectacle as that which the convicts of Elmira present? Is murder or burglary likely to be diminished by the vision of well-fed and well-clothed murderers and burglars, spending their brief period of seclusion from the world in apartments warmed by steam, brightened by the electric light, and resounding with "the hum of animated voices " and " rippling laughter," their days an unbroken round of "Moderate tasks and moderate leisure, (but not too "strict kept "), which Matthew Arnold has commended as "The Second Best "-amusement and instruction going hand in hand? Is this just— 1 Improperly, as I shall show later on. |