The Directors of the State Prison in Wisconsin in their report for 1881 add:—

"The condition of most of our life prisoners is deplorable in the last degree. Not a few of them are hopelessly insane; but insanity, even, brings them no surcease of sorrow. However wild their delusions may be on other subjects, they never fail to appreciate the fact that they are prisoners. Others, not yet classed as insane, as year by year goes by, give only too conclusive evidence that reason is becoming unsettled. The terribleness of a life sentence must be seen to be appreciated; seen, too, not for a day or a week, but for a term of years. Quite a number of young men have been committed to this prison in recent years under sentence for life. Past experience leads us to expect that some of them will become insane in less than ten years; and all of them, who live, in less than twenty. Many of them will, doubtless, live much longer than twenty years, strong and vigorous in body perhaps, but complete wrecks in mind. May it, therefore, not be worthy of legislative consideration whether life sentences should not be abolished and long but definite terms substituted, and thus leave some faint glimmer of hope even for the greatest criminals?"

Sir E. Du Cane stated in 1878 before the Royal Commission on Penal Servitude Acts:—

"I myself do not think much of life sentences at all. I would rather have a long fixed term. I think all the effect on the public outside would be gained by a shorter period."

Mr W. Tallack, late Secretary of the Howard Association, writes in his "Penelogical and Preventive principles":—

"Of life imprisonment it may be conclusively pronounced very bad in even the best form of it. Years of enquiry and observation have increasingly forced this conviction upon the writer.... A fixed limit of twenty years would greatly aid the discipline of its subjects. And what is of more importance so far as the public are concerned, it would, in most cases, avail to practically incapacitate or effectually deter the persons who pass through it from any repetition of their crime. The mere natural operation of age, decay, and disease would tend towards this result; and not only so, but it would, in a considerable proportion of cases, render the limit of twenty years a virtual sentence in perpetuity by the intervention of death. But meanwhile the elements of hope and other desirable influences would be largely present, notwithstanding."

To say the least of it our criminals have a claim for humane treatment, and no sentence should have a greater duration than twenty years. The term also should be fixed when the sentence is imposed.

Flogging.—This is an extremely unpopular form of punishment, owing to its abuse in the old convict stations and in the army and navy. Yet there is a great deal to be said in its favour. In 1898 the Howard Association instituted an enquiry among the most competent authorities as to what were the best methods of dealing with juvenile offenders. Nearly 40 replies were sent in answer to their circular of enquiry, and with but one or two exceptions these replies advocated whipping as the most expedient method. The Chief Constable of Liverpool stated:—"Whipping has been found a most efficient and HUMANE punishment. During the last FIVE YEARS 489 boys were once whipped. Of these, only 135 have been again convicted. Of the 135, 44 were whipped for the second time. Of the 44 only 10 were convicted a third time, and 2 only for a fourth time. No other punishment can show such a record...."

Our Criminal Code describes a whipping as being a punishment of not more than 25 strokes with the cat-o'-nine-tails inflicted upon a person of not more than 16 years of age. A flogging is limited to not more than 50 strokes and not less than 25 inflicted upon a person of over 16 years. Three floggings at intervals for one offence is the maximum amount of castigation allowed.

A description of the "cat" may not be out of place. The handle is round and of uniform diameter of one inch. It is about 30 inches in length and is light as cork. The "tails" (nine in number) are made of cord similar to fishing cord, about an eighth of an inch in diameter and 33 inches in length. In each tail a strand is taken out, wound round and put back, thus making a bob. There are 27 of these bobs in all. A flogging with such an instrument would no doubt be very severe, but it need not draw blood nor leave marks for all time. A flogging properly administered should produce sharp stinging pain and leave no bad results whatever. Then it becomes a very useful punishment to use upon such men as those whose crimes are characterised by cruelty. Men who violate, torture, or frighten women, who are cruel to children or take advantage of the weak, imbecile or defenceless might well be punished with a flogging. In fact it is questionable whether any punishment is so effective. These men are cowards one and all; they do not dread the lazy life of the prison, but a flogging has great terrors for them, and its moral value is considerable. In bygone years men who were flogged were often worse than before. The flogging had demoralised them. These floggings were, however, shockingly cruel. Nothing is to be admitted but the sharp swishing and this, when properly carried out, is totally without any objectionable feature.

There seems no necessity to combine a flogging and a long term of imprisonment under one sentence. The maximum punishment of three floggings might be given within a period of two months, and the culprit then in most cases discharged. As to the advisability of ordering more than one flogging a great deal might be said. Fifty lashes and the man discharged within a week would be sufficient for the majority of cases. For a very brutal crime or for a second offence of the same nature, a second flogging after a period of days might be thought necessary. The very greatest care, however, must be exercised in the administration of this punishment. The crimes of brutality rightly arouse the indignation of the public, but there is no need to show a brute that society can be a greater brute than what he is. Being a brute, leniency invariably fails, but unimpressionable to these methods as his moral and humane instincts are, his skin remains sensitive, and through it his instincts may be appealed to and quickened. Flogging makes him consider that the practice of brutality is in direct variance to his own personal interests and comfort. From this he may be led to moralise further.

Gangs of boys who are becoming a nuisance to the neighbourhood they infest are quickly broken up if their ring-leader is treated to a dozen strokes that he will not feel inclined to boast about. The mercifulness of this punishment is seen in its power in thus effectively stopping the tendency to crime. Larrikins, unnatural husbands and fathers, brutes and torturers, cattle maimers and stack burners, all see their personal interests lying in a very different direction to that which leads to the "cat."

Capital Punishment.—The authority to take the life of a fellow-man is based on God's word to Noah, "whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed;" and upon the abstract idea of justice "a life for a life." These words in no sense contain a command to us of this century to execute all murderers without exception. For the present state of civilisation a new principle has been evolved which is, that when a man shows himself to be unchangeably hostile to society then his life may be forfeited. As the methods of dealing with criminals improve so the word LIBERTY is being substituted for the word LIFE. The sin on the man's soul may be left to God; all that men has to deal with is his anti-social attitude. If impossible to change this attitude then either death or life imprisonment must result. This very question of possibility is so uncertain that few modern criminologists care to adjudicate, and most regard the death sentence as anticipating too much. Life-imprisonment, under the highest moral influences, becomes life-long by and only by the continued resistance of the criminal. It is not the objectionable form of punishment previously described for it encourages the man to put forth his best effort to improve, and substantially rewards these efforts, even to granting him his liberty if he persevere with them. Punishment by death is becoming more and more unpopular. The dislike of juries to bring in a verdict of "guilty" in a murder case is sufficient testimony to this. In the crowds who sign petitions for the reprieve of the condemned, the hysterical element is too prominent to make any other estimate possible. But the reaction is steady, and it will not be long before capital punishment becomes a thing of the past. To abolish it before a suitable substitute were provided would be mistake.

Gradually society is awakening to the fact that the condition of the criminal ought to be ameliorated, and that there can be no real amelioration which does not make definite efforts for the prisoner's reform. The aim should be to assist every man to recover by his own effort the place in society from which he has fallen. No man is incapable of improvement, and under a wise systematic discipline most men do improve. A remarkable witness is found in the experience of Dr Browning who was engaged as Surgeon-superintendent of convict ships between 1831 and 1848. Of one voyage from Norfolk Island to Tasmania he was in charge of 346 "old hands." These men had agreed to take terrible revenge upon some of their comrades who had been employed as constables over the others. Under Dr Browning's instruction and discipline their purpose was abandoned. He landed the men in Tasmania without having inflicted a single punishment upon the voyage. He remarks:—"The men were given to me in double irons; I debarked them without an iron clanking among them. I am told that this is the first and only instance of convicts removed from Norfolk Island having had their fetters struck off during the voyage, and being landed totally unfettered. They were almost uniformly double-cross-ironed and chained down to the deck, everybody being afraid of them. I was among them at all hours and the prison doors were never once shut during the day. To God be all the glory." Three Governors of Tasmania expressed their high opinion of Dr Browning's system and of its subsequent effects upon their behaviour. (Vide "Christianity amongst Prisoners." Howard Ass.:)

In the famous Dartmoor prison and at Borstal in Kent experiments are being made to secure a greater number of reformations among the younger convicts. It is too early to estimate the value of the systems being tried, but they are being watched with much hope and expectation. In America there is a decided tendency to substitute State reformatories for prisons, especially in the case of the young. The Elmira Reformatory has been established for more than a quarter of a century, and its claims to have reformed 82 per cent. of the men committed to it has been upheld by the special enquiry instituted in 1890.

If these different systems were more closely studied there would result a great awakening as to the possibilities of the criminal, and society would discover that its best interests were served by reforming its offenders and making them moral and industrious servants of the State, instead of by committing them to institutions where they were brought into contact with consecrated villainy and where the unwholesome influence is calculated to confirm them in criminal habits and make them a constant menace and expense to the community. That our criminal population is on the increase, and that the proportion of recidivists grows larger every year, is scarcely to be wondered at in the midst of such influences. Notwithstanding all that has been done to improve the state of prisons from what they were even fifty years ago, yet the motto "once a criminal always a criminal" is often too sadly true. The report of the English commissioners of prisons shows that amongst those who have been convicted during the year 1902, 51.9 per cent. of the men and 70.6 per cent. of the women had been previously convicted. In the past these results were regarded as inevitable. Now they are regarded with much disquietude. Formerly they were supposed to point to a defect in the criminal, now they are understood to prove a defect in the penal system. The reason for this defect lies in having regarded certain objects as primary which are in reality only secondary. These objects have been defined to be the deterrence of crime by the example of punishing criminals; the repression of crime by the infliction of punishment, and the protection of society as a consequence. The deterrent value of the penal system has been greatly reduced by the small amount of dread which it excites in the criminally disposed. The representative value is of a minus quantity. Crime is assisted more than it is crippled. The protection of society is secured only during the period of incarceration. At the end of that period the criminal must be discharged and he goes forth often a more skilful criminal than before and with a vow to take vengeance upon society.

Regarding these objects as secondary the reformation of the offender has been acknowledged as primary by criminologists, and they turned their attention to study the criminal pathologically, to enquire into the causes of crime and also to make trial of the best methods for securing reformation. "Punishment the principle and reformation the incident," was the theory of the old school. The New school reverses the order to "Reformation the principle and punishment the incident." Obviously this course renounces the old principle of retaliation and vengeance and embraces that indicated by Christ in his precept "bear ye one another's burdens."

The Philosophy of Punishment.—The threatening attitude of the criminal towards the peace and welfare of society makes it an obvious necessity that society should protect itself against him, otherwise he would soon master the situation and reduce social order to barbarism.

What are the steps which it must take? It must first remember that its right to punish is not an inherent, but a delegated one. Though its powers are sovereign in the sense that there is no appeal from them, yet they must not be exercised in an arbitrary way. So far as there is a capacity for the realisation of responsibility to God so far must that responsibility be observed. Where this responsibility is disregarded, society immediately becomes the greater criminal itself even though its deeds may be done in the name of the majority of its members. As history is not without examples of this abuse of a sacred trust neither is it without instances of the Divine interference expressed in the destruction of a community which had offended after this manner. This responsibility must be acknowledged firstly—in the end to be attained; and, secondly or subsequently—in the means by which it is attained. We are generally informed that our penal systems exist for the purpose of repressing crime, and that punishment is thus inflicted upon the criminal in order that others may be deterred from following his example. Reformation is sometimes suggested. The public, however, concerns itself very little about its criminals and much less about the objects which its penal system is supposed to secure for it. The attitude of the general public towards the criminal is undoubtedly a vindictive one. His sentence is discussed from this point of view only, viz.:—will the suffering that he will have to undergo be sufficient to accord with the enormity of the crime he committed? The end which is understood is simply suffering, expiatory suffering; suffering which neither man nor society has any right whatever to inflict upon a human being. The old principle of an eye for an eye, while in accord with abstract justice, was often made the occasion for abuse, and the largely prevailing conception of justice amongst us to-day is precisely the abuse of that same principle. Society does well in returning upon its criminals the consequences of their acts, but the consequences should be a natural return and not an artificial one. The criminal should see that by his attack upon society he is excluded from all the benefits of its system. He has isolated himself and this isolation is of itself miserable, and will, if persisted in, become intolerable. Its final state is Hell, a state in which society is destroyed while the social instinct remains and craves in its unquenched agony. It is perfectly right to show the wrong-doer the ultimate end of his chosen course, but there is no warrant for the strenuous effort which is made to force him towards it. A criminal's punishment should be made purgatorial and not internal. The old penology regarded him as a hopeless individual and proceeded with its hellish tortures without undue delay. Beneath its system no reforms were possible, and the fact that none were ever made, was pointed to in order to justify its horrors. Society took no interest in them whatever while they were being pushed lower and lower down the social scale, but met them at the lowest steps, and, halter in hand, gravely professed the utmost concern in their future and eternal welfare.

So far, society has failed to recognise the end of the punishment it is entitled to impose. In the words of Dimitri Drill, a Moscow publicist, the new penology expresses that it "renounces entirely the law of retaliation as end, principle, or basis of all judicial punishment. The basis and purpose of punishment is the necessity of protecting society against the evil consequences of crime either by the moral reclamation of the criminal or by his separation from society; punishment is not to satisfy vengeance." We must not jump to the hasty conclusion that herein is meant that the criminal must be treated very gently and coaxed back to more virtuous paths. What is meant is that his punishment should be made purgatorial and not infernal. The process of reclamation is accompanied by far sharper pains than those which are expiatory, but they are the pains of a healing surgery and not those of a soul destroying brutality. Where the means for reclamation fail then separation from society is advocated. Separation in the midst of influences which would always tend to awaken the desire to reform and which would give immediate assistance to that desire when awakened.

Thus the recognition of this fact that the authority to punish offenders against its law has been, by God, delegated to the social institution, brings with it a recognition of the responsibility which accompanies such authority.

In primitive times most offences were punished by the death penalty, not as a vindictive measure but because the offender was hopeless and society helpless. That is, the social state being of a very simple order, any infraction of its laws would declare the offender a most pronounced criminal, bitterly hostile to society and irreclaimable by such social machinery as then existed. The death penalty when inflicted must ever be so regarded. Not as a life for a life but as the punishment inflicted upon one who has by his own conduct given complete evidence that his recovery to the social state is impossible. In this century of civilisation it is incumbent to look upon the criminal as being in a measure a by-product of society and to deal with him accordingly. Outside of society crime is impossible, therefore society accounts for crime and is also in a measure responsible for it. To this measure exactly (although the measure itself can never be determined with exactitude) is the criminal by-product. In a large measure he is responsible (entire responsibility is conceivable), and it is this sense of responsibility which makes it possible to carry out his treatment.

Large industries find that their by-products are an important asset and to disregard them would be ruinous. Mr Frazer in his book "America at Work" states that the expenses of the meat-packers of Chicago for 1901 amounted to L150,244,848. The sales of meat realised L124,263,998, and yet a net profit of L6,767,638 resulted. What appears to be a paradox is explained by the fact that a sum of no less than L32,748,488 resulted from the sale of by-products. All the waste must be turned to dollars.

Commercial advance has certainly out-stripped social advance, and apparently for the reason that whereas in commerce a pig's tail is regarded as an important asset, in our social system the criminal and the weakling are regarded as a heavy liability. When the point of view is changed society will advance more rapidly. So, too, society finds that it must utilise its by-products and to devise means which it can bring to bear upon the criminal, so as to bring him to a state of usefulness. The enormity of the crime and the degree of criminality are alike impossible to estimate, therefore it is also impossible to define a punishment which makes an attempt to recognise any of these qualities.

It is, however, quite possible to determine within very fair limits the continuance of the criminal habits, also the value from a reformatory point of view, of various social influences, and further there exists the power to apply these influences. To sum up—society possesses within itself the power to reform its criminals (to utilise its by-products) and to determine when they have been reformed.

Separation from society is rendered absolutely necessary by the criminal's own behaviour, if by his behaviour he shows that he is not capable of using freedom profitably. But if his separation is to serve any real purpose whatever it must be accompanied by an educational process which will work him back to that point where he left the social track and then so propel him forward that he may recover his lost ground, and when restored to society be enabled to identify himself with its progressive system.

So far our penal system is a mistake. Whatever it may be theoretically, practically it is only vindictive. Its failure has caused some to despair and others to reflect.



Chapter V.

ELIMINATION—DR. CHAPPLE'S PROPOSAL.

In the last chapter it was shown that capital punishment sought for its justification in the theory that certain criminals had assumed an attitude of permanent and aggressive hostility towards society. Their presence in society is regarded as a menace to human life, and no moral improvement is expected to result from their imprisonment. So hopeless is this class of criminal regarded as being that, so it is declared, no other policy save that of extermination can be considered.

In primitive society criminals were less numerous than in our own time; but those that did then exist belonged, almost all of them, to the worst type. There being no public institutions for the administration of justice, practically one course only remained open, and that was, that the person wronged should seek to avenge himself as best he could, and the death of the wrong-doer was generally the satisfaction that he sought. As civilization has advanced, criminals have become more numerous; but they have taken to crime by more gradual steps. Society, too, has deprived the individual of the right of wreaking his own vengeance, and has erected institutions for the purpose of determining guilt and apportioning punishment. From the days of Noah, deeds of blood and other crimes of a serious nature, have been punished by death and from then, until this present day, the one idea underlying the administration of justice has been that society should get rid of its criminals as speedily as possible. Repression alone was thought to be efficacious, reformation was scarcely thought of.

Of late years the criminal has been more carefully studied by his fellow-beings. Some have studied him as a monster and believed him to have the heart of a beast; others have studied him as a man and had faith in his possibilities. The former have noticed the failure of repressive methods, such as flogging and other penal severities, and have in despair been led to advocate that the only possible remedy is that of extermination. The latter have discovered that the failure of these repressive methods but imposes upon society the obligation of adopting a system of an entirely different order and with an entirely different object, viz: a system for the reformation of the criminal.

The "exterminators" have studied the criminal objectively and have had regard to his crimes only; the reformers have studied him subjectively and have had regard to his possibilities. The policy of the "exterminators" must be condemned on this ground, viz: that they have made but a half study of their subject, and they do know, and they refuse to listen to, of what the criminal is capable. Neither do they estimate the capacity of the enormous social power that may be attached to the criminal's own, but feeble, effort so as to raise him up, even from the deepest depths of vice and villainy. The careful subjective study—the truly humane study—of the criminal, has shown that all theories which would declare any man to be incapable of improvement, are to be condemned absolutely. The possibilities of reform exist in every case, and the probabilities are never to be denied. None can gainsay this statement nor can it be termed extravagant, for with the imperfect machinery now in use results are being attained which justify every syllable of it. Yet in the face of these results, the "exterminators" still proclaim their policy. They bid us be deaf to the voice of prejudice and follow the true light of science, ever remembering that we are passing through a wonderful stage in social evolution! But the policy that they adopt belies that which is indicated in all this fine talk. They say that we must exterminate the criminal, and this is nothing less than an acknowledgement that, to their minds, the problem of the criminal is one of outer darkness and that we have no means of ever penetrating it. They would take us back to a period anterior to Adam.

Prejudice, indeed, needs to be overcome, but it is the prejudice that prefers vengeance to mercy. And if we follow the true light of science it will lead us to discover that the criminal is best got rid of by converting him into a useful citizen, or to be more exact, society's best effort is to be directed towards separating the crime from the criminal.

Recently a Wellington medical gentleman (Dr Chapple) published a work entitled "The Fertility of the Unfit." The problem which this gentleman attempts to grapple with in his book is the disproportionate rate of increase among the numbers of the unfit to the fit members of society. Under the classification of the unfit he places all those persons who, on account of mental, moral or physical defect, constitute a burden to society. These are, principally, the epileptic, the pauper, the insane and the criminal. These either will not, or cannot support themselves adequately and legitimately. For their treatment support and correction, hospitals, asylums, charitable aid boards, gaols and other institutions have had to be established, and the upkeep of these has become a great burden which necessarily has to be borne by the healthy, moral and industrious section of the community.

Dr Chapple draws attention to the undeniable fact that there is a tendency on the part of those unfit to increase at a greater ratio than the fit. The rate of increase during the past twenty years has been so great and so disproportionate as to make the cost of their maintenance become an increasingly heavier one for the individual taxpayer to bear, and to cause for this and other reasons, a considerable amount of alarm in the minds of those who have the welfare of society at heart.

The Doctor believes that the cause of this proportionate rate of increase is to be found in the methods adopted largely among certain classes for the prevention of child-birth.

In the conclusion of his book he states that sexual inhibition on the part of the better classes accounts for their smaller rate of increase as compared with the rate of the inferior classes. We cannot accept this conclusion without more evidence. We want to know definitely whether the natural rate of increase among the better classes is really lower than that existing among the inferior classes. That is to say, are the ranks of the defective being swelled by the influence of heredity or by some extensive force recruiting from among the ranks of the fit? Another question is this: Since the use of preventives is available to both sections alike, the Doctor accounts for the supposed natural disproportion by assuming that the better classes restrain themselves. Is he right? Using the word "restrain" in its absolute sense we beg leave for most emphatic doubt. In an enquiry such as this is, the only factor of any real importance as accounting for a diminished birth-rate, is the use of preventives. If this method is confined to the better classes, we must refuse to call them any longer our "best stock," for, if they are not producing a defective offspring, they are, as the recent Australian Birth-Rate Commission has made abundantly plain, speedily making defectives of themselves, besides being guilty of lowering the social moral tone and hardening its sensibility. We are strongly of the opinion that the diminished birth-rate does not account for the increase in the number of criminals and defectives further than that the use of preventives discloses a species of criminality.

Nevertheless, Dr Chapple proposes, not so much to restore the equilibrium as to get rid of the defective altogether. He assumes that defectives are born and not made, and then makes enquiry into the best possible means for the prevention of their birth. After passing several methods in review, he accepts an operation known as tubo-ligature as being the best from all points of view. This operation will render the female permanently sterile without having any deleterious effect upon her health. Absolutely no result follows, he assures us, but sterility. If the wives of all defectives were operated upon in this way, Dr Chapple assures us that the problem concerning the defective would speedily be solved and society would be the happier and wealthier in every way. The proposal might give something of a shock to the moral conscience but such a shock would only unfit us for our work. The criminal is upon us, he threatens us, and we must protect ourselves. The necessities of the case are so pressing and so urgent that we seek for the most effectual remedy and use it unhesitatingly when we have found it. Here it is, says Dr Chapple, and its morality is determined by the relief which it, and it alone, is able to bring.

What are we to do? Why, sterilize the wife of the defective. As the criminal is most harmful of all defectives he is summoned to come forward first and to bring his wife with him, when behold, the man turns up alone. Where is his wife? Why, he hasn't got one. Has Dr Chapple considered this fact? Did he know, when he made the statement that it was a matter of common observation that the criminal was among those who had the largest families, did he know then that the criminal rarely married? It cannot be said that the criminal's wife is as rare as the Great Auk's egg, but Havelock Ellis states that "among men criminals the celibates are in a very large proportion." And Fere further supports the value of the statement for our present purpose by saying that "criminals and prostitutes have this common character, that they are unproductive. This is true also of vagabonds, and of the idle and vicious generally, to whatever class they belong."

Two years' experience as a prison chaplain may not be of much value, but it certainly conveyed the impression that the majority of the criminals were young men who were unmarried.

But Dr Chapple adduces evidence. He tells us of a family in which there were 834 persons the descendants of one woman. Of this family 76 were convicts, 7 were murderers, 142 were beggars, 64 lived on charity. Among their women 181 lived disreputable lives, and in 75 years this family cost their country L250,000 in alms, trials, imprisonments, etc. What family is this? If the following comparison is conclusive in its results then it must be the "Jukes" family.

Dr Chapple's Case. The "Jukes"

Number estimated 834 834 " definitely traced 709 709 " of criminals 76 76 " convicted of murder 7 7 " of beggars 142 142 " receiving alms house relief 64 64 Illegitimates 106 106 Period reviewed 75 years 75 yrs. Cost to State L250,000 L250,000

If it will be allowed that the agreement in these nine lines of statistics establishes the identity between the two cases, then the evidence may be examined.

In the first place, the "Jukes" family is the most exceptional one known in the history of crime, and it must be treated as an exception and not as an example. In the second place, these 834 persons were not descended from one woman in 75 years but from FIVE women who were the legitimate and illegitimate daughters of an old Dutch back-woodsman who lived in a rocky part of the State of New York and who is known to criminologists as "Max Jukes." My authority for declaring that there were five female ancestresses during the period reviewed as against one, stated to be the case by Dr Chapple, is Mr R. L. Dugdale, who made a close personal investigation of the life and records of the family. He himself collected the statistics that are given above and which are identical with those given by Dr Chapple's authority, Prof. Pellman, and therefore one must conclude that Prof. Pellman has studied the case at second hand and, in this important detail, is in error.

That 834 persons should have descended from five persons in 75 years covering five generations, exclusive of the 5 ancestresses, does not strike us as evidence of an exceedingly prosperous birth-rate. If there had been another thousand descendants it would not allow for an average of 3 children to grow up and marry in each family. We may then set aside the contention that the "Jukes" were enormously prolific.

Still the "Jukes" were an enormous cost to their country, and surely we should prevent such a family ever appearing in our midst. The answer to this is that the "Jukes" have only appeared once, and, so far as our community is concerned, our social progress makes their reappearance absolutely impossible. The "Jukes" were a tribe of vagabond outlaws. They gained a livelihood by fishing, hunting, robbery, and intermittent work. They lived in a rocky, inaccessible region in the lake country of the State of New York. Their criminals were able, with a considerable measure of success, to defy the police, and travellers very rarely approached the vicinity of their habitat. Some drifted into the towns and villages. A proportion of these supported themselves by honest industry, and a proportion became a burden upon the rates; Such nests of criminals can exist only in partially civilized countries. The advance of civilization extinguishes them. Nowhere in New Zealand could such a tribe prey upon and defy society for a period of two weeks together. The criminals that we have to deal with are those which society produces not those which it extinguishes.

But if the "Jukes" were at all reproductive what is the difference between them and other cases of criminals? Principally this, that the "Jukes" formed a little society of their own in which marriage and co-habitation was the rule. Of their women 52 per cent. were disreputable; but Dugdale refuses to call them prostitutes, but rather harlots, indicating that their marital relations were of the order of a progressive polyandry and by no means unproductive. Under these conditions, a fairly large natural increase is not to be wondered at.

No such family has, nor could, exist in the midst of our civilization, but as the case is advanced, not to show a distinct species of criminality, but rather as an example of the rate of natural increase that may be expected of a criminal family, we will examine and compare the conditions of life existing among the "Jukes" and the criminal that we have to deal with and thus discover features among the latter which militate against a large birth-rate; but which are not present among the former.

Our criminals, for the most part, commence their career of crime at an early age. The Rev. W. D. Morrison of Wandsworth Prison, England, declares that the most criminal age is reached between the years of twenty and thirty. This holds good, he says, for Europe, Australia, and the United States.

It is a mistake to suppose that a man first commits crime and then plunges headlong into vice. Though true in some cases, it is exactly the reverse course which is followed in the majority of cases. After having passed with a measure of success through the milder domestic and scholastic spheres, the youthful criminal become a failure in the severer social or industrial sphere. Some criminologists go so far as to say that the majority of criminals have displayed distinct evidences of criminality at so early an age as sixteen years. Whatever may have been the cause for committing crime, the crime itself shows that the youth refuses to acknowledge the obligations which an organized society lays upon him. This refusal extends practically throughout the social order, and neither is it confined to this order, but extends also to the moral order and is shown in a total disregard for the matrimonial state. The youth gives way to natural appetites and associates himself with women of low repute. He is of wandering habits, works, when he does work, but intermittently, is restless, and totally disinclined towards matrimony. Socially, industrially and morally he is unstable. It is these conditions of his life which so contrast him with that species of criminality which the "Jukes" family presents. And it is these same conditions which support the statement of Fere and Ellis, that he is generally a celibate and non-productive. Concerning the progeny of the female criminal there is little to say except that the causes which chiefly account for the male criminal operate to produce the prostitute among women, and therefore criminal women are in a very small minority. Of these criminal women, Lombroso says that they are monsters who have triumphed over the natural instincts of piety and maternity as well as over their natural weakness. They are bad mothers, and children are a burden to them from which they will readily rid themselves.

Notwithstanding Dr Chapple's evidence, it is conclusive that his statement that criminals have the largest families, is entirely opposed to fact, indeed the exact reverse is the case.

So far as the criminal is concerned, one may well ask whether he has not set himself to the useless task of threshing straw.

The question concerning the proportionate rate of natural increase among all classes of society is one which provides one of the fundamentals upon which Dr Chapple has based his proposal. Instead of enquiring into the actualities of this question he has assumed them, and from his assumption proceeded to his result. His assumption that the better classes use preventive means which the inferior classes do not use, is open to challenge; that there might exist among the inferior classes causes peculiar to these classes which militate against their increasing naturally, he has failed to notice. There do exist such, and so potent as to disprove entirely his statement that the problem is one for the solution of which we must search deep down in biological truth. The true solution will not be found in biological truth but in sociological truth, and there fairly near the surface.

As Dr Chapple's evidence entirely fails, the conclusions of expert criminologists must be accepted, viz., that criminals are characteristically unproductive, and that, among male criminals, the celibates are in a large majority. As, from these reasons, the vast majority of criminals cannot be the descendants of a criminal ancestry, obviously tubo-ligature will not meet the case.

So far indeed the criminal descendant from criminal stock has alone been considered, whereas a large number of criminals have come from a drunken or from a pauper ancestry. Statistics indicate that 33 per cent. of criminals come from an intemperate ancestry and 2 per cent. from a pauper one. But in both cases, environment has a great deal more to be held responsible for than has heredity. It is the conditions of the home life which make the drunkard's child a criminal, and the same applies with equal force to the pauper's child. So that, if drastic measures are to be taken with these classes, surely such measures will proceed gradually from the mean to the extreme, and severe measures will not be employed until milder ones have failed. Where the question is one of environment it is the man's character and habits which have to be dealt with and not his nature. Environment is always capable of modification, and, when improved, the result is invariably a beneficial one for those concerned. So that the least that may be said for the criminal descendants of drunken ancestors is that a better way exists and should, by all moral laws, be first adopted.

Further difficulties, of a physical, rather than moral nature, also exist.

And here again Dr Chapple has assumed another fundamental position. Is it too much to require of him that he should prove that, where criminals have sprung from a defective ancestry, this defect should be invariably transmitted? That, in short, a criminally defective ancestry is an invariable cause producing a criminal descent. (Note.—By criminally defective ancestry we mean the ancestry from which criminals spring. It may not itself be criminal. It may be drunken or pauper.) Such an important question cannot be assumed; positive proof is demanded, and this is nowhere forthcoming in Dr Chapple's book.

If it were allowed that criminals were the most prolific of all classes of society, this question of heredity would still have to be cleared up before such a proposal as tubo-ligature were seriously discussed, for surely so drastic a remedy would never be employed except under the most positive conditions, that is to say, that this operation would never be employed until it had been ascertained, with scientific precision, that the birth of degenerates, and degenerates only, was being prevented.

Dr Chapple failing to illuminate us upon this point we inquire, does a criminally defective ancestry invariably convey to its offspring a taint disposing it towards crime? Or can it ever be ascertained that a certain given ancestry will certainly produce criminals?

In the treatment of the subject of heredity it has been made clear that on account of the vicious habits of the criminal he is apt to transmit to his offspring a physical defect which will make it difficult for him to adapt himself to the conditions of the society in which he is placed. This difficulty becomes almost, though not quite, insurmountable when the environment is one in which the practice of vice and dishonesty is easier than that of virtue and thrift.

The transmission of a taint which is a cause of criminality cannot be denied, but the close investigation of the criminal and of his family has revealed the fact that among the comparatively few criminals who are parents they do not all transmit a taint or defect to their offspring, nor among those from whom a taint has been transmitted has it necessarily been transmitted to every child.

The "Jukes" family being the most exceptional of all cases in which criminal heredity may be observed can be investigated for the purposes of discovering the extreme affirmative which the question proposed can give. The answer is an emphatic no. When the "Jukes" intermarried there was, strange as it may seem, almost an entire absence from crime in the family following upon such union. When they married into other families, crime frequently made its appearance. This, at least, shows that an hereditary taint is not invariably conveyed. It may be claimed that it proves that, under certain conditions, such taint is conveyed; but in cases of this nature we do not reach our particular and exclusive affirmatives anything like so rapidly as we reach our particular and exclusive negatives. The negative is often obvious, the affirmative generally remote. It may be that by cross marriages the element of virility, necessary to maintain criminality, is sustained: but if that were so it would be expected that pauperism would necessarily result from consanguineous marriages which is not so far the case as to indicate cause and effect. A more plausible suggestion is that in consanguineous marriages there is a tendency for the family ties to be reunited and the family ideal restored. Such, of course, effectively disposes of criminality. Of the three grandsons of Ada Jukes, who were themselves the sons of her one illegitimate son, their family report is as follows:—The first was licentious, a sheep-stealer, quarrelsome, and an habitual drunkard. He married a disreputable woman and had several children. Of his seven boys, five were criminals. The second grandson kept a tavern and a brothel and was a thief. He married a brothel keeper. Of his six sons, two were criminals. The third grandson was industrious but occasionally intemperate. He married a woman addicted to the opium habit. Of his four sons, none were criminals. These are fairly average cases, and they, at least, affirm very distinctly that the criminal does not always transmit a taint to his child which will dispose that child towards crime.

Although in the cases cited above only some 40 per cent. of the children were criminals, it must, however, be observed that a great deal of criminality goes unpunished, so that we might fix the average at 75 per cent. and be more exact. Of the 75 per cent. we must find out whether their heredity or their environment was the cause of their being criminal. Dugdale's observations led him to conclude that heredity is a latent cause which requires environment for its development. These 75 per cent., however, will be referred to again. There being 25 per cent. honest and industrious, brings us face to face with a question affecting the morality of Dr Chapple's proposal.

Since then all the children of criminal ancestry are not themselves criminal or likely to become criminals through an hereditary taint, can a proposal be accepted which would not only prevent the birth of the hereditary criminal, but would also prevent the birth of several persons who would have become good and useful citizens.

Thus far only the criminal descended from a criminal ancestry has been considered, whereas, as was stated previously, there are a considerable number of criminals termed "hereditary" criminals who are descended from a drunken ancestry. The proportion of these is about 33 per cent. of the whole. The impossibility of the success of Dr Chapple's remedy is very apparent from the insurmountable difficulties that would be experienced in determining with exactitude when a person was so degenerate in his own system as to make it positive that his prospective offspring would be born a criminal defective. Uncertainty, in this matter, reigns supreme.

There must remain then but very little support for Dr Chapple's proposal when we discover firstly:—that the criminal is very rarely a parent, and secondly:—that in every case a taint is not transmitted from parent to child. Its sphere of effectiveness is restricted by the very circumstances of the case, and even within that restricted sphere its operation would be most clumsy for it would prevent the birth of all a criminal's children, good and bad alike. Thus it would become both a moral and economic failure.

Dr Chapple has taken it for granted that a criminal's rate of increase is at least equal to the average if not indeed, for certain reasons, considerably greater, and that he in all cases transmits an hereditary taint to his offspring. Then he seeks for a remedy whereby the transmission of this taint may be avoided and he can find none other than one which prevents the very possibility of the prospective child being born. Before coming to such a drastic conclusion enquiry might have been made to discover whether there might not exist a remedy which would be a remedy in the truest sense. That is a remedy which would, while it would prevent the transmission of the taint, yet it would not interfere with reproduction. Such a remedy would be in fact a method for the reformation of the criminal, for if the criminal were reformed the problem would be solved. If he were transformed into an honest and industrious man then the transmission of the criminal taint is at once prevented. There are some, however, who maintain that the criminal is incorrigible and that reformatory agencies have invariably failed. They look upon all attempts on behalf of the criminal as a useless expenditure of energy and money. This question of the possibility or otherwise of the reform of the criminal must now be settled before we can proceed further.

Is the criminal incorrigible? Some criminals do not ever reform because they cannot. These are insane. Some do not because they will not; but these may. The many who pass through our gaols and show no signs of reform does not prove that although they may reform they never will. If nine hundred and ninety-nine cases were observed of men resisting reform it would not prove the impossibility of reforming the thousandth. It would point to the difficulty, the remote probability or the need of different methods; but it would not determine the impossibility. When the term "incorrigible" is applied to certain criminals it does not mean that these men are incapable of reform; but they are RESISTING reform; and no one can tell when or whether the most obstinate of these will surrender his will to the dictates of conscience and commence a life of reform. The possibility is always an open question. No better testimony can be brought forward than that of Mr Z. R. Brockway, late Superintendent of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Mr Brockway is one of the pioneers in reformatory work and is considered the greatest living authority upon the subject. Some 10,000 felons have passed through their hands. Speaking at the Fourth International Prison Congress held in St. Petersburg in 1890 he said:—"There is a sense in which nothing that lives is incapable of betterment, and so strictly speaking there are no incorrigible criminals. If it is possible to grasp the thought and cherish it, we should endeavour to discover in the very worst characters some spark of humanity which unites us all in ties of relationship, some secret soul-chambers where superhuman influences may find lodgment, and so with good leaven pervade the whole man; at least we may find in our sphere a field for most fascinating scientific research and experiment.

"I record it as my own conviction, after nearly a lifetime spent with and for criminals, that alike for all, corrigible and incorrigible, the aim to accomplish reformation is a true one. It most surely supplies all possible repression upon the criminal classes in society.... The aim of reformations is absolutely essential to any good degree of public protection from crimes.... Mr F. Ammetybock, Director of the Penitentiary of Vridsloselille, Denmark, added:—I would not dare charge as incorrigible one of the 3,000 criminals who have been confided to my care.... During my career as a prison officer, I have seen many criminals who offered, humanly speaking, characteristic signs of incorrigibility and who now and for a long time had led respectable lives.... I believe that other prison officers as well as philanthropists, can confirm the truth of my experience, and I hope that many will protest against the theory of incorrigibility and place in the balance their experience against purely abstract ideas."

On the other hand, it must be admitted that several criminologists emphatically declare that the "instinctive" criminal (or "born" criminal to use Lombroso's term) is incorrigible. Garofalo takes such a hopeless view of the matter as to demand his elimination by death, but none of these men, eminent criminologists as they may be, have studied reformatory science experimentally. Mr Brockway's testimony should be taken as final seeing that of the 12,000 felons who have passed through the Elmira Reformatory, 82 per cent. have reformed, i.e., have not returned to criminal practices. The statistics for the year 1903 are as follows:—

Total number of those paroled 445 Served well and earned absolute release 143 Correspondence and good conduct and maintained (parole not expired) 238 Died, doing well until time of death 1 Released by Special Executive Clemency, doing well 1 Returned to Europe by permission 1 —— 384 or 86 per cent

Returned to Reformatory for violation of parole 15 or 33 " Probably returned to crime. Those who ceased correspondence while on parole and were lost sight of 37 Known to have returned to crime 9 — 46 or 10 "

It will be seen that while the Reformatory claims only 86 per cent. of reforms, there were only 9 persons (or 2 per cent. of the whole) who were KNOWN to have certainly returned to crime.

This exhibit is conclusive. Reformatory Science, which is yet but in its infancy, can already deal successfully with by far the greatest proportion of criminals, and this success at this stage guarantees a much larger measure in the future. It is clear then upon the statements of the highest authorities that the criminal is not incorrigible, and that the prison (penal) system compares so unfavourably with the reformatory system that it ought to be abolished in favour of it. The system in vogue at the Elmira Reformatory will be described in a later chapter, and there it will be shown that the methods employed are upon a most scientific basis and that the results obtained cannot fail to satisfy the most exacting. It will be seen that by a "reformed" man is meant a man who can and will adapt himself to the conditions of society; a man sound in mind, healthy in body, industrious and honest in habit. Concerning this man's progeny, what have we to fear? It is in this way that we may dispose of the proportion of 75 per cent. of criminal children descended from criminal ancestry. It should here be again observed that the majority of criminals commence their career in crime at a very early age, and that therefore the reform of almost all criminals may be undertaken before they are likely to become parents. Again, true reformatory science forbids the release of any criminal from custody who has not given satisfactory evidence of reform.

Thus reformatory science effectually guarantees society against the evil that Dr Chapple has proposed to eradicate, and it does it by a method compared with which tubo-ligature is most crude.

The criminal is either set free as a reformed man or is to be kept in captivity because his resistance to reformatory discipline has shown him to be unfit to rightly use his liberty.

Not only are the chances of his becoming the parent of criminally disposed children effectually removed but he is himself transformed from having a negative to having a positive social value.

Dr Chapple's study convinces him that the cause of the startling increase of crime, insanity, and pauperism is to be found "deep down in biological truth. Society is breeding from defective stock." Dr Waddell, who writes the preface of the "Fertility of the Unfit," is so alarmed as to declare that "our civilization is in imminent peril of being swamped by the increasingly disproportionate progeny of the criminal." The most superficial observation of the life of the criminal would have shown both these writers that criminal habits militated substantially against the probability of a natural increase.

To repeat what Fere and Havelock Ellis both emphatically declare that the criminal and the pauper do not reproduce their kind is but to show that the cause of the natural increase of the criminal is NOT to be found in biological truth, neither is our society in any danger of being swamped by an increasingly disproportionate progeny of the criminal. In short, society has no enemy in Nature.

The true cause for the increase of the numbers of the criminal is to be found in sociological and not in biological truth. As Lacassagne says: "Society has the criminals that it deserves."

Dr MacDonald, W.S. Expert in Criminology, writes to the author, "As to tubo-ligature, or the like, it would not be supported by scientists."

If, however, there were absolutely no scientific objection to the proposal that the Doctor advances, if, that is, the basal facts were exactly he assumes them to be, would then his remedy be secure from attack? Most emphatically not. For is it not possible, nay with the present shrinking from maternity so widespread, is it not highly probable that the measure would be greatly abused? Thousands as the Doctor himself says would avail themselves of it to-morrow, and for the simple reason that they wish to escape from the responsibilities of bringing up children. Thousands would no doubt repudiate their debts to-morrow if they might do so with impunity, but their wish in the matter scarcely establishes the course as being a desirable one or one calculated to promote the happiness of society.

From the revelations of the Birth-rate Commission and from other enquiries it is most evident that tubo-ligature would be very largely abused indeed.

But it may be said that it were far better that the woman shrinking maternity should employ this method than that she should use the preventive drugs that she does. This is but to acknowledge the morality, or at least the necessity for the use of preventives and does nothing less than to charge the Deity with having made laws for the governing of the Natural Order which have got altogether out of hand and have involved His creatures in confusion.

Is it not a question whether marriage becomes a necessity when children are to be avoided? The evil to which Dr Chapple's remedy would run, is one in which the moral sentiment of society would be so hardened that the reason for marriage would disappear from the knowledge of man.

There is a great difference between this operation taking place from pathological reasons and its being performed simply as a deliverance from maternal responsibilities. In the latter case it is performed at the will of the woman who thus shows that she has conquered the maternal instinct, and as such she is a monster for she has contradicted her nature. Lombroso declares that these are the women that commit the most hideous crimes and that they are incorrigible.

The Birth-rate Commissioners stated that the use of preventives was having a most injurious effect upon the health of the women who used them.

Clearly then Morality and Nature are both opposed to their use.

If men and women are becoming so selfish as to be determined to live contrary to their nature then Nature will deal with them according to Her terrible manner. If they are in an extremity and find that our social system makes it impossible for them to undertake the responsibilities of parentage, then the reorganization of our social system is a matter for urgent consideration.

But Dr Chapple would only intensify the evil instead of remedying it.

What he practically says is this:—Regard yourselves for the moment as being brute beasts and discuss the question upon that level. Murder the social instinct; murder the compassionate spirit; disregard the Divine Law and stifle all faith in the Providence of God; let the mission of life be the enjoyment of pleasure; shrink from the marriage that might be a burden, and dissolve the happy marriage should indications of future burdens present themselves. He would have us compelled to take our betrothed to a medical board and shamelessly confess ourselves. Confess ourselves under circumstances which would know no secrecy. He would have us regard our wives from the standpoint of selfishness and lust alone. But we are not brutes we are human, and we have instincts which the brutes have not.

NOTE.—Dr. Chapple includes among the defectives not only the criminal but also the lunatic, the epileptic and the pauper. How far tubo-ligature would meet the cases of these defectives seems very uncertain. The information which the Doctor gives us, for the most part, is in direct opposition to him. On pages 74-76 he gives the history of eight families which it will repay to examine.

Cases I.—Cancer, consumption and epilepsy in the family. In the third generation there are seven persons, of whom five married. The only healthy member left five children, three were childless and one who died at 56 left five children. That is to say, twelve children represent the fourth generation.

Case II.—Insanity, idiocy and epilepsy. Of five persons the one sane member only has a family. Nine children, some (how many?) imbecile.

Case III.—Drunkenness, insanity. Seven children, two died of convulsions. One an idiot, one a dement (suicidal), one repeatedly insane. These three are scarcely likely to be chosen in marriage. One peculiar and irritable, one nervous and depressed.

Case IV.—In third generation there are two epileptics and one imbecile—scarcely likely to marry. Seven others are dead. (S. P.)

Case V.—From an insane parent we have three children, one excitable, one dull and one imbecile.

Case VI.—A family of mutes and scarcely relevant.

Case VII.—Drunkenness, epilepsy, etc. In the third generation "family now extinct." No indications of tubo-ligature having been performed.

Case VIII.—Apparently the issue in the second generation is from two parentages. There are fifteen persons accounted for. Seven died in infancy of convulsions. Epilepsy, scrofula, and idiocy can claim one each. One was drowned, and four are healthy. That is, of seven surviving children, four are healthy.

In all from fifteen parents there is the alarming increase of fifty-six persons. Of these eleven are healthy, fourteen are not described, fourteen are defective and seventeen are dead. The total number of living descendants, representing no less than the third generation of seven families, is but thirty-nine. These figures can scarcely be quoted to prove the "fertility of the unfit," but that is the title that stands over them. As to the hereditary tendencies that they propagate, more information is required.

It is a well known fact that in cases of hereditary defect there is a tendency for the defect to appear at either an earlier or later stage in life in each successive generation (Mercier). In the first case the family dies out, in the second case it recovers itself. In cases of congenital defect, there is very little to fear. The lunatic is locked up and the epileptic is avoided.

Nature deals most successfully with these cases. She saves where possible and destroys when recovery is hopeless. Very slowly perhaps, but very exactly—never making a mistake, and in her slowness she is but giving man an opportunity to contribute something towards the recovery she aims at.

The Case of the Epileptic.—The number of epileptics in whom the disease may be traced to hereditary causes is estimated to be about 33 per cent. of the whole. This is indeed a very large percentage. It does not, however, follow that in all the cases or in by any means a large proportion of them, the parents were also epileptics. Authorities are not agreed as to the influence of heredity as a predisposing cause; but it is recognised by all that the children of insane, neurotic, hysterical or neuralgic parents are liable to become epileptics. Also that alcoholism in the parents conveys a predisposition to the child. The hereditary cases are therefore to be divided amongst all these causes. In what proportion it would be difficult to estimate; but very few persons in whom epilepsy has developed marry, and as 75 per cent. of the cases are said to begin under the age of 20 years, and very few after 25 years (cases of hereditary epilepsy have been known to develop at so late an age as 65 and 70 years) it limits the number of epileptics who marry to a very narrow margin. For even these few, marriage should, however, be entirely out of the question. In cases, where from syphilis or shock epilepsy is developed in the married adult we should expect to find treatment imposing a restriction upon the freedom of the patient somewhat similar to that provided for lunatics. In almost every rank of society the developed epileptic would be excluded from marriage by the law of sexual selection, and as the great majority develop epilepsy before coming to a marriageable age, few epileptic children can claim a developed epileptic ancestry.

The number of cases, where epilepsy results from an epileptic ancestry, is estimated by Sir Wm. Gowers at 22 per cent. of the whole. These cases are to be distributed between the developed form and the petit mal. As the petit mal often escapes observation Dr Chapple's method would only apply to those cases of the marriage of persons who were afflicted with the major form of epilepsy, which means that perhaps not more than 10 per cent. of the number of epileptics could be prevented from coming to birth. If a ten per centum reduction is to be considered as solving the problem in the case of epileptics what will the 86 per cent. of reforms among criminals be valued at?

The Case of the Pauper.—Paupers may be divided into two classes, those whose poverty is due to misfortunes and those whose poverty is due to vicious idleness. Those whose poverty is due to drink or crime are not properly to be classified as paupers. Society regards them as primarily drunkards and criminals. Of these two classes the first are generally to be found making a courageous fight against adverse circumstances and feel their position keenly. They are deserving of the compassion of society. Their families, it is true, are a burden upon private and institutional charity, but only a temporary one and after a while become the very means of recovering the broken fortunes of their parents. Very large sums are spent in relieving the necessities (often in providing the luxuries) of the undeserving poor, but this fact should not be made the basis of a charge against the deserving but helpless poor. My own acquaintance with the poorest parts of one of our largest cities leads me to believe that very little charity ever reaches the truly deserving poor. They battle on and keep their sad condition as far from public observation as possible. The undeserving are very clamorous. These two incidents are by no means uncommon, they are fairly typical. (a) I was called one night to baptise a dying child. The mother stated that she was too poor to buy a few necessaries ordered by the doctor. I purchased these myself and brought them to the mother. The next morning she sent to say the child was dead and would I lend her money to wire to the father. As he was in work I thought a collect telegram was more suitable. In the evening a request came for monetary assistance to provide the child with a coffin and to purchase a plot in the cemetery. A clergyman who does that sort of thing might as well keep a private cemetery, undertaker and monumental mason of his own. I refused to do it and came in for a good deal of abuse. The mother appeared at the funeral in a new black silk dress!

(b) A crippled woman who earned her living by ironing. She made on an average 10s per week. I suggested to her the advisability of applying for an old age pension and proceeded to fill in her papers. When she discovered that she was two months under the age of 65 she was horrified at what she thought an attempt on her part to swindle the Government.

These cases speak for themselves. People seem afraid to refuse to give alms for fear of being called uncharitable, yet they have not the charity to investigate the cases brought before their notice and see that their relief is intelligently bestowed upon worthy persons. Some religious societies are cruel sinners in this respect. The consequence is that a premium is put upon professional begging and we have plenty of it. Society will never murmur against the burden of the deserving poor. Concerning the life of the poor, however, Korosi gives these statistics:—The average age of the rich is 35 years, of the well-to-do 20.6 years, of the poor only 13.2 years. These statistics are supposed to hold good for all large towns. The average life of the pauper (that is the vicious pauper) will be shorter still seeing that in his idle, vicious life the parent refuses to acknowledge his responsibilities towards his children and makes no effort to save them from perishing through want and proper healthful conditions. The numbers of the pauper may increase, but it is seen then that they do not live to any great length of life. The pauper has, however, a certain rate of increase and his children are brought up in pauper habits. To the criminal population they add about 2 per cent. of the whole. They constitute a burden, not very great, but one which society resents. To adopt tubo-ligature might relieve both society and the pauper, but its moral effect would be that the pauper would regard his vice as acknowledged and approved by society. To say that there are no other remedies, remedies which would compel the pauper to earn his living, is an appalling confession of failure on the part of society.



Chapter VI.

THE OBLIGATIONS OF SOCIETY TOWARDS THE WEAK.

The last century is admittedly one in which was witnessed the greatest advances in civilization that the world has ever made. All classes in society may be said to have benefited. The rich have been given greater opportunities for the enjoyment of their riches and an enlarged sphere of usefulness opened to them. The poor have had their lot so greatly ameliorated, that given health, very few men in these colonies at all events, are poor except it be their own fault. The art of healing can now restore to health millions who, had they lived in an earlier century, would have suffered agonies. A universal education has opened the doors of colleges and universities and made it possible for those born in the humblest conditions of life, to attain to the most distinguished positions in the land. The private has become the general; the office boy the judge; the peasant boy the President; the full-blooded aboriginal has graduated through our universities and been called to the Bar; and no man can urge class distinction as being the cause of his failure in any ambition that he has faithfully pursued. All classes have benefited; almost all classes have advanced.

Undeniably this advance has brought greater happiness into the world; whether it will continue will entirely depend upon what basis it is intended to secure this advance.

With an increase of wealth and leisure there is the danger of demoralisation. Our society may substitute a false aim for its true one. Already there are an illimitable number of social reformers who are prepared to describe in very definite terms what is the state of perfected society and what laws are necessary for immediate enactment in order that we might rapidly reach that state. We all acknowledge the existence of the prophetic vision, but we limit its range and regard him most audacious who declares that he can describe the heaven in which society shall finally shelter itself securely from all that prey upon her. Advance as quickly as we may, there is a limit to our speed, and the future being all unknown we scarcely like to take it at a plunge. Nevertheless, these social reformers do a good work—their schemes are at least suggestive, and moreover they point out signs of the times. They show us unmistakably that with our advance there is a tendency to become more and more selfish and to regard with less true charity the condition of the weak. One social reformer will say that there will not be any suffering because therapeutics will have overtaken every disease that the flesh is heir to, or better still, that some new discovery will have made it possible to heal all sicknesses without the tedious work of surgeons and nurses. Healing will become a pastime like table-turning. Neither will there be any criminals because the whole social state will be so happy, contented, and knit together that inducement to crime will cease. Others will treat the criminal "scientifically," ensuring reforms at the rate of 100 per cent. with lightning-like rapidity. Which all practically amounts to this, that the problem concerning the future of the weak is shelved. To study it deeply would spoil our best theories and therefore it must be got rid of. Dr Chapple has done nothing more than shelve it, for as we have seen his remedy is both practically and morally impossible. Like all others it betrays the selfish spirit. Like them it regards the weak as if they were nothing less than an intolerable incubus on society, a grit in its bearings. It may be that our social advancement will account for this. In old time when communities were small and fixed, the burden of nursing the helpless necessarily fell upon those who were immediately related by ties of blood or neighbourhood, but now the many changes in the method of living and treatment, has made this to a large extent impossible. Institutions have everywhere sprung up, and it is invariably to the advantage of our sick and afflicted that we should commit them to these institutions, which practice has engendered the belief that all our social obligations can be discharged by monetary payment. Not for one moment need we entertain the idea that this belief will ever become a dominating one. Charitable influences are more powerful. Nor must we charge the authors of selfish systems with being as uncharitable as their systems. They give expression to a fairly strong and somewhat universal sentiment, a sentiment which we would perhaps disown at once upon its being unmasked and which many refuse to obey upon its appeal to them to act in accordance with its principles. This indicates that society sees many of its assailants in but a half-light. It observes neither their malice nor strength but only a dark ugly form which irritates us and which we would if we could banish by an act of will.

This being impossible we must meet our assailants in a clearer light and destroy them. How can this be done, since it would mean the destruction of evil and the powers of evil? Then it cannot be done, but since evil feeds itself upon its victims we can greatly diminish its power and influence by rescuing all who fall within its grasp. Many we know we cannot rescue for there are certain types of disease mental and bodily which defy our skill and some of all types of moral disease also defy our effort. Still it would be better to say that we do not rescue them, than that we cannot, for what was incurable yesterday is curable to-day, and the most deadly diseases are giving clear evidence that their powers to baffle science are fast giving out. That they will give out, scientific men confidently hope. Neither is this hope groundless for past success warrant it and there again point to another assurance, almost a guarantee. The miracles of healing which Our Lord wrought were not only to confer relief upon the suffering, not only to give evidence of His Divinity, but also to promise the triumph which would reward the efforts of man seeking to assist his afflicted brother. We will never heal by a word, neither will we raise the dead, for in these works of might we have peculiar evidence of the Divine Providence; but Christ's miracles seem to promise that He, the Light of the World, will yet grant the fullness of that illumination by which the works of healing are done.

The sick, it is true, receive greater compassion from their fellowmen than the abnormal, the insane and the criminal. But these latter also demand our consideration if for no other reason than that they menace society. To exterminate them is impossible. A persecution with that end would defeat itself, and the persecutors would become morally infinitely worse than the persecuted.

Secondly: their consideration is demanded from the fact that society has produced the evil plight of very many of them. In the great advance, they have fallen and been trampled on. Their right to fall may be denied, but whose right was it to trample on them? To declare it to have been inevitable that they should be trampled on, simply excuses guilt but not obligation. And the obligation is to make reparation as far as possible.

Thirdly: because what should be a valuable asset to society, contributing substantially to her strength, becomes a hostile power weakening her and hindering her progress. Any of these three considerations received separately is sufficient to convince us of our obligations to this uglier section of the weak, when combined their force is very great. But when we speak to them of peace do they not make them ready to battle? No, their case is not so hopeless as that. David lived under the Mosaic Dispensation, and Moses could give but the law whereas Christ has given His Life. Our method will determine everything. Good advice, good books, good laws will do but little; good work will accomplish all. "The greatest good of the greatest number" is a false ideal and absolutely unworthy either of our charity or our science. "The ultimate good of all" is the end society is destined to accomplish, and anything less is too little for her, anything more is impossible even to conceive.

In working towards this ideal, which we cannot describe with greater definiteness, we are bound to recognise that GOODNESS is our safe and only guide. The general direction of our advance in the past we can easily trace, but the purpose of the devious paths through which we were led is too difficult to understand. Our present puzzles us, our future sometimes appals us. Some rush ahead to see what lies before us and come back injured and pass away as pessimists, others hesitate to advance at all. We cannot outstrip our guiding pillar of light; but following it we are safe to advance. And in following, one of the first convictions that comes home to us is that we must allow no waste, neither in the lives of others nor in the energies of ourselves. With this conviction soon comes the startling fact that the energies we are allowing to waste are identically those which were given to us to save the lives of others which are wasting. A wonderful independence exists among us. The social system is bound together by ties of nature, and not merely by those of commerce or benefit. Man is social, not merely gregarious. He enters into the life of his fellow-man and establishes relations which we are bound to call spiritual. Through the media of these relations, influences traverse which are of the most profound we know. These relations when established compel us to acknowledge our duties to one another and give us a delight in discharging them. This delight in turn becomes the power, which opens the eyes to the realization of the great principle of self-sacrifice. Egoism and altruism are not to be mutually exclusive. To seek our own happiness is not to be indifferent to the happiness of society. For what is happiness? not pleasure, but self-realization, and we cannot realise self without realising society.

This interdependence which exists between man and man, and which makes it possible for us to influence one another so powerfully for good or for evil, points out to us that the true aim of every man, namely, to unite his work with that of his fellow-man in a grand co-operative undertaking for the advancement and betterment of society regarded as a whole and with regard for its units. We cannot realise self if engaged in competition man against man in order to satisfy private ambition. Our object should be to unite and our hostility be provoked, not against one another, weak or strong, but against the powers which attack us individually and collectively.

Necessity then lays the obligation upon us to give our first attention to the rescue of the weak. It was the recognition of this obligation which sent the Christian-Maidens into the suburbs of Rome seeking the exposed offspring of unnatural parents. To say that they would have been better dead, is to speak with that facility which requires neither mental nor moral perception.

It is the recognition, in part, of this obligation which accounts for hospitals, asylums and other charitable institutions. Hence also we endeavour to shelter those born deficient in mental or moral power. Dr Chapple seems to think that the result of all this is that we have made a pretty mess of society. He says, of these weaklings, that Nature has decreed that they should die. A most unscientific statement. Are these charitable efforts to be regarded as profane interference with the sacred decrees of Nature? Nature's decrees are inviolate and none can disturb them. Because these weak, if left unaided, would perish, is that to say that Nature has decreed that they should die? If so, we must say of a man, stricken with typhoid fever, that Nature has decreed that he should die, and that any effort to save him would be but a profane interference on our part with Nature.

What does Nature say of these that they do not live, they cannot live, or they must not live?

History has shown that in the past they do not live.

But in order to discover the decree of Nature we must make a full and exhaustive enquiry into the possibilities which exist under the laws of Nature. So far as this enquiry has advanced it has been made quite clear that the charitable effort of man will recover many that would otherwise perish. The whole science of therapeutics is based upon this discovery.

Dr Chapple says of defectives that they do live but that they must not. Two arguments he brings forward. The first is that Nature has decreed that they should not. This must be a secret communication, for it is not universal knowledge, and the operation of Nature's laws certainly appears to contradict it. The second argument is that they are a burden. The burden analysed amounts to this:—

(a). They are a misery to themselves. (b). They are too costly. (c). They hinder the progress of society. (d). They threaten to overwhelm society.

(a). Who can tell whether the weak are absolutely a misery to themselves. Pain is a mystery which cannot be solved, although to the suffering its benefits are well known. If they would be better out of the way might they not be left to decide that matter for themselves? They, knowing best, cry to us for help. If we were merely gregarious creatures like wolves or sharks we would tear or destroy them in their misery; but as social beings we are bound to answer their cry. To cry for help is instinctive with them, and to respond to the cry is instinctive with us. Surely this is the voice of Nature and this is the decree of Nature.

(b). If this argument be admitted then we are bound to declare that the one aim of both society and individual is to amass wealth. The idea is too sordid for further consideration.

(c). So far from hindering the social progress they most powerfully assist it. The mere bearing of one another's burdens has the most refining and deepening influence upon character. It is most active in creating and establishing our relations one with another. Compassion for the suffering creates a tie between them and us. The intention to help requires our co-operation with others, and so the bond extends uniting first individuals then groups and then the whole of society. Nor must we forget the immense advance in surgery and medicine which is due entirely to the consideration of the lot of the apparently hopeless. Had these even been allowed to perish we should still have needed our surgeons and physicians in a well equipped society, if only to teach us how to prevent seizure by dangerous complaints.

A short time ago many died from ailments which surgery can to-day cure with but very little suffering on the part of the patient. Is not this a substantial gain which the bearing of the burden of the weak has brought to man? To mention other triumphs is but to enlarge. If therefore Nature has spoken there can be no doubt that it was to give a promise that she would reward diligent research by revealing the cure of all the ills our flesh inherits. Thus assured, scientific men are most zealously studying the most deadly and most obstinate diseases. Against plague, smallpox, and consumption they can at least give us an effective protection, and almost hourly we expect to hear the shout of triumph accompanying the announcement that the victory over cancer has been gained. When stricken with these diseases we immediately fall into the ranks of the unfit; but we will thank society for having borne its burden when the healing art is brought to such an excellence that, when so stricken, we may soon be restored to the ranks of the fit. The benefit which the past confers upon us declares imperatively our obligation to the future.

(d). Do they threaten to overwhelm? The power of disease is being overcome, and therefore the number of the diseased is being lessened. By being cured, instead of dying, these increase the proportion of the strong to the weak. The obstinacy of certain hereditary diseases but asserts the necessity of prosecuting study more enthusiastically.

But if the strong limit their increase they cannot demand that exterminating methods should be applied to the weak in order to restore the proportion which they, the strong, have thus by their selfishness disturbed. Nature gives adequate protection so far as numerical increase is concerned, and no scientific man will dare to state that this protection may be disregarded and another demanded.

The Government of India has been charged with pursuing a suicidal policy in safeguarding the natives against plague and smallpox and in preventing human sacrifice. Their numbers will increase, food supplies will give out, or, worst of all, they may become so powerful as to wrest the supremacy from the European. Charity, however, demands that these measures shall be taken, and the terrors of the future are at best hypothetical. This is but another case in which consideration for the unknown future is apt to hinder us in the discharge of our known duties to the present. History assures us that the guarantee of the future lies in the fulfilment of these duties. The height of absurdity is reached when the attempt is made to establish the proportions of the future. Such efforts defy man.

The burden of the weak is the burden of the strong, and in the bearing of it is brought into view the grand and true ideal of society—the good of all.

Man is endowed with natural powers for assisting his weaker brother, and, above all these powers he has, through supplication the means of engaging the Divine Influence, which simply defies all calculation against the possibility of reform or recovery.

Where charitable effort in the past has not succeeded it is because it has not gone far enough. Building institutions is sometimes due to a craze and not charity. Thus evils are sometimes accentuated and not mitigated. Such failures must spur to redoubled effort. Hope was never larger than at present.



Chapter VII.

THE NEW PENOLOGY.

The old method of dealing with criminals was based entirely upon a doctrine of vengeance. The criminal was regarded as being in every way a normal man, a man who deliberately chose to be a criminal. The possibility of a criminal's moral sense being defective, of his not being able to bring his actions under the control of his will, or of some other sad handicap existing, was never contemplated. His crime was looked upon as a desperate act, for the committal of which he was absolutely without any excuse. The consequence was that an elaborate system of torture was devised in order to deal with him. Readers who are familiar with such books as Marcus Clark's "For the term of his natural life," and Charles Reade's "It is never too late to mend," will require no further description of the horrors of "the vengeance system" which was supposed to be the only rational method of dealing with criminals in the days of the convict settlements.

Since then, popular vengeance has considerably relaxed and the devising of painful forms of punishment has become almost a lost art. The new-born science, with its first powers of articulation, loudly repeat the words of Revelation, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." A system of vengeance instituted by man against man is impossible. As has been stated in a previous chapter, the new penology repudiates all such systems. The amount of pain which an individual is to be called upon to suffer may well be left to the higher tribunal. The obvious duty of man to his fellow-man who is depraved, is to endeavour to recover him. There is no satisfaction in punishing him, but there is every satisfaction in reforming him.

The new penology covers the investigation and study of every circumstance surrounding the criminal as such. No circumstance is so trifling as to be passed by, every detail is carefully studied with the object of discovering what the criminal is and how he came to be such, what are his possibilities, and by what methods those possibilities may be reached.

Maconochie ventured upon the bold assumption that the criminal was a human being, and this assumption proved to be justified. In 1840 he was sent to Norfolk Island to take charge of 1400 double-convicted felons there. He describes them in these words:—"For the merest trifle they were flogged, ironed or confined in gaol for days on bread and water. The offences most severely punished were chiefly conventional; those against morals being little regarded, compared with those against unreasonable discipline. Thus the horrid vices with acts of brutal violence, or of dexterity in theft and robbery, were detailed to me by the officers with little direct censure, and rather as anecdotes calculated to astonish and amuse a new-comer. While the possession of a pipe, a newspaper, a little tea, etc., or the omission of some mark of respect, a saucy look or word, or even an imputation of sullenness, were deemed unpardonable offences. They were fed more like hogs than like men; neither knives, forks, nor hardly any other conveniences were allowed at tables. They tore their food with their fingers and teeth, and drank out of water buckets. The men's countenances reflected faithfully this description of treatment. A more demoniacal looking assemblage could not be imagined; and nearly the most formidable sight I ever beheld was the sea of faces upturned to me when I first addressed them. Yet three years after, I had the satisfaction of hearing Sir George Gipps ask me what I had done to make the men look so well?—he had seldom seen a better looking set."

Maconochie had invented the mark system (the principle of the indeterminate system) and made the prisoners' liberation depend upon their conduct and character and not upon the original offence. Maconochie's experience led him to write in after years to a friend, "if you would try a social-moral one (prison system) you would soon get important results. If our punishments were first of all made REFORMATORY, and generally successful in this object the prejudices of society against the early criminal would abate." Inspired with this hope of reforming the criminal and restoring him to society as a useful member, philanthropists began the exhaustive study of the criminal. In prisons where the value of this science is recognized the criminal upon his entry is subject to a most thorough examination, every item of his family history is carefully enquired into. Information concerning the occupation, education, health and character of all who are nearly related to him is obtained, as also the moral and economic conditions of his home life, and the character of his associates. He himself is studied for the existence or traces of disease; for abnormalities, arrested or exaggerated physical and mental development. The strength of his various muscles, the vitality of his organs, his mental and nervous capacity, and his moral susceptibility are all estimated. His powers of self-control are determined. His disposition is carefully studied. His opportunities in life, his educational advantages, his early career, the nature of the crime, the immediate influencing circumstances, as provocation, hunger, cold, atmospheric disturbances are all noted.

Such is a brief outline of the examination, the object of which is to discover as far as possible the real cause which led to the crime, what, if any, were the social, physical, psychical and provocative elements contributing to the cause; what their value; and what are the most promising lines upon which the criminal's reform may be directed. He is by no means regarded as a passive product of forces over which he has no control, nor his crime as the consequence of himself. It is essential to the success of all reformatory discipline that moral responsibility must be recognised and observed. In fact it may be said, that reformation is complete when moral responsibility, insisted upon by the discipline, becomes at last acknowledged by the man.

Perhaps it may be thought that it is not possible to conduct such a study with anything like accurate results, and that the greater part of it would be mere guess work, as e.g. the determining the capacity of a man's nervous system or his degree of moral susceptibility. This is quite a mistake. There is nothing whatever of a speculative quality in the results advanced by criminologists. Their methods are exact and compare equally with those for the investigation of other phenomena.

It is not claimed that the absolute or the relative value of the data collected is as yet determined, nor yet that any one investigation has been exhausted; but this much can be claimed, that the results obtained are of high practical worth and justify the assurance that the solution of the problem concerning the criminal will soon be reached.



Chapter VIII.

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME.

The result of Criminological studies has indicated most clearly that no measures for the prevention or repression of crime will ever be adequate which are not based upon a scientific system of education. Whatever this system may prove to be, it must have one distinct aim, and that is to train all its members to love, and to work for, the social state. This aim must be accomplished most thoroughly no matter what the cost may be.

The decreasing birth-rate points to other conclusions than the obvious one that a large number of persons must be using preventive means. It points to a widespread selfishness which regards children as an intolerable burden, as in fact nothing less than a grievous misfortune. It is obvious that where children are so regarded a blight has fallen upon the domestic life. Home cannot be the brightest spot on earth to them; neither can the father and mother be their sympathetic guides, counsellors, and protectors. Nor can those children be studied (by those who alone have the special faculty for studying them) in order that their secret aims and ambitions and the difficulties which obstruct these aims and ambitions, may be understood.

It follows then that from parental selfishness a great number (and close observation leads one to believe that by far the greater proportion) of the children of this generation and in this colony, are growing up with less care and attention being bestowed upon them than what their parents are prepared to bestow upon even their very horses or their dogs. This factor of parental selfishness cannot be ignored either academically or practically. It must in some way be overcome, or at least its influence for harm must be considerably reduced.

It would be interesting to discover how far this parental selfishness was a deviation from true parental pride. Possibly it may not be so very great as the vast difference in results may lead us to suppose, and if this be so the reorganisation of the child's educational system will not be insuperably difficult.

In many homes where there are more than two or three children, there is a total lack of domestic sympathy and pride. The children are not taught to love one another nor to understand and help one another. Adult influence is very seldom brought to bear upon them, and, worst of all, parental influence is either wanting, deficient or injurious. What children suffer from this want in the development in their natures must of necessity be, and it unquestionably is, sufficient to handicap them throughout their whole life. Parents profess that they have done their best with this or that child and that they have failed, but the fault largely lies in the parents undertaking the task with every expectation of failure, and the chief characteristics noticed by the child have been the parental irritability, impatience and incompetence. Having estimated these the child then knows exactly how to gain its own ends and has sufficient determination to persevere until it does. A certain amount of harsh treatment will suffice, until the child is old enough to rebel, in order to keep it in check, or, as is just as often the case, the child may be allowed to have its own way entirely. Under such circumstances it is not a matter of great wonderment that the child should be looked upon as a burden to be fed, clothed, and tolerated until it is old enough to "do something" for itself.