tleman to whom we are indebted for much information on this subject, "can express the disgustful feelings which a visit to the Paris depôt excites. Within its crowded walls every description of offence has its particular quarter, or rather chamber, which contains twenty camp beds, and in which are locked up, night and day, sometimes as many as seventy prisoners. Here are female thieves and prostitutes, there men charged with dreadful crimes, and others only with slight misdemeanours; and an honest man implicated in any unhappy affair implying no moral guilt, or arrested in the streets at the moment of insurrection, would be thrust into one of these rooms, and, to say all in a word, delivered to the beasts. He would be instantly plundered even of the clothes on his back, and might consider himself very fortunate if he escaped further outrageous violence." The director of this depôt assured us that to make a wry face (regarder à travers) at a police-officer was quite sufficient cause for being thrown into this den. The gendarmes have a right, it appears, to arrest any one on suspicion.

The population of the Paris depot, which is a very small building, varies from 150 to 200 prisoners. The number of those who traverse yearly this great vomitory increases rapidly. During the last twenty years its inmates have doubled in number; and by a table showing this augmentation from 1822 to 1832, we learn that four persons are arrested for every five who are detained in confinement; and even of those whose imprisonment is prolonged, M. Faucher has ascertained that a third are acquitted by the tribunals.

The average population of all the prisons of France is 50,000 individuals, and as not more than from 10 to 15,000 of these are sent to the bagnes and the central houses, there are always about 35 or 40,000 persons incarcerated in the other gaols, through which also the reclusionaires and the galleriens have, in the first instance, to pass. These institutions, of comparatively short and initiatory imprisonment, are therefore the most important of all. All criminals of all grades commence their penitentiary education, if they are to receive any, within their walls. We shall have presently to speak of the reforms which have been projected for

these houses and other establishments, of which we are still to give some account. Previously we have other matters to notice which, though not absolutely connected with the details we are following, yet belong prominently to our general subject.

And the most curious and instructive of these is the opinion, which long experience in prisons has shaped into an axiom in France, viz. that the nature of the crime committed by any individual who may fall into the hands of justice, forms no criterion to judge of the measure of his depravity. The directors of French penitentiaries invariably insist, in their reports, upon this observation, which they dwell upon less as an observation than as a fact of which they entertain no doubt. The reports we allude to go even further than this, and affirm that those who, in the eye of the law, are the most guilty, are generally much less depraved than those who are convicted of comparatively small offences. "In general," says the director of Clairvaux, "criminals are much less turbulent, and much more submissive and laborious than correctioners." From Beaulieu the report is in the same strain. "The correctioners," it says, "are usually those to whom theft is a trade." This class includes a multitude of old galleriens. But among the criminals there are many who, without being corrupted to any thing like the same degree, have yielded to the violence of passion, and have been urged to commit crime by the wants of a numerous family. The commissioner of the bagne of Brest expresses himself still more strongly. "Those condemned for murder or assassination," he declares, "if convicted for the first time, are usually very docile. Their names are never found among those who require a special surveillance. There is more repentance, more remorse in the class of murderers than in that of thieves, and they are rarely guilty of theft."

In company with this observation, that there is no such parity to be dis covered between crime and depravity as to enable one to judge of the one by the other, there is a parallel remark which has been made at the same time, and which we leave to our readers' reflection without comment, viz. that the rural districts of France furnish generally the criminals to justice, whilst

the urban districts furnish the offenders. This distinction has been clearly ascertained by statistical tables.

The same tables, drawn up in 1834, inform us that the urban population which, compared to that of the whole kingdom, is in the proportion of 21 to 100, contributes, on an average, to the mass of criminals in the proportion of 30 to 100; and that in eight particular departments the urban communes furnish a greater amount to the sum total of committals than even the general result above specified would lead one to expect. In the department of the Seine Inferieure the city committals are in the proportion of 57 to 100; in that of the Haute Garonne 65 to 100; and in the department of the Seine 95 to 100. Descending, then, to offences cognizable only by the correctional police, the tables show that the disproportion between rural and urban transgressors is still greater; and that, as the urban of fenders brought before the Courts of Assizes are, on the whole, as 30 to 100, whilst the urban population of the kingdom is but as 21 to 100, so the same class of delinquents brought before the correctional police, despite the above-mentioned minority in which the inhabitants of cities stand compared with the inhabitants of the provinces, are as 60 to 100.

Our readers, we believe, will be able to infer from the above statement why infractions of the law are much more numerous in England than in France, or perhaps any other country in the world. It is because England, from the spirit of commercial enterprise diffused over its whole surface is, as it were, all city.

We now come to the superior penal establishments of France the bagnes and the central houses. These we may almost treat of together. But the chaine, the most remarkable peculiarity of the former (now abolished), demands a paragraph apart.

Our readers are, no doubt, aware that by this word is signified the manner in which those condemned to the galleys were transferred to their destination. Three times a-year, in the months of April, July, and October, the prisons of the neighbouring departments vomited out their galleriens upon the rendezvous gaol of Bicêtre, in order that they might be thence conducted to the bagnes. Previous

to their departure, however, ceremonies and scenes took place which we must briefly notice. First, the unhappy wretches were visited by the surgeon, that it might be ascertained whether they were able to endure the fatigue of the march before them. Then, being stripped naked, they descended to the open court, to be examined by the inspectors, that the possibility of their concealing about their persons any offensive weapon or instrument of evasion might be prevented. Afterwards came the cere mony of ironing and chaining the culprits together. To rivet the iron collar round the neck of each gallerien required three persons: the first held the head of the sufferer; the second kept the collar steady; and the third hammered in, with repeated stunning blows, the iron pin which fastened together its two extremities. Then were the prisoners chained together in companies of twenty-two. And all these operations-first the stripping, then the collaring and chaining of hundreds of human beings, treated like wild beasts-were performed in the sight of the other inmates of the prison; who, men, women, and even children, contemplated from their barred windows, with loud and brutal merriment, the sufferings of those who had been their companions the evening before. All these horrid rites having been accomplished, the forcats were permitted as much li berty as they could enjoy in fetters and within the precincts of the prison court; and then, says M. Faucher, from whom we have derived these details, to the stern and savage silence, to the rocky inanimation of countenance the convicts had before maintained, succeeded the most frantic jovialty. In dancing, in songs, and in drinking, they would pass the remainder of the day and all the ensuing night. A spectator might discern, he adds, marked distinctions of character among them. Some whom he might address would scowl upon him and answer his questions by insulting or indecent gestures; others would declare they had had the honour of meeting him at the Opera; and many would carry chaplets and crucifixes in their hands, showing that a certain leaven of religious sentiment still remained within them. Linked, however, together, these masses, in which

made between the bagnes and the central houses. Condemnation to the former is attended with the greater ignominy, and the duration of punishment incurred, if it exceeds ten years, is longer. Galleriens also work without the walls of their prisons, exposed to the public eye, and should, according to a regulation which is at present constantly disobeyed, be continually fettered. In other respects the two institutions are almost identical, and the same observations apply to them both. One of the principal complaints made against these establishments is, that they harbour too great a multitude of malefactors. The bagne at Toulon contains at present more than 3000; that of Brest, 2500; and that of Rochefort, 1600. The average population of the central houses amounts to 800. Seven of these houses contain more than 1000. At Clairvaux there are 1800 in imprisonment, and at Fontevrault near 1500. Such hardened masses as these banded together are necessarily impenetrable to every moral impression. To maintain an external order and obedience, is the most that can be done by those who are placed over them.

With respect to the discipline enforced within these penitentiaries, we have been able to discover no regulations which deserve that name, except the obligation which every prisoner is under to work certain hours of the day at some trade, which is left as much as possible to his own choice, and for this he is paid. The produce of his work is divided into three parts: a third goes to defray the expenses of his imprisonment; a third forms a purse, which is given him on his liberation; and a third is handed to him daily or weekly, to be expended, if he wishes it, as he naturally does, at the canteen of the prison. And so keen are the prisoners to procure the indulgences thus placed at their disposition, that violent altercations often take place between them and the contractors who are obliged to furnish them with work. The rise or fall of prices in the articles manufactured occasion these scenes. Sometimes the prisoners do as little work as possible, or refuse to work at all, in order to bring the contractors to their terms: at other times the contractors hold back, as far as their engagements enable them to do so, employment from the prisoners, for the purpose of bringing them to

theirs; and if this fails, gifts-which are called gratifications are distributed among the convict operatives by the manufacturers, to restore them to good temper. It often has happened that when a promised gratification of this kind has been delayed, a fearful tumult has taken place; tools and machinery have been broken to pieces, and the superintendents and agents of the contractors have been, on such provocations, murdered.

It may be well imagined that work carried on in this manner has no reforming effect whatever, but rather a contrary tendency; and such we find to be the fact. Since workshops have been established in the French prisons, recommittals have greatly increased. In the year 1828 the number of persons recommitted was 4760, whereas in 1834 this number had swelled to 8513. Mean-time the manufactories of the central houses have within the last three years become one-fifth more productive than they previously were; and it has been remarked that the best and most laborious workmen are those who most frequently return to the penitentiaries. These good workmen are what are called in the prison-slang chevaux de retour-return horses.

Here is the place to make a statement of recommitments in general. By the report of M. de Montbel in 1830, it appears that recommitted prisoners in the central houses were in the proportion of two to eleven, and in the houses of correction of four to eleven. In 1833, Messrs de Tocqueville and Beaumont learnt_by_documents furnished them by the French government, that, out of sixteen thousand criminals, the central houses contained four thousand recommittals. Another report, published a year later by M. Felix Real, states, that the number of persons recommitted, which in the year 1830 was 3787 out of 17,898 prisoners, or as 21 to 100, had risen, in July 1833, to 5018 out of 15,898 prisoners, or as 31 to 100. Finally, the statistical tables of the central houses, published recently by the Minister of the Interior, show that in January 1836, out of a population of 15,870 culprits, 6155, about as 38 to 100, or more than one to three, were recommitted individuals. This account includes not, it must be observed, recommittals made by the correctional police, which are probably much more numerous than those

we have enumerated. It is worthy of remark, too, that long experience in France has proved that crime leads not to crime, but to smaller offences. Thus, in the year 1831, among 1400 persons brought for the second time, or more frequently, before the tribunals, 1075, or 76 to 100, were charged with petty thefts. Among these there were 435 malefactors who had been previously condemned to the galleys, and 342 to the central houses.

After this statement our readers will naturally and justly conclude, that the great penitentiaries in France (so called) deserve not their name. The dreadful immoralities, indeed, which prevail in the central houses almost exceed belief. A few words will suffice to explain the height to which these are carried. It is a wellknown fact, that condemnation to one of these establishments for ten years is equivalent to a sentence of death before that term expires. The prisoners are nevertheless well lodged, well clothed, well fed, have sufficient exercise, and are less rigorously treat ed than they would be either in America or in England. What is it, then, that acts with the certain effect of a death-warrant upon them? Their allunutterable habit of vice. Compared with this shocking French jail abomination to which we allude, gambling, which is permitted to any degree among them, sinks almost into a venial irregularity. Of the prevalence of this last-named passion in the French prisons, the director of the Mont St Michel penitentiary thus writes: "I have seen prisoners who, after having lost in a second the price of a week's work, would play for their bread or any other part of the food they were to receive during one, two, or three months. On one particular prisoner the infatuation of play was so strong, that he gambled away his nourishment, not only when he was in health, but even in the hospital: he would stake his soup and wine, of which he stood in absolute need to regain his strength, on the turn of a die. This unhappy wretch died of inanition."

We must now speak of the reforms which are to be introduced into all the prisons of France. These consist principally of two: cells for the prisoners during the night, and the enforcement of silence on them in the daytime. Hitherto French prisoners have

all slept in common dormitories, and been allowed the freest companionship with each other; two most prolific sources of corruption. The new projected regulations, already adopted with success in other countries, will at least hinder the deterioration of criminals whilst in the hands of justice-perhaps as much as law within its own strict limits can do for them. It has been thought, however, that the rule of absolute silence is too severe; and in order to mitigate its rigour, French reformers, imitating those of other countries, have proposed that prisoners should be allowed to confer with their directors, overseers, visitors, and friends, who may come to see them; and M. Lucas, in a work entitled "Theory of Imprisonment," suggests that a select class of the best conducted and most hopeful penitentiarists should be allowed to converse together in couples during their hours of exercise in their walks within the prison precincts.

The cellular system is to include preventive imprisonment, and to be so extended as to keep untried persons, under accusation, separate from each other, day as well as night.

Solitary confinement has been abjured in France except as a blackhole punishment; and certainly we ourselves think it to be highly objectionable if continued as a penitentiary regimen for any great length of time— longer, for instance, than three days— without interruption. But periodical solitude we look upon as the most precious means of awakening the best affections, and of gathering together such broods of serious thoughts as may, by their frequent recurrence, tend strongly to change the character. The reason why it has been rejected from every plan of prison reform in France, is too awfully characteristic of the moral state of the nation not to be mentioned. A French gentleman, who knew well what he was saying, explained to us this reason as follows:

-Solitude was good, he said, for culprits in England and America, because, in those countries, reflection led naturally to religion. But, in France, he maintained, a poor wretch, shut up with his own painful meditations, would find no religious encouragement or support in his own mind, or within the range of all the instruction he might have received in earlier life. He added, that to give the pri