who are taken up, should receive instruction, and their attention should particularly be directed to their duty in society. They must be treated as grown up children whose education has been neglected. It will be more difficult to change their habits than those of children, but they are more capable of feeling the difference of motives, and their will may exercise a greater influence on their actions.

Idleness ought not on any account to be tolerated. Those who know a trade, may continue to exercise it; and those who do not know, may learn one. The better heads may superintend the inferior, and become their masters and teachers. Every prisoner should be compelled to work to pay his expenses. If they gain more than is necessary to supply their wants, and if they have placed their fellow creatures in misery, those, for instance, who have put fire to the house and destroyed the whole property of a family, ought to be obliged to indemnify them as far as possible; others, who gain above their personal wants, máy be allowed to turn it to the profit of their family, or may put it aside to receive it at their exit. Prisons should be open to the gratuitous inspection and superintendance of intelligent and benevolent individuals of the community, or if such cannot

be found, the prisoners might work to pay inspectors. The confinement should last till the occasional causes which gave rise to the offence are removed, and till amendment is probable; and on being released, the prisoners are, for a certain time, to be observed by the inspectors or the police. If each large town were divided into districts, and several of the respectable inhabitants of each district would act as inspectors, and visit the released prisoners who come to settle in it, they might save many from relapsing into crime.

The system of confining prisoners indefinitely till corrected, certainly supposes perfect justice in the management of the jails; otherwise persons might be detained in prison from improper motives, and much longer than necessary for amendment. Such an abuse ought to be most carefully guarded against; and, perhaps, the best of all checks to its existence, might be found in the system of open and gratuitous inspection by benevolent individuals above recommended. The public could never conspire to do injustice to an individual; and while his confinement was continued under their eye, there would be very little chance of its being unjustly and unnecessarily prolonged. Or, the period of confinement might be mentioned in the sentence, leaving power to the

inspectors, or some properly constituted authorities, to shorten it on proofs of amendment.

The efficacy of prisons established according to sound principles, is no longer speculative. PENN first showed it in a practical way at Philadelphia. Several governments have followed his example, and the result has perfectly answered their expectations. Relapses of malefactors dismissed from prisons and common houses of correction are usual, while in the houses of correction, conducted according to the new plan, only one or two in a hundred are confined a second time.

The new method of treating criminals is advantageous also in other respects to society. The prisoners gain more than they consume, and being corrected, they no longer injure orderly, nor seduce innocent persons.

It is important to understand human nature, and the modified characters of the malefactors, in order to treat them properly, because every measure which the natural constitution of each individual renders available to produce amendment may require to be employed. A knowledge of this kind will confirm and render still more useful the practical views of several intelligent

benefactors of mankind. The reader may consult JOHN HOWARD on Prisons and Houses of Correction; the work on the Prisons of Philadelphia by a European (Duke of LIANCOURT); Théorie des Paines et des Recompenses, par JEREMIE BENTHAM; An inquiry, whether Crime and Misery are produced or prevented by our present system of Prison-discipline, by THOM. BUXTON, &c.; and he will find in Phrenology, a most satisfactory theory to explain and to direct the farther application of the practical maxims of these authors.

Treatment of Incorrigible Offenders.

I come to the third point of penal legislation, viz. that which has for its aim to secure society against incorrigible individuals. I shall not enter into the vain discussions on the right of society to inflict capital punishment. I take it for granted, that society is entitled to cut off one of its limbs for the sake of the happiness of the rest, if there be no better means of securing that end; but death, as the last evil, ought not to be inflicted till all other means have proved ineffectual.

Some crimes are punished with death, in order

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to prevent their repetition. All judicious writers, however, speak with regret of the frequency of capital punishment, and deny that it has this particular effect. Death is not equally frightful to every one. Criminal legislators judge of others according to their own feelings; they fear death, hence they think that all men do the same. Experience, however, shows that to many persons death, when contemplated at a distance and as a contingency, is not appalling. Nay, by some, even the immediate infliction of it appears to be regarded as a small evil. The unfortunate wish for it, in order to be delivered from their pains. Those in despair destroy themselves, and many become the martyrs of ambition and religion. The laws, themselves, suppose that the loss of life is little in the eyes of many criminals, for means are taken to prevent them from putting an end to their days, which they would do rather than be confined for life. It is certain, that several criminals are not at all moved by the sentence of death, and that they go to the gallows with perfect calmness and resignation. Inveterate criminals commonly say, Dying is nothing, we must finish in that way.

It appears to me, that there is no harm in delivering society from villains, particularly from