For some ten years I have been engaged in pressing the question of cumulative sentences; and if I have hitherto written only on applying that system to cases of felony, it was only because the law as it stood gave in these cases sufficient cumulative power; and I would always prefer to correct our practice as far as feasible, before we ask for a change in the law. Still, I have always looked forward to such an eventual change as would allow the cumulative system to be carried out in minor offences.

I trust, therefore, that if I suggest a different mode from that of the Liverpool magistrates, it will not be considered as any opposition to them, but merely as mentioning a different mode of action, to be accepted or rejected as may seem right.

I should propose, then, that when any one is found guilty by a court of petty sessions of any one of the above-named offences, and it be proved that he has been previously convicted and imprisoned within the last two years, the court be empowered to pass a sentence of double the previous imprisonment, except that where the last imprisonment shall have been for three months, or more, the petty sessions shall commit for trial at the quarter sessions.

I fear that the proposal of allowing a man to go on to a fifteenth imprisonment, under the present system, would be not sufficiently deterrent to those commencing a bad course, and they would seldom keep a sufficiently careful reckoning to know when the fifteenth time was coming. They would therefore receive a heavy purishment without recognising the fully deterrent warning. But our object in all things should be to give the largest possible amount of deterrence with the smallest possible amount of pain. A small amount of pain understood and expected with any degree of certainty, will deter far more than a greater pain less fully understood and reckoned

on.

Any man who had been convicted within two years of either a first or fifth offence, would remember perfectly how long he had been in prison; and there would be no hazy doubts in his mind as to what would be his fate if he were again caught. If he has once offended and received three days' imprisonment, he would look forwards with no pleasure to six days the next time. If he had offended five times, and received forty-eight days' imprisonment, he could not be ignorant that about three months would be his next sentence; and, if he persisted, six months, twelve months, and two years would follow in rapid succession. Jeremy Bentham wisely said, that our three means of preventing crime were deterrence, reformation, and physical incapacitation. These would be exactly carried out by the system I propose. The fear of a small punishment is generally sufficient to deter a beginner, especially if he has no examples before him of successful opposition to the law. If he repeats his offence as he becomes more hardened, the deterrence increases till he comes to a length of sentence which may give fair hope of reformation. Even if this fail, he will at least be incapacitated from setting a most pernicious example of successful resistance to the law.

With regard to the question of homes, as recommended by the

Liverpool magistrates, I think there would be little difficulty. A small and simple establishment, exactly on the plan of our reformatories, if accepted as a prison by the Home Office, might be used, without any powers beyond those now in force; and the Secretary of State might remove to it any prisoner from any prison, and might remove him back to the prison if he were found refractory. The addition of power to grant, in many cases, early remission on licence under our recent but most valuable powers of police supervision, would render such a measure as complete as we could at present hope for. Such powers have now borne the test of long practice in the case of reformatories; and though it may be objected, that in these cases we shall deal with adults, instead of juveniles, it must be remembered that they will not be hardened burglars, but mere children, of an older age, but quite as weak, and requiring as much care to secure them against their own frailties, as any reformatory boys. To keep such men or women for four or eight years would be cumbrous. But if they could be kept for a time till they acquired tolerably steady habits of work, and then discharged under licence, they would feel just that steady check upon them which their weakness requires.

Still, as I before said, these are methods of detail on which, though I might venture a suggestion, I should readily yield to the opinion of those who may direct the movement, if only we can obtain the broad princip'e asked by the Liverpool magistrates-of power to use cumulative sentences for all descriptions of crime,

DISCUSSION.

Miss CARPENTER (Bristol) said: We had to consider what was the principle on which we were working when we inflicted punishment; whether it was the vindictive principle of giving so much punishment for so much crime, or whether their general object was to combine together what she believed might always be combined together, viz., the reformation of the offender and the diminution of crime in society. When speaking of the treatment of crime as a society, it was perhaps better to take the political economy point of view or moral point of view, particularly because she was perfectly certain from the investigations and observations she had made, we should find that the truly Christian, the truly moral, and the sound politico-economic view would coincide. Therefore, when she did not urge the Christian or the moral point of view, she wished it to be clearly understood that it was not because she ignored them, but because it was the safest way to treat the subject from the other point of view. She thought all would accept the position that the vindictive principle must now be laid aside. We must, therefore, consider the reformation of the offender, or, she would say, the benefit of society, because all could understand that if the offender was reformed it was for the benefit of society. Such a course we might be sure would not offer a premium to crime, for a criminal could not be reformed without going through considerable suffering of one kind or another. She held that the cumulative principle was a most important principle, which we ought to endeavour to bring before the Legislature as far as necessary; and here she agreed most strongly with the Attorney-General, in his address, that it was better not to attempt to make new laws, if by altering the existing laws we should be able to attain our object. The present law, as Mr. Baker had said, recognised to a certain extent the principle of cumulative punishment, in case of great crimes, but she wished now

to speak of minor offences. The report of the Liverpool magistrates had been referred to. This was the first time she had known such a doctrine as that embodied in that report to be laid down by magistrates; and this circumstance she regarded as most important. If an offender accidentally sinned, we were obliged to take notice of it, and punish him as a testimony of the evil of crime, and also for the purpose of checking it in the future. There might be no really bad intention in him. If he repeated the offence, it was to be presumed that the punishment he had received had not been sufficient to lead him to see that society could not tolerate his conduct, and consequently he should be punished more severely. If after that he went on in his wicked course, it was to be presumed that he had a bad intention in his mind; that he did not desire to avoid sin; and that he was distinctly a dangerous character; and accordingly it would be necessary to put him in such a position as would give a reasonable hope that, if it was impossible to remove his bad intention, such a curb would be put upon him as to induce him to resist his evil propensities. People brought constantly before the magistrates for petty offences were sources of great trouble and annoyance. She did not, however, include drunkenness and disorderly conduct whilst in a state of inebriation amongst petty offences, for society was often much injured by drunken persons. At Bristol there was an old woman who had been convicted at least a hundred times for drunkenness. Why was such a woman allowed to go at large in order to inconvenience and spread an evil influence in society? While she hoped that a good woman might do a great deal of good, she was exceedingly any bad man in sorry to confess that a bad woman did infinitely more harm than society. Leniency in cases such as that she had mentioned was a mistake; on the contrary, she would treat them with greater severity. Such people, she held, ought to be subjected to police supervision.

Colonel RATCLIFF (Birmingham) could not find that the magistrates showed any disposition to exercise a vindictive feeling in the administration of the law; on the contrary, their object was the reformation of the offender. Miss Carpenter had spoken of people repeatedly convicted of drunkenness, but what could be done with them? If they were to be removed entirely from society, there would be raised a great cry as to the liberty of the subject. Mr. Baker had referred to the influence of long detentions. In the case of vagrants the law had been altered, so that for tearing their clothes or other disorderly conduct they might be sentenced to one month's and two months' imprisonment, whereas formerly fourteen days was the utmost extent of the punishment that could be inflicted. But coercion must not be carried too far. Sympathy must be mingled with the sentence. Could we, because a man had committed an offence two or three times, imprison him for a period so long that his home would in his absence be entirely broken up? More dependence must be placed on prisoners' aid societies, which had hitherto worked remarkably well. The sympathy extended to discharged prisoners, and the efforts made by such societies to obtain work for them, had led the majority of them to pursue an entirely new course of life.

Sir CHARLES B. SAWLE, Bart., observed that short sentences seemed to have no deterrent effect on a certain class of offenders. They got perfectly hardened to gaol life. The principle of cumulative punishment had been introduced into the criminal code of this country, a notable instance being the provisions respecting drunkenness in the Licensing Act. The Prevention of Crimes Act gave the magistrates power to sentence persons convicted of assaults upon the police to six months' imprisonment; and if the offence were repeated within twelve months, the magistrates could inflict as severe a punishment as nine months' imprisonment. He agreed with Mr. Baker that a person who had been five or six times committed to gaol required something more than mere prison life to correct him; and what he needed was either police supervision or the care and attention of a prisoners' aid society, which would be far better. The principle of police supervision had never yet been applied to offences summarily dealt with at petty sessions. He knew one case in his own county in which a man who, having been constantly apprehended for committing breaches of the peace and other offences, was called upon to find bail for twelve months; and, as he was unable to procure it, he was sent to prison for that term. Immediately there was a great outcry against this decision of the magistrates, and the matter was brought before one of

the 66

the judges of assize, when his lordship censured the conduct of the justices. A memorial, he believed, was forwarded to the Secretary of State, who was asked whether the magistrates in question were fit any longer to hold the commission of the peace. After this the magistrates naturally hesitated before passing similar sentences. The principle of punishment must not be carried to extremes. Something more than mere prison life was required to relieve the country of smaller crimes. The Crimes Prevention Act and other measures passed by the Legislature had done much to diminish serious crimes. In Cornwall, considerable diminution of crime had taken place, and this gratifying state of things he attributed very much to the mode in which the graver class of criminals were now dealt with. Something ought now to be done to relieve the country of the smaller crimes; and he was of opinion that supervision, either of the police or of the Prisoners' Aid Society, following imprisonment in such cases, would have a salutary effect. Mr. A. HERBERT SAFFORD (London) remarked that the subject before the section was one of great importance, and also of extreme difficulty. He was aware that directly a magistrate, or an officer of the judicial establishment of the country, attempted to do his duty, in a strict and conscientious manner, with an idea that by reasonable and proper severity he might deter people from committing crime, a cheap humanitarianism was displayed, in which great compassion was shown to victims of an unpaid magistracy." Although in the metropolis the magis trates were men of high position and great ability; yet if the cases in the metropolitan courts were reported as fully as those in the country were reported, a still larger field would be supplied for the cheap sentimentalism to which he had referred. A certain district in London had become notorious for violence, and to such an extent was it carried, that witnesses could with difficulty be brought from that district to the court. One woman, who gave her evidence with great reluctance, having been almost forced into the court, was subsequently attacked. Her assailants were captured and convicted; when the judge, in order to put down the system of intimidation which had sprung up, as well as to punish the women who were guilty of such a ferocious outrage, sentenced them to penal servitude for life. Even that example was not sufficient to put an end to the threatening of witnesses in that locality; and to do this required a series of offenders to be sentenced to imprisonment for twelve months. He was quite certain that cumulative punishment was necessary; and he also felt very strongly with the Liverpool magistrates in their recommendation for a home. The only chance of doing any good with the criminal classes was to be found in their reformation. He was happy to see an improvement in the metropolitan police returns. He found that whereas in 1865 there were eighty-one persons of from ten to fifteen years of age twice convicted of felony, in the year 1871 there were only forty-nine. There had been a gradual decrease of such offenders, and this he attributed to the action of reformatories. With regard to police supervision, he thought the object contemplated by it could be better effected by holding offenders to bail. In the metropolis, where 70,000 persons were taken into custody in the course of one year, there would be considerable difficulty in maintaining adequate police supervision; and he was strongly of opinion that nothing of this kind should be done unless it could be done thoroughly. The principle of holding to bail was better than that of police supervision, because by holding to bail some one was procured who took an interest in the prisoner; something more than a mere pecuniary interset, or he would not have come forward to bail his friend. He had sometimes found that parents got people to give their children into custody, and kept out of the way themselves, in order that the children might be sent to an industrial school. If the father was found, and summoned to give evidence, he would have little to say beyond that his lad was troublesome. But he found his mistake when he was told that his boy would not be sent to an industrial school, but that he would be held to bail for the good behaviour of the boy. If magistrates had the power of holding to bail on all second convictions, besides the original punishment, much good might be in that way effected. As to drunkenness, he did not believe it would be repressed simply by coercive measures.

Mr. BAKER, in reply, said, what was wanted was to prevent crime for the future; to save these criminals from themselves; to help them to struggle out of their criminal courses. Many were anxious to abandon their wicked ways, but to

do so they required help. Amongst the aids useful to them was the greatly increasing strength which the fear of punishment would give them to enable thei to struggle upwards by themselves. If they would not so struggle by themselves, it was infinitely better to give them the pain and discomfort of a long detention, as being very much less pain and discomfort to them than what they would endure if allowed to go on in their evil courses. An instance had been mentioned in which twelve months' imprisonment had been awarded owing to the prisoner being unable to procure bail, upon which a great outery was raised. He had what was generally thought to be a very doubtful advantage-that of considerable age; and he confessed that he had got past caring very much for any sudden cry that was raised by people who had not fully looked into the matter. Still, in such a case as that he alluded to, be objected to a magistrate, or a couple of magistrates, in petty sessions giving very long sentences; and therefore, when he sent his scheme to the Home Office some time ago, he carefully stated that after a certain number of short sentences, and the last was three months, the offender should be committed to the quarter sessions. He reminded Mr. Safford that in London the population was smaller to each policeman than in the country. He could not see why a London policeman should not be able to do quite as much in the way of supervision as a policeman in the country.

The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Kennaway, M.P.) thought the general opinion of the section was, that short sentences for minor offences had not the deterrent effect which they ought to have. The Legislature had already adopted cumulative penalties for graver crimes as well as for minor offences, such as those described in the Licensing Act. It now became a question whether the law should lay down a graduated scale of cumulative penalties. It might be said that the magistrates had this already in their power, but he thought it had been clearly shown that they could not exercise that power. The question, therefore, was whether they should be forced by law to inflict a heavy penalty for a second, third, or fourth offence. The matter required further ventilation in order that public opinion might be formed upon it.

INDUSTRIAL DAY SCHOOLS.*

Is it desirable that Industrial Day Schools should be established?

MIS

ISS CARPENTER read a paper on this question. She said, the school boards have zealously devoted themselves to their task. Able and intelligent men and women have given their unbought labour to the work with a zeal which has in some cases overtasked their strength. Agents have been employed to search out the miserable haunts of vice and misery, and to endeavour to rescue the children. The first conception of the London School Board as to the means of grappling with the worst cases which could not be dealt with in ordinary day schools, of whom numbers were at once discovered, was to send them to certified industrial schools, and inquiries were made as to the number of such institutions which would receive them. Reluctance was manifested by the Home Office to increase considerably the accommodation for such cases, and very justly; these schools were not intended to supply the previous neglect of the education department by taxing the public to give maintenance in expensive boarding schools to neglected children.

* See Transactions, 1871, p. 335.