From Western Australia, the governor writes to deprecate their being sent out with tickets of licence, suggesting-with some prevision of the present system-twelve months' rigid control to train them into fitness for relative liberty. The same gentleman goes on to remark, as a noticeable feature in the idiosyncrasy of the Irish prisoners, that they evince a singular inaptitude to comprehend the nature of moral agencies, or to be affected by them.' Again, he speaks of six hundred of these men as 'lost to every impulse of independent thought or action, debilitated, diseased, indolent, and noticeably illtrained.' Such, then, was the raw material with which the new system has had to deal, such was the desperate case which called for prompt and radical remedy. The Irish Prisons Act of Parliament having passed August 7, 1854, the first step taken was to do away with the overcrowding of the jails. The best conducted prisoners were, according to a suggestion of the lord-lieutenant, Lord St Germains, recommended for discharge; a hundred warders were sent away; every schoolmaster save one dismissed; many of the superior officers superannuated; and the prisons reduced to comparative order. 'We then,' continues Captain Crofton, followed out the English system with regard to public works, establishing gratuities, to give convicts the element of hope, and to induce them to conduct themselves steadily.'

The element of hope! In these words lie the strength of the whole beneficent scheme, and the secret of its success. There are certain impossibilities which people either never attempted, or have long left off attempting. Armaments, Herodotus tells us, were once fitted out against the south wind; but, taught in that case by experience, people gave up such expeditions pretty soon. Plants are not expected to grow gorgeous-hued deprived of sunlight, nor animals to qualify for the prize-show on other than a nutritive diet; but characters have been expected to soften under heart-hardening treatment, to grow moral through demoralising association, to strive hard with no definite end in view, to improve without the soul's vital breath-without the element of hope. There were better prospects of beating back the south wind! Now, then, with this bright ray of light thrown on the subject, this element of hope conceded henceforth to convicts-hope of more than mere liberation, mere freedom to fall again into crime-we pass over the next step taken by the prison reformers, the separation of juvenile from adult offenders, because this is a measure universally adopted in theory, at all events, and not distinctive of the Irish system.

The present career of the Irish convict may be said to consist of three stages, of which the first may be characterised as specially penal; the second, reformatory; the third, probational.' A convict on coming under the control of the board goes first to the cellular jail called Mountjoy. Here he is placed day and night in strict separation from his fellows; 'except in chapel, the exercise-ground, and the school-room,' where, of course, all conversation is prohibited. In this almost absolute seclusion, alone with bitter and unholy memories, full of regret or remorse for his former career, we can well believe that the chaplain's ministrations are 'all-important;' and for a time this discipline approves itself as 'most wholesome,' drawing as it does a broad line of demarcation between the past and the future, subduing and almost invariably leading to a change of sentiment.' But as Mr Cooney, one of the Mountjoy chaplains, wisely remarks: 'It is vain to expect that religion can exercise this absorbing influence for a very long period. These poor men are not called by God to a contemplative life, and hence their minds soon require to be relieved by their occupations.' Mr Cooney further recommends that, after the lapse of two or three months, these

occupations should be such as would employ the convict busily and pleasantly.

Supposing the prisoner to have behaved well, this stage ends at the end of nine months. From the very first, the convict's 'fate is placed in his own hands,' and thus a fresh start in life, so to speak, is afforded him. Inside these walls, at least, he may begin well. He is made to feel that he has prospects dependent upon his present conduct, and not irremediably clogged with the burden of his past. His next move is to Spike Island, a fortified station in the Cove of Cork. Here things begin to brighten though hard at work all day at the repair and enlargement of the military works, and shut up at night in the cellular divisions of a barrack,' he may exchange words with his comrades, and then his is now outdoor work-he sees the sky, the flight of the clouds, the burst of sunshine, the play of the waves around his ocean-prison, and though perhaps it were too much to say of one whose taste for the beautiful has been so little cultured, that

The common air, the earth, the skies

To him are opening Paradise;

yet, after nine months' experience of the gloomy cell, the fresh free breeze and the associated labour must necessarily have an exhilarating influence on body and mind. The man has gained a step; his self-respect revives; and that blessed germ of hope he took with him into the Mountjoy cell, puts forth green shoots now, and will blossom by and by. At Spike Island he is employed according to his abilities, in outdoor work. If his be an indoor trade, he is sent to another prison, Philipstown, forty miles from Dublin. In both places alike, his privileges and means of improvement are extended. The schoolmaster becomes a lecturer, also adapting his subjects to the wants, capacities, and tastes of his hearers,' turning their attention to the colonies, the goal of their general ambition, and enforcing moral truths in a popular manner. The prisoner has also now gained the power of earning by industry and good conduct certain gratuities, small enough at first, but which increase with continued good conduct; while, on the other hand, men that misconduct themselves forfeit all claim to gratuities. 'If change of station were possible at every step of the convict's progress,' remarks Mr Hill, in his most interesting paper on this subject, read at the late Birmingham meeting for the promotion of social science- some advantages would be gained; but this is impossible. The board has therefore devised subsidiary stages and classes.' The prisoner entering always in the third, may be promoted to the second at periods of two, three, or four months, according as his conduct has been exemplary, very good, good, or indifferent. With regard to prisoners in the second class, the minimum of time before they reach the first is six months, the maximum is undefined.' (Always we see the prisoner's fate is in his own hands.)

Once in the first class, blameless behaviour for a year qualifies for the last stage-transference to the Forts, to Lusk, or to Smithfield, according to circumstances. The artisan goes to Smithfield, the agricultural labourer to Lusk, the mechanic to Forts Camden and Carlisle in Cork Harbour. In each of these, 'the numbers are restricted to one hundred, in order that individualisation may be brought to bear upon the inmates, and a measure of voluntary action permitted to all.' The prisoner has now arrived at the intermediate or probationary stage, which, as we have before stated, is the distinctive feature of the Irish system. Here 'nearly all connection with prison-life is suspended;' the dress is that of the ordinary workman; the hair is free to grow; the man is fast shaking off his degrading antecedents. 'New objects, new aspirations, new desires, are to be cultivated.' The

divine model of forgiveness being kept in view, and reverently followed, none of his former offences are any more remembered against him. He is treated with respect; his honour is appealed to and confided in, and an esprit de corps enlisted on the side of the institution; he learns to care for its honour too. At the same time, here, where so much is given, much also is required. The prisoner is subject to very strict supervision, and holds his post under arduous responsibility.' Idleness infallibly leads to a return to Spike Island, and is indeed the most frequent cause of such a retrograde step. The man who proves himself unworthy of partially restrained liberty, is considered unfit for the greater liberty of ticket of licence, still more so for unconditional discharge.' In short, this stage is eminently a probationary one. Men have scope here for the exercise of self-denial, being now, in addition to their gratuities, entitled to a small portion of their own earnings, out of which they may draw sixpence weekly, to be spent as they will, with the one merciful exception of all intoxicating drinks whatever. Sometimes the prisoner goes on adding this weekly sixpence to his little fund, not only increasing it, but strengthening himself in the grand attainment-for which, by the way, we sadly want a name of going without. Or should he invest the sum judiciously, it is still well. If not discreetly spent, no word of disapproval is spoken, else the man might feel his right of free expenditure a mere nominal thing. However, in a case of this kind there is still something to be done by a wise and loving-hearted director. On one occasion, we are told that Captain Crofton, having found that a prisoner's sixpences had been for some months wasted on tobacco, skilfully went to work in the following manner. He began by asking the man what first brought him into trouble.

'Drink,' was the reply.

'Are you not afraid of again being decoyed into the habit of drinking when you leave this place?' 'Not at all. I have had no drink for years, and I do very well without it.'

'But you were for years without tobacco; and although you suffered at first, you discovered, after a time, that tobacco was not essential to your comfort; yet the moment you are allowed to purchase it, you do so. How can you be sure that, as you have not been able to resist tobacco, you will be able to resist drink when you have the power of obtaining it?'

The man thought these words over, the tobacco entries gradually but steadily decreased; in six weeks, the victory was won!

Again, the honesty of intermediate men is tried as well as their self-denial. They are sent out on errands, trusted with money by the authorities, and, what is more remarkable, implicitly trusted by their comrades. We have two pleasant anecdotes given us in illustration of this. A certain Patrick O'Hagan goes out one day with about fifteen shillings in his pocket, and all manner of small commissions to execute for his neighbours. When he returned, delivered his parcels, and counted up his money, he found to his dismay that a sixpence was wanting. But no one suspected him; his fellow-convicts were quite sure that some mistake had been made, or the money lost -nothing worse. The following morning, another prisoner, in sweeping the yard, found the missing coin. On another occasion, a man at the Cork Forts mislaid the considerable sum of four shillings. He, too, was totally without suspicion of those around them; he firmly believed the money lost, not taken. The event proved-we are not told how-that he had been quite right in this charitable conclusion.

At these intermediate prisons, mental culture is carefully attended to. At Smithfield, the prisoners are fortunate in possessing for their schoolmaster and

lecturer one of those remarkable men, endowed with a natural ascendency over their fellows, who seem raised up at the beginning of every reformatory measure to give it the impetus it needs to be set fairly in motion. Could a succession of such men be insured, what results might not be expected! This indefatigable Mr Organ, friend, teacher-guardian angel, one might say-'possesses the gift of captivating the hearts while cultivating the minds of his pupils; nor does his kind tutelage come to an end on their enlargement. So far as it is possible, he watches over them, even when they are far away. His successful labours have attracted the attention of the lord-lieutenant, who not seldom joins the audience at the evening lectures, and takes part in questioning the men.' The favourite subject of inquiry among the pupils is, we find, emigration; but elementary science and the principles of political economy are practically taught and applied. But special mental culture by no means occupies an undue portion of the intermediate man's day. Its routine is as follows: Preparation for day's work and prayer, 14 hours; meals and exercise, 24 hours; lectures and study, 34 hours; labour, 94 hours; sleep, 8 hours.

Turning to the other establishments of the kind, we meet with the same system of management. Here, however, the exemplary convicts are located by fifties in 'corrugated iron huts, lined with wood,' experience proving these to be very comfortable habitations. Obviously, however, they lack the security of the permanent prison, and are therefore only fit for men amenable to moral restraint. But for intermediate men, with their fate in their own hands,' and a character to support, it would be the worst policy in the world to desert. 'Accordingly, convicts with two years of their sentence still to run, are working unrestrainedly at Lusk, draining the common, levelling, building, &c.' And out of the total of nearly 900 prisoners, under the surveillance of one superintendent, one schoolmaster, and six warders to each hundred, only one attempt to escape has been made during the eighteen months for which the system has been at work.

We come now to its results upon the public mind. Great difference of opinion, we are all aware, prevails in England respecting the success of the ticket-ofleave system; but every one is agreed that the main difficulty in the way of its working is that of obtaining employment for the ticket-holders. The many feel that the whole scheme is but 'an engine for turning felons loose to prey on society.' Accordingly, society shudders. As the Times once remarked: "The position of ticket-of-leave men is most pitiable, nor, unless some means exist of obtaining back for them that which they have lost-namely, character-is there much chance that it will ever receive any sensible amelioration.' As things are, how can we wonder at society, which instinctively feels that the prison test of conduct, still more of character, is wholly unsatisfactory and inadequate, and that whatever chaplain and prison-officers may think of the prisoner, the chances are that he will very probably return to his old ways as soon as free agency is restored. Colonel Jebb gives utterance to a very prevalent popular impression when he says: 'I wish it were possible to give greater weight to the opinions of the chaplains as to the religious state of the men.' On the other hand, if society be naturally shy of the ticket-of-leave man, how natural that he should again fall into offences against society! He has had no opportunity of testing his own principles or regaining his own respect, and his nature is imbittered by feeling himself an object of suspicion and contempt to those around him. Under these circumstances, it is matter of surprise that the percentage of recommittal for fresh offences is not greater than we find it to be.

Now, in Ireland, we have it upon the authority of Mr Hill that the demand for the services of discharged prisoners exceeds the supply, and that the average of wages which these men can command is at least ten shillings a week. So adequate does the public consider the 'filtering process' of the intermediate establishments.

The next question that suggests itself is this: 'Have the men thus welcomed into employment proved themselves worthy of it?' This question is answered by the fact, that though slight irregularities are always noticed, and 'the terms of the licence most strictly enforced,' revocations of these licences amount to little more than 3 per cent.

With reference to the five hundred men absolutely discharged, it is, of course, impossible to speak with equal precision. We rejoice to be told that 'large numbers of these still continue in correspondence with the authorities,' and that scores of these letters are to be seen at the institutions;' but special supervision by the police being impossible in their case, there is no other than negative evidence to be had respecting them. The chairman, however, considers that recommittals from among this class do not exceed 10 per cent.

So much for the highest success-the reformation of the criminal; and now for the economical side of the question. The statistics of the expense,' says the Rev. Orby Shipley, one of its most fervent advocates, 'will be as palatable to the rate-payer, as the moral results to the Christian. . . . . The agricultural colonies are self-supporting; the trade departments can be made so.' One of the wise economics adopted is the appointing tradesmen as warders in the latter, and qualified foremen of the works in the former case. It is found that, under a proper system of discipline, the labour of a hundred men, no longer given grudgingly and of necessity, but hopeful energetic labour, with eventual liberty for its reward, is amply sufficient to pay all their needful expenses, including more liberal salaries to a superior class of prisonofficers. The return given by Captain Crofton in his Annual Report, actually proves that a large balance in favour of the public may be expected from the labour of intermediate prisoners applied to public works, such as 'harbours of refuge and coast-defences,' such works, in short, as Adam Smith pronounces it the duty of a sovereign to 'erect and maintain'— works which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature as that the profit could never repay the expense, and which it cannot therefore be expected that any individual should erect and maintain.' Such works as these will be greatly facilitated by the recent adoption of iron huts, which, inexpensive in themselves, preclude the heavy cost of permanent prison-building, and render it an easy matter to transfer selected convicts from station to station, according as their labour is required.

We have left ourselves but little space to glance at prisons and refuges for female convicts. The system pursued in these is the same in principle, but there are necessarily peculiar difficulties in its way. The fragile texture of a woman's character is more seriously warped and ravelled by crime than that of man is found to be. Her excitable, irritable temperament renders her more incapable of passing through the penal stage without danger to mental and physical health. Again, she has not the outdoor work so favourable to the strength and spirits of the men, so pleasantly and cheeringly diversifying their reformational period. Refuges must, in the case of women, supply the only 'filtering process' possible. We rejoice that such are increasing in Ireland, and that the results of three now in operation are highly satisfactory. It is but justice to say that the devotion of

their Roman Catholic sisters to this blessed mission may well provoke Protestant women to an equal measure of love and good works.'

There remains one dark fact to consider and provide for. While it is assumed that from seventy to seventy-five convicted prisoners may be profitably subjected to special treatment in intermediate prisons, there still remains a minority of-humanly speaking-the hopelessly irreclaimable. How little responsible these may be, we cannot know; how dangerous they are, we see, and have to provide against. These men, we are told, are easily distinguishable at an early portion of their prison career. Virtually lunatics, it is proposed that they be treated as such, located in special prisons, guarded by special officers, and placed at special labour.' Until lately, this class, removed from the parent country, made Norfolk Island in very truth a hell upon earth. Captain Crofton believes that the sending such men abroad never has succeeded, and never will, either as a reformatory or deterrent measure; and another high authority, M. Bérenger, has arrived at the same conclusion. One of the most important features of the new act is its authorisation of exceptional methods to be carried on at home in these exceptional cases. The length of a prisoner's sentence is no longer exclusively decided by the offence he committed outside the prison-walls, but by his conduct within them. The executive possesses 'powers of life-long incarceration for the life-long incorrigible, life-long supervision for the life-long unimpressible.' Of these, however, it is confidently and reasonably hoped that improved education and improved prison-training may materially diminish the number.

We sum up the whole system in Mr Hill's emphatic, hopeful, yet solemn reply to the long vexed question What shall we do with our convicts? 'Keep your prisoners under sound and enlightened discipline until they are reformed-keep them, for your own sake, and for theirs. The vast majority of all who enter your prisons as criminals can be sent back into the world, after no unreasonable term of probation, honest men and useful citizens. Let the small minority remain; and if death arrive before reformation, let them remain for life.'

A RAREY' SHOW. WHEN glorious old Homer wanted an epithet with which to round off his description of a Hector or a Diomedes, he called the hero a horse-conqueror,' a tamer of steeds'-a very different association of ideas, it is true, from that of our modern hippodomos, or horse-breaker.' Setting aside the mere question of bone and muscle, about which no doubt much poetic licence is taken by bards in all ages, we must admit some differences as to the outer man. glittering helmet with nodding plumes of the noble Phrygian, Priam's best and bravest son, must give place to an old battered felt, or wide-awake; the brazen plates and scales, to a greasy cast-off huntingcoat; while the seedy and blotchy tops' finishing off no less seedy and blotchy 'shorts,' must stand instead of the graceful yet muscular limbs and picturesque greaves of the well-booted Grecians.

6

The

Still, with all his faults, the horse-breaker is, in the eyes of our youth, a heroic man. If we have seen a great, long-legged, slapping colt gamboling at liberty for four long years in the paternal pastures, since we first patted his nice little velvety nose as a new-born foal in the paternal paddock; if we have marked his growth, and trembled with the undulations of the soil as he has rushed past us, snorting indignation and contempt at our puny attempts to pen him up in a corner with no better force than half-a-dozen school-boys like ourselves;

if this has been our previous experience in reference to the colt,' it cannot be but that the man who undertakes to bring this wild Bucephalus under the dominion of the saddle or collar, is, in our eyes, a great man, and no mistake. We know that there is danger to be encountered, exaggerated a thousandfold by our boyish feelings and inexperience, and we feel that this illiterate, drunken old fellow can do something which any number of us would be quite unable to accomplish. Thus we exalt the crazy creature into the dignity of a hero; proving thereby that it is a fact intimately connected with the heroic side of man's character and history, that he has been able to subdue and render amenable to his purposes, in peace or war, this magnificent quadruped. A mature judgment would correct much of this impression, so far as it regards the personal danger attending the process; but the inveterately drunken habits of modern horse-breakers really do place their lives at times in imminent peril. There are also accidents to which even sober hippodomoi would be exposed under the present injudicious management-of which more anon- -and I have myself known three generations of them in the same family killed off' in succession by broken necks, after fractures, bruises, and contusions innumerable had been surmounted. I suppose the experience of most persons who have lived in the country and been much about horses,' is somewhat similar.

other; now he seems as if he must go off over the head of the steed, and again as if he would capsize in the opposite direction; but, as I have said, the horse's struggles exhaust only himself, and leave the victory in the hands of all-subduing man.

As regards the general practice, it is quite deplorable to think of the needless barbarity with which this breaking-in process is conducted. The poor colt is without being familiarised even for a day to a great bar of cold iron thrust across his mouthsharply tied up to the 'rider,' so as to excoriate his lips and gums, the result of which excoriation is a callosity quite fatal to our hopes of a good mouth, and rendering all the nuisances connected with the curb-chain indispensable; then he is incommoded with a crupper, excoriating another part; and then he is forced to go forward against opposing and painful pressures.

With a little gentle preparatory training, while young, all this could be greatly ameliorated, as I have often proved by experience. By accustoming the young animal to be handled, bitted, saddled, and led about, and avoiding high-feeding at the time of actual backing, I am satisfied that nearly all of this infliction of needless suffering can be done away with; not to speak of the saving of wear and tear of the animals themselves.

Up he gets on his, in our eyes, perilous eminence Cardinal Wolsey himself was not in greater danger, we being the judges-and, after settling himself for some time, and giving little jerks of his body to let the horse know that he is there, the stalwart attendants lead him on a little, and then the word is given to let him go!'

Sometimes this all ends peaceably enough, and we boys are rather disappointed than otherwise at seeing that no serious objection is made by the colt to his new burden; but it will happen that the old dingy spurs, which look as if they were rusted into the boots, have not been laid aside for the first backing;' and as the german rider' wears no spurs, this particular arrangement is quite unknown to the pupil. If, in such circumstances, a touch of the cold steel should be inadvertently given, there may be quite enough of trouble in the wind to satisfy even a school-boy's taste for the exciting and terrible. The surprised animal will then snort and plunge in a fearful manner, and use every effort to get rid of his tormentor; in this he sometimes succeeds, to the damage of life or limb; but, more frequently, and if the ale has not been too strong, the tough muscles of the rider, long accustomed to exert their utmost tenacity in a particular direction, enable him to literally 'ride out the storm.' A struggle takes place like what we read of as occurring in the South American pampas, and goes on until the nobler animal gives way from sheer exhaustion, and exhibits a practical illustration of the old saying, 'what can't be cured, must be endured;' and although it may be months before he can be depended on, yet he does in time submit, and put his shoulder to the collar, or yield his back to the saddle, in a wonderful manner; as shewing that, in the long-run, intellect must gain the day against mere brute force. Still the 'palm is not without dust.' While the struggle goes on, the old fellow now lurches to one side, now rolls to the

strikingly fine, promising, and high-bred animals, four years old, and full of high-feeding and courage. It was only to be expected that they should revolt most violently against the discipline of the bridle and saddle; and I saw plainly enough that the severe and constant 'ringing' to which they were subjected each day, in order to tame them down to the point when they could be safely handled and mounted, and the long exercise on hard ground afterwards, must, of necessity, founder them in great measure, before they had come in' for the master's use. I suggested, with all possible urgency, that if oats were altogether withheld for the time, and only a moderate share even of hay allowed them, all this unmerciful pounding of their young limbs upon hard ground-for at that time the green fields were even worse for them than the high road itself-might be avoided. I was, however, met by derision, and told, in good set-terms, that I knew nothing about the matter; that you never 'can be sure of a horse, unless you bring him in in his full spirit,' &c. The result was, that the best and most valuable hunters of that 'lot' were prematurely 'cast off,' because they had no 'fore-legs' at seven years of age. At that very period I adopted what was derisively called the 'starving system,' with two young animals of about the same sort, but less valuable on some accounts; and with perfect success. One of them I sold while young; the other I used as a ride-and-drive' horse for eleven years, and gave him to a friend, at fourteen or fifteen, as sound on his legs as ever, after a life of real, although fair, work on hard roads, both in saddle and harness.

A vast amount of useless wear and tear might, I am fully convinced, be thus saved, and most young horses would come to their work unfoundered, by such a gentle and judicious system of management as I have suggested-but chiefly by low-feeding at the critical period. There are, however, vicious brutessome born such, and some rendered dangerous by improper treatment-the breaking-in of which has always been a matter of infinite trouble and difficulty. A friend of mine once bought, for a mere song, a highbred and beautiful colt which it was found impossible to bridle. He paid the money, asked for the key