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months' training at Pentonville which gives him so fair a chance of becoming an useful citizen, the cost will be just 2427-the difference is forty pounds!

The old plan for cheapness was in one word-the gallows. That is happily over for the present. May not a more humane and not less efficient plan be found, viz.-abridge the costs by arresting the career? Obsta principiis is the soundest of maxims in criminal legislation. To effect this the arm of justice must still be terrible at first. The evidence of the Judges affords a striking unanimity as to the uselessness of short imprisonments; at least six months are asked, if you desire to reform the culprit; less than that is harmful. The arm of the law must also be strengthened, and Baron Parke and Mr. Justice Pattison suggest, as respects juveniles-1. To give magistrates a power of summary jurisdiction with the intervention of a small jury: the of fender, his parents, or guardians, having the power of objecting to the jurisdiction, and electing a trial in the ordinary way instead. 2. To give the magistrate the power of sentencing to a term of imprisonment, a part of which term shall not be absolute, but capable of being diminished by good conduct in the gaol. A similar power, they think, should be given to the presiding judge or magistrate on an ordinary trial. (Appendix, p. 24.)

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The treatment of convicts, after they have undergone the discipline of the Separate System, is offered by the executive to us under a twofold aspect. First, that of exile,' the history of which we have traced; and which saves all the expense of convict maintenance subsequent to deportation. Secondly, that of the 'gang system,' which, we believe, is in contemplation. It is, no doubt, hoped that, having previously undergone the discipline of the Separate System, the culprit will not deteriorate by being kept in constant communication with his fellows alone ;— but experience is certainly against the hazarding this experiment. If such a mass of convicts be kept congregated, what the inevitable difficulties of management must be, may be learned from the evidence of the Bishop of Tasmania and others. The terror of their superintendents and the ferocity of the gangs of Van Diemen's Land may perhaps be mitigated, but cannot be annulled anywhere. If again they are to be fractioned and divided and scattered both at home and abroad, wherever public works are required, this limited dispersion will be less objectionable, but still it must be onerous and expensive. But there is yet another very serious point to be kept in view. If some 4000 or 5000 felons per annum are in future not only to be retained within our shores during their term of sentence, but on its expiration are to be at once let loose among us—the contemplation of such a nu

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cleus of doubtful virtue among our population-a nucleus so rapidly swelling-is, we confess, somewhat startling. The unstained poor are struggling for occupation in our crowded community; is it likely that the branded and notorious gangsman will be received and trusted ad eundem? And if not, where is he? and what has he to do here, homeless in a crowd? *

Transportation, under a modified Assignment System, ought surely to be reconsidered. There is copious evidence that it was too hastily abandoned. It is by far the least costly to the government, and might be made highly beneficial to the criminal. In this last view Mr. Baker strongly urges that the punishment of transportation should be extended to a greater number of offences. The criminal population among us is well known: character, therefore, as some of the authorities in the Report have suggested, as well as the nature of the act, should determine the degree of the punishment. It might be competent to the executive either to give a convict in the first instance all the chances belonging to such an educational captivity as that of Pentonville, or at once to transport him to a colony: even in the latter case the man is rescued from the associations and temptations of his old career. Mr. Baker has no doubt that the cost both of the prison here and the voyage out would be gladly repaid by our colonists, on receiving an assignment for two years, in two yearly instalments -after which period and payments the convict would have acquired his pardon.

As to means subsidiary to and complementary of the Separate System, there is among the works heading this article one which deserves the most serious consideration, that of M. Bonneville, not only from its display of great practical knowledge, but from the curious similarity of views and plans with those elicited from our own judges by Lord Brougham's Committee. We would particularly call attention to M. Bonneville's chapter on restitution. Lord Denman had arrived at the same point :-' I would

*It appears that the chief town of Norway is so injuriously affected by the proportion which the liberated convicts bear to its population-nearly one in thirtythat the inhabitants have been called upon by the police to provide the means of their own security from such persons. In France, where between 7000 and 8000 convicts are liberated yearly, the superintendence of the police (surveillance) and the compulsory and fixed residence of the convict are found very insufficient, especially since the invention of railways. The residence of the liberated convicts is found to be a permanent danger to society. The system of imprisonment (reclusion), or of the Bagnes, or Travaux forcés, is of little effect in reforming or even in deterring from a repetition of the offences punished, and the proportion of those recommitted for new offences is not less than thirty per cent. Thus, of about 90,000 persons tried in the whole kingdom, above 15.000, or one-sixth of the whole number, had already suffered imprisonment, to say nothing of the corrupting effects produced on the community even by those who escaped a second punishment.'-Second Report on Criminal Law, p.7.

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(he says) make restitution of the thing stolen, or its moneyvalue, a part of the sentence. This principle might be usefully adopted in all cases of loss by theft or fraud.' It has been enforced ever since 1803 by the codes of Austria, Sardinia, and Baden; and, it seems, with excellent results. Let the English thief too be made to know that, besides the punishment due to the moral offence as expiatory, he must bear the burden of reparation also. In France the thief generally buries his stolen money, and, if convicted and sent to prison, returns after a few years to his treasure, increased by his earnings during detention. With us the receiver of stolen goods makes over his spoil to relatives, who are often rich; and thus escaping forfeiture, it is remitted to him after he had been transported-at once converting the convict into the Australian capitalist. Civil restitution is perfectly feasible in all this class of criminals. In others of less capital, either the guilty person will disgorge, or, if he have spent the money, his friends will come forward to his aid.* The seeming injustice of thus mulcting innocent connexions is to be met by its not being compulsory, and by the right it gives the reliever to control the man in future. The absolute insolvent, who cannot otherwise repair the loss occasioned by his depredations, should do so by the sweat of his brow. Until he has done that, he can have no right to consider his labour as his own.

Education has now most wisely been viewed in connexion with its bearings on crime. We have seen what it does for the convict of Pentonville. A wise system would not only furnish principles of conduct, but hold out some assured prizes for which all could contend (and all bettered for the conflict), and which some would attain. Our forefathers understood this: their foundations and grammar-schools carried the boy into manhood, and furnished him with the prospect of a competence. These have, from the rise in the value of property, attracted the cupidity of the richer classes, who have in too many cases usurped the advantages meant for their humble brethren. Our parish schools, excellent though they be, give no such hope as lighted up the vista of a life from youth to old age in our monastic institutions. The charity-boy must shift for himself-he may or may not succeed in the scramble of life-but there is no hand to help him on but his own. A broader charity is wanted-a charity founded not in the despairs but in the hopes of our nature-which will cheer the heart in the heat and struggle of the battle, and will not wait to open for disappointment and decrepitude the asylum

* A very large annual surplus is left, after paying all the expenses of our recruiting department, from moneys raised by the poor relations of soldiers for the purchase of their relatives' discharge.

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and the almshouse. Among our liberties give these the Liberty of Hoping. Can there be no un-penal Parkhurst for the offspring of Honest Poverty? Is that splendid institution to be the appanage only of the vicious? You have begun to provide for your soldiers in your colonies, and the view of the few thus cared for animates and strengthens the whole class. Extend the principle to the poorer classes generally, and a very few prizes thus offered to those who will qualify for it may do more to popularise education than any mechanism of Bell or Lancaster.

ART. IX. The present State of the Currency practically considered. London, pp. 76. 1847.

THIS pamphlet contains a reprint of Articles (some of them

very ably written) on the monetary controversies arising out of our still continued commercial distress, which have appeared in the Morning Post, the Morning Chronicle, and the Standard. We might also have placed at the head of our paper the titles of some dozens of new pamphlets on the same topicsembracing as many different views of them. These discussions seem to leave the contest as hot as ever. We have so lately taken our own share in it that we may be excused for not entering into the thick of the battle again just as yet. But it has occurred to us that we might perhaps contribute an acceptable service by throwing together a few remarks on a branch of the subject, which, though of the most vital importance to the general issue, has appeared to us to be very much neglected in most of the disquisitions which have fallen under our observation; we allude to that circle of causes which, under all systems and in all states of the currency, is for ever at work to disturb from time to time the even tenor of commercial credit and adventure, and from the operation of which, in producing occasional monetary crises of greater or less intensity, we can scarcely hope that any legislative precautions will ever entirely protect us.

Every one who has considered the subject will be aware, that when the world, or a nation, or an individual, engaged during any period in production, has replaced what has been consumed, and restored what has been dilapidated during the production, and has beyond this produced more, the world, the nation, or the individual, has created what may (in a phrase universally understood) be called fresh capital. We will take the simplest illustration which occurs to us. A man lives by

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the cultivation of land; he cultivates it by the hands of himself and his own family. At the end of the year he has met his engagements, fed himself and his family,-nothing remains, and he starts again. But the next year he is more successful. At the end of that year, after having performed all that is above enumerated, he finds himself still in possession of beef, pork, and bread, and beer and cheese. He has created fresh capital, and is, of course, anxious to invest it productively. Having determined in what way he will improve his land or premises, he will probably send for labourers, and he will feed them on these accumulated stores while they are making the improvement. When the stores are consumed, then his capital will be invested. Let us suppose the third year to be like the first,-no surplus; then he has no capital to invest. He must wait for a successful year and a fresh creation of capital before he invests again. The rule for the nation or the world is the same as for the individual. On this simple principle hangs what we call popularly the value of money. If any one of the three parties attempts to invest more than the fresh capital created, he involves himself in struggles and difficulties; if less, then he gets for his fresh capital no returns.

This creation of fresh capital is constantly in progress in Great Britain, though with varying rapidity. It has transformed the country from a wilderness into a garden, and has performed other things, to which we may advert in the progress of our argument. Practically, we treat the created capital as money seeking investment; and indeed a portion of it will generally exist in the shape of the precious metals. Between 1840 and 1845 ten millions of the fresh capital reached England in the shape of bullion, uselessly as it might then appear to us, but most providentially considering the subsequent course of events. The remainder of the created capital exists in the shape of goods, which are represented by credits, capable of being used as money, and which confer the power of regulating the direction of this created and uninvested capital.

We will, for simplicity, treat these accumulations as money seeking investment; and we wish to direct the attention of our readers to the separate instincts of the two great classes who have in this country the power of directing the investment of this unemployed money. We shall then have laid grounds which will enable us to show how simple, normal, and intelligible has been, in the main, the progress of each of our own monetary crises since the year 1815. We are stern bullionists. We say that a pound is 23 grains and a fraction of standard gold, and ought always (as far as such creatures as we are qualified to say always) to be so. We have selected this date, because, while

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