This would relieve our over-crowded prisons, the purposes of which are often much perverted, for in some instances they are more comfortable than the Union Workhouses.-The system to be adopted towards all prisoners should be carefully reformatory, and a portion of each day set apart for education and religious instruction, and some of the suggestions I have ventured to make in another paper, on the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders, might also with good effect be applied to adults. The objection taken by some, namely, that employing prisoners in labor which may interfere with the employment of the poorer classes does not apply at all, for the employment proposed is one newly created, (therefore did not previously exist) and with our increasing population, and the enhanced value of the fruits of the earth, is obviously of great national importance, as tending to the increase of the production of our native soil; as well might the objector condemn the system of improved farming, for that has for its object, the same end; and moreover, as I have stated in another paper alluded to, they are the very class, not added as competitors to, but merely removed temporarily from the free labor market, and to which they must return, or prey upon the means of others.

Let such establishments so complete, and with every convenience for carrying out the system of separation, as well as of subsequent association after the probationary period, then form penal prisons for the reception of convicted felons, whose crimes have hitherto been visited with transportation, and there, instead of sending them to some unwilling colony, let them labor out their term of transportation or confinement, which shall extend over a period of time sufficient for reformation, adding to the sentence of each felon, words to the following effect, "and at the end of such term of imprisonment to be then transported beyond seas, and there set at liberty, (or otherwise, according to the place selected) unless by good conduct and reformation he shall have earned for himself a free release," a recommendation for which shall be signed by the chief officer of the prison, and endorsed by the whole or a majority of the visiting magistrates, as well as the chaplain, previous to its receiving the royal sanction through the Secretary of State for the home department. This would also act as a passport for him negatively, on his beginning again in the world, and place him in some degree above the taunts and influence of his former evil associates.

Mitigation of the term of confinement should also be granted on good conduct and reformation, well and sufficiently proved and attested as in the former case; and let us all inculcate the christian principle of forgiveness, and act upon it, let not the crime of the truly penitent and reformed criminal, be once named to him, but rather let him be hailed with rejoicing, as the sheep that was lost and is found; we must not hunt him down, he has already paid the penalty which the law of his country has inflicted, and is out of debt, nor must we forget that we are all criminal in the sight of God, and need forgiveness for direct breaches of His divine law, for none of us are good, no, not one; let us be ready

as a nation to forgive then (conscious of our own need for forgiveness) as we hope to be forgiven. Then exercise the punishment of transportation only in peculiar cases, for life, where the offence is too heinous to allow the criminal to be let loose on English society again, or where a previous conviction is proved, and the criminal after a carefully reformatory course of treatment is found incorrigible. The terror of imprisonment under a stringent reformatory system at home, would probably soon become greater than anything now inspired by transportation, and speedily be communicated to that class for whose reformation it is intended. The new prisons should be judiciously constructed, with a circular watch tower in the centre, the upper part made of glass, commanding a view of the whole, and communicating by telegraphic wires with the governor's house, &c., &c., with a view of concentrating in any given point the energies of the whole staff when required, and thus economising their numbers-part of the erections might be made moveable, with a view to their being transferred to another portion of waste, as the former portion becomes reclaimed.

With our rapidly increasing population and the high price of provisions, it seems inconsistent while we have wastes at home and in Ireland, equal in extent to a little colony, that we do not reclaim them, before emigrating to distant lands, or increasing the number of our penal settlements. B.B.

St. Leonard's, Spital Hill, Morpeth,

18th April, 1854.

NOTE. The Falkland Islands appear to offer the least objectionable position for a penal settlement; there are no natives to dispossess, no free-settlers to exasperate in the way so obnoxious in Australia, no chance of escape, and the cost of detention and conveyance comparatively moderate: the almost impossibility of escape is important in carrying out the proposed plan, since under it only the very worst and most irreclaimable class of felons would be sent out of the country.

P.S. Since writing the foregoing I am glad to find that my suggestions on the propriety of making the labor of criminals contribute to their own support, are fully borne out by the remarks of Mr. Moore at a meeting held in Liverpool on the 1st January; he says speaking of England, "instead of reforming offenders, the operation is quite the reverse; they are taken in for a time and then turned adrift without a shilling in their pockets; and the first thing they do is to go and commit some robbery. Gaols in other countries were reformatories."

Mr. Moore then goes on to state, he visited a number of Gaols and particularizes one in Canada, where there were several hundred prisoners and that the prison instead of being a burden to the state, was a source of profit; he further states, that "the gaol alluded to, with the exception of the first wing, which was built by the country, the entire building was raised by the hands of the prisoners themselves."

We have, in the present Record, presented merely the leading movements of the quarter; and we are forced, by pressure on our space, thus to shorten the roll of facts. How ever, as we print, in the appendix, the valuable notes of his last summer's Reformatory Tour, most kindly furnished to us by Mr. Recorder Hall, and as we supply, in addition, a special paper on Irish Reformatories projected, we trust those who feel an interest in the Record will consider that we have made amends for the incompleteness of the Record itself.

Since writing the foregoing we have received, from Mr. Baker, the following list of names of those gentlemen who are in communication with him, and who are endeavouring to found or conduct schools upon the cheap and successful, because cheap and well designed, plans of the Hardwicke establishment. It appears, from Mr. Baker's letter, that Reformatories are now formed, or being formed, in nineteen English, Welsh, and Scotch counties, and may be classed as follows:

Some time ago Mr. Wright established, on his own land, an Asylum for prisoners on their release from Gaol. They worked a farm, and by the second year it was nearly self-supporting, the third year quite so. So far all went admirably, but a few days since Mr. Wright wrote to Mr. Baker, and informed him that "the particular race for whom he established it were gone into the Militia or the Line, and so he is having the School certified with a view to take boys." We hope that Mr. Wright may succeed, we hope that Mr. Baker may be enabled to establish, under the recognition of Government, his Farm for adults; and, above all, we hope that in our next Record

we shall be enabled to declare, that every county in the sister King. doms has adopted the Reformatory principle, and that Reformatory School, and Lodging House, Acts shall have been passed for Ireland. For a more detailed disquisition on this latter subject we beg the attention of the reader to Article IX, p. 410, of the present Number of this REVIEW.

QUARTERLY LIST OF PUBLICATIONS.

The following Books and Pamphlets will give much information on the principles and working of Reformatory Institutions, and of Prison Discipline, and they will be found to contain references to all other works of any great value on the same subjects.

Reformatory Schools. A Visit to Mettray: a Lecture given before the Dewsbury Parochial Reading Society. By E. B. Wheatley, Esq., M. A. Dewsbury: T. M. Brooke. London: Longman & Co. 1855.

A History of The Home for Out-Cast Boys, Belvedere Crescent, Lambeth, Hungerford Bridge, South. By A Member of The Committee. 4th Edition. London: Hatchard. 1855. Price 6d Home For Out-Cast Boys, Belvedere Crescent, &c., &c. First Annual Report, Read February 21st, 1855. London: Hatchard. Price 6d.

The Philanthropist. Nos. 4 to 7, London: 4 Wine Office Court, Fleet -street. Price 6d. per number. [This excellent little serial was discontinued with the 7th number, April 14th.]

The Edinburgh Review for April, 1855.

Thirty-Third Report of The Inspectors General on the general State of The Prisons of Ireland, 1855; with Appendix. Dublin: Thom, 1855.

Ecoles Agricoles de Réforme de Ruysselede et de Beernem, Cinquime Rapport sur la Situation des Ecoles Agricoles de Réforme, Pendent l'année 1853, Bruxelles. 1854.

A Letter on Reformatory Schools, addressed to C. B Adderley Esq., M.P. By the Rev. S. Turner. Ridgeway. 1s.

Visits to Continental Reformatories, a Lecture read before the Leeds Mechanics' Institution, and Wakefield Mechanics' Institution. By Robert Hall, M.A., Recorder of Doncaster. At one of the anniversaries, of this (the Leeds) institution, I took the opportunity of dwelling upon the importance of such societies as yours, as instruments for enlightening the public conscience, since it would be all in vain that we should have wise laws, wisely administered by upright judges and intelligent juries, if the public sentiment was blind to the wisdom of the legislator, and sympathised with the wrongdoer rather than with the law. The subject to which I invite your attention this evening, is one of those on which it is desirable that the opinion of the public should be in full accordance with the action of the legislature. An act was passed in the last Session of Parliament, by which young persons under the age of sixteen, who shall be convicted of any offence, may, in addition to the punishment inflicted on them, be sent to a reformatory school for a period of not less than two years and not exceeding five. This act I believe to be a first step towards a complete revolution in our system of punishments; and, though it is unreasonable to expect that any system will prevent offences from coming in the moral world, any more than the most perfect science of medicine will put an end to disease and death in the physical world, I am convinced that in the moral, as well as in the physical world, Providence has placed within our power the means of alleviating much pain, of strengthening many a feeble constitution, of arresting many a pestilence by simple sanitary applications. It is because the changes which are taking place in our system of punishments may, at first sight, and in different points of view, seem to be open to both of the apparently contradictory objections of being too severe and too lax, it is because the new system is likely at the outset to offend many most amiable, many most respectable, I had almost said many most valuable prejudices, that I selected the subject of this paper, for the purpose of calling upon you to join me in a cursory survey of the different points of view in which different persons regard one of the most important social questions of our time, "what shall we do with our criminals ?"

E