armed, "as if one was going to battle." For, with all the severity of the law and its frequent illustration, life and property were wholly insecure.

A great change has taken place in public opinion within the last hundred years. In England and the United States-particularly in the latter there are now but few capital crimes. In Rhode Island and Iowa there is no capital punishment. Better ideas of the treatment of prisoners have prevailed, and more humane methods have been adopted. England has a prison system unsurpassed for efficiency. Laws have become. milder and punishments less severe. Much of this ameliora

tion is, of course, due to the gradual improvement of society in all its parts. Property and life are now secure. The traveler can make his journeys with comparative, if not complete, safety in every portion of the civilized globe. The result comes from the growth of the sentiment of obedience to law as the recognized power of society and the State-beneath that, from the development of the principle of justice in human thought, conscience, and conduct, with which all laws must be in accord to secure a thorough obedience. The laws are milder as society becomes more just. There is still, however, abundant room for philanthropic labor in the direction of prison reform. Great progress has been made, but much yet remains to be done, and there is need of the wisest and most judicious methods of study and action. Prison discipline must be studied as a science, with a sagacious, intelligent, and dispassionate examination of the facts and laws upon which it is based. It does not belong altogether within the realm of sentiment. It is rather within the domain of calm inquiry and the most careful experiment. It is easy to indulge in hasty generalizations and extravagant theories. But anyone, who has had any personal intercourse with our convict and criminal population, knows how difficult, and sometimes disheartening, is the task of producing practical results for the lasting benefit of those who have fallen into crime. Philanthropy is very liable to a mistaken and misplaced generosity. As we climb a rugged path, it must not be surprising if we sometimes miss our footing, and stumble on the way. But perseverance, courage, and faith will yet win the ascent.

It is easy to understand how persons of a warm and generous temperament should come to cherish a sympathetic interest in the criminal, without due regard to the real character of the crime he has committed. The spectacle of personal, individual misfortune is always sure to arouse sympathy in hearts that are at all susceptible to pity. There is also a certain element of romance in successful crime, of which the essayist, the novelist, and the poet have been quick to avail themselves. Music and the drama have put the villain on the stage with a surprisingly successful effect. In actual life, crime, especially where attended with difficulty and danger, possesses a certain fascination, and the story of it is always sure of attention, as the hero of it is always sure of becoming an object of curiosity, and is sufficiently notorious to attract for the time the public eye. The mystery, with which it is partially shrouded, the passions that have been excited, the ingenuity of purpose with which it is sometimes accompanied, the complications, schemes, devices, the often baffled but at last successful plan-in fine, the many dramatic and even startling and unexpected situations and incidents that attend the development of the plot, have often an absorbing interest. Add to this, that the human mind is, in some conditions, strongly attracted to the dark side of life, the strange, the horrible, the grotesque, and we have a combination of influences sufficient to produce a very powerful sympathetic action in human nature toward crime and the criminal.

There is another element in this kind of sympathy. In view of the misfortune which is present, one is liable to forget the injury that has been done to the absent, and the consequent distress and disturbance of the beneficent forces of society. It is not pleasant to contemplate a human being deprived of liberty, subject to complete restraint, reduced to a thorough submission to an indisputable authority, shut out from intercourse with the world, and, as one may say, buried alive. We pity the wretch, because he is thus wretched. But in this feeling of pity, we must not altogether lose sight of those whom his crime has made, possibly, more wretched than himself. He was, in some respects, a voluntary agent. He knew, in part at least, the probable consequences of his crime. He understood that he

was acting in violation of law. He placed himself in distinct, and to some extent deliberate, antagonism to society, selfishly serving his own interests and passions, and disregarding the rights of others. Pity for such a man and for all human distress is, and ever should be, a welcome guest, that we would always gladly entertain. But it should be pity, not called forth and exercised because he is thus held in restraint, but rather because he has so wronged and perverted his nature as to make his restraint necessary to the safety of his fellow-men. It is also a short step from pity to encouragement. It will be perceived that we are here treading on very delicate and even dangerous ground. It is especially needful that we be wellpoised by reason, while our sensibilities beckon us along the way. A warm heart, a cool brain, and steady nerves are required to walk with safety the difficult path.

Prison discipline, as a science, must be based upon two fundamental principles: 1. The recognition of the essential manhood of the criminal; 2. The possibility of reclaiming and reforming him. If he goes down to the depths, he is also capable of rising to the heights of character. He is to be punished for his violation of the law. Society is to be protected. But in order to prevent a future violation of the law and to ensure a future protection, society must undertake the reformation of the criminal. So prisons are built, and the dangerous classes are put in confinement. But their term of confinement should be so employed that, when they are once more set free, they shall not be "fitted for the perpetration of a thousand" crimes, but fitted rather to become useful to society and the State. It seems almost commonplace now to speak thus. Yet to make this commonplace has required many years of labor and sacrifice. According to the old method, the criminal was simply to be punished-paying to the full the penalty of his offence, and suffering without mercy the extreme ferocity of the law.* Yet this summary way of dealing with the matter was not effectual in diminishing crime. Neither the slow torture of imprisonment, nor the quick agony of execution, heightened by the terrified imagination, could suffice to deter the evil-dis

* It was not till 1790 that the law of England, imposing the penalty of burning upon women convicted of coining, was repealed.

posed from indulging their inclinations. The assizes were always crowded. The courts were always busy. A large criminal population grew up in every community. The young were corrupted. The old were encouraged in their career of wickedness. It was startling to think that society had within its bosom the elements of violence, hatred, insatiable greed and immitigable enmity, which were liable, at any moment, to break out in uncontrolable fury. Was it possible to restrain and control these elements? Was it not possible to utilize them, and turn their strength to beneficent ends-even as a man dams up the mountain torrent and sets its forces to work for human benefit? Howard and Romilly-and many another man and woman whom their words and works encouragedundertook to soften the severity of the law, and to place around the prisoner the humanizing influences of religion and education.

The new method of prison discipline grew up. Something besides punishment became the object of imprisonment. It was a great gain to humanity and civilization when the State learned that something better could be done with a man than to hang him. The State is gradually learning that a man is worth saving, too, and that there is hope even for the worst. The criminal is a man still, notwithstanding his degradation, and is to be reformed-that is, formed anew, made into a new creature, furnished with new objects of pursuit and thought, aroused to new hopes, directed into new courses of life, and pointed to a new and higher destiny. No one doubts that this would be a fine result, if it could be accomplished. But many persons are skeptical as to the success of any curative process. Children are the most hopeful subjects, but even adults in crime are not wholly to be despaired of and given over to the adversary.

Prison discipline, as a science, seeks to ascertain the nature and causes of crime. As the true physician treats his cases, not experimentally, trying this and that kind of medicine to see what will be its effects, but scientifically, seeking to know the nature of the disease, studying the constitution, habits, hereditary qualities of his patient, striving to ascertain the seat of the disorder, that he may know and apply the best methods

of cure; so the true philanthropist must treat the social disorders and diseases,-not empirically, trying this or that kind of law, but, with careful and diligent study, endeavoring to discover the source of the trouble, and there apply his remedies. All scientific study and treatment must be radical. The gardener, sometimes, finds it necessary to prune the roots of his trees, and must always keep them in a healthy and thriving condition.

Crime has somewhat of the nature of disease. The connection between the moral and the physical organization, between the mind and the body, is very subtle and mysterious. Not enough is known of it at present to justify any dogmatism upon the subject. Dr. Maudsley declares, and urges with great ability and clearness, that this connection is absolute and intimate. "It behoves us," he says, "to clearly realize the broad fact that there is not an organic motion, visible or invisible, sensible or insensible, ministrant to the noblest or to the most humble purposes, which does not work its appointed effect in the complex recesses of mind; that the mind, as the crowning achievement of organization, and the consummation and outcome of all its energies, really comprehends the bodily life."* It would be a curious subject for investigation and development, but demanding a more scientific pen than mine, to elucidate the characteristics of the sympathy which, without doubt, exists between the perverted sensations of a malformed, or disordered brain, and those movements of the moral nature which issue forth in crime. A thorough discussion of the subject, from a physician's point of view, would be an invaluable contribution to the literature of penology. That the perversion of the moral nature is, sometimes, intensified, if not induced by a disordered exercise of the physical functions, seems sufficiently clear. But to what precise extent this perversion of the conscience and the will may thus be the result of a depraved, diseased, or abnormal condition of the physical nature, it is impossible to say in the present state of the inquiry. We can only be justified in affirming that crime, in some of its aspects, wears the appearance and bears the character of disease.

*Body and Mind: Lect. iii. A very suggestive, but broadly materialistic book.