would hastily leave their investigations for others to pursue, and retire with the horrors of a nightmare upon them. And to what does this all lead, but to the inevitable existence of a small army of habitual criminals in the midst of our great city? It is said that the number diminishes yearly, and that crime is on the decrease. This may be partially true, but it is not even probably so, if certain facts are allowed for. It is to the increased efficiency of the detective department rather than to the casting away of evil that crime appears to be diminishing. The weaker type of criminals fear detection and dread conviction much more at the present time than formerly, and in this way deterrence acts, and it is to fear of punishment and years of martial discipline that we must look for any amelioration in the criminal records, rather than to moral improvement of a widespread nature. Much has been said, and much has been written on this point, but the main facts still remain as true as ever, that, in the majority of cases crime and criminal ways are practically incurable, from the causes mentioned on a previous page. The pertinacity of the criminal instincts, and a materies morbi which breeds crime, leads the observer to this conclusion, just as much as the tendency in many families towards consumption leads to premature decay and death. Sooner or later the question must be faced as to how far the legislature is justified in allowing many habitual criminals to pursue a course of felony, broken only by repeated convictions. Our lunatics are not released very easily, and the man or woman who undergoes many sentences should in like manner be permanently dealt with by unconditional detention. Take a common illustration of criminal persistency. A, born of criminal parents, finds himself at the age of forty-five undergoing his twentieth sentence for robbery of various kinds. There are five sentences of penal servitude recorded against him, viz. five years, seven years, five years, eight years and three years, besides shorter terms of hard labour, the first commencing when he was a boy of fifteen. In prison his conduct is good, outside of the gates he is a dangerous nuisance. This is no exceptional instance, but of common occurrence in the Scotland Yard practice, and these men appear again and again for their tickets of leave, having earned good marks in prison, thus entitling them to considerable remission of sentence in point of months. Our query is this, Why let out such men at all? Without bringing into force the maximum penalties, which are in many cases of felony life sentences, a special prison might be set apart for the prolonged detention of these hopeless cases, which are frequently the result of alcoholic craving and a weak mind. A new tariff of discipline might

be drawn up of a somewhat less severe nature than applicable to ordinary convicts, yet sufficiently rigorous to ensure definite labour, not stereotyped, but flexibly adapted to individual cases, the separate system being strictly enforced at all times, even in chapel, when conversation is carried on during singing and also at the time of general prayers.

The basis upon which we build our conclusions is this. Difficulty exists in accurately determining the relative degrees of insanity presented by various cases, and the question as to how far a man or woman is sane or otherwise constantly crops up in the world outside of prison gates. Given, therefore, a habitual criminal, the determination of sanity and responsibility is a vexed subject, and one to which just as much care should be given as to the ordinary citizen of honest habits who is upon the borderland of insanity. The frequent cases of insanity met with after conviction, and the removal of such to Broadmoor Criminal Asylum, goes far to prove this. At any rate, the man or woman who seems unable to live an honest life requires special attention, and not the rough-and-ready treatment met with in our assize courts. As to deterrence, the mere knowledge that a life detention would inevitably follow up a series of convictions cannot be lightly dismissed, and it would certainly tend to the elimination of criminals who pursue robbery and violence from a bestial love of the same rather than from a weakened intellect. Great attention is now given to the scientific methods of criminal identification, of Parisian origin for the most part. Why should not the same skill be brought to bear upon the diagnosis of crime, its origin, and probable causes? Pleas of insanity are commonly brought forward in capital charges, and with some reason. Why not also in cases of habitual crime, such as persistent and unprofitable thefts, unmeaning arsons, and alcoholic peculations? Thieves will often take infinite trouble to secure a trifling article, which may be of no value to them when acquired. Men in comfortable circumstances persist in cheating greatly to their own detriment. How far are such delinquents responsible?

A few words as to the Prison Bill recently before Parliament. This appears to be a reflection of some points specially insisted upon in the report issued by the last Prison Commission under the late Government. The Parliamentary discussions have touched upon such matters as prison dietary, classification of prisoners, education, and remission of detention by earning of marks in local prisons.

The Star Class system continues to give increasing satisfaction. Out of 2,183 male convicts there has been but 1 per cent. of re

convictions, and on the female side re-convictions have been nil. The question of dietary scales is still debated. One point must not be lost sight of, however. A large number of "local" prisoners enter prison in a half-starved condition, and it would be most unwise to give a better diet inside prison than without, i.e. any marked luxuries which would teach the professional tramp, for instance, to prefer a local prison to the workhouse. A large number of tramps certainly avoid the casual wards, especially in the winter, and apparently prefer the prison, for it is warmer, and there is no exposure (in the casual yard) to the cold as when employed in breaking stones under the labour master of the workhouse.

The present drift of prison management is in the direction of moral persuasion, where possible, rather than mere detention and enforced labour. Time alone will show the success or otherwise of the Anglo-American school of penologists, but we trust that any advances made in this quarter towards rendering prison life more tolerable will be in the direction of evaluating the personal equation of each prisoner by a careful consideration of his previous social position, and adjusting the routine of discipline to meet each case, for that which is a terrible disgrace to one man may mean to another merely a little less food and an abstention from tobacco and alcohol.

G. RAYLEIGH VICARS.

MABEL'S LOVER.

HE" was not very "beautiful," nor even very young, but "he fell in love" so directly and completely that their latter-day justification of that simple and sufficient motive in the old-fashioned romances is perhaps worth the telling.

"He" was English by birth, but when quite a child he had been taken to India, and had there lived laborious days till he was not far off forty. He had inherited the right to a small partnership in a large business, and, had he possessed more capital, he would by this time have been admitted to a bigger share in the profits. As things were, his small inheritance and his small partnership together made up a fair income, enough to justify his fulfilling the wish of his life-to go to England and there to find a wife who would be willing to share his fortunes and to return with him to India for a few years before finally settling in their native land. Brought up in a countinghouse atmosphere from his youth upwards, there was very little of the ideal about Max Merritt-nothing, perhaps, save the one desire to marry an English girl; and, seeing that his business needed capital, there was just this touch of practicality about his romance, that his search for the not impossible " she " was, as a matter of course, to be among his wealthy English connection. And one bright morning, accordingly, he took his berth on a P. & O., with plenty of letters of introduction as well as of credit in his pocket-book.

And the "she" who, unknown to both, was awaiting him was the only daughter of a distant cousin of the rich relatives. Her father had not been fortunate in business. His want of luck, as he liked to call it, was due, in truth, to no special fault of moral fibre, but he was one of those Micawber-like characters who "never are, but always to be blest," men who hope in the future and live in the present. He was happily, or perhaps one should say unhappily, rich in ideas, with the germ of success in some of them, but for the most part utterly impracticable, and all wanting time and money to develop. Grudging the one and lacking the other indispensable, he was yet ever cheerily confident and communicative to his many

friends on the good fortune that was coming, but which somehow never arrived. Living among people much better off than himself, too proud to accept help, and always fearing the hand of charity when it was often only the hand of friendship which was outstretched, Alan Baxter lost many an opportunity which more reasonable men would have utilised of improving his position, and to him and to his very charming wife, to whom he was devoted, it had been for many years a hard struggle to keep up appearances. The effort to educate and put out in life their two sons had been, if a difficult, a successful one, but Netta, the pretty, only daughter, to the secret disappointment of her mother, and to the open amazement of her father, remained unwooed and unmarried; and, what in these days is more remarkable, was still, at twenty-eight years old, in a struggling household, in the ranks of the unemployed.

Many a time during the last eight years an aunt or a cousin had suggested that "Netta might really earn something for herself." "Why!" Aunt Maria would remark in her convincing way, "the girl would really have more chance of attracting a husband if she dressed better; she might just as well earn a trifle by teaching her young cousins for a couple of hours a day, or by giving music lessons to that nice little girl of Lady Wilcox's. She heard her play at our house" (Aunt Maria's pronouns were not always as clear as her opinions), "and told me that she would be only too glad to engage her." But to all such offers Mr. Baxter turned a deaf and indeed an indignant ear, for he belonged to that antiquated and almost extinct type of men who hold that women of the gentle class should be maintained by men's labour, and that it is unbecoming for their daughters and sisters to enter the lists in competition for a living wage. And in this, as in most other matters, Mrs. Baxter agreed with her husband, nor can it be said that Netta herself was at all eager to second the kind intentions of her aunts. She openly shared her father's sentiments as to the unfitness of women for work and for wages; she had a great admiration for the Spartan-like spirit in which father and mother both buttoned up their coats over the poverty which knawed, but in her own case was content to let the Spartan spirit show itself in an amiable acceptance of such gifts as came in her way. Her allowance was undoubtedly scanty, and she might, as Aunt Maria said, have "dressed better "; but still her costumes were varied enough, and pretty enough to be a constant source of wonder and admiration to her unsuspecting father. "No one is so clever as my Netta," he would say when the girl would appear after the early supper, which took the place of dinner in Mrs. Baxter's economy, in