system, wisely and vigorously administered, we should have every thing to hope, and not very much to fear. We believe that, while life and sanity are spared, the cases are comparatively rare in which recovery is impossible, when properly sought. There is indefinite elasticity in the human mind, if its faculties are put into healthful action, and neither diseased by maltreatment nor locked up in the torpor of a living grave. Undue severity or perpetual isolation may intimidate those who are outside, but either must, even in its best form, injure the sufferer himself. And that morality seems to

us more than doubtful which would sacrifice the known for the unknown, the actual patient for the supposed looker-on. If we seek well and wisely the reform of our criminals, we must inflict on them all the suffering really needful for example; more than this is but wanton cruelty.

XV. THE DUTY OF SOCIETY TO DISCHARGED PRISONERS - AN IMPERIAL COMMISSION IN FRANCE ON THIS QUESTION.

BY THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

Few questions are more important, few have a closer relation to the repression of crime and the diminution, if not the extinction, of the criminal class, than that placed at the head of this paper as a theme for consideration and discussion. The world is awakening, and the students of penitentiary science are everywhere bending their thoughts, to this great fact. No more signal, no more certain proof of this can be given than the creation, by the Emperor of the French, of a commission of twenty-one citizens, charged with the grave duty of studying this question, and reporting a measure for the adoption of the government. The movement appears to have originated in a report to the Emperor, at once able and comprehensive, made by the then minister of the interior, M. de Forcade, under date of October 6, 1869, suggesting the creation of such a commission by his majesty. The proposition was favorably regarded and promptly acted upon by the promulgation of an imperial decree constituting the commission. In February of the present year, a letter was received by Dr. Lieber, one of the vice-presidents of this association, from M. Demetz, Director of Mettray, a member of the commission, asking for information in regard to the disposition made of liberated prisoners, adult and juvenile, in this country. This letter was handed by Dr. Lieber to the Corresponding Secretary, with the request that he would make the desired response. That he might be able to do so, with some degree of fulness, as well as accuracy, he prepared a short circular letter of inquiry, and addressed it to fifty or more gentlemen, conversant with the subject, in different parts of the country. Twenty-five replies were received from persons to whom the circular was sent, to all of whom cordial thanks are hereby given for the courtesy. From these and other sources a response has been made and forwarded to M. Demetz for such use as he may think proper to make of it.

The five papers referred to are appended-three of them in the form of translations, viz.: the report of M. de Forcade, the imperial decree and the letter of M. Demetz.

1. REPORT OF M. DE FORCADE.

SIRE: For many years questions relating to prison discipline have occupied the attention of statesmen, and have been the object of careful examination on the part of the administration. At different times attempts have been made to introduce, after the example of other states, changes of system which substituted the cellular régime, more or less softened, for imprisonment in association. These efforts have been made only to a limited extent, owing to grave administrative or financial difficulties.

But, besides the radical reforms which modified profoundly the organization of the penitentiaries, the administration has sought, unceasingly, to introduce such improvements as the existing system would permit. A number of prisons have been rebuilt; the rest have been improved on a well considered plan; a more rigid system has been introduced into the accounts; special care has been bestowed on the sanitary condition of the prisoners; in short, methods maturely studied and consistently applied have permitted the realization of important reforms in the different branches of the service. Under the influence of these measures, the death-rate has diminished; industrial labor has become general, and has yielded higher profits; while, on the other hand, by strengthening the discipline and at the same time suppressing all useless rigor, a marked improvement has been secured in the habits and tendencies of the convicts.

Moreover, the administration, which would have accomplished but a small part of its task if it had occupied itself solely with material cares, labored to develop in the prisons moral education and elementary instruction. With a view to remedy the gravest disadvantages of association, it has established in the central prisons wards for preventing contamination and promoting reformation, in which are placed convicts in whom may be entertained the hope of awakening the sentiment of honor and virtue. Thus are they removed from the contact of convicts hardened by an incorrigible depravity, while, at the same time, both are subjected to a discipline identical in a material point of view, to the end that the principle of the equality of punishment may be rigidly maintained.

But despite these ameliorations, there remains a difficult problem which the administration cannot neglect, although unable to resolve it by its own forces alone; I refer to the patronage or aid of individuals on their discharge from a penitentiary; a patronage preceded or accompanied by measures adapted to facilitate the perilous transition from imprisonment to freedom.

It is, above all, in regard to juvenile prisoners that the administration has this duty to fulfill. Neglected almost always, abandoned frequently, corrupted sometimes by their own family, given up without restraint from infancy to irregular inclinations, they nearly all find, for the first time, in the house of correction, which opens its doors to receive them, moral and religious education. The greater part receive it readily and with profit; and when they re-enter into society, after a punishment on which the paternal foresight of the law has impressed the character of a salutary correction, and not that of a corrupting incarceration, very many do re-enter therein transformed, regenerated, and able to conquer an honorable position.

But often, at the very moment when the law opens for them an avenue to honest labor, public opinion shuts them out from it. At the moment when the past seems atoned for, it presses upon them with all its weight. The place of their birth repels them; the place whither they go to settle suspects them; they see the workshops closed against them; and they seem fated to relapse into disorder and vice, if some succoring hand is not stretched out to introduce them into the community, by giving to the discharged prisoner himself an attestation which lifts him up again, and to his employer guarantees which he has the right to demand.

It is, however, necessary that this intervention be prudent, discreet, and suited to the exigencies of the case. It must watch over the liberated youth without compromising him. It must guard against showing to all, by its very solicitude, a painful situation, which should be known only to a few. This is a task which requires the most delicate tact of private charity.

It would be impossible, sire, to treat this subject, without recalling to the attention of your majesty and the gratitude of the country, the Patronage Society of the Seine for Juvenile Discharged Prisoners, founded by the venerable M. Berenger de la Drôme. This institution, which now counts thirty-five years of existence, had advanced the benevolent intentions of the legislature. Thanks to persevering efforts, it has brought down, for its beneficiaries, to between five and seven per cent, the number of relapses which, at the beginning of its labors, rose to not less than fifty per cent. The society of Paris appears destined to become a centre, to which shall be attached similar institutions created in the departments.

Many private reformatories (colonies), in like manner, extend aid to their inmates on their discharge (sont occupées du patronage). In the forefront must be cited that of Mettray. At Mettray, as at Paris, aid is not given in exceptional cases merely; it is organized into a system. It accompanies the liberated youth on his entrance

into free life; it follows him in his career; it assists him in his material needs, as in his moral trials; when the necessity arises, it receives him again under its shelter. The archives of Mettray contain numerous letters, which do honor alike to the zeal of the Aid Society and the touching gratitude of the old inmates, who have become the children of this new family.

Nor can I pass in silence the patronage house, founded at Paris, for young women, by the Marchioness of Lagrange, with the aid of Madame Lechevalier, Inspectress-General of Prisons. This establishment, and some others, to which it has served as a model, have rendered, and are rendering every day, very important services.

The law of the 5th of August, 1850, had aimed to make general these isolated labors. It ordains (article 19), that the children committed to the reformatories and penitentiaries be, for three years at least, under the patronage of the public assistance. At the same time, it neither defined the patronage nor gave the administration authority to substitute itself in place of the power of the parent. The legislature simply declared that the patronage should be determined by a rule of public administration.

The administration has made many essays in this direction. It has taken various measures, both to second the efforts of private charity and to facilitate the placing of young prisoners in the country. Its endeavors have been attended with good results; nevertheless, the work remains unfinished; it can be made really efficient only by means of a complete organization, which is yet lacking.

The organization required could not, in truth, follow immediately the enactment of the law of 1850. The administration was obliged to wait until the private reformatories had been established, and until experience had given sufficient indications in regard to the different systems, of which trial should be made, for the patronage of juvenile prisoners on their liberation. It seems possible now, and there is urgent need of carrying out the intent of the law.

If the patronage of juvenile prisoners presents complicated problems, that of ordinary convicts, long engaged in evil, raises many still more difficult. Thus the question, as far as this point is concerned, is much less advanced; it has not been the object of any legal disposition. We must go back to a circular communicated to the councils-general in 1842, and to the project of law presented to the Chamber of Peers in 1844, to find the trace of an attempt made by the public authorities. For adult convicts, as for released youthful criminals, it is private charity which is charged with opening the way.

A venerable priest, the Abbé Coural, founded in 1842, near Montpelier, under the title of the "Solitude of Nazareth," an establish