a discipline tried by way of experiment; and he thought that some of the Reformatory schools, which were now scarcely needed for their original purpose, as the number of juvenile offenders had so greatly decreased, might be appropriated for a time to give the plan a trial. He was willing to offer his own Reformatory, at Hardwicke, for a first experiment. He proposed that it should be con. stituted an adult Reformatory by its transference to the country as its property; and that then the Home Secretary should be requested (in virtue of authority he already possessed) to remove to it a batch of prisoners from Gloucester gaol. The expenses of the establishment might be defrayed by an allowance from the county rate equal to the cost of the men's maintenance in prison. If a prisoner behaved ill, he should be re-consigned to goal; and if the whole scheme proved a failure, it could be abandoned without any serious loss having been incurred. In case of success, however, it would then be expedient to grant to ordinary prisoners, the boon already given to convicts and juvenile offenders, namely, the ticket of leave. The concession of this would, or at any rate ought, to involve a considerable lengthening of sentences, a large part, of course, being

remissible under license.

INADEQUATE SENTENCES.

What means is it desirable to adopt to prevent the passing of sentences inadequate to the proper repression of crime?

In addition to the paper on this subject by Mr. Baker, printed at p. 203.

Mr. T. LI. Murray Browne, contributed a paper in support of Mr. Baker's views. As an illustration of the effect likely to be produced by a system of cumulative sentences, he instanced the small number of re-convictions among the liberates assisted by "The Discharged Prisoners Relief Committee," in London, of which he was the secretary. By reference to the last annual report of the Committee, it appeared that of 365 men placed out in the previous year, as far as could be ascertained up to the publication of the report, only 24 had been re-convicted. He attributed this very small percentage to the practice they had adopted of supplying the judge with the particulars of previous offences in cases where any of their clients were re-convicted, in order to procure the passing of a severer sentence. The knowledge that if they relapsed they would almost certainly incur very aggravated punishment had, he was sure, a very deterrent influence upon the men aided by the society.

DISCUSSION.

MR. SAUNDERS, Recorder of Bath. Much that Mr. Baker advocates is already in operation. The present rule, which is widely observed, is to give a much severer sentence on a second conviction. To give the judge no option as to toe amount of punishment for second and subsequent felonies would be a mistake. I think the recent act which compels a sentence of seven years penal servitude for

a second felony is too stringent. Rather than inflict it, judges adopt the alternative of eighteen months or two years imprisonment. From motives of humanity, moreover, information as to previous convictions is often withheld from the judge. Severe fixed sentences, therefore, even if required by law, would not systematically be passed; and thus the certainty of punishment, which is the chief deterrent, would be lessened. Besides, in cases of theft, the chances of impunity are so great that the severity of the punishment hardly enters into the thief's calculations. I do not think I am wrong in saying that one-third of the cases of theft never find their way to the knowledge of the police. As regards larceny I have calculated that the persons convicted are at the rate of seven per cent. of the crimes committed. Persons often commit twenty offences before they are discovered. Again, on Mr. Baker's plan, the magistrate might have to give a very heavy sentence for a trivial offence-seven years penal servitude perhaps, for stealing a handkerchief. This would arouse public sympathy, and make the thief a martyr. With a fixed scale of sentences, magistrates could not consider public opinion, as to a certain extent they must do. Suppose, a farm servant received first a moderate term of imprisonment for sheep stealing, and then penal servitude for drinking a can of his master's beer, what would the public say? [Mr. Baker. But I left the magistrate a discretion]. Then if the magistrates are to have a discretion, you leave matters just as they are.

Mr. HASTINGS: I do not think that sentences should conform to public sentiment. They should simply have regard to what is most effectual for the repression of crime. Our endeavour should be to educate the public to act for their own true interests, and not on sentimental impulse. I do not think, however, that the public is ripe for Mr. Baker's scheme yet. The popular idea at present is, to make the punishment match the offence; whereas, the true principle requires that measure of punishment to be adopted which will most effectually prevent the offence. The true objection to severe punishments lies in the difficulty which they involve of procuring convictions. Mr. Saunders has said nothing about habitual offenders, for whose benefit Mr. Baker's scheme is specially intended. When it is proved that a man is preying on society, the question is, not the fair punishment for the particular offence with which he was charged at the moment, but how is his career to be stopped. The trivial penalties inflicted on regular criminals are absurdly unjust as anything which can be alleged on the other side. In one case that I recently observed the criminal had been fifty-seven times previously convicted for larceny. Abuses of the same kind are common throughout the country under the Summary Convictions Act. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory. It would be well to adopt any experiment, such as Mr. Baker's, and give it a fair trial, rather than let such a system go on. Mr. Cox, Recorder of Falmouth: The want of some settled principle in the infliction of sentences is certainly a great evil. Where you have two judges sitting in adjacent courts, it will often depend on which side of the passage that separates them a man is tried, whether he gets six or twelve months. For want of a guiding principle the length of the sentence chiefly depends on the individual sentiments of the judges. I think this Association would confer a great benefit on the community by issuing a suggestive scale of punishment, for the guidance of magistrates, with a succinct statement of the reasons why each step in the scale is adopted. The scale, however, should be merely suggestive. To fetter the judge's discretion by a rigid rule would be very mischievous. I feel this strongly as regards the recent enactment that the first sentence to penal servitude shall be not less than five, the second, not less than seven, years. Two years' confinement, unless under penal servitude regulations, is far too long: and thus being driven to choose between one year in gaol, and seven in a convict prison, we err on the side of humanity and choose the former. Another reason for not hampering the judge's discretion is that offences of technically the same criminality are in moral guilt widely different. Arson, for example, may be a crime little less heinous than murder in one case, mere wanton thoughtlessness in another. You must therefore give the judge full liberty to act according to the circumstances and the offender's character. The offence, as defined by law, may put the accidental and the professional criminal in the same category. But both in the penalty affixed, and the discipline afterwards applied, a wide difference

should be made. I would separate the professional thief from his associates fo a long period: I would remis the residue of the accidental offender's sentence, when his reformation was secured; and I would detain the incorrigible criminal for Sie.

Mr. SEXPE33.—I think the sters in Mr. Baker's scale are too long. I would in three months for the secon and twelve months for the third offence, as de mainım, leaving the magistrate discretion to increase the minimum. I wonki sise abi to Mr. Baker's plan the suggestion, that on the expiry of his imprisonment the ofender sacali fini security for his good conduct during a certain period. You require this from the man guilty of assault, why not from the man going of a thef). In my own experience I know of only one re-committal when the ofender hal been required to find sureties. I would say, then, sentence feitos a imprisonment, and tack on to the sentence the necessity for finding sureties for two or three years after, on pain of farther detention if they cannot. The scendental offender will get sureties, the professional will not, and thus you compass your purpose of letting the one go, while you restrain the other from fresh crime. B. W. L. Char: You must not, as Mr. Hastings says, allow public sentiment to Eccane sentences: yet you cannot inflict sentences which violate public sentiment. We must be content to work patiently at the task of getting public feeling into harmony with a sound system. I wish Mr. Baker was less severe in his proposed seale—the jump from one year to seven years' confinement is starting. I fear that the public in its repugnance to his harsh details, will everlock the greas valve of his main principle. With regard to the objections brought against restricting the discretion of the judge by a fixed scale, I believe the best remedy would be a court of cassation.

MESS CARPENTER entirely agreed with the principles Mr. Baker advocated; but she pointed out that in order to carry them out, a thorough registration of habiinal criminals was necessary. At present a delinquent often escaped with slight sentence simply because his previous character was not known. She was also desirous to see the principle of cumulative sentences applied to small misdemeanours, as well as to felonies. It was useless, for example, to continue to give a few days' imprisonment to drunkards who had been brought up at the same court fifty or sixty times.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Miss SHEDDON read a paper "On the Necessity for the Inviolate Preservation of Trial by Jury on all great Questions of Fact," pointing out the great value of the institution, and urging the necessity for watchfulness on the part of all who desired its maintenance in order that the right of resorting to it might not be taken away in questions of legitimacy, nationality, and inheritance.

Mr. R. A. MACFIE, of Liverpool, read a paper on "Long Restrictions in the Use of Inventions, and Obligation to make heavy Payments to Patentees, incompatible with Free and Fair Trade." Mr. Mactie commenced by observing that he did not dispute the inventor's right of use of the property in his invention, but he did dispute his exclusive right. To give one inventor such a right was to subvert the principle by denying the right of other inventors

who might be as original, and had worked as hard and spent as much, but who, owing to a desire to perfect their achievement a little more, or because they lived in the provinces, a day's journey farther off, came some hours behind, and were only second or third applicants for the coveted privilege. The State ought not to give a right of exclusive property-that was, power to meddle with others and to forbid them to use their valuable knowledge-except in cases where common use and enjoyment would diminish public wealth or harm a previous possessor. There was this obvious and broad distinction between copyright and patent right, that to grant exclusive privileges to an author interfered with the compositions of no one else, whereas the granting of them to an inventor continually conflicted with what others had done and were doing. Mr. Macfie then traced the history of the patent laws, from the time when exclusive rights of selling or making some commodities were granted to court favourites as rewards. He suggested that the patent law as it stood at present should be repealed, and that rewards should be given to inventors by government; or that patents should be granted much as heretofore, but that, on the demand of any manufacturer, after three years of monopoly, any invention might be valued, not of course on the basis of the returns which it might bring, but on that of its originality, the cost incurred in working it out, its advantage, &c. Whereupon it should be lawful for a patent board to distinguish the grant in any of the following circumstances -1. If the patentee's books (which he should be obliged to keep) showed that he had already received in fees the valuation price. 2. If manufacturers and others interested unitedly paid as much as would make the price up. 3. If the State paid the remainder of the price, purchasing the invention for the nation. And he would add another condition, that any one might obtain exemption for himself or his firm by paying say a tenth of the price. Mr. Macfie illustrated his paper by many cases of hardship which the present law involved.

Mr. MACFIE also read a paper entitled "Plurality or Graduation of Individual Votes as a Means of Facilitating the Extension of the Parliamentary Suffrage to all Classes," proposing that any householder of 24 should have a vote, every freeholder of 40 a vote, every occupant of business premises a vote, and every payer of direct taxes a vote. Persons who possessed more than one of the qualifications to have a corresponding number of votes. Of course no one to have more than four.

Mr. R. J. GAINSFORD read a paper entitled "Reformatory Schools, and especially the North of England Catholic Girls' Reformatory School, at Howard Hill, near Sheffield." The writer began by observing that he was not aware of any instance of recent legislation in which a new law had been based upon a more sound principle than in the Reformatory Schools Acts. The public money was paid just in proportion to the actual amount of reformatory

education accomplished. There were no religious distinctions, and Government had nothing to do with the title or trust of lands or buildings. The amount of money paid was in exact proportion to the number of scholars in actual attendance, a sum nearly but not quite equal to the actual expense of their maintenance and education. The first certificate under the Reformatory Schools Act was granted in 1854, and he doubted whether this or any other country could furnish so clear an illustration of beneficial results from a definite cause. The remedial results of reformatory training were, according to the last report of the Government Inspector, stated to be as follows:--" About 70 per cent. of those who are brought under reformatory training are permanently rescued or improved by its influence." The number of persons disharged from reformatory schools in England and Scotland was about 1,200 annually. The writer explained the nature of the reformatory system adopted and carried out at the school at Howard Hill, and the satisfactory results obtained.

MR. GAINSFORD also read a paper, urging the public advantage of a grant of assizes to Sheffield.

Papers were read by Mr. T. Webster on "The Palace of Justice, the Site, Approaches, and Arrangements of the Courts and Offices of Judicature;" and by Mr. John Guest, "On Affiliation of Illegitimate Children," which have been read again at the evening meetings of the Association in London, and are printed in the Journal of Social Science, pp. 25, 195.