and he had been taken away from the saloon in an ambulance. Mrs. Fedden's visit to the court yesterday was her third, Justice Tighe having refused to listen to her on the former occasion. When she demanded a warrant again yesterday, Tighe leaned over towards her, and said, "Now, look here, your boy was not hurt by McGarry or Moore. I saw him in the ambulance, and he merely had a bloody

nose."

"You didn't see him in the ambulance," said Mrs. Fedden. ""You are a liar," said Justice Tighe, getting upon his feet. ““If I am a liar, you are one too," said Mrs. Fedden.

'This was contempt of court. . . . but the judge only asked, "Why do you go about saying you can't get justice in this court?"

"Because it's the truth," was the reply. "I can bring twenty witnesses, who saw the boy beaten; but the McGarrys own this court." This would have been contempt of court anywhere else; but Justice Tighe swallowed it, and merely wrote a bill to Justice Walsh, of the Adams Street Court, asking him to attend to the case, and he gave it to Mrs. Fedden.

'The woman went at once before Justice Walsh, and swore to her complaints, and warrants were issued for Moore and young McGarry, and they were arrested. They will be brought before Justice Walsh to-day.'*

Nor should it be forgotten that in the course of the Cronin case in 1889, attempts were made to tamper with witnesses through the instrumentality of officers of the Court, and that eight detectives were, during the progress of the trial, dismissed from the Chicago police for trying to aid the accused.

As we have said, it is impossible for a police force to be efficient when men who have to administer justice are not independent. But the above extract is remarkable in some other respects: it openly states a public belief that the police obtain their places by private influences a fact known to most persons who have paid attention to the subject. But another point is also interesting. This corruption of public justice is not regarded either with shame or with anger, but as an amusing fact. The newspaper does but echo the voice of the public; the people do not burn to end a national disgrace-they regard it with complacency, mixed with amusement. The mugwump' who leaves the politics of his country to bands of professional wirepullers, to seekers after and distributors of office, has also washed his hands of the conduct of the ordinary administration of the country, with the natural result that it is yearly becoming more corrupt. If the mass of the

American people are content that this should be so, the foreigner can but regret the fact and pass on. But the historical critic will also note that in the freest, most democratic, and most flourishing country in the world political and administrative morality are at their lowest depths, and that the vices of a decaying empire are equalled by those of a growing republic.

The distinct increase of crime in the United States must not, however, be set down entirely to the several causes upon which we have already touched. The prison system of America must to some extent be held responsible. In the first half of this century it was in advance of that of European nations, when Great Britain was sending felons to Botany Bay. MM. de Beaumont and de Tocqueville found in the United States a system which they were sent by the Government of France to study as an example to the western world. To-day we find no such superiority; the contrary, we perceive that, with the advance of the century, the prison system of the United States has distinctly degenerated.

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'It is safe to say,' said President Hayes, at the last meeting of the National Prison Congress of the United States, that a large majority of the prisoners accused or convicted of crime in the United States are dealt with in defiance of just and wise principles in these four vital particulars. First, the young and thoughtless, the beginners in law-breaking, and the accidental criminals suspected of guilt, are arrested and lodged in city prisons or county gaols, and there detained for trial, huddled together with old and hardened offenders, to be educated and trained in the whole art and mystery of criminal life. Secondly, professional criminals are sentenced for short terms, according to the supposed enormity of their respective crimes, and at the end of their terms are sent forth to prey again upon society. Thirdly, prisoners are discharged at the end of their terms under such circumstances that the imminent chances of ex-convicts, with all the world against them, are that they will be compelled to make a living by a return to their evil ways. Fourthly, our prisons, in many cases, are under wardens and other prison officers who hold their places as political appointments, without regard to qualifications or experience. These four pregnant facts, even if no other causes were in operation, would sufficiently explain the increase of crime in the United States.'

This is a very sweeping indictment, but the system of leasing prisoners is one example at any rate of its truth. This system is noteworthy in relation to the criminal law of the country, because it undeniably increases crime in the United States. By permitting the association of prisoners

of every sort and kind it enables criminals to contaminate each other. A large number escape from the gangs and increase the permanent criminal classes; and whilst no individual reformation of those who work out their entire sentence is possible and no useful trade is learned, the system is one productive of shocking cruelties. Those in command of the gangs commit all sorts of brutalities, and even those who are humane can hardly from the very nature of the system prevent the infliction of human suffering. It is faulty to the last degree, also, because it is impossible to graduate the severity of punishment, which among leased convicts depends very largely upon the character of the work for which the lessor requires the prisoners. It is probable that in this country the system is scarcely understood, but it is simple in the extreme. The government of the state advertises for tenders for the prisoners, and one of the contractors who applies obtains them on certain terms; among others, is one which gives the right to sublet them. The prisoners are then sent in gangs to certain places or 'camps' under the charge of a captain, where they pursue various occupations-agriculture, making railways, collecting turpentine, and so forth-until the term of imprisonment or the contract of the lease expires. In one of the works at the head of this article, that with the somewhat sensational title of The American Siberia,' numerous examples are to be found of the working of this vicious system, which in any nation having the least regard for the proper administration of the criminal law would long ago have been suppressed. The organisation is primitive in its simplicity. Chains and irons prevent the prisoners from escaping under ordinary circumstances; the bullet brings him down if he obtains a start, and the strap punishes him for insubordination. If he gets completely at large he is hunted by hounds. But liberty is sweet, and attempts to escape, from time to time successful, are made. So that,' says the author of this work, there are at this day dozens of escaped convicts living throughout Florida.' It is impossible to go at length into the subject, but here is a picture of the convicts at work collecting turpentine :

'To return to the camp. The prisoners were worked in the woods in a radius of a few miles and conveyed to and from the spot on what was known as a "squad-chain." In principle it was similar to a buildingchain, but it was shorter and lighter, and the men were strung upon it by the rings of their waist-chains like ribs from a central vertebra. Every man went on a trot. They kept this gait up all day long, from

tree to tree; and, as the labour is exhausting in the extreme, I have frequently seen men on their way back to camp drop of fatigue, and their comrades on the squad-chain drag them a dozen yards through the dirt before the pace could be checked so as to enable them to regain their feet. There would be a prodigious clatter of iron, a cloud of dust, a volley of imprecations, and the fallen man would stagger up, dash the dirt out of his eyes, and go reeling and running on.' (P. 22.)

The following narrative exemplifies the carelessness of human life characteristic of this system, and shows also how the worst criminals influence weaker men. The author is describing various incidents in the life of a convict named Ball whilst under his charge. He proceeds to tell what happened to the man when his authority over him had ceased::

The subsequent career and fate of this man is interesting; and, as it has nothing to do with my story proper, I will narrate it here. He was not long at liberty before he was again arrested and sent back to prison. Major C. K. Dutton was the lessee at the time, and Ball was sent to work on a turpentine farm at a camp called "Passum Trot." The captain was Charles P. Jolly, an officer subsequently well known in connexion with the lease system, and more or less trouble was experienced in keeping up the commissary department. It was said, how truthfully I cannot, personally affirm, that sweet potatoes were sometimes the only food of the prisoners, and that even they could not always be obtained. At any rate, some of the bolder of the prisoners, with Ball at their head, determined to revolt unless they were better fed. An opportunity was offered one morning when a provision wagon was said to be delayed and no breakfast given to the men. Captain Jolly entered the cell-house, explained the situation, and told them they would have their breakfast in the woods some time in the morning. Upon that, Ball and a number of others flatly declared that they could not and would not go to work without food. At this point conflicting stories are told. Some say that Ball, who was undoubtedly still linked to the building-chain, attempted to strike T. J. Leverett, a commissary man formerly with me, and all that is positive is that in the midst of the confusion a shot was fired and the convict fell dead in the arms of the next man chained by his side. No one has made any particular effort to claim the act. But the tragedy ended the food-riot, and the scared men ceased resistance and went to work on empty stomachs. Ball's corpse was drawn off the heavy building-chain, buried in the little camp grave-yard, and so ended his history.' (P. 258.)

Such was the fate of many another convict who has died unreformed. In a word the book abounds in many incidents of a more startling kind than these which have been given, though it would serve no good purpose to quote more of them at length. They exemplify the horrors of a system which is one of the causes of the increase of crime in the United

States and is a disgrace to the so-called civilisation of the present age.

But the Americans, with curious inconsistency, have in some respects rushed into the opposite extreme. The reformatory system as established in certain states is an absolute contrast to the lease system, but is equally harmful. The best known of these reformatories is at Elmira, in the State of New York. Here the different effects of punishment are wholly overlooked: the prisoner is regarded as a man of misfortune who is to be reformed, as a kind of human specimen to be moulded into proper form. It has long ago been established that it is desirable that prisoners should not be cut off from all hope, and should be able to shorten the term of their imprisonment by good behaviour, so as to obtain a conditional liberation before the full term of imprisonment has expired. But in the Elmira system, which is applied to convicted prisoners between sixteen and twenty years of age, this principle is carried to such an extreme that it is rather a desirable event for a man to be sent to a reformatory: the sole objection to it from the prisoner's point of view is that he loses some freedom. It matters not for how long a period a man may be sentenced to be imprisoned. 'As soon as the subject has satisfied this necessary condition of the institution, and consequently is reformed, which may happen in little more than twelve months, he is liberated on parole, and after a further six months of good conduct obtains absolute freedom, no matter whether the legal sentence would run for two, five, or ten years.' This is entirely in accordance with the statute, which gives complete discretion to the managers of the reformatory to keep a prisoner for such period as they think proper, not exceeding, however, the maximum term of imprisonment allowed for the offence in respect of which a prisoner has been convicted. Thus, a man who has committed an offence of a most shocking kind can, by behaving himself properly while at Elmira, escape with a confinement of comparatively a few months. The latest statistics show that on the average 35 per cent. of the prisoners at once trace the path ' of reform, so that they are released on parole within fifteen 'months.' Not more than 10 per cent. ever stay for the maximum term of imprisonment. No one can say with certainty that a prisoner is reformed until he has been at large for a considerable time. But many men who commit

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The New York State Reformatory in Elmira. By A. Winter, F.S.S. London: 1891. P. 5.