regarded as so many personal instances of what is termed by the Prison Commissioners a new and bold experiment, of which we believe no actual analogy exists in any civilised country.' These 'dangerous' or 'professional' criminals habituated to crime pass the time not unpleasantly together. They take meals in common, but may, if they please, breakfast or dine alone; they are allowed to earn money wherewith to buy luxuries, and are permitted to smoke tobacco; they are also provided with 'Sunday suits,' and lately Bungalows have been erected in the prison grounds, wherein the 'simple life' may be lived in conditions which are marked by freedom from care and indifference as to provision for the morrow. It is indeed hard to consider the state of affairs at Camp Hill as anything but a burlesque, when one regards the previous history of these men; it is impossible to regard it otherwise than as a tragedy when the lot of the Camp Hill prisoner is contrasted with that of the free labourer or clerk, or when one reflects on the probable effect of this new and bold experiment' on the prevalence of habitual crime. So far as the experiment has gone, the result of Camp Hill has been to render the criminal who has graduated in crime discontented and even mutinous. Last year fifty-three prisoners mutinied at Camp Hill because their treatment was not sufficiently to their tastes. This fact is too eloquent to need comment.

It is worth while seriously to examine this system by which the worst men in the country are treated in the most lenient manner. In the first place it was erected on a misapprehension; and in the second place, it is justifiable on no ground whatever. Previously to the passing of the Prevention of Crime Act (1908) certain persons concerned with questions of prison reform pointed out that in the case of weak-minded persons who constantly offend against the law, it was cruelty to inflict any other than light punishment. In the year 1907, I carefully inspected the convict and certain other great prisons, and in a series of articles suggested that (harmless) semi-insane criminals should be confined in a place where they would be subject to mitigated penal discipline. I also advocated the 'indeterminate sentence' in the case of such men as are now at Camp Vol. 221.-No. 441. 2 B

Hill, namely, dangerous criminals. The 'indeterminate sentence,' it may be stated, is one without a fixed period of termination; and a prisoner who receives it is imprisoned until he is thought to be cured. I also suggested a method of overcoming the objection to such a sentence based on its tendency to become rigid, but I insisted on the necessity for treating the deliberate habitual criminal in the most punitive manner consistent with humanity. The Prevention of Crime Act (1908) provided for a compound of the determinate and the indeterminate sentence, and gave the benefit of the treatment advocated for the weak-minded criminal to the very class who, it had been urged, should be treated as punitively as possible. Then, to make matters even worse, the Memorandum' of 1911 checked the tendency of judges to administer the Act agreeably to the dictates of reason; and now, as stated, the worst offenders against the law are living in easy association at Camp Hill. On the other hand, there are at the present time in State prisons 1055 persons who are formally recognised as being so feeble-minded as to be unfit for ordinary penal discipline; and of these only twelve are preventive detention prisoners. Again here, comment seems unnecessary.

But it may be urged that the Camp Hill prisoners are, after all, in prison. It is true that they are imprisoned, but they receive preferential treatment of the wrong kind. Again, it has been stated that the term of 'preventive detention' is in addition to the proper term of penal servitude which the offence merited. This, however, is not so in fact; and it is well known that not only individual judges but also the Court of Criminal Appeal regard a sentence of preventive detention as a rather milder form of punishment than that of penal servitude, though still a substantive sentence in respect of a crime. Even were this not so, provided that it is necessary to imprison a dangerous' or 'professional' criminal, on no ground should there be any diminution of the ordinary unpleasantness of prison life. The object of punishment is the prevention of crime; and this is attained by deterring the criminal, and by deterring others, in any case by acting upon the mind of the criminal and the minds of other potential criminals.

No well-conceived punitive system would aim at effecting the physical disability of the criminal alone, and it is certain that our system does not do so; moreover, the provisions in the Act as to release on license show that what is contemplated is reformation or deterrence. But if such were the case, the relaxation of prison rigours for the benefit of the worst class of malefactors could not reasonably be supported. Again, if the 'reformation' or 'deterrence' of an habitual criminal is to be effected, can any intelligent person think that it will be so effected by making his way easier in prison, and allowing him to talk freely over his pipe with his comrades in crime?

It is therefore submitted that, even regarding the question solely from the standpoint of the interests of the habitual criminal himself, his preferential prison treatment cannot be justified. From the standpoint of the community, the dangerous or professional criminal should surely be treated with the fullest rigours of the law. Experience teaches that it is almost hopeless to try to reform' him, and he is not to be 'deterred' by sentimental kindness. Further, the effect on those who are inclined to lawlessness, on learning of these prison rewards of long-sustained criminal effort, cannot but fail to be disastrous. The lack of any system of classification at Camp Hill is pregnant with evil; and the proposal of the Prison Commissioners that the prisoners there should be allowed to go out on parole is yet another method of differentiating between the ordinary offender and the dangerous or professional habitual criminal to the disadvantage of the former. No sensible person wishes to discourage any kindly attempt to deal with crime and the criminal; but, if such attempt is fraught with danger to the community, it is the duty of everyone to resist its execution. Therefore one is constrained to say that, if to the evils of the Voluntary-prison system there is to be superadded the evil of a system in which it is provided that habitual wrong-doing shall automatically lighten the punishment of wrong-doing, it will be idle to try to solve the problem of recidivism.

In concluding my remarks upon the conditions of State punishment in this country, I would observe, that it is most desirable that prisoners, especially long-term

convicts, upon release from prison should be assisted in every way to obtain an honest living. The Central Association (for convicts) and other Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies do all that the reasonable use of money permits in the interests of the discharged prisoner; and the efforts of such agencies as the Salvation Army and the Church Army are beyond all praise. But something more is required. It is difficult for the ordinary discharged prisoner to obtain employment, and it is suggested that the benevolent activities of many prison reformers might be directed towards the practical rehabilitation of the man who has lapsed. In respect of other

matters which need attention in order to subserve the true ends of State punishment, I need not tabulate the recommendations which may be readily extracted from my remarks in these pages. But, speaking generally, I venture to assert that the present agencies for the manufacture of criminals-the voluntary or private prisonsshould cease to exist; and that, while the State should cease to imprison children in respect of assumed crimi nality, truly criminal children should be subjected to an extended Borstal system, wherein punishment and reformatory agency should proceed together. Further, both Police Supervision' and Preventive Detention should be swept off the statute book; the indeterminate sentence being applied to those offenders who have deliberately adopted a career of crime.

E. BOWEN-ROWLANDS.

Art. 4.-WILD AND GARDEN ROSES.

The Genus Rosa. By Ellen Willmott, F.L.S. Drawings by Alfred Parsons, A.R.A. London: Murray, 1910-14.

'A GOOD general monograph of the Genus Rosa is needed.' This is the opening sentence of 'A Classification of Garden Roses' written by Mr J. G. Baker, F.R.S., in 1885. For more than twenty years Miss Willmott has been studying the genus, from her own large collection of species and varieties, from home and foreign botanical gardens and herbaria, from her copious botanical library and all other available printed matter; meeting with untold difficulty and obstruction from the conflicting evidence of former writers, but labouring on singlehanded, with utter patience and determination; deferring her own conclusions, and sifting those of others with the most deliberate care and perseverance, so that nothing should stand in her notes but that which had been absolutely proven. The work was at first undertaken for her own information and the use of friends; but, as it grew, its importance became obvious, botanists recognising the fact that here was the making of the book so long desired. It was then that, yielding to urgent insistence, Miss Willmott undertook the great task of producing a monograph of the genus, that should embody a description of all the known species and the more important of the hybrids and typical garden varieties.

Hitherto, Rose classification had been, at the best, indefinite. The only book of systematic Rose botany was John Lindley's 'Rosarum monographa' published in 1820; but later botanists have found his characterisation of the primary groups too indistinct to be accepted as authoritative; moreover, so many new species have been discovered and described since his time that his lists are necessarily incomplete. The beautiful drawings of Redouté's 'Les Roses,' published in 1802, had hitherto given it a pre-eminent place as a book of Rose pictures; but in this the subjects are garden Roses of the then known kinds, chosen for their beauty, and, although some letterpress was added by the botanist Thory, it cannot claim to be considered as a botanical text-book.