property. It remained for the Royal Commission to enable these scorets to be thoroughly unveiled, and to let the public know from the directors and officers themselves, both the general principles and the details of the English penal servitude system, and to judge from them why "our convicts" are the terror and disgrace of our Christian country! If any should imagine that the brief extracts from the evidence here given present too unfavourable an impression, let them study the evidence for themselves, and form their own opinion.'

In treating of the disposal of our criminals after their punishment has been fulfilled, the author justly remarks:

:

To establish and manage an institution-whether an orphan asylum, a hospital, a reformatory, or a gaol-is a matter comparatively easy; but so to conduct it that the inmates, after having been the subjects of skilful management and under steady control, shall go forth as free agents, and without the help they have been receiving do their part in society under either favourable or adverse circumstances -this is the trial-this the difficulty.'

This, however, is the only test of the efficacy of such institutions, the only claim they can make on the public sympathy, or the public purse. Society will always be ready to forgive if it has reliable evidence of true repentance;' and we have ample proof that prisoners discharged from wellmanaged county and borough gaols can procure employment if they try. At the same time it is notorious, that such is the prejudice against ticket-of-leave men that it is hardly possible for them to obtain employment if their condition be known. But this is not surprising:

'As long as we know that the prisoners in them cannot be trusted even to take their meals together; that the trusted ones seize opportunities of stealing food from the others; that tools have to be carefully abstracted from the prisoners to prevent violence; that, notwithstanding constant precautions, terrible mutinies from time to time occur in those prisons, requiring for their suppression the aid of armed forces and even the presence of a ship of war, the chief actors in these mutinies being prisoners who were designated "very good," and that even at the present time fire-arms are required to be at hand to suppress rebellions among prisoners who "are supposed to be reformed."'

Besides, we know that the license to be at large during good conduct has been a sham, and really means unrestricted liberty to indulge in a vicious career. Certain it is that our convict prisons are unable to stand any real test of efficiency in reforming their inmates.

Conditional liberty, under supervision which has been found so beneficial a measure in most continental countries, and also in our colonies, as long as transportation prevailed, has never been tried in England. Notwithstanding that both the Penal Servitude Acts of 1853 and 1857 contain clauses empowering its use, and that the resolutions passed by the Parliamentary Committee of 1856 strongly urged that it should be put in practice, the Home Office has declined to make use of this power. At the same time, by giving each released prisoner a ticket-of-leave, on which very stringent conditions are

printed,

Conditional Liberty and Tickets-of-Leave.

321

printed, it has led the public to believe that it really had adopted the principle of conditional liberty. Nay, it has gone even further; the Home Office has instructed the police to ignore ticket-holders, unless they should be found actually committing an offence. The police are empowered to enter public-houses, and if they should therein meet with unconditionally discharged convicts of known bad character, to warn the proprietors that unless they dismiss such customers they are committing an offence against the law; yet, should the officers see in the very same places ticket-of-leave men, they are instructed to take no notice whatever of them, because, forsooth, they are supposed to be reformed, and a publication of their antecedents might place obstacles in the way of their procuring employment; though why they should be supposed to be reformed when they keep bad company a direct infraction of one of the conditions of their liberty-we must leave the inscrutabilities of the Home Office to explain, the more especially as Sir George Grey has stated that a license to be at large is not the slightest guarantee that its possessor is reformed, and that the sooner the public disabuse themselves of the idea that the holder of a ticket-of-leave is ascertained to be less likely to relapse into crime than any other discharged criminal' the better. Well may M. de Marsangy say

“As for me, I cannot understand how the English Parliament, notwithstanding the urgent appeals both of the public and the press, who in 1853, on the motion of Lord Grey, supported by Lord Brougham, had passed the enlightened act empowering the use of tickets-of-leave, has for ten years tolerated an administration of the law which has been a manifest violation of its principles and its aimboth of its letter and its spirit.'

It may be urged that we are attacking evils that no longer exist, which are remedied by the Penal Servitude Amendment Act. No doubt the new law will work great improvements if its provisions be honestly carried into effect, and we are glad to note from the last report of Major Greg, head-constable of Liverpool, that he has already appointed a competent police officer to attend to the new duty of supervising ticket-of-leave holders in that borough. But it behoves us to remember that many of the officers, whose system has so notoriously failed, are the same persons who are to organize the amendments provided by the new law, and that one of its clauses-police supervision over license-holders-was carried by the House of Commons after its rejection by the House of Lords, despite the opposition of the Government. Having now obtained police supervision over ticket-holders; our next step should be national supervision over our convict authorities.

Miss Carpenter devotes the concluding chapter of the present volume to the subject of transportation; but as, since her book was published, indeed since this article was begun, the discontinuance of transportation, in deference to the urgent remonstrances of our Australian colonies, has been announced, it will be superfluous to enter into any discussion of this question. The author considers it might, under very careful restrictions, be carried on beneficially both to Western Australia and to the convicts. In this opinion we cannot concur, and we say this with great respect to the author. We, therefore, sincerely rejoice at its discontinuance, not less for the sake of the Australian colonies than for that of our own population. Transportation has been a curse instead of a blessing to this country; for, as long as there was any hope of getting rid of our criminals by shipping them off to the antipodes, the nation cared but little for their real reformation; now that we must keep them at home, the instinct of self-preservation will compel us to fulfil a duty to which philanthropy hitherto has urged us in vain.

ART. III.—THE LITERATURE OF TEMPERANCE.

1. American Permanent Temperance Documents. First and Second Series.

2. The Temperance Society Record. June, 1830, to December, 1835.

3. The Preston Temperance Advocate. 1834.

4. Bacchus. Prize Essay.

1839.

5. On the Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Liquors, in Health and

6. The Band of Hope Review. 1851 to 1864.

7. The Scottish Review. 1853 to 1862.

8. The Argument for Prohibition. Prize Essay. 1856.

9. The Burnish Family. 1857.

10. Proceedings of the International Temperance and Prohibition

Convention. 1862.

11. Works of Dr. F. R. Lees.

Early Literature of Temperance.

323

12. Temperance Spectator, Church of England Temperance Magazine, British Workman, Western Temperance Herald, Irish League Journal. December, 1864.

13. Alliance News, Weekly Record, League Journal, Temperance Star. December 3rd, 1864.

14. Temperance Tracts :-Ipswich Series, Scottish Pictorial Series, Norwich Series.

S there were Reformers before the Reformation, so there was a literature entitled to the name of temperance long ere the modern temperance movement was conceived. The essential principle of that movement-that intoxicating liquors are not good as beverages, and that abstinence is the highest dictate and exercise of temperance concerning them-is embalmed in the most ancient records of our race. The wisdom of Egypt' acknowledged it; we discover it in the legislation of China; it passed current in the sacred cities, and was inscribed in the sacred books, of Hindostan; and it was shadowed forth, not obscurely, in various passages, narrative and preceptive, of the Hebrew Scriptures. The purest philosophy of Greece inculcated this truth with more or less consistency, and her poetry lent to it winged words of melody and beauty. Roman jurisprudence pronounced it good for Roman youth and matrons; Cæsar told of warlike tribes who held it in reverence, and practised it with vigilance; and Pliny, in his "Natural History,' paid tribute to it in a remarkable burst of eloquence, which would adorn any temperance oration. In the Koran' of Mahommed-the masterpiece of Arabic literature-abstinence from wine takes rank with the prohibition of gaming; and were the literature of modern Europe carefully ransacked, many sentiments would doubtless come to light showing how much of the temperance teaching of these days had been anticipated by thinkers and moralists of old. Not to dwell on the notable instance of Fenelon, who, in his 'Telemachus,' written for the instruction of the Dauphin of France, gives temperance lessons that all who live in kings' houses might profitably ponder, and confining ourselves to our 'sea-girt isle,' the roll of illustrious writers who have given expression to temperance opinions is long and weighty. It includes the names of Shakspere as dramatist, Milton as poet and statesman, Butler and De Foe as satirists, Addison as essayist, and Pope as annotator upon Homer. Whole passages of Dr. George Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long Life,' published in 1725, are pre-teetotalism in its strongest physiological essence; and Dr. Armstrong, in his

'Art

'Art of Preserving Health' (1744)-a noble poem, by a skilful physician-makes admissions fatal to the wisdom of any habitual use of 'even sober cups.' Bishop Berkeley, in his philosophical writings, and John Wesley, in his Primitive Physic' and 'Sermons,' use language which would now be deemed by many intolerably strong. Dr. Johnson, as reflected in Boswell's life of him, was practically for years, and uniformly in conversation, an enemy to the bottle; and, long before Boswell knew him, the same disposition was signally evinced in his reports of the Lords' debates of 1743 on the Gin Act, which are often quoted as genuine effusions, but may more properly be adduced as evidence of Johnson's ability as a temperance debater. Cowper's muse reproved with dauntless fidelity the Drink traffic and the Excise 'fattened with the rich result of all this riot,' but extended friendly recognition to the beverage that 'cheers but not inebriates. Howard, far wiser in this respect than his splendid panegyrist, Burke, tested and affirmed the physical and moral advantages of abstinence. Dr. Darwin, in his 'Botanic Garden' and 'Zoonomia;' Dr. Beddoes, in his 'Hygeia,' and other writings; Dr. Garnett, in his Popular Lectures on Zoonomia;' and Dr. Trotter, in his Essay on Drunkenness,' inculcated a temperance philosophy, which, if followed up by associated effort, would have ante-dated by thirty years the temperance reform. The scientific student had before him, in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' the experiments of Dr. Courtens, of Montpelier, made as early as 1679, and those of Mr. (afterwards Sir B.) Brodie on the action of diluted alcohol. Paley admitted the economical argument against ardent spirits, and the value of pledges for moral ends; and Mr. Basil Montagu, the editor of Lord Bacon's works, boldly arraigned, in his Essay on Fermented Liquors' (1816), the popular belief in the virtues of wine and beer. The Anatomy of Drunkenness,' by Dr. R. Macnish (first edition, 1827), skilfully traced the causes, and warmly depicted the evils, of intemperance; but in some of its views and suggestions it was inferior to the earlier dissertations of Beddoes and Trotter.

In the United States of America the temperance movement, strictly so called, took its rise; and there, as in this country, literature was its forerunner and foster-mother. Dr. Rush, by his 'Medical Observations' (1793), and his 'Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind' (1804), erected a medical battery against the prevalent habit of indulgence in spirituous liquors. Yet more than twenty years elapsed without any social amendment, until, in the Six Sermons on the Nature, Signs, Evils, and Remedy

of