ernment: the
notion it embodies, he himself ascribed to long experience in the
management of prisoners. His observation supplied the facts; his
councillor, perhaps, constructed the system.

He believed that to remove the opportunities of crime, was the only
successful method of general prevention; that to keep the convicts
quiet, to withdraw all external excitement was essential to successful
treatment of their mental malady. He compared the ordinary offender to a
steed untrained: very impatient of the curb and rein. The discipline of
the government, either by its own officers or the master, he likened to
a _breaking in_. Under the first application of the bridle, more facile
tempers became at once submissive and docile; or if not--if the man
threw the master--then came the government with heavier burdens and more
painful restraint: he was caught, and resistance was borne down. The
milder servitude being unsuccessful, then came magisterial admonition;
then the lash; then sequestration on the roads; then irons; then the
penal settlement--with its stern aspect, its ponderous labor, and prompt
torture; in which mercy wrought through terror and pain, and hope itself
was attired in lighter chains.

Arthur alleged that his system was inductive: reared upon a foundation
of facts, its classification was self-constituted: every step in the
several gradations of a prisoner's punishment was the result of his own
will; the first, by his crime against English society, the residue by
his misconduct in servitude. It was in his power, when delivered to his
master, to work out his own liberty, without knowing again the frown of
a magistrate, or the darkness of a dungeon: it was in his choice to
delay deliverance until death. Thus the distribution and separation
vainly attempted by a direct management of government, was better done
by the prisoners themselves: they determined their own merit by their
actual position, where they awaited pardon and liberty, or gradual
descent to despair.

Arthur watched with great diligence the operation of his system. The
character of most masters was known: they were bound to make annual
returns of the number and conduct of their men. Their recommendation was
required to procure the prisoner's indulgence: his police character was
drawn out in form--the parliamentary papers shew into what minute
particulars those documents entered; even an admonition of the
magistrates was noted, and made part of the c