on and to the
action of sentimentalists, who, in their philanthropic zeal; fancy that a
radical reform can come without radical discipline. We are largely
wasting our energies in petty contrivances instead of striking at the
root of the evil.

What do we mean by the criminal class? It is necessary to define this
with some precision, in order to discuss intelligently the means of
destroying this class. A criminal is one who violates a statute law, or,
as we say, commits a crime. The human law takes cognizance of crime and
not of sin. But all men who commit crime are not necessarily in the
criminal class. Speaking technically, we put in that class those whose
sole occupation is crime, who live by it as a profession, and who have no
other permanent industry. They prey upon society. They are by their acts
at war upon it, and are outlaws.

The State is to a certain extent responsible for this class, for it has
trained most of them, from youth up, through successive detentions in
lock-ups, city prisons, county jails, and in State prisons, and
penitentiaries on relatively short sentences, under influences which tend
to educate them as criminals and confirm them in a bad life. That is to
say, if a man once violates the law and is caught, he is put into a
machine from which it is very difficult for him to escape without further
deterioration. It is not simply that the State puts a brand on him in the
eyes of the community, but it takes away his self-respect without giving
him an opportunity to recover it. Once recognized as in the criminal
class, he has no further concern about the State than that of evading its
penalties so far as is consistent with pursuing his occupation of crime.

To avoid misunderstanding as to the subject of this paper, it is
necessary to say that it is not dealing with the question of prison
reform in its whole extent. It attempts to consider only a pretty well
defined class. But in doing this it does not say that other aspects of
our public peril from crime are not as important as this. We cannot relax
our efforts in regard to the relations of poverty, drink, and unsanitary
conditions, as leading to crime. We have still to take care of the
exposed children, of those with parentage and surroundings inclining to
crime, of the degenerate and the unfortunate. We have to keep up the
warfare all along the line against the demoralization of society. But we
have hereto deal with a specific manifestation; we ha