emedies might be found even more effectual
in their cases.

When convicts leave prison they could be divided into three classes.
First, those men who are not only determined to live honestly, but who
in all human probability will never again enter a prison; their number
may amount to about ten per cent. of the whole. Another class leave
prison with the deliberate intention of committing crime, and their
number may be about forty per cent. The third class, comprising about
fifty per cent. of the whole, belong to the hesitating, unsteady,
wavering class. Many of this class do manage to keep out of prison, but
at least one half of them return, and, along with the forty per cent.
of professionals, bring up the number of the re-convicted to seventy
per cent. Now, it must be quite clear that if we would reduce this
number, it is to the fifty per cent of waverers that our efforts must
be principally directed. The other classes either do not require or
will not benefit by our endeavours. Our present law is altogether
unable to cure the professional thief. I never heard, and I never met
with a convict who ever heard, of any of this class being converted
into honest men by the operation of our present system, nor do I
believe it possible to point to a single case. The professional thief
lacks three virtues--economy, industry, honesty. Now, under the present
system it is positively forbidden to give him any practical lesson
either in economy or honesty; industry, indeed, might be taught him,
but he rarely if ever receives an intelligent lesson, for it must be
remembered that enforced labour does not teach the labourer industry,
but is more likely to inspire him with an aversion to it. All that can
be done with the professional thief, under existing laws, beyond the
punishment of confinement and vigorous prison discipline, possibly, is
to give him such work to do as he can do, or be readily taught to do,
and that work not to be of the kind usually done in prison, but such as
will compensate to some extent for his maintenance in prison, and
enable him to live honestly out of it should he so elect.

On my right hand, in the twenty-four-bedded room, lay a city-bred
professional thief, acquainted with all the brothels and sinks of
iniquity in London, and his disgusting conversation chiefly related to
such places. Like many of his class, his constitution was delicate, and
his appetite somewhat dainty. The prison fare and hard work were