take to punish offences and to segregate and correct offenders.

For the truly magnificent scale on which such reclaiming institutions
are conducted in North and South America, both continents merit special
mention.

The oldest and most celebrated of these reformatories, that founded at
Elmira by Brockway, owed its inspiration to my father's book _Criminal
Man_ and is the first reformatory that has been instituted on similar
principles.

The convicts admitted to Elmira are young men between the ages of
sixteen and thirty, convicted for the first time of any offence, except
those of the most serious kind. The Administrative Council is invested
with unlimited powers for determining the period of detention and may
release prisoners long before the expiration of their sentence.

Each newcomer has a bath, dons the uniform of the Institute, is
photographed, registered, medically examined, and finally shut up in a
cell to meditate upon his offence. During this time the superintendent
obtains all the available information concerning his character,
environment, and the probable causes that have led to his crime, and
this information serves as a basis for the cure. According to the
aptitude and culture of the prisoner, he is placed in a technical or
industrial class, where he learns some trade which will enable him to
become honestly self-supporting on his release. He is immediately
acquainted with his duties and rights and the conditions under which he
may regain his liberty.

Education in the Reformatory consists of instruction in general
knowledge and special training in some trade. Moral and intellectual
progress is stimulated by the publication of a weekly review, _The
Summary_, which gives a report on political matters and the news of the
Reformatory.

The convicts are divided into three categories: good, middling, and bad.
The transference from the second to the first class entails certain
privileges, especially those respecting communication with the outer
world, the right to receive visitors, to have books, and to eat at a
common table instead of partaking of a solitary meal in a cell. Those
who obtain the highest marks for good conduct are at liberty to walk
about the grounds and are entrusted with confidential missions, such as
the supervision of the other convicts. Bad conduct marks cause prisoners
to be transferred from a higher to the lowest division, where they are
obliged to perform the rudest labour.

Fi