case
exceed ten or twenty per cent, on the collections made, and that
would be a mere trifle.

(c) Our system of regimentation would largely guard against any such
danger and would be an encouragement to honesty.

(d) It is notorious that there is "honour among thieves." They would
watch over one another. Among them "_nimak-harami_" or
"faithlessness to their salt" would soon come to be regarded as a
crime of the first water.

(e) The inducement for thieving would be largely gone. Very few
steal _for the sake of stealing._ A man usually steals to fill his
own stomach, or some one else's, whom he loves. But here all would
be provided for.

(f) Besides he would feel that all he could earn was for the _common
good_ and was not going to make any individual rich at his expense.

(g) Our experience in the Prison Gate Homes contradicts it. True, we
have had some thefts especially at the beginning, but when I was
last visiting our Colombo Home, the Officers in charge assured me
that they were now of the rarest occurrence, while the gentleman
who owned the tempting cocoanuts that were hanging overhead told
me that he had never had such good crops from his trees, as since
our colony of thieves and criminals had been settled there!

(4.) Some one else may perhaps object that we shall have thrown upon our
hands a swarm of helpless, useless, cripples and infirm. Well, and what
if we do? Are they not our fellow human beings, and ought not some one
to care for them? We shall look upon it as a precious responsibility,
and I speak fearlessly on behalf of our devoted officers when I say,
that they would rather spend and be spent for such than for the richest
in the land. If, as I have already shown, the effort can be made
_self-supporting_ and _self-propagating_, the mere fact of their misery
or poverty only impels us to love them the more and to strive the more
earnestly for their emancipation.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PRISON GATE BRIGADE.

This has already been in operation for two years in the cities of Bombay
and Colombo and a branch has been recently established in Madras. Now
that it will be connected with other branches of our Social Reform, we
may look for a rapid increase of this useful though difficult work.

The establishment of our Labor Yards will greatly help us in f