Section 3.— REGENERATION OF OUR CRIMINALS.—THE PRISON

GATE BRIGADE

Our Prisons ought to be reforming institutions, which should turn men out better than when they entered their doors. As a matter of fact they are often quite the reverse. There are few persons in '.ins world more to be pitied than the poor fellow who has served his first term of imprisonment or finds himself outside the gaol doors without a character, and often without a friend in the world. Here, again, the process of centralization, gone on apace of late years, however desirable it may be in the interests of administration, tells with disastrous effects on the poor wretches who are its victims.

In the old times, when a man was sent to prison, the gaol stood within a stone's throw of his home. When he came out he was at any rate close to his old frieiius and relations, who would take him in and give him a helping hand to start once more a new life. But what has happened owing to the desire of the Government to do away with as many local gaols as possible ? The prisoners, when convicted, are sent long distances by rail to the central prisons, and on coming out find themselves cursed with the brand of the gaol bird, so far from home, character gone, and with no one to fall back upon for counsel, or to give them a helping hand. No wonder it is reported that vagrancy has much increased in some large towns on account of discharged prisoners taking to begging, having no other resource.

In the competition for work no employer is likely to take a man who is fresh from gaol ; nor are mistresses likely to engage a servant whose last character was her discharge from one of Her Majesty's prisons. It is incredible how T much mischief is often done by well-meaning persons, who, in struggling towards the attainment of an excellent end — such, for instance, as that of economy and efficiency in prison administration — forget entirely the bearing which their reforms may have upon the prisoners themselves.