The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 11, 1858.

882

following manner from a man towards whom she
felt a growing attraction:—

Late in the evening, when nearly every one was gone
( there was a small evening (Pny), I saw Mr. Rochford sit
down with my sketches, and begin looking over them
alone. There was one of a window in the Hotel Cluny,
which he examined for some time; at last, I walked up to
the table and said,

" What attraction is there in that sketch, Mr. Roohford ?
You have been looking at it fur five minutes, and it is
very ill done."
"It might be better," he anmered quietly. "It is not,
architecturally, very correct ; but yet correct enough for
my purpose. Do you know if there is any print of this ? "
."
I dare say there is ; but what i 4 your purpose ? "
" I am building a school-house at home, and want a
window of this sort. I was struck with this one the other
day when I was at the Hotel Cluny ; hut, unfortunately, I
am no draughtsman. I can be critical, you see, like Mrs.
Oglevie Fisher, but I can do nothing myself."
" I will copy the sketch for you, if you like it."
Readers of " The Newcomes" may remember a
passage in which Clive, with democratic cynicism,
persists in exposing the family legend of the
" barber-surgeon" for the edification of Lord
Farintosh, and is rebuked by Ethel for his
bad taste. In the following scene the heroine
appears to us to be guilty of a similar fault,
which however the writer, unlike Thackeray,
endorses with deliberate approval. A picture
being admired at a party, Rita finds it to be one
which she had formerly sold to a dealer :
I glanced up, and found Rochford's eyes fixed on ire,
after hie peculiar fashion. Then, for the first time, I re-
membered where it was I had seen them before.

" I can tell you nothing about the artist myself, my dear
Madam," said the old gentlemen. "I believe m 5 nephew
knows his name, hut there was a foolish mystery made
about it when I asked Ismael. He said something about
a distressed wife and len children, so I conclude the poor
fellow would be glad enough to give lessons."
The eyes never released their hold on me. " He knows
the truth," I said to myself, " and is wondering whether I
should have moral courage, before all these fine people, to
confess that I was the poor artist. There is no chligatinn,
certainly, and yet I should like to show that
I am perfectly indifferent to their opinion." . . . .
" I am the best able to answer any questions about this
picture, Mr. Griffiths," I said at last, in a distinct voice,
"as it was painted and sold by me. lam sorry Monsieur
Ismael thought it necessary to tell any stories about it,
though he was not at liberty to mention my name."
Lady Ureybrook turned sharply round, coloured, and
seemed about to speak, hut did not. There was xn awful
pause. Most of the women stared at each other as if they
thought I had gone mail. . . . . Hubert llochford's
eyes betrayed no surprise : but, if I read their expression
aright, something of pleasuro and approval. . . . .
" Young woman," said a harsh voice, and Lady Janet
Oglevie held out her hand, " ! respect you. You do right
in turning Giare talent to account, and you do better in not
being ashamed to own it."

We confess that we take the view which Miss
Ethel Ncwcome would probably have done under
the circumstances, and fail entirely to sec the
merit of exposing yourself to the contempt of
fashionably-prejudiced people of vulgar minds
when no particular end is to be gained by it.
There is quite enough real occasion in lile for
these grand displays of moral courage, without
wearing the heart on the sleeve as a mere matter
of bravado.

The faults, however, that we have noticed are
those of crudeness and inexperience, and a very
little circumspection will be necessary on a future
occasion to enable the authoress of "Rita"to avoid
them altogether. We should not have thought
of adverting to them at all, had it not been
evident that she has a genius worth careful culti-
vation. They need not prevent any one from
reading the book, which is nowhere dull, and
which everywhere displays great freshness, and,
as will be evident from our extracts, much vigour
of style and power of observation. We have
seldom met with a first attempt which showed on
the whole so much promise as these two lively,
clever, and interesting volumes.

Juvenile Crime : its Causes, Character, and
Cure. By Samuel Phillips Day. London :
Hope.
This is another addition to the numerous works
illustrative of Criminal Reform. We judge it to
be the production of a young compiler. In the
form which Mr. Day's composition takes many
I • rsons would recognize only a diluted blue-
s I k, garnished with scraps from authors of all
kinds ; but the work is better than a hasty
perusal of it would suggest. Mr. Day has a
kindly and benevolent spirit; he is not a canting
writer, nor is he too credulous about criminal
reform. His great fault is that he has so testa-
Weil his statements with fragments from various

authors, that it is difficult to see what is his own in
this volume. It is a kind of cento, in which phi-
lanthropic commonplaces and politico-economical
principles are worked together in literary mosaic ;
and there is far too much of ostentatious pedantry
in the quotations. There are, also, instances of
bad taste, like writing of the Bible as " that
glorious old book," as a bibliomaniac might say
of an early edition of one of the classics ; and
in the middle of grave dissertation we meet with
inane quotations such as this :—" Eliza Cook
pertinently says,—

Better buill schoolrooms for the boy.

Than celia and gibbets for the wan"
(p. 354). Francis's " Horace" is also repeatedly
drawn upon for quotations, and on the whole
there is too much of the compiler, as opposed to
the thinker, in this volume. But still, as an
illustrative work on a social subject attracting
much contemporaneous attention, the volume
has value, as it contains striking facts, curious
tables, and interesting selections from a mass of
testimony.
Mr. Day discusses his subjects under the heads
of Pauperism, Evil Example and Predisposing
Circumstances, Ignorance, Intemperance, icious
Amusements, Workhouses and Prisons, Increase
and Extent of Crime, Nature and Cost of Crime,
and Chief Preventive and Repressive Checks to
Crime. It will be thus seen that he traverses
at large ground, and he selects his matter from a
whole library of works treating of his main
theme. There are some persons who think that
this sort of literature is much overdone, but we
are not amongst the number. Circumstances
have given the question of reform of criminals
great importance. The colonies have thrown
back the convict classes to the home country,
and we suffered from the ticket-of-leave system
by the numbers of ruffians cast upon us. We
are thus driven to the common rule, " Prevention
is better than cure " ; and the whole question
now is, " What is the best mode of prevention ?"
And there can be no doubt that beginning with
the young is the best economy in this matter.
Our own convictions on this interesting ques-
tion are that the subject will before long work
itself clear. The public mind is bent upon it,
and it is right to keep it prominently before the
country. We are not system-mongers our-
selves, and we think that, as in other cases, the
system-mongers have rather damaged the reform
of criminal discussion ; but such might, perhaps,
be expected. Let us attend to common sense
and to recorded experience, and we shall have
no reason to despair of a satisfactory solution of
this problem being arrived at. We should recol-
lect that there are two master-fallacies on reform
of criminals. One error consists in expecting too
much, and the other in hoping far too little from
remedial _ measures. We should not expect either

too much or too little from medicine or surgery,
or from the 'social results of any reform of the
laws, or from any change whatever. Mr. Stand-
still cries,—" Leave things as they are ; you can
no more reform a convict than you can change
the ear of a pig into a silk purse. What's bad is
bad : convicts are convicts, and there's an end
of it." On the other hand, Mr. llopetoomuch
says,—" My dear sir, try my plan. Igo upon
the principle of the perfectibility of human
nature. Progress is infinite and eternal. Ma-
chinery can change wool into cloth, and by a
due mixture of education and wholesome punish-
ment I will undertake to keep down crime to a
very low minimum." Now, we do not range
with Mr. Standstill or Mr. Hopetoomuch. We
agree with our sensible, friendly Steady, who
reminds us that though it is hopeless to try and
wash blackamoors white, yet we should not
therefore disbelieve in the invaluable qualities of
soap and water.

As the subject stands at present, the Hopetoo-
muches are rather in the majority, and they often
talk with singular superficiality, and weary one
with their shallow and sanguine views. On the
other hand, the Standstills are morose, narrow,
and bigoted; and in some Parliamentary circles
there is danger lest the credulity of the Standstill
class may become infectious. IVe say that the
circumstances of the case are such that Parlia-
ment and the authorities must grapple with
" Crime-Prevention." We cannot any longer
ship the convicts to the colonies; we cannot im-
prison them tbr life; and therefore we must try
and see what prevention and judicious primitive
measures can effect. The question cannot be

solved in a year ; it will require both experiment
and constant discussion ; and it is fortunately
one on which the men of theory and of practice,
the religious enthusiast and the stern polic
authorities, can work together.
Pauperism is, undoubtedly, one of the most
fruitful sources of crimes ; but it must be recol.
lected that many of the most hardened criminals
are in easy circumstances, or at least far removed
from abject want. The squalid misery of large
classes in our great towns can be discerned at a
glance, and, as Lord Stanley has well observed,
" the parallel between the infection of disease and
" the infection of crime holds strictly." Our
crowded cities pollute the atmosphere and poison
popular morals. Cobbett used to call London
" the great wen," and as a wen, or an ulcer,
consumes much of the heart's blood in the
physical body, so in the social system there is a
great expenditure of manhood in our towns. No
other country has such a number of large cities
and towns as England, and the vicissitudes of
wages must necessarily cause great temptations.
The young see their parents lie, steal, and take
to bad practices, and they follow the example of
those about them. It is at this point that pre.
vention should be applied. By taking up the
children early in life, and placing them at schools,
where they receive a training, they will be
fitted for exercising trades, and advancing
themselves in life. Mr. Day in this work
quotes the thoroughly true remark of the
late John Foster, " There is in ignorance
" not only the privation of all direction and
" impulsion to good, but a great positive force of
" determination to evil," and the statistics of
crime periodically published fully bear out the
position of Foster in his able essay on Popular
Ignorance.

In saying this, we are quite aware that some
of the worst criminals have been persons of cul-
tivated intellects. On the Continent, it is possible
to find reprobates of strong intellect, much culture,
and yet casehardened in iniquity of every kind.
But we must not argue that, because cultivated
minds are often vicious and depraved, there-
fore ignorant ones are extremely innocent. A
large proportion of the criminal population are
described in the returns as "brutally ignorant."
The statistical tables compiled by trustworthy
and competent persons on this subject establish
the fact conclusively that ignorance and crime
are closely allied. Surely we cannot be surprised
at such being the case. Upon the thoroughly
ignorant it is intensely difficult to operate by
way of remedial instruction. They cannot read
the Bible, or holy books; their minds are callous
and sluggish ; and clergymen of various denomi-
nations have told us that it was almost latxmr
thrown away to try and reform such criminals.
There is some chance in dealing with cases of
criminals who had been educated, because early
impressions can be reawakened, and expostula-
tions may be used with effect. They can read
the Bible, and they can keep the mind occupied
by applying it to harmless literature, when it
is given to them by the authorities in the gaols:
but what can be done with those who can neither
read nor write ? France, Saxony, Belgium give
in their statistics, as far as they are compiled, the
same testimony as England that the amount of
crime is powerfully influenced by ignorance.
We are aware that there are two sides to this
part of the subject. Mr. Day quotes the °Onions
of Mr. Kingsmill and "S. G. 0." of the Times..
Mr. Kingsmill affirm? that "the worst class o 1
" criminals have been above the average condi-
" tion of' mental powers and educational advan:
" tages." He says so positively ; but we take 9
that he means by " the worst class of criminals"
notorious characters like the Mannings, Green-
acre, Tawell, and others of that kind. Now, ye
never could expect that the personal tendencies
to evil of peculiar temperaments could be crushed.
The evil heart of man is not to be completely
subdued, and the curse of original sin and the
corruption of the human heart cannot be changed
by any of the best systems of education. There
will be the wicked and vicious in every class and
in every age. But what a true practical Eng-
lishman should aim at is the endeavouring to re-
press crime in large claws of the comin. un9y.
.No preventive measures, educational or prunitis e,
can reach the cases of persons like Itedpa.th or
Robson, and the educational attainments of per-
sons like Paul and Strahan are outside the
41tosether, As for the opinion d