New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-01-29

| Mr.. John Stuart Mill, gentleman whose
| opinions are valued by all thinking men, has
addressed a letter to London newspaper upon
the treatment of professional criminals and the
| functions Of the police, in which he argues:
That there should DO great Increase OF efforts 70
root out the receivers Of stolen goods.
H. That the rule which crblds putting questions to the
prisoner should be abrOgated.
III That no attempt should be made TO put criminals
who have worked their sentences under police sur
VIGILANCE
w. That no member of the police force should be per-
mtted TO receive from private hands money gifts Of
any sort whatever.
1t seems to us that Mr.. Mill exhibits his
characteristic sagacity by striking in the be-
ginning and most directly at those special
agents of the Devil, the receivers 1t needs,
indeed, no argument to prove what ne asserts
that "receivers are the solid support and
" Foundation of all professional theft" They
thrive upon the felonies of others; theirs is
always by far the largest share of the proceeds
of robbery; and but for their diabohcal broker
age, the thief would not find it possible to pur-
sue his business with the smallest profit. The
criminal is, in fact, their ill-paid servant risk
ing liberty and life for the merest trifie, and
obliged to sell his ll-gotten wares in their mar
ket, at their price, since no other purchaser
can be invited without q risk which the
shrew d thief will rot run. These receivers are
men of means and of permanent habitation,
and can be easily reached. One good effect of
direct examination of the prisoner would be
that the receivers i'm many cases would be ex-
posed by their miserable and indignant dupes
Another would be the almost certain extortion,
if the interrogatories were dexterously put of
something like confession from guilty
prisoner upon his cross examination, while
il is but simple humanity to allow him to
make out the best possible defense Prisoners
have been thus examined, for some time, in
the Massachusetts, Criminal Courts, and, we
believe, with the most satisfactory results
Mr. Mill is decidedly opposed to the surveil-
lance of discharged prisoners, which he thinks
would give "great scope either for connivance
" or for oppression by the police" In the lat
ter he seems to have small confidence, since he
asserts that the efficiency of the force is con-
stantly lessened by the custom of bestowing
upon policemen private gratuities either in the
form of money or gifts. 1t is because he has
these doubts Of their integrity that he thinks
the police would be dangerous custOdians of
the secret of the discharged convict MIR. Mill
remembers, too, that such convict would be very
much at the mercy of an employer fully in
formed of his peculiar antecedents. For our
own part, it seems to us that the question NOR
ally decides itself. A prisoner who has served
out his term has little or no chance of
achieving permanent moral integrity,
if he knows that lie is constantly watch
ed. He is, in fact kept always in the
childhood of his moral reformation. Whatever
he may do, however honorable may be his
aspirations, he is still in the leading-strings of
the law, always liable to suspicion, always in
danger of false or hasty accusation, always in
the power of those who may by single word
disspate all his humble chances Of respecta-
bility. 1t is impossible for any one under such
circumstances to make anything like muscu-
lar effort; and, moreover, he labors under a
disability which is no better than an extra
judicial prolongation of his punishment He is
at once free and imprisoned, at large and con-
fined; and altogether in such an anomalous social
condition that the chances are decidedly IN
favor of his relapsing into criminal career.
Those whose business it is always to sus-
pect, win never be without grounds of
suspicion, sufficiently satisfactory to them
selves.
Perhaps Mr.. Mill goes as nearly as possible
to the bottom of the mischief when he calls
for stringent laws against the reception of
stolen goods. 1t is rather surprising that he
says nothing of the new plan Of reforming
criminals by floggng them-a project which,
we believe, has been received with some favor
in London. Perhaps, after all, there may be a
different way of dealing with crime. 1t is
hardly reasonable to expect any diminution of
Offenses against property while the energies
Of the pauperzed class find no outlet
except in larceny. Something must, of
course, be allowed for the perversity of human
nature, and something for the number of
thieves, who are 80 naturally, and as it were,
by succession. But after every such
allowance for natural depravity, for cOnstitu-
tional propensity and for early influences, it is
evident that there is large mass of crime for
which we can find no adequate motive except
that want which may arise from material need,
and from those clumsy and almost barbarous
social arrangements which keep willing hands
under spell and refuse to those who need
bread the chance of earning it. Unfortunately,
the work Of the police is a matter of instant
necessity. The criminal courts cannot wait for
q reorganization of society. There is hardly
any project for the reformation of wrong doors
which is not an evasion or a subterfuge. Thus