Reparation by Prisoners. 47 We give M. Bonneville's own resumé of the principles advocated by him: "1°. La réparation par les condamnés des dommages civils résultant du crime; "2°. Le droit du grâce; "3°. La libération préparatoire des condamnés radicalement amendés; "4°. La détention supplémentaire des condamnés incorrigés; 5°. La raffermissement de l'intimidation préventive envers les libérés de justice; "6°. Un système de surveillance purement observative, pour les libérés amendés, énergiquement et efficacement coercitive, pour les libérés réputés dangereux. "7°. L'organisation prudente et régulière-d'un patronage, s'appliquant, dans une mesure diverse, aux prévenus relaxés, aux familles indigentes des detenus, mineurs, et aux libérés adultes amendés; de moyens extrêmes de travail pour les libérés surveillés; "8°. Enfin la réforme du système actuel de réhabilitation des condamnés." We will give the details of each clause in order. 1. The principle involved in "the reparation of all civil losses and damages caused by crime," has been generally and ably advocated. Years ago Mr Hill urged that prisoners should be put to self-supporting labour; and that out of their earnings they should make compensation to the injured party, pay the costs of the prosecution, support themselves and help towards the support of their families, and, if possible, save out of the residue a certain sum, to be given to them on their release. A slight modification in M. Bonneville's scheme, is the proposal to inscribe, among the "extenuating circumstances" of the French code, the voluntary reparation or restitution, by the accused—say in cases 1 Few men have done more for criminal jurisprudence than Matthew Devonport Hill, Recorder of Birmingham, and his brother, Frederick Hill, late Inspector of Prisons for Scotland. To the former, especially, we are indebted for a very able and deeply interesting digest of the recent Literature of Criminal Jurisprudence. At the request of many friends, he has published his Charges to Birmingham Grand Juries. These extend over a period ef eighteen years (1839 to 1857), during which great interest has been taken in all questions connected with the treatment of criminals. To most of the Charges, Mr Hill has added a sequel, in which he illustrates the positions taken up in them, and in which he states what has been done recently, in regard to the special aspects of crime dealt with. Among the subjects so ably treated by Mr Hill, are-RiotsForgery-Embezzlement-Strikes-Reformatory Schools-Causes and Prevention of Crime--Burglaries-Charity--Lodging Houses--Transportation--The Ticket-of-Leave System, etc. As an illustration of the fresh and graphic style in which these subjects are discussed, we would refer to the Sequel to the Charge of 1845. We cordially recommend to all who take an interest in these great questions, the able and statesmanlike volume, "Suggestions for the Repression of Crime, etc. By M. D. Hill. London, 1857. W. Parker and Son, West Strand." of robbery—of the thing stolen, or its value. That this necessity of restitution would be a strong deterrent, by destroying the balance between gain and loss, and making detected crime entirely loss without any gain whatsoever, M. Bonneville argues at some length; adding his protest against fines paid to the State, which suffered no damage, while the prosecutor and victim goes with his damage unrepaired. What he would restore to the State, out of the prisoners' earnings, would be the legal costs of the prosecution-not suffering a centime of these to fall either on the prosecutor, or ultimately on the rate-payers through the public funds. He also would have a "masse de réserve," or reserve fund, for the time of liberation, put into the hands of the patrons, whose office we shall presently discuss. At present his figures give us 5,612,825 fr. worth of stolen property left in the hands of criminals ("les coupables que frappe la justice"); and, as "the first crime committed by two-thirds of the recommitted is robbery," his arguments, though diffuse, show how essential it is to do away with every kind of premium on theft, and to make it a matter of certain dead loss to the thief, both by the way of restitution and by that of punishment. Part of his plan-the award of costs-is in force here. We should do well to adopt the other part-the restitution of the full value of the loss sustained by the prosecutor, and the payment of the costs of the prosecution out of the prisoner's earnings. M. Bonneville would make restitution precede the payment of costs; and he would rigorously insist on the perfect fulfilment of both these conditions prior to the "octroi des grâces," of which he makes great account. He does not ground his scheme of payment only on the prisoner's own earnings after conviction, but would draw it from his private funds, if solvent; from his family and friends, if insolvent; draw it, in any case, before the convict should be held eligible for preliminary freedom, free pardon, or ulterior liberty, thus introducing into the criminal question an extension of the principle of warrant to arrest ("contrainte par corps"), recognised in actions for debt. But he also strongly advocates the infliction of pecuniary fines in lieu of imprisonment for certain offences and for special offenders; and that each criminal gracié, of A party of four pickpockets in Manchester, was estimated as having cost the country L.26,000 in the amount of plunder they retained and spent, and in the cost of their various prosecutions and imprisonments. 2 We cannot refrain from recording our most emphatic protest, against the introduction into the French code of this system of pecuniary damages in certain criminal actions, which hitherto have been kept clear of this blot. We are sorry that M. Bonneville should have advocated such an introduction, the hideous evil of which he might have read in the Anglican statute-book. We allude to the following paragraph : "Dans un siècle d'argent, comme le nôtre, il n'est point de moyen plus efficacement préventif que la condamnation aux dommages-intérêts résultant du whom there are about 2000 annually, shall pay a sum of 100 fr., either as re-imbursement of the legal costs, or, if the costs have been paid and the injured party satisfied, then as contributions to the bureau de bienfaisance, under the name of Denier à Dieu—“ God's penny," generally pronounced, and sometimes even written, as dernier adieu-which has, by the way, degenerated into a fee to the concierge on taking a new apartment, and as the "earnest" generally of good faith in any bargain. It strikes strangely on the ear of any one accustomed to France to hear this denier à Dieu spoken of with solemnity. 2. The "right of pardon," appealing as it does so entirely to the feelings and sentiments, makes large capital for our author. He devotes more than a hundred pages to it-his main argument resting on the "necessity of the right of pardon, because the law is imperfect; on its legitimacy, because the judge is fallible,”on which pleas his argument, surely, should have been for justice not pardon. Add to these reasons sundry rhetorical flourishes about "royal clemency being the most beautiful ornament of the crown," and we come to a few, very few, practical arguments. Having first made positive restitution an extenuating circumstance, M. Bonneville would widen this into a plea for pardon. He asserts the inspiriting effect of this chance on the reformed criminal, and quotes the custom of Lausanne, where "la diminution de la peine est également classée au nombre des récompenses accordées à la bonne conduite des détenus:" and of Berne, where "surtout on cherche à agir sur les détenus par l'espoir des récompenses. Aussi les grâces sont elles très nombreuses dans le penitencier de Berne." Louis XVIII. is selected, for somewhat extravagant praise, on account of a certain ordonnance promulgated in 1818,1 advocating mercy and offering pardon. M. Portalis made some sensible remarks on this ordonnance, requiring a continuance of good conduct, industry, and strict crime. Dernièrement, la sixième chambre du tribunal civil de la Seine a condamné, pour délit d'adultère, le docteur S― à 40,000 fr. de dommages-intérêts au profit du mari outragé et des enfants déshonorés. Cette decision aura, pour la prévention des délits semblables, une immense portée intimidative; toutefois, si, au lieu d'une femme riche, il se fût agi d'une simple ouvrière, dont le mari n'eût pu faire l'avance des frais, aucune condamnation à des dommages-intérêts n'eut pu intervenir. Il y a donc lieu de modifier une loi sous l'empire de laquelle le pauvre ne peut réclamer la réparation du préjudice que lui a causé le délit." We trust that the chivalrous feeling, the delicacy and the manhood of the French, will resist the adoption of a law which our own highest legal authorities have stigmatized as "disgraceful and dishonouring." 1 The preamble runs-" Si la punition des crimes et délits est le premier besoin de la société, le repentir, quand il est bien sincère et bien constaté, a d'autant plus de droits à notre clemencé royale, que souvent il n'est pas moins utile pour Texemple que la peine même, et qu'il offre la meilleure garantie de la conduite future du coupable." VOL. XXVII. NO. LIII. D economy, as the conditions for recommendation to mercy; and, above all, enjoining that these recommendations be made in just proportion-neither so numerous as to render punishment illusory, nor so few as to dispirit instead of encouraging the prisoners: the pardon to be withdrawn if, after its promulgation, the prisoner's conduct was unsatisfactory, and to be made doubly difficult of attainment after a recommittal. At the Bagne at Brest, there is a Salle d'épreuve, to which, after many years of irreproachable conduct, the forçat is admitted. When once inscribed here, he is not put to the worst kinds of labour; he is allowed a small mattress for his camp-bed, and a little meat on Sundays, etc. The "royal clemency" chooses every now and then some one from this hall, and a list of the so chosen is hung against the wall. 66 Voyez, Monsieur," said an old man, the tears in his eyes, "nous pouvons de notre purgatoire entrevoir le paradis. Voilà l'espoir qui nous soutient et nous remencra à la société. Nous aurons commencé ici à être honnétes; nous pourrons continuer quand nous serons rendus à la société." A longer delay between the sentence and the execution of that sentence is advocated, justly enough. At present there is not time to make an appeal to the Cour de Cassation from any of the remoter parts of France, though the law theoretically grants that privilege to every one found guilty of a crime, or cast in a civil suit. But M. Bonneville's peculiarity comes out in strong relief when he objects to these appeals to the Cour de Cassation, in favour of direct petitions to the throne. He says that the present law, which prescribes these appeals, "forces the condemned to quit the humble and suppliant attitude which he would have taken in approaching the throne, and to assume an insolent and rebellious one against justice." Is not this marvellously like nonsense? Is it not simply placing law below royalty, and asking, from crowned pity, what the nation has decreed as an attribute of justice? All recommendations to mercy, sent up by jurymen, are to accompany the verdict, says M. Bonneville; if sent afterwards, they are to be treated as "non avenue;" for a singular reason- "because we are not Romans in our day," and a wife's tears and a son's prayers are held to be irresistible. No juryman could withstand these appeals, he says; and though it were the greatest villain unhung, for whom the wife wept and the son prayed, he must perforce recommend him to an ill-deserved mercy, under such domestic pressure. The weakest point of French reasoning is this exorbitant and excessive influence given to all sorts of sentiment; above all, to the domestic and family feelings, which are held as incontrovertibly more powerful than any law or reason. 3. The scheme of "preparatory liberation," contains a larger Provisional Liberation. 51 machinery than our ticket-of-leave system, but a machinery which our author develops only by degrees. Seeing that the first two years after liberation are the most fatal to a man, and that of the number of recommitments, more than three-fourths are made within that time-this scheme is proposed, both in order to modify the suddenness of the transition from incarceration to perfect liberty, and also to give discharged convicts a better chance in the outer world, than they have now. Want of work and consequent poverty, arising chiefly from the dislike of workmen to associate with criminals, discharged or on leave, are generally fatal both to the English convict and the French forçat. To remedy this, M. Bonneville proposes firstly, to distinguish so accurately between the reformed and the incorrigible, that a man with a ticket-of-leave shall be known from that fact to be trustworthy; secondly, to deliver to the first the " passport of the working-classes," or the "livret," which every domestic even, as well as every working-man, is now bound to possess; and, thirdly, to require valid securities, either of his own family, private employers, or a société de patronage, both for his good conduct and certain employment during the whole of the time of preparatory liberation. In no case is this indulgence to be given until a prisoner has satisfied all the pecuniary claims we have enumerated in the previous sections, as sine quâ non; nor until he has suffered four-sixths of his time if his sentence was travaux forcés, four-fifths if réclusion (transportation to a colonie agricole), and three-fourths, if the lowest simple imprisonment. He is bound to a certain area of residence, and in case of infraction of this rule, he is to undergo the "supplementary detention,"-to be spoken of hereafter, and his "masse de réserve," which has been left as a guarantee in the hands of the director of the prison, is to be forfeited to the State. With this, he preserves the right of return to the prison, if he finds the outside world too hard for him, and always the right to return at night to sleep, if employed near at hand as a day-labourer. This is already done at Berne, and many years ago was proposed by Mr Hill, who would make prisons asylums for indigence, as well as comfortable retreats for guilt. The principle of this provisional liberty has been recognised since 1832 in the treatment of young criminals, and has been found entirely successful. They are placed under the strictest possible surveillance during this period of probation; still it is outside surveillance, not prison confinement; and the discipline under which they live, though stern and hard, is preventive, not punitive. We can easily believe that the good results of which M. Bonneville speaks in somewhat excited terms, are yet not beyond the truth; for the most logical political economist must |