52

HIS FIRST EXPERIENCE OF HUMAN JUSTICE.

mournful-he is stimulated by hunger, nakedness, and cold. But whatever the stimulants may be, it would require a prodigy of morality-such as his education can never produce-to resist, not a mere temptation, but a positive impulse to crime. The voice of his conscience is silent on the occasion, for it has never been called into action, and is, by this time, driven back into the deepest recesses of his heart, and buried under a mass of selfishness, love of sin, and evil propensities of every kind, which have been nurtured up. Thus he commits the first act which enlists him, in the eyes of the world, among the bad characters. Now, let us suppose, that the happiest chance— at least what our moralists and legislators would call so— turns up for him; he is caught up in the very act, and dragged before a police office. Imagine a child, brought up in the manner I have described,—and how many hundreds of children are trained up in exactly the same situation --entering the office at Bow-street, or some other police office of the metropolis; he is pushed to the bar through a crowd of persons of the lowest character, to whom the daily display of similar immorality is a feast for their souls. Here there is no expression of sorrow for the pollution of so young a mind, of sympathy for the misery which his appearance bears witness of, nor that look of soul-stirring indignation, which the idea of his transgression might draw forth from the eye even of the benevolent, if forgetting for a moment the unhappy circumstances of the case. All that he meets with there, is the fiendlike merriment of the spectators, and the cold forms of the law, with which he is received by the magistrate, or his subalterns. He is then examined; witnesses come forward against him, in whose depositions, it may be, he recognizes as much treachery and falsehood as truth; and he is ultimately committed for trial, or—which will be far less prejudicial to him, because it preserves him from the contamination of the prison-he is harangued by the magistrate, and some slight chastisement ordered to be inflicted

EFFECT WHICH IT HAS UPON HIS MIND.

53

on him. Now, suppose the magistrate to be the humanest person that ever sat on the bench,-suppose him to be moved by a real feeling of grief at the idea of such early delinquency, what effect can his exhortation produce upon the young thief, to whom, probably, even on account of the unusual language, the whole is as unintelligible, as an argument on morality in Chinese might be to any of us? All that he will gather from the transaction is, that the person on the bench is the one which commands over all the others in the place; that he is displeased with what he has done; and that he has the power of getting those whipped with whom he is displeased. But there is nothing in the most impressive exhortation which can be delivered on such an occasion, under the forms of law, from a magistrate's bench, that is in any way calculated, to lead the boy to a conviction of the unlawfulness of his act, or that at all opens to him the prospect of a different career, with sufficient inducements to quit the one, to which habit has attached him, for one so new, and so replete with selfdenials; or holds out to him even the bare physical possibility of subsisting in a different one. The only practical inference, therefore, which a boy can draw from this transaction, and the subsequent whipping, is, that it is a bad thing to be discovered in thieving, and that he must be more careful, in future, in the exercise of his calling. And that this is the inference, which most of the unfortunate children, placed under these circumstances, draw from their first experience of the administration of public justice, is sufficiently proved by the sequel of their history, which is invariably to be met with in the records of criminality. But let us see the boy again at liberty, after the public authorities have performed upon him, what is deemed their duty. What change has been produced in his feelings? His evil propensities have not been diminished; it is well if they have not been increased by the addition of a feeling of revenge. Or, has any thing been done to enlighten him respecting his condition? All he can have learnt is, that

54

CONTINUANCE OF HIS CAREER.

he was not sufficiently cunning. Or, are his circumstances improved, temptations removed, or encouragements to good conduct held out? No; he returns exactly to the same position, in which distress, the command of his parents,enforced by the same means which society uses for the demonstration of what is called right, in a police office, or a court of law,—and the cheering example of his associates, will again urge him on to the commission of crimes, supposing even that his own inclinations would dictate a contrary course. The warning he has received has rendered him more cautious, and he may now go on for years, earning his livelihood by the same means, without being ever caught in flagranti. At last, however, he will be caught up again, and again brought under the influence of social institutions. Let us suppose, again, the happiest state of things which can be imagined for him, under existing circumstances. Let us suppose, that a feeling of the misery and degradation, which attaches to his mode of living, has occasionally got hold upon his heart; that, by some providential occurrence he has been brought into contact with influences, by which his attention has been directed to the possibility of a better condition, both as regards his moral nature, and his circumstances; let us suppose that confinement, previously to his final commitment by the magistrate, or afterwards, to his trial, has abated the buoyancy of his spirits; that he has become inclined for reflexion, and accessible to the kind exertions of some of those benevolent Christians who visit the prisons, to make the saving health known, where it is most wanted; -suppose all this to have worked together, to bring his soul to a sort of crisis, in which he is ready to throw off the bondage of iniquity, and to begin a new life. Suppose all this to be the case, does the law wait for the development of this crisis, by which a soul may be saved? No! it continues in its cold, heartless, formal, and rigorous course; he is brought up for re-examination, or committed, or brought up for trial,

HIS REPENTANCE UNAVAILING.

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not as his state of mind may render advisable, but as the course of the law dictates. Or does the law, and the power that executes the law, take his state of mind into account, when deciding upon his fate? No! Suppose he confess his guilt, melting in tears of repentance-suppose he express his willingness, his determination to amend his lifesuppose the magistrate to be moved, and to hesitate about the course which he is to adopt; one of the tools of that heartless system will step forward-" Don't trust his promises, your worship, he is a notorious thief; young as he is, we know him to be an old practitioner." This testimony, coming from such a quarter, is sufficient to destroy the last chance that remained for the youth, to turn from his evil ways. He is fully committed; and if his repentance should last till the time of his trial, it will be of no avail. His sorrow for the past, his anxious look out for the future, are not regarded by those who-blasphemously, as they do it in the name of all that is sacred-presume to decide what he deserves, and what is to become of him. The circumstantial evidence of the fact is all, that these judges of unrighteous judgment attend to; and, as if there was no such thing as atonement and mercy, as if they needed it not themselves, nor could imagine that any one else needed it, they pronounce the "sentence of the law" upon the unhappy youth. Such is the spirit of our institutions, that even men, who in private affairs show themselves to be pious, just, and followers after that which is good, nevertheless unhesitatingly join in those, I repeat it, blasphemous, unrighteous, anti-Christian performances. It will be said: mercy may still be extended to him; for there is a difference between pronouncing and executing a sentence. Be it so; this may alter the case for the social conscience, whom it furnishes with a sophistical excuse; but it does not alter it, at least not for the better, with regard to the individual, with whose feelings society thus plays, as the cat does with the mouse. The sentence is not pronounced with a view that it should have no effect;

56

INFLUENCE OF PRISONS.

and unfortunately, the effect does not fail to be produced. The repenting sinner has found his fellow-creatures turning a deaf ear upon his repentance, upon his better determinations, and his promises: an unforgiving spirit has been shown, and the effeet of this can be no other than to harden him. His better feelings are inevitably chilled, and he returns to his prison with feelings very different from those, with which he came to take his trial. The consequence is, that he now prefers the society of his wicked companions, to the conversation with those, in whom he had confidence, when he felt a favourable change operated in his disposition, but whom he now shuns the more, the more they had succeeded in exercising influence over him. The exertions of Christian benevolence are interrupted; the edge of love and truth is blunted; and when a mitigation of punishment is announced to him, he will be more induced to murmur against what remains of his sentence, and to consider the alleviation of it as a happy escape, that has turned up for him by chance, than, in resigned submission to his fate, to persevere in his good determination, and to turn the time of trial and probation, which is imposed upon him, to account for the improvement of his life. But whilst society, by this unfeeling conduct, positively obstructs in him the rise of those feelings, which could bias him to a reformation of his character, it surrounds him with every influence, that is calculated to foster in him the growth of sin. Prisons, houses of correction, and other similar institutions, are so many collections of moral monstrosities; and the contamination and infection among such a number of bad characters, brought into such close contact, must necessarily be more extensive and more dangerous, than that which takes place amongst them when at large; for the restraint by which they are prevented from the outward performance of their evil thoughts, so far from being a check upon evil communication, operates rather as a stimulus to it. So that the youth who enters the place, with a heart disposed for