The Globe. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1875.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 186, 13 January 1875, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1875.

! ; THtEB i3«Be flection of tt% conjhpfntty; Mkn ■' : 1 as|sbfe 'wnicb- / e'tands nefiofw and assistance from the large-hearted, we mean discharged prisoners, and we believe bhat the.sympathy so expended would do more good than can easily be imagined- prisoners would willingly, take Jo an honest life, if they were encouraged and assisted by kind words and honest deeds. .Too often an.exactly opposite course, is pursued! The moment some prisoners are released from gaol they are hunted from place to place in such a manner as to entirely prevent them from earning an honest livelihood. The object of punishment, as far as the individuals are concerned, is deterrent and reformatory. It ought to be severe enough to make them feel that a life of honesty and respect for the laws of the land is more comfortable than one of opposition to those laws, and it ought to be reformatory by so training and instructing them while undergoing their term of punishment, as will enable them to become useful members of society when they leave the prison walls. But it is plain that without assistance in some form or another there is nothing for them to do but to return to their former crimes. They find that they are everywhere looked upon with distrust, and after a few spasmodic efforts to lead an honest life they give themselves up to sullen despair, and lapse once more into their old way of living. A second committal generally means the commencement of a life-long series of imprisonments, and the miserable victim thus begins to be a most serious burden to the state. Anyone who has watched the proceedingsofourcriminal courts here, must have noticed how frequently old offenders appear again and again. We do not for a moment say that a system of pos' -penitentiaryaid would do away with all this evil, but experience has proved that aid judiciously given has been vastly effective in many cases. At the last annual meeting of the Victorian Prisoners' Aid Society, the gratifying fact was announced that out of 144< prisoners assisted during the year only seventeen had returned to their old criminal habits, and the same encouraging report comes from the many similar societies established in England.

We think that the time has arrived when a Prisoners Aid Society should he established here. It might be easily and economically worked if in good hands, for fortunately our criminal class is not a very numerous one yet, and might, we believe, be largely reduced if guided and assisted in the manner we propose. We admit that such a charity is not a popular one, for there is an instructive tendency on the part of the ostentatiously benevolent to turn aside"from those who have the taint of crime, and there are other forms of gratifying the benevolent feeling, far more pleasant to the individual. And yet, if we are to believe the statistics of different Prisoner's Societies in Britain and America, there is no form of charity which is so immediately profitable to the state, and the cause of public morality. Indeed, the beneficial results in the diminution of crime, are so remarkable, that an effort is now being made in England to procure a subsidy to the existing societies from the public funds. We trust this important question will not be allowed to rest, but that some of our leading citizens will be induced to move in the matter and thus inaugurate what, we believe, would prove, one of our most useful as well as, the most paying of our public charities.