it is exhibited in their language, habits, feelings-every thing!" Better accommodation, says Captain M., would not now stop this monstrous evil. "It is interwoven with the whole state of degradation to which these men are subjected, and can be removed only with it." A partial remedy would be found no remedy at all.

6. The deep degradation of the convicts, consequent on all these circumstances, is the next evil of the present system. Captain Maconochie gives a view of their moral state which is truly appalling. Their low condition prompts the officers to overlook all their interests, and in the administration of justice among them to treat them with " culpable negligence and severity;" to disregard their natural feelings, and to subject them" to much harsh and contumelious language." The individual being thus degraded in the eyes of others, speedily loses his own self-respect also, yields without restraint to present temptation, and falls into a state of almost inconceivable wickedness." Despairing of earning the approbation of the free community with which he is associated, "he naturally falls back on his own class, and the more prizes its sympathy and approval instead. In this manner is generated a strong and even tyrannical public opinion among the convicts themselves," a school in which "courage, patience, daring, self-sacrifice, and fidelity," are often elicited, but "uniformly directed against the government and the interests of free society." The approbation which they obtain "confirms the tendency to reckless daring," a quality which, "more or less, characterises all prisoners, and without which they would probably have been scared by the first threatenings of the law, and would have escaped its toils." The concluding remark on this point is of the highest practical importance: it is as follows" As a feature in the criminal character, this daring is not, I think, sufficiently adverted to by those who advocate the attempt to deter from crime by severe punishments. Tempers under its influence feel themselves only challenged, both in their own eyes and those of their companions, by the recurrence of these." However strange it may appear to those unacquainted with the subject, yet" crime thrives on severe examples," and "most certainly in direct competition with them."

7. The present system operates de facto as if it had been expressly contrived to accomplish the moral ruin of the men. The individual is condemned for seven, fourteen, twenty-one years, or a whole lifetime, to the influence of these circumstances, and no moral or religious conduct can extricate him from them. The " good conduct" for which a pardon may

are "

be obtained, consists in "shooting a bush-ranger, betraying a comrade, or otherwise, with or without risk, promoting what is considered an adequate government object!" They among the worst men who are so benefited; and there is no example that I am aware of, of the milder and more domestic virtues being similarly rewarded. Nor is this a fault in the administration of the system, but is essential to itself!" The results are next stated. "It is astonishing how rapid is the progress of deterioration. I have seen fine promising young men, and comparatively innocent, in a few months pass through every degree of wickedness; and, in fact, I have observed that it is the young, and otherwise the most interesting, who generally fall both fastest and farthest.". "It is notorious in the penal colonies that the new arrivals are much better generally than the older prisoners, though they speedily acquire all their evil ways; but such an ascendency is given to all that is evil in the management to which after their arrival they are subjected, such fetters are thrown by it over all good, such scope is afforded for the development of bad passions, so narrow is the sphere for every virtue, except submissiveness, not in itself a virtue at all, but rather a weakness, preparing for evil influence as much or more than for good direction," that “ any set of men in the world would be ruined," and " even the most virtuous and intelligent in the kingdom would speedily be destroyed by it." "I willingly admit that an aspect of external decency is maintained by the discipline imposed, which veils much of the real effect from superficial observation; but the facts here stated are indisputable."

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Nor does the evil end with the prisoners; for in society the ruin of one class necessarily involves the deep injury of every other. "Wild beasts as these men are made, weak and wicked as they become, they are the labourers in the penal colonies, and rise, many of them, to be small tenants and proprietors in them. They carry with them to their new sphere the vices of their old condition. They enter the market prepared to take any advantage that may offer; and while they thus lie, steal, rob, or defraud, as it may happen, it is too often thought fair by others to meet them with their own weapons, and diamond cut diamond' becomes thus a general rule. Meanwhile, the hardier and more enterprising of them (generally the worst, and in such cases no language can over-rate their wickedness) effect their escape, or otherwise leave the colonies, and spread over the Pacific." Everywhere they rob, they murder, they steal, they commit every excess that comes in their way, they catch at every passing sensual enjoyment, they gratify every brutal appetite, they

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revenge their quarrel with their native country (their just quarrel I will venture confidently to call it), by trampling where they have the power on every feeling of humanity and every interest of civilisation !"

No words can add strength to the terrible features of this representation. Society owes a debt of gratitude to Captain Maconochie for having lifted up the veil and showed us the monstrous evil in all its hideousness and horrors.

Such, then, are the effects, at home and abroad, of the prevailing principles of British criminal legislation and prison discipline. A few words will suffice to recapitulate, for the benefit of readers to whom the subject is not already familiar, the views entertained by phrenologists.

In some individuals the organs of the propensities, in point of relative proportion, bear the ascendency over those of the moral and intellectual faculties; in other words, their heads are low, broad, contracted in front, and amply developed posteriorly. Men thus constituted, if their brains are active, are impatient to obtain gratification of their passions; they feel few and feeble checks from conscience or religion, and are greatly deficient in intellectual capacity, and in the restraining and directing power which intellect, when largely developed, confers. Placed amidst the temptations of society, they rush to crime, as the directest mode of attaining plea

sure.

This constitution of brain and mind is to them natural; it is their misfortune, not their fault; and their actions are the results of that constitution, and of their external circumstances, combined. To save them and society from these results, either their natural dispositions or their circumstances, or both, must be changed; and this must be done for them by others, because they have not the power to do so themselves. Society has a great command over external circumstances, and by operating through these, it may greatly improve their dispositions and actions.

In another class of individuals, the organs of the animal propensities, those of the moral sentiments, and those of the intellectual powers, are developed in those equal proportions which place those classes of faculties nearly in equilibrium. Such persons are impelled naturally by strong passions, but they possess also strong powers of moral and religious emotion, and of intellectual perception. Their character is determined in a very great degree by the circumstances in which they are placed.

The third class is that in which the moral and intellectual organs predominate over those of the propensities. Here

the head is high in proportion to its breadth, has the top and front large and well-rounded, and is not immoderately large behind. Individuals thus constituted have naturally strong feelings of moral and religious obligation, and vigorous intellectual perceptions, while the solicitations of their animal propensities are relatively moderate.

Judging from observations made in society, we should say that the third class (the highest in endowment) abounds extensively, that the second class also is numerous, while the third class forms a very small minority of the British population. Our lawgivers, judges, and magistrates, belong, many of them, to the highest class; and those of them who belong to the second, have enjoyed the advantages of intellectual education and moral training, while their wealth and station in society remove from them many temptations, which in a state of ignorance and poverty might have reached them, and subverted their strongest moral resolutions.

These two classes have made laws for the whole community, in the implicit belief that all men are, or by an act of their own wills may become, what nature and favourable circumstances have made them, namely, intelligent moral agents; and as they feel that, with their endowments and in their circumstances, they would be justly punishable for robbing, stealing, forging, coining, killing, and so forth, they proceed at once to enact severe punishments against all who commit offences, entirely irrespective of any natural deficiencies and unfavourable conditions, which may attach to individuals in the mass. This error of judgment lies at the root of all the erroneous legislation and unwise treatment of the offending members of society, and it is on this account that we have again and again entered in detail into the subject; for although these truths are as apparent as the noontide sun to phrenologists, it is certain that they have not yet reached the understandings of our legislators. We appeal to the forms of these heads, because, however obstinately men may avert their eyes for a season from such evidence, we cannot doubt, (just because it is visible and tangible, and an institution of the Creator,) that this is the only true and solid, and, therefore, the only clear and practical basis, on which to rest projects for improvement that will be successful. While it continues to be neglected, we shall faithfully record the results, and leave to those who choose to disregard the institutions of Providence, the whole merits of their own achievements.

In Mr Sampson's work on Criminal Jurisprudence considered in relation to Mental Organization (reviewed in our 15th volume, p. 63.), are discussed the principles according

to which the law should deal with convicted offenders. He considers infringement of the criminal law (whether arising from natural deficiencies or unfavourable proportion of brain -from want of moral and intellectual training-from strong external temptations-or from two or all of these causes combined), to be a symptom of the offender's incapacity for enjoying freedom in general society; and recommends that he should be secluded and treated with a view to the removal, if possible, of the causes which led to his offences. The suffering necessarily connected with this treatment (namely, physical restraint, the withdrawing of accustomed vicious enjoyment, and the enforcement of sober, regular, and industrious habits, on a man of dissipated, impulsive, unsteady, and idle dispositions), and the self-reproach for past misconduct, consequent on an improved moral, religious, and intellectual condition, are the natural, and, because natural, the appropriate, the efficacious, and therefore the only penalties, which man is entitled to inflict, or can beneficially inflict, for a brother's offences. The same principles have been expounded in many phrenological works, from the date of an "Essay on the Constitution of Man," by the writer of this article (printed in 1827,) to the present time.* For more than half a century, similar views, more or less founded on common psychological observations, have been advocated also by a host of writers who have suggested important improvements in prison discipline; but still the master errors and their revolting consequences continue to exist.

În vol. xv. p. 22 of this Journal (July 1842), we gave an account of Norfolk Island, to which the reader is referred. We there also noticed Captain Maconochie's labours in that settlement, and anticipated great advantages from them. We regret to learn, from his communication above mentioned, that his plans were never specifically sanctioned by the Colonial or Home Government, and still remain a dead letter; that he succeeded in every case, just in the ratio in which he was enabled to approach, or was kept at a distance from, applying them; and that he is now in London submitting the whole subject to the consideration of the Colonial Secretary. Captain Maconochie, before he went to Australia, was acquainted with the views and doctrines of phreno

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* The author had previously submitted the same views to the Phrenological Society on 2d February 1826, in an Essay on Human Responsibility," which was printed at the Society's request, for private circulation, but never was published. The subject is also treated of in the author's "Moral Philosophy," and in many articles in this Journal, particularly, vol. iv. p. 559; vii. 385, 493; viii. 109, 481; xv. 63, 310; xvi. 1, 258, 267; xvii. 58.