Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/260

 as the publication of false or grossly exaggerated news, and of matter calculated to encourage vice, as betting. No doubt the balance of advantage is in favour of the entire freedom of the Press; but it cannot be denied that this freedom is at present greatly abused. It would be easy to name a dozen types of periodicals whose forcible suppression would be an enormous gain to the public; and in an age so increasingly prone to look to the governing body for assistance in every conceivable matter no one can deny the probability of some legislative steps being taken, when the public first begins to concern itself seriously with public morals. But this possibility is much nearer at hand than the end of this century; at the latter period public opinion will probably be well able to take care of itself, and any laws of the kind I have suggested will, like numerous other forms of legislation, including many now operative, have fallen into desuetude because there will be no temptation to the misdemeanours they are, or may be, framed to repress.

The question of the form which the repression of crime will take a hundred years hence can only be answered if we first endeavour to see what the developments of penology, or the science of punishment, are likely to be during the next hundred years. Naturally, they will have the same tendencies as the society which