Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/877

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 863

employers are revolutionists. They cannot bear change ; their minds are saturated with the idea of social grades and distinctions ; they will not even live with one another on terms of social equality.

Two series of important considerations suggest themselves in relation to this problem of England's future. In the first place, would not the present urgent and appalling questions tend to shrink to far smaller proportions in a society such as is here outlined ? Take three present-day problems drink, housing, and population. The massing of the people in huge aggregations brings about conditions which create a demand for constant stimulants of a peculiarly dangerous kind ; housing requirements are more difficult to meet ; and population tends to increase most rapidly among the least desirable people.

The second consideration is that what little democratic power was evolved in England a generation ago is visibly declining. The obvious sign of this is the steady weakening of the House of Commons. In a word, it is here suggested that the marked decline in the democratic movement and the corresponding growth of bureaucracy are no temporary phenomena, but symptoms of permanent change. WILLIAM CLARKE, " The Social Future of England," in Contemporary Review, December, 1900. E. M.

Penal System in France. M. Cuche, in noting the differences or divergencies between the report made to the congress of Brussels by the government official of prisons on. L? tat penal et penitentiaire de la France and a memoir prepared on the same subject, brings out some points applicable to the system of prisons and peniten- tiaries in general.

The practice of indeterminate or cumulative sentences for criminals has had some degree of testing since 1893, and during this time its seems to have reduced the number of first convictions, as well as those of returned convicts ; but it is evident that this beneficial result has been due, not to the prison itself, but to those who pass sen- tence ; for they give a much severer penalty to one who falls after having had a res- pite than to one who has had no such extenuation. " The fear of the prison has shown itself much more effective than the prison itself."

One fault of the system in France is that the supervision is given to the depart- ment of the interior, which is already overworked, instead of being given to the min- ister of justice.

The government report for France says that, " if the system and the discipline propose as their chief aim the reform of the prisoners whom they discipline, they yet retain a nature of severity sufficient to intimidate those who are the most corrupt." In criticism of this the writer says that, if we would state the truth, the proportions of intimidation and of reform as quoted above would necessarily be reversed, for " the only efficiency that our penitentiary system can claim, with its prisons in common, its insufficient personnel, and its veritable and homeopathic doses of moral and reli- gious influences, is its power to intimidate, and to inspire some fear in those who are punished." Not even in Belgium, where the penal regime may be considered among the best, is it claimed that it is the principal aim to reform the prisoner. Under the real conditions in France "one cannot hope that prisoners will go out better, but one can only hope that they may not go out worse ; for one of the greatest injustices that society can commit against one of its members is to degrade that member by punish- ing him."

The writer finds also that one evil of the French system is in the personnel of the prison management, and the extreme difficulty of having capable men for this work on account of the disfavor in which society holds such positions.

One principle at the bottom of the educating policy of prison reform is that " ignorance and misery are the two great recruiting forces for crime." But instruction alone is no deterrent from crime, but often abets it by the skill it gives, and the actual figures from some provinces of France show that the so-called parallelism between crime and illiteracy is not true. More effective than literacy in improving a man is work. And so this work regime is to be preferred to the reforming, con- ditional-sentence scheme. M. P. CUCHE, Professeur adjoint a la Facultd de droit de Grenoble, " Etat actuel de Systeme pe*nal et penitentiaire en France," in Revue peni- tentiaire, December 1900. T. J. R.