Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/136

 large number of honest, high-principled, just men and women, to carry out the solitary system with impartiality, firmness, and, at the same time, kindness. This reason was strongly corroborated by the governors of Cold Bath Fields Prison, and the great Central Prison at Beaulieu. Their own large experience had taught them the difficulty of securing officers in all respects fit to be trusted with the administration of such a system.

3rd. The very frequent result of the administration of this system by incompetent or unfit officers would be the moral contamination of the prisoners.

4th. The enormous expense of providing officers and accommodation sufficient to include all the criminals of a country.

5th. The certainty of injury to body and mind from the continuance of solitude for life. The digestive and vocal organs, and the reason would inevitably suffer. In proof she quoted the notorious imbecility of the aged monks of La Trappe: “We are credibly informed of the fact (in addition to what we have known at home) that amongst the monks of La Trappe few attain the age of sixty years without having suffered an absolute decay of their mental powers, and fallen into premature childishness.”

6th. The danger lest increased solitude instead of promoting repentance, should furnish favourable hours for the premeditation of new crimes, and so confirm the criminal in hardened sin.

7th. The impossibilyimpossibility [sic] of fitting the prisoners for returning to society under the system; whereas by teaching them useful employments and trades, and training them to work in company for remuneration, habits and customs may be induced which should aid in a life-long reformation.