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 658  present, who showed us a table of the offences which had been committed by the men among whom we had been walking without fear or suspicion. We were astounded to find that they had been guilty of almost every conceivable offence. There were highway robbers, burglars, &c.; murderers, only, are not admitted here, but must finish their term of imprisonment under the closer confinement of the prisons. We were particularly anxious to ascertain this fact, having heard it asserted that the inmates of the Irish convict prisons were of a lower grade of crime than those in the sister country. This is not the case, and the table which he presented to us is a satisfactory proof of this.

Therefore 94 out of the 118 are known “Old Offenders,” some of the remainder being known to the police as bad characters, although not known to have been before convicted in the same county.

It is said, also, that the English are more unmanageable than the Irish. Our own experience of the criminals of both nations would be directly the reverse of this. There are, besides, many English in the Irish convict prisons, and many Irish convicts in the English prisons, but their peculiar nationality does not render any different treatment necessary. The objection is futile. The principles and the system which have happily been the means of bringing these outcasts of society into the orderly, respectful, self-controlled men whom we saw, are founded on universal conditions of human nature, and if proved true in one place may be readily adapted to another by men who, like Captain Crofton, comprehend them, and possess the personal qualities which are requisite to carry them out. What those qualities are, and what are the peculiarities of the plans, we more fully ascertained on our visits to the other prisons which form part of the whole system. On this occasion we were anxious to learn the actual truth, and of that we were fully satisfied. The testimony of the labour master was no more than we were prepared to expect.

“I have been engaged on various public works,” he said, “for thirty years, yet never before have I had under me a set of men so well conducted, so free from bad language, so attentive to their duty.”

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