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 could have no tendency to increase the sum total of crime in England; on the contrary, it would tend directly to diminish it. And if these criminals were transported to a far distant settlement, in which, after their period of punishment had expired, new scenes and new circumstances would open up to them new prospects, (while their hopeless removal from the theatre of their former crimes would also shield them from the influence of their former temptations,) I am confident that, in the greater number of instances, they would also manifest new dispositions, by pursuing a new course of life.

3. And surely such a mode of treating a criminal, (I mean, a criminal who has already undergone punishment in England,) is unspeakably more humane than the one recommended by Archbishop Whately, and pursued in the United States of America,—that of sentencing him again and again to imprisonment and hard labour in gaols and penitentiaries, till at last, in perfect recklessness, he comes to regard a prison as his home and his country;—and the hopeless condition of his existence, that of enmity towards the whole human race.

"That a punishment," observes Beccaria, "may not be an act of violence of one or of many against a private member of society, it should be public,