(4)

(From a Letter to the Home Secretary, the Right Hon. Herbert John Gladstone, M.P., October, 1909.)

“. . . Every day that passes with this question undealt with means so many thousand hours of solid, tangible, harmful, removable misery. There is a distinction between this particular kind of misery and any other experienced by man in a state of society such as we now have in England. There is no other form of acute, prolonged misery enforced on people in such a way as that they can by no possibility avoid it. The old saying, ‘He deserves all he’ll get and more,’ stultifies itself the moment it is looked into; the plea of deterrence does not hold water; and this misery stands out stark—a survival from the philosophy (!) of the dark ages. . . .”

Note.—Solitary (or separate) confinement for convicts has been reduced from nine, six, and three months to three months for “old hands,” and one month for the other two classes of convicts. But the writer feels as strongly as ever that, except in special cases, it should be done away with altogether.—J. G.