After giving the last of a course of weekly lectures to youths under twenty-one in one of our provincial prisons, I spoke a few friendly words to them, and asked those to put up their hands who had been previously in prison. A number of hands were put up. On questioning them, I found that they by no means resented short terms of imprisonment alternated with irresponsible liberty.
During the present summer, when commencing a similar course of lectures in one of our large London prisons, I asked the youthful prisoners who had previously met me to put up their hands. Here again a number of hands went up. I found, to my astonishment, at least six youths who had listened to my lectures in other prisons were detained in this particular prison. I could not help telling them that I thought my lectures had not done them much good. "We liked them, sir," was the response. "Well," I said, "I wish those addresses had been a great deal better or a great deal worse; they were not good enough to keep you out of prison, neither were they bad enough to frighten you away."
What place is there in strenuous life for such young fellows? The difficulties outside a prison's wall are so great that they cannot face them. But the saddest part of it is that they do not want to face them, and it must be confessed that they have not the slightest idea how to do so.
Weakness, then, not wickedness, is the great characteristic of what are termed "the criminal classes." Who can rescue them? Who can reform them? No one, unless they can infuse into their very bones, blood, and marrow the essence of vigour and the germ of self-reliance. Prisoners' Aid Societies are powerless with them. Church Army and Salvation Army and all the Labour Homes combined can do nothing with them or for them; for prison life is easier than wood-chopping, and the comforts of prison are superior to those of a Labour Home. The Borstal system is good, so far as it goes, but it does not go half far enough; it is not vigorous enough. Possibly, if these young men were detained three times as long as they are at present, and given three times the amount of work they have to do at the present time, with the rough up-to-date technical training, many of them would profit; but I am certain that no half-measures can be effectual with the large army of young prisoners who have either acquired or inherited the love of an idle and irresponsible life.