A large number of good people are tarred with this brush, for I have received scores of letters at different times from persons who required either servants or assistants of some sort, and who were willing to take, with a view to their reformation, some girl or woman who had gone wrong, or some man who was down, the condition being that I should recommend them. ‘What are the duties? What is the payment? What references can you give?’ I have always inquired of them. I invariably found that the duties were numerous and heavy, and the pay about half the current rate. The question of references was often taken as a gratuitous insult on my part; but I had good reasons for the question, and I could not think of sending any broken sinner who had some desire of amendment to any place or situation where that hope would soon be extinguished, or where their labour would altogether be inadequately rewarded. I have sent back to their homes, in various parts of England, women, healthy, strong, and useful, who have been sent up to London to be ‘rescued,’ and after being ‘rescued’ have been sent out to drudgery at half a crown or three shillings per week, with certain deductions. Needless to say, they found their way into our police courts.
I do not want men and women bribed to be good, for goodness so obtained would be shoddy stuff. I do not want criminals and offenders to have an easier time or, indeed, as easy a path in life as the honest, sober, and industrious; nay, with all my soul, I protest against the lives of decent people being made harder and their difficulties increased by ill-considered efforts in rescue work. It avails little to set up Peter and knock Paul down, yet this must inevitably be the result if fallen men and women are to do vast quantities of useful work for little or no remuneration; but I do want fallen men and women to have some chance of reform, and I do pray that the return path to rectitude and decency may not be made too thorny.
How to right one wrong without creating another is then the problem, and it is almost insoluble--almost, but, I venture to think, not quite. We must, however, begin at the beginning. Our prisons should be the starting-place, and these must no longer be ‘vengeance houses.’ The law must be satisfied, I know; but surely the law ought to be satisfied with the protection of society and the punishment of the criminal, without also claiming as its due the demoralization of the prisoner. I say advisedly, after taking counsel with and making friends of many who have been only too familiar with prison, that the present methods conduce to that state of mind and body which renders discharged prisoners almost certain to commit crime. Crime, generally, is the result of some peculiar condition of the mind or, it may be, of the body of the perpetrator. I cannot differentiate, but men whose business it is to know should be able to do so. Certain actions follow, and we say that crime has been committed, and that the criminal is morally diseased; so we proceed to take vengeance upon him. It would be considered insanity if physical or mental disease were so treated.