From a long and tolerably intimate observation of the lower strata of the London population, and of the results of various methods adopted to check the progress of crime, I am convinced that what is called police surveillance, as it is conducted in this country, is altogether mischievous in relation to any probable reformation of the offender. Even if it be denied (as it has been) that it is a practice of police-constables to give to persons employing a discharged prisoner, information conveyed in such a way as to lead to the loss of employment and despair of obtaining an honest living, it is quite certain that the constant dread of being branded as a returned {279} felon, and the hopeless dogged temper which such a condition produces, must be enormous obstacles to true reclamation. The man who could really surmount them must, whatever may have been his casual crime, be possessed of a hardy and indomitable desire for virtue which should challenge our profound respect. But, apart from what may be called legitimate surveillance of convicts by the police, it is unfortunately notorious that members of "the force," who occupy positions as detectives, or "active and intelligent officers," employ agents of their own to bring them information, and that these agents, being men of bad character—frequently thieves—are interested for their own safety's sake in providing "charges," or "putting up cases," by conveying information of suspected persons. This is according to the old evil traditions that have descended to constables from the time of Jonathan Wild, and probably earlier; but it is obvious that where such nefarious tools are employed for obtaining evidence which will suffice to sustain a charge and convict a prisoner, there is constant danger to those who, having been once sentenced for crime, are not only peculiarly liable to be drawn into fresh offences, but are, from their position, easily made the victims of cunningly-laid traps for their re-arrest, on a suspicion that is readily endorsed, because of their previous conviction and the knowledge of all their antecedents. It is the removal of discharged prisoners from this probability, and from the kind of interposition that forbids their return to the paths of honesty, and so actually produces "a criminal class," that is, in my opinion, the best distinction of a Society like this.