To continue our illustrations of penal substitutes, we see that the substitution of metallic money for a paper medium decreases the number of forgers, who on the contrary had defied penal servitude for life. False money is more easily detected than a spurious note.[14]--Money dealers and dealers in precious stones have done more than any punishment to check the crime of usury, as was shown in the case of Spain, after her American conquests; whereas medi<ae>val punishments never prevented the recrudescence of usury in one form or another. Popular and Agricultural Credit Banks, which are practically within the reach of all, are more efficacious against usury in our own days than the special repressive laws enacted once more in Germany and Austria, under the influence of the old illusion.--With the diminution of interest on the public funds the stream of capital has been diverted into commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, thus warding off stagnation, with the <p 123>bankruptcies, forgeries, frauds, &c., which result therefrom.--The adjustment of salaries to the needs of public officials, and to general economic conditions, stems the tide of corruption and embezzlement, which were partly due to their concealed poverty.--Limited hours of duty for the responsible services on which the safety of the public depends, as for instance in railway stations, are far more serviceable in preventing accidents than the useless punishment of those who are guilty of manslaughter.--High-roads, railways, and tramways disperse predatory bands in rural districts, just as wide streets and large and airy dwellings, with public lighting and the destruction of slums, prevent robbery with violence, concealment of stolen goods, and indecent assaults.--Inspection of workshops and shorter hours for children's labour, with their superintendence of married women, may be a check on indecent assaults, which penal servitude does not prevent.--Cheap workmen's dwellings, and general sanitary measures for houses both in urban and rural districts, care being taken not to crowd them with poor families, tend to physical health, as well as to prevent many forms of immorality.--Co-operative and mutual societies, provident societies and insurance against old age, funds for sick and infirm workmen, employers' liability for accidents during work, from machinery or otherwise; popular savings' banks, charity organisation societies and the like, obviate a large number of offences against property and the person much better than a penal code.--I have maintained in the Italian Parliament that the reform of religious <p 124>charities, which in Italy represent funds to the amount of two milliards, might lead to the prevention of crime.--Measures for the discouragement of mendicity and vagrancy, above all agricultural colonies, as in Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Austria, would be the best penal substitute for the very frequent offences committed by vagabonds. Thus it may be