What folly can equal the plan of bundling a decent man or youth into the prison van, and putting all the machinery of prison into operation because he cannot pay forthwith a few shillings! 2. The old law of restitution and reparation must be revised. The First Offenders Act, now superseded by the Probation Act, was not an unmixed blessing, for, while it kept thousands of dishonest persons out of prison, it never convinced them of the serious nature of dishonesty. To use their own expression, “they were jolly well out of it”; consequently the wrong done to the individual was not impressed upon them. The law had been satisfied, to them nothing else mattered. At the instigation of the Howard Association, Mr. Gladstone added a clause to the Probation Act empowering courts of summary jurisdiction to order restitution for goods or money stolen up to the value of £10. But magistrates do not put this clause in force; yet such a clause is not only just, but merciful. Nothing can be worse for a young rogue than to know that he has stolen a considerable sum of money, and spent it in wicked waste without anything happening to him. Undoubtedly prison is bad for youths, for a month soon goes, but during that time character, aspiration and industry go also. For the life of me I cannot see why orders for restitution should not be made; neither can I see any objection to our numerous probation officers having charge of these cases and collecting by instalments the money ordered. For nothing will so effectually bring home to dishonest youths the enormity of the offences more than compulsion to pay back that which they have stolen. Restitution would also be the greatest punishment for adult offenders in this direction. For the forger, the burglar, the maker of counterfeit coins, the manufacturer of spurious notes, and all clever, calculating and persistent rogues other methods should be tried, for prison cannot demoralise them. But for a first offender, even though he be of years, who has committed some breach of honesty, restitution seems the most effective way: the only reasonable plan for the prevention of demoralisation and the expense of prison. Given, then, reasonable time for the payment of fines, a thorough application of the Probation Act, and the establishment of compulsory but limited restitution—given these, half our prisons may be closed. Quite recently the governor of a large London prison declared that one-fourth of the daily average of his prisoners ought not to be in prison at all. I believe that statement to be below, not beyond the truth. We can easily see that if our prison population were reduced by one-half, great reforms would naturally follow in prison administration. Practically there would be the same amount of work to do in prison, for the various government departments would still require the commodities that prison labour supplies.