intention for the restoration of his character, so painfully struggled for. [1] High wages, if we reflect that, with all expenses paid, a prisoner may gain from five to ten sous a day. How many workmen are there who can save such a sum? And in this way: A hardened, discharged convict proposes a job to a repentant comrade; the latter, in spite of bitter menaces, refuses this criminal association; forthwith an anonymous information reveals the life of the unfortunate fellow who was desirous, at every sacrifice, of concealing and expiating a first fault by honourable behaviour. Then, exposed to the contempt, or, at least, the distrust, of those whose good-will he had acquired by dint of industry and probity, this man, reduced to distress, and urged by want, yielding at length to incessant temptations, although nearly restored to society, will again fall, and for ever, into the depths of that abyss whence he had escaped with such difficulty. In the following scenes we shall endeavour to demonstrate the monstrous and inevitable consequences of confinement in masses. After ages of barbarous experiments and pernicious hesitations, it seemed suddenly understood how irrational it is to plunge into an atmosphere of deepest vice persons whom a pure and salubrious air could alone save. How many centuries to discover that, in placing in dense contact diseased beings, we redouble the intensity of their malignity, which is thus rendered incurable! How many centuries to discover that there is, in a word, but one remedy for this overwhelming leprosy which threatens society,--isolation! We should esteem ourselves happy if our feeble voice could be, if not relied upon, at least spread amongst all those which, more imposing, more eloquent than our own, demand with such just and impatient urgency the entire and unqualified application of the cell system. One day, perchance, society will know that wickedness is an accidental, not an organic malady; that crimes are almost always the results of perverted instincts, impulses, still good in their essence, but falsified, rendered evil, by ignorance, egotism, or the carelessness of governments; and that the health of the soul, like that of the body, is unquestionably kept subordinate to the laws of a healthy and preserving system of control.