As I have endeavoured to show, the best time for treating with these unhardened criminals for their reform, is just before they leave the prison at the expiration of their sentence, or so soon as they have crossed its threshold and find themselves free men. But even if they are here missed and allowed to go their sinful way, it is not absolutely necessary to postpone the good work until the law lays hold on them again. The dens to which they retire are not impregnable. They do not live in fortified caves, the doors of which are guarded by savage dogs and by members of the gang armed with swords and pistols. It is wonderful how docile and respectful they will behave towards folk who visit them, treating them as nothing worse than fellow creatures suffering under a great misfortune, and not as savage creatures of prey who have forfeited all claim to human nature, and are fit only to be scourged and branded. A writer already quoted tells us that during two years in one of the largest towns in England he had unlimited access to the thieves’ quarter at all hours and under any circumstances—weddings, midnight gatherings, “benefit nights,” public houses, he has visited them all. “How I gained the confidence of the criminal fraternity I cannot say. I only sought their welfare, never went amongst them without some good errand, never asked questions about their affairs, or meddled with things that did not belong to me; and it is due to the thieves themselves to say that I never received from any of them, whether drunk or sober, an unkind look or a disrespectful word. . . . I had not pursued my quiet mission amongst the thieves many months without discovering the damning fact that they had no faith in the sincerity, honesty, or goodness of human nature; and that this last and vilest scepticism of the human heart was one of the most powerful influences at work in the continuation of crime. They believe people in general to be no better than themselves, and that most people will do a wrong thing if it serves their purpose. They consider themselves better than many “square” (honest) people who practise commercial frauds. Not having a spark of faith in human nature their ease is all but hopeless; and only those who have tried the experiment can tell how difficult it is to make a thief believe that you are really disinterested and mean him well. Nevertheless, the agencies that are at work for the arrest of crime are all more or less working to good purpose, and conducing to a good end. Had I previously known nothing of the zeal and labour that have been expended during the last few years in behalf of the criminal population, I should have learned from my intercourse with the thieves themselves, that a new spirit was getting amongst them, and that something for their good was going on outside thievedom. The thieves, the worst of them, speak gloomily of the prospects of the fraternity; just as a Red Indian would complain of the