Italian city states. Noteworthy among these were the famous priores artis at Florence. These were appointed governors of the Florentine republic when the Companies of the Arts seized the government in 1282. The term prior was most commonly used to denote the superiors in a monastery, at first with an indefinite significance, but later, as monastic institutions crystallized, describing certain definite officials. In the Rule of St Benedict and other early rules the titles praepositus and praelatus (see PRELATE) are generally used, but prior is also found signifying in a general way the superiors and elders in a monastery. When used by St Benedict in the singular number it seems (according to the commentator Menard) to denote the abbot himself. At a later date in the order of St Benedict the title was applied to the monk next in authority to the abbot, though this usage was not adopted technically until the 13th century. In some monasteries several priors were to be found and generally at least two. Thus we find the terms prior, sub-prior, tertius prior, quartus prior, quintus prior. The first prior was sometimes called prior major, sometimes prior claustralis. Occasionally both titles are found in one house, the latter ranking below the former. The first prior acted as vicar in all matters in the absence of the abbot, and was generally charged with the details of the discipline of the monastery. With the foundation of the order of Cluny in the 10th century there appeared the conventual prior who ruled as head of a monastery, but was subject in some degree to the archiabbas of the mother-house of Cluny. The Regular Canons later gave this title of prior to the heads of their houses, as did also the Carthusians and the Dominicans. It was in houses of these orders that the sub-prior became a regular official. Among the Dominicans the head of a province is known as the "prior provincial." In the order of St John of Jerusalem (q.v.) a priory was a group of commanderies ruled by a "grand prior." The term prior was applied also in the middle ages in a very general manner. Thus there was the prior scholae or leader of the choir, prior scriniariorum, &c. See Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, new edition by L. Favre (Niort, 1883, &c.); Sir William Smith and S. Cheetham, edd. Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (1875-1880). (E. O'N.) PRISCIAN [PRISCIANUS CAESARIENSIS), the celebrated Latin grammarian, lived about A.D. 500, i.e. somewhat before Justinian. This is shown by the facts that he addressed to Anastasius, emperor of the East (491-518), a laudatory poem, and that the MSS. of his Institutiones grammaticae contain a subscription to the effect that the work was copied (526, 527) by Flavius Theodorus, a clerk in the imperial secretariat. Three minor treatises are dedicated to Symmachus (the father-in-law of Boëtius). Cassiodorus, writing in the ninety-third year of his age (560? 573?), heads some extracts from Priscian with the statement that he taught at Constantinople in his (Cassiodorus's) time (Keil, Gr. Lat. vii. 207). His title Caesariensis points, according to Niebuhr and others, to Caesarea in Mauretania. Priscian's teacher was Theoctistus, who also wrote an Institutio artis grammaticae. Priscian was quoted by several writers in Britain of the 8th century-Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin-and was abridged or largely used in the next century by Hrabanus Maurus of Fulda and Servatus Lupus of Ferrières. There is hardly a library in Europe that did not and does not contain a copy of his great work, and there are about a thousand MSS. of it. The greater part of these contain only books i.-xvi. (sometimes | called Priscianus major); a few contain (with the three books Ad Symmachum) books xvii., xviii. (Priscianus minor); and a few contain both parts. The earliest MSS. are of the 9th century, though a few fragments are somewhat earlier. All are ultimately derived from the copy made by Theodorus. The first printed edition was in 1470 at Venice. The Institutiones grammaticae is a systematic exposition of Latin grammar, dedicated to Julian, consul and patrician, whom some have identified with the author of a well-known epitome of Justinian's Novellae, but the lawyer appears to be somewhat later than Priscian. It is divided into eighteen books, of which the first sixteen deal mainly with sounds, word-formation and inflexions; the last two, which form from a fourth to a third of the whole work, deal with syntax. Priscian informs us in his preface that he has translated into Latin such precepts of the Greeks Herodian and Apollonius as seemed suitable, and added to them from Latin grammarians. He has preserved to us numerous fragments which would otherwise have been lost, e.g. from Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, Lucilius, Cato and Varro. But the authors whom he quotes most frequently are Virgil, and, next to him, Terence, Cicero, Plautus; then Lucan, Horace, Juvenal, Sallust, Statius, Ovid, Livy and Persius. His industry in collecting forms and examples is both great and methodical, His style is somewhat heavy, but sensible and clear; it is free, not of course from usages of Late Latin, but from anything that can be called barbarism. Its defects may be referred in the main to four heads. (1) Priscian avowedly treats Greek writers on (Greek) grammar as his supreme authorities; and bears too little in mind that each has a history of its own and is a law to itself. (2) There had been no scientific study of phonetics, and consequently the changes and combinations of languages are treated in a mechanical way: c.g. i passes into a, as genus, generis, generatum; into o, as saxi, saxosus; q passes into s,as torqueo, torsi, &c. (3) The resolution of a word into root or stem and inflexional or derivative affixes was an idea wholly unknown, and the rules of formation are often based on unimportant phenomena; e.g. Venus, like other names ending in us, ought to have genitive Veni, but, as this might be taken for a verb, it has Veneris. Ador has no genitive because two rules conflict; for neuters in or have a short penult (e.g. aequor, acquoris), and adoro, from which it is derived, has a long penult. (4) The practical meaning of the inflexions is not realized, and syntactical usages are treated as if they were arbitrary or accidental associations. Thus, after laying down as a general rule for declinable words that, when they refer to one and the same person, they must have the same case, gender and number, Priscian adds that when there are transitive words we may use different numbers, as doceo discipulos, docemus discipulum. He often states a rule too broadly or narrowly, and then, as it were, gropes after restrictions and extensions. His etymologies are of course sometimes very wild: e.g. caelebs from caelestium vitam ducens, b being put for consonantal u because a consonant cannot be put before another consonant; deterior from the verb detero, deteris; potior (adj.) from potior, poliris; arbor from robur; verbum from verberatus aeris, &c. Nor is he always right in Greek usages. Priscian's three short treatises dedicated to Symmachus are on weights and measures, the metres of Terence, and some rhetorical elements (exercises translated from the Пpoyvμváσμara of Hermogenes). He also wrote De nomine, pronomine, et verbo (an abridgment of part of his Institutiones), and an interesting specimen of the school teaching of grammar in the shape of complete parsing by question and answer of the first twelve lines of the Aeneid (Partitiones xii. versuum Aeneidos principalium). The metre is discussed first, each verse is scanned, and each word thoroughly and instructively examined. A treatise on accents is ascribed to Priscian, but is rejected by modern writers on the ground of matter and language. He also wrote two poems, not in any way remarkable, viz. a panegyric on Anastasius in 312 hexameters with a short iambic introduction, and a faithful translation into 1087 hexameters of Dionysius's Periegesis or geographical survey of the world. The best edition of the grammatical works is by Hertz and Keil, in Keil's Grammatici latini, vols. ii., iii.; poems in E. Bährens' Poetae latini minores, the Periegesis" also, in C. W. Müller, See J. E. Sandys, History of Geographi graeci minores, vol. ii. Classical Scholarship (ed. 1906), pp. 272 sqq. PRISCILLIAN (d. 385), Spanish theologian and the founder of a party which, in spite of severe persecution for heresy, continued to subsist in Spain and in Gaul until after the middle of the 6th century. He was a wealthy layman who had devoted his life to a study of the occult sciences and the deeper problems of philosophy. He was largely a mystic and regarded the Christian " nothing that Jerome might not have written," and go far to justify the description of Priscillian as the first martyr buined by a Spanish Inquisition." See E. Ch. Babut, Priscillian et le Priscillianisme (Paris, 1909). (A. J. G1) PRISCUS, of Panium in Thrace, Greek sophist and historian, lived during the 5th century A.D. He accompanied Maximin, the ambassador of Theodosius the Younger, to the court of Attila (448). During the reign of Marcian (450-457) he also took part in missions to Arabia and the Egyptian Thebaid. Priscus was the author of an historical work in eight books (Bučavτiviký) 'Iaropia), probably from the accession of Attila to that of Zeno (433-474). Only fragments of the work remain, but the description of Attila and his court and the account of the reception of the Roman ambassadors is a most valuable piece of contemporary history. Priscus's style is pure, and his impartiality and trustworthiness entitle him to an honourable place among the writers of his time. life as continual intercourse with God. His favourite idea is that which St Paul had expressed in the words "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" and he argued that to make himself a fit habitation for the divine a man must, besides holding the Catholic faith and doing works of love, renounce marriage and earthly honour, and practise a hard asceticism. It was on the question of continence in, if not renunciation of, marriage, that he came into conflict with the authorities. Priscillian and his sympathizers, who were organized into bands of spiritales and abstinentes, like the Cathari of later days, indignantly refused the compromise which by this time the Church had established in the matter (see MARRIAGE: Canon | Law). This explains the charge of Manichaeism levelled against | Priscillian (Jerome, for his talk of the Sordes nuptiarum, had been similarly accused, and to escape popular indignation had retired to Bethlehem),' and to this was added the accusation of magic and licentious orgies. Among the more prominent of Priscillian's friends were two bishops, named Instantius and Salvianus, and Hyginus of Cordova also joined the party; but, through the Fragments and life in C. W. Müller, Fragrienta_historicorum exertions of Idacius of Emerita, the leading Priscillianists, who graecorum, iv. 69-110; v. 24-26, ed. B. G. Niebuhr in Bonn, Corpus had failed to appear before the synod of Spanish and Aquitanian scriptorum hist. byzantinae (1829), vol. vi., and L. Dindorf in Historici bishops to which they had been summoned, were excommuni-graeci minores (1870), vol. i. For the embassy to Attila see Gibbort, Decline and Fall, ch. 34. cated at Saragossa in October 380. Meanwhile, however, Priscillian was made bishop of Avila, and the orthodox party found it necessary to appeal to the emperor (Gratian), who issued an edict threatening the sectarian leaders with banishment. Priscillian, Instantius and Salvianus succeeded, however, in procuring the withdrawal of Gratian's edict, and the attempted arrest of Ithacius of Ossonuba. On the murder of Gratian and accession of Maximus (383) Ithacius fled to Treves, and in consequence of his representations a synod was held (384) at Bordeaux, where Instantius was deposed. Priscillian appealed to the emperor, with the unexpected result that with six of his companions he was burned alive at Treves in 385. The first instance of the application of the Theodosian law against heretics had the approval of the synod which met at Treves in the same year, but Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours can claim the glory of having in some measure stayed the hand of persecution. The heresy, notwithstanding the severe measures taken against it, continued to spread in France as well as in Spain; in 412 Lazarus, bishop of Aix in Provence, and Herod, bishop of Arles, were expelled from their sees on a charge of Manichaeism. Proculus, the metropolitan of Marseilles, and the metropolitans of Vienne and Narbonensis Secunda were also followers of the rigorous tradition for which Priscillian had died. Something was done for its repression by a synod held by Turibius of Astorga in 446, and by that of Toledo in 447; as an openly professed creed it wholly disappeared after the second synod of Braga in 563. "The official church," says F. C. Conybeare, "had to respect the ascetic spirit to the extent of enjoining celibacy upon its priests, and of recognizing, or rather immuring, such of the laity as desired to live out the old ascetic ideal. But the official teaching of Rome would not allow it to be the ideal and duty of every Christian. Priscillian perished for insisting that it was such; and seven centuries later the Church began to burn the Cathari by thousands because they took a similar view of the Christian life." The long prevalent estimation of Priscillian as a heretic and Manichaean rested upon Augustine, Turibius of Astorga, Leo the Great and Orosius, although at the Council of Toledo in 400, fifteen years after Priscillian's death, when his case was reviewed, the most serious charge that could be brought was the error of language involved in rendering ȧyénros by innascibilis. It was long thought that all the writings of the "heretic "himself had perished, but in 1885, G. Schepss discovered at Würzburg eleven genuine tracts, since published in the Vienna Corpus. "They contain nothing that is not orthodox and commonplace, 1 Cf. the outbreak at Rome in 384 against the gymnosophists, emaciated monks who walked the streets and vehemently denounced marriage. The epistles of Pope Siricius (who wished to stand well with the people) are full of scorn for these ascetics, and the Leonine sacramentary contains prayers which severely denounce them. PRISCUS, a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, of the school of Iamblichus and Aedesius. He died about the year 398 at the age of ninety. The emperor Julian frequently invited him to court on the strength of his reputation in connexion with theurgy. Eunapius says that he was a man of dignified and austere habit. Unlike Maximus, he used his influence over Julian with great moderation. He died during the Gothic invasion of Greece (A.D. 396-98). He is important partly as maintaining the best traditions of philosophy during a period when Neoplatonism as a whole was a parasite of imperial power, and partly as being a connecting link between Iamblichus and Plutarch of Athens. See Zeller's Hist. of Greek Phil. PRISHTINA, PRICHTINA, or PRISTINA, the chief town of a sanjak in the vilayet of Kossovo, Albania, European Turkey; on a small tributary of the river Sitnítza, an affluent of the Ibar, and 3 m. E. of the Prishtina station on the Salonica-Mitrovitza railway. Pop. (1905), about 11,000. Prishtina is the seat of a governor-general and of a general of division, and possesses many mosques, a military hospital and a higher class school. The trade is considerable, the exports including chrome, wheat, maize, barley, skins, wine and timber from the magnificent beech forests in the sanjak. The plain of Kossovo (Kossovopolye, "Field of Blackbirds "), to the west, was the scene of the battle in which the Servian empire was destroyed by the Turks in 1389. To the south-east lies the partly ruined monastery of Grachanitza founded by King Milutin of Servia (1275-1321). Among the frescoes are a remarkable head of Christ in the dome, and portraits of the founder and his queen Simonida, daughter of Andronicus II. Palaeologus. See G. M. M. Mackenzie and A. P. Irby, Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey (1877), PRISM (Gr. прioua, properly a thing sawn, πpiɲew, to saw), in geometry a solid enclosed by plane surfaces, two of which, termed the ends, are parallel, equal, similar and similarly situated polygons, and the faces connecting the ends are parallelograms, equal in number to the sides of the polygon. If the faces be perpendicular to the ends the prism is a "right prism," and the faces are rectangles; otherwise the prism is "oblique." The axis is the line joining the centres of the ends. It may be generated by moving a plane (corresponding to an end or base) parallel to itself. A prismoid differs from a prism in having for its ends two dissimilar parallel figures. For illustrations see CRYSTALLOGRAPHY, and for the mensuration see that article. In optics the word denotes a triangular prism, i.e. one having a triangle for base, used to decompose white light. (See REFRACTION and DISPERSION.) PRISON (derived through the Fr. from the Lat. prehensio, seizure), a place for the confinement or compulsory restraint of persons after arrest or sentence by arbitrary authority or process | employed in remunerative labour, in the profits of which they of law. Penalties. The earliest object sought in imprisonment was to secure the person of the accused to ensure his appearance before his judges for trial, and after conviction to produce him Early to take his punishment. They were applied to other uses less justifiable or defensible; they served to execute the will of the despotic master upon all who set themselves in opposition to his authority, or were decreed, more or less wisely but still arbitrarily, by a government in the best interests of society, organized for the general good. Coercion and intimidation slowly came to be leading ideas, the infliction of a lesser penalty than the capital. The deprivation of liberty under irksome circumstances, rough lodging, hard fare and perpetual labour was after all a milder measure than death, although long years elapsed before the prison was so used. Penal codes depended rather upon shorter and more cruel methods; the scaffold was in constant use, with all manner of physical pain, torture before and after sentence, shameful exposure, hideous mutilation, exile, selling into bondage as slaves. Incarceration was no doubt practised by irresponsible masters, regardless of personal rights, callous to the sufferings of their victims, to which death by starvation or horrible neglect was a welcome relief. But consignment to a prison for lengthened periods was, as a penalty, of more recent introduction, and of still later date is the recognition of the duties incumbent upon the authority to use its powers mercifully by humane endeavours to reform and improve those on whom it laid hands. The progress made can only be realized by considering what prisons once were. The shocking picture drawn by John Howard Howard's of the state of prisons at the latter end of the 18th Reforms in century will last for all time. They were for the England. most part pestiferous dens, overcrowded, dark, foully dirty, not only ill ventilated, but deprived altogether of fresh air. The wretched inmates were dependent for food upon the caprice of their gaolers or the charity of the benevolent; water was denied them except in the scantiest proportions; their only bedding was putrid straw. Every one in durance, whether tried or untried, was heavily ironed. All alike were subject to the rapacity of their gaolers and the extortions of their fellows. Gaol fees were levied ruthlessly-" garnish" also, the tax or contribution paid by each individual to a common fund to be spent by the whole body, generally in drink. Idleness, drunkenness, vicious intercourse, sickness, starvation, squalor, cruelty, chains, awful oppression and everywhere culpable neglect-in these words may be summed up the state of the gaols at the time of Howard's visitation. At this time prisons were primarily places of detention, not of punishment, peopled by accused persons, still innocent in the eyes of the law, and debtors guilty only of breaches of the financial rules of a commercial country, framed chiefly in the interest of the creditor. Freedom from arrest was guaranteed by Magna Carta, save on a criminal charge, yet thousands were committed to gaol on legal fictions and retained indefinitely for costs far in excess of the original debt. The impecunious were locked up and deprived of all hope of earning means to obtain enlargement; while their families and persons dependent on them shared their imprisonment and added to the overcrowding. The prisons were always full. Gaol deliveries were of rare occurrence, even when tardy trial ended in acquittal release was delayed until illegal charges in the way of fees had been satisfied. In the article DEPORTATION it is shown how the discoveries in the southern seas led to the adoption of penal exile in preference to other suggested improvements in the English prison systems. The penitentiary scheme proposed by Howard was not, however, abandoned. It was revised and kept alive by Jeremy Bentham in his fanatical scheme for a "panopticon or inspection house," described as "a circular building, an iron cage glazed, a glass lantern as large as Ranelagh, with the cells on the outer circumference." His plan was to keep every inmate of every cell under constant close observation, and all were to be reformed by solitude and seclusion while constantly were to share. The scheme hung fire, owing, it was alleged, to the personal hostility of George III. to Bentham as an advanced radical. Lands were, however, purchased which were eventually taken over by the government and utilized for the erection of Millbank penitentiary, begun in 1813 and partially completed in 1816. It was now fully recognized that the reformation of prisoners could best be attempted by seclusion, “employment and religious instruction." Millbank, as a new and most enlightened undertaking in prison affairs, was opened with much éclat. It was to be governed by a specially appointed committee of distinguished personages, the chairman being the Speaker of the House of Commons. The sum total expended upon the buildings amounted to half a million of money, and the yearly charges of the establishment were a heavy burden on the exchequer. The erection of Millbank was a step in the right direction. The energy with which it was undertaken was the more remarkable because elsewhere throughout the United Kingdom the prisons, with few exceptions, remained deplorably bad. J. Neild, who in 1812 followed in the footsteps of John Howard, found that the old conditions remained unchanged. "The great reformation produced by Howard," to use Neild's own words," was merely temporary. . . prisons were relapsing into their former horrid state of privation, filthiness, severity and neglect." Yet the legislature was alive to the need for prison reform. Besides the building of Millbank it had promulgated many acts for the amelioration of prisoners. Gaol fees were once more distinctly abolished; the appointment of chaplains was insisted upon, and the erection of improved prison buildings was rendered imperative upon local authorities. But these, with other and much older acts, remained in abeyance. Thus an act which provided for the classification of prisoners had remained a dead letter; even the separation of the males from the females was not a universal rule. Roused by these crying evils, a small band of earnest men formed themselves into an association for the improvement of prison discipline. They perambulated the country inspecting the prisons; they issued lengthy interrogatories to prison officials; they published periodical reports giving the result of their inquiries, with their views on the true principles of prison management, and much sound advice, accompanied by elaborate plans on the subject of prison construction. The labours of this society brought out into strong relief the naked deformity of the bulk of the British gaols. Speaking of St Albans from his personal observation Mr (afterwards Sir T. F.) Buxton, a most active member of the society, said: "All were in ill health; almost all were in rags; almost all were filthy in the extreme. The state of the prison, the desperation of the prisoners, broadly hinted in their conversation and plainly expressed in their conduct, the uproar of oaths, complaints and obscenity, the indescribable stench, presented together a concentration of the utmost misery and the utmost guilt." The reports of the society laid bare the existence of similar horrors in numbers of other gaols. Yet this was in 1818, when the legislature was setting a praiseworthy example-when half a million had been spent in providing large airy cells for a thousand prisoners. Even in London itself, within easy reach of the palatial Millbank penitentiary, the chief prison of the city, Newgate, was in a disgraceful condition. This had been exposed by a parliamentary inquiry as far back as 1814, but nothing had been done to remedy the evils laid bare. The state of the female side had already attracted the attention of that devoted woman, Mrs Fry, whose ministrations and wonderful success no doubt encouraged, if they did not bring about, the formation of the Prison Society. Mrs Fry went first to Newgate in 1813, but only as a casual visitor. It was not until 1817 that she entered upon the noble work with which her name will ever be associated. She worked a miracle there in an incredibly short space of time. The ward into which she penetrated was like a den of wild beasts; it was filled with women unsexed, fighting, swearing, dancing, gaming, yelling and justly deserved its name of "hell above ground." Within a month it was transformed. and presented, says an eyewitness, "a scene where stillness and propriety reigned." The wild beasts were tamed. Movements similar to that which Mrs Fry headed were soon set on foot both in England and on the Continent, and public attention was generally directed to the urgent necessity for prison réform. Stimulated by the success achieved by Mrs Fry, the Prison Discipline Society continued its labours. Hostile critics were not wanting; many voices were raised in protest against the ultra-humanitarianism which sought to make gaols too comfortable and tended to pamper criminals. But the society pursued its objects, undeterred by sarcasm. Many of these are now accepted as axioms in prison treatment; for instance, that female officers only should have charge of female prisoners, that prisoners of both sexes should be kept apart and constantly employed. Yet these principles were unacknowledged at that time and were first enunciated in acts such as the 4 Geo. IV. c. 65 and the 5 Geo. IV. c. 85 (1823-1824), the passing of which were mainly due to the strenuous exertions of the Prison Discipline Society. It was laid down in these that over and above safe custody it was essential to preserve health, improve morals, and enforce hard labour on all prisoners sentenced to it. Irons were strictly forbidden except in cases of "urgent and absolute necessity," and it was ruled that every prisoner should have a bed to himself—if possible a separate cell, the last being the first formal statement of a principle upon which all future prison discipline was to be based. and sought to amend and reform the living. The note struck first in the Walnut Street penitentiary began a new era in prison treatment, and the methods adopted were destined to extend over the whole world. This was the germ of the nearly universal principle of individual confinement, and the origin of what some advanced thinkers have denounced as the greatest crime of the present age, the invention of the separate cell. It was and still is held by many that the criminal may be best and most effectually weaned from his evil ways by shutting him up for lengthy periods between four walls, and subjecting him, when most susceptible, to curative processes, to constant exhortation and searching introspection, changing his nature and restoring him to society a reformed man. It must be at once admitted that the system of isolation has produced no remarkable results. Solitary confinement has neither conquered nor appreciably diminished crime, even where it has been applied with extreme care, as in Belgium, and more recently in France, where it obtains strict and unbroken for long terms of years. Cloistered seclusion is an artificial condition quite at variance with human instincts and habits, and the treatment, long continued, has proved injurious to health, inducing mental breakdown. A slow death may be defended indeed on moral grounds if regeneration has been compassed, but it is only another form of capital punishment. Still the measures introduced in the United States and the action taken upon them fill a large page in prison historv and must be recorded here. Several states in the Union followed the lead of Pennsylvania. That of New York built the great Auburn penitentiary in 1816 to carry out the new principles. There every prisoner was kept continuously in complete isolation. He saw no one, spoke to no one, and did no work. Within a short period very deplorable results began to show themselves. Many prisoners became insane; health was generally impaired and life greatly endangered. Mr Crawford, whose mission to the United States has been already referred to, was in favour of solitary confinement, but he could not deny that several cases of suicide followed this isolation. Some relaxation of the disastrous severity seemed desirable, and out of this grew the second great system, which was presently introduced at Auburn and afterwards at the no less renowned prison of Sing Sing. It was called the silent system. While the prisoners were still separated at night or meals, they were suffered to labour in association, but under a rule of silence ruthlessly and rigorously maintained. The latter, entrusted to irresponsible subordinates, degenerated into a despotism which brought the system into great discredit. All discipline officers were permitted to wield the whip summarily and without the slightest check. Under such a system the most frightful excesses were possible and many cases of brutal cruelty were laid bare. Reviewing the merits and demerits of each system, Mr Crawford gave his adhesion to that of unvarying solitude as pursued in the Eastern penitentiary in Pennsylvania. The importance of these acts cannot be over-estimated as supplying a legal standard of efficiency by which all prisons could be measured. Still the progress of improvement was extremely slow, and the managers of gaols still evaded or ignored the acts. Many local authorities grudged the money to rebuild or enlarge their gaols; others varied much in their interpretation of the rules as to hard labour and the hours of employment. One great drawback to general reform was that a large number of small prisons lay beyond the reach of the law. Those under small jurisdictions in the boroughs and under the petty corporate bodies continued open to the strongest reprobation, and thus remained until they were swept away by the measure which brought about the reform of the municipal corporations in 1835. But by this time a still more determined effort had been made to establish some uniform and improved system of prison discipline. In 1831 a select committee of the House of Commons went into the whole subject of secondary punishment and reported that, as the difficulties in the way of an effective classification of prisoners were insurmountable, they were strongly in favour of the confinement of prisoners in separate cells, recommending that the whole of the prisons should be altered accordingly and the expense borne by the public exchequer. There can be little doubt that this committee was greatly struck by the superior methods of prison discipline pursued in the United States. The best American prisons had recently been visited by two eminent Frenchmen, J. A. de Beaumont and A. de Tocqueville, who spoke of them in terms of the highest praise. It was with the object of appropriating what was best in the American system Mr Crawford came back from the United States an ardent that Mr W. Crawford was despatched across the Atlantic on a champion of the solitary system. He saw, however, great special mission of inquiry. His exhaustive report, published difficulties in making this the universal rule, chief in 1834, was a valuable contribution to the whole question of among which was the enormous expense of provid- Separation. penal discipline. Another select committee, this time of the ing suitable prisons. Some modification of the rule House of Lords, returned to the subject in 1835, and after a long of unbroken solitude would be inevitable; but he strongly urged investigation re-enunciated the theory that all prisoners should its adoption for certain classes, and he was equally convinced be kept separate from one another. It also urged in strong of the imperative necessity for giving every prisoner a separate terms the necessity for one uniform system of treatment, more sleeping cell. It is clear that the government endorsed Mr especially as regarded dietaries, labour and education, and Crawford's views. Where it was possible they gave effect to strongly recommended the appointment of official inspectors them at once. At Millbank, with its spacious solitary cells, the to enforce obedience to the acts. These recommendations were rule of seclusion was more and more strictly enforced. Ere eventually adopted and formed the basis of a new departure. long permissive legislation strove to disseminate the new For fifty years transportation (see DEPORTATION) had been in principles. In 1830 Lord John Russell had given it as his England the principal form of secondary punishment for crime. opinion that cellular separation was desirable in all prisons. Primary or capital punishment still existed, but to a But it was not until 1839 that an act was passed which laid it American greatly modified extent. The pious Quakers of Penn- down that individuals might be confined separately in single sylvania at the end of the 18th century had realized cells. Even now the executive did not insist upon the conA deeper duty towards the offenders than their extinction,struction of prisons on a new plan. It only set a good example Progress. Cellular by undertaking the erection of one which should serve as a model | formed the principal part were organized at Bermuda and for the whole country. In 1840 the first stone of Pentonville prison was laid, and after three years of considerable outlay, its cells, 520 in number, were occupied on the solitary, or more exactly the separate system-the latter being somewhat less rigorous and irksome in its restraints. To the credit of many local jurisdictions, they speedily followed the lead of the central authority. Within half a dozen years no fewer than fifty-four new prisons were built on the Pentonville plan, which now began to serve generally as a "model" for imitation, not in England alone, but all over the world. Sir Joshua Jebb, who presided over its erection, may fairly claim indeed to be the author and originator of modern prison architecture. Gibraltar. Neither of these was a conspicuous success; they were too remote for effective supervision; and although they lingered on for some years they were finally abolished. The chief efforts of the authorities were directed to the formation of public works prisons at home, and here the most satisfactory results were soon obtained. The construction of a harbour of refuge at Portland had been recommended in 1845; in 1847 an act was passed to facilitate the purchase of land there, and a sum of money was taken in the estimates for the erection of a prison which was begun next year. At another point, Dartmoor, a prison already stood available, although it had not been occupied since the last war, when ten thousand French and American prisoners had been incarcerated in it. A little reconstruction made Dartmoor into a modern gaol, and in the waste lands around there was ample labour for any number of convict hands. Dartmoor was opened in 1850; two years later a convict prison was established at Portsmouth in connexion with the dockyard, and another of the same class at Chathan in 1856. The third stage in Sir George Grey's scheme contemplated the enforced emigration of released convicts, whom the discipline of separation and public works was supposed to have purged and purified, and who would have better hopes of entering on a new career of honest industry in a new country than when thrown back among vicious associations at home. The theory was good, the practice impossible. No colony would receive these ticket-of-leave men. Van Diemen's Land positively The building of Pentonville was epoch-making. The modern prison dates from it. The penal discipline of to-day, much modified and varied it is true, may be largely traced to it. The "cell" scheme of individual separation holds the ground, and countries which can afford the outlay have built or are building cellular prisons. France has made steady progress in this respect. Great additions have been made to La Santé prison in Paris, and a new prison on gigantic lines has been opened at Fresnes les Rungis, on the outskirt of the metropolis, to replace the obsolete Mazas, and to give cellular accommodation to the large numbers always on hand in Paris. Germany has embarked on penitentiary reforms with the provision of several new prisons; it is the same with the United States, Austria, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. In Italy a comprehensive scheme has been drawn up so that cellular imprison-refused to do so, even though this denial cut off the supply of ment may become a general rule. In Belgium, where penal administration has received the closest attention for a number of years, the régime of cellular imprisonment has been long carried to its farthest limits, and solitary confinement ranging over ten years and in some cases much more has been strictly enforced. Of late years however a new school has arisen in Belgium which expresses strong doubts of the wisdom or efficacy of prolonged cellular confinement. In England, moreover, which, if not the first to adopt separation in principle, certainly gave the largest effect to it in practice, continuous cellular confinement for short terms is ceasing to be the inevitable rule; and although it has been retained in cases of penal servitude for the first six months, it was in 1899 practically abandoned for lesser sentences, and all prisoners after the first month work together in association under surveillance. In July 1910 the home secretary announced his intention to reduce it to one month in all cases, except those of recidivists (see RECIDIVISM). The bias of modern practice, in short, is towards milder methods, not only in treatment, but in those anticipatory processes which may render imprisonment unnecessary. British To understand the existing British prison system it is necessary to consider its gradual growth and the steps taken to establish it. Its foundations were laid by Sir George Grey, The Modern home secretary, when transportation ended rather abruptly by the refusal of the chief colonies to continue to be the dumping ground for British convicts. Sir George Grey sought to deal with the difficulty as a whole, and to provide for all classes of criminals, the most heinous deserving severe correction and the minor offenders in the earliest stages of misconduct. For the first there was some urgency, the latter was still the business of the local jurisdictions. The system now introduced consisted of three principal parts: (1) of a limited period of separate confinement in a home prison or penitentiary, accompanied by industrial 'employment and moral training; (2) of hard labour at some public works prison either at home or abroad; and (3) of exile to a colony with a conditional pardon or ticket-of-leave (q.v.). No pains were spared to give effect to this plan. Pentonville was available for the first phase; Millbank was also pressed into the service and accommodation was hired in some of the best provincial prisons, as at Wakefield and Leicester. Few facilities existed for carrying out the second stage, but they were speedily improvised. Although the hulks at home had been condemned, convict establishments in which these floating prisons still labour, now urgently needed. The appearance of a convict ship at the Cape of Good Hope nearly produced a revolt. Although Earl Grey addressed a circular letter to all colonial governments offering them the questionable boon of transportation, only one, the comparatively new colony of Western Australia, accepted. But this single receptacle could not absorb a tithe of the whole number of convicts awaiting exile. It became necessary therefore to find some other means for their disposal. Accordingly, in 1853 the first Penal Servitude Act was passed, substituting certain shorter sentences of penal servitude for transportation. It was only just to abbreviate the terms; under the old sentence the transportee knew that if well conducted he would spend the greater part of it in comparative freedom. But although sentences were shortened it was not thought safe to surrender all control over the released convict; and he was only granted a ticket-of-leave for the unexpired portion of his original sentence. No effective supervision was maintained over these convicts at large. They speedily relapsed into crime; their numbers, as the years passed, became so great and their depredations so serious, especially in garrotte robberies, that a cry of indignation was raised against the system, which led to its arraignment before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1863. Meanwhile prison discipline in the elementary stage, as inflicted on lesser offenders, was continually discussed. The subject was referred to many committees for inquiry, and it was shown that there was a lamentable want of uniformity in the enforcement of legal penalties. The processes and treatment varied with the localities. Dietaries differed, here too ample, there meagre to starvation. The amount of exercise allowed varied greatly; there was no universal rule as to employment. In some prisons hard labour was insisted upon, and embraced tread-wheels or the newly-invented cranks; in some it did not exist at all. The cells inhabited by prisoners (and separate cellular confinement was now very general) were of different dimensions-variously lighted, warmed and ventilated. The time spent in these cells was not invariably the same, and as yet no authoritative decision had been made between the solitary and silent systems. The first named had been tried at Pentonville, but the period had been greatly reduced. The duration had been at first fixed at eighteen months, but it was proved that the prisoners' minds had become enfeebled by this long isolation, and the period was limited to nine months. In many jurisdictions however the silent system, or that of associated |