the gaol record of one or two. P. H. entered as only twenty-eight years of age, and by no means an ill-favoured looking person as he stood in the dock, had just the average five previous convictions. These began in 1867 with illegal possession of a surgical instrument, for which he had seven days' sentence in the police court; in 1868 he was sent by Sir F. Shaw to Glencree Reformatory for five years for felony of a cash box and £70; discharged thence, he seems to have made swift use of his liberty by assaulting the police in July, 1872, for which he was sentenced for a few days by the police court; and in September following, convicted of the felony of two bank notes, Sir F. Shaw sends him to penal servitude for five years; which term was scarce complete, when, in November, 1877, again convicted before Sir Frederick for like felony of a bank note, he is subjected to the like sentence of five years penal servitude more; and before this period is complete, whilst under licence in its fifth year, he is convicted before me of another felony. Next to him stands P. M. age twenty-two, with this record of his convictions since 1876—two months for assaulting the police in March, two months in September for the like offence, two months in December for the like offence; in 1877 he turns his attentions from the police to the gentler sex—in March of that year he has two months for assaulting a female; but in November of the same year, resorting to his old foes, he has four months more; in 1878 he rises from general street blackguardism to tho dignity of felony, for in August of that year he is found guilty of stealing a watch which stops his street career for a season; but he is liberated only to appear before me charged with a fresh felony. A third prisoner, J. H., has begun in 1869 with five years in Glencree Reformatory, immediately after which he was sent on reconviction to Philipstown Reformatory for five years more; yet after this discipline, costly and kindly, of ten years, he stood before me in January already eight times convicted, and entered as still only twenty-one years of age. The list of thirteen previously unconvicted prisoners is also significant; for of these four, or 30 per cent., were indicted for offences committed in the company of previously convicted criminals, thus indicating the process of apprenticeship which goes on; whilst two others were convicted of robbery with violence in the streets, thus indicating that their previous impunity was accidental only. Thus of the fifty-four there are but seven, or less than 14 per cent., whom we can fairly separate from the mass of more or less habitual offenders. The female calendar had twenty-six names—the previous convictions of twenty of these women reaching the average of seventeen each. Thus with these unfortunates, men and women, the coming and going in this world is from the streets to the prison, from the prison to the streets, and back again with the certainty of recurrent tides—more contaminating and more contaminated with every flux and reflux.
It is the very triteness of all this that marks the moral malaria of our lower streets. If these men were professed thieves, I believe there is a tradition of decency and religion in our meanest tenement quarters which would refuse them toleration, and the evil might be isolated and suppressed. Patrick Maloney or Joe Byrne, living in
