probationary period he is placed with the other prisoners, but even then his intercourse with the outside world and with his family is at long intervals and only upon permis sion of the Home Office. In order to educate sentiment in the direction of a re form in such matters and to press it upon Parliament the Romilly Society has been organized, largely through the zeal of Mr. Mopwood Q. C, the recorder of Liverpool and for merly a member of Parliament for Southeast Lancashire. In the list of the one hundred members which it numbers are the Lord Chief Justice and Honorable Justices Haw kins and Matthews of the High Court, together with half a dozen County Court judges, police magistrates and Queen's. counsel. The society is named after Sir Samuel Romilly because to him belongs the merit of being the most distinguished and the earliest of those who advoca ted a more merciful criminal law. The objects of the So ciety are to abolish or modify antiquated or excessive pun
ishments or penalties; to provide fairness in prosecution, proper defence to the accused and compensation to the innocent, wrongly convicted; to procure the creation of a Minister and Department of Justice; to obtain the right of appeal on matters of fact as well as of law in all crimi nal cases, and to improve the administration of prisons and penal servitude by improved regulations according to humane and merciful ideas, so that the reform of the con vict and not his punishment shall be regarded as the most important object. When it is remembered that in this country there is no department of justice, that an accused cannot testify in his own behalf, that no counsel is provi ded for impecunious prisoners, that there is no appeal prac tically, in law or in fact, and that the Home Secretary with his multifarious duties is the only officer for the revision of sentences, it will be seen what a field is open to this Society. Stuff Gown.
