in the clerical life are more rapid and striking than at home. In the Colonies a good man fills his church almost at once; an inefficient man empties it all at once. If a congregation does not like a clergyman, its members feel little scruple about leaving his church for another or for a non-Episcopalian place of worship, or about staying away from church altogether. And, what is worst, if they do not like him,. or if they think him unequal to his work, they cease to support him by their money-in a word, they starve him out. The Colonial bishops experience few difficulties so great as that of providing for their deserving elderly clergy.

It is not impossible that in this difficulty the Church at homemight afford some relief to the Church abroad.

The work of the clergy in the Colonies is often in some respects: harder than any clerical life at home. I do not say it is harder in all respects; but it is in some. The Colonial clergy, and still more the Indian clergy, sometimes live in enervating and dangerous climates. They live in an isolation of which their brethren at home have no experience: I have known clergymen who did not, and could not, see another clergyman once in twelve months. And it often happens that their parishes, or the districts assigned to them, in extent and character are more like English counties, or even combinations of counties, than English villages. I shall be forgiven if I plead the cause of the clergy who labour abroad; I have known them so well; I sympathise with them so deeply. And what is true of the clergy is equally or more than equally true of the bishops. From these considerations it seems to follow that the bishops and clergy who serve abroad should be young, and that when they grow old they should be brought home. It would, I believe, be an immense gain to many parochial clergymen at home to have seen something of the Church of the Empire. It would be fully as great a gain to the foreign clergy, when they have spent their best years abroad, to enjoy the peace of a quiet country parish at home.

At present there is much objection taken to any recognition of devoted service abroad. The Church has not yet learnt to think imperially. Not many years ago a missionary bishop who had adminis-tered a vast diocese in trying climates until he was an old man, and who had so long laboured at the hazard of his life among ruthless. savages that in the estimate of a gallant admiral not particularly friendly to missions no man ever deserved the Victoria Cross betterthan he, was preferred to a modest dignity in one of the English cathedrals. His appointment was made the occasion for an outcry because he had not worked in the diocese in which his preferment lay. The Church has not yet learnt to think imperially. She still' conceives herself as the Church of the nation, but not as the Church. of the Empire. She will never rise to the greatness of her oppor-tunity if she despises and neglects her sons who have led the forlorn

hopes of her mission, if she lets them starve in their old age or fall helpless at their posts and die forgotten.

In Australasia the Church has much to do. Before her spread unknown, unconquered fields. But a stranger who travels there, unless his feeling be wholly different from my own, will wonder more at all that has been accomplished in so short a time by the energy of her sons with little or no support from the State, than at all that still remains to be attempted. He will realise that she too, in the British dominions beyond the seas, has had her heroes, her saints, her martyrs. He will come home with many thoughts stirring in his soul-admiration for the bishops and clergy who have served her there, an abiding interest in her development, above all with an unassailable conviction of her high and sacred calling.

J. E. C. WELLDON.

'AN EX-PRISONER

ON PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS'

A REJOINDER

A SERMON preached from a perverted text may contain much that is worthy of attention. And a kindred remark applies to a Review article. If An Ex-Prisoner on Professional Criminals' had given the writer's experiences, and practical suggestions based on his experiences, the article in question would have been interesting, and possibly useful. But almost every part of it is founded on some misrepresentation of something written by me. This is discouraging to me, I confess. For the articles I have contributed to this Review have had a twofold aim. I have appealed to those who are in a position to control or influence legislation about criminals and crime; and I have sought to educate public opinion on the subject. My success in the one sphere has far surpassed my expectations; but if Mr. H. J. B. Montgomery is a fair representative of the man in the street,' I can have made no progress with the general public. But is he? What, for example, am I to think of such a statement as the following:

Some time ago Sir Robert Anderson wrote an article-I believe it appeared in this Review-on the subject of Crime and Criminals,' in which article he asserted that most, if not all, the burglaries committed in London were in reality organised by a cabinet of burglars, who sat round a table and directed all operations.

Of course I have never written anything which bears the remotest resemblance to what is here attributed to me. I have said that burglars are generally professional criminals'; and in one article I stated that the men who organise and finance crime in this country are not more numerous than the Cabinet Ministers, and that they are as well known to the police.

Again, on p. 282, Ex-Prisoner,' in criticising my statements, speaks of the professional or habitual criminal class.' Now, no one who has really read my articles can have failed to notice the distinction I have drawn between habitual criminals' and 'professional criminals.' A man may be an habitual criminal,' and yet

worthy of pity and help rather than of severe punishment; but a 'professional criminal'-it is my articles that have brought the expression into prominence and common use—is a typical anarchist," and society is justified in taking whatever action may be necessary to protect itself against him.

The writer goes on to protest against my saying that these men are 'utterly irreclaimable.' And the suggestion that they are professional criminals by choice is 'to his mind sheer nonsense.* They are what they are, he adds, because their wills have been weak, and circumstances have been too strong for them.' I have never said that these men are irreclaimable.' As recently as in my January article, which Ex-Prisoner' claims to have read, I ventured to dissent from a statement to that effect which I quoted from Mr. Justice Wills. And I may here say that his lordship has since conveyed to me his acceptance of my criticism. My words

were:

This is all too true of others-wretched weaklings who seem to have neither moral nor intellectual fibre to save them in a world where temptations to evil abound and the way of life is narrow. But the criminals who give most trouble to the police are men of a different kidney, clever men who pursue a life of crime because their calculation of its risks leads them to the conclusion that in the long run it pays (p. 128).

And I went on to say that, while the reforms proposed by the Home Office Bill will have but little effect upon these men, the changes which reason and common-sense would suggest would lead not a few of them to give up the criminal career.

The public judge of these matters by what they read in Bluebooks and newspaper reports of criminal trials, but my statements are based on knowledge of the criminals. Let me take a few typical cases. The three men to whom I am about to refer have given the police more trouble than any criminals of the type known to Mr. Montgomery.

A. B. was the son of a clergyman. He was a man of real ability, of rare charm of manner and address, and an accomplished linguist. For example, on the occasion of one of Madame Patti's visits to America he ingratiated himself with the Customs officers, and thus got on board the liner in advance of the 'Reception Committee' who went out with a special steamer. He was, of course, a stranger to the great singer, but she was charmed by his appearance and bearing, and the perfection with which he spoke her native language. She took for granted, moreover, that he had been commissioned for the part he played so acceptably; and the Reception Committee supposed he was a friend of Madame Patti, and upon his arm it was that she leaned in disembarking. All this was with a view to carry out a huge fraud, the detection of which eventually brought him to ruin. The man was capable of filling any position, but the life of adventure

and of ease, which a criminal career provided, had a fascination for him.

C. D. was a man of still greater brain-power, though without the social and educational advantages of the other. His projects were generally on a grand scale. His share of the profits of one of the many crimes he planned-the greatest diamond robbery on record— was not much short of 100,000l. For years he lived in affluence in London, ready at any time to put down any sum of money necessary to bring about a job.' His last coup, though by no means his last offence, was the robbery of the famous Gainsborough picture.

Very different from both these criminals mentioned in the preceding paragraphs is E. F. But the one element common to all these men is that they persist in crime, not from any weakness of will, nor from any pressure of temptation, but in spite of means and opportunities to live honestly and in comfort. Of my third example I need only say that at the time of his last crime he had amassed so much wealth that on his discharge from penal servitude he brought an action against the administrator of his estate, claiming large damages for alleged maladministration of one portion of his personal property. And he owned besides a considerable amount of house property in London.

Someone will object, perhaps, that these are exceptional cases. But that is precisely what I have insisted upon. These men are few in number-not more numerous than Cabinet Ministers--and yet the trouble they give to the police, the losses they inflict on the community, and the evil they do in encouraging others to become criminals, are quite incalculable. And under our present system they are dealt with, when brought to justice for an offence, merely on their statutory dossier, which contains nothing but the record of 'previous convictions.' And their 'previous convictions' are always fewer than those of their dupes and agents.

These men are the aristocracy of crime. The professionals of the second rank are much more numerous, but a single wing of any large prison would hold every man of them. In my article of March 1903 I mentioned my old friend 'Quiet Joe' as a fair specimen of the class. I predicted that, on the expiration of the sentence then lately passed on him, he would at once resume the practice of his profession. And I need not say my prediction was fulfilled. In this class also are the English thieves whose conviction for bank robberies in France was reported in the newspapers last January.

In the third rank of professionals' I would place the ordinary burglar. Here is a typical case recently reported in the morning papers. After describing the arrest of the gang, the report proceeded :

At Newington Sessions yesterday the prisoners came up for trial. Their names and the sentences awarded them are: Ephraim Jones, four years' penal