The recent direction of a great weight of public opinion against capital
punishment is, I trust, the sign of an awakening perception that
punishment is the last and worst instrument in the hands of the
legislator for the prevention of crime. The true instruments of
reformation are employment and reward; not punishment. Aid the willing,
honour the virtuous, and compel the idle into occupation, and there will
be no deed for the compelling of any into the great and last indolence of
death.

129. The beginning of all true reformation among the criminal classes
depends on the establishment of institutions for their active employment,
while their criminality is still unripe, and their feelings of
self-respect, capacities of affection, and sense of justice, not
altogether quenched. That those who are desirous of employment should
always be able to find it, will hardly, at the present day, be disputed;
but that those who are undesirous of employment should of all persons be
the most strictly compelled to it, the public are hardly yet convinced;
and they must be convinced. If the danger of the principal thoroughfares
in their capital city, and the multiplication of crimes more ghastly than
ever yet disgraced a nominal civilization, are not enough, they will not
have to wait long before they receive sterner lessons. For our neglect
of the lower orders has reached a point at which it begins to bear its
necessary fruit, and every day makes the fields, not whiter, but more
stable, to harvest.

130. The general principles by which employment should be regulated may
be briefly stated as follows:

I. There being three great classes of mechanical powers at our
disposal, namely, (a) vital or muscular power; (b) natural mechanical