indeed who would prophecy the value of silver as compared with gold a few years hence. I certainly shall not attempt to do so. There are countries, China especially, of which we know very.little; and I apprehend that the course of the silvermarket will very greatly depend on the action of the States of the Latin Union and the United States of America. The disposition of the Government of India seems to be to adopt a waiting policy; and there are not sufficient data to enable any one to pronounce with confidence that this course is wrong. "When in doubt what to do, try how it will answer to do nothing," is a maxim of much value. The only plan to which personally I have a little inclined is to put more silver into the rupee; and that would not be safe till we are sure that the change in the relative value of the precious metals is permanent.

On one point only in connexion with this subject I should like to say something further. The belief has been expressed, and the Silver Committee has accepted the suggestion, that India is likely to absorb an increased and increasing quantity of silver for currency purposes. This I greatly doubt. It is said that in many parts of India silver is yet little known for purposes of exchange, most transactions being conducted by the primitive method of barter. This I think quite a mistake. have as wide an experience of India as most men; and I know no part of India where traffic is by barter for want or ignorance of coin, except the most remote hill regions of the most savage and unexplored aboriginal tribes which are yet hardly known even geographically. The Hindoos are a very old people; they used coin freely when we had none; and they have not forgotten the use of it. I should say that the special feature of their transactions is the use of a great deal of coin in cases where we should use notes, cheques, or bills. And my impression is the opposite of that which has been suggested. I am inclined to think that as more modern ways are learned less coin will be required, not more. When I first went

to India very large quantities of coin were hoarded. Every prosperous native prince who managed his finances well according to native ideas hoarded very large sums in coin. On the occasion of successions, minorities, and otherwise we ascertained the reality of these hoards. The weight and power of a prince or noble was estimated by his store of treasure. So in grades below, there was much disposition to put by stores of rupees; and the prosperous peasant, like the Frenchman, either buried rupees in his hut or made them into ornaments for his family—a little capital to be converted into cash when necessity arose. Till very recently paper money was wholly unknown; and even yet it is used but to a very minute degree compared with its use in European countries.

Now that the country is more opened up every day, that there is more confidence in the British peace, that new channels of enterprise, new wants and ideas are developed, I believe that the habit of hoarding coin diminishes. Natives, princes, and nobles spend their money in many new ways. When they accumulate they lend it to the British Government to make railways in their territories, or undertake enterprises of their own, or put it in "Government paper." Smaller people travel by railway, enter into speculations, and utilize their money instead of hoarding it. In one direction, as people become richer the ornaments on their wives and children may become more valuable; but in another direction, there is less hoarding of capital in this form.

In a country where the coin of legal tender is so bulky as silver there is much greater occasion to use paper money freely than where the currency is gold. I see not why, as confidence in our notes increases, they may not come to be used ten, or twenty, or fifty times as much as at present, why notes for large sums and silver for smaller sums should not constitute the currency for transactions above those for which copper suffices. If the tendency of things should be at all in the direction which I have indicated, it would follow that while we might understand the absorption of a vast amount of silver in the past half century, we might also suppose that the tendency thus to absorb that metal will not continue.

I would ask your permission now to turn for a moment to the subject of education, and to suggest that here of all things there is the amplest room for substituting scientific inquiry and a scientific treatment of that great economic agency for the empirical system hitherto followed. Let us try to work out what are the objects of education, and by what methods they may be best attained. How far and at what

stages of the progress of the young human being is education useful as a mental gymnastic, and how far and when as a means of communicating positive knowledge to be retained. As a mental gymnastic, which are the faculties most to be cultivated? and in which, boys or girls, are particular faculties to be drawn out? Can we classify and distinguish the faculties of the mind-distinguish memory from the reasoning power for instance?

I am inclined to think that under the present haphazard system a boy generally gets that mental training which he least wants. The boy with a good memory, who does not need the excessive development of that faculty, does work depending on memory because "he has a turn for it ;" and his reasoning powers remain dormant for ever. The only boy whose reasoning powers are exercised by Euclid is the rare boy who has a turn for that sort of thing, and who does not need such a gymnastic.

Then, when we come to the acquisition of knowledge, can we not distinguish the knowledge to be turned to use in after life? Is there no distinction in the teaching of boys destined for one sphere of life or another? In England, at any rate, do not the chains forged by degrading endowments tie down almost all to the same dull routine? Is the knowledge of the things, the creatures, and the uses of the world put in due proportion to mere empirical learning? I ask all these questions without pretending to answer them; but I do again venture to suggest that education at present, of all things, requires scientific inquiry and scientific treatment. We must even, in dealing with education, go to the bottom of things, and inquire how far qualities are born, and how far they are produced by association and education.

As regards the education and employment of women, is not there great room for scientific inquiry on the question how far the mind of woman differs from that of man? Is there not, in fact, a very considerable mental difference between man and woman, just as there is a considerable bodily difference? Is not woman, to some extent at least, a different creature from man, so that we may in some sort predicate that under certain conditions a man will act in one way and a woman will act in another way, in the same manner (though not in the same degree) as we can predicate that a dog will act in one way and a cat in another? To some degree I am inclined to think that there is some natural difference, and that this difference must be taken into account in determining the treatment, the employment, and the functions of women.

It is because I thoroughly sympathize with the desire of so many women of the middle classes to find useful and honourable employment for themselves that I think scientific inquiry into the economic capacities of the creature woman most necessary. If we can once solve that part of the problem, the rest will be comparatively easy. I feel sure that there are many functions, whether they depend on nimbleness of finger, sympathy of heart, or quickness of intellect, for which women are especially fitted, while there are others for which their nature is less fitted and in respect of which they will do well to avoid an unequal rivalry with man. As education fits a man for his duty in the scheme of economy, so dissipation of various kinds unfits him; and we can hardly exclude from economic science the effect of the abuse of stimulants. I was going to say use and abuse, but I think it may be doubtful whether there is any real use for stimulants at all. In dealing with the matter scientifically, it seems very necessary to inquire how far the appetite for various stimulants is connected with questions of race and climate, and what is the comparative effect of pure stimulants and those which have a narcotic element. It does seem that man when he has the chance will indulge in some luxuries, and that drink cannot be stopped by preaching alone. Perhaps the best hope of a remedy may be to discover the means by which innocuous enjoyment may be afforded to him in consonance with his constitution and tastes. It may be a question fairly open to consideration whether the whisky of the Scotchman is or is not as injurious as the semi-narcotic beer of the Englishman. And then we have the larger question, whether the wholly narcotic opium of the Chinese is worse than or as bad as the alcohol of European countries.

I have been led into the suggestion that these things are very much a matter of race by observation of the very singular way in which in Asia the populations are

divided into those who use opium and those who use alcohol, according to racelines, even in countries where the facilities of obtaining the one or the other are precisely similar. In the east of India I found that the consumption of opium in the various districts was just in proportion as a Turanian or Chinese element prevailed in the population. The Aryan races of India never take to opium in a very great degree, except in the case of some of the Sikhs, whose religion prohibits the use of tobacco. Even in the districts where the poppy is almost universally cultivated by the Ryots (and they supply the opium which the Chinese consume), it is a happy fact that the native population does not take to the common use of opium; and there are no greater symptoms of the ill effects of the drug than in districts where it is very rare and dear-far less so than in districts where the cultivation is not permitted, but where there is an Indo-Chinese population. I cannot but think that such race proclivities open up an important field of inquiry.

From so fertile sources of crime as drink and other stimulants one not unnaturally passes to justice and the repression of crime, as essential to economic safety and prosperity. No one who has experienced the vast relief obtained by the change from a crude and undigested state of the law to the use of codes can doubt the immense advantages of codification. It is very greatly to be regretted that so little progress in that direction has been made in this country. Not only would there be the great direct gain, but there would be this enormous advantage, that in a codified shape the laws of the three kingdoms might be assimilated. The very great juridical advantages which we possess in many respects in Scotland would be communicated to the sister kingdoms; and, on the other hand, we should obtain in Scotland some modern reforms which we need. We should get rid of that shocking anomaly and hindrance to business, the necessity of passing in the same legislature separate laws for England and Scotland, only because there is a difference in the legal phraseology and some of the details. I have been much struck by the extreme ignorance which prevails in England regarding our Scotch criminal system. The world is ransacked for examples in regard to such questions, as, for instance, the examination of the accused; and yet there is not one well-educated man in England in a thousand who knows that in his own island, at his own door, there is a system of criminal procedure most radically different from his own, and, as I venture to think, very worthy of English imitation. Who in England has the least idea of the wholesome Scotch system under which the first inquiry includes the examination of the prisoner before lawyers are permitted to see him, and the record for judicial use of the statements which he makes?

After judicial inquiry comes punishment; and here I am inclined to believe that the civilized world is still very much at fault. I think there is still immense room for scientific discussion on the subject of punishments. There are some great subjects, such as sanitation and punishments, in respect of which I believe that the experts claim a certainty and a knowledge which has not yet been attained. On the contrary, I think there is still every thing to be gained by inquiry and experiment conducted without prejudice or preconceived conclusions. The mere shutting-up a man in prison without severe treatment is by no means a sufficient deterrent to all natures; and when we seek to be severe, we clash with modern notions of humanity. In one shape, indeed, there seems to be a disposition to revert to a form of torturethat is, by flogging. Yet after a great experience I am myself much convinced that of all forms of corporal punishment flogging is the most uncertain, ineffective, and dangerous. In a light and simple form it is good for juvenile delinquents, whose offences are petty, and whom we would not contaminate by a first imprisonment. And flogging is to some natures a material addition to other punishments. But as soon as we try to carry it beyond this we are placed in this dilemma, that a flogging which is safe is an insufficient punishment; a more severe flogging is a sort of lottery: nineteen or ninety-nine men it may not harm, the twentieth or hundredth it will kill. I really believe that it would be safer to cut off a finger or an ear than to attempt to deal with serious offences by flogging only.

It is because I think we do not yet fully understand the science of punishment that I am myself opposed to a too uniform and centralized system of prison management. I thoroughly admit that there is much room for reform in regard to the number of our jails and for improvement in the management of many of them.

Measures to carry out these objects I would gladly see. But, doing so much, I would still both retain in this as in other things the services of the many experienced local magistrates who in this country give so much time and attention to local business, and leave a considerable latitude for some variety of treatment and some facility of experiment in regard to the treatment of criminals.

I do not attempt to go into further detail on these subjects. I am sure that it is better that I should not detain you longer, but should give place to the many interesting papers which will illustrate this Section, and which will, I trust, lead to many important discussions. If the scope of this Section is somewhat wide and perhaps less defined than that of other Sections of the Association which deal with more precise branches of science, it at all events includes a variety of subjects of much practical and immediate interest. If only on the subject of silver currency some light can be shed, great good will be done. That subject will be treated by very able hands; and we shall have the advantage of men of great practical knowledge in discussing it. Other subjects I might mention which will be brought before you in papers of great interest; but they will speak for themselves, and I need not enumerate them here.

Agricultural Statistics. By WILLIAM BOTLY.

"On Agri

The author stated that this was a continuation of a previous paper cultural Statistics and Waste Lands." The antiquity and utility of agricultural statistics in the far East, where they operated as a stimulus to production, gave a knowledge of their resources and averted famine. The elaborate system thereof now adopted in our Australian colonies he considered worthy of imitation by the United Kingdom and all its dependencies, remarking that the entire cost of the Bengal famine (£6,588,000), with the sacrifice of life and its demoralizing effects, might have been prevented had a thoroughly good record of cultivation and its outcome been in operation in India. Of the acreage of Great Britain and Ireland (77,500,000) there were in 1875:

Flax, hops, fallow, and grasses under rotation

11,399,030
5,057,029
7,085,128

In permanent grasses, exclusive of heath and mountain-land, 23,773,602
Unaccounted for

30,185,211

The decrease in pigs is accounted for by the high price of barley &c. The import of grain, flour, and meal in the fifty-two weeks ending August 25, 1876, was 116,618,594 cwt. It is estimated that we import about half the corn we consume, and 14 per cent. of our consumption of meat alive or cured. We consume 33,697,783 cwt. of beef, mutton, pork, hams, and bacon. Estimating the popula tion at 33,000,000, each man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom consumes annually 114 lbs. weight of meat, exclusive of poultry, fish, game, and rabbits. With reference to waste lands the author advocates legislative encouragement and security for the outlay of capital, with skill and enterprise in their cultivation, where there was a reasonable prospect of a profitable result. The returns showed an increase of 171,479 acres in cultivation on the preceding year, which, as far as it went, was satisfactory. In conclusion, he observed the present time is favourable to

its extension: the people emigrate who are willing to work, sanitation asks and supports it, political economy requires it, philanthropy suggests it, the money-market favours it, the rate of discount being but 2 per cent. When capital and money is a drug at 1 per cent., how can we better employ it than in the increased and improved cultivation of the soil, with the invaluable satisfaction of giving healthy employment to tens of thousands of the people, and permanently increasing the value of our property both individually and nationally?

The Economy of Penalties.

By the Rev. JOHN S. BURT, Chaplain of Broadmoor Asylum.

The problem which economy is called upon to solve, stated in its simplest terms, is either to achieve a given result with the least possible expenditure of force, or with a given amount of force to achieve the greatest possible result.

But the problem is seldom presented in a form so simple; either the greatest attainable result is not known, or the available force is not determined, while variations in the force used involve complications with other forces, and therefore also complicated results. Accordingly the problem generally assumes this ulterior form: when the cost of the force used is deducted from the value of the result, to determine the point at which the excess of value is greatest.

This is the form which the problem ultimately assumes in the economy of penalties.

I.

The result to be attained at in the use of penalties is by no means determined. The general opinion is that penalties ought to be aimed at the complete repreзsion of crime. This opinion was countenanced by Archbishop Whately and by Mr. Bentham; but this opinion is inexact and misleading.

Lawlessness in a population is restrained powerfully by other moral forces antecedent in their action to penalties. Penalties are a supplemental force; they are thrown in as "make-weights."

But the incentives to crime which overpower those other antecedent forces counteract also the action of this supplemental force. It is a matter of universal experience that the complete suppression of crime is impossible.

Between what is effected by those antecedent forces and what cannot be effected by this supplemental force there lies an undetermined amount of preventible crime. The prevention of more or less of this preventible crime is the result which ought to be aimed at by penalties.

The amount of preventible crime, and the point at which the crime-rate is affected by an increase or a decrease of penalties, is to be found by a study of what may be called comparative criminality. There are great fluctuations in the rate of the commitments to prison among the population generally and in different localities. But these fluctuations do not follow inversely an increase or a decrease in the use of penalties; on the contrary, for more than half a century the amount of crime in its graver forms, and the severity of punishments for them, have gone on decreasing concurrently. This is evidence that heretofore penalties have been used in excess of their proper deterring power.

Of the cost of penalties.

II.

In an economy of penalties there are three subsidiary economies-namely, an economy of pain, an economy of labour, and financial economy.

In this paper the economy of pain is alone treated of. Until the exact point is found at which the amount of crime varies inversely with the increase or decrease of punishment, the problem is to keep crime at a given level with the least possible expenditure of pain.

The infliction of pain in excess of what is necessary is cruelty. States cannot lessen the happiness of thousands of the population by severe penalties without incurring heavy costs to the nation. There is a lessening of loyalty, and there is often a revulsion of feeling produced against the Government. There are more than 150,000 commitments to the prisons of England and Wales every year.