7 6
12 „ 7 3 1 9
-------------------v--------------------/
9 0
15 „ 8 0 2 0
-------------------v--------------------/
10 0
It will be seen that, by this scale, a three years’ sentence is reduced to two and a half; four years to three and a fourth; five years to four; six years to four and a half; seven years to five and a fourth; eight years to six and three-fourths; ten years to seven and a half; twelve years to nine, and fifteen years to ten.
In order to ensure the remission of any part of his sentence, the prisoner must work himself, by good behaviour, into the intermediate prison, through which he must pass to obtain his final liberty; and this liberty, when obtained, will be conditional; for the criminal who, after his discharge, consorts with bad companions, and shows that he meditates a return to criminal courses, is liable to be re-arrested and re-consigned to the prison from which he was (as it appears) prematurely discharged. Thus society is protected, on one hand, from the existence of hordes of criminally-disposed persons at large, and the discharged convict is restrained from renewed transgression by surrounding the further commission of crime with obstructions so formidable as to disband, in a great measure, the class of “habitual offenders.”
It will be observed that the remission of any part of the sentence is not a matter of compact between the government and the prisoner. It is a gratuitous act, and as such, may be restrained or modified, to suit individual cases. When crimes are of so heinous a character as to forbid the extension of any such leniency, they will, of course, be specially dealt with by the government.