The Nottingham Guardian .sx THURSDAY , JUNE 4 , 1931 .sx PRISON TREATMENT .sx A remarkable change in the treatment of crime , and to some extent its incidence , is indicated by the statement in the report of the Commissioners of Prisons and the Directors of Convict Prisons that the number of prisoners in 1929 was less than 20 per cent .sx of what it was in 1909 .sx In the five years 1904-1909 the average number of prisoners was 186,569 .sx For 1929 the number was only 26,942 .sx There were also at least a hundred thousand fewer prisoners in any of the post-war years than in any of the fifteen years preceding the war .sx In so far as the Commissioners' figures signify an actual reduction in crime , many factors have no doubt contributed to the result .sx It cannot be due necessarily to a higher standard of living , for in America bounding prosperity was accompanied by an enormous increase in crime .sx Still , the factor many have had its effect in reducing the temptation to theft , fraud , and robbery .sx Greater sobriety has certainly helped .sx There is much more than mere coincidence in the fact that drunkenness has heavily decreased in the last twenty years .sx It is probably true , also , that although criminals have made use of modern inventions , police methods of prevention and detection have improved at a faster rate , and have tended to keep down the crime incidence .sx There is the further principal factor of Borstal treatment and reformed prison method .sx The increasing tendency to-day among judicial authorities is to send men to Borstal institutions for reformatory treatment , instead of to prison .sx The fact of reduced numbers in prisons does not , of course , connote an equal reduction in the number of crimes committed , although these have greatly decreased in the period under consideration .sx The merit of the modern treatment of crime is that it is more discriminating and reformative than the older type .sx Where in former days old and young , first offenders and hardened criminals , were all lumped together under similar conditions , the tendency to-day is to separate the habitual criminal from the newcomer to the ranks of crime .sx In this way fewer new criminals are bred by association .sx Reformatory methods are applied wherever possible , as under the Borstal system , with the result that thousands of offenders who might otherwise have entered on a confirmed career of crime are reclaimed and turned into useful members of society .sx It is a system which has its risks , but its increasing use by magistrates shows clearly that it is of great value .sx The idea of reformation and reclamation is even at work in the convict prisons .sx Here the task is necessarily more difficult , but results are being obtained which prove the worth of the system .sx The advance of opinion on this aspect of the treatment of crime is shown in the increase in the number of men sent to Borstal institutions instead of the prison .sx The number so sentenced in 1929 was the highest on record ; while , except for the year 1919 , the number of men sent to penal servitude was the lowest in thirty years .sx There can be no hope , this side of the millennium , of stamping crime out completely .sx The born criminal will always be with us - the man whom no amount of moral treatment can reform ; though even so , the further study of the medical side of criminology may enable our doctors to do as much as Borstal institutions in the reclamation of offenders .sx But the modern enlightened treatment of crime is now so firmly established that it cannot fail to be further developed , and there is reasonable hope that it will prevent the entry to the ranks of habitual crime of many persons who are not congenital enemies of society and whose criminal failings are due only to bad upbringing and associations .sx AN ANCIENT PROBLEM .sx Domestic servants are not so good as they used to be - and no doubt they never were .sx But the problem of domestic service is certainly more intense than before the war .sx A whole class has assimilated new ideas about status and independence , and " service " is not popular .sx Whether the suggestions for its improvement put forward yesterday at the National Conference of Labour Women would result in correcting this state of affairs is , however , open to question .sx A " domestic workers' charter , " drawn up by the committee of the industrial women's organisations , suggested that the shortage of servants is due among other things to long hours , lack of freedom , loneliness , low wages , lack of consideration on the part of employers , living in , poor food , and bad accommodation .sx It can scarcely be thought that all households have these unfortunate drawbacks all at once , or even any large proportion of them , and there are unquestionably many in which the servants are , and always were , treated well .sx The number of these is larger than it was , if for no other reason than that servants are so insistently demanding better conditions , and owing to the shortage are better able to dictate terms .sx But it is equally true that modern employers are more enlightened than the older type , and that " service " on the whole now affords good conditions for those who will take it up .sx It is absurd to suggest that the servant world is seething with discontent under a kind of semi-penal servitude .sx Thousands of happy servants up and down the country , who do not change their situations , attest otherwise .sx And there is always the converse to the servants' case .sx Mistresses allege against some that they are inefficient , lazy , neglectful , and exorbitant , in their demand for high wages , freedom , and amusements .sx Perhaps things have improved a little in this respect , at all events since the days just after the war , when one of the standing jokes hinged in the " general's " demand for " living her own life " and her insistence on luxury in the kitchen - if , indeed , she deigned to inhabit the kitchen at all .sx But if domestic workers expect their " charter " they must also recognise that mistresses will demand real efficiency and ability in place of the conception now too common that a girl can slop through domestic service without any training whatever and do her work as ineffectively as she likes .sx There is not much hope on either side of a sudden improvement .sx But there is no reason why there should not be a further steady progress towards shorter hours , greater freedom , higher wages , and a generally better life for servants , while the servants give a better return in the shape of real efficiency , smartness , diligence , and thoroughness .sx There is no justification for a servant giving less to her employer than a factory-hand gives to hers .sx This ancient problem will probably never be satisfactorily solved - certainly never by such ingenious schemes as used to be canvassed just after the war , such as the creation of corps of efficient houseworkers hired by the day from a central agency , or for avoiding the problem of the cook by having meals sent in from a central kitchen .sx The individualist business of the English household cannot be rationalised in this way .sx Nor can the problem be solved by insisting that unemployed girls should offer themselves for household work before claiming unemployment pay .sx Employers will also have to continue to reckon with the fact than the factory and the office have dealt a powerful blow at domestic service , and that a stigma of inferiority is ( quite wrongly ) considered to attach to the work - a stigma certainly as much due to the poor quality of many of the workers as to any defect in the work itself , but none the less real .sx Still it ought not to be impossible to hope that a better state of affairs will gradually work out , particularly through the simplification of home life , the preference for small , easily-worked houses , the use of labour-saving devices , efficient preliminary training of servants , and the creation of a status which will obliterate any feeling of stigma attaching to domestic work .sx But " charters " will be of little use .sx Even if domestic servants can combine how could they ever enforce their demands ?sx Should we have Government Inspectors of Domestic Service demanding admittance to the kitchen to see whether Augusta was really giving the night off to which the charter entitled her ?sx The Nottingham Guardian .sx TUESDAY , APRIL 21 , 1931 .sx SUNDAY CINEMAS .sx That strenuous opposition would be given to the Government's Sunday Performances Regulation Bill , which secured its second reading debate in the House of Commons last night , was from the first a foregone conclusion .sx Opinion in favour of a certain amount of Sunday opening , under proper control , is probably widespread .sx On the other hand , the opponents of Sunday opening are not only numerous , they are well-organised and vocal .sx Which is the larger body it would be difficult to say , but there is no question as to which , for its size , is the more powerful .sx The Sabbatarian view , it must be confessed , is not merely strongly held ; it is of great importance .sx It is natural , in view of the multitude of Church organisations in this country , that great numbers of people should wish to defend the Sabbath against further secularisation .sx They believe sincerely in Sunday as a sacred day , set apart by Divine ordinance for worship .sx They feel strongly that its value should not be weakened by making it a day of entertainment .sx In Holy Writ they find every justification for the attitude they take up .sx Many thousands of citizens who have no particular predilections sympathise with them more or less .sx It is equally true that from the secular point of view there is much to be said for the preservation of Sunday as a day of rest .sx True , the danger of the " Continental Sunday " can be over-estimated .sx The Sabbath in France or Germany is far from being merely a continuous wild round of feverish amusement .sx Nevertheless , there is the risk that in increasing the opportunities for amusements on Sunday we might be paving the way for an undesirable degree of secularisation , involving a greater degree of Sunday labour than is desirable , and making Sunday for many of us too much like the other six days of the week .sx The real point of the present Bill , however , is that it seeks to regularise a position which had insensibly grown up , to nobody's particular disadvantage , to the quiet pleasure of a good many , and to the benefit of many charitable institutions .sx It aims at regularising a compromise between the Sabbatarian point of view and the wishes of those who seek in the cinemas for a little quiet amusement in a Sunday evening .sx Its provisions are flagrantly illogical , for there is no attempt to make any concession to the theatres .sx But the people of this country are used to illogical compromises of this kind , and have usually found them to work better than measures of strict logic .sx As Mr. Clynes said in moving the second reading of the Bill , the question was whether the law as declared by the courts should remain unaltered , or whether the practice which has grown up during recent years should be legalised .sx We are bound to say we find it difficult to imagine a return to the position in which all Sunday amusements were illegal .sx We can scarcely see what benefit would accrue from the abolition of Sunday cinema performances .sx Those who had made a practice of seeing them would not be any the more ready to make a more Sabbatarian observance of Sunday .sx They would be " at a loose end " on Sunday evenings , and in consequence bored and discontented .sx Many of them might go to the public-houses as the only way of solacing their boredom .sx This Bill does not , in point of fact , go very far .sx It does not indiscriminately throw open the cinemas on Sunday , but merely gives a local authority the power to open them if , in response to a general demand , it thinks it desirable to do so .sx The measure safeguards the six-day working week , laying this down as a condition of the use of Sunday labour in the cinemas .sx