HABITUAL OFFENDERS. An habitual criminal is one whom the ordinary legal punishments fail to touch, and for whose prevention special measures have to be taken, it being recognized that it is better for the community that seclusion, with proper training, should reduce the chance of further criminal undertak ings. By. the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908, power was given to the British courts to pass on habitual criminals a sentence of preventive detention in addition to one of penal servitude. The charge of being an habitual criminal has to be inserted in the indictment on which the offender is to be tried, and this cannot be done without the consent of the director of public prosecutions and after certain notice has been given to the officer of the court trying the prisoner and to the offender himself. A person cannot be found guilty of being an habitual criminal unless the jury finds on evidence that, since attaining the age of 16, he has, at least three times previously to the crime charged in the indict ment on which he is being tried, been convicted of a "crime," and that he is leading persistently a dishonest or criminal life; or that he, on previous conviction, has been found an habitual criminal and sentenced to preventive detention. "Crime" means any felony, or uttering or possessing counterfeit coin ; or obtain ing goods or money by false pretences; or the offence of conspiracy to defraud; or any misdemeanour under s. 28 of the Larceny Act, 1916. There is an appeal to the court of criminal appeal, and the sentence of preventive detention takes effect immediately after the sentence of penal servitude. There is power for the secretary of State to discharge on licence, and the sentence of preventive detention must be reviewed by the secretary of State every three years. That the habitual offender is not quite irre deemable has been demonstrated by the experience of Camp hill in England, to which men are sent, and of the women's prison at Liverpool. Men released on licence are placed under the charge of the Central Association for the Aid of Discharged Convicts, and women under the charge of the Aylesbury Association. (See