The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-13 00:00:00

FATHER MATHEW.

THE late Father MATHEW was identified with
such a remarkable chapter in the social his-
tory of our times that we cannot allow his de-
cease to pass without notice. The influence
which he exercised for a time was positively
marvellous ; and the change which he effected
in the habits of the lower Irish was little
short of a practical miracle. Although much
of the good effected by him did not last, and
although enthusiasm died away, still the great
fact remained—that he raised up the popular
opinion of Irishmen against drunkenness,
which was the besetting vice of their country
And under his auspices many attempts at
improving the social condition of the Irish
working classes were begun.
All observers agree in attributing to Mr.
MATHEW a rare amount of the more amiable
virtues which adorn, while elevating, human
nature. The frankness of his manners in-
vited friendship ; the courtesy of his address
disarmed hostility where polemical prejudices
might have existed. By birth and breeding
he was a gentleman, and was equally suited
for conciliating the confidence of the most
opposite extremes of society. He possessed
intense benevolence, and he could not behold
nisery without doing something at once to
relieve it. He was not a professional sentimen-
talist, mouthing benevolence before a popular
audience. By the beds of the dying poor, in
the houses of the wretched, and in the ob-
scurest haunts of vice and misery, he laboured
for years, unrequited except by the conscious-
ness that he was doing good. His toils
were not unknown or unnoticed. It is to the
honour of some of the dignitaries of the Pro-
testant Establishment, that Mr. MATHEW was
in many cases their almoner; and by many of

THE PRESS.

the Protestant clergy he was prized as a
friend, and by all of them respected as a man.

His long habits of confidential intercourse
with the humble classes, the peculiar affabi-
lity of his suave yet most dignified ad cress,
combined with his characteristic benevolence
of nature in arming him with moral ascen-
dancy. When he had worked a reformation of
drunkenness over hundreds in the city of Cork
his influence soon extended to thousands. A
movement was begun ; the enthusiasm of the
Gaelic population was excited, and religious
emotions of a kind closely bordering on super-
stition, if not absolutely identical with it, were
gradually aroused amongst the votaries of
" the pledge," although not. sanctioned by Mr.
MATHEW. Tbat there was much delusion and
ignorant credulity in such a course was
obvious at a glance. But there was, also,
much positive good ; and a reformation of
habits is not to be expected amongst a pure
Gaelic population by the slow and reflective
process which may be influential in graver
races with a more reasonable faith. It is
enough to say that Mr. MATHEW did vast good
according to his means, arid that he won the
regard of the most adverse classes in Ireland.
Colonel BLACKER, the gallant chief of the
Armagh Orangemen, and author of some most
spirited Protestant ballads, wrote a song in
honour of the Romish Friar. When he came
to London his simple, kindly demeanour was
much admired in our most refined circles ; and
it is a fact that his quiet, good breeding made
a most favorable impression on more than one
of the patronesses of Almacks, who met him
at the table of an illustrious member of the
Upper House. Her Majesty, at the instance
of Sir ROBERT PEEL, conferred upon him a
pension of three hundred pounds a year.
But the movement of " Teetotalism " gra-
dually died away. Enthusiasm, like a moun-
tain torrent, is violent and transitory, over-
whelming while it lasts, but soon ceasing to
flow with the calmness and constant stream
of principled energy. Like " Repeal," the
cause of " Teetotalism " was not rooted in
reality, and the age which saw it flourish
beheld it fall. Grave moral lessons might
be drawn from the successes and disap-
pointments attendant on the career of Mr.
MATHEW ; and we trust that his life will find
some competent chronicler. His virtues and
personal excellence will not be forgotten by
those who ever knew the man, and his memory
is certain of obtaining the respect due to a
philanthropist who never tired, and to a
great popular celebrity who was never self-
seeking or vainglorious, but retained to his
last hour the unaffected simplicity of his
youth.

TICKETS OF LEAVE AND TRANS-
PORTATION.

NIR. BARON ALDERSON has been sharply han-
dled by a portion of the London press for the
tone which he adopted the other day in speak-
ing of the ticket-of-leave system. We do not
constitute ourselves his apologists, nor do we
mean to investigate the alleged want of accu-
racy in his remarks. But on the broad ques-
tion whether or no the transportation system
be a better method of disposing of our crimi-
nals than the ticket-of-leave system, we have
to express our thorough agreement in the
Learned Baron's observations.

Admitting the impossibility of continuing to
employ our older colonies as penal settlements,
and so at once eliminating that topic from
the discussion, we shall find there remain two
points for consideration—first, the conse-
quences of keeping our criminals at home ;
second, the possibility of transporting them to
some new penal establishments.
In the first place, then, we can scarcely
doubt that crime has a much greater tendency
to reproduce itself in this country than in the
colonies. Once a criminal, always a criminal,

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is pretty much the rule in England, as indeed
it must be in any old country where outlets
for adventurous natures are closed up, and
the safety of a complex society demands that
every one who has broken the law should at
once become a marked man. We must con-
sider also that by the system of transportation
the criminal body was, at all events, kept
divided ; while the more bad characters we
herd together in one place the more do we
encourage a hotbed of crime, and the more
do we permit the gradual formation of fami-
lies in whom burglary, swindling, and garotting,
shall become hereditary.

The results of keeping our criminals
amongst us may be regarded from another
point of view as well. Formerly, when a man
took to evil courses, he was pretty sure to get
transported after his second or third convic-
tion. In this way gangs were broken up.
Now, however, he remains at home to benefit
by the experience which each fresh detection
affords him. Thus will grow up a body of
veterans who, what with their skill in the per-
petration of crime and acquired art in evading
pursuit, will be enabled to set the police at
defiance, and will become the trainers of the
rising generation. Hence, we see clearly
enough, will arise the formation of regular
fraternities, which transportation, united with
a vigilant police, is so eminently calculated to
prevent. For it makes all the difference in
the world to a mar. whether he feels that he is
cut off, most likely for ever, from all his pre-
sent associates, or whether he has the pro-
spect of rejoining them in a tew years. That
these results are actually coming into opera-
tion, the daily records of crime sufficiently
convince us. A man was tried for garotting
the other day who had experienced six pre-
vious convictions ; in yesterday's paper we find
another ticket-of-leave man in trouble who had
undergone five convictions ; and it is now, we
believe, well known that this particular crime
is reduced to a system, and that an instru-
ment has been invented by which the victim's
throat is compressed in a spring forceps, and
all power of resistance destroyed.

In considering the possibility of new penal
settlements, we should remember that it is
not under all circumstances that colonists are
justified in rebelling against the reception of
convicts. Let us take the case of an unin-
habited island, which this country takes pos-
session of without objection from anybody.
We resolve to use it as a penal settlement,
and the Government send there only such
persons as are officially connected with the
establishment. If other settlers choose to go
there, they do it with their eyes open. They
must take it as it is. They have no right to
demand that Government shall relinquish the
original design, any more than a man who
chooses to go and build his house next door
to a pigstye has a right to demand the re-
moval of that useful though inodorous edifice.
We have put an extreme case in order to
made our meaning clear. Practically, it is by
no means necessary that we should have au
absolutely uninhabited island for this pur-
pose. Any tract of country sufficiently ex-
tensive, and thinly peopled—without cities,
but abounding in wood, water, and stone—
would answer the end in view. There must
be no population whom the presence of con-
victs would either disgust or injure, and
there must be plenty of scope for manual
labour, and a field to gain an honest liveli-
hood. These two conditions it is not so very
difficult to satisfy. In a previous article on
this question we hinted at various localities
which we considered to be more or less
suitable for the object. Amongst others, we
mentioned Borneo. We can really see no
valid ground for objecting to the occupation
of Borneo. The inhabitants of that island
are not such as any importation of criminals
could well corrupt, or as any number of years
is likely to convert into a virtuous and
flourishing community. On a balance of good
and evil. we honestly believe that the interests
of humanity would be better served by con.
verting Borneo into a penal settlement than
by leaving it as it is now. Probably it might
be much improved.