The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 30, 1858.

knowledge, obtained in the course of his minis-
nations, a goal chaplain might even venture to
criticise an Act of Parliament, without com-
mitting a breach of privilege, or incurring the
rnmem Iva moleskins. For our own part, we
cannot imagine that any more reliable source
exists from which to draw a knowledge of the
facts that must guide us in devising a really
efficient system of dealing with offenders, whether
for penal or reformatory ends, than the insight
which those brought into personal contact with the
prisoners may gain into their mode of viewing
the treatment pursued towards them, and into
the feelings engendered by that treatment ; and
of all the officials connected with prisons or with
reformatory institutions, we should have thought
the Chaplain the one most likely to gain the
deepest and truest insight, because the very
nature of his intercourse with the prisoners is
calculated to win for him their confidence, and to
give him access to their inmost thoughts.
On general grounds, therefore, we find it diffi-
cult to reconcile the intimation which the Surrey
magistrates caused to be conveyed to their
Chaplain with the best interests of society, and
with the successful prosecution of the reformatory
movement. Independently of this, however, at
appears to us worthy of observation that the ob-
noxious part of the Chaplain's report pointed
out one particular feature of what all who have
thought upon the subject cannot fail to recognize
as a primary element of failure in the treatment
of offenders—the uncertainty of punishment and
the consequent hope 4 at least, partial impunity.
The fatal effect of this uncertainty branches out
into various parts of our criminal jurisprudence,
and makes itself felt in a variety of ways in the
practical working of penal and reformatory dis-
cipline. Sometimes the fault rests with the law
itself; at other times with its administration. As
an example of the former kind we may instance
the fact adverted to at the Liverpool Congress
both by Lord Jolts RUSSELL and by Lord Chan-
cellor NAPIER, that the penalty of death is
retained in the Statute-book as a nominal punish-
ment for divers offences for which, under the
more humane system which has prevailed of late
years, it is never inflicted. For offences which
are now only nominally capital—such as violence
to the person, offences against property attended
by violence, forgery and uttering forged instru-
ments—there were,—

Sentenced to Executed.
Convicted. Death.
1a1817.... 911 .. 011 78
1827. 1,113 .. 1,113 .. 41
1837. 1,061 .. 405 .. 0
1847.... 1,4118 .. 18 .. 0
1847. 2,04 .. 21 .. 0

As the ratio of the increase of these crimes con-
siderably exceeds that of the increase of the popula-
tion, the inference is inevitable that the law
framed against them is ineffectual to check them
or even to diminish their frequency ; and
although other causes may concur in thus defeat-
ing the object of the law, it may safely be assumed
that the enactment of a nominal penalty, which
is never enforced, is among those causes.
Another inference, not less important, may be
deduced from the same statistical data. The
offences in question are, from their daring charac-
ter, for the most part not such as are committed
by novices in crime ; they presuppose, generally
speaking, an antecedent career of criminal
courses. We may fairly conclude, therefore, that
the majority of the individuals convicted of them
had previously been subjected to the operation of
our penal laws, and to whatever discipline of a
corrective or reformatory kind was, at each of the
Periods named, brot:ght to bear upon the pri-
soners, and from the result we may further con-
clude that that discipline has, on the whole, failed
to produce the desired effect, the reformation
of offenders, and the diminution of crime.
That the state of the law itself, enacting a
penalty which the public conscience, enlightened
as to the reverence due to the divine gift of lite,
prevents from being inflicted, is essentially faulty
and requires correction, will scarcely be denied.
Ind not less pernicious is the uncertainty of
punishment when it arises from the administra-
tion of the law. Under this head comes the
improper use of the summary jurisdiction of the
rtgistrates, remonstrated against by the Chap-
oft the Surrey County Gaol. But there are,
c'lllllustration of this defect in our system of
kind'
procedure, examples of a much graver
ma Cases are not of unfrequent occurrence in

which the intention of the law is defeated by the
verdicts of juries. We have not, it is true,
reached as yet that acme of judicial self-stultifi-
cation which obtains among our French neigh-
bours, the salve of "extenuating circumstances"
appended to the verdict. Of the extent to which
this device for procuring at the pleasure of the
jury a mitigation of the sentence is made use of
on the other side of the Channel, fresh illustra-
tions constantly occur, and quite recently a
remarkable one has been furnished in a case of
deliberate murder committed upon an un-
offending child of tender years by its
natural protector, under circumstances of bar-
barity so revolting and disgusting that the pen
refuses to record them. The addition of the
phrase " with extenuating circumstances" to the
verdict in this and some other instances of recent
date, leads one almost to suspect that French
jurymen have a morbid appetite for melodramatic
horrors, and that whenever that appetite is duly
gratified by the atrocity of the crime, they feel in
duty bound to reward the hero or heroine of the
tale, the prisoner at the bar, for the pleasurable
excitement which they have derived from the
trial, by what is, virtually, a reprieve from the
scaffold. On no other principle can we account
for the application of that phrase to cases where
common sense and the ordinary feelings of huma-
nity would rather suggest the rider, " under cir-
cumstances of extreme aggravation." But
although English juries would shrink from such
a practice as this, no one that has watched the
course of our criminal trials can fail to recall
instances in which, much to the astonishment of
the presiding judge, as well as of the public, the
jury saw fit to append to their verdict of " Guilty"
a recommendation to mercy. And there is an
entire class of offences in which very commonly
a verdict of " Not Guilty," or a verdict charging
a minor offence, and entailing only a slight
punishment, is substituted for the verdict of
" Wilful Murder" to which the whole of the evi-
dence clearly points. Our readers will at once
guess that the cases we allude to are those of
infanticide—a crime which, owing without a
doubt to its comparative impunity, has increased
to a fearful extent.

The corollary to all this is, that before we can
hope for any great results from reformatory
systems of discipline, our penal code requires a
thorough revision, establishing a more correct
classification of offences, apportioning to each
class of offences such punishments as a due regard
for the principles of taw, human and divine, will
warrant, and the public conscience will support,
and making the infliction of that punishment a
matter of unfailing certainty. ft is not until the
endurance of the penalty has vindicated the ma-
jesty of the law, and satisfied the demands of
retributive justice, that the question of refor-
matory discipline properly arises. We have no
hesitation in saving that one of the radical mis-
takes committed hitherto, has been that of con-
founding those two processes, making the refor-
matory discipline a part, an extension, of the
penal infliction. They are essentially distinct in
their nature. While the penal sentence has to be
undergone, society deals with the offenders on the
principle of avenging justice, and ought to pre-
sent itself to him in that stern aspect ; when the
process of reformation begins, that aspect should
be laid aside, and in the place of it should be
exhibited to the offender, humbled by his punish-
ment, the Christian compassion, the pitying kind-
ness of society. By confounding the two prin-
ciples, and mixing up into each other the two
systems of treatment, we mar the effect of both.
When the offender passes from the one to the
other, everything around him should impress
upon his mind this lesson :—"I have suffered
" the severity of the law ; I am now about
"to experience the mercy and loving kind-
" ness of the Gospel." IN hen he is made to
feel this, then shall we have a chance of touching
his heart, of winning his confidence and his good-
will, and inspiring him with a real desire of
amendment. It requires but little reflection to
perceive that our reformatory systems, as yet in
their infancy, are as far from satisfying the
requirements thus indicated, as our penal system
is from the effectual application of the indispen-
sable .preliminary discipline. We had intended
to dwell more at large on this part of the subject;
but it is altogether too vast, as well as too mighty,
to be discussed within the compass of a single
article, and opportunities of recurring to it will
' not be wanting.