The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-25 00:00:00

916

No doubt the feeling which forbids a lavish
outlay on our workhouse arrangements has
its origin in a highly respectable and plau-
usible theory—viz., that in proportion as the
Union becomes attractive, the incentives to
persevering industry are removed, dissolute
and intemperate habits encouraged, and
the general high tone of the poor demoralized ;
nor can it be denied that there is much force in
what is laid down . as the inevitable result of
greater liberality on the part of the Poor-law
Hoards; but without the slightest wish to graft
the lazzaroni as a Fifth Estate upon our social
system, it will, we think, be conceded that that
system is more extensively degraded by the
existing situation of a workhouse inmate. Every
one who has studied this question attentively
must have felt shocked at a recent exposure of
the English laisser-aller habit of mind glanced at
in a Paper on the Condition of Workhouses
which was lately read before the Association for
the Promotion of Social Science at Birmingham.
It appears from this brochure that " in one of our
" large London workhouses the broth for the
" sick was tbund to be hot water with oatmeal
" floating on it, and the soup was declared by
" the guardians to be unfit for use ; the bones
" and meat were nowhere to be found." A poor
needlewoman of seventy, worn out with weak-
ness and heart-complaint, was discovered by the
writer above quoted in the "shed" with the
ablebodied, where she remained a fortnight
before her removal to the infirm-ward. Her
occupation consisted of picking hair and oakum
amid the " sweepings of six parishes ;" the
language and behaviour were fearful ; the
bread frequently contained alum. Here even
the commonest articles of furniture were
wanting—cups, saucepans, boxes there were
none. Old men deprived of flannel, and dying
women destitute of necessary clothing, complete
this terrible picture. Surely sonic line of de-
marcation might be drawn between the poor
man's helpless old age and the stalwart penury of
a workman temporarily out of employ. But we
have small faith in Boards and Visiting Justices
unless the workhouse staff of officers be raised to
a nearer level with that of the pet British insti-
tution—the Model Prison!

CONVICT DISCIPLINE-THE PORTLAND

OUTBREAK.
Tuorun many years have passed since we prac-
tically ceased to transport our convicts beyond
the seas, we have not yet satisfactorily learnt
how otherwise to dispose of them. Transporta-
tion was discontinued—and necessarily discon-
tinued—when Australia became auriferous, and
other settlements refused to become cloaca for
British crime, but the abandoned system has
never been replaced by an efficient sub-
stitute. All our devices have proved unsuc-
cessful to provide criminals at home with
what they found so abundantly in the con-
vict colonies--remunerative labour by which
they could be rendered immediately useful to
the State, and prepared ultimately for restoration
to liberty and a career of honest industry. The
recent 6meute among the Portland prisoners shows
very strikingly the strange and unexpected diffi-
culties which are encountered in attempting to
accomplish this object, and the description of
that affair, so admirably given by an " Eye-
witness" in Thursday's Times, affords a curious
glimpse of what we may call the ethics of prison
society.

For the origin of the outbreak we must travel
back some year' in the history of penal legisla-
tion. Before 18S3, convicts undergoing the
nominal sentence of transportation enjoyed the
privilege of being able, by good conduct in gaol,
considerably to abbreviate their term of detention.
A criminal condemned to transportation for
seven years obtained his release at the end of
four, and if for ten at the end of six years, if he
behaved well in the eyes of the prison authorities,
under liability of having the remitted punish-