The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

W2B

was informed that " the power of altering the licence of a
convict will most certainly be exercised in case of miscon-
duct. If, therefore, he wishes to retain the privilege which
by his good behaviour under penal discipline he has ob-
tained, he muut prove by his subsequent conduct that he
is really worthy of her Majesty's clemency." Thus it
appears that due notice is given to every ticket-of leave
man that any clear manifestation that lie does not mean
to follow a sober, honest, and industrious clurse will con•
sign him again to prison, such manifestation being taken
as proof that when he left gaol he was not in a lit state to
be discharged.

The hon. recorder had not much faith in the
statistical returns given of relapsed ticket of leave
men. There was great difficulty in attaining any
degree of accuracy in such a return :

At the beginning of the present year, judging from data
which I have laid before the committee in my evidence,
and which have never been impugned, there must have
been, as I calculate, eighty ticket•of•leave men at the least
in Birmingham. I asked your chief superintendent for a
list of ail that could be found. He and his subordinate
officer exerted themselves to comply with my request.
After six weeks of inquiry and observation they presented
me with the names of nineteen prisoners only, stating that
there were many others whom they suspected to belong to
this class, but of whom they hat no specific knowledge.
Of the nineteen further information disclosed an error as
to five. These nail never held tickets of leave, but had
left their prisons upon unconditional discharges. I subse-
quently found that the police at Bristol were in a like
state of doubt with regard to the criminal population of
that city. Hence it follows that relapsed ticket•of•leave
men as well as other convicts often succeed in imposing
themselves on courts as appearing at the bar for the first
time ; and thus it becomes impossible to distinguish, with
any degree of accuracy, between the number of those on
whom training has been effectual and those on whom it
has failed.

Nevertheless, he believed that the conduct of a large
number of the class was good, and that many who
relapsed fell from the reluctance of employers to
give employment to such men. Now this reluctance
he hoped soon to see overcome. But to attain this
much improvement was required in our system of
training prisoners :

I have spoken, gentlemen, of the necessity for passing
the criminal, or.rather for enabling him to pass himself
through progressive stages of improvement. The sound•
noes of this principle is indeed recognised, and to a certain
limited extent is now in action ; and, so far as the gaol au-
thorities have brought it into use, it is highly beneficial.
But the stages are not sufficiently numerous, and—what is
a much greater defect—the convict does not win his way
through them by dint of exertion. The right to pass on-
wards is gained by his remaining in each a given time.
Such period, it is true, may be lengthened by signal miscon-
duct on his part, but that is little to the purpose. Gentle-
men, what I desire to see is that the convict should never
be able to pass through a stage merely by conformity to
rules fir a certain number of months, weeks, or days, but
that he should be held to proof that he has made a substan-
tial advance towards reformation. Apply the proper test to
his conduct, and then let him pass as quickly as he can.
The defect of our present prison system lay in the
imperfect practice of the theory, arising from a want
of confidence in the possibility of thoroughly reform-
ing a convict by any treatment of which he is sus-
ceptible while confined in prison. Discharge on
ticket of leave was given when the convict had en-
dured a certain fraction cf his punishment as
measured by time, unless in excepted cases of
flsgrant misconduct, when he was detained for a
longer period:—

Now, it was proved before the committee that the
number of such excepted cases is very small, and that the
extra detention is very short. Hut I put it to your
common sense, gentlemen, whether such could be the
operation of the measure if the convicts did in truth work
themselves out of prison. Is it not self evident that con•
victs commencing their imprisonment together would on
that supposition no more depart on the same day from the
prison gates than the horses starting together at a race
will all at the same moment reach the winning post ?
Here, then, is a need for improvement which demands the
anxious attention of all who have the fate of the criminal
class under their control. For, if it be manifestly unjust
to the public to permit criminals whose sentences have
not expired to return into society unreformed I hold it to
be no less mischievous to the criminals themselves.
Sir George Grey last session had stated why
a ticket of leave cannot fairly be regarded as a
proof of re.damation. "So long as a man is im-
inured in prison, where ho is denied the opportunity
of getting drunk and of associating with those who
might lead him into temptation, he is evidently sc
cirounstanced that it is impossible for him to afford
us the means of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion
as to whether his repentance is genuine or affected."
This proposition thus enunciated was as undeniably
true as it was clearly and forcibly expressed. Yet
Mr. Hill was not prepared to accept the practical
conclusion in favour of discharging unreformed

Because with the information derived from the evidence
taken by the committee of the excellent results which have
followed a judicious relaxation in the restraints upon con•
victs luring the latter ►tages of reformatory discipline 1
cannot admit it to be a necessary condition of prison life
that the will of the convict should be kept in that state of
slavish repression which is here assumed. Gentlemen,
the question which I am now examining underlies the