The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-09 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 9.

A FULL and correct account of how much of the
national revenue is annually spent for the mere pur-
pose of punishing crime would be an instructive
comment on our defective system of penal law. But
it could not be easily drawn out, for the process
would require to ascertain the expenses•of local
police throughout the kingdoms, and would involve
the difficult question of what proportion of our ex•
penditure on courts of law is to be attributed to the
administration of penal and what proportion to the
administration of distributive justice. It is, however,
worth while to cast a glance over sonic of the item*
of our criminal expenditure, as they appear in the
Miscellaneous Estimates for the year 1851-2.
Under the head of " Law and Justice" in these
estimates we find the following entries :
Criminal prosecutions, &c., in Scotland .07,11.10
Do. do. Ireland
Prosecutions at assizes and quarter sessions in
England 200,000
Inspection and superintendence of prisons in
the United Kingdom
Government prisons and convict establish-
ments at home 4;l ,263
Maintenance of prisoner. in county gaols and
lunatic asylums 117,190
Expenses of transportation
Convict establishments in the colonic%

Total of the above.... CI .0!3,661

A part only of what the country pays yearly for
the sole purpose of punishing crime amounts to up-
wards of one million. How much of the whole of
what is thus spent might be saved by the adoption
of improved methods for the prevention of crime P
Bow much of it might be saved by the adoption of
an improved system of penal discipline ? If sects
could agree upon some common, all-embracing sys-
tem of moral, religious, and intellectual education for
the nation, or if statesmen would set themselves in
earnest to introduce one in defiance of mere secta-
rian opposition, might not great part of this ex.
pense be saved to the country, or at least the money
laid out in a way more likely to increase general
security and happiness ? These arc questions
that deserve more attention than they appear to
receive at present, either in parliament or out of doors.
Recent circumstances impart a particular interest
to the proportional expenditure apparent on the face
of the above account fur the punishment of convicts
at home, and their punishment by transportation to
the colonies.
It is estimated that in 1851-2 the convict establish-
ments at home will coat the country 251,260/. This
expense is to be incurred for the maintenance and
superintendence of 10,876 prisoners ; we have not
found any estimate of what it costs to hang the con-
victs annually put to death. It is estimated that in
the same year the maintenance and superintendence
of convicts in the colonies will cost 183,0301. The
number of convicts in New South Wales, Van Die-
men's Land, and Western Australia, is not men-
tioned ; but, as 1,750 convicts at Bermuda are to cost
40,6001., the 128,813/. to be spept in the three
colonies we have named may be takft to indicate the
existence there of at least 6,000 convicts, maintained
at the expense of government. This, added to the
1,730 convicts at Bermuda, and the 916 at Gibraltar,
would give a total of about 8,660 convicts under co-
ercive treatment in the penal colonies. The mainte-
nance and superintendence of a convict in the
colonies would therefore appear to cost nearly
the same as his maintenance and superintendence at
home. But to the expense of transportation must be
added the 98,6604 which it is estimated will be spent
this year in conveying the annual quota of convicts to
the penal colonies. Nor is this all: for a sum of 10,0001.
for the removal of convicts under sentence of trans-
portation in Great Britain and Ireland has unac-
countably been entered upon the estimate of what
will be required for the convicts undergoing penal
discipline at home.

The number of convicts proposed to be sent to the
penal colonies in 1852-3 is estimated at 3,650.
Making allowance for the diminution of the number
under restraint already there, this would bring the
number of confined and coerced convicts in the col°.
nies nearly to an equality with that of the number
at home. And from the above data it appears that
the convicts undergoing their punishment at home
will cost 251,269; while the transported convicts
will cost 391,89 W. The balance in favour of home
punishment, on the score of economy alone, is there-
fore almost 110,0001. per annum on a total expendi-
ture of 6-13,1591., or more than 20 per cent.
We readily admit that mere economy of money is
a very subordinate part of this important question.
If it could be shown that the more expensive mode
of punishment is the more efficacious for deterring
from the perpetration of crime, or for the reformation
of tho criminals, the additional money would be well
spent. But it is not so. The fact is that the
punishment of transportation has little terror
for the great majority of the crime class. Under
any system of transportation, the remoteness of
the infliction, the difficulty of making its nature
and bearing apparent to rude and hardened minds,
would disarm it of half its terrors. And in addition
to this the actual system of transportation is so
imperfect as to disarm the penalty of great part of
the terror that remains. For the purposes of intimi-
dation, the more costly mode of punishment is the less
efficacious ; and for the purposes of reformation, all
the accounts from the colonies conspire to impress
conviction that it is utterly worthless.
There still remains a consideration well worthy of
attention in this matter. A system of home punish-
ment exposes us to be inundated with a dangerous class
of liberated convicts; from this, it must be admitted,
we are relieved by transportation. But then the ques-
tion arises, are we in common justice entitled to
liberate ourselves from this nuisance by imposing it
upon the colouics ? A good system of scavenging
and sewerage is an excellent thing of itself; but the
inhabitants of Woolwich might reasonably complain
if the aggregate muck-heaps of London were merely
carted out of it to be laid down at their doors, to offend
their noses, and poison their atmosphere. What
such a mode of proceeding would be in the physical
world, the shovelling out of our convicts 111 heaps
upon the colonies is in the moral.
Human laziness and human selfishness are so in-
veterate that this doctrine might be preached till
doomsday with little prospect of bettering our prac-
tice in the matter of convict transportation. But
the attitude which is being assumed by the colonies
is likely to be more effectual. Tho extension of the
anti-convict league in the Australian colonies has
been rapid, and is likely to be accelerated by the in-
timation that it is intended to send them 3,050 addi-
tional convicts (600 of them being females, the moat
intolerable of all) in the course of the present finan-
cial year.

CAREFT:LLT selected and well manipulated portion.
of a correspondence between the Bishop of MA
CHESTER and one of his clergy, and between that
gentleman and the Archbishop of YORK, have been
recently published in a journal into which tracta-
rianiam empties its turbid waters; and, undoubtedly,
the effect of the correspondence, so Eartially pub-
lished, has been prejudicial to Bishop LEE. It ha.
given the impression that he is at least an arbitrary,
perhaps, also, an uncourteous prelate; and that the
complaining incumbent is suffering persecution at
the hands of his Ordinary. It is further calculated to
create the belief that, in the diocese of Manchester,
there is the same episcopal tendency to r&trict tolo-
ration of opinion, when opposed to its bishop's per-
sonal views, which Bishop Prm.Lverers has, in the
diocese of Exeter, emphatically announced to be the

~` _ ~.

tale of his conduct, though in violation of the law Of
be load.
It is no part of the duty of ails journal to defend
bishops. to Palliate thtlr misconduct, or to explain
away their proceedings. We regard them, as a body,
to be the main causes of the ecclesiastical mischiefs
that now disturb the public peace ; we hold them,
one and all, to be ill fitted for the emergencies of the
times in which they. have been milled to eminence,
power, and wealth in the church ; and we look on
their temporal position as unsuitable to their spiri-
tual functions. But, of the entire bench, Dr. Lee is
one of the best ; he has resolutely promoted the re-
form of his cathedral church ; he had the inde-
pendence to refuse his signature to an unmeaning,
wordy, and evasive address by a great majority of his
brethren, to the clergy; and he has the courage
to attempt at least to keep in order a knot of turbu-
lent, audacious, and intemperate ecclesiastics in his
diocese. For these reasons, he is entitled to some
respect and support from church reformers; and,
having taken the trouble to make proper inquiries
'into the facts of the late correspondence, the adverse
opinions deduced therefrom appear to us to be
unsupported by the real circumstances of the case.
What the selected correspondence referred to
showed was, that the Rev. J. R. Aisne, the incum-
bent of a small and poor living called Weat Hough-
ton, being unwell, applied to the Bishop to license a
curate ; that the Bishop first requested an assurance
that the intended curate would not preach in
his surplice • that Mr. ALSOP gave the assurance
that he would not do so, except on sacra-
ment Sundays; that the Bishop, knowing the small-
ness of the living, then required to be shown that
means existed of paying the curate's salary ; that Mr.
Aesop stated the stipend would be paid by a grant
from the Curates' Aid Society; that the Ilishop re-
fused to license a curate paid by that society; and that,
although Mr. ALSOP showed the Bishop he was fur-
nished with the necessary means from other quarters,
Dr. LEE peremptorily declined to license the curate.
This, interspersed with imputations on the Bishop's
manners, and garnished with archiepiscopal regrets,
imperfectly quoted, however, at the Bishop conduct,
is the sum or the story as published by NIL ALSO!';
and on its face it is a case of great hardship ; of too
great and unreasonable hardship, however, to be
quite true, or at least to contain all the truth.
To understand the matter, it is first necessary to
know who Mr. ALSOP is. Now Mr. Al.soe is one
of the Tractarian clique in the diocese of Manchester,
who have combined together to give all the annoy-
ance in their power to Bishop Lee. They have
thwarted, resisted, disobeyed, pimpled, and insulted
him in every possible way ; and all because he will
not sanction their vagaries. Now, at the head of
this clique is the Rev. J. lavisx, vicar of Leigh;
.
and, of that notorious person, Mr. ALSOP is the son-in-
law and near neighbour, and very cordial co-operator.

The Tractarianism of these people is not, however,
merely developed in acts of insubordination to
their bishop: it goes much further; for it com-
mits very scandalous outrages on the laity. Cases
have occurred in which these people have refused—
first, to christen a child that was unwell, and,
then, on the child's death, to perform divine service
over its remains, because it had not been baptized—
in which corpses of adults have been turned from
the church, and the service read by dissenters from
the outside of the churchyard, anudat the seollings
and jeers of the lookers on—in which persons pre-
senting themselves to bo married have been driven
from the church to dissenting places of worship.
This monstrous abuse of ecclesiastical power the
Bishop of MANCHESTER is now contending against ;
he is resolved to put down much wanton stretches of
authority if he can; and as the law is dilatory and
doubtful, it becomes the more iniperutive on him to be
careful as to the clergy he licenses in a diocese
thus running to weeds and rankness. In this
struggle Bishop LEE is obviously the representative
of religious toleration, of ecclesiastical order, and of
Christian charity. Mr. IRVINE and his son-in-law
Mr. Aisue, are, on the contrary, the symbols of
intolerance, arbitrary power, and ecclesiastical
tyranny.
Nevertheless, Bishop LEE may, notwithstanding'
the .ssidness of his general cause, have erred in par-
ticulars. Let us see if he has done so in Mr. ALsors
latest case of complaint against him. First, he re-
quired that the curate should not preach in a surplice.
This request Mr. ALsoe undertook should be complied
with, except on Sacrament Sundays. Such acqui-
escence appears reasonable and proper at first sight.
But as, in tractarian churches, every Sundayis a Sacra-
ment Sunday, the verbal acquiescence in was really
a substantial evasion of the Bishop's requirement.
Then, the Bishop objected to a curate in his
diocese being paid by the Curates' Aid Society.
This again, at first blush, seems harsh. But whin
it is recollected that it is by that society pecuniary
support has been given to the party whence Rome
has been furnished with recruits; and when it is
known that this society altered a fundamental rule,
in order to evade the authority of the Bishop of
IlliNcunterEa in his very proper efforts to restrict the
histrionics of the Vicar of LEIH. the repugnance of
the bishop to have curates furnished by its grants, is
really a piece of accessory self-defence on Dr. LEE'S
part. But Mr. ALSOP offered to find means to pay
the curate elsewhere. Yes, elsewhere; but from a
cognate source ; from a Church Union, of which the
Vicar of LEIGH is the hero, and would be the martyr,
and which is the main spring of the conspiracy against
the bishop. The truth is, these Church Unions are
nothing less than organisations and combinations for
the propagation of Tractarianism in its most flagrant
form, and for encouraging the clergy in their most
offensive practices. Was the Bishop of MANCHEATER
to give encouragement, countenance, or support to
such an association of disorderly priests and of weak,
foolish laymen ?
Mr. ALsor is then, it seems, the connexion and
ally of the most turbulent ecclesiastic in the diocese
of Manchester ; he himself continues in his church
practices of which his bishop has expressed his disap-
proval; and in more instances than one he has set Dr.
LEE at defiance ; yet, when he presents to that pre-
late a curate for license who is disapproved of by the
bishop, this insubordinate gentleman assumes all the
airs of a martyr, hurries off passages of his corre-
spondence to the Morning Chronicle, and the Bishop
of I.:NCHESTER is paraded to the world as a pendant
piece of bigotry and intolerance to Bishop Putu.corrs.
This won't do ; Messrs. Invpin and ALSOP may rely
on it. It may be skilful, tricky, and crafty it is too
dishonest and disingenuous to succeed. gentle-
nun and their doings are well known here, and their
efforts to procure in this metropolis 'empathy and sup-
port in their insubordination will fail. Bishop LEES;
engaged in a struggle in which, if he will only moo-
lately persevere, he will have general sympathy ; for
his object is to suppress sacerdotalism, and to elevate
the right and exercise of private judgment ; it is to
remove the church from the quicksands of authority,
and to place it on the rock of utility; it is, in
short, to carry out into practice those admirable views
of the church organisation, so irresistibly stated by
our correspondent M. A.

TUE BISHOP OP LONDON AND TES PAIUSHIONERS
OP Sr. DMITAN, BTIPNIT.-141/4 trutulte as adjourned
meeting of the inhabitants of this god& leek plow et the
Town Hare, hiliersdkeed. ler be rupees ef r
the repast of the eastatittso entaistsd es welt teen the
baby ef Lembo respeetbe W earl to lime the Rev.
Omer Peels to the oftener lesteserbir of tbe perish ;
Mr. Spriseer Cltarriugtoe, ebenbwevars, is the chair.
The particulars of this affair firrears sogrund in the Ex-
press oa the o e c a I ea of the knew meettes, it now onl
rainaina to state that the esminittee ie their seven obeer
this they had pointed Silt to the bishop rift en ancient
cubs salted is the peillt by which the blebitests had
atelateleed be debt ef ebbing to the sersiabieut in
question, sod flatAsti ea lb brdabies pea le license
such reesiotbreit la the peees basses would therefore
be as so of liktumba gamer oldie base is the de-
pueblo was to the 'Met that he wee Abe to snow to
Mr. Males beim eppeleted afterwies basses by the name
of rAnstant eurebklisit le swab sot lieserelibt weir the title
of afternoon brewer, bemesites he beildelsembed Mysore
ago, that he would set bum Se say albs of Amiss
heron•r where suet kaaraskip wee Mt amikaand OW SW
ft.:wised by an act of His less bobbor,
observed, that the t et Mr. Poole se obsesses
lecturer, by the eases of beef--t mate. would soya
ef lebelitewle /sake their •
sword* to mint subset sod mtge. He the
to writs is Mr. dies, the rector of the part* le semi bib
the required usisbettee et Mr. Poole ; be
be beim doubt
that that esetlims wsuid very sbertiy be duly Illemed.
This newt ems embed sad wawa tem the lebble et
the wastbe. NE. Nowise, overseer, ilea snowed dist the
lon*, be eiljswessil to the 21st last, by Ask the be
=LTtr the eseseilbe would gave the muMbellsw ef
the yobbos= bet their Able led be.. ewe.
mods& sub that Mr. Peel. led beta deli limered b)) the
else ef abase= leetswee. bean babe bewi
stously surfed, Ms Sestbeelifelbsed.