The Express.
London, England, 1849-02-06 00:00:00

PRISON DISCIPLINK

Yesterday evening Mr. Chas. Pearson delivered his
concluding Ware cm the subject of prima dimiplino, at the
27roostLindon
etealdnstitution, Alretrest. His
in
yid sine of a general lo **speak
who possoisd sembined with fade 'missed, in
affinitines.* Ms sender system of impelemmont, sad in
sem of the Industrie' pies W
PIABOON= that it weehien. his intra-
dos to offer a few each or the resolu-
tions 'Mast a house meeting led hem impend and se-
conded, and whisk 111 weal' be heir duty dabor to reject or
arm on that might Tim bed swishes 1181601 that the
maim of armissiale sd meimmilments to prison in
England sad Iffeiss, he tale', on mfmimsl sharps, had In-
anent within the lest 40 years upwards of 400 per asst.,
while papule. ion hid increased only 66 per cent. To show
that be had net been guilty usggeratba, when he drew
up this ressiation, he emit sleds im meet figures en which
this menden was based. The semen eel is, trial in Beg-
ladd and Wales in 1810 were 6,146; those fa 1846 were
36,861, being an Menses of 428 per cent. The population
at Zeeland and Wales in 1810 was 10,407,666, sad in 1618,
17468,809, Wing an names of 66 per mat. The truth of
this resolution was too self-midatat to require mo-
ment to sustain ft, and be would pees to the
mooed resolution, the purport of which was that
80 per cent. of all commitments and summary con-
yjcijoat were for larcencies, vagrant:lm misdemeanors, and
other petty delinquencies. piebald by short periods of iss-
prieonment, varying from seven days to six months. They
were very much in the habit of deploring the increase of
crime in this country at the present day, al if mankind were
nits* depraved now than in the time of their menet:re ; but
the feet was, that the exact reverse was true ; and he be- '
hived that at no period of England's history Lad the mo-
rality of the people attained to so high a state as at pre.
mat. limy persona who took the number of commit-
ments as evidence of the quantity of crime, were
led to doubt whether or not the inenased amount
of education which had been conferred on the people had
benefited them. He asserted that it had for while com-
mitments had increased, crime had diminished. Let these
reedlect how the Sabbath wee spent some fifty or sixty
years ago, and that to such brutal and degrading exhibitions
as bull-baits and sock-fights, the nobility and gentry of the
land were in dso habit of giving their support end counte-
nance, and they would thick lees unfavourably of their own
times. TV theft of meddling legislation however had
VailMIS SIMS a number of petty offences, and
dso:sela SMie penidment imprhonmer.t. The number
of amiss he whisk indivonsh meld be hapriened
kr eked peek& was nay surprising. Not • railway act
posed thesagl the home which did not subject individual;
to fines kr he meet tYfag fahlsgemont of its provisions,
and, fa the meat if map ginsse imPrhonmant. dung
them petted '-ace one of bequest ossammos was the offence
of oisopkil eat, and another the monism ON of kite dying.
In Meth, it was only necessary to leeks* the catalogue of
delinquencies of the most petty descriplionothich had grown
up of late years, to account for the inereses of the number of
commitments, and the inference which he draw from
these bete was disclosed in the next rmolu-
tin, in which it was muted that the origin
of • large portion of these mile prohibita were
tramable to babas of indolence, improvidence, and self.
ind Winne', to the comfort of the present gaols and the sub-
stitution of short imprisonmenta for graver punisluz int He

firmly belkneed *at Ike serried oat In gaols at
the prase* preowned this irs of astaring them from
keying any lallmasee eat die legamilag admdaal's salad. Is
what he WOUllelil the gooage*d old time, a pol aMed es
=lnmai parveative . E knew then
met *Awed it hie altereatarvery eaaa
would sink for ever
is tin alliMika ei smlNy, sod be avoided the
sommkahm af mg stet whisk might lead to his
restratat. It Wed as a species of meal polies,
desserts( individads Ma one, sod pretesting so
▪ beg the pekoes of tl_es pens* day might
oWlemga semcorbaa asthma pel*Kresidemese in
the matey, (Ent, bear.) Now. bi admillesd that as long
as mime .Res time Laid, they matt has gaols, bat he Goa-
tended that to give to a gaol a elumaattristie of internal oat-
I fort sad edema basal, sad grandma, was a iolation of all
propriety, end s memo& se the right holies, which dictated
that they should be menstreMed in such a manmer ea to be
emblematical of the Ration'. humiliation. It was doubted by
a previous speaker that in paint of fact persona did vio-
late the law is order to get into prison, but he held is his
band a letter from a magistrate in the metropolis
in which It was shown that in hundreds of instances people
had craved a commitment to prison instead of the workhouse
on amount of the known super Welty of the food and Looms-
awdation. The fourth and fifth resolutions referred to Read
lag gaol, but he would rapine his observations on these to
the dose of his address, premising that if time did not per-
mit him to enter oa them he would meet the supporters of
the system on their own ground, if they would call s meeting
there; mad he treated to be able to show them the beans*
of the system pursued there. At present he would refer
to the manner in which other gaols on the cellular system
wereoondueted In France there were certain attractive bite of
romance permitted, which would never occur to people in
dull Ragland. The prisoners there in some of the gaols en
the separate system were allowed to have their oefies outerear
to amuse them—weir romans, and an occasional soiree with
the governor and other functionaries of the prison. (Laugh-
ter.) These indulgences were not calculated, he thought,
to add to the repunivenem of them places. In Perth sepa-
rate gaol—when, too, they were permitted to have labour--
80 per cent of the prisoners were re-committed prisoners, a
fact he believed to be unequalled in any other prison in the
world. The Wakefield gaol had been held up
as the been ideal of a gaol ea the oellular
system, but he had received • letter from the chaplain of the
establishment—a very sensible man—from which it appeared
that the Penteseville system had by no means answered the
expectations which had been raised regarding it. When im-
provement took pima, it was nearly altogether outward, and
arose as much from grief on account of the punishment and
privet:on, as from regret for the commission of crime. After
a few obeeivaCona on the 6th and 7th resolutions, he passed
to the Bth, which was to the effect that 81 pc r cent. of the
male criminals annually committed, were between the ages
of 16 and 45 (the age when, in a free condition,
men could not only maintain themselves, but sup-
ply the surplus labour by which the non-producing
classes of society wen supported), and 47 percent. were be-
tween the ages of 20 and 35. By the census returns of
1841 it aopethed that the number of labourers above 20 yeses
of age in Borland and Wales was one million, of shoe-
makers, 152,000 ; and of tailors, 62,000 ; and by the same
returns it appeared that of 9,968 classified males above 20
years, in prison on the same day, 5,421 were labourers, 397
were shoemakers, and 227 were tenon. Of persons sent
temporarily to prism in the metropolitan district in the
year 1847 there was a total of 17,893: and of these
1,189 were- shoemakers, and 1,097 were tailors, lie slid not
refer to the returns regarding talon and shoemahers, be-
cause they were more criminal than other tradesmen, for all
classes and all professions wen included in these returns, but
merely to show the correctness of the views embraced by the
resolutions. He proceeded to impress on his solitary the nit
cavity which existed for some more efficient means ref repress-
img crime than had been as yet desired in any reformatory
establishment in this country. He asserted that if orime
continued to increase to the extent that the esperitnee of
the last 10 years would warrant hint in supposing in 30 years
hence every fourth nude person in the country would have
been in a prison for crime, and it wes, therefore, atoolutely
recemary that their prison system rhould be amended, if
imprisonment were to be the substitute for all other punish.
meat. He next proceeded to show that in some iv the Ame-
rican primes the criminals supported themselves entirely; and
in those of France and Belgium, that they very nearly main-
tuned themselves, and defray ed the charges of the administra-
tion of the gaol by their labour, and he adduoed the names of
Howard, of Dr. Paley, and Archbishop Whately, as the aelL
voce'. s of the maintenance of a constant ant, m of industrial
occupation by criminals, and the emulation of the quantity
and quality of their food by the amount of labour performed
by them. He denounced the absence of labour by which
the cellular system was marked as both illegal, irrational, un-
stlinural, and proceeded to contra, t it with the plan of in lus
coercion proposed by himself. His proposition
was that 1.000 acres of land should be taken on which to
Mild • rison—that it should be walled in, and that 1,000
miming s should be pieced in the establishment. He
assured the meeting that 1,600 acres of land, which were
at present condemned to sterility, could be procured
for the purpose within an hour's drive of the place
they were then in; and he entered upon a minute
detail of the dietary to which he would restrict the
*Pours, for the purpose of showing that the cost
et their maintenance and • luperimendance would not
arse' the sum derivable from the labour on the land
eilmilsed to the prison. He had calculated that the amount
to be wrung from the land, by the industry of the criminals
ed is its cultivation, was 12,6741., from which was to
be ed the emit of seed end the expenses attending the
bombe et huh touts, amonatirg to 4,2811., and leteog
baba* of upwards of 8,0001. But the cost of maintaining
sad guarding the prisoners would be 6,9121, so that there
WY a balance of 1,4781. above what was r nuired for their
maintenance. Thesecalaulations were intended to apply to 500
criminals located ere 630 acres of land. He was net for ueedlesely
punishing any human being, sad he was opposed to punish-
mint altogether, unless it had a reformatory tendency; and
he had no doubt on his mind that the punitive power of his
system would have that effect. In • pri,on conducted on
tae prinetples whichhe advocated, the labour would be
severe and continuous—the inmates could have no communi-
cation with their families—they would be debarred the use of
etroeg drinks, and would not be permitted to sleep longer
than 6 hours in the 24. In oonclueion, be expressed a hope
that he had explained the details of hie plan in a satisfactory
manner, and, !avow discharged what he conceived to be his
duty, it remained for them is say whether or not they con-
sidered his propositions worthy of their spproval.
The resolutions proposed and discussed at the previous
reeetings were then meanintously adopted, and thanks having
been given
with e question of prison discipline, the meeting separated.