The Express.
London, England, 1865-08-03 00:00:00

IRE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 3, 1865.

inquiry. To pamper and indulge criminals is no I
doubt • most pernicious error, but to treat them
with cruelty is • crime, and one wh' all English-
men, by instinct as it were, would au
punish. To give a man afflicted and;
with inflammation of the bladder and tee
the spine—as this convict is prov
—oatmeal porridge to eat, andege
the food when asked to 10 so,• ugh
it must have aggravated greatly the more
painful of his two complaints, was pos►tive
cruelty. Nor was it less cruel to allow
a man whose illness required • certain amount
of generous nourishment, to subsist upon a pint of
milk and twenty ounces of food for • period of
two months. Whatever may be the crimes of
our prisoners we pride ourselves that they are
treated with humanity ; at least it was
always believed that anything like cruelty
was unknown in our penal establishments.
But '

. it would seem that at Woking a new system
of convict treatment is under trial, if not by the
governor, at any rate by the doctor of the prison.
One of the practices asserted by JAxvis to be com-
mon at Woking is almost too bad to be believed,
and until further evidence can be produced
the public will refuse to give it credence.
The prisoner declared that one part of the
system carried out at Woking is that no prisoner
is allowed to sleep for more than two hours. "At
" the expiration of that period," he declared before
the court on Tuesday, " an officer went round the
" prison and knocked with his keys at every cell,
" and if any prisoner does not answer, the
" officer goes in and pulls the bed clothes
" off him and awakes him." Other peculiarities
in the discipline of the prison the convict
said he would refrain from further alluding to,

as ladies were present ; he " would merely say
" that the most unnatural enormities were con-
" stantly practised without any attempt being made
" on the part of the officials to put a atop to
" them. He had," he said, "made a repro-
" sentation to the governor of the sbomi-
" noble practices that wore going on, and
" the result was that he was punished for
" making the complaint." Now, it is more than
possible—it is tolerably certain—that THOMAS
Janvis, re-convicted ticket-of-leave man, sod under
sentence of six years' penal servitude for the
crime of uttering forged notes, may be one of the
most accomplished scoundrels in England ; but in
the first place that is no reason why he should be
treated with cruelty ; and in the second he made
three accusations in open court, where, if they
were able to do so, the prison authorities had
every possible facility of contradicting what
he said, and of proving the contrary upon
the best of evidence. Why did they not do so 1
If they imagine that their silence will help towards
hushing up the business, they are greatly in error.
If the nation has erred on the side of
indulgence to convicts, it is no less true that
it would certainly not permit any cruelty to
be exercised over the unfortunate outcasts by three
who are in authority over them. The British public
does not wish to provide silver forks for prisons,
nor to feed prisoners upon venison and turtle ; nor
will it allow men under penal sentence to be kept
short of wholesome food, or tortured for two
months with nourishment barely sufficient to
sustain life. It is only necessary to read the
evidence of the warders, and the defence of the
prisoner Jaavis, as published in the law report of
our yesterday's impression, to feel that the Home-
office is called upon to institute a full inquiry into
the discipline of the Woking convict establishment.

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men
folly

it without the unalliest compensation. What
lbw conaildibilorkign journal which only an
.in 'mid numbly of Frenchmen can read for
• few and philosophical remarks of the most
Rne character upon the lesson to be derived
om Ike late manifestatios of public opinion in
i 'rands—remarks not neworived in any spirit of
ortentatic hostiliewellie French government, but
'Ober encouraging the reforms which its own
Viet advisers admit to be neceesarr—whin
a French writer, Id. Forcade, treating of
the same matter in the Revise du deux Monde;
thought the time ripe for saying bluntly, "The
era of saviours of society and dictatorships blindly
accepted is now at an end." Of course as long as
that worse than useless institution in the Place
Beauveau, the Bureau de la Preece, exists, the
members of it must now and then do something for
their salaries ; but I am quite sure the time is at
hand when these gentlemen will only be wanted to
translate articles of English newspapers for the
benefit of official personages who cannot read them
in the original, and not with • view to anything so
ludicrously absurd as the seizure of an Englib
journal in France.

His Majesty, a Plombibres letter staters gave a
grand dinner three days back at Foal& Dorothrfie,
a picturesque chalet in the neighbourhood, to about
thirty of the guests taking the waters. The baud
of the Casino was ordered to attend, and in the
evening dancing took place on the green. The
guests returned to Plombibres at nine in the
evening, and finished a pleasant day by a ball in
the bath-house saloons. & curious incident
occurred in the performance of sleight of hand
given by IL de Ceston before the Emperor.
The exhibitor offered a pack of cards
for General de Bdville to select one. Everyone
probably knows what is meant by • "recom-
mended" card ; the speculator appears to choose
one freely, and yet only takes the card which the
conjuror intends, and which he afterwards names.
"General," said the Emperor, laughing, "I have
no oonfidenee in you; you are perhaps a confede-
rate." "If your Majesty would deign to choose
one," proposed M. de Canton. The Emperoor took
one at hazard. "The Emperor could only have
taken Casar," said the magician, showing the card.
It was the King of Hearts, which in the French
packs is always represented by the Roman Em-
, peror.