The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-10 00:00:00

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proctor may angle in Hs dirty waters with less loss of
time and greater chance of a good take. His duty is
a disagreeable one. He is a policeman with gentle-
manly feelings and without a truncheon. In some in-
stances, the instinct of hunting, which DITGALD
STEWART makes an ultimate iniocade of our nature,
may carry him on with a sort of pleasure. Ht
lose sight of the strength of the scent, and the foul-
ness of the game, in the ardour of the chase.
But, in by far the majority of cases, the proctor
fulfils the functions of his office reluctantly, and only
from a sense of duty. We cannot, for our own parts,
admit that his one great power of summarily arrest-
iag prostitutes has any good effect that can com-
pensate for its harshness and possible oppression.
Such laws are more akin to the ordonnanees of
France or Prussia, than the jealous spirit of Anglo-
Saxon institutions. It may be doubted if the aggra-
vated indecency of Barnwell is not, in part, at-
tributable to the enforced decency of Cambridge, with
its lanes and alleys scoured by the moral scavengering
of the clerical street-keeper and his brace of bull-dogs.
But these are points of controversy. There are fea-
tures in the case which admit of no doubt or discus-
sion. The state of the spinning-house is shameful
and scandalous to the University. We doubt if any
prison in England be worse managed than this, in the
heart of a University town, under the special and ex-
clusive surveillance of dignitaries of the Church.
They cannot even plead ignorance in excuse of
their utter neglect of duty, miserable as such an
excuse would be. The disgraceful state of the
spinning-house has been laid before them annually,
since the first report of the prison inspector in 1833.
These grave divines and prudish dons have been deaf
to representations which have had weight with
every bench and every gaoler in England. The
stagnant trenius of the status quo, the " let-bad-
alone " which disguises itself under respect for the
" wisdom of our ancestors," has made itself apparent
even here, where it is antagonistic to every prin-
ciple of Christian charity and common feel-
ing. Year after year, for ten years, the inspector
of prisons has knocked at these hard hearts and called
to these deaf ears. He might have a stereotyped
phrase for the Cambridge spinning-house, to the
effect " same as per last." We append two extracts,'
one from the report for the north-eastern district for
1844, which has all the minuteness of a Flemish
interior :
Upon visiting this establishment, which has so frequently
been animadverted von in former reports, at half-past nine
in the morning, I found but one female prisoner, Anne 8.,
aged 22, committed fur ten days. She was half undressed at
the time of my visit. The room was redolent of tobacco ; a
parcel of the herb, with a pack of playing cards, wire lying
in the window, and several tobacco pipes were found about,
one of which was still a-light, and had evidently been laid
down on my approach.
Since my last visit the University have appointed a chap-
lain, at a stipend of 401., who performs service there on the
Sabbath, and attends for religious instruction twice is the
week.
I find the following entries in the prison books
"Jane M., January 7, 1841, discharged February 3,
having slept with C., who has the small pox."
Surgeon's Book.
" Dec. I. . . . . It is requested C. may sleep apart
from J." (whose loathsome disease is entered previously).
I have on former occasions noticed the gross impropriety
of allowing prisoners thus diseased to sleep together, and it
is the more unaccountable as there is ample room in the
prison, on all occasions, for every prisoner to sleep in a
separate cell. The number of prisoners brought in here
since the 20th of last November have been 70.
I waited upon the Vice-Chancellor, and reported to
him the state of the prison, and referred him to suggestions
for its improvement, which I had on former occasions laid
before the authorities of the University.
I regret to report that my ezpectations of improvement in
this establishment hare been almost wholly disappointed,
and that I found it on the 19th of March, 1842, in nearly
the same discreditabk condition as at my first visit in 1835.

The keeper states :
The number of prisoners depends entirely upon the proc-
tors. During the last year we had as many as sixteen at one
time. The proctors go through the prison, perhaps about
two or three times a-year, the Vice-Chancellor Lever. I
furnish the prisoners with food : they are supplied with
bread, butter, cheese, and potatoes. I generally buy a quan-
tity of potatoes and sell them to the prisoners at the price
asked at the door. Ido not sell tea; I have no license. I
now refuse tobacco, ezeept to those to whom it is habitual.
The sentencing prisoners to solitary confinement is new to
us. Divine service is performed voluntarily by one of the
proctors on the Sabbath at three o'clock. • • "The In-
spector upon the ensuing Sabbath attended at that hour, but
after waiting a considerable time, and no minister appearing,
the keeper stated it would not take place."
Can there be any question that the body which can
I thus neglect its duties is unfit to be longer entrusted
with the control of any place of confinement what-
ever ?

IT is impossible to have read the statement of Mr.
BANKIN'S case without being struck with its hardship.
Nor is it possible to avoid the reflection, that a
system which admits the occurrence of such cases is
one most adverse to the advancement of husbandry.
It is notorious that such cases are not rare ; yet,
with singular inconsistency, while landowners are
most reluctant to abandon the absolute dominion over
their farms, they are one and all eagerly preaching
improvement to their tenants. They have still to
learn that it is impossible to make one-sided bargains.
Tenants will not, and cannot, give the full value of
property without equivalents. Morally, yet more
than legally, a unilateral contract is inoperative.
That leases, simple in form, and for long terms of
years, will eventually become universal in this coun-
try, we have no doubt ; but in the meantime, many
will be the struggles of the owners of land to retain
the inconsistent benefits of a semi-feudal dominion
and full commercial rents. Every discussion which
has a tendency to shorten the period of such struggles
will confer great benefit upon the class of proprietors
no less than the community of which they form a
small, but, from position, an influential section.
In bringing such cases as that of Mr. BANKIN'S
before the public, we are doing the landowners ines-
timable service, for they are more commonly the re-
sult of ignorance on the part of the landowner, and
bad advice on the part of the land-agent, than from
anything like a desire to oppress the tenant. Land-
lords are too apt to regard their land as the only
source of the produce they see upon it. They forget
that, in most instances, it is the mere machine, often
a difficult and unkindly one, which requires all the
..were of the united skill and capital of the tenant to
.:..mean effective instrument of, production._ One

msequence of such errors is, that landlords a

not in general sufficiently careful in ascertainin,
that persons offering themselves as tenants, are
possessed of the requisite capital and skill. Now,
it is well known, that the comparatively few
landowners who are themselves good practical
farmers, are the most careful in selecting tenants
with sufficient capital ; and, having selected them, are
most ready to give them security of tenure, and free-
dom from restriction. The late Lord LEICESTER was
an example on this point. His first inquiry of a
person proposing to hire one of his farms was,
" What capital can you command ?" And, having
ascertained the amount, decided on the extent of the
land he would let to the applicant. He also set great
store by the tenant's intelligence. Having ascertained
these two points—the means and the skill of his
tenant—he was assured that he might safely grant a
lease.
The present state of agriculture is, however,
somewhat different from its condition when Lord
LEICESTER (then Mr. Comm) effected his great im-
provements. Then the landlord led on his tenants,
and partly persuaded and partly compelled them to
adopt an improved system he had practically shown
is be profitable. Now tenants are generally in ad-
winice of their landlords. During the last 12 or 14
years especially, farmers have become more and more
alive to the necessity of good cultivation, and they
have very extensively adopted it without accurately
regarding the tenures by which they held their
farms. In consequence, so many instances of hard-
ship and serious loss have occurred, that all our first-
rate farmers are earnest in demanding a legal recog-
nition of the tenant's right to be paid for unexhausted
Improvements. And in truth; the principle of that
right is sufficiently established by law, and admitted
by boded proprietors. The custom of the country,
twarying as it does in different districts, is a clear
recognition of the principle, that the outgoing
1 tenant ought to be paid for certain acts of
lasbandry done upon the farm. That the " cos-
Aden of the country " is not sufficient to meet
the present requirements of agriculture is to be attri-
belled to the circumstance that these customs have re-
ference to bygone methods of farming. Then, again,
the different agreements for conceding tenant rights,
which landlords and their agents are, in many in-
stances, proposing to farmers as substitutes for lessee,
admit that tenants may, and do make outlays during
their tenancies, for which they ought to be paid on
quitting their farms.
Tried by this test then, let us examine Mr. BAN-