The Express.
London, England, 1849-07-16 00:00:00

peaces°. annoyance to all parties. These men were pit on I
pisee-work with the happiest effect; for, vary slight as their
renanuersta., was, yet, as they wan allowed to have se
other SOW e, ttaa what they Um earned is their pas pion,
even the small portion of that .ride that was given them fur
immediate t xpeadinin was relatively of great imp onset to
thin. o..satlurd el their eon esinti-gs was paid them weekly,
sad they were at Monty to spend this in t a, bread and
shwa, !Ike. ; the rtst was pat by sa a stock in hand,
astilleisat to maintain than en their liberation for a few
weeks. Is the inns time. in a distressing climate, and on
kles than a annisn'a mien., they were for yeses in the
etestant habit of comparatively willing industry, for a very
inaignitnat sum ; their labour in the tapes UM far more
than rt.raSuring 03ver,meat for 'ha experota of their
paniam Exinit inass.ns cmasionally made douLl•
time—se had to complain of want of en rtion ; and
the wheel, n were at of a trot the whole day. The
maisavaton 'evoked in gangs,
.at large portions of work, sae.
ant to keep them employed for sever or eight days ; they
kept one another at work, and we never had occasion to
speak to them."—Professional Papers Royal Engineers,
vol. iy.

titiven• of a caavice's labour at Gibraltar or Bermuda,
on an be:isomer bur years, after paying for the coot of pas-
.. inain!ressee, and superintendence, is above 101 a year.
The mural improvement of the convicts during this stage
of their punishment has hitherto been too little attended to ;
tie rather it has aot been attempted, except under eircum-
Manse which rendered succem unpasible. In our hulks a
most verse cu.us ecortoray, and the absence of all clasift.a.
tioa, (set). I.- nape. Un,.er the assignment system of New
South We.., the dispersion of the convicts over the colony
removed than Prom all religious influences. When they
were coneoi treed in gangs la Van Diemen's Lend, it was
Impossible to procure there a sufficient number of suitable
religious liar rucon. The religious along was inferior in
aamts,rs and character to what it ought to have been to
have given a reason .ble hope -f success. Many of this clam',
are said to nave been disposed to make them elves con-'I
spit.. by loudly decouncing the evils of the system rather',
than by trot steady discharge of their duty to bring good out
of evil. If religious teach. n ware sent out from Ragland, it'
only afforded smother instance of the impossibility of making
the machinery of a great system work harmoniously when
the cannoning powers are half the world apart. Unseemly
differnoessrose between high f ctlesiastical dignitaries; and
the Bishop ot Taem.ii refused to grant ordination to the
persons • Ito had been selected by the Society for the Propa-
gation of the Gospel, and had been sent oat by Lord Stanley
under trio recommendation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
JO yen, therefore, the expel's!! nt of applying the great
wag oe religious instruction to convicts after leaving prison
easeot be said to have beta tole d at all; and the experience
of the very recent shelves in our hulks must rather be con-
aid.ted as coceureglng, them as affording much actual proof.
On very prevalent error on this point is, to confound
puhic morales with religious teaching; and to ...sums that I
everything necessary for the prisoner's reformation is done
when two or nines on the Sunday are secured. Failure in
each came is oven quoted as proving the inteility of religious
fastructioa ; whereat it only proves that its &beena is a fatal
error, and is not to be supplied by the men p rformaaes of
divine worship. "No one who has not personally inquired
Into the subject can form any just idea of the profound
igeormies erne. envelops at first the understanding of cer-
tainly two-thirds of those who come wider instruction in
this plena, not s xeepting those who have been taught
to read and write tolerably in indifferent schools ; natty.'
Ignorance of Christianity, in particular, Is still more
deplorable • so that terms used in ordinarypulpit discourses
convey no distinct idea to their salads ; and the peculiar doc-
trine, of the Or pel are alto gather salmons, or so emsfused in
their mite's as.f the y heard of them only through some distant
and chemist tradition. I often sok men how they came to be
se ignorant in religion, when, . form-labouren or d ;mastic
servants, they had gone pretty regularly to church. The &s-
-now ulltifotodY is, ' I did net andante,nd the minister.'"—
Fier. /reporter the Cunoinusioners of Pentonvitts— Chop.
fait's report. "Ina.mt gaols a formal worship in the chapel,
eameeinesnied by explanations or scripture or interpretation
of
the meaning of common biblical words, is all that is given
to the prisoner. Men and women, who out of gaol attend no
5 of worship, snit have not been brought up is the know-
.' the gospel, Sliding themselves in the prison chapel,
hearing words to them quite new and entirely beyond
their compn:liensioe, leave the place with their minds unin-
fluenced by what they have heard—their reams and their
conscience unaffected by the lessons they may have listened
to, but which they do mot understand.'—Copfene O'Brien
—Fourteenth Report of Inspectors of Prisons.
Before, tten we sit down hopelessly under the burden,
and acknowle‘ that men, whom we cannot reclaim, must
be coat, died and aseatained at the country's expense, either
fa or out of prison, we ought at least to make • rational at-
tempt to apply the mighty power of religion to their hearts.
The espouse will be 21. a year for each criminal—not more ;
and this, while we an making a pre fit as their labour in
some places of 101. per annum. We must have school-
ma ens and chaplains, men of Christian patience and wis-
dom ; who will, in the trying conditions of their calling,
know how to make the gentle agency of our holy religion
work in harmony with the stern exactions of a rigid penal
discipline; and who will rely move on their week-day
thus on their Sunday aniaistratins, for bringing good
out of evil, and reaching the aistempered heart.
There must be opponuaity for adequate individual
Intercourse between the convict and his spiritual
teacher; for, as the Rev. Mr. Kingsford, the chap-
lain at ffiebraltar, moat truly observes, " I know from
experience that env conversation with a susceptible and
penetreble mind will go further towards creating the wish
to do well, than tan sermons, however well adapted." Let
this system then be tee, el,—leaning neither on dry formali-
ties 110, on credulous fanaticism ;—nsither by extravagant
remunerations, tempting men to engage in this sacred call-
ing for the sake of its emoluments ; nor by a more foolish
economy, driving from it those whose hearts are in the
work, by ',Janet* to the labourer his just hire. In this
ease it is oar firm conviction that our gaols, our bulk,, and
oar penal settlements, will cease ere long to be our shame
and our sin, as they have hitherto been.
_. _

There is a strong feeling tluvughout the country, we are
well aware, against the employment of criminals in gangs
on public work,. But it must be recollected that every
stage in prison discipline is a choice of evils. So con-
sidered, we thick we are justified in assumieg u pro-
bable what further experience, we trust, will enable us to
prove—that, in groper localities, and under proper superin-
tendence, the second stage of puniskount—via , compulsory
labeur—may be coa•ioaed for any length of time to which
criminals are usually sentenced, without injury to their phy-
sical or moral condition, indeed wi.h a possibility of great
Improvement to the latter ; and this without any cost to the
country beyond the first outlay for providing the requisite
buildings. In certain places even this may be repaid by the
value of the labour.

The third stage of punishment brings the convict
to • distant colony. Whatever right, in the abstract, the
mother country may panes of transferring her criminals to
another land, it is one which no wise statesman will exercise,
except with great caution and extreme tenderness for the
wishes of oar colonial dependencies. There is, however,
good reason fee hoping that we con so improve the article
which we seek to export, as to render it worth taking : and
that, though it wsuid do harm if kept at home, it may do
good abre‘l • in the same way, that the contents of a London
sewer, which might poison the metropolis, would fertilise
field. It appears that such a number of our colonies are
already willing to receive our criminal population, as will
suable the crown to disperse them ever a wide area, and
thus avoid the danger of too great an aciensaulation in any
one spot.

The oast to the country of the deportation- of convicts pre-
mier to be much reduced by an important regulation adopted
by Esrl Orey. The regulation in question has been made
practicable by the iatrcduction of task work ; and by the con-
sequent ability and disposition of the convicts to earn some-
thing for themselves. A portion of their maims is laid by
for them against the time when the period of their dotte-
d= shall have repined and a useful fund is thus crested,
from which they are now required to defray the expense of
their removal to the place of their future abode, and, it
married, half the cost of the passage of their wives and tuni-
BINI. The expense of their own removal has been find at
the railorm sum of 151., whatever be the colony to which
they are sent.
The last point of consideration is the proper disposal of the
oonviets when arrived at the foreign land. A considerable
proportionii may, of course, be immediately placed in
; but a large number will remain on whom,
kr the sake of thaswelves and of the colony, some
reatralat will still be necessary. The decision taken
by the government, after great deliberation, is to
give them tickets of have. There are, however, per-
ms who still advocate the eadgamaat system, or some
modification of it. We notice ' bemuse there seems a
beedoncy as present, especially in people strongly impressed
with the 'vile of the probation system as triad in Van
Diemen% Lend, to fly bath to old enore,—the vices of which
are las vividly present to,
their minds, and therefore sge
bat are in of less magnitude. e
b,
"reek.not resift ," really woes, weliliwaseve, as
abandonment of the principle of assignment. Now the
principle of assignment is that the work or service of the
convict shall be assigned by the government to seeas pri-
vate individual. It was slavery, in so far am the natural
right of a rasa to his own labour was taken from him, and
given to an individual not chosen by Wager. The system,
however, fell, not bemire of a cry against' white slavery ;"
bat because it produced the peculiar evils, which have
ever followed the acquisition by one man of this particular
ri&t over another. These evils are neglect and tyranny. It
isbwond the power of government to obviate or to palate
them. The only remedy is to convert the slave into a ser-
vant, and thee pkno some means of redress in his own hands
—the right of waking another ureter being far more effec-
tual for hie protection than any power in the government of
isillictieg punishment. Our system of apprenticeship la the
sic rest approach we have to assignment, ands ohm ad-
duced as an evidenced its practicability. But apprentiomitip
exists because the apprentice is really under the mention
of some relative ; and the pervading balance of hundreds of
thousands of parents, whose Widrea are apprentices,
keeps the practise and the general tone of feeling
eight- if ths wrestles frisadinn, then the inherent danger
of the principle ininserOguly apcis; and the suffering,
of parish appreaties, le ilag have often given a
Birdlime iatinseden of the eheresesr would amass is the
distant eclitary cheep-hems of Aseeralla—eibees the ma of
the law does nee leash, end dee /eke of peas *aka is
unheard. So lone ee the peinelpie el ass eat al main-
tained, under whatever niedikaden, the sendition of the
convict must deposal ea the Mapper sad the esenpation of his
master ; that ie, ea drags. The ehjewies is,, nee that the
suffering is —weenynseefair thee mot be the we is every
'yam pnailklmsnt bet that k Inequality and uncer-
tainty carried es the statdatena. is Irene than a lottery ;
for such is the pW.Sisses=stlas syslia. diet the blanks
generally nal to tie imam% and the primes
to the visisweasse. Then is hue eta caw it tlis,—to give
the convict the right of choosing his own maw. la every