The Express.
London, England, 1857-01-03 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 3.

It the Farad Goverment of ilwitserised were,
at the request of the Great Poway, to liberate
the Noshhotel phones without trill, they
would coshes that those IMO acted righteoady
when they roes is erns to 'subvert the mistime
Orffersaest et hivekiatel sad wiastal the
lag at Pavan& ewe a eselhadoa would
be treseured up by the Pre.= Oevorsareat,
sad would be brought firma a the Ilia
semi= whet the Federal Govemast was
usprepared to root a demand for the em-
s. at NeshiateL What guarsatee is afield
the Swim that so week demand sun ever
be ursier The WOAD tam& et die Zamora at
Plat= sad AOSTIUA sad at the Lag of Panne I
MFr deessey's rake add a Marital of thistle-
dews to give a little weight to etch pledges" !twit-
sarhad thaefore las s : Let the Lag et PRUSSIA
first remains all claim to Neahatsi, sal then we
will gladly sake his a premed of the rely hotheads
we have caged. And the English Goawsalest says
that she irking this stipulation Switserlead only
sesys• rudest airtime of aelf-preserratiom. The
Ileglii Goversatemt therefore—we would gladly
bilit hen the grumbliag at meta/alai &gleamy—
lamb that the int step is mutual ceseeaka shell
be takes, rest by thriterelead, but by the Lag of
Mau.

We have no right to ask of the Swim to
=riles themselves for the Liberal cause ia
Erne. But we believe that the policy which
fir the sake of the Liberal came we would wish to
see them adopt, she that which is most likely to pore
used rive to their own presmvation. It is to main-
tale anahrinkingly the calm and daunts= attitude ,
they have cased. If they waver they are lost.
At the lan symptoms of iatimilstion ea their part
Pusan will abuse and lay laid of Me sad
lichadhausos. Amnia will amt. ender the pretext
that this milibry ossupatioa aeries Politely by
Prawn endsagered the Wanes of European power,
monk her troops into the name and the esentry
of the Orions. She would no sooner have mods
this movemat than the Emperor of the Faxing
would lay his lauds on Gemena anti NeulthateL
The truth is, that Peones and Amnia, when
adjuring Prude le abstain hem iavading
Switseriand, remind u Irresistibly of schoolboys
exhorting • comrade to anon hem robbing an
orchard. If the entinate wan persists, the young
Moralists are pretty sure to aunt a slime et the
apoiL The Freesia Austrian, sod Prunes Omni-
seats all hate liwitnerlend equally in their hearts.
Its prosperity under republican institutions is as
spew to them. The asylum it abrels to political
rethgess keeps them in a stale of thrush slam.
They are all of them eager to roman in Swifter-
lead, in the nineteenth onstary, the infamous game
of partition played la Poland in the eighteenth.
"The Swift," writes oar special correspondent
from Gesna, "look to &slant as the only power
whose vein may yet be beard seeing the immoderate
punning of their mune in the onsasils of
Europe.' Devoutly do we pray that this confidenee
may not be 'sinned We will heps that the
English Government will set in a meaner worthy
tithe ocanion. And we believe that oar otherwhe
acute and well-informed correspondent is in error
when he assumes that England would take umbrage
at any proposal of the American Union to share
in the negotiation. The recant condiret of the
Cabinets at Washington and St. James's proves that
both are equally easing for cordial =wen and co-
operation. If a Congress is to decide on the Prune-
Swiss controversy, it amens to us that the Swiss
have a right to demon that representatives of the
United States &odd take part in its deithentions.
The only repablicaa Government in limp is sorely
entitled to insist epos having sae repuldlain judge a
member of the tribunal to wheal drain it shall
submit its cue in a litigation with • frowned head.

Ws have no intention of devil' or making Vida
of the evils under which the esentry ie now Maur.
lii in consequence of the dieherge of sonvista
utterly unfit for release. We beim. Weed, awl
the extent of these evils be. teen amiders* low
ailed by pane, bat that they de soda is beyond all
dispute. It has been our unarm endeavour to
draw a wide distinction between the oysters este,

blished by the Act of 1863 end its working by the
Home-offloe. We by no means think the system
itself perfect, bat we are quite slam that the mode
in which it has been dealt with by the authorities
is deserving of the most emphatic reproba-
tion. We have no hesitation in saying that it
II will be utterly impossible satisfactorily to carry oat
any extensive system of secondary punishment in
this country, unlesp some substitute be devised for
the present arbitrary exercise by the Home-ollee of
the power of remitting a portion of the sentence
originally pronounced by those beat qualified to
apportion it to the offence. A criminal Judge
passes a sentence fora definite term of tronsportation,
or penal servitude, or hard labour. The prisoner
receives the award of the law without terror,
" knowing," as the learned Recorder of Hall vary
properly puts it, " that in a year or two—perhaps a
few months—he will be at lugs again, and at his
old occupation, scandalising the administration of jug- I
. . .

lice, and encouragtn. g crime to an inconceivable
extent"

For this grim abuse of the aiminal law—for this
unjustifiable trifling with the solemnity of penal
sanctions, the authorities of the Home-dike are ex-
clusively responsible. It is en utter mistake to sup-
pose that the Aet substituting penal tornado for
transportation introduced for the first time this
pectice of mistaken and capricious leniency. The
tendency existed before the Act pawed ; it operates
at the present day, es we shall presently see, in cases
to which the Act has no kind of application ; and it
early led the authorities, as we hays mese than
awe taken occasion to point out, to decline exer-
cising the power, with which the Aet spookily en-
trusted them, of recommitting for his original sen-
tence say convict who should tarn out to hays been
imprudently discharged. It ought by this time to
have butane abendentlyelear to all whowill take the
trouble to think ahead the matter that a concern of
wadi memeed se the rendssion eta portion of a sen-
tence edemaly paned after fall ingulry aright not to be
hft is the asseemally hasty Amides et functionaries
eireedy easheroined with cilia work. It is
parliedy seenetrerse that an Unar-Seeretary of
Stele lined he peartically esmefttutui into a Court
et Appel teem the misses et see criminal
ledges, mad last the penal administration d retri-
lathe judos should thus vbtually be vested in a
been& et the Chenedsentien Mee. To this seam,
we 6'l perftetly seellhat, a greet portion of the
genera sines of imeseity, saw spreading through
• esuntry, area be based. We do not say that
our whole system of semmdery punishment doss not
want cereal end weedy revision—we the astray,
we are =viand fiat it does t bet we embed trite
se confidently that no chew will be satiehetory, and
I no system will week unless some legislative cheek
be imposed on the arbitrary reemimien of sentences
by the Home-oftee.
Tie &grant case of the man MOS Homes,
which •is just now exciting so much attention in the
north et England, is by so mane an exceptional in-
stance of the unwise exercise el this authority.
Occurring, however, at a time when the public
mind is ins highly exeitable state, it bee naturally
enough caused an explomion of indignation. Of comae
it is represented as being easeeted with the Ticket-
el-have system, with which, as it happens, it has
meddler earthly to do. It is stated that
lawns Hoinra was caidanned at the last

July arms to " tex pare penal servitude." This
is imply net so. The kw knows no such
sentence. Penal servitude was introduced foe the
first time into our law by the Act of 1853, and the
lowest term of penal servitude awarded by that Act
is four yams. The new Act, and the new system,
had, in Set, nothing to do with the sentence passed
on hems HOLM= ; that sentence wee an ordi-
nary one of two pease imprisonment with hard
labour, according to the laws in force Sag before the
terse "Ticket of leave" had rare known in our
penal legislation. The case, no doubt, is a bad one.
The men had been empeeted at being cemeerned in as
atrocious murder, and although the roof adduced
Idled to bring this erne home to him, he was soon
aftarwerds convicted of a brutal and criminal
mirk on a child of tender years, committel
with every circumetanee of enormity and surer-
riot. For this crime he received his sentence of
two years' imprisonment, and from thin imprinn-
meat, after undergoing only six months of his
punishment, he was released the other day by order
of the Honiesice orate notable ground that the
confinement was prejudicial to his health.
Ilds will never is. Valise the Hamesffee, es
cue might almost be tempted to essebade, is ender
veering to loose still more the pablie indignation
against a system of emandary punishments, which it
Lads &Souk and troublesome to work, we
have a great differty in undernanding the
meaning of this extraordinary set at mistaken els-
money. Is it to be contended for • moment
that a convict who succeeds in convincing the gaol
surgeon that his health regains change of air, is
therefore to be released from his term of imprison-
ment before a fourth part of it is concluded P A
surgeon test of this kind is only one degree, if at all,
km shined than the chaplain test. Even apart hone
the thanes' of deception, jest consider the plea on
its own merits, empporing it to be made out. An
allender is ',stepped to imprisonment, awl bapriew
mast is found to dissolve with him. His auffniar
may be thereby increased, but is any ground made oat
Sr his discharge P He was not put in prison
for his own benefit, bet for the benefit of Society.
in cosmogonies of a step rendered necessary with a
view to public security by reason of his own mis-
deeds, an additional amount of personal suffering is
entailed apes him, net nesemerily contemplated when
the original sestense was peessel—this is surely no
ground whatever for a remimion of that sentence.
The primary ewe of his sawing, is hie own vie.
harm of the law—not hie detention by these
whose duty it is to see the law vindicated.
Human gorrinent cannot go wrong, if in this
respect it follows Divine government. An age of
debility se a premature death may be a harsh
punishment for • youth of excess; bat the rational
habit of rational men is to blame the intemperance
that has eared the suffering, and not the Providers
that indicts it. Bat we are really siessed of
wasting words on a fallacy so trampler and a
eveaknees so inexcusable. It is clear as noonday
that one of the fret seeps toward. a rational ha-
prevenient in our system of secondary punishments,
met be an absolute prohibition of any such unseemly
meddling by the Homosillec with sentences solemnly
awarded by law.

Foezung-orrice, Dec. 1.--The Qom has bees
ami".l7 nisi biZegtTtteitts'etet&resbei
, siellbast en the pert
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fanliga powers it the 'oppression al ths 'lse*

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