The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-20 00:00:00

get committed to prison. When the defendant was
informed that she would have to go for three months
to the House of Correction with hard labour, she

replied that she did not care, for in prison she only
had to pick two pounds of oakum per day, and in

,he workhouse she had three to do. Mr. SELFE

very properly observed that this was a great ano-
maly, "either the one should be reduced, or the
other augmented." Can anything be imagined
more preposterous than this, more likely to
prove fertile in developing resources of
crime, and more calculated to grind down the face
of depressed poverty. The woman in question is
not the subject to be much hardened or softened by
any treatment ; she is evidently a desperately de-
praved character; but what judgment is meted to
her is measured to others who are similar to her in

position, though superior in conduct and right
feeling. It is an insult to poor creatures, whose

poverty may often be beyond their means to avert
or prevent, to rank criminals about them, and to
bestow lighter tasks and supply better food to those
who have erred. It seems strange that in a Chris-
tian country those who break the commandments
of GOD are of more value and consequence in the

eight of men than those whose only error is that
they have not taken sufficient thought for the

morrow to provide themselves with the meat tha'

perisheth. It is time that something be done to put
a stop to such outrageous inconsistency. The young
woman, whose impertinent condact has been re-
corded, has done a good service to the cause in
telling her opinion, and doubtless all that is shared
by many like her. Can nothing bo done to make
the refuges of distress more comfortable and less
irksome ! and can our prisons never be able
to exercise a deterrent influence. These:may be
problems that are difficult to solve, but upon their
satisfactory settlement much depends. For more
than the comfort of the afflicted and the shelter of
the homeless, the prevention of crime is in a great
measure connected with these rules and regulations
of prison and workhouse. The cases are few and
far between where people enter the workhouse for
idleness, and if they are so infatuated, a very short
sojourn there will disabuse their minds of the fella-

cioas notion that they can rest there, or take their
ease. The excuse is often made by those who do
not wish to be troubled about the matter, that the
inmates of workhouses are idle and good for nothing.
ELIZABETH CORBETT has given a denial to these
assertions in pretty strong terms, and the captious
may now, perhaps, comprehend that it is no sucl
luxury to go into a workhouse after all. A more
striking and solemn denial has been given over and
over again to the absurd remarks during the last

nclement weather, We were continually hearing
of cases which showed that many preferred starva-
tion to the chance of becoming life long inmates of
the Union. Indeed the relieving eflicer in some
places availed himself of this prejudice
by insisting that no single member of a
family should be admitted if all did not choose to
enter. In almost every case of this sort a decided
refusal was given, and a short time afterwards the
unfortunate sufferer perished miserably in want of
the commonest necessaries of life, and the disease
aggravated by surrounding circumstances. If the
authorities at the workhouses are to blame, as they
unquestionably are, it may be seen that those who
regulate the prisons cannot be exculpated. Why
should criminals be so tenderly treated and so care-
fully tended ? It is the more deplorable that this
should be, because the habitual prisoner, the man
and woman who is convicted over and over again, is
always a hardened character, who is not in need of
such alleviations to a career of crime and a course
of infamy, As a rule the prison is the receptac:e
of the daring nature, and the workhouse the resort
of the depressed one. This woman at Westmin-
ster, for instance, had only just been liberated from
confinement. She had just undergone a sentence
of sii weeks' imprisonment for breaking her
mother's windows, and here she was busy planning
an outrage to get sent back to the uninviting locality
from whence she just issued. If she has been
brought prominently forward by reason of her
violent demeanour, and made herself remarkable by
tier outspoken language, in her acts and intentions
she is one of a class whose name is legion. If the
truth could be got from many a ruffian, and many
a lost woman, they would say that they had
co choose between the Union and the
prison, and that they preferred the latter.
Such things are too important to be
passed over constantly in silence, as it is too
often the fashion to do. The fact is that the sub.
ject is a tedious and tiresome one, and therefore
it is put aside for a more convenient opportunity.
['he shortness and uncertainty of life does not
admit of this constant procrastination, and while
same doubt and others deny, and all disagree as to
what should be done, the refuges for poverty are
so obnoxious to those for whom they are designed,
that some willingly decide to sin, and others re-
solve to starve rather than enter them. A pauper
is a sign-manual of reproach, and such an appella-
tion seems to affix a lasting stigma to a name ;
but should this be so ? It is not the clever sharper,
the adroit swindler, and the cunning trickster,
who often came to this pasa ; if discovered the
prison receives them, and if only worn out or un-
successful they can generally ,devise plans for
their own provision, The dwel:ers in workhouses
are generally those who have became poor by im-
providence, want of employment, sickness, or some
other of the thousand ills to which flesh is heir.
Why should it be deemed, then, that they are under
a law, that they should work harder, fare worse,
and meet with more contempt than the murderer,
and the profligate Earthly power shows likcst
heaven's when mercy tempers justice, but in this
doctrine there is no doctrine at all in the case. It
is not always the most estimable charactera who
are the best provided with the good things of this
world, and we should beware lest we follow too
much the example of DIVES, and make such
iduls of wealth that we hold it a sin to be poor.
If such dogmas lead the erring still further astray
and drive the wretched to starve, surely the instance
of LAZARUS is multiplied a hundred fold among us.
m. ► ---

Among the discoveries of our modern days few
have been more remarkable than those achieved by
the researches into the interior of the continent of
Africa. Until within a very recent period so little
was known of the central portion of this vast eon.
tinent that it was commonly believed the greater
part of the interior consisted of sandy wastes in
which water was totally deficient. Africa was a
field left untried by our explorers and investigators,
while scientific men were content to leave the ques-
tion in abeyance, or to satisfy curiosity by a ;ew
vague surmises. Now all is changed. YV ithin a
comparatively short space of time we have had a
plentiful supply of able, intelligent, and adven.
turns traveler?, who, for one purpose or another,
for sport, for science, for enterprise, or for curiosity,
have perilled life and limb in obtaining for us the
long desired information. The researches of BARTH,
GALTON, BURTON, SPEKE, GRANT, and LIVING-
STONE have completely revolutionised the popular
theories about Africa, and the interest everywhere
expressed and manifested in the narratives of these
gentlemen is somewhat remarkable, considering the
nature of the subject. Dr. LIVINGSTONE'S account
of hie travels obtained an extensive circulation in