The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 15 1855.

the most vital importance that the triumph
should be made as decisive as practicable,
and that every legitimate result of the capture of
Sebastopol should be obtained.

On this point we would suggest the propriety
of destroying the military road across the Sivash,
which will be the sole remaining way of escape
for the Russian army. We have already hermeti-
cally sealed the transit by the Spit of Arabat ;
and as Genitchi is completely at our mercy, there
is nothing to prevent an expedition into the
Putrid Sea, by which the only other road should
be blocked up, and the Russians literally eaught
in the trap, from which they could not possibly
extricate themselves, save with our permis-
sion, after an unconditional submission. It
is probable that this obvious precaution
may have been already taken, but, if not, a single
hour should not be wasted in carrying it into
practical execution.
The news from Asia is also of the utmost in-
terest. It appears that on the 29th ult. the
Russians attacked Kars, and after a desperate
conflict, protracted for eight hours, they were
obliged to retire completely routed--leaving,
besides the killed and wounded carried away
during the action, no less than 4,000 men killed
on the field. Lord STRATFORD, in his despatch,
states the killed at only 2,500, with double the '
number wounded, and 4,000 muskets left on
the field. Whichever of these versions may
be correct, it will be apparent that a very heavy
blow has been inflicted on the AUTOCRAT, who will
at length learn from bitter experience the neces-
sity of abandoning his arrogant presumption, and
of humbly suing for the peace which his prede-
cessor had so wantonly disturbed, and which he
had so favourable an opportunity of restoring, if
willing to abandon the aggressive policy for which
his house have been so painfully notorious.

The Recorder of Birmingham, Mr. M. D. D.
HILL, Q.C., has again called public attention to the
principles of dealing with our criminals. With
the experience of so many hundreds of years
before us it might have been suppesed that the
world knows as much on the matter as it is ever
likely to know. The social sceptic will naturally
ask what new properties we expect to develop© in
such a well-tried old subject as human nature.
Idolatry, Judaism, Mahometanism, and, finally,
Christianity have all tried what religion, whether
false or true, could do for it ; yet here we are, in
the nineteenth century of the purest faith the
earth ever saw, or ever will see, murdering each
other by thousands through the ambition of
Christian despots, and overrun with criminals,
young and old, whom we can neither protect from
becoming malefactors nor reclaim from their
course when they have begun it. All forms of
government, all classes of criminal reformers,
have also, of late years, at least tried their hands,
and most honestly, to solve one of the most im-
portant of social problems ; and yet, it must be
cpufessed, no general solution has hitherto been
found. We are not, however, to despair. Old
as the world is, the science of criminal reforma-
tion is still but young. Till quite modern times
the gallows, the gaol, the whip, and the stocks
were regarded as the eonsecrated and sole ministers
of justice. To doubt their exclusive right to the
correction of crime was as, heterodox as to doubt
the Apostolical succession of the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY. Each class of persons invoked the
highest forms of vengeance as the groat safeguard
against crime. The Bank of England immolated
hundreds of victims on false as well as true
charges of forging a one-pound note. Shopkeepers
did the same to protect their counters from the
loss of a few pence worth of goods, and farmers
to secure their sheep and horses.
The natural feeling is now in reaction from all
this barbarism ; the benevolent views originated
by ROMILLY, MACKINTOSH, and their friends are
still in the ascendant, but it is to be feared the
school of DICKENS has given rather a mawkish
turn to them ; and, even fully conceeding that the
great object is to reclaim the criminal if possible
we must not allow the sentiment that they are
j " more sinned against than sinning " to interfere
with their recovery from the paths of sin. Few
criminals, any more than children, can be caressed
out of evil ways. The point to be aimed at is a
successful appeal to their fears as well to their
hopes. WhateVer may have made men criminals,
early example, indolence, knavish disposition, or
1 clever seduction, yet the habits once acquired can
only be broken off by experience of their painful
consequences, by long discipline in better habits
till they shall have become easy and natural, and
by confidence that, continuing in the latter, they
shall support themselves in much greater comfort
than in their old vicious courses.

Mr. HILL thinks one of the greatest dangers,
just now, arises from public impatience with
protracted penal discipline. We are unwilling to
allow the time requisite for lasting reformation.
Re lays it down as fundamental, that those in-
trusted with the administration of justice should
have power "to retain in custody all such, as are
convicted of crime until they have by sure and %tn.
equivocal tests demonstrated that they have the will
and the power to gain an honest livelihood when at
large." Mr. HILL does not shrink from fully
carrying out his principle, The incurables he
would retain in perpetual custody. This may
startle some persons on the ground of expense ;
but, as he observes, a confirmed criminal costs
society more abroad than in a prison, especially
under a system which should make his labour
more or less available to his own support. Mr.
HILL maintains, in the same manner, that long
periods of imprisonment—periods sufficiently long
to insure successful results from proper industrial
discipline—would not fill our prisons more than
the present system. The residents for brio
periods in prisons are the class who keep them
full, both by their own frequent returns thither,
and by their corruption of others. Reverse the
idea of going to prison. Lot a criminal know
that he would never quit it till he had by literal
industry and self-control, and by actual accumula-
tion of a fund—failing which he would be a
prisoner earned his discharge, he would
then
on
i the danger of getting
look for
very life--earned
de—ifieren tIY
there, and would certainly, fho obtained liberty
by self-denial and toil, prefer continuing both in
a state of freedom to practising both again in a
cell, and that probably for life. Mr. HILL very
fairly contends that the morally insane, whose
iv3ireoipoeurs will no
for perpetual confinement as
no discipline can tame, are quite as
lunatics. ;: may even be said ---they are
more properly so,
since the fault is one of will
only.

The learned Recorder considers that the
ticket-of-leave systena'has in no respect yet had a
fair trial. It has come upon the gaol authorities
wholly unprepared, through our colonies refusing
any longer to he saddled with our criminals ;
while popular sentiments have indisposed our Secre-
tary of State to enforce to the desirable extent the
power of recal. The most serious defect, however,
he considers to be in the administration of the
power of conditional release ; it has been granted
before reasonable or rather satisfactory proofs of
reclaimed habits. If a man can hope to regain
his liberty in a short time by mere , orderly be• j

haviour, and by apparent and perhaps sincere '
attention to the chaplain's instructions, it is his
interest to act thus for the required time, al-
though no change of habits, at least none suffi-
cient to resist the temptations of daily life, may
have been acquired. On this point Mr. HILL
agrees with Mr. PEARSON. He would subject
each prisoner to industrial discipline. Of the
results of his labour an exact account should be
kept, a certain amount should be held essential
in any case to obtaining his liberty, so that he
must earn it, and in that process acquire at least
the habit of regular work. In addition to this
it should be allowed him to take out part of the
results of his industry in improved diet, but then.
all such indulgence would go in diminution of
the amount by which he was earning his liberty ;
the more, therefore, he asked indulgence in
food the longer must he be a prisoner. By pri-
son industry thus arranged with a view to call
into exercise habits of regular labour and of self-
control, Mr. HILL thinks, and it would appear
most reasonably, to grant the conditional ticket,
with every hope that it would rarely have to be
recalled. The system of short imprisonment for
crime seems to be about the worst supposable
device. It is certainly more humane, as well as
politic, to confine any man who deserves a prison
at all, till he shall not be likely to return to it
again, after having probably also corrupted others
by his example.

The proceedings at the grand baiquet held in
celebration of the Crimean victories, at Glasgow,
on Friday evening last, a report of which will be
found in another page, were of too important,
significant, and, we may be permitted to add,
personal a nature to be recorded without com-
ment.

With rumours around us of defections from the
cause of Eberly and right on the part of mongrel
Right Honourables and unscrupulous politicians
—with unwarranted murmurs of dissatisfaction
with our brave troops and the veteran General at
their head still fresh in our ears—with the blush
of shame hardly extinct that rose for the sullied
(1) glory—we blush for the slanderer who said so
—of that glorious flag that waved so wildly and
grandly ou the ramparts of the Redan—with the
first feeling of discouragement in connection with
the War just dispelled, it is with proud satisfaction
we point to a corner of the kingdom where traitors
and peace-mongers are at a discount, where the
people, like ourselves, have never for a moment
wavered in their advocacy of the War, nor in
their faith in the untarnished glory of the British
flag, and where history, as it were, from the lips
of the most popular British historian, has pro-
' nouuced her verdict of approval of the War, and
done justice to the unconquerable valour, un-
matched devotion, and high empriee of our gallant
army in the East.
The limits of a single article will not suffer us
to notice the several speeches as we could wish.
We must, therefore, confine ourselves to that of
Sir A. ALisoN, only adverting to the remainder
to remark that they were in perfect keeping with
it, and in every respect worthy of the occasion.
And well did the patriotic historian acquit himself
as the anualist of the War ; well did be describe
the magnitude of the contest, the unparalleled
difficulties it presented, the matchless heroism and
devotion of our troops, and the wonderful success
that has been reaped by their valour and untiring
exertions. " The annals of the world," he justly
remarked, " will be sought in vain for the waging
of such a war, at such a distance and with such
means. In comparison with it the army of
ALEXANDER, the legions of Rome, the hosts of the
Crusades, sink into insignificance. Proportionally
great," he proceeds to remark, for the benefit of
croakers and the encouragement of the army and
his fellow-countrymen, "have been the suc-
cesses in the terrible strife which ensued.
Three victories in pitched battles in the field, an
arduous and unparalleled siege of 10 months'
duration, terminating in a decisive triumph, the
total destruction of a fleet of 18 sail of the line
and 100 vessels of war, the capture of a first-rate
fortress with 6,000 pieces of cannon, and the
bloody defeat of 150,000 men, signalised the cam-
paign before the Allied Armies had been a year
in the peninsula !" Aby no means inglorious item
this in the national history of both France and
England ; but how much more glorious when the
valour and endurance of the victors (and not least
the English portion) is taken into account--when
it is remembered that " neither the storm of
autumn nor the snows of winter, neither the
floods of December nor the heats of July, neither
th© sword of the enemy nor the poison of pesti-
lence, have been able to arrest that invincible
host ;" that under every circumstance of discourage-
ment they persevered and struggled onward ; that
while they suffered and perished in fearful multi-
tudes, it was "in silence," others not less courageous
supplying their place, " until the awful struggle
was brought to a termination, and the Allied
standards implanted on the ramparts of Sebas•
topol."

The allusion of the speaker to the cause of
the fearful struggle, and to the alliance with France,
which have been followed by such grand results,
was as well timed as the vindication was complete.
The object we had in view in taking up arms
against Russia was the same we had in view in
waging war with the first NAPOLEON. It was
"to succour the weak against the strong, the
just against the unjust," and so far from a viola-
tion of principle on our part being involved in our
union with France against Russia, instead of with
Russia against France, the union took place
because she joined us under our old banner
in vindication of the right. The striking
coincidence between the events of the siege
of Ascalon and of Sebastopol was not less happily
introduced, more especially in connection with
the disappointment experienced at our army
not having figured more conspicuously at the
consummation of the siege. History, in that in-
stance, did justice to the efforts of both armies, and
" assigned at least an equal place to the English
under RICII4ED as to the French under PEILIp
AUGUSTUS." And history, it was well suggested,
will not fail to do justice to the armies before
Sebastopol, and more especially to the army that
furnished the brave troops that were repulsed
before the Redan. When the story of the siege
is read in after days, there can bo no doubt the
award of glory will fle more equally distributed
than it has of late been between the two armies,
and a blush of indignation will arise at the
thought that, because of a retreat from a position
it was
_impossible to retain, an army that had
"leapt like CußTirs into the gulf to save
his country" was not only debarred from its right-
ful honours, but subjected, however temporarily,
to the
disgrace of being stigmatised as betrayers
of the national honour.

The Princess's Theatre opens on Monday nex!..
The parliamentary session in Piedmont is to commence
on the 12th November.
A letter from Vienna, quoted by Galignani, says :
" The Earl of Westmoreland is to return to Vienna only
to arrange his private affairs. It is alleged that Lord
John Russell is to succeed him."
It is said that Chevalier Bunsen hag declared that be
cannot accept a seat in the Prussian Chamber, as it is
his firm intention to have nothing further to do with
Politics, but to confine himself to literary labour.,