The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-06 00:00:00

cious burglary, and the proof of his having committed
another burglary in the same neighbourhood was found
upon him; nevertheless, the judge thought it unnecessary
to continue the prosecution for the second offence, and sen-
tenced bim for the first to nine months' imprisonment, if
this was the sort of sentence to be passed, it seemed to him
that it mattered very little what sort of labour they gave in
the gaol. Cases of arson were reported to be very rife in
Yorkshire, and the judges awarded three years' penal ser-
vitude for a crime which a few years ago was a capital one.
In one remarkable case that had been tried during the last
winter assize, the judge in passing sentence said he believed
the punishment was inadequate to the crime, but as he had
begun the circuit by passing the same sentence for arson he
could not alter it. He did not think anything could be done
in the way of prison discipline as long as this encourage-
ment was given by the judges to crime. (Hear, hear.)
Earl DUDLEY said he could not hold out any hope that
the Government would do anything in the matter. He be-
lieved that Government would not touch the matter at all ;
and that if anything was to be done it must be done by in-
dividual zeal. Taking it for granted that he was right in
assuming that Government would leave legislation on the
subject to individual members of Parliament, then it came
to this—What was the opinion of that Court? He did not
think that any one would profess to discontinue the system
of industrial occupation of prisoners altogether in the gaols;
but he must say that they had gone from the one extreme
—the treadmill—to the opposite. They had got the plan
of introducing industrial employment in the gaols, by
which they afforded the prisoners the means of earning
their bread when they left the prison. But mat-making,
as described by Sir J. Pakington, was not hard labour; and
as to the hardship of the treadwheel, he would remark that
that depended a good deal upon the previous lives of the
convicts. If a man were strong of limb, and used to the
open air, he would prefer the treadmill to the solitary mat-
making in a cell ; but if they had a prisoner from the Kid-
derminster looms. or from other indoor occupations, they
,made tho treadmilkineakpunitive. There was this to be
said in favour of industrial employment, that if thiere was a
spark of a chance of reform in the criminal they gave him
the chance of going out of prison a better man than he en-
tered it ; but in doing this they lost sight of the terms of hie
sentence—" hard labour." They then must remember they
could not get hard labour out of an unwilling prisoner in a
cell; they could only stop Ws supper. But on the tread-
wheel they got it out of them by force; and then they got,
what Leicesfer Gaol had the repute of being, a "hell upon
earth" for the prisoners. To meet the objection against
ten hours' bed far the prisoners they must introduce gas
into the cells, and continue work two hours longer. Tais
would do away with the great irksomeness of solitary con-
finement, which was a very great punishment to a great
many prisoners.
Sir J. PARINGTON desired to explain that he had no wish
to abandon the reformatory or industrial system, but wished
that they should not fly into the opposite extreme, which
rendered imprisonment no punishment at all. He thanked
Mr. Curtler for speaking out so boldly in regard to the sen-
tences passed by the judges. He believed one of the most
important points in connection with the great question of
the administration of the criminal law was the injudicious
leniency of the judges. (Hear.) He would not shrink from
adding to what had been said by Mr. Curtler, that it was
the general opinion of the Royal Commission on Penal
Servitude, of which he (Sir John) was a member, that the
injudicious leniency of the judges of late years had produced
a great increase of crime. (Hear, hear.)
The subject then dropped.