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

THERMOMETER.

This day at Two o'clock 29
Barometer-30.15.
Wind—N. ; moderate, and fine. with sharp frost.

nion.

,
61/4

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 6, 1864.

The visiting magistrates of Reading Gaol have
fairly overreached themselves. By a very dexterous
and, sophistical interpretation of the law,
they had ingeniously contrived to thwart
the liberal intentions of the Legislature,
and render the very enactment which
especially provided for the religious instruction of
prisoners, not only nugatory, but directly preven-
tive of any beneficial results. The matter was
brought under the attention of the assembled
Magistrates at the Epiphany sessions, which were
held in the Town Hall of Reading on Monday last.
An unusually large mumber were drawn together
by the interest of the subjects under discussion.
'The most important of which was the consideration
of the refusal of the visiting magistrates of Reading
gaol to allow the Rev. Canon RIN GROSE access to the
Catholic prisoners unless his visits were specially de-
manded by those prisoners. Mr. WALTER, MP., in a
very liberal speech had " no hesitation in saying that
he disapproved of the decision of the visiting jus-
tices." Mr. WALTER reminded his hearers that he
had taken part in the discussion in the House
when the bill was pasbed, and that he had paid
great attention to the whole matter. " The third
section of the Act," he said, " contemplated two
distinct things. First, the appointment by the
court, if they saw fit, of a Roman Catholic chaplain,
and the payment to him of a salary—that was, if
there was a sufficient number of Roman Catholic
prisoners in the gaol to warrant such a course ; and
the second part of that section enabled the visiting
justices, if they thought fit, without a special re-
quest being made by, but not against the will of,
any prisoner differing from the Established Church,
to permit a talinister of the church or persuasion to
which such prisoner belonged to visit him at proper
and reasonable times." The second portion of the

clause was to meet the circumstances of a county
like this. He said:—

"The Roman Catholic prisoners were few in number,
and the Roman Catholic priest should have the right or
privilege of visiting such, subject to the regulations laid
down, and provided that no objection was made to it by the
prisoner. That he took to be the meaning of the Act, and
with the view of carrying out its meaning he had framed
an amendment, viz. :—' It is the opinion of this Court that
the visiting justices would do well to carry out the provi-
sions of the Prison Ministers Act, contained in the second
part of the third section of that Act.' He
submitted this amendment because while, on the one
hand, the Court only had the power of appoint-
ing and paying a Roman Catholic chaplain, they had no
power to enforce visiting justices to make any such arrange.
ment. He was therefore anxious to collect the opinion of
the Court as to whether the visiting justices had done
wisely in refusing Mr. Ringrose the permission asked for.
When he listened to Mr. Merry's string of objections as to
the difficulties, impossibilities, confusion, trouble, and want
of discipline that would arise supposing they attempted to
carry out this act, it struck him that they were very much
the same sort of objections they world hear if we were at-
tempting to obtain justice for Protestant prisoners in Roman
Catholic prisons in Spain. Theywould not hear a word about
conscience or matters of that sort. But he believed that there
was no difficulty in the matter. He believed that the half-
dozen Roman Catholic prisoners in Reading Gaol could be
visited by Mr. Ringrose (provided that they did not object)
without any breach of prison discipline whatever; and
if there happened to be any prisoners of the Wesleyan,
Baptist, Independent, or Jewish persuasion, the same pro-
vision should be made, and there should be no difficulty in
carrying out this Act of Parliament. He would undertake,
if he were a visiting justice, to carry out the law without
giving to Mr. Ringrose, or any other minister, any undue
licence. He was as anxious as any one to maintain prison
discipline, and he did not sea that it would in any way be
affected by giving effect to the new law. His object in pro-
posing this amendment was to collect the sense of the Court
as to the expediency, or otherwise, of carrying that modi-
fied or limited provision in the second part of the third
section of the Act, believing it to be their duty to promote
every means for the religious instruction of the prisoners."
In an equally liberal and unbigotted spirit Sir

EORGE BOWYER, M.P., declared a similar opi-
" The Legislature, in passing that Act, was
not actuated by any sectarian or religions motive
whatever. The Act was passed on general public
grounds. It was an Act for the improvement of
discipline in the gaols of the country, and for secur-
ing to prisoners in those gaols who did not belong

to the Established Church that instruction and
religious assistance according to their own persua-
sion, without which it was utterly vain to expect
any amendment in those prisoners. He understood
that the chief objection of Mr. MERRY to any
proposition of this sort was that if they appointed,a
Roman Catholic chaplain they must do the same with
regard to prisoners of other persuasions differing

from the Established Church. In answer to this he
would say that he did not ask the Court to give to
prisoners of his own religious persnsion that which
he was not willing should be given to prisoners of
other persuasions."
Mr. WALTER'S very timely and temperate motion,
recommending the visiting justices to carry out the
provisions of the Act of Parliament, was, after some
discussion, agreed to. Mr. MERRY and the other
gentlemen referred to, protesting all the time that
these provisions were carried out, the letter of the law
being at their adroit instigation ingeniously di-
rected to counteract the spirit. While deprecating
the sectarian sentiments evidenced by these
gentlemen it is very satisfactory to recog-
nise in the whole tenour of the meeting a
spirit of rational not to say Christian
toleration. The reformation of the criminal
inmates of our prisons is a subject of such
vital importance, not to the criminal only, but to the
well-being of society in general, that in the consi-
deration of such a question all prejudice and fana-
ticism should be laid aside, and the subject should be
regarded only in the enlightened spirit of Christian
philanthropy and universal charity.

The meeting of the Executive Committee of the
Relief Fund, which assembled at Manchester a day
or two ago, presented some interesting features.
The gentlemen assembled must have felt that they
were entering upon another year in the prosecution
of their self-imposed and arduous task, and they
would scarcely fail to look back on the past and
forward to the future with very mingled feel-

Lugs. The long-continued trouble which has we

nigh paralysed one of our principal branches of
trade, and occasioned such bitter distress in thou.
sands of our English working homes, has brought
with it some consoling reflections. The politica
economist may rejoice that the blow which was
expected to cripple our trade has only served to
prove the elasticity of our commercial resources,
seeing that, notwithstanding the heavy losses en-
tailed upon the public generally by the cotton
famine, and the demand on the charity of all classes
made by the Lancashire distress, the national pro-
sperity is in no way lessened. England can not
only bear the loss of one of her great sources of in-
dustrial revenue, but she can afford to assist with a
liberal hand the inhabitants of that large and popu-
lous shire whose trade is thus suddenly suspended.
But the question has other aspects besides the com-
mercial or political. It is highly instructive, as
showing how good may come out of evil, how the
greatest evil rightly met and boldly faced has its
attendant blessings. "Every cloud has its silver
lining," says the beautiful and poetical old adage,
and truly the present cloud, heavy though it be, has
given us some indications of the light within. Chief
among these was the kindliness of feeling, the
warmth of sympathy so readily evoked among those
beyond reach of the calamity, the prompt and plen-
tiful succour which all classes hastened to proffer,
from the Royal lady, who gladly availed herself of
her nominal connection with the suffering county,
to contribute that relief which as QUEEN etiquette
forbade her to give, down to the poor, who
hastened to subscribe their sixpences and shillings
to help those who were poorer than themselves.
This sentiment and sympathy not only proved a
bond of union, a common object of interest to all
ranks and conditions in these realms, but it awoke
the old sympathies of race and country in the
hearts of Englishmen throughout the globe, and
served to knit them close to the motherland.
The noble contributions of our dependencies, the
Australian colonies at the head, as befitted their
wealth and geographical importance, were accom-
panied by sums from the English resilents in
foreign parts, to prove they had not for-
gotten their nationality among the strange
scenes and engrossing occupations of their new
career. The amount collected from these various
sources was very large—so large as to be worthy of
the wealth and spirit of our people—so large that
the balance now in hand, after the immense and
long-continued demand upon the resources of the
committee, is considerably more that £2oo,ooo—so
large that the interest on the accumulated stores
adds no inconsiderable figure to the sum total. But
more than the money's worth was the spirit in which
it was given—freely, eagerly tendered, not as forced
contributions, not as grudging and chary doles to
absolute necessity, not as State assistance compul-
sorily given to its subjects, but as the ready help
one brother should give another in a time of un-
merited distress and sore and urgent need. And that
these feelings were in some measure reciprocal, that
what was freely given was freely taken, in the same
spirit of Englishmen bearing a common trouble, has
been unmistakeably shown in the ' earing of the