The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-14 00:00:00

SECONDARY PUNISHMENTS.

The ticket-of-leave system has found an apologist
in the person of Mr. T. W. Saunders, Recorder of
Bath. In charging the grand jury at the Quarter
Sessions for the city on Friday Mr. Saunders de-
clared his belief that the public mind had gone
wrong to a great extent on this subject. He relied
on the judicial statistics for 1861 as showing that
the feeling which oppressed the public that we are
drifting into a sea of crime from the substitution of
penal servitude for transportation was a mistake.
In 1858 there were in round numbers 40,000 known
thieves and depredators at large, while in 1861 the
number was only 29,000, showing a decrease of 21
per cent. in favour of the latter year. These known
depredators did not comprise all the criminal classes
of the country. There were besides suspected per-
SODS, prostitutes, vagrants, and tramps, with respect
to whom the figures stood thus:—ln 1858 there were
134,000 of these people at large, while in 1861 there
were only 123,000. These statistics showed that
whereas in 1858 one person in 136 belonged to the
criminal class, in 1861 there was only one in 163.
These returns also showed that, though the number
of criminals had become fewer,the numberof crimes
had not increased. In 1861 there was an increase of
crime, as compared with 1860, of less than 1 per
cent.; but there was also an increase of crimes de-
tected of over 9 per cent. ; so that nearly 10 percent.
more persons charged with crime were detected than
in the previous year. Then, how stood the fact as to
the number of persons committed for trial P In 1857
there were 20,000 committals for indictable offences ;
in 1858, 17,000 ; in 1860, i
16,000 ; and 1861,
extent,
18,000 ; so that it would appear that in 1861
there was an increase of
2
year. Crime, however, did not in reality increase,
but detections
t d
. overd, to the
talreadyhe
preceding
stated,
of ore rn
,0 v
as over
the previous year. It was not
because of
cei
the occurrence of clime, attended with
violence, that it was to be inferred that the sum
total of crime was increasing. There was a fashion
in crime as in everything else. Horsestealing and
sheepstealing
were almost extinct, and now we
heard of garotting. He believed, however, that the
ingenuity of man would devise means for checking
that offence. Referring to the substitution of penal
servitude for transportation, the learned Recorder
pointed out the proportion of the sentence which
every prisoner must serve, whatever might be his
conduct, and he adverted to the fact that, while the
total number sentenced to penal servitude who were
discharged yearly was about 3,000, the number of
prisoners discharged after serving out their various
terms of imprisonment was 18,000 per annum.
While there was much that might be done in the
way of improving the 53 stem of penal servitude,
and much that [bight be hoped for from the. appoint-
ment of a commission on the subject, he believed that
education was the great remedy for crime. The re-
turns of the Registrar of births, marria.gas, and
deaths, showed that in 1860, 105,000 signed the mar-
izm
riage registrar with a cr
s,-26 in every 100 men,
and 36 in every 100 women: With reg and to cri-
mina g, 34 per cent. could neither read nor write, 60
could only read or read and write imperfectly, and
only 4 per cent, could read and write w(111. There
was not 1 per cent. who had received superior edu-
cation. Attertiou ought, therefore, to be directed
to improving the education of the people, for when
it was found t hat only 4 per cent. of the per sons con-
y!c led could read and write well, the inference
might be fairly drawn, that if all could. read. and
Write well very little crime would be corn mated.