The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-05 00:00:00

tences. But, little reason as we have to be satisfied
with the recommendation of the Commissioners as
regards transportation, we are not prepared with
Mr. Adderley to surrender the idea altogether, or,
which is much the same thing, to leave it to private
agency assisted by public money. If transportation
be abed thing, let us abstain from it altogether; if a
good one, let us take it into our own hands and con-
duct it by an agency responsible to the public. If
we fear, as Mr. Adderley hints, the reclamations of
other countries who may object to receive the refuse
of our population, that objection will be just as '
cogent whether we direct the transportation our-
selves or give money to private persons to direct it for
us. The blind would be too transparent to deceive
any one, and the responsibility would attach with
all the more force from the consciousness of the
necessity of the concealment which an indirect pro-
ceeding would imply. We are convinced that a re-
turn to transportation to Australia could not be main-
tained in the face of the opposition of the colonists.
They would soon place us in the dilemma of giving
up our plan or enforcing it by arms, and they expect
with no unreasonable confidence that to this last
and worst arbitrament no Government would be
likely to have recourse. Besides, the transportation
to such a country as Australia would be much more
of a reward than punishment, and would tend
rather to the increase than the prevention of crime.
Must we, then, give up the idea of transportation
altogether, since we can neither acquiesce in the
recommendation of the commission nor in the pri-
vate agency assisted by public money proposed by
Mr. Adderley ? This gentleman argues that punish-
ment is one thing and transportation another, and
that the end of punishment is to deter the criminal
by his own sufferings, and others by the example of
his fate. From this he concludes,as we understand,
that, as the business of the Legislature is with
punishment, they ought not to meddle directly with
transportation, which is not a matter of punishment
but of the disposal of the criminal after punishment
is over. The whole of this question has, like many
others, been perplexed by a careless assumption of
the principles upon which it is to be decided. The
business of the State is not only punishment, but
the prevention of crime by all efficient and proper
means. One of these means is punishment, but it
is not the only one. Crime may be prevented by
fear, but this is not the only means of prevention.
Take, for instance, capital punishment. The man
who is executed can commit no more crimes, not
because he fears, but because he is for ever deprived
of the power. So with regard to imprisonment.
While a man is in prison he cannot commit crime,
because the confinement deprives him of the oppor-
tunity. Crime, then, can be prevented, not only by
example, but by interposing physical obstacles to
its commission. Perpetual imprisonment or death
cannot without inhumanity be inflicted for the
greater number of offences, but a man may without
inhumanity be removed to a place where, while
enjoying a certain degree of freedom, he is jusc
as incapable of renewing his injuries to the
society he has already wronged as if he were
kept in the midst of it in the strictest confinement.
We cannot see why this simple and efficient
ineans of preventing crime—the more simple and
efficient because it does not rest on any illusory
theory of reformation, or on the supposition that
the criminal will carefully lay to his heart his own
sufferings or the example of others—is to be given
up. We cannot afford to forego any advantage in
our struggle with crime. Every means of repres-
sion which we neglect is a wrong to the honest part
of society. The problem, therefore, resolves itself
into finding a suitable place for the transportation
of criminals, and devising such regulations as,
without unnecessary severity, may prevent those
who are sent there from repeating their injuries to
their fellow-men. It is probable that if our worst
criminals were thus disposed of we might be able
the more readily to dispense with the remission of
sentences for lighter offences.
HERALD.—In the accounts of the progress of the
Polish rebellion at Warsaw and elsewhere there is
so much colouring and exaggeration, so much of
what is clearly fabulous mixed up with what is cre-
dible, that the result is as far as possible removed
from the usually sober tenor of current history.
The telegrams from Cracow and Breslau will inform
us one day of atrocities that make the blood run
cold, of men brutally butchered or more cruelly tor-
tured to death, of women flogged or hanged, of a
reign of terror more hideous than that of Marat or
Carrier. When our sentiments of pity and indig-
nation are just excited to such a point that we are
willing to give all our sympathy to the cease of the
patriots, we are roused from our dream, and cancel
our vows of vengeance, for a very circumstantial
statement has reached us from St. Petersburg,
proving the utter impossibility of the perpetration
of such outrages by arguments of time and place
whirls we cannot gainsay. Very much in the same
way the stories that coma to our ears, from Russian
sources, of poisoned daggers, the hanging of pea-
sants, attempts at assassination, and a system of
secret intimidation by a revolutionary junta, are, in
their turn, flatly contradicted by the organs of the
Polish insurgents. With no witnesses on whom we
can rely, except such as live at a distance, and whose
knowledge must come to them by hearsay, we are
in a sad quandary as to what we are to believe as
to the progress or prospects of the insurrection, as
to whether the war is carried on by either side or
both sides in the manner of brute beasts rather than
of Christian combatants. We would willingly, if
we could, disbelieve all the stories, blot out with
one common erasure these averments on either side
of atrocities which fill us with horror and disgrace
the whole family of man. But is the history of
events occurring in a country which, by express
travelling, we can reach in two or three days, events
which pass as it were before our very eyes, to be
nullified and made a tabula rasa. reckoned as much
a myth as the early history of Rome when dissected
by Niebuhr ? It seems as if it were so, as if we had
no choice but to suspend our judgment as to every
matter of fact, to disbelieve every statement, how-
ever plausibly made, unless supported by absolutely
incontrovertible testimony. If the result of this
incredulity should be to damage the cause of the
Poles more than that of the Russians, it is the Poles
themselves who are to blame for it, for they it is
who favour us with most of the intelligence of the
progress of the rebellion, and they have been re-
peatedly convicted of having falsified and fabri-
cated this intelligence in such a manner as to tell in
their favour and to the discredit of their enemies.
No cause, however just in itself, can be served by
falsehood. In the case of the secret document alleged
to have been found among the papers of Count
Andrew Zamoyski, in the perquisition made in his
palace at Warsaw, after the attempt on the life of
General De Berg, the charge of bad faith is retorted
by the Poles against the Russian Government, which
is accused of having forged it. A small piece of
crumpled tissue paper, that seemed to be striped with
blue lines, is said to have assumed, under the focus of
a magnifying glass employed by the police, the pro-
portions of a lengthy document in writing. It was no
less than a " plan of the Polish revolution," bearing
the signature of Mieroslawski. Oa the first aspect
of the matter there is much that is improbable in
the story. The tiny piece of paper, to be concealed
in the quill of a pen or the cover of a watch, and
the blue lines of microscopic writing, are probably
details invented by men who have a natural love of
the marvellous. Nor is it likely that this wily agi-
tator would have appended his name to a treasonable
document intended for wide circulation. With
these reservations we are inclined to believe that
the document is authentic. Were it a forgery, we
should expect to find a more truculent tone pervad-
ing it. It would be to the interest of the Russian
Government to represent the Polish leaders as
organising a wide-spread plot for the extermination
of the Russians, the assassination of lukewarm
Poles, and so forth. This plan of the revolution
bears in itself the stamp of its authenticity. It ex-
plains the constant agitation kept up by the Agri-
cultural Society during the rule of the Grand Duke
etantine, and for two years at least before the
Oh,. . ti
.
consent:tion in the spring of this year. This " plan
of revointio:” bears date on March 1, 1861. The
prepared. The
scheme of a rist'sng was thus long ago
_ '-‘e taken in a very cautious and
first steps were to
wily manner. The oftea '
-s of
the Russian Government,
throughout
then proposing to emante.tle
, D the serfsth
emissaries of
the empire, were to be orAie y em'is hcu name
emise in all the
the Secret Committee at Warsaw,
which, t e
of the Polish landowners, was to pee
provinces of Poland that the peasant. should
s." nibee
amicably endowed with the " statute lane for
he
proprietors were to ply the Czar with petitloei.:
this boon to the peasants. Should he refuse
shoia
was to be held up as the common enemy.
to be asserted
he, on the other hand, grant it, it was
h remise with
everywhere that he had been cornapßee
intimidation, and was not making t
pro the plan
it- This par
any intention of keeping
h. It merits, at all
iled to it by
was clever and dishonesthenwoausg
bestowed upon the
events, the praise which
" unjust steward." It was
secret machinations of t
by an active foreign propagandism
by means o
to be followfed pneuws
•
ear
ertues ies to the Governments and Courts of Eu-
rope, newspaper
per correspondents and secrets
especially those of France and I,:ngland.
These powers were to be " tired out" with repre-
sentations of Polish discontent and Russian oppres-
sion. While Europe at large Wes to be persuaded,
by fair means or foul, of the vitality of Poland and
the utter impuissance and approaching ruin of
Russia, the chief aim must be to compromise to-
r ntesPtast, !saving to-
wards Russia the Governments of France and Eng-
land.suppo r
te`o_sf stuhree:el ofGeltl•en
sympathy, o tora
tightened
east o f theth
the
relations which bound
p their cause with that of
the " Italians and Hungarians, nationalities which
aspire to break the Austrian chain,"
the leaders of
,he Polish people Were to excite In the population
of east and west a 10 patriotic exaltation," and dif3-