The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-09 00:00:00

CONVICT DISCIPLINE

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,-It gives me more concern than I can ex-
press, that, though you recur again and again to the
difficulty now experienced in disposing of our
convicts, you yet abstain from giving prominence to
my suggestions regarding them. You say that these
show more benevolence than shrewdness ; and it ap-
pears to me that they show more common sense than
either.

The colonies reject our convicts at present because
we systematically make them worthless as colonial ser-
vants. The common expression of colonists regard-
ing them is, "We would rather have the article
neat, as we used to get it, than as you now deliver
it." "We do not like your present whitewash."
And they are quite right in sa3 ing so. We
do not deny that our present forms of secondary
punishment deteriorate. We admit that men are
the worse for passing through our gaols and other
penal establishments ; and yet contend for our right
to distribute them afterwards over our colonies.
Surely, not much shrewdness is required to object to
this ; nor is any unreasonable spirit evinced in re-
sisting it. England, in her comprehensive dominion,
has an undoubted right to overrule mere scruples in
order to gain a general good; but she can have no
right to keep up a great manufactory of vice and use-
lessness, and distribute its products afterwards among
her colonial children. Nor will she find it by any
means possible much longer to maintain such a
system.
In preparing our criminals for becoming eventually
good colonial servants, we commit at present almost
every error of which the subject is susceptible. We
systematically enervate both their bodies and minds.
We seek only to make them good prisoners—we do
not advert to the far higher object of preparing them
to become good free men. We thus impose upon
them sentences measured by time, which give an in-
terest in merely whiling away and cheating that time,
instead of sentences measured by labour, which would
give an interest in employing it. We also impose
mouths of separate imprisonment, crushing the very
life out of men, and giving them habits of the idlest
supineness, instead of days, which would subdue but
not enfeeble, and prepare for exertion, instead of
unfitting for it. We give fixed gratuitous rations,
irrespective of exertion made to earn them, which
take from a man all charge of his own main-
tenance, instead of requiring extra labour for
all supplies issued to him, thereby making him
feel the cost of his support, and thus reconcile
him to the coarse because cheap fare. We
exhaust our invention in protecting prisoners from
variations of temperature and exposure, instead of
systematically subjecting them to both, like ordinary
free labourers.. We thus show our humanity to them
where it both is, and creates, weakness ; and we withhold
it where it would both be, and create, strength. We
subject our men to a strict military discipline which,
taking from them every occasion of self-guidance,
necessarily enfeebles its powers ; instead of giving
them a direct interest in their own good conduct,
thereby obtaining the same punctuality by other means,
and strengthening the powers of self-guidance by
habitually exercising them. No wit or wisdom could
have devised more effectual means of, utterly destroy-
ing and enfeebling our men than we have thus stum •
bled on while seeking, conveniently to ourselves, to
punish them; and till we recognise this truth, and
act on the conclusions to which it conducts, it is quite
hopeless to expect that we shall ever be otherwise
than embarrassed for means of advantageously dis-
posing of the human refuse that we so create.
I conclude, theta, Sir, as in my former letter. If
we want to vend our article we must begin by im-
proving its value. We can no more force a market
for convicts than for anything else;, and the more
attentively we consider the subject in all its bearings,
the more impressed shall we otherwise become with
the conviction, that it is the first interest of society,
as well as its duty, to endeavour to reform its crimi-
nals not less than to punish them—to improve their
capacities not less than to gain their wills ; to make
in every sense men of them, and not merely to keep
them obedient well-conditioned slaves for a temporary
purpose.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A. MACONOCRIE.

If at any time the streets of a populous town
should be free from the nuisance of stalls, that time is
the period of holding a great fair, when the streets are
crowded with people assembled from all parts of the coun-
try. Ordinary market days present no scenes of bustle and
jostle comparable with those of fairs, when a great sea of
human being is sweeping about. Yet the Lighting and
Paving Commissioners have determined that stalls shall
not occupy the streets on market days, and with a rare
consistency have granted permission that the streets
shall be occupied by stalls during the approaching fair
week. The plea of the persons who have sought this
privilege is the bad state of trade, and the pressure of
taxes. How stalls set before their doors will give them
relief, they did not undertake to demonstrate, but they
seemed comfortably to take it for granted that the
poverty so paraded must be relieved by selling goods
trom stalls, and that it would not be mitigated if the
same goods were sold from ships. People generally
think that a good shop is more attractive to customers
than a stall buried in the midst of a mass of crowded
human beings; but the petitioners seem to think the most
enticing object is that which hides their shops, yet
scarcely can be be seen itself. If there were no stalls,
the shops would be visible to entice whoever wanted to
buy, and those who had wants would supply them;
but to think of creating customers by impeding the free
use of the public streets with stalls, is quite as ridi-
culous as the content to permit stalls to be erected
is illegal, and unjust to Of- public. Other
people besides the High-street tradesmen who signed
the petition have to feel the_ depressioa of the times, and
to pay rent and taxes; and if each set up a privilege
of being more prominent than his neighbours, there
would soon be a mad competition which would produce
disorder and outrage. With people of foresight, the
affAir is deemed a pretext upon which to hinge the
getting back the stalls into the streets altogether. The
policy now adopted in Lincoln is, not to provoke an-
tagonism by distinctly claiming the whole of what is
covetted, but to get it by bits, seizing hold of every op-
portunity which seems to favour the movement. What
the visit of Prince Albert is to corporate lovers of scarlet
gowns, the fair is looked upon as being to the nuisance-
loving tradesmen, who would not be so fond of talking
about their poverty if they were really poor! it is a con-
venient point for originating a stealthy movement.—
Stamford Mercury.

RAILWAY ECOl4OllY.—Some very useful experi-
ments with a new passenger-carriage axle-box have just
been completed upon the London and North-Western
Railway, under the superintendence of the company's
officers. The objection to the ordinary axle-boxes of
railway carriages is, that while the grease finds an
easy escape from them, and is wasted to a very expen-
sive extent, the dust, of which an abundance is ge-
nerally raised by the speed of the train, insinuates itself
between the axles and the journals, and acts as a grind-
ing medium upon the surface of both metals. The conse.
quence is, a very considerable wear of the materials and
frequent " hot axles." To this objection must be added
the wages of the men employed at the stations to re-
plenish such of the axle-boxes as have lost an undue
quantity of grease. The men are allowed very little
time to do this, and in their haste they seldom stop .to
examine whether in scraping off and putting into the
axle-box the grease that may have been pressed
over the side, they gather up with it a quan-
tity of the fine pointed grit which is usually
adhering to the outside of axle-boxes. It is
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very seldom that a passenger train runs fifty miles
arep
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ment of the London and North-Western Company, Mr.
Normanville, prevent the admission of grit, by the use
of a screw opening, through which the grease is sup-
plied, and the waste of the latter, as well as the insinua-
tion of dust between the axles and the journals, are
avoided by the application of a valve acted upon by vul-
canised India-rubber' springs, fitted to the axle at the
hitherto open end of the box. The experiments were
made with two four-wheeled first-class carriages, Nos.
1011 and 169, taken indiscriminately from the rolling
stock of carriages fitted with this description of box, of
which there is a considerable number at work. These
carriages were worked in the express and ordinary trains
between London and Liverpool and Manchester. One
of them ran upwards of four thousand miles, and the
other upwards of three thousand eight hundred miles,
without the axle-boxes having had any additional grease
supplied, and without the axles having once got " hot."
At the conclusion of the experiment, the axles and jour-
nals were inspected by the company's officers and found
to be in perfect order. It is stated that the application
of these axle-boxes to the company's stock will effect a
saving of several thousand pounds sterling per annum.
A most providential escape occurred at Recca slate
quarry, on Tuesday. One of the men in the pit espied
a sliding in the side of the rock, and immediately gave
an alarm. The men ran into the tunnel just soon enough
to escape with their lives, as some hundreds of tons of
slate fell down on the spot where they had been standing.
Western Times.
CHICORY IN COFFEE.—Buy your coffee in the bean,
and grind it fresh every morning. You will procure a
small coffee mill for half-a-crown. We recommend you
to buy chicory, and mix one spoonful with five spoonfuls
of coffee; it is an improvement. Chicory will cost you
4d. to 6d. per pound; but especially avoid buying
ground coffee, for the article is far superior when ground
fresh as required.
The Earl and Countess of Enniskillen have left
town to juin the circle partaking of the hospitalities of
the Marquis of Northampton, at Castle Ashby.
APOTHECARIES' HALL.—The following gentlemen
passed their examination in the science and practice of
medicine, and received certificates to practice on Thurs-
day last:—George King, Caine; Juhn Ronnie, Ply-
mouth; John Wilcocks, Wakem, Truro; Edward John
Vivian; Joseph Powell Swanwick, Trestbury. Cheshire;
John Buncombe, Taunton; John Dix, Smallburgh,
Norfolk • Theobald Ringer, Laugharne, Carmarthen-
shire; Norfolk;
Anthony Floyer, Floone, Northampton-
shire; Richard Edmonds Price, Marlborough; William
Kitchen Parker, Peterborough ; Samuel Atkinson
Ed-
ward
c keal Ir,
I b or
Chichester;o ugh ; Ge o r
Edwardge S mit
LeopardA xbri d ge ;
Neville,
Esher, Surrey ; John Weekes, Tavistock, Devon ;
Franklen George Evans, Cardiff; Richard Pope lrston,
Henley-on-Thames.
lelLenvetex, liteacH 22.—Sid. Union, Greenland; 26th, I
St. Andrew, Davis's Straits) Lord Gambier, Ditto.