The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-07 00:00:00

luminous and masterly speech uponConvictDisciPline,
Sir GEORGE GREY paid a deserved tribute at once to
the judgment and the humanity of Mr. DUNCOMBE.
We were ourselves particularly gratified with these
observations of the Home Secretary, from a vivid
recollection of the circumstances to which they re-
ferred, as well as from a consequent remembrance,
that in regard to those very circumstances the Ho-
nourable Representative of Finsbury had received
a rather churlish and supercilious rebuff from
the Government. Indeed, the complimentary
allusions of Sir GEORGE GREY can scarcely
be considered as other than an act of expiation, or,
perhaps, we should say of compensation, for the un-
merited manner in which his original proposition
was received. It cannot be forgotten that we are refer-
ring to the terrible narrative of cruelties and brutalities
detailed in the House of Commons by the Hon. Member
for Finsbury several months back, and which narra-
tive he declared to be a by no means exaggerated
description of the conduct habitually practised by the
subordinate officers to the wretched criminals
incarcerated in the hulks. It cannot be for-
gotten, because the miseries depicted by Mr. D UN-
COMBE on that occasion produced throughout the
country the liveliest feelings of horror and indigna-
tion, nor cannot by possibility have escaped the
recollection of the public that, notwithstanding the
Hon. Representative for the metropolitan borough ad-
jured the Government to investigate thecircumstances
which be had declared to be of continual recurrence in
the hulks, and to discover, by the inquiries of intelligent
commissioners, whether or no his allegations were
founded in truth or misrepresentation, his demand
was rejected, his assurances were slighted, and
it was even determined that no Hulks Committee
should be constituted, because it was maintained, for-
sooth, that inquiry implied an anticipatory conviction
of guilt,! Upon these frivolous and erroneous
grounds Mr. DUNCOMBIefi very rational and hu-
mane demands were rejected, and so the matter con-
tinued apparently in abeyance until her MAJESTY'S
Secretary for the Home Department explicitly ac-
knowledged, on Thursday evening, that the fullest
investigation had been made into the declarations
of the Hon. Gentleman, and that after a cursory
glance at the volumnious reports transmitted for his
examination by Captain WILLIAMS, "he had no hesi-
tation in saying that there was ample ground for many
of the statements which had been brought forward as to
the abuses existing in the hulks." With such an
amende honorable Mr. DUNCOMBE must be personally
satisfied ; but we doubt not but that in his generous
estimation the parties principally aggrieved in the
transaction are the convicts themselves, and that to
those convicts, therefore, the administrative assistance
should be immediately directed.
Reflecting for a moment upon the simple words
quoted from the lips of Sir GEORGE GREY,
what abysses of misery are revealed by their
utterance 1 " The allegations as to the abuses in
the hulks are correct," and let it be remem-
bered that those allegations were deleniative of
the most sickening acts of inhumanity, perpetrated
upon a body of helpless and manacled criminals.
Nothing, indeed, could be more calculated to enlist
the sympathies of the true philanthropist in behalf of
the condemned than such a superabundance of punish-
ment. Here, indeed, we would remind Lard
Matiox that the explanatory words of CICERO are
immeasurably more applicable than to the arrange-
ments expounded by the Home Secretary. Here,
indeed, we are very far from discovering that the in-
tentions of penal legislation are being carried into
operation—Ut pcena in paucos perveniat, metals in
omnes. According to the execrable system hitherto
adopted on the hulks there has been a superfluity of
the pana in paucos, but the very revelation of that
circumstance has rendered the metus in omnes impos-
sible, as the sentiments which might under ordinary
regulations have been those of awe and trepidation
naturally merge into those of wrath and abhorrence.
The transition is inevitable, and it is as morally de-
structive as it is inevitable.

Thanks, however, to the comprehensive reformation
proposed by her MAJESTY'S Ministers in reference to
the treatment of criminals, there is now every reason-
able hope that such grievous abuses of authority as
those recounted by Mr. DUNCOMBE will be
Ihenceforth prevented. Instead of being shipped
i off in hundreds and conveyed to penal
settlements in the very ripeness of their in-
famy, criminals will be reserved at home until their
characters have in some measure been cleansed from
their moral leprosy, until, in short, by a wholesome
plan of reformation, they have been drilled into so-
briety and self-respect. Then, and not till then, of-
fenders against the laws will be deported to our colo-
nies, not to enhance the atrocities of their predecessors
at Sydney, at Botany Bay, or at Norfolk Island, not
to pollute our antipodes with congregated crimes,
such as in Gomorrha drew down the flaming thu 1-
derbolts of Heaven, but to swell the numbers of an
orderly and industrious population in some embryo
state, presided over by the accredited agents of the
British Legislature. Already we have indicated the
advantages which must accrue from the scheme of
probation chalked out by the Government, whereby the
persons condemned in the criminal courts will be trans-
ferred to such establishments as the model prisons of
Milbank, cf Pentonville, and of Parkhurst, until by
the evidences of good conduct they have entitled
themselves to the lenities of the judicial power, and
are employed upon certain descriptions of public
works, remunerative or otherwise. Coupled with the
extension of the blessings consequent upon national
education, these beneficent arrangements cannot but
effect a visible and marvellous improvement in the
character of the community. Instead of being ex-
peditiously and economically struck down by the
avenging brand of the law, the criminals will be
reclaimed and restored in an elevated condition to the
comforts of social existence. Instead of being ab-
ruptly strangled by the hangman, or whipped by the
turnkey, or tortured by the medical inspector of the
hulks, or worked to death in fetters at the brutalising
toil of Norfolk Island, they will be lured to orderly
behaviour by instruction, they will be tempted
to virtue by rewards and immunities, they will
be afforded an opportunity of expiating their pre-
viously atrocious proceedings by their subsequent
subordination and propriety of demeanour. In all
this there is apparent on the part of the Administra-
tion a very ennobling aspiration—an aspiration to
become corrective, instead of continuing, as hereto-
fore, destructive. And, what increases our satis-
faction
at the endeavours of the present Government,
these aspirations are proved to be capable of actual 1
realisation by the practical and admirably consecutive
explanation of Sir GEORGE GREY. Government is
hereafter to be characterised by that amenity and
gentleness which time out of mind have been its
antitheses. Ultimately the hornbook and the grammar
must, we are satisfied, supersede the manacles and
the tread-mill. Nay, before a very long period has
elapsed we are persuaded that the schoolmaster will
be receiving the salary which was formerly among
the perquisites of the gaoler. Until these vast alter-
ations, however, have been definitively accomplished
we shall be satisfied with the promising indications
of our general moral progression ; such indications as
are daily being afforded by the innovations upon the
criminal system, and the humanizing tendency of each
of those innovations.

Beyond the gratification, therefore, that must be
experienced by the Hon. Gentleman the representa-
tive of Finsbury, at the prospective prevention of the
cruelties inflicted upon those unfortunate wretches
whose temporary homes are the hulks, must he the
consolatory reflection that in time those hulks may
be altogether tenantless. Earnestly, then, do we
a.'ngratulate Mr. THOMAS SLINGSBY DUNCOMBE
upan the eulogistic remarks which fell on Thursday
evening from the lips of the Home Secretary. Those
expressions embodied in their very brevity and sim-
plicity a panegvic upon the: Parliamentary career
of the Member for Finsbury ; and in such a panegyric
we are certain that the multitude will coincide with
cdoerstal,,iitsy, for THOMAStobe_anatio SnalmfaN B
vaoSurYitDe. LINCOMBE is—and

The Society for Promoting the Amendment of the
Law held their second
Saturday, Lord BROUGHAM anniversary meetiDg on
Presiding. As is usual
with all public bodies associated
for the reformation
of public abuses, this society has not escaped censure;
but, inasmuch as the charge preferrede
as against it was
l
wholly groundless, the effect has been, generally
the case where public societies are carped atin
unpnerous spirit, to impart increased vigour to itsl