The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-08 00:00:00

' ~ _.

LONDON, TUESDAY. JUNE 8, 1847.

Throughout the whole of his Parliamentary career
THOMAS SLINGSBY DUNCOMBE has proved himself
to be—in word and act, in heart and soul—a Tribune
of the People. Among all the distinguished Re-
formers of our generation he is conspicuous as about
the most consi-tent and the most chivalrous. Hence it
is that Mr. DUNCOMBE has acquired such universal
popularity ; hence it is that in all the mutations of
political partizanship, in all the fluctuations of public
sympathy, and in all the changes of the supreme
Government, his name has continued to be the object
of national respect, and in a great measure too of
national affection. Even the nickname which has fallen
upon him in the excitement of electioneering enthu-
siasm, and which sticks to him like a burr, is in some
sort a tolerable indication that he is a favourite with
the multitude. " The Finsbury Pet." But THOMAS
DUNCOMBE is more than the Finsbury Pet: he has,
by his courageous and unflinching conduct as a
liberal legislator, ensured for himself the admiration
of every sincere and earnest lover of
constitutional Reform. Both as a Parliamentary
debater and as an advocate of those whose extreme
lowliness denies them all except such generous and
spontaneous assistance as that continually afforded by
the Hon. Gentleman the Member for Finsbury—as an
assiduous committeeman, and as one whose name is
perpetually recurring in the division lists, Mr. DUN-
COMER is eminently entitled to the enviable consi-
deration he has now for a considerable period enjoyee.
On Thursday evening last, in the course of his
luminous and masterly speech upon Convict Discipline,
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 lion. 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. DUN-
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 he 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. DUNCOMBE'S 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 fn-warel 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 Ids 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 " 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 enli:a
the sympathies of the true philanthropist in behalf of
the condemned than such a superabundance of punish-
ment. Here, indeed, we would remind L';rd
MAHON 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 itro
operation—Ut poem in pancos pervenial, metus in
omnes. According to the execrable system hitherto
adopted on the hulks there has been a snpeifluity of
the pcena in poucos, but the very revelation of that
circumstance has rendered the metug in omnes
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
henceforth prevented. Instead of being shipped
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 dril:ed into so-
briety and self-respect. Then, and not till then, of-
tenders against the laws wid 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 coneregated crimes,
such as in Gomorrha drew down the flaming thu i-
derbolts of Heaven, but to swell the rumbers 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
ersen condemned in the criminal courts will be trans-
ferred to such establishments as the model prisons cf
Milbank, cf Pentonville, and of Parkhurst, until by
the evidences of good conduct they have entitled
hemselves to the lenities of the judicial power, and
ire employed upon certain descriptions of puhjie
,vorks, remunerative or otherwise. Coupled with the
atension of the blessings consequent upon national
-..ducation, these heneliant arrat,gements 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
comforts
sd
oafnsdocriegsltoredin an elevated condition to the
Instead of being ab-
ruptly strangled by the existence.
hangman,dier whipped by the
re brutalising
t
turnkey, or tortured by the medical inspector of
.the
hulks, or worked to death in fetters at tl
toil of Norfolk Island, they will be lured to
orderlyas'ng
h:haviour by instruction, they will be tempted
'to virtue by rewards ar.d immunities, they will
he afforded an opportunity of expiating their pre..
viougly atrocious proceedings by their subsequent
subordination and propriety of demeanour. In ail