The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-11 00:00:00

-114 toning nue

LONDON, FRIDAY. JUNE 11, 1847.

After an elaborate and lengthy discussion the
House of Commons, upon a division being taken,
decided upon going into Committee on the Prisons
Bill. The whole question of convict discipline was
opened up, and it certainly is one which is fraught
with considerable difficulty in any attempt to arrive
at a sound judgment as to what is best to be done for
the future. The old system of transportation cannot
be persevered in, and, considering the evils with which
it was pregnant to the colonies, it is, if not sur-
prising, certainly reproachful to us that we con-
tinued it as long as we did. Whether transporta-
tion can be so ameliorated as to render it effectual
in deterring others from the commission of crime,
conducive to the reformation of the convict, and,
lastly, instrumental in promoting the welfare of the
colonies, is clearly the preliminary and most impor-
tant question, to the mastery whereof the Legislature
should brace its utmost intellectual powers. If the
issue of their deliberations should come short of the
above requirements, which are essential to reconcile
an enlightened people to the maintenance of exile,
permanent and temporary, as a punishment, then it
will become too clear that we shall be driven
back upon the alternative of abolishing trans-
portation altogether. And thus the question,
viewed in connexion with the growing dislike
of the public to capital punishment, and to their al-
most universal preference of secondary punishment,
which is instinctively consonant with the first prin-
ciples of humanity, becomes one of the most serious
nature. The difficulty of dealing with it is enhanced
by the resection that we have no actual experience of
our own, nor any that we can safely collect from the
results of criminal functions in other countries, to
guide us at once to the decision whether transporta-
tion can be modified conformably with the objects
above enumerated. Nothing is left to us but a resort
to the experimentum crucis. It appears to us, then, that
the measures are wisely framed with the view of throw-
ing such additional light upon the vexata questio as, bythe
course they mean to pursue, will in a short period
enable us to solve the perplexing proposition, whether
transportation shall be continued or not, with far
greater satisfaction to ourselves and security to the
public ; and the opponents of the Government go too
far when they assert that these measures are tanta-
mount to the extinction of transportation. Indeed,
the statement is manifestly untrue, for the chief
feature of Sir G. GREY'S plan is, after they shall
have gone through a probationary trial in this coun-
try, to send convicts more or less reformed to the
colonies, where able-bodied labourers are much in de-
mand, and always valuable. Whenever, in the
opinion of the authorities, the reformation
of the criminal shall be considered to be com-
plete by virtue of the prison ordeal he must first
pass through at home, he will not be deported,
and policy and humanity seem to combine in favour
of such an arrangement. With respect to the point
which is so keenly litigated in both llouses of Par-
liament, viz., whether the mode in which it is pro-
posed
substantially to vary and modify the sentences
passed by the judges should not have been submitted,
in the shape of a distinct Bill, for the approval of the
Legislature, we are certainly of opinion that such a
course would have been the most constitutional and
desirable. At the same time the objection comes
with no weight from the members of the late Mi-
nistry, seeing that Sir J. GRAHAM himself sanctioned
a suspension for two years of the transmission of
convicts to the colonies.

Foremost among the important reforms of the age
still remaining to be accomplished is, without one
moment's question, the establishment of an efficient
and practicable sanatory system. We are justified
even in giving it the priority to the legislative ar-
rangement anticipated in reference to the scheme of
National Education. Before the development of the
popular mind and the improvement of the general
morality can by possibility be effected, the physical
condition of the multitude must undergo a thorough
and comprehensive purification. Reason proves this
to be necessary. Common sense assures us that
persons habituated to filth are naturally familiarised
with moral and mental degradation. The sustaining,
and inciting, and purifying influences of life—the
myterious life breathed into the nostrils of man by
the OMNIPOTENT, and encompassed by the sublime
and elevating adjuncts of animate and inanimate
nature—are entirely lost and obliterated by the de-
generating accumulation of vicious practices and
general uncleanliness. According to the lyric
aphorism of the Roman poet, there can be no mens
sana excepting in the corpore sano. The health of the
body is an essential preliminary to the health of the
intellect, viewing the matter comprehensively. For,
although such individuals as ALEXANDER POPE have
proved the abstract rule by: the exception, by pre-
serving an exquisite and imaginative intelligence in
the most fragile and debilitated frame, it is indis-
putable that disease obstructs the advancement of
knowledge, the more especially when it is accom-
panied and produced by domestic impurities. Every-
thing testifies to the necessity of a sanatory reform
as a preparative to an eiucational reform. Past expe-
rience and present experience alike demonstrate that
the way of the schoolmasters
the preceeding footsteps
sioners; that the bodily health of eat
cared for before any effective
ofmu the must be trodden out by
sanatory
movementcommis-
ci
ety must be
be made for the mental elevation of the populace;
that n .
that cleanliness is the channel, as it were, along
which the fructifying waters of instruction should
flow; that the weeds, and the drought, and the
poisonous and aggregated foulness must be removed,
as it were, from the seeds of knowfromthe soil,

ledge and virtue can be sown with any reasonable
hope of a fruitful harvest.

Another great demonstration has just been made in
the metropolis for the purpose of egging the Govern-
ment on in that pathway of social improvement
which its members are evidently so well disposed to
traverse, but from entering which they have
hitherto been prevented by a variety of im-
minent and complicated difficulties. The de-
monstration to which we are alluding was
a numerous meeting convened yesterday evening in
the apartments of the Statistical Society, St.
James's-square. As might be anticipated from any
similar assembly presided over by the Marquis of
NORMANBY, the convocation originated with the in-
defatigable Committee of the Health of Towns' Asso-
ciation. It is a gratifying circumstance to the many
millions of those who sympathise in the object of this
agitation that; the original President of the society
should still maintain that most honourable position,
notwithstanding his extraordinary duties in Paris, as
Ambassador from the Court of VICTORIA. Lord
NORMANBY has nobly earned for himself the moral
dignity of the Presidentship of the Health of Towns'
Association, by his being himself the first se-
nator who undertook in the Upper House of
Parliament the advocacy of sanatory legislation.
Since the introduction of his memorable Bill the
Noble Marquis has persevered with the most assi-
duous enthusiasm in the promotion of the generous
cause of a general improvement in our more popu-
lous towns and cities. We are rejoiced, therefore,
that he found an opportunity for participating in the
meeting in St. James's-square during the interval of
his temporary sojourn in London, and that be in par-
ticular was elected chairman upon an occasion of
such paramount importance.
One consolatory fact is visible throughout the
whole of the agitation upon sanatory reform—from the
evidence adduced nine years ago- before Mr. SLANEY'S
Committee, down to the last argument uttered by Dr.
SOUTHWOOD SMlTH—namely, that there is more una-
nimity evinced among our statesmen upon the merits
of this remarkable question than was evinced
until the eleventh hour upon any former questions of
reform—upon Parliamentary Reform, upon Catholic
Emancipation, upon the abrogation of the corn
enactments, or upon the Ten Hours' Factory Bill.
With a little patience we might readily enumerate
a couple of columns of the distinguished names of
those who are known to be most favourably disposed
towards the interference of the Legislature in the
condition of our most densely populated localities.
Nor is this surprising when it is remembered
how forcible and numerous are the argu-
ments in favour of an immediate effort of
amelioration on the part of the Government ; when
such deplorable facts, moreover, can be enumerated
as that mentioned last night by the Noble President
of the Health of Towns' Association, namely, that
"during the last three months three times as many
fever patients had been admitted into the metro-
politan hospitals as during the previous three
months," or as the appalling array of figures con •
tained in an admirably argued and carefully com-
piled pamphlet, by Mr. JOHN MARSHALL, upon
" Vaccination considered in Regard to Public
Health," in which the ravages of that pesti-
lential disease among the unvaccinated denizens
of the rookeries are recounted in the form
of a letter to the Noble Viscount the First
Commissioner of her MAJESTY'S Woods and Forests.
Every new investigation into the effects of the system
of non-interference on the part of Government tends
to demonstrate more conclusively the necessity of
some movement before the dissolution of the present
Parliament. If not for the purpose of removing
from ourselves the odium of being the sluggish in-
habitants of a country where, according to the em-
phatic sarcasm of Mr. EWART, "people are allowed
to accumulate the causes of disease and death," we
are assuredly impelled to labour onwards to the
acquisition of some great measure of sanatory re-
form out of a mingled sentiment of charity and
patriotism.

On Tuesday we pointed out the gross injustice of
the present mode of taxation, and on Wednesday we
proved that the national burdens were increased by
no less than fifteen millions sterling on the items of
Excise and Customs alone, that sum being extracted
from the pockets of the consumers over and above the
amount that was applicable to State purposes ; and the
great mass of those consumers, be it remembered,
consist of the hard-working and over• toiled arti-
zans, whose comforts are diminished until there
scarcely remains a bare sufficiency of the necessaries
of life, in order to satisfy the debts created by the
improvidence and wilful extravagance of their an-
cestors, and to exonerate the property of the country,
handed down to its present possessors by the con-

tractors of that debt, from the burdens to which it
should be fairly subjected. But vast as is the amount
thus wasted, in proportion to the resources of the
country, it is not the whole, or even the worst part of
the grievance. In the Excise, for instance, it is
not the mere duty, large and oppressive as it un-
doubtedly is, that is most to be complained of.
There are Excise regulations and restrictions of the
most onerous and intolerable character, there is a
perpetual meddling with the manufacturer and trader.
His premises are subjected to domiciliary visits at
any hour of the day or night. No greater founda-
tion is necessary than an anonymous accusation—the
whispered insinuation of some malignant coward,
in order to justify the intrusion. By reason of this
iniquitous and :atrocious code, and the abuses that
have sprung up in its administration, the liberties of
the people are infringed upon in a manner that could