The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-28 00:00:00

night, or in foggy weather. There is a chrono- ,
meter, which will, of course, show the railway
time. It will also register on 'paper a description
of the journey, that is, the time occupied at each
station and "during the journey, and the exact
speed travelled during every mile. This paper may
be taken off at the end of each journey, the date and
number of engine marked on, and filed in the railway
office. The apparatus has a dial, the circumference of
which is divided into the number of miles on the railway,
and all the stations are correctly marked down at the pro-
per distances from each terminus. A finger or indicator
points to that place on the dial occupied by the engine on
the line of railway. There is a small finger, which re-
volves once in two miles, by which the engineer can
ascertain his speed. There is also another small finger,
which revolves once in sixty journeys, or about 10.000
miles. by means of which it can be ascertained
what distance the engine has performed during a
considerable period, say ten weeks. ; and as many
engineers are paid by mileage, it would settle all
disputes as to the distance run during the week or
fortnight for which they receive their wages. Within
the apparatus the speed and distance is registered. A
long strip of paper is previously marked with per-
pendicular lines, which represent lines, and with hori-
zontal lines, which represent minutes; and it is so
arranged that onedivision of the perpendicular lines is
wound on a cylinder when the engine has advanced
one mile. Connected with the chronometer is an ap-
paratus moving a pencil, which marks the paper cross
one division line in one minute of time ; by this
means (according to the perpendicular or diagonal
mark on the paper) the stoppage and velocity of
the engine can be precisely ascertained. The itine-
rarium is moved by means of a separate wheel running
on the rail, and is not affected by breaks or slipping, &c. ;
it is placed in a convenient place, so that the engineer
may readily see it, and at night it is illuminated. The
Manchester and Leeds Railway Company have allowed
the inventor to test the experiment on one of their en
gines, and several trips have been made with the appa-
ratus, which fully realised the expectations formed con-
cerning it.—Maneliester Express.

EXECUTION of the CRIMINAL LAW
The following are extracts from the Second Report
(just issued by order of the House of Lords) from the
Lords' Select Committee to inquire into the Execution
of the Criminal Law, especially respecting Juvenile
Offenders and Transportation:—
A great number of persons have been exa-mined. Re
corders of cities and boroughs, judges of local jurisdic-
tion, magistrates, governors and chaplains of gaols and
penitentiaries, prison inspectors, and others having the
care of convicts at home and in the penal colonies.
Answers to the questions circulated have likewise been
obtained from thirty-three learned judges of the United
Kingdom exercising criminal jurisdiction namely,
fourteen of the judges of England (the fifteenth having
only recently been appointed), the twelve judges of Ire-
land, and the seven of the High Court of Justiciary in
Scotland, and the late Lord President Hope, formerly
Lord Justice Clerk. The Committee have likewise ob-
tained valuable information from foreign countries, and
especially by correspondence with the Ministers and
judicial officers of France. The whole body of this evi-
dence and information they have reported to the House,
and they now beg leave to preface it with the following
statement touching its import, and some suggestions
arising from the consideration of it.
In the first place, nearly all are agreed that the
punishment of transportation cannot safely be aban-
doned; that it has terrors for offenders generally which
none other short of death possesses; that no such fear
attends imprisonment, especially for hardened offenders;
that no hope exists of imprisonment being so far ren-
dered more formidable as to supply in all respects the
place of transportation.
Upon the subject of transportation nearly all the
learned judges are clearly and strongly of the same
opinion; they consider that it would be extremely un-
wise to abandon it.
Secondly—That imprisonment, as usually practised,
is not an efficacious punishment, though accompanied
with hard labour, and with separation or with silence,
as it is in some prisons, is likewise the result of the
evidence. Only those who undergo it for the first time
appear to feel it much: this suffering soon wears off. A
second commitment finds the criminal by no means un-
prepared to undergo it, and it ever after ceases to exer-
cise a deterring effect. The number of times that young
offenders have been committed, some of them twelve or
fifteen times within a few years, seems strongly illus-
trative of this position; whereas convicts returned from
transportation, either by escape or by expiration of their
sentences, regard with the utmost terror the repetition of
that punishment.
How far imprisonment can be so far altered as to be
efficacious, either as preparatory to transportation or as
a punishment by itself, is a question of difficulty, upon
which little evidence could be given, inasmuch as no
sufficient experience has yet been had of the improved
systems which are now in partial operation.
Thirdly—The evidence all tends to show the great
importance of our prison discipline. Solitary confine-
ment ought on no acceunt to be inflicted beyond a very
short time, as three or four weeks, with a considerable
interval after each week, and only two or at most three
weeks during a period of eighteen months or two years.
Its effects on both the bodily and mental health are such
as plainly to prescribe these limits.
The separate system, where it has been fairly tried,
seems to supply exactly what is needed, forcing the mind
to self-communion, and allowing this to be broken only
by communication with those morally the superiors or
the convict. Nor does this system, on the balance of
the evidence, appear to the Committee to be inconsistent
with the health of the prisoners in body or mind,
although on this last point there is a difference of opi-
nion, some witnesses regarding this discipline as hurtful,
not indeed to the structure and functions of the under-
standing, but to the energies of the will. On this subject
the Committee would recommend, first, that great care
be taken in administering the system of separate confine-
ment with labour; and, secondly, that the number of
prisons adapted to the practice of it be multiplied.
Fourthly—The evidence throws some light upon the
treatment of young offenders. That the contamination
of a gaol, as gaols are usually managed, may often prose
fatal, and must always be hurtful to boys committed for
a first offence, and that thus for a very trifling act they
may become trained to the worst of crimes, is clear
enough. But the evidence gives a frightful picture of
the effects which are thus produced. In Liverpool, of
fourteen cases selected at random by the magistrates,
there were several of the boys under twelve who in the
space of three or four years had been above fifteen times
committed, and the average of the whole fourteen was
no less than nine times.
Without going beyond the principle which should be
followed on this question, the Committee are disposed to
recommend the adoption, by way of trial, of reformatory
asylums, combined with a moderate use of corporal
punishment. The Committee also recommend the trial
of a suggestion made by witnesses who have given much
attention to this subject, that, wherever it is possible,
part of the cost attending the conviction and punish-
ment of juvenile offenders should be legally chargeable
upon their parents.
Fifthly—The working of convicts exposed to public
view is condemned by most of those who have been
consulted or examined as a practice tending to harden
the offender, as revolting to the feelings of the commu-
nity, and even as calculated to excite a feeling in the
convict's favour.
The objections, however, to this practice are mate-
rially diminished if the convicts be employed in remote
and comparatively unpeopled " districts," such as may
be found in some of the colonial possessions of the
Crown, or in other situations, where the labour of con-
victs may be employed without all the evils attendant
upon working under the public gaze.
Sixthlv—Witnesses of the most competent authority
from Ireland are of opinion that the system of employ-
ing large bodies of convicts together in the public view
could not be adopted with sarety in that coun ry, where
the sympathy of the mass of the people would be in
favour of the criminal, especially in all cases of agrarian
crimes, and that it would be consequently necessary to
transfer to England all Irish criminals destined to b.
employed on public works, in case this mode of punish-
ment were adopted.
Seventhly—There is almost entire unanimity in
opinion against imprisonment for short terms. There is
no prospect of the reformation of any class by such
punishments, while their tendency is certain to accustom
young offenders to the infliction, and thereby to lessen its
deterring effects. If, however, it is found in the admi-
nistration of the criminal law that short imprisonments
must still be inflicted, the Committee see no reason why
solitary confinement should] not form part of such sen-
tences, subject to the formerly stated limitation in re-
spect of time.
Eighthly—The evidence both from France and else-
where of the evil effects produced by the liberation of
many convicts yearly, as their terms of imprisonment
expire, would seem strongly to inculcate the necessity
of obviating the great inconvenience of setting at liberty
in this country, on the expiration of their sentence,
those who had once been convicted of serious crimes.
Looking to facts, the committee are of opinion that
the punishment of transportation should be retained for
serious offences ; that such punishment should in some
cases be carried into effect immediately, in others at a
later period ; that the first stages of the punishment,
whether carried into effect in this country or in the
colonies, should be of a reformatory as well as of a penal
character, and that the later stages at all events should
be carried into effect in the colonies, the convict being
for that purpose retained under that unqualified restraint
to which, under the existing system of transportation,
men holding tickets of leave or conditional pardon are
subjected.
The committee must not be supposed to have either
overlooked or underrated the alarming state of crime
and depravity which appears to have arisen in parts of
the Australian colonies, but they think that these evils
might be remedied by alterations in the police, the penal,
the religious, and the moral system to which the con-
vic:,inititt:er undergoing reformatory discipline, either at
home or in the colonies, are subjected, together with such
measures as would remedy the existing disproportion of
the s'3xes in the colonies.
difference f
capital
punishments,Y especting the expediency of abolishing
the Committee found scarcely any
authorities agree in
Almost all witnesses and all
opinion that for offences of the
gravest kind the in
Tent of death ought to be
Committee find considerable duff,
r-
ecceretaineefd.epißniuotntuhpelih
dhsoeterring effect of punishment
generally. But it is remarkable that those who have
actual intercourse with convicts are they who feel the
and who lean the most to make, trial of
least sanguine as to this deterring or exemplary effect of
penal infliction,
punishment as affording the means of reformation. The
experiment that has been tried at Stretton on Densmore,
in Warwickshire, for above twenty-eight years, and
similar experiments at Horn, near Hamburgh
Mettray, in France, and eleven other establishments in
imitation, during the last eight years, afford a highly