The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-02 00:00:00

PRISON DISCIPLINE.

The subject of prison discipline has, of late, under-
gone a great deal of what is called consideration and
discussion in the Court and in the Committees of Alder-
men, and the crowded state of the City gaols has from
time to time forced itself not only upon the attention of
the City Magistrates, but of the Home-office, by the
mere dint of its importance. The foliewirg statement
embodies the views and opinions of' the opposers of the
existing system, and of those who contend that the in •
terposition of the Government, in the City gaol aff„irs,
would be of injurious tendency not only as regards the
privileges of the citizens of Linden, but as respects the
improvement of the moral condition of society.
It is admitted by the former, who constitute the mi-
nority in the Court of Aldermen, that of late years the
establishment of the Central Criminal' Court, with its
monthly sessions, and the power given to the Middles( x
Magistrates of committing prisoners for trial at the
Westminster sessions, have greatly reduced the numbers
confined within the walls of Newgate, and so far have
operated most beneficially upon the state of that prisen;
but those partial improvements have struck far, very far
short of the root of the evil. One of the City prisons,
Giltspur-strcet Compter, affords a most impressive in-
stanee of the bad consequences which result from over-
crowding those receptacles of crime and reisforeme.
Giltspur-street Compter was originally intended for City
debtors, and if it had been confined to that purpose,
was capable of affording toli rable accommodation ; but,
in the year 1812, an Act of Parliament was obtait ed
for building a debtors' prison in Whitt-cross-street, and
ever since that period the GilEspur-street Coinpter has
been used as a City house of correction, and also as a
place of confinement for remanded prisoners, and for
those who are committed for want of bail. The prison
itself stands upon a site containing less than half
an acre of ground, and the number of prisoners
confined within its walls varies generally from 240
to 300, and sometimes even exceeds the latter number.
By the new Building Act, no prison can now be erected
upon an area of less than five acres, and this rule is ap-
plicable to provincial as well as to metropolitan districts.
Giltspur-street Compter, therefore, standing upon an
area of less than half an acre, though it does not come
under the provisions of the Act, which has no retrospec-
tive operation, is condemned by it as deficient in .he pro-
portion that less than half an acre bears to five acres,
the smallest scale upon which the Legislature has de-
clared future prisons shall be built. If the only objection
to small prisons, and the consequent overcrowding of
prisoners, were the injury thereby ittflicted on the bodily
health of that wretched portion of our fellow creatures,
it would be a sufficient reason for correcting the defect.
But the great evil is to be found not in its physical, but
in its moral consequences. An iniury to the constitution
from confined and unwholesome air would be bad enough,
but here is an injury preying upon the mind, penetrating
the heart and soul, and producing a moral contagion on
the human subject which may be said to affect eternity
itself. Want of room includes want of classification, and
want of classification prevents anything like a remedial
or beneficent spirit from mingling with the severity of
our criminal laws. Far from encouraging, or facilitating,
or indeed permitting the return of a young offender to
virtue, it shuts the door of repentance for ever in his face
by placing him in the society, and as it were under the
instruction of the most experienced practitioners in every
species of enormity. The child eho has committed a first
offence, the adult who has arrived at the full maturity of
crime, and the veteran more hardened by his vices than
his years, who seems to take a pride in the empire of
wickedness, are all huddled together, breathing the same
tainted atmosphere, and assimilating with a sort of ma-
lignant rivalship to the worst specimen amongst thtm.
Such is the state of that part of the prison known as the
Compter, where prisoners untried and of course uncon-
victed, and possibly innocent, are associated with some of
the most depraved characters on the face of the earth;
but bed as this division of the prison is, the other divi-
sion, now known as the house of correction for the city
of London, is by many &grecs a orse. Here are to
be seen in the same room from fifty to sixty male pris n-
ers of all ages, and of almost all degrees of criminality
siting together, closely packed on benches, picking
oakum. The most disgusting conversation is continu-
ally going forward; the most revolting levity pervades the
whole demoralised and demoral,siiig mass, and the
wretch who might, in the first instance, have been sent
there for some slight offence, soon finds the sort of school
he has been introduced to, and there treasures up lessons
and forms connexions, well calculated to fit him for the
mischievous career which society may be said to have
destined and fitted him to run. Immediately- above this
den of infamy stands the treadmill, on which a similar
number of persons are kept constantly at work, and
there, as in the oakum room, their intt rcourse with each
other is perfectly unrestrained and their conversation
distinguished by the same reckless disregard of all de-
cency and order. The sleeping apartments are over-
crowded in the same manner, and the same want of
classification and arrangement, proceeding from the same
cause, is ob,ervable in the wretched wards devoted to
rest and forgetfulness.

Such is rho information, and such are the opinions
gathered from those who view with indignation and
contempt the civic gaol system. They call for a remedy
for so monstrous a state of things. They say the neglect
is inexcusable, not only because the evils resulting
from it are so formidable, but because the remedy is so
palpable to the slightest consideration, and so obviously
within the reach of the civil authorities. To erect a
house of correction adequate to the wants of the city of
London, would, they assert, require an area of from
five to tea acres, and if a prison of such ext'nt were built
they would hope to see a proper classification of pri.;cn-
ers enforced and the working of a system of prison dis-
cipline calculated, not only to punish, but to reform
those who become amenable to its, regulations.
The gentlemen who eansid.er the above description as
a mere picture reflected from a diseased imagination,
which "sees more devils than all hell can hold," inva-
riably condemn and discourage allusions to the Giltspur-
street Compter. In the Court of Aldermen, at any rate
in the presence of the members of the press, if we may
judge from the newspaper reports of the business trans-
acted there, where hints have been, from time to time,
thrown out expressive of a suspicion that improvement is
unattainable without the means of affecting classification,
a general murmer is heard, and a peremptory reference
is made to the Gaol Committee, in which " profound" it
is doomed to repose until some new occasion arise, or
some new member, uninstructed in the ways of the
Court, is shocked at the horrible reality, and speaks
what he thinks. It haQ, however, been sometimes the
case that a plump denial has been given to all charges
of bad arrangement and management in the prison, fol-
lowed up by a high compliment to those by whose judg-
ment and assiduity the reform has been brought to per-
fection, and by a sneer at the menaced interference of a
Secretary of State with the functions of the magistrates
of the City of London.