The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-12 00:00:00

COURT OF ALDERMEN.

A Court of Aldermen was held on Tuesday, at which
a long Ind interesting discussion took place upon the
report of the Inspectors of Prisons upon the state of the
city gaole.
CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.-THE CORPORATION.

The Loup MAYOR directed that the correspondence
which took place between the Town Clerk and the clerk
to Christ's Hospital, relative to the reception which the
Lord Mayor might expect:to meet at the Hospital, upon
going to visit the school on the public super nights,
should be read. _ _

Upon the motion that the correspondenCe be entered
on the repertory of the Court,
The RECORDER intimated that the Court ought not to
have such documents entered upon their journals. It
would furnish evidence against themselves to have them
upon the books, and if they inserted the application, they
must necessarily enter the saucy answer.—(Hear, hear.)
The LORD MAYOR—I shall have nothing to do with
Christ's Hospital. I consider that I was acting dis-
creetly in directing the Town Clerk to write to Christ's
Hospital, that I might not be charged with neglect of the
privileges of my fellow citizens, but my right having
been denied I shall go no more.—(Hear, hear.)
The correspondence was then ordered to lie on the
table.

THE GAOLS OF THE CITY.

Sir P. LAURIE rose to submit the motion of which
he had given notice to the Court, " That the report of
the Inspectors of Prisons relative to the gaols of the
City be referred to a Special Committee, consisting of
all the members of the Court, for consideration." He
was glad that on the occasion upon which Alderman
Wilson had brought forward a motion of importance.
which could not have been properly discussed in a small
Court, he had effectually interfered, by desiring that
the Court should be counted. It would have been im-
possible at such an hour to answer a speech of great
length, in which a proposal of communication with the
..Government was involved.—(Hear, hear.) His object
was to induce the Court to proceed exactly in the same
course as that on which they had proceeded in 1.836
and 1837, without entering into'the merits of the report
of the Inspectors. He could not, however, help alluding
to one statement which was made in that report. The
inspectors represented that several of the Aldermen had
expressed their approbation of the separate system. He
did not know where they could have received that in-
formation. By whom bad they been enlightened as
to that point? He would just state a fact or two
in testimony of the happy effects of that sys-
tem. Bethlem Hospital, of which he was the
governor, and which was doomed to receive all
the insane of all the surrounding gaols, had not been
burdened with a single mad inmate from any one of
those places of confinement, with the exception of the
Penitentiary at Milbank, and the New Prison at Pen-
tonville, the only prisons in which the system was
strictly enforced.—(Hear, hear.) The one was so pro-
lific of unhappy victims of that sort of discipline
as to produce sixteen lunatics in a few years, and the
other, which was comparatively in its infancy, had al-
ready, although but four or five years old, contrived to
prove its efficacy upon five unfortunate creatures who
were at that moment under the only discipline which
gave them a chance of recovery.—(Hear, hear.) He
trusted the Court: would agree to his motion without
entering into the matter of the report.
Alderman SMN ____ Trowy sastsah q.,..e;0na41 tho
of the statement made by Sir Peter Laurie, as to the
supply of madmen from the City prisons, so highly
complimented, to Bethlem Hospital,'and asked for exact
numbers and dates.
Sir PETER LAURIE (as our reporter understood him)
believed that Pentonville Penitentiary had contributed
at least one lunatic or madman annually since its erec-
tion; and that at Milbank, had sent in sixteen within
the period of about six or seven years. The inspectors
know very well how to select the prisoners best adapted
to their views, as evidences of the efficacy of the prin-
ciple of separation.
Alderman CHALLIS thought it would be advisable to
drop the discussion in the Court, and to resume it in the
Committee, where they could ascertain what alterations
were practicable and eligible.
Alderman Sidney rose and said it was certainly his
intention to move an amendment upon Sir Peter Laurie's
motion. He must say, that he differed essentially from
his senior brother magistrates in his view of this im-
portant question. He did not view it in the light in
which Sir Peter Laurie seemed to regard it. When
Sir Peter Laurie wished to get rid of a subject, which
happened to be disagreeable to him, he, with a great ap-
pearance of candour, rose to refer it to a Committee, well
knowing that such reference would be the most sure
mode of extinction.—(Laughter, and cries of " Hear,
hear," and " No, no.") The fate of all the reports
hitherto made upon the subject adequately proved that
the readiest way to stop inquiry was to call for a Corn-
mittee.—(Murmurs.) Had they not been for the last
seven years assailed by reports as strong as that to which
attention had been made, and were they to goon perpetu-
ally referring, and reporting, and doing nothing ?
The present state of the City prisons reflected dis-
honour upon those who had the power of producing a
reformation in them. In a Committee it was a matter
of much difficulty to get gentlemen to attend to and
examine the details. The whole history of the gaol dis-
cipline of the city of London exhibited the want of that
vigour and energy, without which the prisoner could not
be reformed, society could not be protected from conta-
mination, and the city of London and its magistrates
could not escape condemnation and obloquy.—(Hear,
hear.) He was ready to admit that the City prisons
were at present much better than they had been in days
gone by.—(Hear, and laughter.) He acknowledged
that such was the case ; but he denied that the improve-
ment was much better than a mere contrast to what
it ought to be, looking at the means which the city
of
London had at its disposal, and the authority which it
exercised in effecting improvements of another kind.
He denied that the separate system was calculated to
produce insanity, or any other malady of the kind. He
believed, on the contrary, that it brought back the
mind to a healthy condition, and strengthened its moral
tendencies ; and there were instances in which persons,
whose progenitors had been subject to mental disease,
who were indebted to the operation of that system for a
marked improvement in their conduct and character.—
(A laugh, and cries of " Hear, hear.") The Alderman
here read quotations from the observations of the Rev.
Mr. Clay, the chaplain to the Preston House of Correc-
tion, on the separate system, and showed the decrease
of crime in the North Lancashire district, ascribable, in
the opinion of the reverend gentleman, to the system he
commended. (He here-read a variety of documents,
inspetore.)
uments,in
favour of the views and opinions expressed
He gathered that information from the report of the in-
spectors. Was it then to be said that the City of Lon-
don was to remain neutral under such circumstances
Every syllable uttered by the inspectors in condemna-
tion of the City prisons was accurately true. He was
himself a witness to the frightful evils of the want of
discipline in them. What could be expected from a plan
which permitted twenty-six men, some of them convicts,
and others untried, and some likely to be acquitted, to
be lacked up for several hours togetheri n idleness ?
(Hear, hear.) Could it be supposed that those who
escaped would do otherwise than, upon their discharge
after such contamination, join, and be the captains of
bands of thieves, become greater adepts, and at last dis-
appear altogether by transportation or the gallows ?
(Hear, hear.) He hoped the Court would look seriously
at such a picture, which presented no exaggeration. He,
for one, would never consent to the continuation of the
evils be so feebly described, but society so dreadfully
suffered from.—(Hear, hear.) Alderman Sidney con-
cluded by moving an amendment, " That it be referred
to a Committee immediately to inquire as to the most
elegible place in which to build a new prison adapted to
the plan of the separate system." The Alderman had,
in the course of his speech, referred m.)st particularly to
Reading Gaol and Preston House of Correction.
Alderman FAREBROTITF.R said the preceding speaker
had been profuse in his quotations from the Prison In-
spector's reports of the two crack gaols of the kingdom
—Reading county gaol, and Preston House of Correc-
tion. If a man wished to refute his own arguments, the
next best thing to writing a book was quotingf rom one.
Mr. Clay, the chaplain to the Preston House of Correc-
tion, who had written so fully to Alderman Sidney, ap-
peared to be a very communicative gentleman, and fond
of a very numerous, if not a very select class of corre-
spondents. In the report of the Prison Inspector, which.to
he hold in his hand, there was a rich specimen,ir,lanofepts
e-
lary correspondence with the worthy .p ;
.dand
correspondence wotdd b
supposed in the next anneualraisreedpotrot Alderman Sidney's
dittiaction. The worthy Alderman had expatiated in