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

MARCH 12, 1846.

PRICE sr.

God and the law of the land; for, as the Apostle says,
' Let every soul be subject to higher powers, for there
is no power but from. God; and those that are ordained
of God; therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth
the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase to
themselves damnation.' A system which encourages
the midnight assassin as wel! as the noonday murderer—
a system, the impious abettors of which hesitate not
(for their interested purpose) to attribute even to the
ministers of their religion a culpable indifference to the
wants of tie poor, and a base subserviency to the
caprice of the rich, charges as wicked as they are false.
" We are perfectly aware that the poor have many
grievances to complain of, and that it is oar duty to aid
in alleviating their sufferings ; but it is not by violence
or outrage this great end can he attained ; it is by
humble supplication to the Throne of Mercy, and in the
midst of danger and of difficulty to place our entire con-
fidence in the God of Justice. We most earnestly
exhort the opulent and the wealthy to be indulgent and
charitable to the poor, to sympathise with them and
their wants, rather than, by adhering toorigi lly to their
rights and privileges, provoke indignation, and thus in-
duce a people already too sensitise, vainly, and irre-
ligiously to imagine, that there is no redress for them,
save by illegal combinations and lawless violence."
VICEREGAL COURT.—The Lord Lieutenant enter-
tained the fellowine. party at dinner on Saturday, in
Dublin Castle :—Hon. Mrs. Robert Daly, the Marchio-
ness of Sligo, Lady Elizabeth Browne, Lady 11. Browne,
Captain and Lady Adele Ihbetson, Lord Sidney Os-
borne, Lord Henry Loftus, Mr. and Lady Eleanor
F therstone, Lady Florence Balfour. Mr. Lowry Bal-
four, Lord and Lady Castlemdble, Hon. Miss Hand-
cock, Lord Dunsandle, Mr. and rs. Vernon. Mr. Corry
Connellan ; Hon. R. Daly and lir. Cast, aides-de-camp
•
in waiting.
COURT OF A WiIEN.
A Court of Aldermen was Tuesday, at which
a long and interesting diseußi ek place upon the
report of the Inspectors of Prison pun the state of the
city gaols..

CHRIST S HOSPITAL —THE CORPORATION.
The LORD 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 supper 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 111AYOR-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.LAIIRIE 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
Cout t, 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 preeeeded in 1836
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 inane 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 ore was so pro-
lific of unhappy victims of that sort of d'selpline
as to produce sixteen lunatics in a few years, anl the
other, which was comparatively in its infancy, had al-
nuidy, although but four or five years old, contriv..d to
prove its efficacy upon five unfortunate creatures who
were at that moment urder the only discipline which
gave them a chance of recovery.—(Hear. hear.) He
trusted the Court would agree to his motiou without
entering into the matter of the report.
Alderman SIDNEY very much questioned the accuracy
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 Miibank, 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
notion. He must say, that he differed essentially from
his senior I,rother 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 rids 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 Com-
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 end
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.
ointd.
He denied that the separate system was calculated
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.
Nlr. 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, in
favour of the views and opinions expressed bythe inspetors.)
lie gathered that information from the report of the in-
ueosene es
na ? .
in-
spectors. Was it then to be said that the City of Lon-
don was to remain neutral under
such
inspectors circtm
ii ntriam
Every syllable uttered by th
ton of the City prisons was accurately true. He was
li;mself 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 locked up for several hours together in 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. Ile,
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 ist particularly to
Reading Usol and Preston House of Correction.
Alderman FAREBROTHER 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 quoting from one.
Mr. Clay, the chaplain to the Preston House of Correc-
tion, who had written so fully to Alderman Sidnney,oz
ap-
peared to be a very communicative gentleman;
ofa dfid
of a very numerous, if not a very select I
he held in his hand, there wash aorthspecimen
corre-
spondents. In the report of the
richl'tison Inscpaesctooreowpihsitcol.l
yChaplain ; and he
laaur4cooserrdeisrp. otnhdoenncet;twititohmtmle
.wreport Alderman Sidney's
correspondence would be
Araldiseerdmaton thehad seaxmreateil:tveadte du
distinction. The worthy