The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-24 00:00:00

MR. JUSTICE WILLES UPON TRANS..
PORTATION.

At Warwick assizes, on Monday, two men named
Tombs and Parsons were convicted of burg; ary at
Birmingham, and it appeared they had been old
offenders, and sentenced to four years' penal servi-
tude iu 1855 at the Birmingham Sessions, but the
officers of the prison were ignorant of the reason
for their being set at liberty before the expiration
of their period of punishment. In passing sen-
tence Mr. Justice Wiles said—" This case has to
me a very extraordinary complexion, became:, in
the year when an act of Parliament was passed, by
which oertain periods of penal servitude were sub-
stituted for certain periods of transportation, the
object was said to be to substitute imprisonment in
this country for transportation to a penal colony.
The act was passed in 1853, and a great deal
of uncertainty has since prevailed concerning
its operation. Myself and many persons in-
terested in the administration of justice
have anxiously inquired what is the difference
between penal servitude and transportation No
one reading the acts of Parliament can underetand
other than that persons sentenced to penal servi-
tude and transportation will be treated precisely in
the same way. There is no difference specified in
the act, except the shortening of time with refer-
ence to the term of imprisonment in this country,
it being doubtless considered that this imprison-
ment would be more likely to reform criminals
than the more serious punishment of being trans-
ported to a colony where they could make them-
selves new men. It was understOod that when a
sentence of penal servitude was passed it would be
a certain thing. Up to this moment I will frankly
confess that, notwithstanding all my efforts
to get information on the subject, I was under
that impression, having always thought that
penal servitude was to be a fixed and settled
thing, of course subject to the high prerogative
of mercy which may be exercised by her Majesty
the Queen. That prerogative is, however, a
different sort of thing from the official sort of
mercy extended to prisoners in the shape of tickets ,
of leave. I make these remarks because I find
that in 1855 you were severally sentenced to four
years of penal servitude. If Government intended
to be merciful to you, I should have thought they
would have transferred you to prisons in which
you might have been instructed in a trade, and
bees enabled to get your livelihood afterwards.
You have been convicted so many times, I see no
reason why you should have been set at large, nor
any hope that, when set at large, you could gain
employment and abstain from doing wrong. I
think it is a great hardship upon men who have
lost their character by being sentences' to penal ser-
vitude to let them loose in a country where persons
will not employ them. I cannot understand wby,
either for the sake of the public, or of your-
selves, you have been sentenced to four years'
penal servitude in Januarry 1855, should be let
out to commit fresh depredations in the same town
as before, in August, 1856. Those who did that
act may justify to themselves the proceeding, but
for my part I cannot justify it, nor can I follow
the example set by those persons, for facts have
provei the proceeding to be fallacious and injurious
to criminals and to the public. You two young
fellows are well able to earn an honest livelihood,

and I heartily, wish that you could. I hope, for
the sake of the convicts themselves, that we may

return to a system which sends them out to a

colony where labour is iu great demand, and where
they may (as many transports have done) regain
good characters and become useful members of
society. In order to give you a chance to be sent
to such a place, in the event of the former system
heing renewed—as many persons together with
myself, fervently hope it will be—l will sentence
you to be transported for 20 years."