The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-12 00:00:00

THE GAOL OF NETVGATE.

The Rev. John Davis, the Ordinary of Newgate
has presented to the Lord Mayor and the Coint o
Aldermen a report on the moral condition of the
great city prison during the civic year just termi-
nated. Of this document, which has considerable
public interest, we condense the material portions.
At the outset he expresses his satisfaction at seeing
the demolition of the women's side of the gaol, pre-
paratory to its reconstruction on the separate system
of imprisonment. They had now had, in the male
wing of the prison, full two years' experience of
the effects of that system both on great offenders
and on those charged with minor offences ; and
that experience, after many years of indiscriminate
admixture of prisoners, had resulted in decided ad-
vantage in many respects. The fears of suicide and
lunacy, he says, had vanished; careful superinten-
dence had prevented any attempt at the one from
being successful, and not allowed the other to ad-
vance so far as to injure the intellect. The great
benefit derived from the change has been the pro-
tection of the youthful criminal from further pol-
lution. The refractory apprentice or dishonest
errandboy, he says, can now be sent to prison
without being irretrievably ruined, and punished
without being defiled and corrupted. Besides, he
suggests the separate system enables a careful ob-
server to distinguish very nearly what can and what
cannot be done with crime. He compares crime
with cholera. For crime, ho says, there is no known
effectual cure in all cases, but a vast deal may be
done to prevent its inroad. Vain is the hope to ex-
pect its entire extinction. Every session reveals
such lamentable instances of moral degeneracy,
that if it were not checked by the criminal law so-
ciety would hardly be secure. He thinks it would
not be advisable to lessen to any extent the punish-
ments inflicted on this class of offenders, lest crime
shouldincrease, and the tenure of property be made
less secure; but he should wish to see the magis-
trates of the different counties, metropolitan and
others, treat prisoners confined in the Houses
of Correction in the same way the Government
deals with prisoners sentenced to penal servitude,
so far as respects the measures taken for
the reformation of their minds, the judicious em
ployment of their time, and the making the impri-
sonment a punishment. Men, he says, under penal
servitude have a severe period of separate confine-
ment to pass through for 12 or 16 months, and that,
with the daily religious instruction given them, is
enough to bring them to serious thoughts of their
folly and wickedness, if anything will. Mr. Davis
continues to say that it presents a monstrous con-
trast that so much reformatory care should be taken
where. in many instances, the cases are hopeless,
from the long-continued habit of crime; and so
little to the same effect carried out when the hopes
of benefit are so much greater. Convicts and men
under penal servitude have made great progress in
demoralising habits. They are not thought unworthy
of rational and humane treatment, with hopes of
reformation and being restored to society: Why
not, he asks, begin with such a system ? When the
convicts have completed their day's work they have
a separate sleeping apartment, and opportunity
given for retirement and meditation. Large num-
bers reform under such treatment. He does not
know the proportion, but it is v,ery large. Seven out
of eight of all their prisoners never return to New-
gate ; and the ticket-of-leave men who are sent back
do not reach anything like that proportion. The
relapses of these men make a great noise and they are,
generally speaking, men of deep depravity ; but
that, he submits, is only an argument to give such
persons longer sentences ; it does not reach the mass
of liberated convicts. Were such a system adopted
with regard to first offenders and men out of respect-
able families, a very large proportion would be re-
stored to society, and every one be benefited. There
are a few prisons where much that is done by the
Government is done by the magistrates. Reading
gaol, Aylesbury, Northampton, Leicester, Wakefield,
Holloway, and others adopt a similar system, but
without variety of labour or regular payment for
their work. With regard to men habitually addicted
to crime, who make a trade of it, and who are lost to
shame, all light punishments are nonsensical. The
heavier and longer the punishment the better for all
parties. There is a tedium about long sentences
that wears upon the patience of that class of
offenders, and often deters them from pursuing a
course of crime when better and higher motives are
wanting. Mercy in punishment, he says, should
be mercy to first offenders, or it is no mercy at all ;
and, as an additional reason for urging long sen-
tences on habitual criminals, he states there are
among them some who seem equally incapable of
reformation, whether treated strictly or mildly.
The mixture of these persons with others, even in
the advanced stages of their servitude, is always
dangerous. Led by the advice of such, less expe-
rienced men on their liberation by ticket of leave
have fallen into such new associations as
have speedily drawn them back again into crime,
and made them forfeit the privilege of being again
among the free. The liberation of men after a
number of years' imprisonment by ticket of leave
is on the whole a system that answers well; but
where offenders belong to the class of incorrigible
delinquents they are formidable and dangerous to
mix with others, and as a measure of precaution
they should be kept by themselves, and never set
free till there are moderately sound hopes of their
reformation and purpose of amendment. He next
adverts to the beneficial effect of religious instruc-
tion on men in separate confinement, and then offers
some suggestions with respect to liberated prisoners.
Too many of these, he says, leave prison in a much
better state of mind than they continue long to
possess. The loss of character sometimes makes
the day of liberty the darkest in their lives. 'llhey
come back to their desolate 'wives and families only
to add to the burdens which already press them to
the earth. Some of them do not return again to
labour, but become permanent mendicants. There
is much of this in the metropolis, and the kind and
humane feeling of the day fosters it. But a little
help just to set these persons going is very service-
able where the purpose is good, and there is a 'mo-
derate hope of success. Among the young very
much may be done; separating children from de-
praved, vicious, and dishonest parents has a hopeful
tendency, and reformatories answer so long as the
purpose of the protege is good, but there are many,
very many, relapses into crime among them that have
been so helped. The sooner and steadier a liberated
prisoner gets into regular work and keeps to it, the
greater the hope ; too much nursing does not suit
these men. They have made their difficulties by
) their crimes, and in the providence of God they
must be prepared to meet them; no good is to be
done to these men, except where their purpose of
mind is to do right. The rev. gentleman remarks,
in conclusion, upon the unabated perseverance in
post-office delinquencies. Remedies, he observes,
against this species of dishonesty are not to be looked
for in the prison, for no better behaved men than
convicted postmen can be found in any of the gaols.
He suggests that much good might be done if the
Post-of ce either positively refused to convey coin
in a letter or made the price of a post office order
for sums not exceeding 10s. one penny. Whether,
he adds, assistant-postmen are paid sufficiently (11s.
or 12s. a we©k is a small sum), or the needlessly
excluding old servants from receiving Christmas-
boxes is wise or not may be questioned. But there
cannot be less than 100 servants of the Post-office
at this time under penal servitude; and let benevo-
lent persons just think of the homes, families,
friends, and hearts of these men. Theirs in shame
and punishment is the happier condition, for neces-
saries are provided; while their wives and children
are in wretchedness or poverty, in the hospital or
workhouse, as the unavoidable result of their crime.

[ADVETITISEMENT.]—IIoIIoway's London and
all large cities, when from the multitudes congregated
together malaria and fogs are breathed over and over again
because the coldness of the higher regions prevents its ris-
ing far above their heads, the blood at this season becomes
more or less impure. The strongest and healthiest lungs
are incapaide of producing pure arterial blood from suffo-
cating fogs ; hence the sluggishness, mental and corporeal,
the weariness and irritability of trihny persons at this season
of the year. Holloway's pills remove all these impurities,
relieve the pulmonary irritation, lessen the spasmodic
ing in the i hroat, restore quietude to the proycked lungs,
renew their elasticity, and permit more oxygen to be oh-
sorbed,
rendering r9suirgion free and bealfigi
• .