The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-15 00:00:00

PRISON DISCIPLINE.

Earl Granville has addressed a remarkable
letter to the Governor of Jamaica on the manage-
ment of prisons. He complains that the prisoners
are employed in remunerative labour, instead of
being subjected for some portion of their imprison-
ment to the tread-wheel, crank, or shot drill, which
he regards as more " effectively deterrent." We
should have thought that Earl Granville would have
been one of the earliest to acknowledge the fact that
the substitution of useful labour for degrading em-
ployment in our prisons and reformatories has had
the most beneficial effect upon the inmates.
It is true that the introduction of re-
munerative labour has been sometimes accom-
panied by comforts and luxuries which destroy
the effect of prison discipline, but, if unnecessary
indulgence is avoided there will be little necessity
for degradation, and least of all should the
idea of degradation be carried out at the expense of
the ratepayers, whose taxes must be increased if the
prisoners are taken from remunerative labour and
placed on the tread-wheel. The experience of other
countries has shown us that prisons can be main-
tained without cost to the community, and that the
employment of the prisoners in industrial occupa-
tions has a direct tendency to lessen the number of
recommitments, and it is therefore, in the best sense
of the word, deterrent. On another topic the noble
Earl has written in a manner more worthy of his
reputation. lie points out that leprosy is not con-
tagious, and therefore the sufferings of lepers should
not be aggravated by separation from their fellow
men.

A PUZZLING rizonr.rm.

Mr. Bruce has had a hard question put to him.
There is a drunkard in Manchester who suffers from
delirium tremens, and about this man Mr. Bruce has
been consulted. Tho man's wife is willing to pay
for his retention in safe custody, but the oilici.ds
declare that they have no legal power to detain
this confirmed drunkard after recovering from
the rabid symptoms of the disease. The Home Sec-
retary is asked, " What can be done to protect the
wife and save the man from his own folly.?" Mr.
Bruce replies :

The Government has announced its intention of intro-
ducing a measure for the better regulation of the trade
in intoxicating liquors, which it may be hoped will
have some effect in diminishing drunkenness nad iti
attendant evils. The method, however, of dealing with
persons in the condition of the man described in your
letter is one of great difficulty, and Mr. Bruce is not
at present prepared to recommend any change in the
law with respect to such cases.

THE 44 TRUE STORY."

William
A former servant to Lord Byron, "
Childs," whose aunt was housekeeper at Newstead
Abbey, writes an indignant wrathful letter to the
Telegraph anent the Byron scandal. Ile charac-
terises Mrs. Stowe's true story first as an •' odious
charge," then es a " monstrously prurient fabrica-
tion," and finally as a " most odious and damned
lie, gross as a mountain open, palpable." Mr. Childs's
reason for coming to the conclusion so very ener-
getically expressed, is that if Mrs. Stowe's story be
true, his aunt, who lived at Newstead Abbey where
Byron end his sister were often together, must have
suspected it. She did not, or, at least, did not tell him
that she did. Therefore he thinlis the alleged inter-
course could never have taken place. Mrs. Stowe's
story at present stands alone without corroborator
from any some%

A Llll7T,kr. 1II"."T; AND

One of those shameful cases of wife-beating which
continually disgrace our police courts has been
brought before Sir Robert Carden. The facts
arc briefly these :—The complain:or', Charlotte
Joyce, stated that her husband, a packer, to whom
she had been married thirteen years, was given to
dria' ing, and also to hert:ng her incessantly. On
Thursday last he had a quarrel with a neighbour,
who struck him on till bead and cut it open. Ile
went to ;he hospital and had the wound dressed, and
his wife, dreading his violence, did not go to bed till
after be was, as she thought, asleep. She, however,
soon found her mistake, for the man took off his
heavy boot, and, declaring that as he could not have
his revenge out on the man who had struck him, ho
would wreak it out on her; he " struck her brutally
in the ribs with it several times." The complainant
added that the support of the family was entirely
thrown upon her, but she did not mind working hard
if her husband would ' let her alone.' The defendant,
who denied all the charges, was sentenced to ono
month's hard labour, and to find one surety in £5
and himself in 10 to keep the peace for three
months more. This surely is a light punishment for
such an incorrigible ruffian.