The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF III: PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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The Times, in discussing the course pursued by the
Middlesex magistrates respecting the admission of Roman
Catholic priests to the gaols under their charge, observes
that the substantial question is as clear as possible,
though it was scarcely raised in the debate. Is it
des' rable that all prisoners should receive religious instruc-
tion ? The very terms of the resolution adopted by the
magistrates confess that it is. If so, it ought to be
provided for them, and its provision is a mere matter of
gaol management, as much as the appointment of a
governor. But prisoners can never receive instruction with
advantage from ministers of a persuasion to which they
do not belong, and law, therefore, with the assent, though
perhaps reluctant assent, of the Middlesex magistrates
themselves, relieves prisoners from the necessity of
receiving the visits of the chaplain and substitutes the
visits of the priest. What, then, is the difference between
the services performed by the two ministers, and why
should they be differently treated in respect of remunera-
tion ? The justices argue as if the services of the priest
were rendered to the prisoners. But the services '.)f both
ministers are designed for the benefit of the community.
The gaol itself was not built, as one gentleman
ludicrously expressed it, that prisoners "should turn
their crime iuto profit," but for the protection
of society. Prisons are agencies for punishment
and for reformation, and the work of the chap-
lain and the priest is to forward the reformation
of the criminal for the good of the community. The whole
population is benefited if the priest succeeds in reforming
a prisoner's character, and common justice requires that
the whole population should pay for it. If the justices
were to say that the priest does more harm than good, or
that his presence is at best a fanciful luxury, their conduct
would be explicable; but few men have the hardihood
in these days to avow such a degree of folly and bigotry. For
the sake of their own credit the magistrates must admit that
the services of the priest are beneficial to the convict ; and
if so they are beneficial to the ratepayers, and the rate-
payers ought to pay. The question, in truth, is so clear
and simple that we are driven to conclude that these
repeated refusals to do common justice are really due to
relics of bigotry and intolerance. That is the only inter-
pretation, at all events, which the public will put upon
them ; and if these gentlemen have the cause of Pro-
testantism at heart, they should reflect that to persist
in their present course is to inflict on it a very serious
injury.

The Post makes some remarks upon the remission of
the capital sentence upon the convict Bisgrove, and con-
siders the course thus pursued to have been a mistaken
one. The legitimate tendency of such an exemption is to
tempt and encourage other Bisgroves. In short, there
seems to be a systematic tendency—no matter what party
or what individual is in office—to catch at the slightest
pretext for exempting the murderer from the penalty of
his crime, and thereby endangering the life of every mem-
ber of the community. From Bisgrove to Townley, not to
go any further back in our criminal history, a long series
of these miscarriages of justice exists upon record to bear out
the conclusions we have stated. There is, of course, a cause
for this, and it is not far to seek or difficult to find. While
the manners and forms of thought and feeling of the
classes concerned in making and administering the laws
have been, and are, growing daily milder and more and
more humane, the instincts and habits of the criminal classes
have remained as savage, ferocious, and bloodthirsty as
before—if, indeed, they have not rather deteriorated. The
consequence is, that the mildness of punishment, or, which
is the same thing in this case, the tendency to remit
punishment, has gradually increased, and is increasing,
while crime itself has shewn no tendency to decrease in the
same proportion. Thus, in cases of murder of peculiar
atrocity it is usual to hear it pleaded on behalf of the
murderer, and to secure his immunity, that this very
atrocity itself is a reason, not that the law should take its
course, not that he should he made an example of, but that
he is a fit and proper object for mercy, on the ground
that he is not responsible for his actions, and ought to
escape.

The Standard commends the good sense of the Reform
League in contemplating its extinction as a body. The
reason they give is a wise one, for they declare that it is no
longer desirable to perpetuate a state of chronic political
agitation. There is very little reason to doubt that this
has hitherto been the main function of the League. It
has been a disturbing power, and, more than all, it has
been the means of setting class against class. It has not
merely given the force of concentration to a certain
kind of opinions and convictions, but it has uniformly
sought to array one section of the people against
all the others. It has acted upon the assumption
that the working men were oppressed and held
down by the classes above them ; and such strength as it
possessed was derived from the animosities which it thus
engendered and fostered. Its uniform policy was to per-
suade the labouring people that they were down-trodden
by the aristocracy and the wealthy and trading coin-
munities, and to encourage them to adopt an attitude
of menace in order to extort what were called their
" rights." Well pleased as we are to see the League
'disposed to abandon its functions, and Mr. Beales pre-
paring to adjust his mantle on the eve of retiring
into private life, we cannot admit that the retrospect
they invite is altogether calculated to justify the experi-
ment which has been in progress since 186 G. It has been a
failure in every respect, except that it has given scope for
the energies of a knot of trading politicians, who have
brought discredit upon the cause they were permitted to
advocate. Mr. Beales and his colleagues must know per-
fectly well that if history records the deeds of the League
the chief among them will be the wrecking of Hyde Park,
and that if it signalises the names of its heroes, Bradlaugh
and Finlen will occupy a foremost place in its Walhalla.
The Daily News says that London has a nightmare, and
its name is Leicester-square. There is no exorcising this
grisly Ephialtes. Every now and then the sufferer
groans a little under his burden, but the burden is
never lightened, and no amount of familiarity is
found to mitigate the horror. Leicester-square is at
once unassailable and beyond help. Wits satirise
it ; caricaturists burlesque it ; practical jokers
turn its venerable statue into ridicule ; moralists
preach against it, and the press denounces it. Never-
theless, like other abuses, it keeps the uneven tenour of its
way. London is in a state of physical revolution through-
out its length and breadth, yet nothing disturbs the weedy
serenity of Leicester-square. London does not love its
nightmare, yet any attempt to remove it is certain to be
discouraged. Only the other day Mr. O'Beirne, M.P., sug-
gested to the Metropolitan Board of Works that the vacant
ground in the centre of the square should be built on, but the
board expressed their disapproval of the scheme, and a
communication was sent to the honourable gentleman to
the effect that they would do all in their power to prevent
the open space from being covered. Certainly in this
overcrowded city it is not good policy to block up any of
our breathing places, and the dense neighbourhoods sur-
rounding this particular spot render it especially undesir-
able that the ground, however unlovely in its present
condition, should be given up to bricks and mortar. But
cannot something be done to render it more sightly ? Are
trees an impossibility? Would flowers refuse to bloom
beneath the shadow of that ghastly statue ? Or must the
statue for ever remain to add to the terrors of this
unblest enclosure?
The Telegraph thinks that "mob violence" is the
besetting sin of Irish elections, and that therefore the
decision of Judge Keogh on the Drogheda case will hive a
moral weight. The Irish are too apt to think that election-
time is a sort of saturnalia, and the leniency of committees
has encouraged this feeling too much. It may be thought
that, as time passes, the useful effect produced by the
decisions of the new tribunal will be obviated by the
craftier organisation of bribery and intimidation, the con-
cealment of agency, and greater subtlety in the process of
corruption or violence. But Judge Keogh has laid it
clown that treating and violence would invalidate an
election, even if the agency could not be traced to auy of
the candidates. As a corollary to this opinion, it seemed
very necessary that the judges should order an instant
prosecution of the parties actually found guilty of
treating, violence, or the indirect encouragement
of either practice ; if the offence is not punished,
we may have a new dodge—treating and vio-
lence got up expressly by the min rity, to iuvalidate the
election of the man who represents the majority. It is
now clear that Mr. Disraeli's Act of last session is the
basis of an admirable election law. We must abolish the
foolish, degrading farce of a public nomination, with all
the yelling and shouting by a mob miscalled an audience
of electors. We must make the hiring of solicitors, can-
vassers, and committee-rooms-all indirect forms of cor-
ruption—entirely illegal. We must shut up the public-
houses on the polling-day. We must throw all the
expenses of the contest on the county or borough, with a
provision that any candidate' polling less than one-fourth
of the whole body of electors is to pay all the costs, thus
deterring men from fruitless and vexatious opposition.
The Star remarks that there is Fomething appalling in
the idea of undertaking a journey in a cab which has just
conveyed a patient who lies been smitten with the small-
pox or with some deadly fever. When, in spite of all
precautions, disease :-grit;,, down man or woman, submis-
sion becomes a duty, and Heaven in its wisdom generally
provides a solace for the sitiTerer. But it is difficult to be
resigned to the consequences of the gross carelessness of
others. it is impossible to acquit, tlio,e who knewingly
tre a public conveyance f..r purpeee of criminal
responsibility. Ti are lanind to think of the
danger to which they expose innocent persons,
and to devise some means of removing the patient
which will not jeopardise the public safety. This is
an imperative duty on their part ; but, unfortunately,
there are in every community individuals who are devoid
of forethought, who consult only their own convenience,
and who, so long as they escape a present evil, care not
what misery they inflict upon others. We hope that the
committee of the Hospital Carriage Fund will persevere
with their good work. During a season when cabs arc
necessarily in great request—when thousands of little
children and delicate ladies, as well as more robust persons,
are attending evening parties or visiting the theatres,
there is no danger that the general public will either be
indifferent to " the propagation of disease by public
vehicles," or slow to cc-operate with 1)r. Jeafferson and
his colleagues in any well-considered attempts to suppress
a zreat social nuisance.