The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

MMES.—Never, perhaps, within living memory
has a new year been ushered in with so dismal a
series of disasters at sea. The shipwrecks of the last
fortnight exceed both in frequency and fatality any
that have occurred during a like period since the
terrific storms towards the close of the year 1859.
From all parts of the coast, from Liverpool, from
Plymouth, from Torbay, from Shields, from Great
Yarmouth, from Lowestoft, we have received, day
after day, the most heartbreaking descriptions of
havoc and ruin among the shipping, and up to the
beginning of the present week estimates of the total
losses ranged between 300 and 400. On Wednesday
last we reported in the same column the utter de-
struction of two magnificent ocean steamers the
London and the Amalia, both of whom foundered
in the Bay of Biscay within 24 hours of each other,
under circumstances so exactly similar that the two
narratives read almost like one. Yesterday we had
to report another catastrophe, scarcely inferior in
scale or interest, which befell the sailing vessel
Christiana about a week previously, on her way
from London to New York. The voyage of this
ill-fated ship from beginning to end seems to have
been one long succession of casualties. She lost all
her sails in a gale which commenced on the 3d of
December off the Isle of Wight. On the 19th she
again felt in with a hurricane which lasted 5 days.
On the 20th the mainmast fell, and was followed by
the fore and mizen topmasts, as well as the bow-
sprit, while the sails were torn to ribands. The fall-
ing of a spar broke the steward's leg, and shortly
afterwards the carpenter and one of the sailors
were washed overboard. As in the case of the
London and the Amalia, several of the boats were
next stove in or carried away by heavy seas which
swept over the deck. In this pitiable condition
the passengers and crew of the Christiana, on short
allowance of 'provisions, and huddled together in
such parts of the ship as were not flooded, were
tossed about the Atlantic for more than a fort-
night. An American vessel hove in sight on
the 26th of December, and came within speak-
ing distance, but " towards night was lost
sight of, and seen no more." Not until the 7th of
January did another sail appear on the horizon, and
on the following day the Varuna, an Indiaman four
months out from Calcutta, bore down in answer to
signals of distress from the Christiana. Another
gale was now blowing, and it was only by the most
desperate and heroic exertions on the part of the
Varuna's officers and men that all hands were
transferred safely from the wreck to the hospitable
deck of the Indiaman. The lifeboat of the latter,
after making four most hazardous trips, was dashed
to pieces when there were happily no more lives to
save. The fate of these large and well-found vessels,
strongly manned, ably commanded, and furnished
with every safeguard known to nautical science, na-
turally excites more horror than hundreds of minor
losses. Every one can picture to himself a majestic
steamboat with 270 souls on board foundering stern
foremost in mid-ocean, and the present season will
long be memorable for the number of first-class
passenger ships which have been wrecked on the
high seas. It is not the high seas, however, that a
sailor most dreads ; nor is it those appalling and
wholesale calamities which raise the rate of marine
insurance and terrify the public that really occasion
the greatest sacrifice of human life and property.
Shallow water and a lee shore, where earth and sea
appear to battle for the mastery, are the most cruel
and destructive enemies of the seaman. Had we
the ghastly tale of this year's wrecks before us, we
doubt not that, as ever happens, the coasting trade
would fill the darkest part of the list. Of all the
stations on the coast Brixham has probably been,
in proportion to its population, the greatest sufferer.
The total number of vessels lost in Torbay cannot
as yet be fixed with accuracy, but it certainly
amounts to more than 40, and 77 persons at least
are believed to have perished. " The estimated
loss of property in ships and cargoes is from
£150,000 to £200,000," and of the men who escaped
a large proportion had lost almost all that they
possessed. It is hardly too much to say that
at one fell swoop the Brixham fleet of trawlers
has been completely shattered, and although a
great part of the loss will fall upon insurance com-
panies, some of which, being local associations, may
have great difficulty in meeting it, yet a great part
will fall on poor families, who in losing their boats
and fishing tackle are losing their livelihood. When
we consider that what bas befallen Brixham has, in
a greater or less degree, befallen many fishing towns
on the coast, we may form some idea of the misery
and destitution which the storms of January have
brought with them. There is one consolatory re-
flection, and one only, suggested by the perusal of
these sad records. If we are tempted to feel that
man, with all his boasted triumphs over the forces of
nature, is still but the sport of the elements when
they put forth their full strength against him, we
may find comfort in dwelling on the courage which,
inspired by a sense of duty, raises even men of ordi-
nary mould to the moral level of heroes and mar-
tyrs. Could a history be written of all the services
rendered by lifeboats, it would contain more golden
deeds than Plutarch and his successors ever culled
from the annals of war. One of these was detailed
by a correspondent in our own columns but two days
ago ; another adorns the story of the Christiana ;
many more will never be known for want of a sur-
viving witness ; not a few, perhaps, have been per-
formed and forgotten by the actors themselves,
without any self-conscious appreciation of their true
character. Yet, certain it is that such dangers as
are daily encountered by volunteers, in rescuing the
crews of shipwrecked vessels, are among the most
formidable, in appearance and reality, to which
human fortitude can possibly be subjected. To
launch out deliberately from shore, or to push off
from a ship's side, into a raging sea, at the imminent
risk of being swamped, is to embark on a forlorn hope
with the nobler purpose of saving the lives of fellow-
creatures. Self-preservation and despair are power-
ful motives, and will nerve men to superhuman
efforts, but to face death with open eyes under no com-
pulsion and with no other than a benevolent ob-
ject is the highest self-devotion of which our nature
is capable. That it is not confined to a few exalted
spirits—that it is exhibited by rude and humble sea-
men as well as by the veteran with a life-long repu-
tation for gallantry to sustain—that it is seldom
wanting, at least among our own countrymen, in
these frightful emergencies—that it is not so rare as
transcendent genius or saintly piety—these are no
proofs that it is not a virtue of the siblimest order.
There may not improbably be other officers in our
merchant navy who would have played the same
part as Captain Martin, of the London, wjilo would
have remained to the last at theirposts, giving orders
in a firm unfaltering voice, cheering the passengers
so long as there was hope, and calmly informing
them when there was no hope, refusing to quit the
deck in the only boat which could be lowered, and
coolly placing her under the command of her proper
officer. There may be others also who would have
done all this, without the faintest hope of fame or
reward, and with a full conviction that their conduct
would never be made known in this world ; but if
there be, then there must surely be prevalent in this
Christian country, and in these latter days, a
standard of conscience and a spirit of self-devotion
equal at least to any ideals that can be drawn from
the choicest precedents of heathen antiquity.
Post —There is much truth in the theory of the
late Mr. Buckle, that legislation is powerless to
diminish crime. That ingenious writer regarded the
criminal element as a fixed quantity in the popu-
lation of every country. Given the number of
inhabitants, he would undertake to specify the
relative proportion who subsist by plunder ; and
this number, he maintained, would not materially
vary whatever measures of prevention or of
punishment we thought proper to adopt. As in
the brute creation certain animals habitually prey
upon each other, so will a certain class of men,
whose passions are strong and whose judgment is
weak, perpetually prey upon their fellow-mortals.
Crime is therefore inherent in human nature, per-
vading alike the most barbarous and the most
civilised communities—a moral malady, in short,
which it is as hopeless to attempt to extirpate as
physical disease and death. It is the duty of the
legislator to protect life and property, it is the pro-
vince of the judge to punish and of the philanthro-
pist to reform criminal offenders, but in spite of all
that has been said and done, their number does not,
and in the nature of things cannot, diminish. We
must rest satisfied with imprisoning and flogging
and hanging a certain nmmber of felons every year,
with but little hope that their punishment will do
them any good, and with the absolute certainty that
it will not diminish the number of future delinquents.
Such is the theory which we are willing to admit
contains much unpalatable truth. It cannot be de-
nied that, notwithstanding all our efforts to repress
it, crime has steadily increased with our increasing
wealth and population. It is said that this may be
partly accounted for by the increased efficiency of
the police, but there is no question as to the result,
namely, that in our great towns during the last 20
years the number of our criminals has increased more
rapidly than the increase of the population would
seem to warrant. Another obvious cause may be
assigned for this unsatisfactory state of things dur-
ing the interval in question, namely, the abolition
of transportation. It is well known to those who

are familiar with the practice of our criminal courts,
that prisoners appear again and again at the bar,
after having undergone, it may be once, it may be
several times, the punishment of penal servitude. In
a case of this latter description we are informed that
the other day, after a sentence of seven years had
been passed upon a notorious offender, he entreated
the presiding judge to make it 10 years instead. The
spectators were naturally surprised at the singula-
rity oF the request, but that would not have been
the case had they been aware of the prisoner's object
in making it. He already knew what penal servi-
tude was in England, he had no desire to return to
it, and he knew that by receiving a sentence of 10
years he had some chance of being sent abroad.
Cases such as this may teach us that the punish-
ment of penal servitude is dreaded by our criminals,
but it may also teach us that it has little or no
effect in reforming them. Had this poor outcast
been sent in the first instance to Western Australia
he might by this time have been a reclaimed and
perhaps a prosperous man. As it was, his history
showed that on each occasion after he had under-
gone his various sentences he resumed and continued
his former habits until he once more found himself
within the four walls of a prison. It is a very pain-
ful but a very common history, for what can be
more hopeless in a country overflowing with popu-
lation than the condition and prospects of a convict
turned adrift upon the world after he has undergone
his punishment ? Now that transportation is prac-
tically abolished, society will be compelled for its
own sake to take some means for preventing the
wholesale relapse into crime of those who have
offended against the laws of their country. We are
glad to perceive that Lord Stanley—who, as chair-
man of the Quarter Sessions in his native county of
Lancaster, has for some years past been personally
concerned in the administration of the criminal law
—has brought the matter prominently before the
public, and we trust that the society which has just _
been inaugurated under his auspices at Manchester
will meet with that liberal support which we are
sure it deserves. The title of this association suffi-
ciently indicates its object. The Discharged Priso-
ners' Aid Society is instituted for the purpose of
assisting criminal offenders, after they have re-
ceived their punishment, to return to the paths of
honest industry, and to guard them, if possible,
against the temptations by which on their egress
from prison they are now beset. That the opera-
tions of a society of this kind will be both delicate
and difficult must be obvious to every one. It is
well known that the reformation of adult criminals
is a thing of rare occurrence, and we therefore may
expect to hear of many failures, and of many at-
tempts at imposition. But even if a very moderate
percentage is reclaimed, a great and positive good
will be done. With regard to juvenile offenders,
we entertain the most sanguine anticipations from
the labours of a society of this description. Juve-
nile reformatories have, as: a whole, proved highly
successful, and their beneficial operation is already
witnessed in the diminished number of juvenile
offenders committed for trial throughout the coun-
try. The people of Manchester are of too practical
a character to attempt anything Utopian. They
have always an eye to business whenever they seri-
ously apply themselves to any serious undertaking.
Whether it is the corn law or the cotton famine, or
the frauds of the cotton manufacture, or the dis-
posal of discharged prisoners that engages, for the
time being, the attention of the men of Manchester,
we always expect to find that they are in earnest,
and that they will do their utmost to accomplish
the purpose they have in view. An association of
the kind projected has been long wanted in our
great towns, and we trust and believe that the ex-
ample of Manchester will soon be followed else-
where. There are numbers of benevolent persons
of both sexes in every large community, and espe-
cially in the metropolis, who would willingly aid in
reclaiming the outcasts of society if they only knew
how to set about it. We are far, indeed, from
thinking that any number of associations, however
well managed, will have the effect of extinguishing,
or even of seriously diminishing, the aggregate
amount of crime. But they will will afford to the
less hardened class of offenders an opportunity,
which does not now exist, of regaining or acquiring
a decent position in society.