The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-03 00:00:00

THE SON, LONDON, MON DAY. EV u.;NiNG, SEPTEMBER 3, 18G6.

tame adopted most unfair to the ex-Governor of
JI &mica, but the remarks he makes are a gross libel
upon those who have espoused the cause of Mr.
EYRE in this country. It is much to be regretted
that any one of knowledge and educalion
shoo Id thus mislead the ignorant and confuse the
uninformed by one-sided declarations and calumnious
assertions. We certainly did imagine that the
Jamaica faction had done their work, but an im-
portant addenda appears to be to bring in the meet-
ing at Hyde Park and to confound the Jamaica
outbreak with the disturbance that then and there
took place, in order to heap insults upon those poli-
tical leaders and partisans who do not agree with
their tenets. Such conduct is un-English in the
extreme, and cannot be too strongly denounced by
all honest and independent men, no matter to which
side they belong. Thus we read in Mr. GOLDWIN'S
SMITH'S letter that " no one can have read the
speech of Mr. DISRAELI and Mr. ADDERLEY with-
out seeing plainly that their hearts and those of
their fellows are on the side of martial law. " Can
anything be so ridiculous as this? And in accordance
with this assertion is another, to the effect that
those who entertained Mr. EYRE at Southampton
were influenced in their proceedings " not in spite
of his having put Mr. GORDON illegally to death,
but because he has shown the way in which other
GORDONS may be put to death equally without re-
gard to law."

In one sense it may be as well for these fanatical
supporters of the negro to talk like this, because
it shows what their judgment is worth. Those who
notice such extravagant assertions as those referred
to may form an estimate of how fit they are to pass
an opinion upon the transactions that take place in
Jamaica. We put it to any one of common sense
if this is a fair line of argument to adopt. "Do
not Lord HARDWICKE and his party believe that
the leaders of trades' unions and reform-leagues are
very vicious people, of whom it would be desirable to
rid the community." Such language might be left
to the contempt and obscurity it deserves were it
not addressed purposely to those who may be mis-
led by it in some degree, and it is the
bounden duty of all who address them-
selves to the question to point out the
mischief that may be wrought by these overwrought
statements. Mr. BRIGHT has a great deal to answer
for in the manner he has taken up this Jamaica
business ; he has enlisted prejudice in his cause,
and not scrupled to make use of the arts of
the demagogue. It is, indeed, difficult to
say what these excited individuals who com-
pose the faction will not say next in reference to the
Jamaica outbreak and the manner of its suppres-
sion ; but they will overreach themselves at last, as
such men always do, and in the meanwhile it be-
hoves all who value truth and justice to protest
against the course they are pursuing.

TEE ATLANTIC CABLE.

L A TEST INTEL LIGENUE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

JAMAICA.
LIVERPOOL, Sept. 3.
The steamer Talisman, from Kingston, Jamaica,
arrived here this morning.
Her news has been anticipated.

OUR CONVICTS.

In the year 1865, with the population of England
estimated at about 21,000,000, there were(not reckon-
ingsummary convictions before magistrates for minor
offences) 12,358 persons who after trial before a
court of justice were sentenced to imprisonment
(the majority of them for not more than six months),
and 2,081 who were sentenced to penal servitude.
This last number are our convicts ; and the crimi-
nal tables of the last 30 years do not show in any
other year so small a number as 2,081 persons sen-
tenced to the greater punishment of penal servitude
or transportation. An analysis of the sentences of
1865 also shows a striking decrease in the number
condemned to more than seven years of punish-
ment ; only 368 such sentences were passed in the
year 1865. Only 12 life sentences were passed.
All this indicates a decline iu the amount of serious
crime. The directors of the English Convict
Prisons, presenting their report for 1865, are able
to state that there are only 81 convicts under sen-
tence of penal servitude for life, and 51 of these are
confirmed invalids, many of them paralyzed and
bed-ridden. The Government have been able to
dispense with the cells hitherto rented in the county
prisons at Leicester, Bedford, Northampton, Ayles-
bury, and Nottingham. In the course of the year
2,463 convicts were received into the Government
prisons-2,069 males and 394 females. 134 of the
males and 28 of the females were persons received
back on account of the revocation of their licence to
be at large before the expiration of their sentence,
and 511 of the males and 143 of the females had
been before convicted. The number of males re-
convicted shows a marked decrease, but the pro-
portion of rcconvictions among female convicts
has increased, and is very large. The
number of licenses revoked shows an increase,
owing to the stringency of the provisions of the
new Penal Servitude Act. The directors re-
port that in the last 12 years 21,052 males and
3,114 female convicts have been set at large in
England, either by expiration of their sentence or
by licence. In the year 1865 2,030 males and 402
female convicts were discharged on licence, which is
now so generally the manner of exit from the con-
vict prisons that only 129 males and 34 females
went out by expiration of their sentence. The
large proportion of reconvictions among female
convicts is due partly to the fact that the majority
have been often in local prisons before coming to
the convict prison, and are confirmed worthless
characters. The superintendent of Brixton Prison
mentions an instance of a crafty, selfish woman,
who in every prison she has been in has contrived
to dupe some officer to obtain forbidden supplies
for her. In this prison a cell for refractory women
has been built so isolated that the occupant can
neither hear nor be heard, and the intense solitude
is found very deterring. The medical officer no-
tices that as a rule the women who are sentenced
to a second or third period of penal servitude come
in in decidedly better health than those who are
under a first sentence, and states that medically
there would be no objection to a second servitude
being made more rigorous than the first. The
number of female reconvictions is attributable partly
to their return to evil influences, and difficulty in
obtaining employment on discharge. It is satis-
factory to learn that the Carlisle Memorial Refuge
(in Queen-square) for female convicts, opened last
year, is working successfully, and a similar refuge
in Hammersmith for Roman Catholic convicts has
since been opened; admission to these refuges will
be obtained by good conduct and industry in prison,
as shown by marks obtained. The Prisoners' Aid
Society in London also continues its good work,
and has during the year undertaken the cases •of
516 men and 61 women ; and like societies have
been established in Staffordshire, Leeds, and Liver-
pool. The expenditure of convict prisons for the
year was £243,850 ; in the preceding year it was
£252,875. The value of the work done in the year
by male convict labour at Portland, Chatham, and
Portsmouth, with a daily average of 2,945 men em-
ployed was £93,078. The female convicts have knitted
a large supply of worsted socks for the army, and the
clothing of the convict establishments abroad is now
manufactured in the convict prisons as far as pos-
sible. Convicts are now almost exclusively employed
on Government work; slop work and contract work
for private firms have been nearly discontinued.
The directors believe that the system now in force
in English convict prisons, of limited remissions of
time, governed strictly by the measure of actual
work performed, and forfeiture of advantages already
gained in case of misconduct, is the true plan-for
dealing with convicts, They think the general state
of the prisons now satisfactory. The convicts are
now worked hard, and the dietary is no more than
rigid medical investigation justifies. The new sys-
tem of separation and classification works well ; and
communication between convicts, even on the pub-
lic works, is scarcely practicable. Books of mere
amusement, of an uninstructive character, are ex-
cluded from the library. Every infraction of dis-
cipline, especially violence to officers, and trafficking,
which at one time was very rife, has been promptly
punished ; and, on the other hand, the tendency of
all the regulations is to encourage the convicts to
industry and good conduct. The Inspector-General
of French Prisons has rtcently borne testimony to
our penal institutions as worthy of imitation by
other countries.

HURRICANE AT BOULOGNE-SUR-MER.--OnMon-
day afbernoon about 3 o'clock a most terrific whirl-
wind burst over the coast, flooded the town of Boulogne,
and occasioning a serious loss of property. The inhabitants
had scarcely recovered from the fright of an awful storm
of thunder and lightning which took place on Monday
morning, when vivid lightning in the south-west direc-
tion denoted the approach of another storm. A perfect
calm then prevailed for some time, but suldenly the wind
rose to a complete cyclone, with a deluge of rain.
The storm was at its greatest force about half-past
three o'clock. The hurricane took up clouds of sand from
the hills and along the coast, which was swept over the
town by the torrent to an enormous extent. Some persons
describe it to have been a waterspout. All the streets in
the lower part of the town were completely under water,
and the cellars and basement floors of the houses were
quickly filled. Much damage was done, especially to the
port, where several cargoes of merchandise for shipment
were piled up. A yacht foundered in the harbour, and
afterwards was carried out to sea, bottom upwards, but
fortunately no lives were lost.

WHAT AMERICAN WOMEN CAN Do.—Among the
strangers in Philadelphia at this moment are two ladies
from Martinsburg, West Virginia. Yesterday they were
purchasing a seed drill, a mowing machine, and other agri-
cultural implements, whose cost in the aggregate was about
$BOO. their home was very close to the theatre of the late
war. Between the two contencling armies their houses and
barns were burnt, their horses and cattle driven off, their
only brother conscripted into the Southern army, and
themselves left destitute and homeless. Any one who,
Being a young lady such as we saw yesterday, had been
told that she had personally ploughed and planted many
acres of land, would have laughed to scorn the party so
informing him. Such, however, is literally the case. We
learnt the facts from a gentleman residing in the vicinity.
The smoking ruins of the farm upon which these young
people resided had scarcely cooled when the neighbours
clubbed together, built them a log-house, and extemporised
a sort of barn. Horses were loaned to them, and the girls
with their own hands ploughed the ground and seeded it
with corn. The crop grew apace, and with their own
hands they harvested it. They sold it to great advantage.
They had owned 47 negro slaves. Some of these went into
the Union army, others deserted the locality. The girls
were left alone to baffle with the vicissitudes of the war.
Our informant, whose respectability is beyond a question,
says that these girls produced by their own work in the
field more decided and productive results than were ac-
complished by the entire gang of slaves. They toiled for
throe years, and now they have a comfortable home and
most substantial barns upon their property, while improve-
ments havd been made upon it to an extent that makes it
of considerably more value than before the torch of con-
flicting armies reduced its building to ashes. One of the
young ladies has since married, but the others still do duty
as their own " overseers," and they themselves purchased
yesterday and directed the shipment of the agricultural
implements to which we have above referred. The wonder
to the dealer was that a lady, delicately gldved and attired,
as though she had never overstepped the bounds of the
boudoir, should descant experimentally and intelligently
upon the respective merits of the different reaping ma-
chines, and upon the comparative values of the different
patents for threshing out the cereals. These young ladies
were educated in Philadelphia, and are well-known to
many of our bespeople.—Philaclelphia North American.
EXECUTION OF THE WIGAN MURDERER.--,On
Saturday at noon Thomas Grime was executed at Kirkdale
for the murder, in January, 1863, of an old man named
James Barton, at the Balkhouso Colliery, between Wigan
and Chorley.