The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-16 00:00:00

of Ireland in coming from Quebec; estimated value
of ship and cargo, £8,700. The ship Juliet, 440 tons,
Captain Hitch, master, owned by Mr. F. ( I ambers,
of London, with a cargo of sugar an ium, from
Demerara for London, lost at Hell-bay, Land's-end ;
estimated value of ship, £4,000, an len go, £13,000.
The barque Jeanne, 312 tons, Captain Jacques
Jaussens, owned by Messrs. Chabot and Co., of
Ant werp, from Buenos Ayres to Queenstown,
wrecked near Maryport ; estimated loss of ship and
cargo, £34,300. The bark Lucetta, 192 tons, from
Seaham for Rochester, with coals, lost on the Gun-
fleet Sand ; value of ship and cargo, £3,700. The
bark Diana, 261 tons register, of Liverpool, owned
by Mr. G. Caldewell, of Troon, cargo coals, totally
lost on South Point of Holy Island; value of ship,
£4,000. The bark Norma, 650 tons, Captain Horet-
man, owned by Messrs. Konitzky and Thiermann, of
Bremen, with a cargo of tobacco from Richmond for
London, lost on the south-east spit of the Goodwin;
loss of ship, £8,300, and cargo, £6,000. The bark
Lexington, 344 tons, owned by Messrs. J. Milligan,
jun., Liverpool, cargo, coals and machinery, from'
Liverpool for Havannah, totally lost one mile off
Coral Point, north-west of Islay, one man lost by
remaining on board ; value of ship, £4,000, and
cargo, £4,000, The bark Ariel, 365 tons, owned
by Messrs. R. Craggs and R. Hall, Stockton, with
a cargo of wheat from Odessa for Queenstown,
abandoned 30 miles from Old Head of Kinsale, no
lives lost ; estimated loss of ship, £6,000, and cargo,
£3,500. The ship Eugenie, 1,136 tons burden, owned
by Messrs. John Martin and Sons, Dublin, with a
general cargo from Liverpool for St. John's, New
Brunswick, totally lost off Ballymac Cotter, county
of Cork ; captain and 12 men drowned ; estimated
loss of ship and cargo, £35,000. The bark Ayrshire,
681 tons, Capt. W. H. Terry (master), owned by
W. E. Corner, Leadenhall-street, London, with a
cargo of timber, from Quebec for Dundee, lost off
Poor Island ; estimated loss of ship and cargo,
£6,000. The Palinurus, 1,082 tons, Capt. A. Berry,
owners Messrs. R. Allen and Co., Liverpool, with a
cargo of coals from that port to New York, wrecked
at Cymyran-bay ; one life lost; estimated loss of
ship, £15,000, and cargo, £1,600. The above form
a small part of the ships that have been lost ; they
number between 300 and 400.

Lord Stanley upon Aid to Discharged
Prisoners.

Lord Stanley, M.P., took the chair yesterday at
a meeting held in the Manchester Town-hall to pro-
mote the formation of a Discharged Prisoners' Aid

Society for that district.
Lord STANLEY said—We are met here for the
purpose of establishing a society which has for its
object the giving of temporary aid to discharged

prisoners, and assisting them, if willing, to find

honest employment. Ido not want to encumber

,he few remarks I shall make with any superfluous

details, and shall therefore only explain the grounds
on which I think such a society may be usefully
formed. We have in this country, unhappily, a

large criminal class, which, though recruited from
all districts, mainly makes its home in the great
towns, where concealment is easiest and plunder

most abundant. It is not material for our purpose

,o estimate with any accuracy the number o'

that class, for the figures we have are vague,
and are necessarily to some extent conjec-
tural, but we may safely assume it is large, andthat
whether diminishing or not—as to which there is a
difference of opinion—it will continue large for many
years to come. Our late judicial statistics are not

pleasant reading, and I recommend the study of

them to any person who may be inclined to take too
hopeful or rose-coloured a view of our actual civili-

cation. (Hear.) Since 1861 there has been a steady
although a slow increase in the number of commit-

tals, and though allowance must be made for an in-
crease of population, and also in some degree for
the increased efficiency of police, still it is certain
that there has been—to put it in the mildest
form—no considerable falling off in the amount of

detected crime. Nor do I think we can expect that
there should be, when we remember how vast a

population still remains among us, living apart
from and below all the influences of civilised life.

No town has done more, in many respects, for its
inhabitants than this city of Manchester ; but
late inquiries have shown beyond dispute that

Manchester and Salford there arc many

thousands—some estimates put the number as high
as 50,000 (I have not verified the figures, therefore

I should not like to vouch for them)—of children,

mostly of the lowest grade, who are neither at work

nor at school.

Of these we must expect that a

certain proportion will turn out badly, and my only
wonder is that the number is not greater. It is the
empty school, and the home which is no home, that
make the full prison. (Hear, hear.) I speak from
my personal experience of liakdale, of some 1,200
i or 1,500 cases in which I have had to pass sentence
as chairman of the sessions there, when I say that
the great. majority of the prisoners with whom I
have had to do have been for all practical purposes
wholly untaught. It is, indeed, an exception when
you have a prisoner who is otherwise. Now that,
to my mind, is rather a hopeful sign than the reverse.
Things would be even more unsatisfactory than they
are if criminals as a class were men or women who
had had good chances in life and had voluntarily
thrown those chances away. An undertaking of the
kind which we are now promoting is sometimes so
much misrepresented that it is necessary to describe
with some care what we intend to do. I divide cri-
minals into three classes-Ist, the boys and girls who
are, or ought to be, provided for under the reforma-
tory acts—although I may mention in passing that
in many cases magistrates seem reluctant to put
those acts in force, and these young criminals are
sent to gaol, which is the very worst place for them;
next come the old habitual offenders, those who have
followed thieving as an occupation all their lives,
and who probably will do so to the end ; thirdly,
those who, though too old for the reformatory
school, are yet young in crime, are not hardened,
and have rather yielded to some sudden temptation
than deliberately set themselves to live in defiance
of the law. As to the second of these classes—
the old professional gaol-bird—l say plainly that
I think the less we have to do with him the
better. It is of course not beyond the scope of
possibility that such a one may really be tired of
the life he is leading, and may wish to mend
his ways, but the chance of sincerity in any par-
ticular case among that class is infinitely small.
There is a stage at which moral as well as physical
diseases become incurable, and a man who has long
made it his habit to deceive prison authorities and
gaol chaplains by a show of amendment and refor-
mation brings himself at last to such a state that he.
hardly
knows whether in what he says he is acting
apart or not. That is the class which has brought
discredit, I think undeserved discredit, upon all at-
tempts
such character—an admirably-conducted man in
_____tabwtliosrueci:m prisoners. There is a story of one
gaol--who
pa
eo
cl by extra work managed to lay by a re-
which was duly paid him on his re-
lease,and whichlt
isheniomt immediately proceeded to in-
v(Lesatuginhtear.
should have
)first-rate set of housebreakers' tools.
men of that kind that I
on
hopelives—applies these people—who
help,ei of operating. If one of
in
should
iout s
say
yf
tgoaohlimh,al,f,
Ithaemir
sorry for you; it is quite
you may
possible mean
what you say,
but we can't help everybody ; the
assistance we have to give is limited, and that assist-
ance we think it better to reserve for those who have
not yet thoroughly gone to the bad." That brings
me to the question—Who are those whom you are
to reclaim and to save ? I answer—the young, the
weak, the untaught, or ill-taught ; the kind of man,
in short, whose history is something as follows :
He has a drunken father or mother, perhaps both ;
he has an uncomfortable home, and he has had no
schooling. He means on the whole to do well, if it
is not too difficult ; but he has not moral courage to
stand up against temptation. He gets into bad com-
pany, he is drawn into a beer-shop, he is primed
with drink, and he is induced to join in what is re-
presented to him as a " spree"—probably robbing a
farm-yard or breaking into a house. He is caught,
of course, while the older hands escape. He con-
fesses to the police, and pleads guilty at his trial,
and he takes his punishment. He comes out of gaol
ashamed to show his face ; he wants to get employ-
ment—he finds himself badly looked upon, he is