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

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 16, 1866.

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 Kirkdale, of some 1,200
or 1,500 cases in which I have had to pass sentence
ag 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 thereverse.
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 1
in many cases magistrates seem reluctant to put
those acts in force, and these young criminals are
i sent to gaol, which is the very worst place for them;
I 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
a Part or not. That is the class which has brought
discredit, I think undeserved discredit, upon all at-
tempts to reclaim prisoners. There is a story of one
such character—an admirably-conducted man in
gaol—who by extra work managed to lay by a re-
spectable sum, which was duly paid him on his re-
lease, and which he immediately proceeded to in-
vest in a
(Laughter.)
set of housebreakers' tools.
It •
is not on men of that kind that I
should have much
help,
hope of operating. If one of
these peo
Pie—who are in and out of gaol half their
lives—applies for I should say to him, "I am
sorry for you ; it is quite possible you may 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

taunted with having been in prison ; he tries
a little, and finds that living respectable is
too great an effort to persevere in. So he
goes thieving again, and in the end becomes
one of the incorrigible class. Now, I say that is a

kind of man who, if he is not very likely to do much
good in the world, may at any rate be so far saved

as that he shall do no harm. (Hear, hear.) He comes
out of gaol full, for the moment, of good intentions,

and much, probably everything, depends on the
company that he gets into, as to whether these in-

tentions come to anything or not. What, then, do
you propose to do for such a man ?—Mainly this—

to get him a fresh start, away from his old associates

and old habits. He will have a better chance any-

where rather than at home. If he can be emigrated,

so much the better ; there is not much inducement
to dishonesty, and there is much inducement to
labour in the backwoods of Canada or Australia.

But if that, for any reason, is impossible, then re-
moval to some other part of the country is enough, I
provided you can secure the supervision of a respect-
able employer, and the advantage of a fresh start in
a place where nothing is known against him. In
this there is no petting, no pampering, no favour
shown to the criminal, such as is likely to discourage
or to disgust the honest man. I may notice in pass-
ing that we have noc much now to fear from the
tendency to pamper criminals. It existed, no doubt,
25 or 20 years ago, but a reaction has taken place;
it is a fashion that has gone out, and perhaps, if
anything, there is now, in some quarters, an inclina-
tion to rely, rather too indiscriminately, upon mere
pain, or mere severity, as a deterrent. The money
expended need not be much ; it is more, to my mind
a matter of organisation than one of money. Part of
it will be contributed by the prisoners themselves,

:or an act passed three years ago enables visiting
justices to give to a society such as we propose, duly

Certified as being approved by them, the disposal of
such sums as the prisoner on discharge would be en•
titled to. And it is not the case that by finding em.

ployment for an ex-prisoner you are placing him in
a position which any honest labourer has cause to
envy.
.In that respect the honest, able-bodied
labourer is perfectly able to help himself ; there is no
want of employment now in England. Our object is
simply to guard against the risks, the tempta-
tions that attend a man just turned out of goal,

necessarily without a character—or rather with such
a character that to be without one would be a gain
to him ; and with such a set of rascals around him,
who will try and get him back among them. And
if it is objected—" When there is so much misery,
and so much misery of a preventible kind, among
honest men, why do you concern yourself with
criminals at all ?" My answer is, that it is very
well to say you will leave them alone, but they will
not leave you alone. (Applause.) Ido it not
mainly for their sakes, but very much for my own,
and for that of the public in general: I do it on
the same principle that would lead me to get a
muck-heap or a dead carcase carted away from
before my door, because it is a nuisance where
it is. The criminal, individually, is generally speak-
ing one of the least interesting of mankind ; but the
I existence of a large criminal class amongst us is
both a national disgrace and a heavy national loss.
It has been calculated, or conjectured—for upon
such matters no very certain calculations can be
made—that every habitual thief costs the public
£3OO a year ; and, considering that stolen goods
are sold at a fraction of their value,. that they are
often destroyed, and the produce is always wasted,
I think upon the whole that is a very moderate esti-
mate. You all recollect the old saying about dirt
being only matter in the wrong place. We want
to deal with this human dirt—to take it from where
it is.simply a nuisance and an offence, and to place
it where it may become a useful manure. This is
not a new experiment. Both in London and in
Birmingham, to say nothing of various smaller
towns, societies of the same kind exist, and I am
told that in both of those places, according to the
last reports, fully two-thirds of those who have
been selected for assistance are known to be
earning their living honestly ; those who have
relapsed, and those as to whom nothing is
known, and who for the most part may be
assumed to have relapsed, will form less than one-
third of the entire number. With sonic concluding
observations his lordship moved the following re-
solution :—" That considering the great difficulty
in obtaining employment experienced by persons
discharged out of gaol, and it having been proved,
when assisted by societies established to aid them in
obtaining the means of earning a livelihood, the
number of persons recommitted to gaol is consider-
ably diminished, this meeting has heard with much
satisfaction of the recent establishment of the Man-
chester and Salford Discharged Prisoners' Aid
Society, which is in the opinion of this meeting de-
serving of general public support."
Mr. ALFRED MILNE, chairman of the Salford
quarter sessions, seconded the motion, which was
supported by Mr. T. HIBBERT, M.P., chairman of
the Salford visiting justices, and carried unanimously.
A vote of thanks to the noble lord for presiding
terminated the proceedings.

Agricultural Prospects.

Last week opened with a gale and heavy rain up
to 10.30 a.m., while the remainder of the day was
boisterous, but the rain ceased, and did not return.
On Monday a heavy gale continued, with showers

at intervals ; thermometer 40 deg. ; barometer down
to 29in., having fallen considerably. Tuesday was
a cold day, wind south-west, thermometer 38 deg.,

barometer -28.85 in., inclined to frost, and perhaps to

snow, as the atmosphere had all the appearance of
this, and the barometer particularly so. The land

in all districts was so saturated with wet that no

ploughing could be proceeded with for spring til-
lage, and from the same cause the teams could not
get on to the land with manure, the grass land
being also too soft. A good frost would be re-
quired to push this work forward. On Wednes-
day morning it was observable that a slight frost
had been experienced in the previous night, and
the day was very cold, with slight rain

in the afternoon, as in some parts of the coun-

try snow had been experienced. No opportunity yet

afforded for fieldwork being proceeded with, and the
weather continued most unfavourable for the thrash-

ing of wheat, as has been proved by the samples
brought to market in all the agricultural districts.
In fact so long as farmers proceed with in-door work

whilst such weather continues, the condition cannot
improve. Prices paid for damp samples now are
most unsatisfactory, such being of little use to the
millers, and yet there is no improvement in the de-
mand for old, as might naturally be expected. There
has been much less brought forward, and the returns
as to quantity have greatly fallen off during the
present week. Barley does not suffer so much in
wet weather on being thrashed, but still the quality
is somewhat deteriorated, and the maltsters would
rather have it in good dry condition. The deliveries
are also falling off, and it appears probable that a
sufficiency will not be kept up during the remainder
of the malting season, at least of a fine quality, and
that at the close an inferior sample must suffice for
the finish. The quality of the malt will be a good
deal under that of the past year, which was more
than usually good, and the brewers had laid in large
stocks, that were just what they wanted for so hot
' a summer as the last, causing the consumption to
be extremely large, and at the opening of the pre-
sent malting season these stocks had been much re-
duced. A touch of winter has at last been experi-
enced, for on Thursday morning at 2 o'clock snow
commenced to fall very heavily, lasting up to mid-
day ; the depth in most places being Bin., and in
many others 10in. Being of a soft substance, the
effect was very detrimental to the wires of all the
telegraphs in and some distance round town ; the
wires were so heavily loaded with snow that they
broke down in all directions, putting a complete
stop to communication by telegraph, as no doubt
it will take a considerable time to put them all in
order again ; as in the meantime, the old mode of
conveying information by the trains and through
the post-office must be resorted to. On Fri-
day morning another heavy fall of snow took
place, after a slight frost in the previous night.
The wind was S.W. ; thermometer 33in. During
the previous fall the windblew from the N.E., giving
some expectation of a continuance of wintry wea-
ther, and the night was frosty. From account 3 of
this heavy snowstorm, such a deep fall in so short a
time has not been experienced for many years. On
Saturday morning a complete change had taken
place, heavy rain having set in early, which lasted
until noon, and the temperature being higher, the
snow commenced to melt fast, and the fear now is
that floods will take place wherever the fall has been
so heavy. Had the snow remained on the ground
for a time it would have been acceptable to the
farmers, seasonably checking the growth of the first
planted wheat, which had assumed the appearance
of being winter-proud ; but now it may be injured
by being too saturated with moisture, and will re-
quire protection in some way or other. For the pre-
sent no field work can be proceeded with, and it is
difficult to form a correct opinion of the effects on
the plant under so sudden a change. The latest sown
may now be the safest, from this being much more
backward, and not so risky as too forward. The
markets will not be benefited from a worse condi-
tion whilst such changes in the atmosphere take
Place ; and probably farmers will cease to bring out
whilst the condition is so bad, as left in the stack
would be the safest course.—Mark-lane Express.

tions, for a brief period at least ; let it cease to think of the
chances of this or that faction getting precedence and
powers until this great question is disposed of. Let Con-
gress definitely authorise the President to extend the
powers and define the duties of the Freedmen's Bureau
authorising tho leasing of lands, so as to secure the best
application of the labor of the South, and we may thereby
be in time to secure another crop, and save ourselves fr'm
being distressed, perhaps ruined, by lack of means to settle
balances against us in our trade with the world abroad.
Baltimore Commercial.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—On the sth of January a person of gen-
tlemanlike appearance and address, giving the name
of Augustus George Fletcher, called at the Union
Bank of Australia in Old Broad-street, and accused
himself of a robbery on the premises of the Mel-
bourne branch, of which he had been chief clerk.
About a year-and a half ago, according to his own
statement, he had forced open a box containing
valuable securities belonging to a Mr. Lewis, and
taken out bonds to the value of about £lO,OOO. He
had not been suspected at the time, and had re-
mained in the employment of the bank for a con-
siderable period afterwards, when he absconded to
this country, proceeded next to imerica, and ulti-
mately to Buenos Ayres, whence he had just re-
turned for the express purpose of surrendering him-
self. Mr. Mewburn, the secretary of the Union
Bank, to whom he made this avowal, asked him in
the presence of Mr. Murray, the solicitor of the
bank, whether he was ready to give up the
securities, or the proceeds of them, to which he
replied that he was anxious to make every repara-
tion in his power, and could at once make over
to the bank some £1,500, part of which
was in London and part in Paris, a promise
which he has since made good. It appears that
Mr. Mewburn took no steps to procure his appre-
hension, but on leaving the bank he went up to a
constable of his own accord and gave himself in
charge for the robbery. The constable took him
to the Bishopsgate-street Police-station, where he
repeated his story, and was brought up for exami-
nation at the Mansion-house on the following day,
January 6. The circumstances of his surrender
were then given in evidence by Mr. Mewburn and
the policeman, but neither Mr. Murray, who ap-
peared for the bank, nor Mr. Bannister, who ap-
peared for the London correspondents of Mr.
Lewis, was prepared to undertake the prosecution.
Both admitted that they " felt some difficulty" in
doing so, and something was said about an action
commenced by Mr. Lewis in Australia, we presume
against the bank, which helps to explain a some-
what mysterious want of concert between the two
parties most interested in Fletcher's conviction.
Both, however, professed their desire to further the
ends of justice, if there were any legal means of
proceeding against the prisoner. Mr. Alderman
Finnis thereupon decided that no such means ex-
isted, that he had no power to detain Fletcher ex-
cept upon a proper warrant, and that, no warrant
for his apprehension having arrived from the colony,
he must be forthwith discharged, unless he should
think fit to enter into his own recognizances to
appear on a future day. The prisoner adopted
this suggestion, and duly surrendered again on
Saturday last, by which time it was thought pos-
sible that a warrant might have arrived from
Australia. No such warrant being forthcoming,
Mr. Alderman Finnis declared that he was without
jurisdiction, and had no option but to dismiss the
case. It must certainly seem marvellous to most
people that a man who has committed a crime in
Australia and escaped to England cannot be com-
mitted to prison, even upon his own confession, un-
less a warrant for his arrest shall have been re-
ceived from the colony. But such is the law.
Nothing can be more free from ambiguity than
the language of the Act under which a magis-
trate is especially authorised to commit persons
charged with offences in the colonies. This Act
was passed in the year 1843 to provide more effec-
tually for the apprehension and trial of criminals
" who may be in other parts of her Majesty's
dominions than those in which their offences were
committed." It enables a constable to apprehend
and convey before a justice of the peace those, and
those only, " against whom a warrant shall have
been issued for such offence by any person having
lawful authority to issue the same within that part
of her Majesty's dominions where such offence shall
have been committed," and endorsed by a Secretary
of State. Nothing is said of those against
whom a warrant is out, or against whom a
warrant may have been sent to the wrong place,
but who may have given themselves up to the
authorities, or may otherwise have fallen into the
hands of the police. The same rule applies in the
converse case of offenders escaping to the colonies.
They arc only liable to apprehension on production
of a warrant issued here and endorsed by a Judge
of the colony. There is, therefore, no apparent
way of securing the arrest of any one committing a
crime in one part of her Majesty's dominions and
escaping to some other part or parts unknown, ex-
cept by forwarding a separate warrant to each.
In other words, the Acts • passed in pursuance of
Extradition Treaties furnish in some respects a more
effectual provision for intercepting fugitives from
justice than an Act expressly designed to facilitate
criminal justice throughout the British Empire.
A citizen of the United States might and would be
delivered up without any warrant from a magistrate
of his own country, upon such evidence of his crimi-
nality as would justify his commitment had his
alleged offence been perpetrated within the United.
Kingdom. There was nothing, for instance, to pre-
vent Mr. Adams from preferring a charge of piracy
against Capt. Waddell and the crew of the Shenan-
doah, had the means of establishing a prima facie
case against them been in his possession. Under this
Act, on the contrary, an endorsed warrant from the
colony is expressly required before the question of
criminality can be entertained at all. Here is just
such a casus omissus as is constantly occurring to
bring discredit upon the administration of our law.
There used to be all sorts of absurd restrictions on
the operation of warrants. It was held that a war-
rant issued in one county could not in strictness be
executed in another, and even that a crime begun in
one and completed in another might be cognisable
in neither. To remedy these anomalies the practice
of backing warrants was irregularly introduced, and
at last sanctioned by statute. A " Consolidation
Act" of the approved type was passed, which pur-
ported to regulate the whole subject of magistrates'
jurisdiction. Being framed on no broad or uniform
principle, it has, of course, failed to do so with suc-
cess, and recourse has been had to further patching.
When shall we learn that piecemeal legislation is
not more unphilosophical than it is unpractical ?
When shall we realise that, so far from there being
any convenience in having a different rule for every
different group of circumstances, it inevitably pro-.
duces confusion and injustice? What could be the
object of enacting specifically that a colonial war-
rant countersigned by a Secretary of State should
be a condition precedent to relegating a criminal to
the colony wherein his crime was committed ? All
that is really needed is some adequate security
against a British subject being arrested on mere
suspicion and kept in confinement for an unreason-
able time before trial. The truth probably is that
no one ever contemplated such a contingency as has
occurred. It would very seldom happen that proofs
enough to justify the committal of a refugee from
the West Indies or Australia could be produced
before an English magistrate without the assistance
of a prosecutor from the colony, and it was forgotten
that a culprit may supply the want of proofs by his
own confession. Some loophole of this kind will
always be left, so long as our Legislature, in the
true spirit of English law, refuses to provide, on
comprehensive principles, for exigencies that have
not yet been illustrated by precedents.
HERALD.—The meeting of the Conservatives of
South Devon at Newton Abbot the other evening
deserves more than a passing remark ; and it does
so., not simply on account of the numbers and posi-
tion of the electors who were then gathered together,
nor of the cheering enthusiasm displayed on all
hands, nor of the weight and ability of the chief
speakers, though all these were conspicuous. We
especially notice it because the state of parties and
(as it appears to us) the true genius and work of
Conservatism were set forth on the occasion with
unusual distinctness. With Lord Devon's clear
view of duty, Sir Stafford Northcote's minute power
of analysis, and the peculiar faculty for hitting the
nail very exactly and very hard on the head which
happens to characterise each of the members for.
South Devon, it could hardly be otherwise.
r
Stafford Northcote very clearly defined the position
of parties in a few sentences :—" The truth is, that
in the last Parliament—and I suppose one may say
it has been the case in England for a very long time
past, and probably will always be the case—the
Liberal party has been divided into two sections, dis-
tinguished as the easy-going Liberals and the
thorough-going Liberals. Of the easy-going Libe-
rals Lord Palmerston was the personification, the
representative, the Coryphceus. Of the thorough-
going Liberals, there is no doubt in my mind that
Mr. Bright is the type. And this was perfectly evi-
dent to every one who studied the aspects of the
last Parliament —that between these two parties
there was very little love lost, and indeed that the
two were completely antagonistic to one another.
This was also apparent—that the easy-going Libe-
rals, represented by Lord Palmerston, had the best
of it, and kept Mr. Bright and his party very
much in the background." This is exactly where
we stood at the end of the last Parliament. Since
then some 200 new members have taken the place
of old representatives, a very large proportion of
them elected simply on the strength of a name—
that of Lord Palmerston—which was susceptible of