The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-19 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 19, 1857.

THE NEW PENAL SERVITUDE BILL.

The adjourned meeting on this subject was held
at the Mansion-house yesterday, the Lord Mayor
in the chair. The attendance was very thin, and
the interest of the proceedings appeared to have
evaporated. The chairman -ascribed the smallness
of the number present to the result of the debate in
the House of Commons on Friday night, id the
course of which he said Mr. Pearson's views on pri-
,
son discipline received a general sanction.
Mr. PEARSON then formally put in his appear-
ance, but begged to be excused from remaining, on
account of an official engagement that he had else-
where. Before leaving the hall, however, he asked
that the meeting at its rising might be further
adjourned till this day week, when he under-
took to confine his reply to one hour. The discus-
sion was then resumed at the point where it was
interrupted on Friday, and it dragged on with little
spirit for upwards of two hours. The most ani-
mated spot ch of the whole was delivered-by Mr.
George Cruikshank, who recounted the experience
he had acquired of the character of the thieves of
London while living among them iss disguise with
a view of intimately studying their habits. The
orator, by an easy transition, reached the temper-
ance question, and was giving vehement expression
to his well-known opinions upon it when he was
suddenly called to ordsr for his irrelevancy, and
was obliged to come to an abrupt termination. He
was followed by Mr. Payne, who advocated the
education rather than the punishment of neglected
jvenile offenders, together with a lighter and more
summmary mode of dealing with petty offences
generally. Mr. Payne moved a series of resolutions
to be added to. Mr. Pearson's, in accordance' with
his own views. Mr. Arni Strong criticised that part
of Mr. Pearson's plan which advises the erection of
large prisons with walls enclosing 1,000 or 2,000
acres of land, and characterised it as " benevolent,
but impracticable." He also recommended the
transfer of our convicts to the colonies fore life, and
suggested that a prospective interest in the laud
they tilled should be held out to them as an ineen-
tive to good conduct. Sir Thomas Tancred next
advised a separation between the punitive and re-
formatory elements in our prison discipline. Tran-
sportation should, in his judgment, be the ultimate
reward offered to reclaimed criminals, who ought
to be sent out, after expiating their sentence at
home, as free men. Several other 'speakers suc-
ceeded, whose views were singularly discordant.
Indeed, most of the gentlemen present seemed
amusingly at sea as to the object of the discussion,
and the greatest conflict of opinion prevailed as to
the precise question before the meeting. Some
held that it was Mr. Pearson's plan pur et simple.
Others thought that that plan was to be taken in
conj unction w ith the wider subject of the prevention
of crime. Others, again, contended for the ques-
tion of punishments apart from that of preven-
tion ; and one speaker went so far as to 'insist
that his new method of growing turnips was
peculiarly germane to the issue. It would be
hard, however, to accuse any one of travelling out
of the record when no one could agree on what that
record was. At length two hours and a quarter of
rambling and purposeless discussion was brought to
a termination by another adjournment, the under-
standing being that the third meeting should be
rigidly restricted to Mr. Pearson's proposition.