The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-20 00:00:00

MR. O. PLARSON ON PENAL PUINSffME2

Mr. Charles Pearson, the City Solicitor, has addressed a
sornmunication to the Lord. Mayor, in which he embodies
his opinions upon penal punishment, including prison dis-
cipline, transportation, and the ticket-of-leave system: In
this communication Mr. Pearson gives an elaboratg sketch
of the policy adopted towards criminals from the 16th to
the present century, commenting upon its barbarity' and
general results, citing authorities and facts, and proceeds
to give his views upon penal punishments generally. !
classes them under three heads :-1. The system of 'past
days, or the cheap and cruel system. 2. The present, or
the expensive and effeminate system. 3. The future, or the
self-supporting system. Referring to the first head, Mr.
Pearson dilates upon the cruelties to which transports were
subjected in former times, and proceeds thus with the
second head : _ .

" Seeond—The present, or the expensive and effeminate
system. This system, which is generally known as the
separate or cellularor solitary system, was invented by some
pions philanthropists in America. It was imported into
England about 20 years ago by Mr. Crawford, an able and
intelligent gentleman, appointed prison inspector by the
British Government. It was designed to supersede the old
prison discipline and transportation systems. Reading and
Pentouville prisons were erected to serve as models for all
classes of criminals. The system is thus pithily described
by its most able and zealous advocate, the chaplain of
Reading Gaol, who thus observes, The essentials of the
separate system are seclusion as a punishment, labour as a
relaxation, and scriptural instruction as a corrective,' as
explained by the regulations and illustrated by the practice
of the gaol. The chaplain's short description may tkus be
translated into plain language :—Under the separate sys-
tem criminals are to have a great deal of solitude, a great
deal of victuals, a great deal of warmth, a great deal of
sleep, and a great deal of mental instruction, a great deal
of religious teaching, with a very little exercise, and labour
sufficient only for the purposes of recreative relaxation. By
the combined influences of these corporeal, mental, and re-
ligious agencies it was assumed by the enthusiastic advo-
cates of the system that the hearts of criminals would be
softened, their unruly wills subdued, their minds would
be enlightened, their souls converted, and their lives re-
formed. It was, moreover, said by its advocates that by
uniting secresy with solitude, by placing criminals in cells
so constructed as to exclude both sight and sound, by hood-
ing and masking them when led out to chapel or exercise,
and by changing their name .for a letter by which they
were to be known from their admission into prison up to
the time of their discharge, that by a little secresy and
good management a prisoner might upon his release main-
tain his incognito. It was said that the world would forgive
or forget his crimes, and he might go abroad as an exile, or
be restored to society ag having completed his penal punish-
ment, or be released in this country on a ticket of leave.

" It was confidently of by the eulogists of the sys-
tem that, although its first cost and annual outlay were
considerable, it would be presently found that the number
of prisoners would be so much reduced from the effects of
its reformatory influence that a considerable saving would
be effected by the country in prisons and prosecutions as
soon as its deterring and reformatory treatment was known
and felt.

" Your lordship heard me, several years ago, in the pre-
sence of a number of its most talented advocates, ridicule
what I termed the absurdities, and denounce what I con-
sidered the serious evils of the system. I once heard Lord
Brougham express himself on this subject, but experience
has proved, as I never failed to predict would be the case,
that the study of mental religion and theoretical virtue, as
taught in these prisons, has not hail, and will not have, any
practical effect in diminishing either the number of pri-
soners committed to our gaols or the number of crimes they
may be tempted to commit when they get without their
walls.

" Solitude has its peculiar vices and evils as well as so-
ciety; man is for good as well as for evil a social being, and
this unnatural, unsocial treatment has often, very often,
exercised a most baneful effect, as well upon the body as the
mind of those who are for any length of time subjected to
its action. The laws of nature cannot be outraged with im-
punity; walls and bolts and bars cannot shut the devil out
from his own favourite workshop—the heart of an idle man.
" As an instrument of lengthened punishment for grave
offences the separate system is pregnant, as I have else•
where observed, with evils of an opposite character, ac-
cording to circumstances not at all affecting the criminal,
either before his imprisonment or while in gaol. Its seve-
rity or laxity in such cases is dependent upon the agencies
by which it is intended to be carried out."

Mr. Pearson then adduces evidence of persons connected
with prisons in support of his views upon solitary confine-
ment, and proceeds to the third head of his subject.
" To arm society with powers of self-defence against
crimes of violence and plunder, by compelling hardened
criminals to maintain themselves by labour in industrial
prisons, from which they cannot escape and will not be re-
leased, is the object of what I venture to hope will become
the future system of prison discipline. I term that system
for shortness the labour and appetite system,' the leading
characteristics of which I will now proceed to describe.
" The future, or manly and self-sustaining—the labour
and appetite system of prison discipline professes to be
founded upon the Word of God, as given to mankind in
both the Old and New Testament. The first sentence of
penal punishment ever pronounced upon man was a labour
and appetite sentence. It was passed by Almighty Wisdom
upon a guilty race in language which, for sublimity and
beauty, is not surpassed by any other sentence in that sa-
cred book. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread
till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wart thou
taken; for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.'
Happily for the world God did not leave the execution of
this sentence of penal punishment to man's voluntary obe-
dience. To secure its observance, the face of nature and the
physical constitution of man were entirely changed. Ap-
petite for food and rest, essential conditions of this penal
sentence, become daily recurring stimulants to obedience,
which no human contrivance can anticipate or postpone.
Christianity is said by lawyers to be part and parcel of the
law of England, and the precepts of the Bible are assumed
to be the basis of our written and unwritten laws, and yet
all our systems of penal punishment ignore the teaching of
God's Word, which so plainly points to the association
labour and appetite in the punishment and repression et
crime. The means and appliances by which I propose to
give a practical application to the principles foreshadowed
in these quotations in founding a comprehensive system of
prison discipline were developed in minute detail by myself
and several witnesses. I was examined before the House of
Commons Committee, to which I have already referred. Sir
J. Pakington moved, Sir G. Grey supported, and the com-
mittee unanimously adopted, a resolution upon this subject.
"As the ticket-of-leave substitute for the plan which the
committee recommended to the consideration of her Ma-
jesty's Government must force itself upon the attention of
the house at the very ocmmencement of the ensuing session,
we shall learn what has been done by the Home Secretary
between 1850 and 1857 towards the examination of the
extensive details which the committee were unable to in
vestigate for want of sufficient time for the purpose ; one
thing only remains for me to say—l have never been sum-
moned before any committee or commission appointed
to conduct such an inquiry. The other witnesses, who were
prepared with plans, drawings, and estimates to confirm
their former statements, inform me that they have never
been called upon to offer any further observations or to
submit themselves to any other examination. As far,
therefore, as I am informed, the Government have allowed
the plan to remain entombed, in a blue book which I have
just ascertained weighs silb. avoirdupois. If the report
and evidence be permitted to slumber in the pages of that
monster blue-book, they might as well have been buried
under the pyramids of Egypt. I hope, however, before
the subject is ventilated in the House that the public will
have before them a cheap edition of this and other docu-
ments necessary to be considered in discussing the impor-
tant questions of prison discipline and penal punishment,
questions that have now forced themselves upon public
attention, and upon which action in some one direction
or another can no longer be either resisted or postponed.
" The expense in the cost and management of our pri-
sons is so excessive under the existing system that the State
is obliged to sanction the passing of short sentences, and the
Government is compelled to resort to tickets of leave and
other temporising expedients, still further to abridge the
actual sentences of the law. If judges and magistrates were
to pass such sentences as they in their consciences believe
to bo necessary to, effect any solid reformation in the mind
of the criminal, the prison accommodation throughout the
country must be doubled to provide for the additional
number that would constitute the average prison popula-
tion.

" If there is at the command of her Majesty's Govern-
ment so large an amount of confiscated labour, which the
State has a right to claim and apply to its own use, why
should not this be done, particularly so if it can be proved
that such an application of the labour of criminals would
be made conducive to their moral and social reform as well
as to their maintenance and support ? There is one, and
only ono way, in my opinion, by which this object may
be effected, and that is by making it a condition of prison
discipline that the labour and appetite sentence shall be
strictly applied in all cases where the health and strength
of the prisoner will admit.
" The proposed plan for accomplishing these objects as
described to the committee contemplated the establishment
of large industrial prisons, secure and strong, plain and
cheap, with separate sleeping cells for each inmate. The pri-
son to be surrounded by strong and lofty walls, enclosing
1,000 or 2,000 acres of land. I propose that each of these
prisons shall accommodate 1,000 or 2,000 inmates, classified,
sub-classified, and distributed in different prisons according
to their economical condition, whether artisans, mechanics,

or labourers ; according to their physical state, their ago
and strength ; according to their moral and legal status—
whether felons or misdemeanants under longer or shorter
sentences, and whether hardened ,offenders or novices in
crime. By having one superintending power to deal with the
large fund of labour of our prison population, means would.
readily be obtained for a most perfect system of classifi-
cation—legal, moral, social, and economical—for the pur-
pose of meeting all the various objects I have described, so
that the mutual contamination of prisoners might be pre-
vented, discipline might be enforced, and the separation
of the prisoner--oae of the first objects of the system—
might be promoted,,at the same time that justice would be
done to the ratepayer by turning the confiscated labour of
the criminal to the best and most 'profitable account.
When the proposed plans for the classification of prisoners
is complete, I propose that they shall, as nearly as econo-
mical considerations and prison arrangements will admit,
be employed in the pursuits at which they are most apt,
and to which they will be returned at the termination of
their sentences."

Mr. Pearson then enters into some details respecting

plan, and concludes ollows :
"My Lord Map 4 will be said,,l dare say, as the
Parliamentary c 0.,. : reported of my proposed plan,
that many difficull, ould probably arise under a dis-
cussion of its details,' and therefore a disposition may exist
in some quarters to postpone its consideration for another
seven years. But the Government will now be beset in
all directions by difficulties upon the subject of penal
punishment, the extent of which they will be compelled
to weigh and compare. They cannot stand still, and they
must .not go back. Society; will not call again into
requisition the gibbet and the pillory, the whipping-post,
the stocks, and the branding irons, the underground dun-
geons, the penal settlements, and slavery and chain gangs ;
neither will they tolerate the prison palaces and castles of
indolence, where ablebodied men in the prime of life cost
for board and lodging 301. or 4')1., and earn only 3/. or V.
per annum ; where they have labour for relaxation only,
and spend their time in qualifying themselves to deliver
lectures upon a variety of subjects which it would have
puzzled the Admirable Crichton to deal with."

M. LEDRU ROLLIN TO THE ELECTORS OF
FRANCE.

NO EVASION 1- YOU MUST VOTE !

Having been consulted, from many places, on the ques
tion of how voters should conduct themselves at the com-
ing elections, I take the liberty of replying to you collec-
tively, and my reply is, without hesitation,—No evasion !
you must vote !
To abstain from voting, to assume a lofty position, with-
out an effort at aiding oneself, is asceticism, fatalism, the
practice of recluses of bonzes, of Mussultnans ; this is not
our part, this is not the part of politicians, whose domain
is the world present, and who cannot influence events
without actively mixing themselves up with them.
The blessings of liberty, like the blessings of nature,
must be conquered, and are not bestowed on any but those
who seek them by constant exertions. Progress, incessant
activity, is, both in the material world as in the ideal, the
law of life, the true condition of progress, which condemns
in principle all inaction, all abstention.
Besides, in fact, abstention is not an effective arm, from
the moment when it is not universal, embracing all, and
reducing the condemned system to perish by such aban-
donment. I could understand this system if it were a de-
privation of fire or of water, an excommunication which
would snatch the bread from the mouth. But to separate
oneself politically, without actual rebellion, without re-
fusing to serve as a recruit, and without refusing to pay
taxes, is to do nothing. Of what matter to the tyrant is
your partial abstention from voting, while you swell his
Pretorian guards and augment his treasures? With these
two forces he can enslave you ; and while to lives as a m—
(et bien qu'il viva de m—), you are not the less slaves—he
lives, and that is enough !
After all, what are the reasons why you should not vote?
Can it be that, by voting, you mi-couceive any of the pri-
mary principles the preservation of the integrity of which
constitutes our power?
I must confess I cannot perceive the validity of this
objection. What will be its effective operation ? To
carry out the system of universal suffrage, to exercise a
right which owes its birth to the Republic, and not to the
Empire, and to exercise it with that object? With the in-
tent to overthrow that very Empire. Then, in making use
of this republican right for a republican object, how aro
you guilty of an auti-republican act? I repeat that this ob-
jection is beyond my comprehension.
Vainly they urge that, to address the municipal autho-
rities to register you, and to receive your electoral card, is
to unconditionally recognise this odious Government, and
to make common cause with it.
To which I reply, what has a man in common with the
adversary whom he holds at point of sword, or covered by
his pistol? Absolutely nothing more than the feeling of
killing him that you may not be killed by him. What !
does a man recognise the Empire when he is compelled to
be married by this same municipality, left ho should beget
bastards, or because, when his children may be hereafter
presented, that they may not be excluded, from the attri-
butes of citizens? In this view a man recognises the Em-
pire when he repairs to the police to obtain his passport.
At this rate how many republicans would have ,been for-
sworn who have nevertheless remained its most implacable
enemies
Let us hold fast by the truth : without being a casuist,
or without saying with Machiavel, that all means are good,
even dishonour, to regain liberty'' it is allowable to discri-
minate between unimportant and insignificant formalities,
'imposed under all Governments, and an open, barefaced
recognition, which is baseness and apostasy. The public
conscience, a good judge in this matter, does not deceive
itself. It knows that, whether with or without the stamped
paper, the right of locomotion is not less inherent ; and
also that, with or without the formalities of registering,
the right to vote remains not less inalienable. But what
the put lie mind feels above all is, that of all methods of
recognising the Empire, that which consists in submitting
so long a time, without an attempt, without a movement,
without even a despairing effort, is the most degrading at-
titude in the eye of history.
A truce to such mistaken exclusivistn ; let us commit no
outrage for the advantage of our enemies. Let ua adhere to
principles ; it is our duty and our power ; but, at the same
time, lot us show ourselves to be practical. In universal
suffrage we have the legitimate point of departure, and in
the overturning the Empire the supreme object. Let us
know how to make a good use of it; not to deliberate--for
whilst we deliberated the enemysurprised us—let us act,
this time, in our turn.
To be enabled, with 'regard to, the elections, to excite
every kind of rancour and animosity, and all those feelings
of justice which slumber in the depthsof the human heart,
to give them a voice, to restore confidence and energy to
the social body, to have six long mouths before us, when
it may be easier for us to draw near to each other, to con-
sult together, and to count upon each other—this is a con-
venient opportunity, a good fortune, whence the revolution
may emerge !
I will even add, in all sincerity, that this work of assi-
milation is, in my view of the subject, the chief point,
the electric stroke, which will resound from one end of
the country to the other. This regenerating ferment will
be of more weight, in my opinion, than the final success of
the election itself.
Not that it is worthy of all your efforts, for if the man
of the 2d Dec. came off victorious from the contest—if, in
spite of his sbirri, his fuectionaries, his army, his good
city of Paris should escape him (de par) the ballot (le
scrusin)—then consider him like one blasted by Heaven,
ruined in the eyes of all Europe, and abandoned, betrayed
by his own accomplices. He would in vain attempt a new
Corp d'etat, after so many broken promises ; and amidst
an eademical and increasing misery in a population, which
has within the last six months been shaken even to its very
base. It is impossible to return the fire of the electric
fluid.

Will he, therefore, dare everything to obtain success ?
With his audacious frauds, his jugglers' tricks, his
oppressive actions of every kind ? I cannot avoid see-
ing the difficulty under which he labours ; but, never-
theless, I am apprehensive, as the waves have ascended
to so great a height and the current appears so irresistible
that success is not impossible.
It is a question of union and civic courage—nothing
more ! When workmen and citizens aro once agreed on a
sicanng
callle p otihn,,tin, I kith
to nowacco
uneither stratagem p
eei
a lly
in
n nor
presencef o rocfe a
nwhich
can call thius to account—especially in presence of an army
divided by a thousand conflicting interests.
Yes, this triumph is not a vain dream ! for it may be
achieved by energy and perseverance, I would almost say
by desperation ; but, above all, by force of discipline.
Therefore, I beg you will not assail the names of the can-
didates with vituperation, provided they be republicans,
of whatever hue. Let us not forget that neither our judg-
ment on the past, nor the personthcation of a Government
for the future, is now a subject for consideration. Those
candidates will never be aught else save " fascines," behind
which the entrenched revolution marches more safely to
attack the hostile citadel. When that is once carried the
place is the people's.
With regard to the other question propounded by you,
and which appears to produce considerable excitement,—
to wit, whether the elected candidates must be sworn or
rot? it is, believe me, premature. Force them to fulfil
their engagements, doubtless, if you are able, but do not
let the question be a torch of discord among you. The
Bonapartist police has too great an interest in distinguish-
ing itself.
The first act will be to inscribe one's name, to consult
together, to vote, and to succeed. The success of this will
dispense you from the second; for whatever their names
may be, if your candidates are drawn from the urn, they
will call themselves the Revolution.
London, Jan. 13, 1857. LEDRU-ROLLIN.

SIR E. B. LYTTON AT GLASGOW.-0a Friday night Sir
E. B. Lytton was entertained at a public dinner in the
Glasgow Gallery of Art, in acknowledgment of his dis-
tieguished literary attainments. The Hon. the Lord Pro
vost was in the chair, supported enthe right by the guestof the evening, Sir E. B. Lytton ; Sir J. Maxwell, of Pol-
commandingl oe;theß ev.thDerg.
garrison
Mr. C.
ti!i-rcuuele,sHMa.triy,
Pce,
;Col. Pole,
&c.; and Mr. W. Buchanan, of Stiandim. Od therboyf
Lady Lee's Widowhood," "the f:,,ory of the Campaign,
the Earl of Elgin, K.T. ; Sir A. Alison ; Bailie Gal-
braith ; Mr. Cayley,
M P. ; Mr. Wiliam Stirling, of
Keir, M.P. ; Professor A% toun, of Edinburgh ; and Mr.
Sheriff Bell. Sir James Campbell fulfilled the duti sof
croupitr, supported he right by Sir Michael Shaw
Stewart, M P.; Mr. Win. Stirling, of Keornure ; the
Rev. Dr. Craik ; Mr. Wm. Hamilton, of Nortbpark ;
Mr. H. E. Crum Ewing, of Strathleven ; Mr. Alex.
Morrison, Dean of Faculty ; and Mr. Wm. Baird. of
Effie ; and on the left by Sir James Fergusson, M.P.
The speakers were lavish of compliments and courteous
expressions. Professor Aytoun pronounced Sir Edward
B. Lytton "the greatest living author in Britain."

TILE NEW AMERICAN TARIFF.

It is expected that a discussion of the tariff will
be commenced to-day in the House of Representa-
tives at Washington. The discussion has already been
avoided twice by the house—first in Aug. last, and
again in Dec. Yet there has been no subject of pub-
lic interest, either in the lobby or on the table of
Congress, possessing a greater claim to an immediate,
frank, and deliberate examination than the tariff ;
and, whatever prudential reasons may have existed
heretofore to justify this postponement, there is
evidently no reason now why the tariff question
should again be shirked, or its consideration
crowded further into the future. Our industrial
interests are too vast and too important to be
played with longer by politicians, and the sooner
our tariff is permanently adjusted on a financial
rather than .a political basis the better will it
be for the whole country. The rival theories of
free trade and protection, when set forth as the
fundamental and inflexible principle of a national
tariff, are absurdities. As theories merely they are
good for party' effect, but as sweeping systems, ap-
plicable to every aspect of commerce and trade,
theyareentirely impracticable in the United States.
It is quite !right that in framing a tariff for this
country such a policy should be adopted as will
tend to establish our industrial independence. For
this end the nature, history, and ind,ustrial value
of every article that we import from foreign coun-
tries should be examined separately, and its rate of
duty should be determined according to ita.i.u47.
vidual circumstances. The natural result of this
proceeding will be the adoption of a tariff which
opens to free trade those raw materials on which
our own labour may be most largely and advan-
tageously employed, and all articles of general ne-
cessity which are exotics, or which are prodced
only in small quantities in the United States. At
the same time, such a tariff will establish a protec-
tion for our own industry by taxing those manu-
factured articles of foreign countries, the importa-
tion of wnich tends to destroy their manufacture
here, and thus impoverish our own labour. A
tariff formed on these principles will accomplish
what is now universally needed—the establishment
of all our industrial enterprises on a permanent
basis. It is simply to tax those final products of
foreign labour which come here for a market ; and
to exempt from taxation all those raw materials
composing those fabrics, on which our own labour
may be profitably expended.—. New York Times,
Jan. 6.