The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-11 00:00:00

VIE GAOL op. NRwrlATE._...ruagg

THE METROPOLIS.

The Rev. John DAVLS, the ordinary of the Gaol
of Newgate, has just presented to the Lord Mayor
and Court of Aldermen his report for the Year
1856 upon the condition of the prison and the state
of crime in the metropolis and the following e I
tracts from that report will, no doubt, be read with
interest at the present moment, when the subject
por.
of the best means of dealing with the criminal
tion of the population excites so much public at:
tention.
Mr. Davis commences his report by exPres'sill
his sati'faction that the corporation of the City, 0
London have taken up the question of improv.,lll..„g
the interior of the gaol, so as to prevent old offeelose;
from corrupting and depraving the minds of lt
experienced criminals, and to protect youth over'
taken by some sudden temptation from the p 0111:
ticn and defilement of prison residence. Upon 01'
subject of the ticker.-ot-leave system, the Ordinary
says :—" In the present year many ticket-of-lea!!
men have appeared among us. Those proved 1,Y...
open court to have been at liberty on tickets-of
leave from their exemplary conduct in prison base
had their names transmitted to Government. Th
calculations made public are based on these rentas:
and it is attempted to be shown by such means avir
the proportion is between the liberated convictswir
reform and those who fall again into crime. I grettl
VV
doubt the accuracy of such returns as indicating ". a
the facts of the case are. On one occasion dant!!
the past year, when we had forty-eight men 3;:j
Newgate under sentences of transportation or pon'
servitude, the governor took the trouble to inquirer
from numbers among the police, from corive%
tions among the prisoners themselves, from T"."e
officers who are constantly with them, and vario,ll7
other sources of information, bow many out of tin
eight-and-forty might be ticket-of-leave-men, an',
he had reasonable proof that somewhere abeil;''
twenty were so. Not more than one-third of tlns
number could be reported to the Government uncial.,
the present regulations. Beyond he number thet
thus escape detection w 0 meet earl those who bytheir
dexterity avoid conviction, either by keeping in the
background or changing the scene of their operationre
The Birmingham men are unknown in Londona
and the thieves of the metropolis are not recogniSeclf
at Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, or Dublin. I
still think, however, that under proper limitations,
the ticket-of-leave system should be persevered bat
and continue in force. It acts well upon marl
first offenders, such as letter-carriers in the Post
office, bank or merchant clerks, young men wir
under the strong influence of some passion fall ill,'"
vices, then into crimes, and get transported, or Or
ject to penal servitude. It is a rare circumstance
for such persons when liberated after three or
four years' imprisonment to fall again foto crime;
they return again to society, once more bee °_,,ral
useful in those duties, and while their rTh
circumstances are unknown, they prosper
are as well off as ever. By extending mercy r
these young men, and taking off a portion of their
heavy sentences, no harm is done to any one. Till
prisons are relieved, society is uninjured, and re"'
contrition for great offences is encouraged. To thil
extent I earnestly hope the system may be continued;
There is every public reason why it should be, and
the good done is immense. But from my experience
among criminals, I think the instances very rare in
which a thorough and entire alteration takes platl
in criminals by habit. Many get tired of a life of
imprisonment ; its long tedium wearies them, and
the privation from drink, tobacco, a,nd women
are felt severely by them. But habits taf crime'
with their enterprise, great plunder, and, ,in toe
many cases, impunity, are very difficult to eradi;
cate. After long periods of apparent change, Ow
promise from years of good conduct, sudden re'
_
lapses are frequent. As a general rule the ticket'
of-leave system fails with men of habitual crime,
and should never be applied to them except in rare
instances of exemplary conduct. There is notbi4
so much dreaded by habitual thieves as perpetual
imprisonment, and to lessen such a sentence there is
nothing they would not have recourse to." Wits
regard to this class of offenders the ordinary says'
" What I think would apply to these cases would lo
to sentence habitual thieves to perpetual imprison'
ment. Something must be devised which theselto,
principled men dread. Harshness will not answer, and
ingenuity therefore must be taxed to devise what
will so operate upon the general mass of habitual
thieves as to diminish, to the lowest extent 'post
ble, conduct so detrimental to the best interests 01
Society. With practised habitual thieves, the pun-
ishment they most dread next to death is that of
perpetual
imprisonment, and it is my opinion that
it was once known that habitual crime would ill'
evitably meet that punishment,
b the number of ba,-,
bwitiutahl
regard to the w
garotte boteteworonbdeerfrullies the
wonderfully
d i m ini she
dOrdinary
says—" I have often thought, and still think, that
the origin of garotte robberies took place from
the exhibition of the way the Thugs in India
strangle and plunder passengers, as exhibited in the
British Museum. However valuable as Dingo-
tions of Indian manners. such representations anal
placed in some
be that which I
be, I could heartily wish that these models were
more obscure position, and cease to
idea bow their evil purposes may
giving to fear they have been, the means of
men addicted to crime and violence so
was convicted to
ef
thee. mcaursedeorf
In reference
was ultimately re spited, opf ahbnieisealwcij°wifem,jbelisunt'llwivedilh.O:
he says :—" The conduct
and demeanour of this man were most correct ; be
made no reservation about his guilt, but freely'
1 ) and •
said that his being asked to
take
_some drink as he was going to his -work
in the morning was the exciting cause of his crime.
' Had I gone to my work, and kept at it, I should
never have murdered
my wife,' was his repeated
declaration, i e the tears streaming down his face
indicated ie while
• intensity of his feelings." The next
case referred to by the Ordinary is
who
murdered . that of Corrigan,
his wife in the Minories ; and with
rz,gard to this criminal
he says :—" Nothing could
be more exemplary
than the conduct of Thomas
Corrigan while
in devotional exercises,seized with avidity the
promises of Heaven to t
and
true penitents. His respite
from death did not reach Newgate till late in the
afternoon of Saturday, when Monday,
at 8 o'clock
in the morning, was a •
ppointed for his execue
Lion. The barriers bad all been erected in the
Old
forwarded.
Bailey, and the preparations for an execution
When the favourable result of tb
in-
terference of his many and influential e friends was
gradually communicated to him by ins, in the
presence of the sheriffs, he was on the point of
fainting, and immediately fell on his knees. and
thanked God for his mercy. He did
not entertain
a hope of being spared, and fully and freely ad-
mitted that he did not deserve it, Some of the
earnest warnings he wrote to his friends while
under sentence of death, and fully expecting to be
executed, were very affecting,
since he has left us his conduct I have heard that
in the Government pris has been exemplary
while a prisoner in Nei cins. I never saw a man
was more correct than vgate whose entire conduct
But how sad a
that of Thomas Corrigan.
have Sowell and reflectionad' that a man who could be-
yoked and cruel vise so correctly, was the unpro-
mother of his own
assassin cf his own wife and the
referred to is ia four children." The next case
executed for the murder thatof William Bousfield, who was
e murder of his wife and four chil-.
dren, and the following extraordinary
observations
are made respecting the criminal. The Ordinary
says :...._,,
_The besetting sin of William Bousfield
as
w au inveterate habitof idleness. •
His family
and himself •
in part were supported by the labour .
ofhisi..s _wife and the aQsista • nce of her friends.
1•111 sole occupation was to take supernu-
merary characters at different theatres, where
soldiers or some such personages had to ap-
pear, but not to speak. In all my experience
among so many thousands of criminals, I never .
saw such an instance of the power of idleness pros-
trating all the manly feelings of our nature. Some
of the facts on which this opinion is founded are
far too gross to be mentioned. He would sit for
hours without speaking, listlessly turning _ over the
pages of inspiration or other suitable
before him, in hope, if possible' to book placed
lead his mind
to good and solemn considerations.
The daily in-
struction given to him on these subjects seemed
totally lost. He was buoyed up against our con-
stant warnings with a hope of
pardon, and tried
to persuade some of us that
his children, and that h his wife bad killed
e had murdered her
beCause she had done so,"
der to which the Ordinary The next cases of mur•
Anne Harris for the ma ci refers are those of Mary
drownina them in the lt er of her two children by
tina Sommers for eanal at Uxbridge, and Celt s-
and he states that the cutting
the throat of her child ;
appeared to be the w cause of both these crimes
the support of the children
of means to provide for
is hardly a crime 1 ren, and he adds that there
that does not sometimes that brings offenders to Newgate
wan t, and while twos arise from the pressure of
and highway thatrobber
the street thief, the burglar,
occasionally urgeS trh pleads this as his excuse, it
the foulest e greatest culprits to commit
murders.

To-morrow evening Mr. Warren, M.P., will ask the
First Commissioner of Works whether any and what
Steps remain
;remain to be taken by her Majesty's Government
to omplete the monument to Lord Nelson, in Trafalgar-
Pcted. and, if so, when the completion may be ex.
PUGILISM.—CONTEST BETWEEN SAYERS AND J ONUS
FOR 2001. A SlDE.—.yesterday the ring was formed ou a
fine piece of turf on the Essex shore, near Sheerness.
The contest lasted exactly two boars, uring which Cl33°
eightpfive rounds wiry fought. darn was &clang'
_ _ She Tiotvr.