The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-14 00:00:00

THE REDUCTION OF THE ARMY.

The following is a copy of the circular memoran-
dum relative to the reduction in the army :
" Horse Guards, February 6.

. -
"Her Majesty having been pleased to approve of a
further reduction in the infantry from the 31st of March
❑ext, the following are the arrangements under which it
is to be carried into effect, viz:—

"First—The sth, 20th, 36th, 42d, 44th, 45th, 56th,
67th, 69th, 76th, and 2d battalion Rifle Brigade, to b•
respectively reduced from 1,200 to 1,000 rank and file,
and consolidated into one battalion.

"The supernumerary officers of these regiments will
be retained on the strength of their respective corps en
second, with the exception of the surgeons and quarter-
masters, who will be plamd on half-pay.
" The second adjutants will remain in their ranks of
lieutenant or ensign, as the case may be.
" The commanding officers will proceed at once, under
the superintendence and direction of the general officer
commanding on the station, to carry out the proposed
reduction, as far as may be necessary and practicable,
after deducting invalids, by the immediate discharge of
such supernumerary non-commissioned officers and men
as may be desirous to quit the service for the purpose of
settling in the colonies, or who can procure the means
of providing for their removal to England without sub-
jecting the public to expense.
_

" These regiments will henceforth have only nominal
depots, such as tho.e maintained by regiments in India,
consisting of a captain, who will, as -heretofore, have
charge of the regimental records (assisted, when neces-
sary, by one or two lieutenants), and five sergeants and
five corporals, detached from the regiment.
" Secondly—The 6th Regiment will be reduced from
1,200 to 750 rank and file, the reserved battalion being
formed into an ordinary four-company depot of 216 rank
and file, with such additional nnmber as may be required
to make up the establishment of the regiment; and the
whole of the supernumerary officers placed on half-pay,
and such of the noncommissioned officers and men as
are not inclined to transfer their services to other corps
will be discharged.
" Thirdly—The 11th, 58th, and 65th Regiments will
be reduced from 1,000 to 750 rank and file, and in like
manner formed into six service and four depot corn-

panies.
" The reduction of these regiments to 540 rank and
file each :(the establishment of the service companies),
will, as far as practicable .be effected by the discharge,
on the spot, of such non-commissioned officers and men
as may be desirous of being released from the service
with a view to becoming settlers, or who have the means
of providing their own passage to England, sending
home the proper establishment of officers and non-com-
missioned officers to form and organise the regimental
depot.
" Lastly—The depOts of the Ist Battalion Royals,
7th, 1G Lb, 19th, 34th ,38th, .54th, 6Gth, 72d, 73d, 79th, BSth,
95th, end ht Battalion Rifle Brigade, will respectively
be redueel from 230 to 210 rank and tile, which will
readily be eff:eted by discontinuing recruiting until the
new establishment shall be attained.

"The men to be voluntarily discharged, as above di-
rected, will, o course, receive all the advantages they
may be entitled to claim under the provisions of her
Majesty's warrant, according to the length and nature
of their service; but care must be taken to select thole
for discharge, in preference, who have been found gene-
rally the least efficient soldiers, and whom, therefore, it
way be deemed the least desirable to retain.
" By command,
"Jonx MACDONALD, Adjutant-General."
The reduction will thus amount to 3,680 rank and
file.

In Cumberland 3,640 persons are employed in
mines, o leihom 825 are under 21 years of age; 3,836
in the cotton manutacture (bleachers, dyers, and
printers included), of whom 1,065 are under 20 years
of age; 388 in the flax and linen manufacture, of whom
,153 aro under 2b years of age.—Cumberland Parquet,

" We have constantly to regret the rejection of bills
on account of suppressed evidence, which dishonest re:-
sons possessed of property are able to procure by
buying or tampering with witnesses. This is one of
the evils attendant on secret sittings. Were the de-
positions taken before the magistrates placed before
the grand jury, or were the public admitted to
hear the evidence given, better results might fol-
low. Two very serious evils attendant on the system
among us are very obvious. One is the constant es-
capes from justice of known and inveterate offenders by
the suppression of evidence; and the other is the com-
mittal to Newgate of respectable persons in consequence
of bills found against them for some alleged offence, of
which, in some instances, magistrates have refused to
take cognisance. These things I know are matters of
deep interest to the Court, and they doubtless are apply-
ing to them their grave consideration.
" Before leaving the subject of unconvicted prisoners,
the numbers returned of those who have previously been
in Newgate in some degree throw light on the subject.
Out of 2,637 there had been previously in Newgate 345,
and in other prisons 385, or about two in seven. As in
last year I observed Woven out of eight are committed to
Newgate for the first time ; 345 out of 2,637 is nearly
the same proportion as 406 out of 3,133 in the preceding
year.
_ _

" This result must convince any impartial person that
a large proportion of offenders committed to Newgate
must reform and abandon their evil courses, and the ex-
perience of all persons who have to deal with the mass
of the criminal population confirms the supposition that
it is so. The gaol of Newgate beyond all doubt has
great defects compared with more modern erections, but
results from those more perfect prisons do not surpass
the metropolitan gaol in this respect, that seven out of
eight do not return to us again,

"INSANE PERSONS.

"I am happy to remark that under the head of insane
persons we have none of that class now in Newgate.
Juries seem to have given over the habit of declaring per-
sons not guilty on the ground of insanity, when they have
really been quite as free from lunacy as the jurors them-
selves. Most deplorable instances of this infatuation, that
for a time took possession of some persons, are still to be
met with in the lunatic asylums of other places, where
criminal lunatics are confined. Such prisoners have for
many months pined away in Newgate, and are removed
only for others to witness those unwise convictions of
lunacy in the protracted, and in some instances per-
petual, imprisonment of such offenders. Who dare un-
dertake the responsibility of liberating murderers, or
attempted murderers, that have been wrongly declared
lunatics on some slender evidence. Nothing seems to
await such misplaced leniency but the needless seclusion
of some asylum or common gaol.

" CONVICTED PRISONERS.

" As regards convicted prisoners, we have had in those
sentenced to short periods many instances where
youth, temptation, debts, love of finery, or the
influence of pleasure, have brought those offending
under the power of the law. The greatest pains and
care have been taken with all cases of a hopeful
character, t i prevent, if possible, a recurrence to crime.
Tbe great efforts that must be made towards the rege-
neration of criminals must be made with those who are
not far gone in iniquity. With respect to habitual
thieves, the only question is, not how to reform them, but
how best to employ them.' Very few of this har-
dened tribe think of reforming, except it be that by
reform they may further victimise their dupes. But
it is not so with many first offenders. Much
good may be done, and has been done, among
them, and I could heartily wish that some plans
were adopted out of doors to prevent, it possible, their
committal or conviction. Efforts might be made by
domiciliary visits, and by giving additional powers
to the superior officers of the police, that might, I
think, have a very beneficial effect. Where persons
aro living without any known and visible means of sub-
sistence, a sufficient ground-work is laid to suspect that
the public are being injured to such extent as to call for
a defence from such parties. A continuance in these
habit.; after warning ought to be sufficient to c7ais them
among rogues and vagabonds, it' they did not or would
not satisfactorily explain thennelves. The mere rout-
ing them out from their habitation; ' the influence of
their landlord, and the suspicion that such visits
would throw upon their character might'do much. But
the moral influence of the neighbourhood is required ta
sanction and give effect to those interventions. If
thieves were not encouraged by their associates and in-
structors they would soon cease to pursue a course
where shame and poverty only would attend them, and
where danger at every turn awaited them. I hope much
will yet be done by moral and energetic effects wisely
and kindly applied to the habitation of the thief. More
may be dune outside than in prison."

YOUTHFUL DELINQUENTS.
After stating that the number of boys under instruc-
tion in Newgats in the last year was by 73 less than in
the year preceding, when there were 284, the report
proceeds:—
" With this considerable decrease in the number of
boys committed, a great change has taken place in the
character of those committed. First offenders, unless
charged with a very serious offence, are seldom now
found in the gaol of Newgate. Boys of respect-
able connexions, from drapers' shops, pawnbrokers,

~rocers, bakers, and others, are much more
rarely found among the committals since the happy
alteration of the law in giving summary power to magi-
strates to adjudicate in sueh cases. lam reporting, my
Lord and gentlemen, on the state of Newgiste—not ou
the state of crime in the metropolis or in the City, as a
learned gentleman misunderstood me last year, and I
feel very thankful that the decrease among boys conti-
nues to the present time in this gaol.
" It will be found, in dealing with boys who have ad-
dicted themselves to habits of dishonesty, that great
carelessness has been exhibited in their training by their
parents, or sad misfortune, in the loss of one or both
of them, has happened to these children. Inveterate
propensities to dishonesty in persons so young that
the pressure of debts or the impulses of impurity
can have had no share in destroying their reputation,
must be traced in them to inherent depravity or to
evil examples in their domestic circle. Measures should
be taken, therefore, rather to provide a remedy for the
cause than for the crime itself. All that the necessity of
the case admits is limited to good industrial occupation,
the influence of proper example and sound religious in-
struction. Beyond the appliance of these corrections,
the case must be left to a higher power—man's further
efforts are futile and visionary.

" HABITUAL CRIMINALS.

" Among the prisoners sentenced to periods of three
months and upwards, but under twelve months, will be
found many addicted to crime as a habit, and under its
permanent influence ; bat the large majority of these
will not again be found in the annals of Newgate.
" Between prisoners sentenced to twelve months and
upwards and transports a very slender partition divides.
The difference in the sentence declares only that
less has been proved against them. The altera-
tion in the law, rendering uulawful to transport
in cases of simple larceny, has caused some very great
offenders to escape this punCehtnent. Stealing from
carts, carriages, and waggons. n the streets—a very
serious offence in the metropolis, and formerly punished
almost invariably with transportation, as well as stealing
parcels from railway stations, is now an offence sub-
jected to imprisonment only. This has increased our
number sentenced to twelve months and upwards, and
has decreased to the same extent our transports. We
had 465 transported in 1849, but in 1848 they amounted
to 591; so that during the last year no less than 126 of
the general decrease fslls under this head.
"We have bad a considerable number of these
unhappy men confined for several months in Newgate;
and it is becoming a serious matter to contem-
plate the mischief and corruption that take place
among these men, confined as they are with us.
The aggregate proportion is not lessened, but increased,
if you consider the 12 months prisoners and trans-
ports in one class-938 in 2,637 is a larger proportion
than 1,070 in 3,156. The mode of imprisonment in
exercise with respect to those prisoners now so gene-
rally confined in England becomes really a matter
of national importance. It is greatly to be desired
that no sentences—except for very short periods—
should take place in Newgate. The perpetual
excitement, the ever fluctuating character of the in-
mates, the assemblage of criinals of the most flagrant
nature, the constant recurrence of the sessions, make
Newgate a very uncle iirable prison for purposes of
lengthened confinement. We have two men charged
as debtors to the Crowe, for not paying ovor the
moneys they have received as collectors of property
tax, who are much more fit to be detained
in custody in Whitecross-street Prison, than in the
common criminal gaol for the county of Middlesex.
Occasionally men for conspiracies, or for political of-
fences, must cf necessity, as the law now is. be impri-
soned in Newgate. For such persons we want better
places than we have to meet the case fairly, and to make
the sentence or detention such as it should be. The
prison, in these respects, should either be altered to
meet these cases, or moans be taken that such sentences
should be elsewhere carried into effect.

" THE TRANSPORT WARDS.
" With regard to transports the state is much worse.
The condition of thew men, confined for a19131b5 in pet-

feet idleness, makes them speed their leisure in
awfully corrupting one another. I will not mock your
feelings by attempting to describe the language, acts,
and habits of those utterly depraved men. Their fil-
' thiness, falsehood, and, pernicious abominations are
too bail to be described. I blame no one that
things are so. The migistrates wish these men
removed to their proper places z f confinement.
The Government are unable to comply with those
reasonable desires, because every place is full.
Would it not be better, then, t) fit up wards as
workshops after the manner of Milbank Prison,
and keep these offenders constantly at labour, compel
them to wear the prison dress, and subject them to the
pros or discipline, when occupied prisoners are more
cunienterl, and cannot misemploy their time in cor-
rupting and disgusting language? I press this matter
the more earnestly because it has tem' the cause of
all tie calumnies that have found their way into
many public documents as to the corruption inside of
Newgate. Such depravity is chiefly limited to the trans-
port wards, end those in which known offenders are as-
sociated. The public -are getting much better to under-
stand not merely what can be done, but what cannot be
done 'with" incorrigible offenders. Toe limits begin to
be discerned where reformation is hopeful, and %here it
is visionary. The character of the inveterate thief gets
better understood, and he will be treated as his conduct
requires he should be treated.
"THE SEPARATE CELLS.
"There is another part of the prison that still more
urgently calls for the attention of the worshipful Court. I
mean the state of the cells where prisoners are confined
under sentence, or when the nature of the charge requires
they should be kept separate. These cells are so intensely
cold when the weather is inclement tlkat.the riegree of
pain which the prisoners feel is -almost es great as
human nature can endure. The
pain of extreme cold is
one of the moat severe that the human frame can ex-
perience. It is often necessary either to expose prisoners
to this grievous Beefing or to remove them to other
parts of the prison far less desirable. The Court
has frequently had this subject under their notice, and
has gone so far as to prepare plans for the warming and
ventilating of these cells; but nothing has hitherto been
done to remove from the prison an evil which, in very
cold weather, amounts almost to torture.