The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-23 00:00:00

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

POLICE SUPERVISION OF UNCONVICTED CRIMINALS.
The Times calls attention to the urgent necessity
for securing a more effectual supervision of the
criminal classes. The case to which it especially
refers furnishes indisputable evidence of the demand
for fuller powers of prevention being placed in the
hands of our police. Three men, known by the con-
stable on duty to be returned transports, were
seen loitering about Gray's-inn-road together. lie
watched them try some area gates, and having
procured assistance he followed them, and saw them
try to get into another house by means of a skeleton
key. They were secured, after a desperate struggle,
in which one of the constables was seriously hurt. The
Times comments upon the absurdity of the law which
forces a constable to wait passively until some crime
is attempted, giving the criminal time and oppor-
tunity of escape, and declares it would be as reason-
able to allow a mad dog to bite some one before
destroying it. An extraordinary list of previous
offences was proved against these three men.
Against one of them, Summers, there were ten
previous convictions for larceny, assault, and
concealment in houses. Another, Bennett, had been
eleven times in prison for larceny, assaulting the
police, robbery of plate, and skeleton-key larceny.
The third, Smith, has, since the fith of November,
1860, been sentenced to eighteen months' hard labour
for a plate robbery, five years for a house robbery,
and six months for larceny. The Times points out
that after every release from custody these men take
to crime again as their natural profession, and their
convictions probably fail to represent anything like
the mischief which they have done. How many
crimes have they committed with impunity ? It has
been calculated that every criminal concerned in a
burglary escapes eight times out of nine, so that the
twenty convictions against Summers and Bennett
represent a pretty formidable aggregate. The oldest
of the three is only thirty-one, the others being
twenty-one and twenty-eight. The Times, there-
fore, encouragingly reminds us that they have the
best part of their lives still before them, and asks if it
is not madness to turn them loose upon society with- •
out any supervision of their proceedings. The answer
is obvious, and it is quite time that desperate
criminals were deprived of the right to turn our
social liberty to such bad account.
MR. HARVEY ON VA '1 R ANC Y.
Mr. Harvey has written another letter, in which
he examines the various methods for checking the
increase of pauperism and crime. He is strongly in
favour of transferring the whole administration of
vagrant relief from the guardians to the police, and
he insists upon the importance of a uniform system
being adopted throughout the country. The
tendency of the present clay is to equalise
and systematise the official treatment of the
poor throughout the country ; and, consequently,
the value of a uniform action with respect to
vagrancy will be readily admitted. The system
which has proved the most successful is founded on
the following rules :-1. Refusal of all relief to young
able-bodied men not absolutely destitute. The appli-
cation of this rule in one district reduced the number
of casuals relieved in a year from 33,493 to 11,812,
without any harshness to the deserving poor. 2.
The exaction of a task of work suitable to the appli-
cant. 3. Police relieving office ; and 4. A demand
for papers or certificates. The new " London Asso-
ciation for the Prevention of Pauperism and
Crime " deals with these weighty subj ects
in a spirit kindred to Mr. Harvey's, with
the view of obtaining a- systematic co-operation
of all existing charitable associations, so as to
secure an effectual and organised supervision of the
destitute and criminal classes.

THE SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION AND PAUPERISM.
Mr. Samuel Morley presided at a meeting of the
Social Science Association, held on Monday evening,
for the purpose of considering Pauperism, Charity,
and the Poor Laws, and an address was given by Dr.
Stallard on these subjects. Tie alluded to the appli-
cation of the word " pauper," which some philan-
thropists wished to drop altogether, on account of its
objectionable meaning; but he thought it would be well
to employ it exclusively in the sense of those who wil-
lingly received help. The poor might be divided into
two classes—those who took assistance only when
driven to great distress, and those who were con-
tented to receive aid continually. The learned
gentleman then showed that a stimulus was given
to work by want, and that officious charity created
the lasting pauper. Statistical returns proved that
a great increase had taken place in the metropolitan
paupers during the last ten years. The amount of
the poor-rate in Whitechapel had doubled since the
year 1841. In this part of the metropolis, also, the
rate of infant mortality is more than double that of
any West-end district. Dr. Stallard then turned to
the next part of his subject, Charity, and quoted a
passage which told how a man might be born, live,
and die a pauper, and at the expense of the parish
be provided with burial-ground at last. The total
sum subscribed for the London charities was
4,295,640, but this did not include all the public
benevolence of the metropolis. Local charities gave
enormous sums, and the house charity, which tic; s
generally indiscriminate, was considerable. The
course too often pursued was productive, said the
learned gentleman, of the worst results : it formed a
class of established paupers. Society suffered from
this lavish and ill-considered charity, and it
should be checked without delay. Dr. Stal-
lard suggested that dwellings for the poor
might be constructed on better principles with
advantage, and the Door of each district might be
surveyed by a gentleman of the magisterial class,
who would possess intelligence and authority at the
same time. In conclusion the learned gentleman
advised the equalisation of the poor rates, the en-
largement of the area of chargeability, and uniform
assessments. Mr. Gill moved that the council of the
association take steps to reform the administration of
- the poor laws. The chairman feared that the rich were
getting richer and the poor poorer, and it would
be well to have those to administer relief who
would be more hearty in the cause than a• parish
officer. Mr. Middle, the medical officer of White-
chapel, said that indiscriminate charity was one 4-,f
pauperism. Proper work was
;e
not fogruneadtfrr theises of pauperism.
and the poor law was capable of
great improvements and alterations. After some
more discussion the proceedings 'were adjourned for
a fortnight.

THE CASE OP PRISCILLA DIGOADIEE.
Mr. Beggs, the secretary of the Society for the
Abolition of Capital Punishment, has written to the
editor of the Star in reference to the case of Priscilla
Biggadike. This woman, it will be remembered.
was sentenced to death at Lincoln for the murder of
her husband. The case presents few 'extenuating
features, and Mr. Beggs pleads for mercy for the
condemned on general rather than on particular
grounds. lle urges that the wretched and degraded
condition in which the Biggadikes lived—husband,
wife, three children, and two male lodgers occupying
one room—forbids us to expect moral or rational
conduct. " When men and women are degraded to
the level of brutes, we must expect manners appro-
priate to the degradation." No punishments, however
terrible, will deter such abject creatures from the
commission of crime, since the future to them is
always vague and remote. The jealousy of Bigga-
dike produced violent quarrels and ill-usage of his
wife, who to get rid of him put poison in a cake.
Mr. Beggs finds a still stronger argument for the
abolition of capital punishment in the mistake recently
made in the conviction of the man Sweet, at
Taunton, for a murder he did not commit.