The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-16 00:00:00

mtni w,TER AT LONDON BRIDGE THIS DAY.
Wirnins 22 minutes after 0 i Evening 37 minutes after 0.

LONDON :
WEDNESDAY MORNING. NOVEMBER 16, 1842.

We have already stated that the number of
-persons punished by summary conviction and
by imprisonment, in only nine prisons, in the
last year, was no less than 3,147. Those persons
belonged to eight counties, the population of
which is about one-eighthof the whole population
of England and Wales. There were probably.
more persons summarily punished in those coun-
ties than we have stated, but there could not be
less; and assuming that number as an index to
the punishment similarly inflicted in other parts
of England and Wales, it follows that about
24,000 persons are annually punished by sum-
mary convictions who are not heard of at Quarter
Sessions or Assizes, whose names never appear
in any calendar, and who are not included, we
believe, in any criminal returns presented to
Parliament, or annually published. They teach
us that the criminality of the people is double
what it usually appears to be, and that the
punishments inflicted 'by the law are more than
twice as numerous as those officially promulgated.
We state the number however, only as ap-
proximative towards the truth. On seeking for
the same kind of information in the Report of
the Inspector of Prisons of the Northern and
Eastern District, as we have found in the Report
for the Southern and Western Districts, we can
find nothing of the sort. We do not censure that •
Report. We have already borne favourable
testimony to the shrewdness and care of Mr.
WILLIAMS, but we must say that it would be
more for the public advantage if the Prison In-
spectors were *upplied with a model of the statis-
' tical information they are required to furnish,
and if each one 'were to supply exactly
the same kind of information. That not
being the case, we find in the Report of
the Inspector for the Southern and Western
District, the curious information we quoted as to
the number of summary punishments, and we
are unable to confirm or extend it by any cor-
respondinginformation in the Report of the In-
spector for the Northern and Eastern District.
Looking, -however, at the certainty of many

omissions, and the impossibility of any exaggera-
tion as to the number actually punished summa-
rily in the nine prisons we have referred to, our
approximation obviously falls far below the
truth; and yet we state it as a somewhat start-
ling fact, that upwards of 24,000 persons are an-
nually punished, in England and Wales, by im-
prisonment, varying from fourteen days to four
months, by the mandates of Magistrates, and
without the instrumentality of a Jury.
What a severe punishment imprisonment now
is we need scarcely remind our readers. It is not
mere detention, mere restraint, mere exclusion
from all that man calls enjoyment ; it is
that, indeed, but it is much more. It involves,
generally, the degradation of cropping, and
wearing a prison dress ; exclusion from all so-
ciety, bard and monotonous labour—(in many
instances totally foreign to the prisoner's ordi-
nary habits of muscular exertion, as in the case
of • the sawyers committed to Northleach, pre-
viously accustomed to stand almost still, and
work exclusively with their arms, but there set
to walk up stairs continuously for hours on the I.
tread wheel)—cold, and sometimes damp cells,
and insufficient food. At the same time, it is
frequently combined with other punishments,
such as shutting up in the black-hole, stopping
the allowance of food, solitary confinement, and
extra labour. In some cases these subsidiary
punishments are very numerous and varying, so
that this kind .of torture depends very much
on individual Magistrates and gaolers, and on
the system adopted. For example, under one sys-
tem, in North& tenon House otCorrection, the ad-
ditional punishments in 1839-40 were 879, while in
1840-41 they were, under a new system, 232.
In 1839-40, therelbre, 647 punishments or little
acts of torture were unnecessarily and wantonly
inflicted on an average of about 63 prisoners.
We impress it on our readers that the imprison-
ment to which Magistrates summarily condemn
upwards of 20,000 of the people per year is
grading, utterly cheerless, and, debasing to both
body and mind, on both of which it inflicts a
slow torture.

In the Police-courts of the metropolis, and
some of the larger towns, these punishments are
inflicted by professional gentlemen, who are
accustomed to sift evidence, and have, perhaps,
no strong interest io give them a systematic
bias against the houseless vagrants, the un-
thinking trespassers, the hungry poachers,
the shivering hedge-breakers, the petty
thieves, who constitute the bulk of those
thus summarily punished. They administer
this sort of law, too, which is erroneously named
justice, under the eye of reporters, and they are
kept in check by the Press. Notwithstanding
these restraints, we hold the immense power en-
trusted to them of inflicting. summary punishment
to be dangerous and injurious to the people.
Every objection to the system applies with four-
fold force when that power is exercised by coun-
try gentlemen, more likely to give way to temper
or passion than sift evidence and make allow-
ance for motives,w'ho have a strong interest andsys-
tematic bias against the persons they punish, ho
exercise their authority uncontrolled by the pre-
sence of the public or the PresF,, and who are sur-
rounded almost exclusively by menials or humble
dependents. Such a system, we do not hesitate
to say, is, in principle, a great and a grievous
tyranny, and the immense mass of pain inflicted
under it shows how oppressively.and how cruelly
it is worked.

It has been proved that our system of prison
discipline has been of late years increased in
severity; it is proved that the number of persons
doomed to undergo that penalty has been much
augmented. Thyg, while the public has been
vaunting of its it reased humanity—while great
and good men have exerted themselves to me-
liorate our sanguinary code, and have boasted of
their success, its punishment has in secret been
amazingly increased and sharpened. It is no
longer an instant pain, it is slow and excru-
ciating torture. Our philanthropists have struck
the sword out of the hands of the executioner,
but it has been only to place in the hands of the
Magistrate and the gaoler the means of slowly
and painfully accomplishing the extermination
of criminals. In truth, while the public has been
pleased to ,suppose that cruelty was disappear-
ing, there has been retrocession from humanity,
and a furtive enhancement of the punishments
inflicted by the laws.
Severe and terrib!e, however, as is now im-
prisonment, still there are some of the popula-
tion who court it as a refuge from greater
calamities. It is better than to die, like JOHN
LAVENDER, of filth and hunger. It is better
than to live surrounded by men as hungry as
famished wolves. When great masses of the
community must subsist on less than a penny a
day, when gaunt hunger stares thousands of
families in the face, they are reduced to
the condition of wretches famishing on a
raft at sea—alls sympathy is at an end, they
are almost ready to devour each other, and
from such a terrible state of society even
the horrid prison of Northleach may be a
welcome refuge. Into that condition have our
political experimentalists plunged the people.
They have become reckless. The thousands
who are condemned yearly to imprisonment
shows how.terribly they are degraded. It is im-
possible to go on consigning forty or fifty thousand
persons annually to prison, leaving their wives,
families, and relatives a prey to destitution, and
to shame, without spreading from them, and by
their means, a great and increasing mass of cor-
ruption upwards in society, and without making a
prison a welcome home to many. Accordingly
we learn that as the punishments have ex-
tended, the moral condition of the people has be-
come more deplorable; the most pitiable thing
of all being that this vast extent of cruel summary
punishment is inflicted to no good end, for it
does not prevent, and probably increases, offences.
How totally at variance the system of hasty
arbitrary punishment, inflicted at the will of one
man, is in its 'nature and principle with that
charity which thinketh no evil, we need not say.
How contrary it is in spirit from that doctrine,
that all are liable to errors, that all are sinners,
and that we should love one another like bre-
thren, needs no elucidation. There is no touch of
forbearance, of mercy, or of kindliness in it. It is
directly opposed to the precept—Do unto others
as you would be done unto : for what rich man
would like to be judged by a poor vagrant, and
ousted at his bidding, for want of charity per.
ai
sdaasmopppc,e)slilteanasd at r tphrleeettecpht
s?
haps, 'from his luxurious home, and consigned
tlot
those possible fiom N
which the clergy try to
enforce,
much more by
their words than their conduct. We denounce
this great and terrible despotism f o summary pi-
nislitnent as opposed alike to freedom, justice,
and religion.

A Glasgow paper contains an account of the
meeting of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of the
county of Renfrew, on Tuesday last, with a view
of devising means of relieving the distress of the
people. The distress is increasing, and seems
likely to increase in that district. It appears by
a memorial presented to the meeting from the
unemployed artisans and labourers in Greenock,
that in the last month no less than 1,304 able-
bodied men were out of employment in that
town, having dependent on them 3,545 persons,
and making a total of 4,849 destitute individuals.
Not very long ago they were in the receipt of
weekly wages, varying from 12s. to 408., and
now, without any fault of theirs, they are entirely
deprived of income, and obliged to beg for the
most scanty subsistence.
The resources of the town are so small, that
with all the exertions of the inhabitants, what
they can raise only suffices to give -to each of
these persons less than one penny per day.
Precisely the same facts are true of Paisley, Poi-
lockshams, and Johnstone. The prospects of the
people in all these towns are as dreary as their
present condition. They have no hope of amend-
ment. Such was the impression made on the
gentlemen of the county by the facts brought
before them, that they voted a rate of 3,0001. to
assist in giving relief, though the Committee only
recommended 1,5001. All the contributions,
however, which can be raised, will not suffice to
buy the sufferers clothes or fuel, but may, per-

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