Star.
London, England, 1824-04-17 00:00:00

MACH PRISI)NS.

It appears from the lllonitcnr, that an iriterestirg
Report on tie State of Pr irons in Fiance has been drawn
up by M. Barbe-Mar bois, as the-organ of a Society fk r
tire linprraiement of Prison Discipline. It comprises
only the departments of ancient Normandy; but the
remarks are of general application, and contain several
allusions to the system of Prison Government in Eng.-
land. One of the first ob :ervations of the author of the
Report is, that the prejudice generally prevalent against
anonymous complaints and denunciations, should• not
apply to prisoners. His system of inspection has been
to hear each prisoner, who had any grievance to state,.
separately and secretly. He dwells with particular
emphasis on the mischief of such punishments as stamp
lasting disgrace, and he strews that a very large propor-
tion of crimes is committed by convicts returned from
the galleys. " The degraded man," he says, " thinks
he has a right to become the enemy of society, because
it disowns him." 0.4 e of the principal objects being to
promote habits of labour and industry, which are syno-
nimous with moral iroprovemert among prisoners, we
shall state the mode adopted in the French prisons. In
order to give a stimulus voluntary rather than compul-
sory to labour, an interest in the produce of his industry
is given to the prisoner. So it is in England also, but
the distribution and details are different. In France,
the produce of the day's labr•ur is divided into fifteen
parts—of which the contractor who supplies material,„
tools, &c. takes three. The remaining twelve are di-
vided into three equal parts, of which the contractor
again takes one—and the two remaining are distributed
one to the prisoner, as pocket money, (denier de rode)
at the end of each week, to be at his free disposal—the
other is reserved, and given to him on his leaving the
prison. M. Barbe-Marbois remarks, that without the
allowance of the proportion given to the prisoner as
pocket-money, the most effectual stimulant to industry
would be wanting. There is in this report a notice and
opinion on the Tread-mill. The author requested the
Prefect of the Seine, wirokapperred to visit London, to
obtain and remit all the information he could collect
respecting the operation of this mach'ne. The evidence
of Magistrates and Surgeons in this country was ac-
cordingly transmitted to- the Society at Paris. And
though the weight of testimony in favour of the ma-
chine was over whelming, yet its use in France is strongly
deprecated by the author of the Report. Perhaps, he
says, the spirit of liberty and independence, which acts
so powerfully on an Englishman, may render this in-
Istrument expedient to prevent his mutinous temper from
revolt. But in general the French are too much dis-
posed to submission, resignation, and fear, to require it.
He accordingly deprecates the introduction in France
of a cruel invention " fit only to figure in the Code of
Dracut' We shall add one cbser vation more. He
proposes interior colonization instead of transportation
beyond the seas. The number of pi isoners at present in
France is 41,307—0 r in the proportion of I to 778.