The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-23
POLITICAL PRISONERS.

How They Ought 20 be Treated-A Liberal
The London Saturday ReUte,o has remark
able article upon political prisoners, from which
we make the following extracts-
There are two theories as to the mode in
which political prisoners ought to be treated.
According to the one theory, they are persons
who have been guilty of no moral crime, or at
most of very slight one. They have tried to
been beaten. They prisoners of
% It is, of course, quite 'N proper tn that at
they should be kept in confinement, be-
cause the enemies of the existing Government
cannot be allowed to go at large. But they
ought to be treated while in confinement with
the respect and courtesy which generous
enemy always extends to those he has captured
fully distinguished and kept apart from
all ordinary criminals, well fed, al
lowed to communicate with their
friends, subject only to such supervision
use their involuntary leisure in Matching or
aiding new plots; and they ought not to be
called on to perform any manual labor. This
ii is said, is only in accordance with the preva-
lent views entertained by society of their
offense. They have been possibly foolish; pos
sibly they may have only sacrificed themselves
as the pioneers of a movement hereafter to be
successful, but the success of which would have
been impossible had not some enthusiasts
stepped forward to start it and suffer for it.
No one thinks they have done anything dis
graceful. Their wives and families glory in
bearing their name, and have none of the
humiliation and sense of shame falling on those
who are intimately associated with pickpocket
or q forger. Those who adopt this theory
would have liked TO see the Feuian prisoners
treated as they think the captives of Sedan
are or ought to be, treated by the Germans.
OF course all political prisoners are not alike,
and no one probably would claim that the mur
derers of policemen at Manchester, or the
authors of the CeTkenwell explosion, should
be treated as If they were captive marshals of
France. But if the general theory were right,
the ordinary Fenian who has been guilty of
nothing more than reasonable writing or acts
intended to promote disaffection or war; ought
no more to suffer extraordinary penalties be-
cause some persons sympathizing with their
cause have been guilty of numbering innocent
officials and civilians, than Canrobert or Ba-
zaine ought to suffer extraordinary penalties
because some French officers have broken their
parole. The other theory is that political
prisoners are exactly like other prisoners
that sedition and treason felony are most dam
gerous and pernicious crimes calculated to do
infinite harm to life and property, and that the
law must be upheld with equal severity against
them as against any other criminal whose crime
has been defined by Parliament as an act deserv-
ing the same amount of punishment. But it is
quite consistent with this view to say that the
rgors of penal servitude may be properly re-
| laXed IN particular cases, because those rigors
| fall with unequal severity on different men.
| There are especially two parts of penal disci-
! others. The association with the ordinary pro-
! fessed ruffian is most painful to men who have
| hitherto lived in homes of decency or refine
| ment, while to the habitual criminal it is pro-
baby a source of positive pleasure; and,
| obviously, the severer forms OF
! manual labor are nothing to
persons accustomed to hard manual labor all
their lives, while they are full of excessive hard
ship to men who have never done a days work
out of doors. The forger or the fraudulent
trustee is in these respects exactly on footing
with the political prisoner; and in point of fact
the prison authorities do make a difference
| when 1t can be shown to be reasonable that q
difference should be made. They do not force
all those condemned to penal servitude to herd
together, and they adjust manual labor to the
constitution and previous habits of the work
man. All that political prisoners, therefore, il
this theory is right can ask, is that they should
be treated as ordinary criminals, but that they
should have such relaxation of discipline
made in their favor as would be granted to any
Other criminals who were like them in constitu
tion and previous habits of living.