The Sun. — 1847-06-04 (London, England)

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS.  The Secretary of State for the Home Department, n moving last night the committal of the Prisons Bill and the Custody of Offenders Bill, explained the Ministerial policy and intentions with respect to the more serious cases of secondary punishments in a speech of singular clearness and ability, which deservedly elicited the approbation of the House. For many years past the Legislature has adopted a more mitigated code for the repression of crime. Very many cases, formerly visited with the extreme penalty of the law, now only subject the offender to the loss of liberty, either by a prolonged term of imprisonment, or what is known to the law as transportation, whether for life or a term of years. In many of these cases the widest discretion is necessarily entrusted to the presiding judge, who will have it in his power either to expatriate the criminal from his native land for the remainder of his life, or to dismiss him with the infliction of a nominal fine, or a brief detention in cu,tody. Capital punishment has been practically abolished, save in cases of wilful and aggravated murder ; all offences, therefore, against property, and all against the person not involving the death of the aggrieved party, are treated as secondary crimes, and visited only with secondary punishments. It becomes, therefore, a matter of the deepest interest to the people generally, who have cordially assented to the present more humane state of the law, that the secondary punishments should be placed on a sound and wholesome footing, so as at the same time to repress crime, by creating a salutary dread of its inevitable consequences; and, secondly, to afford the most reasonable prospects for the reformation of the culprit, and his restoration to society on some futurp occasion, a wiser and a better man. To the attainment of these points, the discipline to which he shall be subjected, the place and manner of his confinement should be directed. It is due to those who yield a prompt and ready obedience to the law, that they should be protected in the full enjoyment of their rights and privileges, that no morbid feelings of sensibility for those convicted of crimes and misdemeanours should encourage others to corninit similar offence:4. It is not for the sake of vengeance that the majesty of the law is vindicated, but that a warning and example might be held out to all This primary o!ject being attained, it is incumbent upon us, as a humane and Christian people, to win back our erring brethren from the paths of vice, to teach theta their duty as members of society, to induce them, if possible, to earn their daily bread by the efzerciseof their honest industry, and to remove them tempthtaeitrionfobrymwerhicehrrothrse—y mayinto be induced tboni every rnorr,ail elapse into za it time . ion similar to that from which theyastat havee of deeern The M'Ili"`"lal plan just developed appears well calcu'atf d r 0 attain thabe great_ol3,iects. .01,It makes the I:ary states, ine• ,a,va_atiet:.‘ itytis g,ap bat Hilly relaxed, t. ed +oh ruble. Ills progress from one of those stages to another will be mainly dependent on himself, on the evidences he