The Sun. — 1822-07-24 (London, England)

MORNING POST.]  Several plans are under consideration, and, we understand, likely to be adopted, with the view to deter from crime, and improve the administration of our criminal code. The expence of transporting convicts to New South Wales, and the idea which has been disseminrted of the excellence of the climate, and other circumstances in that colony (holding out inducements to the guilty to commit acts liable to the punishment of transportation), have rendered some change in this respect highly necessary. Well known cases have occurred in which the principal object of the offender has been to get sent to Botany Bay ; and thus, instead of dread, the law has only inspired hope, and instigated the vicious to delinquency. It has been proposed to substitute for this exile to Bermuda, and the employment of the convict on the large Government works undertaken at that island. The expense will be greatly diminished, and the prospect of incessant labour, on fortifications and other public designs, will hold out no bonus for the commission of burglaries and robberies. Another important matter will be, that the punishment awarded by the law will certainly visit the crime. The chances of escape, so numerous at present, will be annihilated, and the sentence will be executed as pronounced, without depending on contingencies and accidents. According to the existing system (and one of its chief evils,) the uncertainty of the ultimate determination of the law operates powerfully to the injury of society. It is in human nature to calculate on the fortunate side, and no beings can be more apt to indulge in such a train of thought as those whose lives are spent in continual apprehension and risk. Thus the thief flatters himself that he will be spared, because some deeper guilt demands the heaviest visitation of the Assize : his chance is that murder, or rape, or arson must be punished, and not to overload the calendar with death, housebreaking, sheep-stealing, highway-robbery, &c. which, under other circumstances, would be consigned to the gallows, will be mildly dealt with. The same reasoning pervades the whole coarse from transportation down to imprisonment and whipping, and no man can doubt that crime is thereby promoted.—Another of the alterations contemplated is also, in our opinion, well devised to strike a salutary dread into the minds of youthful culprits, and effectually to punish the depredations of this lamentably numerous, desperate, and depraved class. The project is to free society from these pests, to interrupt their progress to the scaffold, and to combine punishment with, an opportunity of reforming, by sending juvenile offenders to our settle meats on the coast of Africa, there to be re-1 gimented and disciplined, and, if possible, converted into useful members of the commonweal. Cut off while young from vile habits and associations, their morals may be improved, and by being inured to the climate so fatal to persons more advanced in years, colonization in these parts may be effected in a manner not to distress humanity. Upon the whole, from what we have learnt concerning these plans, we consider them to be eminently calculated to diminish crime, purge the Metropolis of its greatest nuisances,and ultimately benefit the guilty themselves,