The Herald of Wales and Monmouthshire Recorder. — 1885-12-05 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

LORD COLERIDGE AT A THIEVES' SUPPER. . _  - I The ninth annual supper for the criminal classic, attended by about 200 men and boys, was followed by a meeting, in the mission chapel, Little Wild. street, Drury Lane, over which the Lord Chief Justice presided. Several metropolitan magistrates am. governors of prisons supported the chairman. Coleridge observed that the nominal head of the criminal administration of the country, who was also the head of the Cotrt of Criminal Appel, and who had been for many early years of his life Lengaged in prosecuting and defending prisoners., and in bin later years in trying and sentencing them, might 11011133 to be a singularly unfit person to presume to address the present meeting. And yet. perhaps. upon consideration, it was hardly so. If a large familiarity with criminals made one know something of the extent and variety of crime, it also brought one acquainted with the deadly strength, the unbending pertinacity, the infinite variety of the temptations which produced it. They often, too .often, perhaps, had to punish men for being what society had made them, and had to act all engines of a system which sometimes crushed with pitiless severity the creatures it bad produced. There were few sadder things in 3 judge's life than the conviction that was slowly formed in his mind—he spoke, of course, for himself only—of the very little good he could do by any punishment he inflicted. lie was quite aware that the greatest pains had been taken to make our prisons more useful in the way of reformatories, bet as a matter of fact • coulee of prison diecipline very seldom resulted in real moral reformation. He wished to insist with all the energy he could command upon the opinion which he shared with the Prison Commissioners that there should be very much greater leniency in the whole scale of our criminal punishments. Their severity as rule was in his judgment—and he had thought a deal about the matter—productive of almost unmixed evil. The practice of passing heavy sentences for trivial offenses simply because those offences had been repeated was • greet mistake. Petty offenses often repeated remained petty offences still, and he had often had his mind filled with astonishment and his heart with dismay when compelled to sentence • man who had already spent years and years in prison or penal Der. vitude, for offences the gravest of which hardly reached the level of petty laroeny. The weapon of punishment broke in the hand when one had to use it to the same extent equally for an atrocious crime and &trumpery peccadillo twenty times repeated. In the latter case it struck both the public and the sufferer as unjust, and therefore did mischief instead lof good. It was most important that there should . be some such system ash. saw there begun, and he was thankful to see it flourishing, to help prisoners when they came out of prison. No doubt punishment there must be when the law is transgressed, but that society was wise which would strain every nerve to prevent crime being repeated, to prevent relapse into crime, or, what was better, to prevent persons growing into criminals. Surely upon political and economic grounds, to say nothing of charity and religion, these unfortunate persons were entitled to assistanoe. The heart of England was not callous on the subject. People were for the most part indolent or ignorant with respect to it; but he did not for a nionient desixor that it would sooner or later I receive the attenth.n ...-manded. Any little help ' he could render would be always ready. He sympa. ' shined heartily with his hearer; whom he was like in one respect, for he knew what it was to be abused and to have sorrows to bear. It was announced, amid I renewed applause, that Lord Coleridge had given 20 guineas to the mission. Other sneakers having been ' heard, the proceedings closed with the Benediction. I  Thomas Raycraft, who attempted to commit suicide at Rochester on Monday afternoon by thrusting a redhot poker into his throat, and who succeeded in forcing it into the roof of his month, died on Wednesday. He suffered intense pain for nearly 34 hour% which the ductor's were unable to alleviate.  The Lurgan magistrates have fined Joseph E. Robertson, the owner of a hem-stitching factory, 505., for having refused to comply with an order of the magistratee to provide an imperial inch measure, stamped by the local inspector of weights and meastufr, for the purpose of checking the work done by his employ 4. The proceedings being novel in chayscter, great interest was manifested in the osme. Notice of appeal was given.