The Potteries Examiner : — 1875-07-03 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

GAOL VISITING JUSTICEE' REPORT.—The Visiting Justices reported that the gaol was in good order. The usual quarterly statement showed is slight decrease in numbers, as compared with last year. The decrease in the cost per head arose from the abatement in the price of most of the articles consumed. Number of commit. tabs for trial 72 males and 17 females; committals summarily, 843 males and 254 females prisoners committed under the age of twenty years, 141 males and 43 females ; recommittals, 369 males and 131 females ; re. committals of prisoners aided by aid societies. 1 male and 1 female; discharged prisoners aided by aid societies, 89 males, 21 females ; children sent to reformatories during the quarter, 4 males. The total expenses of the quarter amounted to £3,237 7s. Old., as compared with £3,410 Is. 51d. last year. The average cost per prisoner per lweek was Se. OW., as compared with Bs. 3.tel. The cost to the county of prisoners aided by discharged prisoners :aid societies £46 Os. 7d., as compared with £45 12s. 4d., and the daily average number of prisoners 618, as compared with 633. The buildings were, with slight exceptions, in good repair. The quarterly bills, amounting to £1,545 15s. Bd., having been examined and found correct, were recommended for pajment —The Hon. and Rev. A. C. Talbot read a letter which he had received from Mr. C. H. Greases, the surgeon to the gaol in which he stated that he considered it his duty to call attention to the great increase in the number of persons sent to prison who are either imbeciles or :epileptics, who, in his opinion, as a medical officer of a workhouse, ought and could by law be detained in the respective workhouses. There was also a class of prisoners which had increased still more than the former. He referred to persons who were remanded for the purpose of obtaining a medical certificate as to their state of mind. This information could be much better procured from a local medical man, as he could get the past history of his patient, which it was impossible for:him (the writer) to do, as he had no opportunity of seeing any of the relations or friends. He should be glad if the Visiting Justices would kindly inform him whether he was not entitled to a fee for certificates given, such fee to be paid by the clerk to the magistrates making such commitments. Mr. Talbot said, with regard to the first remonstrance, it was perfectly tree that a habit had arisen of lunatics and epileptic patients being sent to the gaol. The justices thought they had no business there. By this practice the county was put to considerable expense, and the justices' clerks got a large fee. The result was the visiting justices were almost uumedialy obliged to write to the Secretary of State to get an order for the removal of such persons to the Lunatic Asylum. They were not fit inhabitants of the gaol, and the justices did not know what to do with them there. He hoped such cases would no longer occur. He could say nothing about the fee which the surgeon asked for; and probably that part of the letter should be referred to the Clerk of. the Peace. He hoped, now that attention was publicly called to the matter, the justices would see that such persons as those referred to were not proper persons to be sent to the geed—The Chairman expressed his concurrence with the remarks of the Hon. and Rev. A. C. Talbot. He had already called attention to the matter in his charge to the grand jury when he mentioned the case of a young woman who was charged with attempting to commit suicide. (Mr. Talbot : She. was raving mad.) The Chairman continued that that young woman had to be kept in gaol ten days before the order of the Secretary of State for her removal could be obtained. The magistrate who committed her was, however, dead, and they could not, therefore, say much about the matter.—Mr. Rupert Kettle said he should like to draw attention to a table contained in the report of the visiting justices. From that it appeared there were committed during the quarter 1,056 males and 314 females, altogether 1,360. The number of recommittals was 369 males and 131 females, together 500; or rather more than one-third of the whole number of prisoners were recommittals. In the same table they found that the number of discharged prisoners aided by the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society was 89 males and 21 females, together 110; and of these 110 only 2 had been recommitted—The Hon. and Rev. A. C. Talbot said the fact of there being a great number of recommittals was both satisfactory and unsatisfactory. It was unsatisfactory because it showed that the prison discipline had not made an Ma. pressiou upon the prisoners; and it was satisfactory because it reduced the apparent number of the criminal population. The Governor of the Gaol would tell them that people were recommitted over and over again, spending half or more than half their lives in prison. There hut been cases of women who had been in gaol 60 times, and in one instance 100 times. He did not think this was owing to the discipline to which the prisoners were subjected riot being stringent enough. He believed Stafford possessed one of the few gaols in the kingdom where they carried out sentences legally. Every prisoner suffered the amount of hard labour to which he was 'sentenced, according to the regulations sent down to them by Act of Parliament. ! Last quarter the inspector said it was a farce going through the gaol, because everything. was in proper order, and the discipline was well carried sat; and an inspector of Government prisons had visited the gaol, and his report woe in the highest degree satisfactory complimentary to the governor. Therefore, he did not think the large number of recommittals was any reproach to their discipline. It srAS simply owing to the fact that there were a large somber of incorrieible persons who lived half in the gaol and half out of it —Mr. Spooner pointed out that it WAS necessary that persons charged with attempting to commit suicide should be remanded and confined somewhere, and he thought the gaol was the best place—The Hon. and Rev. A. C. Talbot suggested that the relieving officer could take charge of such people.—The matter then dropped.