Year: 1871

How They Ought H,!. 70 be CTR &Tre"ted-A Liberal


The London Saturday ReUie1o has a 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
incite to war or to make war, and they have
9gRt oeeR beaten he They e,tsG are prisoners DcS of
It is, of course, quite proper that
they should be kept in confinement, be-
cause the enemies of the existing Government
cannot be allowed to 90 at large. But they
ought to be treated while in confinement with
the respect and courtesy which a generous
enemy always extends to those he has captured
on the field of battle. They ought to be care
fully distinguished and kept apart from
lowed to communicate with their
friends, subject only to such supervision
as is necessary to ensure that they shall not
use their involuntary leisure in Matching or
aiding new plots; and they ought not to be
called on to perform any manual labor. This
it 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.





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 plckpocket
or n forger. Those who adopt this theory
would have liked TO see the Fenian 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 nur-
derers of policemen at Manchester, or the
authors of the Clerkenwell 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-
Zane 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 dan
| 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
| rigors of penal seTvitude may be properly re-
! laXed III particular cases, because those rigors
| fall with unequal severity on different men.
| There are especially two parts of penal disci-
| pline which torture some men and hardly affect
| others. The association with the ordinary pro-
fessed ruffan is most painful to men who have
| hitherto lived in homes of decency or refine
ment, while to the habitual criminal it is pro-
badly 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 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 it 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, i


this theory is right, ask, is that they should


be treated as ordinary criminals, but that they


should have such a relaxation of discipline


made in their favor as would be granted to any


o.her criminals who were like them in consttu


tiOn and previous habits of living.