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Leader (1850-1860), 23rd August 1856, Edition 2 of 2, Page 2, THE'NiMCIOl?£L BEFOBMATOKY UNION. A thre...

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      * Vtaples Declines To Accommodate The Mo...

      that we are provoking these retributions . Bad education , ignorance ,,, and habitual recklessness led to the fatal explosion in the Cyminer Colliery , where the coroner ' s inquest has at last roused the indignant attention even o £ the colliery ifca » lf . They know that they are maardered by- the CNfpidity of masters , the negligeaae of overlookers * and the general indifference otmB . The same cause , Hm negfcote ^ signals , aifctawgh bloodshed might be * -the consequence , has added another frightful accident to the long list of railway murders , the last happening at the Stour Valley line .

      It is not that our penal law is so lenient . On the contrary , it has juet now a fit of severity upon it . At Liverpool Assizes , while James Bracken has been convicted of " manslaughter , " his brother Andrew has been sentenced to be hanged for " murder . " The two , when intoxicated , provoked a row , and killed a man in a Lancashire fight . Tfce up-and-down fight of the county is unmanly and brutal ; but it is a new thing to hang men for nmrder in such a case . However , hanging is the fashion of the day .

      The Bolton poisoning case has brought out a curious fact . Jane Newton gave her husband stew in which arsenic had been mixed , but it is really impossible to gather from the evidence ¦ whether she had any murderous intention , or committed any worse fault than gross negligence . A druggist ' s lad confessed that -when his master ' s customers asked for " mercury , " he would give them arsenic , and he exhibited his knowledge of

      the more notorious poison by saying that " a teaspoonfttl might kill an adult . '' Jane N " ewton , it appears , asked for mercury to destroy vermin , mercury not being considered a poison by ignorant people j and without her knowing it , the lad gave her the poison , which reached her husband . Here is plenty of ignorance , but , more than anything , a proof that stricter regulations should control the sale of drugs , and especially of

      pononsv The press itself is fallible , and has been committing offences . It lately killed Lord Dbomxan & io ; it has taken liberties with other persons ; it reported a horrible " seduction case , " in which fictitious persons played the first parts , and the scene of the trial was laid in a court that has no existence . The Times did not fall into this last error , and straight it lectured its contemporaries on their carelessness ; affably assuming that all the editors were " out of town . " In the Times of

      that same day the accomplished editor published a letter by Mr . " James Aytocn , " assuming the ¦ writer to be the well-known " Professor Aytoun , " tvhoae Christian name is "Wiuliam Edmonstotjne . " This mischance shows that any other editor who is " out of town" is exactly equivalent to an editor of the Tim es when he is not out of town . The false reports , we suspect , are a fraud traceable to the crimes of poverty , among a clasa often improvident * but seldom so treacherous to its great patron , the press .

      How much of all this crime and folly might be provonted if o , ur Legislature , were to do the duty whioh is enforced upon it , this- week , by tho Reformatory Union ! A good quarter of our criminal population might be withdrawn and restored to orderly society , uncontuniiuated , if the Reformatory were suffered to do its work . The isolated efforts of philanthropists , law reformers , and pri-BQft-retormers , have been brought together in the Union ; tho conference just hold at Bristol will give a new impulse to tho movement ; and wo snail be ribtc to show , next week , still moro diattnotly tho rcaultg of this important meeting .

      T H E Jj E A B " B K,. [No. 335, Saturda...

      T H E Jj E A B " B K ,. [ No . 335 , Saturday ,

      Ikon Liaotho««B Iron, Thh Bahamas.-Thero...

      Ikon LiaOTHo «« B iron , thh Bahamas .-Thero is at present on vlow at Messrs . H . and M . Grisaell ' s ironi t ^ , Wortlx-road , Hbxton , a remarkable specimen W ;* fc *** ortt r "Vi ^ , * UghtlHMwe which has boon con-•* 5 fc ?** d" * Mr option at Cheat St . Isaac , in' th « Bahama V \ ¦ . ' " * "* ¦ . ' " ; . . '¦"' ' '¦'¦ 1 * * "v . *¦» .:. ¦ ' . ''

      The'nimciol?£L Befobmatoky Union. A Thre...

      THE NiMCIOl ? £ L BEFOBMATOKY UNION . A three dtays' conference of the friends ^ f this institution aammenced" on Wednesday afternoon at Bristol , imthe Hall of the Society of Merchant Venturers , i »* ich was completely filled . ~ Loa & Stanley preaHfadi , and , previous ts > Bis . address , tmiS . m- letter fron * Lord Brougham ^ , the President of the '' Union , expiKasing the deep ctupret of the -write * tbat he couleB not attend . His ; £ ordshft » entered into a few

      remaps oattte general question , pointing . «¦» that M . dH Mrt * and hi * « stibagM » were not . the originators . of these institutions , m it is sometimes said , but that , as they have themselves acknowledged , they derived valuable hints from the working of the English Philanthropic Society established at Strettonon-Dunsmore . Lord Brougham also commended to the attention of the meeting the evils of short imprisonments , and the necessity for taking care of adults as well as of the young .

      Lord Stanley then delivered the inaugural address . Adverting , after some introductory remarks , to the superior nature of Preach judicial statistics to English statements of the same kind , he proceeded : — " Nevertheless , such materials as we possess we may use ; and looking to the 19 th report , just published , of the Prison Inspectors of England and Wales , which supplies us with the returns of 1853 , I find it there stated that the numbers ' for trial or tried at assizes or sessions ' were 26 , 804 ; the summary convictions , 71 , 850—making a total of those who have come under the law , 98 , 654 , or , in round numbers , about 100 , 000 . Now , in that same year there were of juvenile offenders ( that is , under 17 years ) tried or for trial , 2105 ; summarily convicted ,

      9348—total , 11 , 453 . We have , then , the proportion of juvenile to all crime for that year fixed at ll £ per cent ., and the figures for 1852 show a generally similar result . I will not weary you with statistics , but it is worth notice—and proof of -what I state may be . found in this same report—that , while the proportion of juvenile crime ( that is , of crime committed under the age of 17 ) does not exceed the figure I have mentioned , the amount committed between the ages of 17 and 21 is absolutely enormous , forming , for these four years of life alone , nearly 25 per cent , of the whole . This fact is partially

      corroborated by 4 he census returns of 1851 , where of all the prisoners under senteuce in Great Britain on a particular day , just 25 per cent , were found to be under 20 years of age , and a result almost identical with this Avas obtained by Mr . Redgrave , from the census of 1841 . It is , indeed , a startling fact in the investigation of crime , that while tho number of persons living at any one time between the ages of 15 and 20 forms only l-10 th of the entire population at that lime , this tenth part of the population is guilty of nearly onefourth of the -whole amount of detected crime . Now , I

      don ' t think that prison returns , or any returns , can give us an exact idea of the number of those with whom the reformatory movement may have to deal ; there are lads who break the law , and get punished , who are yet in no sense habitual offenders ; there is , perhaps , still a good deal of undetected crime in counties where no efficient police exists ; and no statement of the number annually imprisoned can help us , except in the roughest way , to estimate the number of those who may be at large . This only we know , that moro than 11 , 000 children , a large majority of them boys , pass yearly through the hands of justice ; -with how little reformatory effect in

      general , the large proportion of recommittals—nearly 4000 out of 11 , 000—shows plainly enough I speak with some hesitation when I say that , when the reformatory system comes fully into operation , I think you will not be suiDciently prepared to meet all contingencies , unless you reckon on a yearly influx of from 2000 to 3000 boys . The term of detention being at tho utmost five years , but two-thirds of that time being the average , you might , according to that estimate , have at ono time about 10 , 000 in process of reclamation . I hope , however , I am exaggerating tho requirements of the case . "

      With respect to the possible cost of reformatories , liia Lordship observed that we ought , in considering that matter , also to consider the cost of crime : — " We arc too apt , in dealing with such subjects , to think only of tho taxes which wo pay to Government , and to forget tho taxes which wo pay to those whom it is tho object of Government to put down . It Bounds almost iucrediblo , but it is on record ( I quota it , valeat quantum " ) , that a committee appointed by tho authorities of Liverpool to investigate losses caused b y theft placed thoae losses at tho sum of 700 , 000 / . Mr . Clay , of

      Proaton , has assumed the average income of a successful thief at 100 J . yearly ; and in tho caso of fourteen prisoners whoso history ho investigated , ho found that besides tho loss which their depredations might have caused , the average coat of their apprehension , maintenance , prosecution , and punishment was Giil . a piece . Similarly , Mr . llushton , writing , in 1842 , to tho corporation of Liverpool , referred to tho caso of fourteen prisoners , whom he estimated aa having caused a dead loss to tho community of between 2000 / . and O 0 O 0 A Wo have heard of gaols costing . 160 / . or 200 / . per cell ; there aro somo which have far exceeded this ostimato . " Lord Stanley then glanced ut a fruitful cause of juvonilo crime—bad training by brutal , drunlcon , or

      erimifcfll gruwnts . In seventy-five per cent , of the cases investigated by Mr . Clay , of Preston , the fault « tf th « cftfldren lay at the door of the fathers and mothers * - Crime , as well as pauperism , has a tendency to > Become hereditary . Illegitimate children in pastueolav r are apt to be neglected , and the consegjuenc © is that they form a large proportion of th & children fn gaol . The parents of criminal offspring however , are generally out of our reach ; they can only Iw influenced by slow processes , and their work of dtemontiixation mart and will go on ; but the efrildrea lie within out- power . Having sketched the history of previous reformatories , his Lordship , went on : —

      " You are aware of the main provisions of the act of 1854 , and how it assists the setting up of reformatory schools . Power is given to detain boys at such schools during five years , and to receive them at any age not above sixteen . Government pays 5 s . weekl y for the support of each , but does not , in practice , otherwise interfere . Of this act most of the English counties are availing themselves already . Nearty all , we hope , will do so . I say , nearly all , because , in some instances ^ where the number of boys is small , it may be better for more than one county to join funds and set up a school between them . The object of

      the National Reformatory Union , in connexion with this movement , is to form , as it were , a centre of action for these various local efforts ; to enable managers in different counties to compare their systems more readity ; to promote the establishment of reformatories where none yet exist ; to enable those who wish to give personal assistance in the cause to discover where their help is most required ; to assist in placing out the youths who leave reformatories ; to supply opportunities of discussing the general subject , and suggesting improvements in the methods adopted ; and , should changes in the law of reformatories be required , to press on Parliament the propriety of such changes . "

      Transportation having been almost entirely done away with , and it being apparently impossible to resort to it again , we must keep our discharged prisoners at home . The younger of these we must endeavour to reform . The reformation of adults * though not a hopeless , is an arduous and unpromising task ; but" It is ascertained that from one-third to one-half of the convicts in our prisons have belonged to the class of juvenile offenders . It is proved by a concurrence of testimony such as one rarely finds on any social question admitting of dispute , that short imprisonment—the average of all imprisonments in England is 50 days—are not reformatory in their effect , that they are seldom even deterring ; that , usually , they send back the offender more hardened than he went in . The difficulty

      is not to find witnesses on this point , but to choose them . I believe there is not a governor of a gaol , not a chaplain , not a judge , not a chairman of quarter sessions who is not here of one mind . ' To punish young offenders with short terms of imprisonment , ' says Baron Alderson , in a recent charge , ' is neither a wise nor a hnmane proceeding . ' And he quotes a table of figures prepared thirty years back by the Governor of Glasgow Bridewell , which is so conclusive that I cannot refrain from inserting it here . Of prisoners sentenced for the first time to 14 days' confinement , there returned to gaol for new offences 75 per cent . ; of those sentenced to 30 days , 60 per cent . ; 40 days , 50 ; 60 days , 40 ; 3 months , 25 ; 6 months , 10 ; 9 months , 7 £ ; 12 months , 4 ; 18 months , 1 ; 24 months , none ; although in the 10 years over which this calculation extends tho number of those

      sentenced for 21 months was 93 . It is added that prisoners who came back two or three times went on returning nt intervals for years , and that many of those committed for short periods on their first offence were afterwards transported or hanged . I select one other piece of evidence out of the blue-book of 1853 , not as the strongest , but as the first on which my eyes chanced to fall while re-examining it for this meeting . In Reading Gaol , Oct ., 1852 , it was found that out of 209 prisoners recommitted to separate confinement , 8 !) were under 17 years of age when first committed , and those 8 !) had been in prison altogether 403 times , or nearer ilvc times than four times apiece . " Tho great bulk of juvenile offenders belong to the claaB whoso criminality is the result of circumstances , not of choice : — to

      " There remains a class , I admit , with regard which ono cannot speak with bo much confidence . I moan tho class , met with both among adults and youug persons , in whom tho tendency to commit criminal wjt » appoaTS to arise rather out of a morbid notion of tlio mind than out of any oxtornal compelling cnusi ' . Kyen in these less hopeful cases tho morbid tendency oltou appears to bo connected with tho physical organization , and disappears or diminishes under tho combined in 1 " - onces of example , of teaching , nml of healthy hoiiuy training . On that last chnnco I don ' t , dwell , though ft good deal might bo said touching tho connexion ol » otno forms of criminality with unnoticed corobnil di . wu . su ; i am content to acknowledge tho fact that in certain m-Htancus tho propenuity to crime appears duo to orgnni ^ tion and not to social accidents ; all 1 contend for M first , that this class forms n minority , anil probably <

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 23, 1856, page 2, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23081856/page/2/