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254 THE TREATMENT OF FEMALE CONVICTS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Nine The Royal Year Assent S Have . Now ...
attention . We may indeed have visited them , and under the _^ apparent order and disciline rnay have noticed indications
which to the experienced p eye have excited grave suspicions that all was not as satisfactory as it seemed . We may have
felt a painful astonishment when we learnt that the elder sister of one of our scholars had but recently emerged from her
confinement in those dreaded abodes , when she again received a sentence of penal servitude . We may have heard the cry of
wild despair which she uttered , when looking forward , bereft of all hopeto her long sojourn there . But we knew nothing
more than , such indications afforded us . The last two years , however , have unlocked the secrets of the
prison house , and revealed some of the results of the system adop The ted town there of . Liverpool presents us with very striking and
definite information on this subject . The Report of the Governor of the _Boro' Gaol , presented to the Mayor , Recorder , and
Magistrates of Liverpool on Nov _~ . 3 , 1862 , gives us the following appalling facts respecting the state of female crimeas indicated
by the Gaol statistics . The total number of commitments , of female prisoners during the year ending with Sept . 30 th , 1862 ,
was 4440 adults and 78 juveniles . " The number of persons committed last year" he adds " are more than have been
committed during any , year since , we have occupied this prison , t the year 1857 . " * * * " Up to the 18 th of August
last excep the numbers of cells on both sides of the prison were sufficient , for the separate confinement of all prisoners in custody
prison here , and have for con all tinued the past sufficient year the for cells the male on the prisoners male side ; but of the on
the before-mentioned day , and for several days afterwards , the number of female prisoners became greater than the number of
cells on that side of the prison ; so that I have been occasionally compelled to place two women together in such a number of .
cells as the excess of numbers required . " The excess of adult females committed over the preceding decrease year in the , he tells us , of is no 5
less indicating than * 712 the , while continued there good is a effect of reformatories juveniles , without which as in former timesthe juvenile convictions would
probably have shown even , a more rapid increase than the adults . u The number of adult females , who were committed
here last year , " he adds , exceeded the number of adult males proportion by Such 21 facts , viz . deserve , of 4440 femal adult careful e commitm females consideration ents against to , mal and 4419 e especiall throug adult hout y males as the the . "
that kingdom of males does , certainl not general y not ly one exceed -half , , we while believe here , in one Liverpool -third of
there is not only a great increase over former years , but the *
254 The Treatment Of Female Convicts.
254 THE TREATMENT OF FEMALE CONVICTS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1863, page 254, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121863/page/38/
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