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Leader (1850-1860), 10th September 1853, Edition Town of 2, Page 877

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      Untitled Article

      be a monument for Napier : it is his . due'by-the custom of the country . It is not due only to him , but to the country itself . For it is the only use to which we can now put him to make him . a standard for those that follow . ¦ .- . ' Where to put the monument P We know of no place better thaft on the very head and front of the district which constituted his last command —on the shores of England , where he would have stood so well to defend us if we had been attacked , and where his very name may be a word to remind the foe what sort of a man an Englishman may be . Nay , it appears to us that we

      owe him yet another tribute—it is to give him a worthy suceesssor . We do not mean in the Colonelcy of his regiment—a post of command , alas ! which has become half honorary , half commercial in its character—but we mean in that district which was for all its historical and political associations so well allotted to a man like Napier —the Kent Militia district . If titles do not stray to men like Napier , let not the patronage of that district stray amongst mere titled com * manders , but let some truly able man who seeks to emulate Napier ' s power as a soldier , with his devotion as a patriot , be posted on that foremost part of England amongst the English people . Let such a man be appointed—if such can be found .

      Untitled Article

      AN ENGLISH GAOL . The Birmingham Gaol is , doubtless , a good place for an offender of coarse nerves and deadened sensibilities . The active and energetic officers , by their stirring measures and unexpected inflictions , stimulate the man into a wholesome activity , and send him out of gaol well hardened and sharp set . If he add cunning to dexterity he may find himself "in clover" by an expressed affection for the " Austin party" among the gaolers ; and if he have the good sense not to get ill , or give trouble by being weak , he wins favour

      m the sight of the hurried surgeon , who dislikes delay , and of the gentle Governor , who objects on principle to invalids . But , under the late rule , Birmingham Gaol was a bad place for an old man , a high spirited boy , a sickly lad , or a poor idiot . For being too weak to work at a crank the old man was strapped up in a tight jacket , deprived of bread , rated as an old scoundrel , and tied for hours with his face to the wall . The boy was worked at the crank beyond the labour allotted to others , and if this partial punishment made him passionate , he was choked upinastiff collar , deprived of bread for hours , kept without his bed for seven nights , and driven to suicide as

      an escape . The sickly lad was worked at the crank till he fell , was strapped in the jacket until ho lay moaning on the floor of the cell , was roused from that by buckets of water , and while very sick was left in a wet cell for the whole night . The poor idiot , who jabbered sermons with a Bible in his hand , was stiffened up in the strait jacket , and when he screamed , salt was * thrust into his mouth . The collars used in the punishment of all the prisoners were of stiff

      leather , suited in sizes to the necks embraced , and capable of being tightened at tho discretion of subordinates . That they were WBtrumonts of torture , is shown strongly enough by tho many suicides of prisoners , who reared a second infliction of the punishmont . And . Lieutenant AuBtin , the Governor , now admits w » o fact . He was asked as to the " moral oflfect " ° t such punishment , and he answered : — - " It has not

      certainly answered my expectations , but has ruuie r increased the insubordination among the Pnaonors . Tho collar and jacket create pain , j" > u the former has a tendency to cause a flow of 1 > 1 <> o < 1 to tho head . " ho details of fcheao cruelties would havo but a personal application if Mr . Austin ' s conduct ore only a personal extravagance But his "uoncoB import more than his own fault . We „ ' ¦ m . - of our chief towns , in the centre of 11

      intellige nt community , an institution to which ' ,. !' ilr 9 of tho Government and tho attention tho public have been steadily directed for ninny yearn . Local justices visited tho institu' . >» and Government officers inspected itsopera-¦ jf > l > - Yet gross abuses existed in it for yearn . Vai viiifr for aniomont the pevaonal cruelty of the P' » MaInnontH inflicted , wo find that these " punisliv ll ( - . ! we ,. illegal ; were unauthoriHod by tJl 0 iHiUufir justices , and were in contravention of 10 prison regulations . Under sedative

      Captain Maconochie , as under severe Mr . Austin , illegal punishments were systematically inflicted . If this be tolerated — if our prisons are allowed to become institutions governed according to the peculiar crotchets—kind or cruel , j udicious or unwise—rof respective governors , all bur imperial law and our national system for preventing crime are set utterly at naught . The ease with which English systems may be broken has facilitated the pernicious practice of individual authority . There is in fact no English system of gaol rule . One gaol is worked without

      reference to the experience of another , and the separate systems of separate counties are kept as much apart as if they were worked in different countries . To collate the experiences of all our English gaols would not be a difficult task , but it is left undone . To compare the curious records of the varying effects of various punishments on different minds would be of obvious use , and could be easily effected , yet it is left undone . Punishment is administered by

      quack doctors , each in his own way , and no attempt is made to raise the practice from empiricism to science . ; Captain Maconochie wishes to manage his convicts in a gentle and efficacious way ; perhaps he has not the practical ability to make his ideas work ; and at any rate they still lack honest application or scientific test . Other gaol ' rulers carry out personal theories , ascending in degree of severity from the mildness of Maconochie to the harshness of Austin . But which

      is the best no general inquiry has yet tested , and no systematic supervision has lighted the way for a positive opinion . This quackery in public doings is an English vice . Our greatest industry—the working of our mines—is done bit by . bit , without any of that general record which the Austrian administration has most completely carried out . The school system of Prussia , in its complete theory and regular execution , puts to shame the utter ab-. sen ee of national education for our people . In Spain the prison system has been brought to a practice almost perfect in the Presidio of Valencia , where gentle and careful education makes of bad men good citizens . These instances of efficient administration occur in countries where

      popular spirit is dead , and men are apt to call them the fruits of despotism . But they forget the examples which the United States administration presents . The best statistical papers of the present time have been compiled by United States officials . The most efficient administration of the electric telegraph and the post-office is in America . Tho best organisation for the collection of facts in the interest of Science and for

      the improvement of Art has been constructed by that Republican . Government . Tho shortcomings wo have shown in our gaols proceed from a clumsiness in organizing a machinery dealing more with mind than with matter . This clumsiness is national—not tho result of popular power . Tho people know well the good , and would heartily aid tho working of beneficent

      administration . In nothing are they more actually interested than in the operations of our gaol system ; for a gaol is a school as well as a place of punishment . It sends out citizens to mingle with the community , as well as holds fast the few it retains for tho hulks or tho hangman , and a mere selfish instinct prompts people to look into the training of those who arc to be the close companions of their daily walk .

      Untitled Article

      A DECANTER OF WINE ON EVERY TABLE . Pour out a IIask of that bright wine , like liquid amber , into that decanter . Tho glass is eloar , and though you may have soon cut glass more diamond-like in its brilliancy , this also has a brilliancy scarcely inferior . Tho docantor is placed within the reach of tho humblest purse . By a fiscal reform tho gbvs-duties were taken oft " , and by favour of the improvements ( hat have followed , still more than the mere relief from tho impost , the manufactured jewel can now adorn evory household . The wine is bright and rich . It ih Vin Santo , a pleasant specimen of tho " partioular " winoofltaly . Or try this , in which the fixed air is rising like the sparkle of a mild champagne ; it is wine from Asti , where the pool ; AIfieri was born , —a light and pleasant wine , of which you may drink u pint or two with only a little increase to your gaiety . Or this , which you am scarcely toll in clearness or taste from tho best port , —a triflo nearer perhaps to tho grape , but still a wino upon

      which the best judges will nod approval : it is but a good sample of the anonymous wines which are a drink of the Italians—sometimes sour , but more frequently sound , and often approaching to this quality . Or this wine , if you like a sweet one : it is from Catalonia , and you may have it by the gallon . Or , again , this , a pure Bordeaux , tasting both of the pulp and the skin , a tonic and a cordial , not the sour dilution which goes by the name . It is " too new , " but you whose taste in wine is young will not dislike it the worse for that .

      Now , any of these you can drink , we will not say instead of your beer , if you like that to " sustain" you when you are hard at work — but when you want a " social glass . " At such time beer , from its heavy flavour and heavy quality , becomes a burden instead of a pastime , and mixes indifferently with conversation . There is more where this came from , and infinitely more could be made in Italy , Spain , or France . Throughout Italy the supply awaits a demand which is as yet but the dream of journalists like ourselves , who can see so far as the day after to-morrow . In the United States new wines are

      now becoming a frequent invention ; samples were shown at the New York Exposition , and samples also have been tasted with much satisfaction . But in France they are still more pressing . The Council-General of the Herault has just passed an extensive resolution , asking the Emperor of the French to revise the customs ' tariff , in order that commercial prohibitions may be abolished and replaced by milder duties , such as would permit French competition , and stimulate French industry , and would , the Council-General insinuates , induce foreign countries to take French products in , greater abundance .

      Now , nothing can be wiser in France at the present moment . Considerable waste of expense is induced by the cost of irua for railways , which renders the structure of railways much more difficult and burdensome than otherwise . It would be an immense relief to our iron producing industry if we had the advantage of another market to counteract these fluctuations ; for tho more markets you supply the more do tho fluctuations of the different markets counteract each other . But if we go to France , and ask the French to extend the principle of free-trade , they will throw wine in our teeth , and ask us how wo can have the face to call for a reduction of duties

      when even consideration for our own customer will not . induce us to give up the preposterous impost upon wine ? We charge now about 5 * . 6 d . a gallon duty ; a hundred , or two , or three hundred per cent , on the value of those wines which will have the largest sale . The consequence not only is , that the duty itself restricts the consumption , but as it enhances the price it causes the sale to be comparatively slow , and therefore it wholly excludes from our market those pleasant wines which we mentioned at first —the most vivacious , tho purest in their taste ,

      and the best suited to any popular palate . If specimens aro introduced , in order to make them keep , they are doctored with alcohol in various ways and deprived of their characteristic qualities . Wino may be sold to tho Englishman , duty included , at a shilling or two per bottle — ( food wino , not tho poison ho called ; but while the reduction of duty has placed within tho reach of tho humblest person the decanter of tolerable brilliancy , the wine to put into it is held back by an exorbitant duty , which disgraces the tariff after it has been simplified by Peel , by Wood , and by Gladstone .

      Untitled Article

      T IT E G O V E It NIN G C L ASS K S . NO . n . —TITK EA . RL OF AUKItDKHW . Tub Earl of Aberdeen is Premier of England . Yet not ono thousand of hi-s countrymen know him by night in or out of London . That fact in a comment upon tho governmental Hy . sfam of Great . JKritaiu . The peoplo of Grcut Hritnin aro utterly ignorant even of tho character of their first Minintor . In no

      boiiko ia ho ii popular man . There- i « not an lmtauco of his being caricatured : and not to bo caricatured i « to l ) o u failure in thin country . Not ; a Haying of his i » in vogue : not ; a n )> m'h of hi * i « ntmemberud : not ; n despatch of his lives . " l » io llSf ' !< lln vvas ^ tfiu'ded aa n Tory ; in 1853 he in believed to bo tho Chief of rather n liberal administration : but , tho enlightened count ry is in doubt . Haifa century in public life , Lord Abcr-

      Untitled Article

      September 10 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 877 __ — " . ' . " . ' . . . ¦ . ' '¦ ' ¦ ' - ..., •¦ ¦ - - .. . i -

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 10, 1853, page 877, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2003/page/13/