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that we are provoking these retributions . Bad education , ignorance , and habitual recklessness led to the fatal exp losion in the Cymmer Colliery , where the coroner ' s inquest has at last roused the indignant attention even . of the colliery ^ tself . They know that they are mni'dered bythe * o » - pidity of masters , the negligence of overlooked , and the general indifference tffaill . The same cause , ^ e ne ^ e * to&signals , * iWwwgh bloodshed might be'the consequence , has wadded another frightful accident to the long list of railway murders , the last happening at the Stonr
Valley line . It is not that our penal law is so lenient . On the contrary , it has just now a fit of severity upon it . At Liverpool Assizes , while James Bracken has been convicted of " manslaughter , " his brother Audrey has been sentenced to be hanged for " murder . " The two , when intoxicated , provoked a row , and killed a man in a Lancashire fight . The up-and-down fight of the county is unmanly and brutal ; but it is a new thing to hang men for murder 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 conimitted 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 teaspoonful might kill an adult . '' Jane Newton , it appears , asked for mercury to destroy vermin ,
Tnaercury not being considered a poison by lg"norant people ; and without her knowing it , the lad gave her the poison , which reached her husband . Here is plenty of igrnor&iice , but , more than anything , a proof * that stricter regulations should contr ^ the sal e of drugs , and especially of jgm&a . '" " ""^ " ^ The press itself is fallible , and has been committing offences . It lately killed Lord Djbum-, l * AJiKiG ; 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 . " Jambs Aytoum , " assuming the writer to be the well-known " Professor Aytotjn , " whose Christian name is " William E » monstotjne . " This mischance shows that any other editor who is " out of town" is exactly equivalent to an editor of the Times when he is not out of town . The false reports , wo suspect , are a fraud < traceable to the crimes of poverty , among a class often improvident , but seldom so treacherous to its great patron , the press .
How much of all this crime and folly might be prevented if our Legislature were to do the duty which is enforced upon it , this week , by . the Reformatory Union ! A good quarter of our criminal population might be withdrawn and restored to orderly society , uncontaminated , if the Reformatory , were suffered to do its work . Tho isolated efforts , of philanthropists , law reformers , and pri { son-reformers , have been brought . together in thd Union ; tho conference just held at Bristol will give a new impulse to tho movement ; and wq ahallbe rible to show , next wcok , still more distinctly ; tho . w » ults of this important meeting . i
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Iron Lighth ouse VOr thus Bahamas . —There is at present on view at Mes 8 rfl . H . and M . Griasoll ' a ironflprorke , Now North-road ; Hwtton , a remarkable apecimon / O ^ ronyrork , viz ., , » lighthouse * rhioh has been constr ucted for oroctfou ftt Groftt St-ilwiac , i » tho Bahama , Juwanuu .
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THE N ^ TIOIML -BEFORMATOKY UNIOST . A three Jipys' conference of the friends of this institution ^ w raraenced on Wednesday afternoon at Bristol , j a * , the Hall of the Society of Merchant V * nturers , votehich was completely filled , Ljfitfd Stanley pr ^ tiefced , 3 iid , previous ab > his address , B *» rfdaa letter from ! Lord j ^ rougham . SJthe . President « f thetUnion , expressings | he deep regret ^ of the writer eihat he couKL not afctend . His ^ LordsMp entered infcoua few
renMHiks o »« Jthe geneiftl . queHion , pointinjgaflnt'tnat M . ^ e Mmfr and hinjuflHuQflUn were n ^ fc tife e originators - <| f'these instrtartions . ^ s 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 ^ trettonon-Dunsmore . Lord Broug ham 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 French 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 absolutelyenormous , forming , for these four years of life alone , nearly 25 per cent , of the whole . This fact is
partiallycorroborated by the census returns of 1851 , where of all the prisoners under sentence 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 was obtained by Mr . Eedgrave , from the census of 1841 . It is , indeed , a startling fact in the investigation of crime , that while the 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 time , 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 bo at large . This only wo know , that more than 11 , 000 children , a large majority of them boys , pass yearly through tho hands of justice ; with how little reformatory effect in
general , the large proportion of recommittals—nearly 4000 out of 11 , 000—ahowa plainly enough I speak with aomo hesitation when I say that , when the reformatory system comes fully into operation , I think you will not be sufficiently prepared to meet all contingencies , unless you reckon on a yearly influx of from 2000 to 3000 boys . The term of detention being at the utmost five years , but two-thirda of that time being tho avorage , you might , according to that estimate , have at one time about 10 , 000 in process of reclamation . I hope , however , I am exaggerating tho requirements of tho case . "
With respect to the possible cost of reformatories , his Lordship observed that wo ought , in considering that matter , also to consider the cost of crime : — " Wo are too apt , in dealing with such subjects , to think only of tho taxes which we pay to Government , and to forgot tho taxes which we pay to those whom it is tho object of Government to put down . It sounds almost incrodiblo , but it is on record ( I quote it , vaJeat quantum ) , that a committco appointed by tho authorities of Liverpool to investigate losses caused by theft placed thoso losses at tho sum of 700 , 000 / . Mr . Clay , of
Preston , baa assumed tho average income of a successful thief at 100 / . yearly ; and in tho case of fourteen prisoners whoso history ho investigated , ho found that besides tho loss which their depredations might have caused , the avorago cost of their apprehension , maintenance , prosecution , and punishment was 02 / . a picco . Similarly , Mr . Itushton , writing , in 1842 , to tho corporation of Liverpool , referred to tho case of fourteen priaonora , whom ho' estimated as having caused a dead 1 losa to tho community of between 2000 / . and 8000 / . Wo have hoard of gaola coating 150 / . or 200 / . per coll ; there ttro eomo which havo far exceeded this catimato . " Lord Stanley then glanced at a fruitful caueo of juYcnilo crime—bad training by brutal , drunken , or
criiranil ^ pac ents . seventy-five per cent , of the cases investigated by Mr . Clay , of Preston , the fault Of ? tbe ctohilUren lay at the door of the fathers and motbens . Crime , as well as pauperism , has a tendency tfeo ^ beoome hereditary . Illegitimate ehild ren in partiojilar , are apt to be neglected , and the consequence" is that they form a large proportion of the cliihken in gaol . The parents of criminal offspringhowever ^ are generally out of our reach ; they can onty-fteaiitfUienced by slow processes , and their work rffvMemoxalization must and will g 0 on ; but the tehildren lie within our 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 . Nearly all , we hope , will do so . I say , nearly all , because , in some instances , where the number of boys is small , it , 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 readily ; 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 Tarely finds on any social riupstion admitting of dispute , that short imprisonment—the average of all imprisonments in England is 60 days—are not reformatory in their effect , that they arc 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 humane 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 i although in the 10 years over which this calculation extends tho number of those
sentenced for 24 months was 93 . It is added that prisoners who came back two or three times wont 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 tho blue-book of 1853 , not as the strongest , but as tho first on which my oyea chanced to fall while re-examining it for this meeting . In Heading Gaol , Oct ., 1852 , it was found that out of 209 prisoners recommitted to separate confinement , 89 were under 17 years of ago when first committed , and thoso 8 'J had been in prison altogether 403 times , or nearer fivo times than four times apicco . " Tho great bulk of juvenile offenders belong to the class whoao criminality is the result of circumstances , not of choice : — t
" There remains a class , I admit , with * regard o which one cannot speak with so much confidence , menu tho class , met with both among adults and youn { , persons , in whom tho tendency to commit criminal act a appoarB to ariao rather out of a morbid action ol ma mind than out of any external compelling cau . so . I -von in thcao leas hopeful ensca tho morbid tendency oiioii appears to bo connected with tho physical organr / . uLtwi , and disappears ov diminishes under the combined niimencoH of example , of teaching , nnd of healthy l )()( lll J training . On that laut chuueo I don't dwell , " !' e" good deal might be said touching the connexion <> 1 » o « forma of criminality with unnoticod cerebral diMOumi ; am content to acknowledge tho fnct that <» <; crt " . " (| I atancos tho propensity to criino nppcara due to organ ^ tion and not to nociul accidents ; all 1 contend lor w nrat , that this clasa forma a minority , und prolmuiy
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In THE IiEADER . [ No . 335 , Saturday , 794 . i — '_
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 23, 1856, page 794, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2155/page/2/
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