Mr. Charles Pearson, the City Solicitor, having business to transact
at the Mansionhouse on Monday, the Lord Mayor took occasion to address him on the prevailing topic of crime and criminals. "What is to be done, Mr. Pearson ? " asked his Lordship. The City Solicitor answered by rearmmending his old plan for the treatment of offenders—a sound system of prison discipline; harder work for culprits, harder fare, less sumptuous lodgings—not "splendid prison palaces," with excellent food, clothes, and bedding. "It is bad legislation that has made criminals what they are; by itsinfluence they have graduated from trilling offences to the gravest crimes ; and such will ever be the case unless you provide industrial prisons in which they may be inured to labour, and never discharged until they have acquired fixed habits of industry, proving that they can and will maintain themselves." The Lord Mayor—" I wish Mr. Pearson would put his opinions upon paper, and I would forward them to her Majesty's Government. I should like to have the subject publicly discussed. What say you, Mr. Pearson ? "
Mr. Pearson—" The present Government is unteachable and untractablo on tins subject. Seven years ago, Sir George Grey promised that my system of prison discipline should have a thorough investigation and a fair trial ; and nothing has been done that I am aware of towards the fulfilment of the promise. It is the press and the public to whom I will next make my appeal." In obedience to his Lordship, Mr. Pearson would prepare a detailed statement,'and attend a public meeting if the Lord Mayor would call one. On the same day, at Guildhall, Sir Peter Laurie said he had found on inquiry that forty-three ticket-of-leave men had been tried at the Central Criminal Court, and only six of the number acquitted. He objected to the liberation of such men. He had put the question openly to Mr. Milnes, Mr. Hill, and other advocates of the stern ; but he found none of them willing to take these men into their service to complete the reformation commenced under the auspices of the Chaplains of the different gaols.
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