The explanation given by Mr. Bruce on Friday in the
case of the man Maw, flogged in Newcastle Jail by order of Mr. Green- well, puts a different aspect on the affair. George Maw has been repeatedly sentenced for acts of violence, refused to obey prison rules, dangerously assaulted a warder, and also assaulted a prisoner who interfered. The magistrate, aware that such assaults if un- punished destroy discipline, ordered him twenty-four lashes, and Mr. Bruce cannot say he used his discretion with undue severity. Neither, in this new view of the facts, can we, but one thing is quite clear. No sentence like this, a sentence legal only inside a jail, should be inflicted by a single magistrate, on evidence so dis- trusted by the public as that of warders. Discipline is important, but its mainstay is the popular confidence in its exact though rigid justice.
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