We concur in the following remarks of the Globe of
last night On the opposition in the House of Lords to the Scotch Prisons Bill— an opposition which, we fear, will be fatal to a good and necessary measure.
"We refer to the bill for establishing an enlightened system of penal disci. Vine in Scotland, and for closing for ever those dens of filth and corruption DOW existing in that country under the name of prisons. No one attempted to deny the magnitude of the present evils ; and nothing deserving the name of argument was offered against the remedy proposed. Nevertheless a blow was last night struck at this bill, from which there can be no hope of its recovering, at leaat for a considerable rime. The immediate object, indeed, of the hostile motion was not accomplished, but it was lost by a narrow majority only, and a mingle summons to the absent partisans of Opposition would be quite sufficient to insure the defeat of the bill if it should be carried to another stage. " The chief ground taken by those who did not, like Lord Wharneliffi, ex- press uncompromising hostility, was the lateness of the period of the session when this bill was brought from the House of Commons. We confess, how. ever, that we attach but little value to this objection, and do not augur any more favourable result if the measure should be brought forward next time even at the very beginning of the session. The subject is not a new one : it has been dis- cussed and repotted upon over and over again, and the present plan of remedy has been before the country during two sessions of Parliament. It is well known that few Members of either House of Parliament apply themselves seriously to any question of legislation until the very eve of decision ; and we have great doubts, therefore, whether any one opponent to the present bill will give up a single day duriog the whole recess to the examination of the evidence and arguments on which that bill is founded. Moreover, as an interval of a year and a alif must, by the very provisions of the bill, have intervened before the act could come into full operation, ample opportunity would have existed for altering as matters of detail.
" Bet of all objections that were made to this bill last night, the leastCred it able was that relating to the assessment. Owing to the assistance tendered by Government, and yet more to the general economy of the plan proposed, the whole amount of the assessment for prison expenses of every kind—buildine, salaries, maintenance of prisoners, cost of conveyance, and all—was oory 30,000/. per annum for the whole of Scotland ; a sum which, during the ea. tire term of ten years during which the act was to last, would have amounted to only once anti a half what in England has lately been expended in buildiag a single prison for a single county ! And until the minute apportionment of this trifling assessment can be distributed on hair-breadth principles of equity, are life and property to remain insecure, and the thoughtlers youth, or the person really innocent of the offence with which he is charged. to be thrust into a moral pest-house, and condemned to certain ruin ? We re. fleet with the deepest melancholy and commiseration on the number of corona. ratively innocent creatures' who, during the single year for which at least the remedy is withheld, will become contaminated—irreparably contaminated.- with crime."
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