3 NOVEMBER 1855, Page 11

TREATMENT OF THE CONVICT BANKERS.

TEE announcement of the conviction and sentence of the three bank- ers at the Central Criminal Court, on Saturday, startled the town. " But will the sentence be carried out P will it not be commuted ? " The question is suggested not only by the current idea that persons so well connected must find some favour, but still more perhaps from the difficulty which the mind naturally feels in associating the habitual condition of men like baronets and bankers with the cos- tume, condition, and daily life of a convict. Not less also, per- haps, from the difficulty of completing the idea that men in the position of a Sir John Dean Paul can enter into courses which in- volve conviction and consignment to a convict prison. In a simple

view, the very turpitude of the course adopted in the house "near Temple Bar" is scarcely made apparent to the mind, until we sub- stantiate the fact that it is of a kind which puts the offender in a prison-costume and classes him with thieves and other malefactors. It is scarcely possible to suppose that a West- end dignitary and a magnate ,of the trading world can go

to lengths like that; and we stop to see if there is not some qualifying circumstance, some peculiarity proper to titled person-

ages and monied men, calculated to draw distinction between them and ordinary criminals. If we look to the evidence, we see that there is no such distinction. The Jury found none, the Judge found none, and the Executive Ministers will find none. They could not at this stage introduce a distinction, because it would blast the character of any Minister who:should show favour on personal grounds; and on public grounds any kind of mitigation in favour of these men would be a proclamation that there is a conventional licence for practices such as they have arced. For there can be no idea here -of revenge. Bitter as the feelings of individuals may be, sweet as the knowledge that the offenders will undergo some pain in veturn for that -which they have inflicted, the Government and those who •adjudged them to punishment did not act on principles of retribution, but for the sake of example ; which in a public sense is the only purpose-of punish- ment. That the sentence will be carried out we are convinced • although literally the law permits almost any kind of mitigation. The Crown claims, and has long exercised, .an -unbounded power of remitting or lessening punishments -by pardon. But trans- portation cannot be commuted into penal servitude by the Crown, though it could by sentence of the Court. The Crown, however, could let out the convict hankers upon a licence or ticket-of-leave, and this could be done tomorrow, according to the letter of the law. That it will be done, no one expects ; but the precise rule of practice is uncertain. The Home Office has -established for its own guidance and that of the prison-authorities the scale of pe- riods at which tiokets-of-leave are to be granted, supposing the conduct of the prisoner not to stand in the way of the indulgence ; but it has not published the scale, and we only learn it bit by bit in the Prison Reports, in returns to Parliament, and in such communications as Colonel Jebb's recent letter in the newspapers. What number of years will have to be passed by the bankers in imprisonment, (supposing them not to be trans- ported,) before, under the regulations, they will be eligible for a ticket-of-leave, we do not know.

The very obscurity of this last question confirms our -opinion that the whole subject demands a public investigation. This new point might be settled in a summary fashion. When Parliament meets, one of the first things that ought to be done is to move for a set of returns which will open the secrets of that adytum the Home Office : it will then be found, probably, that regulations ap- plicable to penal servitude exist, although they have not yet been applied, because penal servitude began too recently. There can be no -virtue in mystery. The moral effect upon pri- soners will not be the greater because the public is kept in the dark as to the rules applicable to convicts; but the rules them- selves may be worse in proportion as they are shielded from pub- lic opinion. The returns ought to be given forthwith. The larger investigation into the actual arrangements, praotioe, and possible amendment of the system of penal servitude, is an ulterior and a still more important subject. On that point we do not desire to collect suffrages yet ; we did not urge a Commission in order to enforce conclusions at which we have -arrived already, but in order to collect the data, and to present the conclusions arising from the evidence.