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HOME PUNISHMENT, NOT TRANSPORTATION. TBANSP4TATION Will Coble before Parliameut, at least, with this HOME PUNISHMENT, NOT TRANSPORTATION. TBANSP4TATION Will Coble before Parliameut, at least, with this
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kind of Progress in the discussion, that it is absolutely condemned. It stood under a tolerable load of denameiationAefore, but now Mr. Adderley may be said to have ,knoeked awar the last of Sir George Grey's props apologetic; -and thefOditiott4f transportation is as probe/ions as that of WestitilitiliteiVi-an opprobrium and reproach to those who procrastinate In:The &uty of, removing it. Lord"Gtey indeed, as we learn byllie laslIW'boale just out, continues -0 write letters to Sir William; Deiliaen„,en the sending of eonvicts,to VanDiemen's Land, justoalif,thespatem were eter- nal ; indeed he talks of renewingbasSignmehtl) Btifk),Lord Grey is not within the pale of acconntabilittimantRfe suppose he must he allowed to write.'lait,tbebeisei,4, ,,i_,,iii111"{Y he stops in office. 'To other minds, f.ransperkt11•,,,'xt,4w, pronounced to be bad' in every possible view and le.,cotlerist possible place— in the Polries, in the Mother-Agin:4170414 ,lbetWeeir . the two. In the Colonies, it is .bactsocially and politieally,e; i foiefourteen years it has lain Under the distinet ban, of a Parliamentary Coiaclemna- lion, in the report of Sir William Moleswortfliff,41ittee ; what- ever diaputca, there may have beeko'AINXidegkee's !mid special facts, the depraving influence' liaa, been -n4p;utted; practically by the conduct both of the Ooverzunent, in ilisconOntiimrthe prac- tice, tr tit tice and of ' the Convict . Colonies, in resistin utile vacillating attempt to revive it ; in spite of thea hi r lenial, that dis- oontinuauee admitted the -charge Ng ''' "Acf.,'' Was depraving society 'tee shockingly ' 0: ...go :ciii. „ ' tip , , ,cagyt,Abi effects have been felt and confessed in the ,embarrassmente::shown by the authors of the Protean Australian Coloniea Bill,\ who to make a "free" constitution were :.'foreed to "evedel as they best (4til could the element of. convictism. But'iittiwortt: political effect has been. seen when Ministers attempletti"tiOV - "se the bur- den, and provoked rebellion by' the 'attempt. ' t is the obsti- nate adhesion to a remnant of conxictismovbieli raised the anti- convict cry of " independence " in Australia. Thus, in adher- ing to n Condemned instittitio4 Ministers have inclined the odium of trying to deprave the lonies and" of Submitting 'to suc- ceSsful resistance—a bad example all round. At last, when they had thrown themselves on their backs with the plea of help- lessness, crying, , "'What are we to do with„.our criminals?" Mr. Adderley 'brings forward his ,thoiongh Riqf that the plea is idle : with a painstaking that - tho,.3wr c excuse scarce- ly merited, he has established the .tiio .,irre viable answers— that if Ministers governed the country properly they need not have so Many criminals upon theirhamls, and that the remainder amount of oia,1 primate's can be wellicliSposed of if there be a suffi- cient administration of the criminal law. The Whole structure of apologies and excuses is crushed and swept aiveY by the over- whelming march of the facts ;. and we do not see what Ministers can fall back upon; Unless it' be the supine subserviency of Par-
'liament. .
But the marl of facts will be too inexorable evert for that : the future has its facts as well as the past: '
Rulers and legislators, therefcire, may prepare their souls for the inevitable work, which, deferred as itmay be, must come at last— the revision of -the whole system of secondary punishments. If they have so many :criminals to deal with; it is their own fault ; and they had better bestir themselves in 'that preliniininy classi- fication Which shall, as it were, winnow the mass, and thus reduce the criminal burden to its true amount.
Mr. Adderley: spends a few words in advocating the revival, if not the extension, of corporal punishnients;. Which he defends against a "morbid sentimentality utterly unplillosophical and practically mischievous" ' . This is not the strong part of his argument. " Corporal punishments" is a phrase that means flogging ; and the objection to that is not 10 severity, but its disgusting character when it is severe, which renders the infliction loathsome and so opprobrious to the inflicter, and its burlesque brutality when it is not severe, which involves the inflicter in an exhibition of questionable decency. The writer makes no proper distinction between a Wholesome and an unwhole- some shame, and he Scarcely appreciates the effect of a reformatory peocess, not only 'Upon the reformed criminal; but also as an ex- ample upon the active criminal. The useful tendency of this dis- cuitsion is, to correct the disposition' to treat criminals under re- formation as Hindoo nobles treat poet Brahmins—with a course of luxury, good living, refined conversation, and superior lodging. Certainly that is not a wholesome discipline which consists in
giving Benjamin's mess to the picked felon. -
Severity forms no objection to the treatment of a criminal, so that it be just, and leave one issue open for 'repentance and re- forthation. All that is necessary- to protect society against the one criminal, and beyond that all that is` feasible ieniaknig him an .example to his fellows, maybe enforced most 'ignitinsly without exceeding the bounds of justice : really criminal. . conduct, which invades society and carries invasion to the test of, detection, posi- tivelyinvites that just rigour. Detain the culprit, put him to any 'that you can as an exantple, make hini support himself or libIg".,to' do so—the very work 'will be a 'wholesome discipline; uSenitifiii:the rough work of the 'society 'Which he has outraged —that very work too will be the most striking of examples to
that class which endeavours to live dishonestly urn society and to evade free industry : in doing these things with just rigour you will make punishment uneostly, because self-supporting or self-compensating, reformatory to the prisoner, exemplary to the active culprit without, effective in the ,protectien of society—the reverse of transportation in all these respects.
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