A DUNEDINITE IN VICTORIA.

Evening Star, Issue 3177, 26 April 1873, Page 3

A DUNEDINITE IN VICTORIA.

Judge Fellows has astonished thinking 1 people by awarding only throe months’ imprisonment to three follows who robbed a mine at Sandhurst, they being at the time servants of the owners of the mine. Shortly after this sentence, he sentenced a man to seven years’ imprisonment for stealing a watch. The Argus argues that this severe sentence was given because the watch stealer had been many times previously convicted, and that therefore seven years was not too long a time to separate him from the public. This is all very well; but let justice of this kind be dealt out equally to all. A man who lately killed a fellow-being was merely imprisoned ; and being merely imprisoned he is still liable to kill a fellowbeing in the shape of a gaol warder, whereas if he were hanged he could not kill anybody. If the safety of the public, and not the wellbeing of the criminal, Jg to bo our guide, a murderer should certainly he hung, fop the only other alternative is solitary confinement, and that is provocative of lunacy; and I have yet to learn that while punishing guilt we are justified in creating lunacy. lam sadly afraid that, consciously or unconsciously, the judges, the prison authorities, and the lunatic asylum keepers all, more or leas, play into each other’s hands—the prison being merely preparatory to the madhouse, and sometimes, by a law of just retribution, vu-e versa. A man who killed a man was racre’y imprisoned by Judge Fellows; b\it a man who dangerously wounded, but did rot kill, a follow-being was actually hung in the city even where lam now residing. It seems that in the opinion of Judge Fellows the man who killed another did not mean to kill him. What was intended for a wound, given in self-defence, proved fatal. But the hanged man, in the opinion of our new Judge, did intend to kill his victim, although he did not do srf; consequently he is punished for this murderous intent, not for the result. In the domestic circle these doctrines would be admirable—nay, are admirable; but there, line arc a thousand other reformatory influences, and it is consequently very often hotter to punish a child for motives than for results. But in the. broad adult world, where it is so often foolish to seek for motives—simply because, philosophically considered, all crime is lunacy, and therefore motiveless though not causeless (he sure to distinguish between a cause and a motive) —the best guide is results. It is correct in the long run. L would almost be inclined to conclude that results are an unexceptionally correct guide for punishment. “Thou shall do no murder,” is surely plain enough. Are we to ask why he or she did the murder ? Did not lie or slie know that when he or she is in a quarrelsome humour no deadly instrument should be grasped ? Did not the man who murdered his fellow know well, although ignorant of surgery, that ho was liable to cut a vital part when he hurt his victim on the calf of the leg ? Yet Judge Fellows says his motive was merely to disable the man. Where did the Judge learn this dictum ? Who taught him to road thought? This is guesswork with a vengeance ; but unfortunately the vengeance falls heaviest on public morality. I may also guess that the murderer knew well the sitp of thp femoral artery, the putting of winch caused death. If we are to begin with “guesses at truth,” what is sauce for the goose i« sauce for the gamier. Fut with results, all this vague, theoretical, metaphysical verbiage goes for nothing. “You took a life—the law says that your life must bn taken as a warning to the would-be life-taker,” Here is plain counsel, that he who runs may read. The Bishop of Melbourne lately stated that many of the Church of England clergymen in his diocese were iu a state verging on actual starvation, and “ Anglica,” in the Age, very justly, I think, points out one cause, namely, that when the Church of England erects a church, it always proceeds onlhe estimate that ail the people in its neighborhood are Church of England people —a piece of blind presumption that must lead to bankruptcy and all its numerous evils.

The weather is now fine. Lately it was insufferably hot. lam getting quite used to the bugs ; I really don’t know but that 1 love thorn. I will quite miss them when I find myself in Dunedin. In commemoration 1 think I will buy a buggy.

(To he continued.)