COLONIES AND CONVICTS. From the Illustrated London News.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 413, 30 March 1850, Page 4

COLONIES AND CONVICTS. From the Illustrated London News.

In justice to the colonies— in justice to our deserving poor — in justice to the cause of truth and virtue— and in justice to our»flve», the punishment and reformation of our criminals ought to be tried at home. It may be difficult to puuish and reform at the same time, hut it ought not to be considered impossible ; ond as the difficulty is of our own making— the fruti of eocial circumstances, for which we, and not our colonies are responsible— -we have no right to delegate the charge. To diminish crime is a more agreeable and a more sacred duty than to puuish it ; but hitherto, our efforts hare been almost exclusively employed in the tnore vulgar and lazy task of the two. We have national establishments — prison", penitentiaries, and hulks; ire have armiet of policemen, and a multitudinous array of people, from judges down to gaolers, solely employed on behalf of the nation in punishing crime; but we have, as jet, no national establishment for preventing it. While it has been proved, till the proof has become a truis«\», that nine-tenths of our crimnais are persons who have received neither secnlar nor religious instructions, we have taken no efficient means to place the next generation in better circumeUnces. We have neglected the children of the destitute, and kept up judges, policemen, and gaolers forrepiession, when schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and religious as well as secular instructors, were equally accessary for prevention. This is, in reality, the great task before us; ami the better and more completely we perform it, the less ttoubleeome and difficult will become the proper treatment of our convicts. Let us deoninish the supplies of crime, and strive to render the number of grown up criminals so inconsiiletable a* to be easily manageable at home. Thii is a plan that, auCionally we have never ttide. Local charity and individual berj«*olence have done something in the manner indicted, but nothing to be compared with our necessities. Until we take it up on this broad basin, our convict system will nlwsys be embarrassing— whether we attempt to !>h are the responsibility with our colonies, or wether, in stric'er justice, we endeavour to bear it a 4 home. But when a new generation chall cease to be encumbered with so large a number of utt«i ly ignorant and utterly destitute youth as at prr «ent spring op yearly iti'o maturity there will be no longer *ny large difficulties in the trea'm?nt, the maintein•ace, and the frformalioQ of old offenders. In that ease, we shall not have to speculate upon revolt in a colony, or upon disaster at home, as the consequensc of «ny iysfem with respect to them which it shall be deemed advisable to establish. By our present neglect, we tsist between both danger*.

A Royax Teetotaller— Oscar, King of Sw<<slen, accompanied by his Queen, attended personalyja grand temperance meeting, held recently in Stockholm, and frees me himself 60 impressed with the importance of abolishing intemperance in his dominions, that, besides giving in hit adhesion, and that of the Queen, to the principal and practice of the temperence societies, he offered fuli pecuniary compensation 1 : o all distillers of of ardent spirits who would case mnufacturing afcoholio drinks, w&icb wai accepted by many,— Watchman, Stptemtiet 5.