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WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE CONVICTS? [From the Times, February 17.]

Again the old question, what is to be done with our convicts ? It is one of those -endless puzzles which admit only of ..mn. approximate solution. Whatever difficulties we surmount one year, the unforseen changes which- next year will bring forth are sure to leave us as embarrassed as ever. The year 1949 will see a Lord Campbell introducing a bill for the better disposal of convicted pickpockets, a Lord Stanley recommending reformatory piisons, and a Lord Grey colonial probation. If the unpaid magistracy shall then be in existence, it will still show a holy jealousy for the powers committed to the provincial Rhadamainhus. Vice will still cast- its seed, and that seed, will still germinate^antd bxmg fortlf ! first the plant, then the leaf, then the bud; then the flower. Temptations will' probably ' have increased. There will be sheep, and hen coops, and larders, and pockets and purses; and desks, and cash in various forms, and shops and warehouses. Human nature will still feel a natural antipathy to -very hard work. It will still be very unpleasant to some constitutions to dig or to follow the plough twelve hours out of twenty-four. It is. at least quite certain that the pressnt year resembles the last in these important particulars,, as- the last year did that' before it. There is no gentleman that has attained, to the age -of experience but will find, matters much the same as: they were when he attained the age of discretion. One country is much like the other in these respects. England founds colonies of convicts,' and sows a whole hemisphere with crime. France is revolutionized by her forcats at home. In the United States roguery is. held in solution, and every man must take care of himself; but, if tiavellers tell us truth, the noxious ingredient is produced in no less abundance than in the Old World. This is preferable certainly to the old Tudor practice of hanging rogues apace at the rate of two thousand a year. But the difficulty is everywhere the same. An historical and ethnological museum of penal devices would form an instructive commentary on thr awful record of the first criminal process. Gallows, pillories,, fetters, gyves, collars, brands, knives, scou,rgj?s^ hemp- mallets, siQnVhamTners, galleys, mines, and treadwheels, woufd supply an armoury in which Tisiphone herself might revel ,witlkjie-~ light, and where the moralist would be sorelypuzzled to* choose the least ineffectual weapon of correction. Every year makes, or pretends to make, seme discovery on the subject. The present > discovery, if we are to believe Lords Campbell and Grey, is that the last fresh experiment, viz., colonial exile y is a failure. The young gentlemen and ladies of irregular hibit3 whom we have attempted to set right, and then introduced to colonial society, for change of moral air, do in the colonies very muck what they did at home. They remain iq the' towns and ports such as they are. The same tastes and calculations which induced them to prefer Piccadilly to the provinces, and St. Giles* to the Lincolnshire fens, determine their colonial position. They have no taste either for solitude or for service, and if v the,y,, can pick up half a living in the crowd, they * like it better than abundance of victuals in the log hut of an industrious but austere master. So it will not do to part with all . control over them. Lord Grey is now of ppi- " nion that the convicts should not now be sent to the colonies in a state of entire freedom, . but as convicts enjoying what are termed tickets-tof-leave. Undei such a, system, be | says, there will exist a power to remove trans- ! ported convicts from towns, where, they^ may v be exposed' to the temptation of bad company, or of easy access to" public houses, : and to compel them to Reside in remote districts, where the population is scattered, where they will not be exposed to the contamination' of bad company, "and where their labour will be most useful. - Such a scheme supposes that it is possible to effect a considerable reformation of manners among those unhappy persons during their residence in our penitentiaries at home. These buildings, as well «s the hulks, are to be made manufactories of backswoodsmen, or schools for colonial cadets. The young gentleman whose fortunes or predilections direct • him to future conflicts with the Sikhs, wilt proceed to Sandhurst ; his brother, less bellicose, but equally smitten with the glories' and. luxuries of that glowing clime, will go with his portmanteau full of Algebra and Hindostanee to the College of Hayleybury ; the little urchin who has intercepted the said portmanteau and converted its contents into ready money will.be conveyed gratis to another excellent institution, conducted on ths most ehr : lightened and beottwbp.t principle, wktw.hi *-

will be treated as oftt of the family, and aVa cott which wouW maintain a Dorsetshire laooarer^and hU whole family in comparative affluenlce. He Will thetrb'e duly trained in the accomplishments necessary for Colonial distinction, and' will receive from good masters lessons in agriculture and the sister arts. As soon as he has passed the required ordeal, he will be carried .at the expense of his grateful country to those delightful shores which are Zealously and conscientiously described to our honest labourers as 'the only land of promise in their reach. He 1 will there' be kept in an easy-sort of pupilage, somewhat akin to that which is exercised over a gentleman of fortune from the age of eighteen to twenty-oife, preparatory to the entire liberty - be must shortly enjoy. The interesting ward of our Colonial Chancery will be placed under kind and judicious advisers, who will exercise a gentle control over his movements and society. As soon as lie shall appear competent to act for himself, he will be set at liberty, with a much better chance of his making his fortune than, the vast of his unconvicted* countrymen at hbraeV The process of moral improvement and colon iai instruction is to be carefully graduated. Every convict sentenced to seven years' transportation, or longer, if found strong and healthy, is to -be prepared for the service. In the first place he will- be sent to some place of reformatory discipline, such as that at Wakefield or at Peotonville, where he will enjoy alternate solitude and society, as the state of his mind or morals may require. After perhaps a year of this treatment, he will be transferred to an establishment where he will labour in association — as, for example, at Gibraltar or Bermuda. We are promised that in these places we shall make something by his labour ; though as that labour will be spent iv fortifications, we can scarcely hope to see it contributing to the national revenue. After a sufficient- term of good conduct, he is to be sent to New South Wales, the Cape of Good Hope, or some other equally favoured colony. He will be located as iar from the world of crime and his congenial associates as the limits of the settlement will allow, and encouraged to duty by the hope of a conditional pardon. But besides good conduct, he is to be called on for a more substantial proof of his amendment in the shape of £15, or thereabouts, as the price of his freedom. This sum, however, is not; like his labour at Bermuda, to come to the Treasury. It will be thrown injo the emigration fupd, to compensate the colony Tor the disagreeables of our young friend's uninvited presence among them. Lord Grey informs us that some of the colonists at the Cape of Good Hope are so stupid, or so ungrateful", as not to enter very cordially into these prospective arrangements ; but as we hay« already inflicted upon them a bloody and ruinous war, his Lordship argues that they cannot justly complain of being called on to help us out of this difficulty. Not to wait for the effect of his arguments, which may pos>ibly he adverse, he has already ordered 250 convicts to be sent from Bermuda to the Cape, leaving their quarters at Bermuda vacant for a fresh supply. What sort of a welcome the colonists will give to this pleasing importation it matters but little. They will feel the visitation before they can beg off; for the Colonial-office castigntqve auditque. For our own part we can only wish them well. If England can be purified at the expense of her colonies, she will only be using them much as the metropolis uses the Thames. Could the Thames speak, it would doubtless complain. The Rhine washes Cologne, but what, asked the poet, will ever wash the Rhine ? and it we send iuto our colonies the moral dirt of this country, what is there to. purify the colonies ? ' r

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Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZSCSG18490725.2.5

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume v, Issue 415, 25 July 1849, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,482

WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE CONVICTS? [From the Times, February 17.] New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume v, Issue 415, 25 July 1849, Page 2

WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE CONVICTS? [From the Times, February 17.] New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume v, Issue 415, 25 July 1849, Page 2

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