South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2506, 1 April 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1881.

For some time past the colony has been threatenedjwith a Prisons Bill. It raises its head like a spectre as each successive session of Parliament approaches. Hitherto it has owed its existence to rumor, but there is reason to believe that “the wish is parent to the thought,” and that unless the people and' their representatives are on the alert, rumor will take a definite shape. It is stated that a Prisons Bill is now being prepared, under the previsions of which the prisons of the colony are to be renovated and revolutionized. Visiting justices are to be f abolished, the control of prisons is toj be vested entirely in the Inspector and: his gaolers, the performance of public! works by prisoners is to give way toj oakum picking and instruments of torture, and the Lyttelton Gaol is to be made a central prison for the re-j ception of long sentenced and desperate criminals. This may be mere rumor ; we trust it is, but the recent antics of Captain Hume give some color to the assertion. It is also a notorious fact that prison reform is a chronic indisposition with Major Atkinson and some of his colleagues. When the Major was at the head of a Ministry some years back he had a central prison and prison inspector all ready cut and dried for his constituents. At that time Parliament had its wits about it and Taranaki was deprived of its intended luxuries. But the Major is a persistent man, and he does not forget his hobbies. One of the toys has been imported and the other has to be constructed. But if the inspector’s headquarters are situated at Lyttelton there will be a serious departure from the original design, and Taranaki will he deprived of its patent mouse-trap. Still it will be some gratification to the Major and his band of amateur prison reformers to see their hobby carried out and a monument to their folly erected even at Lyttelton. It will be another triumph of centralism, and it will come well from the Minister who hanged the provinces. By and bye, we presume, we shall have a variety of central institutions. If the electors .only lie down under the property tax and allow the Major to scourge them to death with customs duties, we shall find the solar system in full process of imitation all over New Zealand—the land rings of Auckland oscillating in company with Mr John Sheehan around At-torney-General Whitaker; the Armed Constabulary on the plains of ; Taranaki performing circular drill around the Colonial treasurer; the gaolers revolving before the Captain-. Inspector ; the hospitals and charitable 1 institutions wheeling in front of a huge infirmary and general almshouse; and wretched and obscene lunatics shivering under the tap for the special atnus ment of a well recommended a especially imported master in lunacy. What if this dance of centralism should involve the colony in more debt and greater poverty than it has yet felt ? Property and posterity, can bear the burden of the experiment. But we have excellent grounds for believing that a Prisons Bill of the kind we have indicated is in contemplation. An inspector of prisons has been brought out to the colony, and there is nothing for him to do. The work which he might attempt to perform, but which, we are convinced, he could never do efficiently, is satisfactorily performed by the visiting justices. These gentlemen,specially qualified though they are for the duties they perform gratuitously, must be got rid of to make room for the inspector. How the latter is to flit from gaol to gaol, investigate complaints, overhaul grievances, rectify blunders,’ see that the regulations- are strictly carried out, and generally supervise the working of the prisons of both islands, we are .at a loss to qyen conjecture. Perhaps the Major will be able to explain when he introduces the Prisons Bill. The diversion of prison labor from public works to the old instruments of barbarity, on which convicts in Great Britain were wont to be exercised and tortured, is a proposition which we have no doubt every sensible and humane representative will utterly reprobate. The proposal to establish a central penal establishment is equally at variance with the interests of the colony. A great deal has been urged in favor of classification by the class of amateur reformers to whom we allude—the milk-and-water philantrophists who confound the gaol with the reformatory, and imagine that criminals can be tamed and made harmless after Rarey’s system of taming horses. It never occurs to these soft-hearted experimentalists that their benevolent efforts if put in practice would have about the same effect on the convict disposition as a developing solution on a photo-, graph. Experience has shown that amateur gaolers, with their beautiful theories relative to classification and the proper methods of reclaiming prisoners, are not only expensive nuisances, but that seme of the worst crimes perpetrated on society are due to their injudicious meddling with the accommodation and treatment of felons. What, after all, is crime but a social disease, which time and

a pure atmosphere, united with skilful treatment can cure or alleviate. So far from facilitating good results, the efforts of the quack physician, whether he is a Minister of the Crown drsa member of Parliament, are usually productive of iuischief. It is all very well to scatter seeds of kindness on a fruitful soil, but the Government flags is the last place in the world where they are likely, to take root. Classification, like many other doctrines promulgated by amateur prison reformers, is an absurdity. The experiment has cost Great Britain millions of money, and the best authorities there acknowledge it to be a lamentable failure. It may be a sad reflection, but experience proves its truth, that the great majority of criminals are irreclaimable. The leprosy of crime is not infections, it is born in the individual, and it only needs suitable opportunity and incentive to develop itself. No offender is so dangerous as tbe plausible hypocrite who conceals his depraved, vicious, and criminal intentions under the garb of innocent humility. Hpw then can classification be carried' out, even if the remedy were such a panacea as ft is claimed to be ? If the quacks who are constantly tinkering with ■ gaols- - and criminals would only consult those experienced physicians the gaolers, turnkeys -and visiting would abandon the idea of central prisons and" the classification Of 'conevicts. Crime when qurable„is at the best a dangerous social tumor. The most potent remedy is dispersion. Herd, criminals of various kinds and degrees of wickedness together and you will not make them worse than they are. Remove them beyond temptation, ’ plice them' in contact with the sofier. and industrious and you will improve if you cannot altogether heal them. ! There are thousands of dangerous pests who never enter a gaol. Either they are not criminals: because they-have not the opportunity or they are rogues with sufficient of the monkey instinct to save them from the fool’s paradise. Should a Prisons Bill be introduced, in Parliament, such as we have indicated, we trust the House of Representatives will make short work of it. There is plenty of work to be done for the honest population without devoting time, money, and legislative brains to habitual offenders. We protested against the appointment of an Inspector of Prisons because we regarded the office as a waste of public money. A central prison is a luxury that, in the straightened state of our finances, we can very well defer. As for the reform of our prisons and prisoners it is about the most hopeless kind of reform that' the administration can attempt. The country wants fiscal reform, representative reform, land reform, and a better control over local institutions. The best thing that the Parliament and the Ministry can do at present is to leave the prisons severely alone, lest they make as ugly a job as they have done of the Lunatic Asylums. The Wellington enquiry scandal, for which-tfie gentlemen who introduced the new system of lunatic inspection are responsible chiefly, though indirectly, should make the Government pause before further interfering with local institution's, with the working of which they are but imperfectly) acquainted. '•