The Southland Times. FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1868.

Southland Times, Issue 1003, 14 August 1868, Page 2

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1868.

The report of the Royal Commission on j Prisons, recently presented to the j General Assembly, is now before" us. It is an elaborate and valuable document* giving a large amount of information, j and displaying much care and ability in | its preparation. The work allotted to the Commission was one of more than ordinary difficulty. How to treat the criminal classes, combining punishment with reformation, has for the last fifty years occupied the minds and puzzled the ingenuity of the ablest statesmen, both Colonial and European, and still the question remains unsettled. The old system of transporting British criminals to distant colonies proved distasteful to the free colonists, and wasineffectualinits restraints upon the viciously disposed. The working of the ticket- of-lea\e system — the granting of conditional pardons to criminals when only a portion of their awarded servitude had been accomplished" —has been proved, both in the Australian Colonies and in England, to be pregnant with evil. It engenders hypocrisy in the hardened offender, and lets loose upon society the worst, because the most | cunning, of the dangerous classes, when only a small part of their sentence has been carried out. It has come to be • acknowledged as a fact that criminals inured to crime are seldom, if ever, reclaimed, and that isolation in a penal establishment, with a certainty of the punishment awarded being fully inflicted, will alone deter this class of offenders from perpetrating fresh crimes whenever i liberated. The efforts of the "Wilbebfoece school of prison reformers have failed to diminish, to any perceptible extent, the amount of crime committed by twice, or by thrice convicted adults. j The maxim laid down by one of i England's greatest statesmen and lawyers, 1 that "it was not the severity of the sentence, but the certainty of that sentence being rigidly carried out, that could restrain the evil propensities of the man hardened in crime," is now acknowledged to be sound in theory and effective in practice. This is a class of offenders for which a colonial penal establishment is required, and which should be as far removed from free settlements as possible. During recent times the legislation upon prison management has been to secure classification, and separation of criminals of various grades, experience proving that the association of young - -and old offenders has a tendency to demoralization. Unfortunately, in New Zealand, the prison system has been of a character which prevented classification or separation. It is mainly to remedy or mitigate this evil that the formation of a penal settlement has been proposed. This is a question we have persistently kept before the public as evidence of one. the great evils arising from Provincialism. With nine provincial prisons, in which all clases of law breakers were confined, it would be absurd to think that any satisfactory classification could be secured, no matter how diligent and efficient the staffs of officers employed might be, • and upon this ground we advocated the General Government taking the control of the provincial prisons, and the establishment of a Penal Settlement. The result of the investigations of the Royal Commission proves the correctness of the opinions previously expressed. The report is most voluminous, embracing full particulars of the gaol accommodation and management in the various provinces. A summary of the general conclusions of the commission is all that our space will permit. It points out that the existing law relating to the prisons of the colony is unnecessarily complicated, and not to be fully understood or carried out; that the rules and regulations differ in each province, and that no uniformity at present exists. It says : — " In none of the existing prisons in the colony is any system of punishment carried out, which, to an appreciable extent, serves any of the real ends and objects of the criminal law, except that of the safe custody of the convicts j that the punishments as administered therein, are ordinarily neither afflictive nor irksome, neither deterrent uor reformatory, but that, on the contrary, the tendency and ordinary effects of the present system are to harden old offenders ; to demoralise, corrupt and debase those who have recently become criminals, and innocent persons waiting for trial, and to afford opporj tunities for instruction and confederation in all kinds of crime and vice ; so that almost every prison in the colony may well be considered as discharging the functions of a training school for the creation and maintenance of regular criminal classes." This is a comprehensive and decided judgment upon the existing system, and one that should con\mand the consideration of the public.

The Commission, however, while so strongly condemning present arrangements, do not in any way censure those officers who have had charge of the different prison establishments, but points out that there is an entire absence of classification and surveillance throughout the colony. It further states that none of the provincial prisons could be made conveniently available for carry* ing out, in a proper manner, sentences of penal servitude, but that odost of them could be adapted for the custody of prisoners waiting trial, offenders against police laws, and prisoners summarily convicted. It is the unmistakable opinion of the Commission that the management of prisons should be consolidated, and that one Penal Establishment for the whole colony should be at once created. It states that the attention of the Commission had been drawn to the following places as suitable for such an establishment, viz : — Taranaki, Chatham Islands, Auckland Islands, Quail Wand, (Port Lyttelton,) Mercury Island, Picton, Kapiti, Resolution Island, (Milford Sound,) Stewart's Island, Great Barrier Island, and Oamaru. This part is the most unsatisfactory in the whole report. It seems somewhat extraordinary that, after so long a consideration of the subject, after ample evidence had been adduced, and the Commission had finally decided that the establishment of a colonial Penal settlement was desirable, it should not have come to some definite conclusion as to the site most suitable for the purpose. It would appear from Taranaki being the first mentioned that it was deemed the most desirable. If the utilization of convict labor was the only thing to be considered, we are not prepared to say that this would not be a judicious selection. But there are other and higher objects to be obtained. The great utility of a penal establishment is i to isolate the convicts in a locality where escape would be impossible, and far from free settlements. "Would this be the case if Taranaki was chosen ? It would be simply to plant a convict population in the very centre of the North Island, in close proximity to the disaffected Native tribes, giving facilities for the escape of prisoners to the rebel ranks* The Auckland Islands appears to us the , best place for a convict settlement. The report concludes by recommending a further enquiry as to a site for a penal establishment ; the improvement of existing prisons, the management of the police ; "so as to ensure the adoption at as early a period as possible, of a uniform, harmonious, and thoroughly effective scheme for the protection of life and property, and the maintenance of peace and order throughout the whole colony."

A number of gentlemen met recently to organise the establishment of an institution somewhat resembling a debating society, and known under the title of the ' Southland Privy Council.' Several meetings were held, and we believe a considerable amount of talent has been displayed in the discussion of the various subjects brought forward. We understand that the Society is modeled after the form of the Provincial Council. It comprises a Government and Opposition, and in most cases the subjects for debate are those which would likely be introduced into the Provincial Council. Each electoral district of the Province is supposed to be represented ;i the Privy Council, and there exists a serjeant-at-arms, clerk, &c. The Council meets every Tuesday. The subject for discussion next week will be 4 the necessity for the establishment of a municipality in InvercargilL' Onr Bluff correspondent, under date, 13th August, writes : — A meeting was held at the Eagle Hotel on the 11th, at which it was proposed to memorialize the Government for a reduction on the rate of Railway carriage on goods forwarded from and to Campbelltown. Mr Longuet was called to the chair, and after stating the object of the meeting, asked the movers to state their views. One gentleman showed that he had been charged three different rates of carriage, on a barrel of beer, that goods to and from Campbelltown which did not incur jetty dues were charged the same rate as those that did j that the rate of carriage on small parcels and packages was excessive. A committee was appointed to look into the matter, the meeting was adjourned till the 15th. The secretary of the Southland Horticultural and Agricultural Society requests us to notice an error in the subscription list published ; the amount of subscriptions under ten shillings being £5 13s 6d, instead of £6 13s 6d, and a donation of one pound from Lewis Longuat, Esq., accidentally omitted, the total being Btill the same. The 'Eacer,' Capt Hughes,— one of Shaw, I Saville & Co.'s line of packets— was to sail from London for the Bluff direct early in the last week of June, and may consequently be looked for about the end of next month. She is consigned to Messrs Dalgety, Eattray and Co., and brings a full cargo of general merchandise, chiefly spring goods. She will most likely be laid on as the first wool ship of the season. The greatest idea of the age, says the • Melbourne Economist,' appears just now to be the use of " bi-sulphite of lime,' as a preventive of acetous fermentation, and ultimate decay of animal substances. Facts are being brought forward day after day of the satisfactory results from the application of this liquid. It is not altogether new, for the gentlema . .viw now holds an English patent first u?ed il '•: Id6l, but then solely for the preservation of i. quiets, principally ales and British wines. Tuo success which followed his experiments, aud the wonderful sale which soon resulted after the publication, of his trials, induced him to turn his attention to the more solid matters. The testimonials from bo many brewers, meat salesmen, hotel keepers, and private families are so satisfactory, that no doubt can be harbored as to the efficacy of this liquid. (

Experiments have alwady been made in this Colony, and a public examination took plaoe on Thursday, 9th ult., to the surprise and aatisfaotioa of the many who partook of the meats. By the use of the c bi' there will be no necessity now of losing a single pound of meat— -a single dipping in a solution of a given strength is quite sufficient to stay all inclination to ( go Bad,' and the preseno^ of the preserving application is not detected I after being cooVed. In a small phamplet we have just pursued upon the subject is a clause' worth repeating : — " Almost all ' ohemical preparations,' properly so called, are unsuited for use in connection with food, even if they possess any preservative qualities, on account of their being individually unwholesome, of their acting injuriously upon some of the constituents of food or because they may impart an unpleasant flavor." The preparation termed " bi-sulphite of lime" is happily free from all these drawbacks ; all it component* are to be found naturally in the animal economy, and cannot be regarded as foreign substances ; it cannot impregnate meat' in an unpleasant manner, and strangers are not able to distinguish the " preserved" from absolutely "fresh meat." From a leg of mutton cooked and eaten last week, after a five weeks' test hanging up, we can endorse the above assertion."