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therefore at once transported, but the sentence and the recommendation show the estimate which is made by many of our judges, of the relative value of the two systems of punishment. It is at once a recognition of the evil of imprisonment, and of the good arising to the criminal by being removed from all circumstances which have led to the commission of his crime.

I would propose, therefore, as a second degree of punishment, deportation from England to a colony, say Canada, where, in asylums properly constituted for that purpose, they might receive education, be taught trades, and after a time of probation had elapsed, and by their labor they had contributed towards defraying the expense of their maintenance and teaching,-might be allowed in that same colony to live free men, supported by their own exertions. If there were a market for labor there at all, they would find their early fault no obstacle to their employment, for the training they had gone through would more than counterbalance in the mind of the employer the cause of their coming to the colony:—i. e., a first offence, committed in early youth. An asylum of the kind proposed in a colony, has a considerable advantage over any in England, however well conducted: for at the period of discharge employment might immediately be obtained in a freshly settled country; since where there are new lands to be cleared, a laborer can never be at a loss for work, and a boy trained in the country, accustomed to the climate, and to the kind of labor which he would be engaged in, would, as a man be a much more valuable servant than an emigrant that has all to learn, and is probably discontented with his situation, and perhaps suffering from change of climate. Even if the boys of an establishment of this kind in England were afterwards sent to the colonies as laborers, by way of removing them from the temptation to crime which our dense population always presents, they would be comparatively helpless and useless, unaccustomed to exercise their talents in the contrivances and expedients which, if they had been from the first engaged a part of the day in the agricultural labor of the colony, would, before the period of their discharge, have become familiar to them.

The effects of such a system even upon boys who have been transported for a second or third offence, and exposed to the corrupting influence of the hulks, is well exempli fied in the case of the Penitentiary established at Point Puer in Norfolk Island. This was instituted in 1834. In its early establishment the value of six months' labor of 200 boys amounted to £1134, and this, taking their clothing and maintenance at £25 each, per ann. is very nearly half the cost: for 200 × 25=5000, and half this sum gives £2500 for the six months. But £25 is perhaps rather a high average, for the cost of each pauper in an Union Workhouse is considerably lower. The convict upon his arrival is allowed to make choice out of six occupations, viz., that of a carpenter, sawyer, nailer, shoemaker, tailor, and agricultural labor. They rise at five, and after attending prayers are marched off in military order to agricultural employments till half past eight, when they return to breakfast. At half-past nine the boys proceed to their different trades; at one they dine, and resume their work from two to five; between five and six they sup; from six to eight a school is opened under the direction of a schoolmaster, and after prayers the boys retire to bed. They sleep in hammocks. They are allowed three hearty meals per diem; they cultivate the ground upon which the vegetables they use are grown, and although the buildings were erected under the superintendence of the government, all the labor was done by the boys, with the exception of a part of the barracks. The good effects of the system were soon experienced; and of 39 boys who were removed to this establishment upon their arrival in the colony in May, 1834, the greater part of whom were afterwards forwarded to Hobart Town for assignment, 20 were never tried subsequently; seven or eight others but once or twice; whilst, on the other hand, many of the boys on the former system during a similar period had committed nineteen or twenty offences calling for magisterial interference.*

But whilst the actual condition of the convict would be

* Report of the Committee of the House of Lords on Transportation. Ditto upon Jails, 1835.

greatly improved, as compared with what it would have been had he remained in this country, the penalty would be one which would effectually deter from crime. In youth a compulsory removal from a place which we are accustomed to and know thoroughly, to one which is wholly unknown, is always looked upon with much dread. Few of us forget throughout life, the first journey from home to school. It required the kindest words of encouragement from our parents to soften the blow, and the separation was only acquiesced in by the child because he was conscious that it was for his good, and that the absence from home would be of short duration. Hold out removal from this country as a punishment, with nothing to soften the pang of separation from all the associations of childhood, with no one near, just escaped from prison himself to tell tales of its comparative comfort, and it would be difficult to invent any penalty to all appearance more frightful. To this it may be added, that there would be small inducement to train a child to theft, as many are now trained, if his instructor in crime were fully aware that the first detected offence would place him for ever beyond the reach of his influence.

By thus removing a criminal in the first stage of his career, who, if allowed to remain in England, would, with the fillip which imprisonment too often gives, gradually increase in the gravity and daringness of his crimes, as increased experience added skill to his plans of depredation, there would no longer remain the means of recruiting the ranks of the more desperate offenders. Experience of courts of justice and official documents tell us that against such persons previous convictions for felony are constantly produced in evidence, the consequence of which almost invariably is a sentence of transportation.* Then it is that boys are sent to Parkhurst, and adults to

*By statute 7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 28, sec. 11. If any person shall be convicted of any felony not punishable with death, committed after a previous conviction for felony; such persons shall on such subsequent conviction be liable at the direction of the court to be transported beyond the seas for life, or for any term not less than seven years; or to be imprisoned for any term, &c.

Pentonville prison, there to receive instruction and to be subjected to a moral discipline which may ultimately redeem them from their state of degradation.

In the report of Parkhurst prison for 1844, it appears that 139 boys who had left it during the preceding year were disposed of in the following manner:

Removed for transportation

Sent to the refuge for the destitute

Released with a free pardon

Restored to their friends on the expiration of their sentence of imprisonment

Apprentices sent to W. Australia with conditional

pardon

Ditto to Van Diemen's Land

Emigrants to Van Diemen's Land

Sent to Van Diemen's Land to receive proba

tionary passes there

Emigrants to New Zealand

Apprentices to ditto

23

1

2

3

28

21

11

19

22

9

139

Out of these, seventeen are stated to be incorrigible. What a tale of previous corruption does that word tell of! But if the means at hand at Parkhurst or any other similarly well-arranged penitentiary were used when the child was first led into the commission of crimes instead of being postponed until he had become a hardened criminal, who can doubt but that the work of moral reformation would have been much more rapid and certain than it is at present. As it is they are sent to Van Diemen's Land as convicts, in many cases to lead a career of infamy for the term for which they may have been transported, and eventually to return to this country utterly reckless and abandoned. Yet if in 120 cases success more or less attended the efforts of the teachers where the work of corruption had already gone on for a considerable time, how much more success might we expect when those efforts were directed to the improvement of natures very slightly deteriorated. Experience has taught us what might well have been predicated, that Juvenile offenders

are a class easily to be reformed, and that the instances where the attempt has failed are those in which the frequent commission of offences has entirely destroyed the moral feeling. It may with safety be laid down that if for a first offence removal from this country to a penitenfiary abroad were to take place, no report would affix the word "incorrigible" to any of its inmates.

There is another subject connected with the punishment of juvenile offenders which requires an observation. The immediate application of the means of reformation which I have insisted on would be interfered with to a great extent, if boys in the interval between their apprehension and trial were to be exposed to the contaminating influence of a prison; for at present it is notorious that often before trial the youthful prisoner has been allowed to be taught the lessons of crime by others more experienced than himself.*

It is obvious, however, that in proportion as you diminish the number of cases punishable by imprisonment, you afford the means of a better system of classification of untried offenders while in confinement, and will be better enabled to carry into effect regulations for the purpose of separating them from the more depraved. With a view to avoiding the contamination to be apprehended for the juvenile offender in the intercourse of a jail, Sir Eardly Wilmot brought a Bill into the House of Commons in 1833, which had for its object the introduction of a summary trial before two justices, so as to avoid the imprisonment before conviction. In asking for leave to introduce this bill he stated that in the county which he

* An instance of the evil resulting from the insufficient classification of prisoners occurred at the last assizes. A boy imprisoned for a very trifling offence was allowed to hold intercourse with others in the prison. A prisoner much older than himself, but whose term of imprisonment expired at the same time, induced him shortly afterwards to join with him in uttering counterfeit coin. Fortunately the boy was detected upon the first attempt, and admitted as evidence against his accomplice. He told his story most artlessly, and his testimony being confirmed by other witnesses, his corrupter was convicted. So destitute was this poor boy, that the night of his discharge was passed in the station house..

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