FEMALE PRISONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3484, 6 September 1882, Page 4

FEMALE PRISONS.

Concerning female prisons and female prison labour, I need not speak at any great length. This is another problem, new and intricate and full of the mystery of life's temptations. The female prisoners aro certainly nofc as other prisoners are : they are very seldom wholly bad, and at most periods of their career, and with few exceptions, are emotional, impressional, eccentric, and irreconcilable creatures—as I believe ifc may be said of the sex at times, even out of prison and in tho mosfc respectable society—but from whose variable moods

some good may be evolved, and is very often evolved, and in whom—strange contrast to the male prisoners—some natural affections are to be developed, ev;;n from the shadows of the cell. The silent system advocated for the male prison—and the separation system —would not act well in a female convict establishment; and here i 3 a greater study than the male prisoner, for those whose sad mission on earth it is to study it. Under the silent and the separation system a man is quiet and harmless, and may be led occasionally to penitence; under tho same system, in a female convict establishment, tho woman will scream and rave, smash the glass with her tin ' pint,' fly at the matron's throat or the minister's white tio, and eventually be carried kicking and screaming to the penal wards for the mere love of a change, or reaction from tho desperate dull quietude which is driving her mad. Association in one form or another she must and will have, or die; and if it were possible for the State to train a large body of Christian works to keep these women company, in lieu of pairing the moff, without the slightest discrimination as to character, with their sister convicts, much good—much reformation even—would surely be effected. So that a female prisoner is quiet, it is sufficient at present for the ' system.' Even a powerful preacher—a man of God with the gift to touch these wayward or stubborn hearts—is allowed no place in the female prison world ; it is considered tbat his homilies would excite these female convicts too much, and render them beyond all control in their wild fits or remorse or defiance. Here again I think may bo a mistake ; for if these natures are thus impressible, thus easily worked upon to tears and desperate regrets, some plan might bo formed which would have better results than are to be found now under a regime of sleepy parsons and nervous Directors, who are fearful of anything that is new and strange, and not within the sphere of 'regulations.' My little theory of classifying convicts, of dividing and subdividing them in various small establishments, would, in a female prison, assuredly work well; givo each matron — if there were enough matrons, which has not hitherto been the case—more opportunity of studying tho individual characters beneath her rule, and acting for the best of them according to her judgment, and those powers of observation born of living in their midst. —Gentleman's Magazine.