THE GAOL.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2041, 19 November 1869, Page 2

THE GAOL.

To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sir, —Permit me, through your columns, to reply to a letter signed “ Kapuka,” in your paper of Wednesday, where it alludes to my unfortunate brother, Henry Garrett. In a paper on “Prison Dietary,” read before the British Association at Exeter by Dr. Lan* kester, of London, Coroner, that well-known authority says—“ That it was most unwise to starve prisoners, as by this means the bodily frame was rendered unhealthy, and demoralisation of the mind must result The object of punishment was reformation, and this could not be effected but with a wellnourished body. It has often occurred to me, in reflecting on this subject, that we might take a lesson both pertinent and valuable, from God’s moral government. We ae a world of malefactors. The position we occupy is that of a criminal revolt against our rightful Lord. And what is jibe object, what the method, of his administration - ‘ Reformation through kindness.’ ” ’

Punishment then, with reformation for its end, and kindness as the means, is an old relation, which comes down to us under the sanction of an authority that none may question. When the first great crime was committed, the punishment awarded to the criminal was one which in* eluded in it the idea of reformation. Man was driven from Eden ; but the very sentence that announced' his’ punishment opened to him the hope of a second paradise, more glorious than the one he had b'st. The method of the recovery is expressed, with a beautiful terseness, by the prophet Jeremiah iu the third verse of his 31st chapter, “With loving-kindness have I drawn thee ” This loving kindness of God is that cord of a man, that baud of love, with which he draws us to virtue and to heaven. The problem was to win back man’s love and obedignee. Kindness was God’s device to achieve this miracle, In po other way, it would seem, could a respondingaflfect’ion bq awakened in the heart of man. Authority could not command, nor terror charm it into existence. Here, it seems to me, we have a Divine pattern, which, in our humble measure, we are to imitate in our treatment of criminals, The convicts in gaol are not beyond the influence of the same principle which the Divine Governor—in the reach of his infinite wisdom—has employed with such stupendous results in his moral administration of our fallen world. Howard, the world-renowned philanthropist, as the fruit of his wide observation, came to this conclusion.—l am, &c., William Gakretl Caversham, 17th Nov., 1869.