The New Zealand Herald. AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9, 1864.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 310, 9 November 1864, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald.

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9, 1864.

BPECTEMim AQEJTDO. " Glvo eTory man tliliio 0!lV, bat few thy voice: Tnko ew-.U lma's consuro, but reserve thy judgrnont. Tliis sboVU nil.—To tlilao ownsolf bo truD; And it must fullow, as tlie uifc'lit Iho (lay. Thou canst not tlioa be false to any

To many of us it seeins Imt. as -yesterday that llie birth of the heir to the British Crown was announced, amid the booming of cannon and the merry peals of village bells, and joyous faces, and peace, and happiness, and plenty. Three and twenty years have passed away, and on the shores of a foreign land the anniversary of the day comes again upon us. We shatl hear the thundering welcome of the cannon from Fort Britomart and from llie broadsides of the men-of-war in harbour. We shall feel, perhaps, for the moment, that (he Prince whoso birthday their voice welcomes is the son of our beloved Queen, and (lie old feeling of reverence for the honored name of England will for a time lake full possession of our minds, but we cannot but experience a thrill of revulsion and heart-sick-ness when we turn to the Representative of Royalty in Now Zealand, and feel how faintly the goodness of our gracious Queen is reflected in his person 011 her would-be loyal subjects in this colony. We shall look in vain for ihe kindly concern with which the most trilling wants of her subjects have been viewed by the gund 'Queen of .England who now holds the .-ceptre ; and shall iiud that in her Representative. here. are. wanting those liner attributes of the human mind which make so distinguishing a jnnrl; between (he iower animals and man— the abnegation of self, and love for his own kind. We shall lind the forget fulness of her own private interests and wishes which has so nobly characterized our sovereign reversed in the conduct of her Representative. There, we shall see a Queen honored, respected, beloved, idolized by her people, reigning in their hearts by the sole power of love—lu re, a Governor whose aim is not the welfare of the colonists but his own aggrandisement, and who has deservedly become an alien from the esteem, the respect, and the confidence of the people over whom he has been appointed, and over whom he has assumed, by virtue of the bayonets of British troops weakly placed at his command, •he position of M 1 i.itaisv Pictatou. This is no dream-like picture of our position in Is'ew Zealand. We nave the stern reality before us. The Royal salute, the merry peal overtake us in a time of danger and of difli--1 eulty, of thve-itening social and commercial distress; when a large proportion of the-people of j this Province hold their lives upon llie chance | that the sparks Hying over an open barrel of j powder fall not in it. We know, too, that the cause of all the past evil—the cause of its continuance— the cause of the future calamities in store for us. is the man of all others to whom, on this day, our hearts should turn in warm acknow ledgnient of his position as the Heprcsi 111 tative of lioyalty among us. < To those who look upon the time-honoured ) j institutions of our .Fatherland —the glories other \ arms —the grandeur of the height to which her j justice and integrity, her wealth and enterprise I have raised her among nations—to those who ; look to all these things, and to the early rccol- : lections and associations of their boyhood days ; with a feeling of joy and pride-—and I'eW there • j are but do so—how galling it must be to reflect _ that these happy recollections of the past should be mixed with present bitterness, and that a ■ | cloud should, for the gratification of one man's ' ambition, be allowed lo gather between them ; and the home of their youth. j 1 It is, however, we believe, but a passing ; ! eloud. T) le reign of charlatanism, though often I ot mushroom growth, is as often of as short a j ! duration. Truth and justice, like gnarled and i J lusty oaks, look down upon a thoufalid seasons I lot such growth and ihdure when the little | 1 : heyday of empiricism beneath tin 111 lias passed I , away, tfo is it now with us. Trumpet-tongued , the voice of the suffering colonists has gone | 1 ; forth, and the false reputation which circled the | •• character ol Sir George Grey has fallen like the \ j walls ol Jericho before the trumpet blast of.los- j hua. .1 he man stands exposed in all the full ] nakedness ol sell. Ihe robe is lifted, and the | ' veiled piophct of Khorassan, stands revealed. I 1 here yet remains u duty from which the coloe . nists must not shrink. It is a duty to tlicm- | selves, it is a duty to their Queen and it is this.— j with one voice to protest against the continuance ' oi the rule in these islands of a Governor who • has justly torleited the respect and honour of ; all good men, w ho is alike despised by the people j ol either race, who by his acts but tends jo | break that harmony between Aew Zealand and 1 | Britain Whicli the colonistsareanxioustopreservc I I inviolate : who so dimly reflects the goodness and ,- | worth, the justice and love, of our honored Queen j as to ciuimger the ardent J'eoling of loyalty 5 . which has especially distinguished' J>cw ZeaI laiul as a colony. We must not shrink from i the expression oi' this wish to be relieved from j nn incubus wl.iich is weighing the colony down, j deeper and deeper into ruin every day. The j Assembly, ere many weeks, may have cause lo | address a memorial to the Quern, praying for j the immediate recall of Sir George Grey. '.Ihe 1 voice ol the people iniisl not be silent, In every •_ j ' u every settlement of this colony, each | honest 1111111 and woman jnust subscribe their - s 1 name to a petition endorsing the universal feeling ol approbation with which such an act in the • Assembly is reciprocated by them. Jt is well that we should think of such matters 011 such a day r.s this. Proud may we be that our loyalty and our reverence for Ihe old | country and our Queen, is not daily sapped and I weakened by the mistaken course, which the j misrepresentations of a hitherto too trusted I Governor have caused to be carried out by the ;) ! Imperial Government towards us,'but it is not i) j right thai the colonists of .New Zealand should _ ; be placed in any such false position. We have | a constitutional remedy before us, and we are i little deserving the name of freemen, if 'we | neglect to ask temperately, but firmly - j that a due respect shall be paid to our " ; feelings and wishes. When the anniversary | of the. birthday of A liikkt Edwakd again i 1 comes round, may it tall in the proconsulate of j a man oi honor and worth, who possessing the j respect and esteem of the people he rules over may be looked to as the initiator of more joyous 1 demonstrations than any that are likely to ; be made in honor of the memory of this day in Auckland on the present occasion. j Having shewn that an eflicient police force is essentially neccssary in a community like ours, so that as far as possible every crime committed may be detected and the criminal brought to justice, we now proceed to consider the duty which a prison ought to bo called upon to fulfil in the work of punishing and reforming the criminal. Since we last wrote upon this subject some attention has been paid to the stockade by the authorities as is evidenced by the estimates, llie cost ot a man at fifteen shillings a day to act as overseer over the labour of the prisoners would seem to show that our remarks have had effect, and that an effort- it» now being made to

compel the pt'tsoiicrs to do some real "work. Five hundred pounds, too, are put down as expenditure for the repairs of the stocko.dc. Whether this large sum is to be spent without sonic attempt being made to improve the wretched internal arrangements of the stockade we know not. But tte sincercly trust this is not tile ease. • Now it is quite evident that we ought to look at home lo learn what the lessons of the past have taiightin respect to jail maiiageilient. It is no, reflection Vjn iiny one in power either as membehs of our Executive or Provincial Council, or as being connected in aiiy way with our . prisoners, to assert that as ,'a rule tbe.y must necessarily be very tlHpeiTectly informed on the subject. Pc is one that has probably never attracted much of their attention, nor been 1 much studied by them. And yet it is one that specially requires in those connected with prisons, whether as law-makers for them, or as persons whose duly it is io carry out the law in respect to theni, that they should be thoroughly acquainted with at least the system of prison law and prison management in the I United Kingdom. The subject has lately undergone much discussion at social science meetings, as well as through the Press generally, in the reports b!' tne chief inspectors of prisons, and the charges of judges of various degrees. And as the result of all this discussion, two great alterations have been very recently made in connection with prisons in England. Before mentioning these we must remind our readers that our stockade has 110 more similarity to an English prison in its internal arrangement than it hits to St. Paul's Cathedral, or the Royal Exchange. In every such jail in England, Ireland, and Scotland, the following arrangements are found, viz., First, there is provision for a complete separation of the sexes ; secondly, the juvenile prisoners are as completely separated from the adults as if they >ycre in a separate prison : the boy and youth never come in contact with the grown up old offender; thirdly, the adult prisoners have each a separate sleeping cell, and often a separate day ceil to work in. Talking among the prisoners can thitr. be regulated according tii the discretion of the jailor, and complete silence is not only enforced by placing the too talkative prisoners separate, but also by enforcing it even when working in gangs. This is a real and effective punishment. Man is a talking animal; if he be constantly in the company of his fellow-man and yet be compelled to hold ho converse with him is it severe restriction which makes itself felt. It at once and constantly makes the prisoner feel that he is such 111 reality, that his liberty is really curtailed, that he has forfeited to society, certain rights, and that society is sharp-sighted enough and powerful enough to exact the payment of the forfeit. Need we say how different this is to the picture we presented to our readers of the interior of Ihe stockade. The noise and clamour witnessed there, and Ihe utter freedom from restraint in tongue, the mixing of every class and every age of prisoners in one common room, without attempts at separation, forms a picture whose contrast to the above is great. We will now revert to the subject of food. In a former article w;e showed the change that was coining over the public feeling in England as to the food of prisoners. The Irish had shown that their convicts could be kept in good health without animal food and mixed vegetables, and soups, and iill the other delicacies which English convicts had so long been pampered 011, and which our convicts now are. It was felt a public scandal that a convict, a man w ho had been for years preying on society, n burglar or a garotter who had cost society probably from one to two thousand pounds at least, and w ho had probably all but taken the life of some respectable honest citizen should be so much better longed and better fed than nine-tenths of the honest, industrious classes of the community, and in the matter of -food, better than the soldiers in the army, nnd the aged and infirm and honest poor w ho had to resort, iti their declining years to the workhouse for support. That opinion has been reduced to a matter of practice, and the Home Secretary has recently sent a circular to all the prisons in England with a copy j of a revised and reduced diehuy. The 1 gently .of the I'oriland convict establish- ; ment, who are compelled to work hard 011 public - works, rebelled against thir. reduced allowance | of food. But a suliicicnt number of troops was j brought to bear upon ihcni lo overawe them, j and the worst were marched to solitary | conlincmenl with bread and water as their 011I3" food. The gentlemen w ill have ample time for I reflection in their solitaiy cell, and their bread and water diet being of an unexciting kind, they will probably be a tittle tamed alter undergoing j a course of the treatment prescribed for them. | It would be very satisfactory to the honest and j non-criminal classes in this province, to know I that the good example of the Home Government | had been speedily followed by our Provincial I Government, nnd a very great alteration made I in the dietary scale of the Stockade. The pound of good fresh meat daily for each of the prisoners there, the quantum of mi.irii rcqr/iib/cs, tea, sugar, and such like which those ill-used individuals are now supplied with out oftlie pockets I of many persons who very rarely indeed have ever the chance of seeing mixed vegetables, to say nothing of having them regularly served up at their tables, might, w ell be somewhat reduced. The next great alteration that has just been made, with respect to those sentenced to penal servitude, is embodied in the following condensed account.. A new law respecting this subject has been passed, and a circular has been sent by the Home Secretary, to each of the judges explaining the changes made and how the Jaw will be in future carried out. The great object of the new measure is to render penal servitude sentences somewhat, more severe in theory and a vast deal 'more stringent and certain in practice." Five years will henceforth be the shortest term for penal servitude. Offenders who have previously been convicted of felony will never be sentenced lor less than seven years. The first nine months of the sentence will in every case be passed in xrpara/c conjiiiemeiii. Tickets of leave will be granted under certain strictly defined regulations. But 110 ticket ot leave will be given for more than one-fourth ol the remaining portion of the sentence after the nine month's solitary confinement has passed. So that every prisoner must of necessity pass nine months in solitaiy confinement, and be confined for three-fourths of the residue of his sentence. This is what mathematicians call I a fixed quantity. For the remaining one-tourth it w ill be in the power of the prisoner by literally very hard work, and by that only in conjunction with extremely good conduct, to earn a remission. "General good conduct,' such us is generally testified to by jailers and chaplains of jails, " will of itself count for nothing.' " General good conduct will be an indispensable | condition of the ticket-of-leave, but in itself it will not be reckoned as any part ot the eonI sideration for which the ticket-of-leave is j granted." The real condition therefore of obtaining any indulgence, any remission of sentence, is the performance of a certain and iixed amount of real haul work. And that this will be what it prol'ess< to be actual hard work is shown by the following. The daily amount of labour performed by each convict " will be measured and recorded everyday by the assignment to each convict of a certain number of marks." And " the number of marks is so regulated that a convict must obtain the maximum number of eveiy day (without any deduction for misconduct) in order to get the maximum remission." The Chaplain and Governor therefore have 110 longer the chance of being imposed upon by a plausible sanctimonious hypocrite, and induced to get his sentence shortened, for they are utterly powerless in the matter. The good conduct is interpreted to mean several years of real hard work, the records of

"which, arc faithfully kept.- Herein is a " 7a reform. The punishment is known, is real, and also fixed and defined, and not at the risk of being tampered with in any way. We advocated this very system, in its broad and general characteristics; sonic mouths ago; V e specially tiffed separate Confinement, reduced diet, increased work, and that a regular account of the work shouldbe , kept, and our recommendations were, at the time we were writing, and without our knowledge, under discussion by the Government at home, and the last inail brought us intelligence of the fact that the alterations suggested by us to the Government here, liave beeff iidoptecl by the Gor eminent and Parliament of Great Britain. AVe may add that bj the new Act, 110 remission at all is granted to a person sentenced to penal servitude lor lite. That sentence banishes him ior ever from the world outside the prison walls. There 1* no hope of, escape for liiiri except with the termination of his life. .-. It is quite evident that this system, faithfully carricd out, is very likely to cause a man vi ho has been for a number ot years subject to it, somewhat inclined to be careful to avoid a line of conduct which may return him under its influence again. Tlie probabilities arc, tl.at it will liave a deterring effect, and in conjunction with the schoolmaster and the chaplain it may also have a moral elfeet. and the combination ot both may very considerably influence the prisoner, and tend to his reformation. We may as well note the very loose system by which a remission of sentence is obtained here. A convict desirous of gaining that remission makes it his business to be 011 good terms Wit'i the gaoler. When he thinks it is time to asi for it, lie gets a memorial written addressed to the Governor ; this is accompanied by a letter Irom the gaoler, who states the crime of the prisoner, his term of imprisonment, the time he has served —and then adds the usual words, tlie conduct of the prisoner has been good." These hitter are exceedingly vague. Ihey may mean anything or nothing. And tliey afe absolutely all. the data sent"to his Excellency to guide iiim in deciding whether the sentence of the Court, solemnly pronounced, shall be carried out or not. To show the laxit}' which runs through this as through most parts of our gaol arrangements, wo may mention the fact that a prisoner who had attempted to make liis escape from gaol is not thereby prevented from afterwards memorialising the Governor to have a portion of his sentence remitted, lie first tries 10 secure it without the Governor's permission, and having failed to do so, he condescends to send a memorial to his lCxcellency to ask him to retire from the scene of his confinement. Arc we not right, then, in insisting that our whole prison arrangement.-', rules, regulations, and discipline, are about as bad as they can possibly by mismanagement be, and that a chaiige should be at once effected, which will assimilate our gaols to what the prisons of England now are. ; Al embers of the Provincial Council may know very little indeed of these and other important matters, and therefore be unlit to legislate upon them. Tt may be very pleasant to some of them to spend night after night in constant childish, petty, squabbling among themselves, but the time is fast approaching when this will not be considered legislation, and when men who aspire to the position of representatives of the people must learn more accurately the duties of that position, and fit themselves lor fulfilling them in a proper manner.