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quired, by degrees, the habits of industry and regularity, which an apprenticeship to established trades and businesses is likely to engender. With all its numerous defects, then, how far preferable was the American transportation system to that which has succeeded to it in New Holland; where the very reverse of every thing good and advantageous in this practice is all that can be met with?

But, (leaving this question for the present where it stands) whether the present system of transportation is ultimately to be persevered in or not, it is at least evidently most important toward giving its due effect to any relaxation of severity in respect of crimes now subject to capital punishment, that the object of reformation be most strictly attended to, and that, for this purpose, the plan of the penitentiary houses, long since sanctioned by repeated acts of Parliament, and most strangely abandoned at the moment of its apparent consolidation and establishment, be revived without delay, and carried into effect, so far at least as is consistent with the views of Government respecting the colony. Strict, and in some cases, and for certain periods, solitary confinement, constant labour, regular and spare diet, and unremitted inspection; these are the instruments of correction which alone have hitherto been found adequate to the great objects of reformation; and, with these instruments properly arranged, it is no longer a matter of speculative philanthropy, but of absolute and incontestible experience, that this great deside ratum of human punishment is, in almost every case, possible to be accomplished. To train the most dissipated and extravagant mind to proper habits of industry, is not a work of such hopeless labour and difficulty, as it appears to those who have been accustomed to contemplate things only in their existing state, and to believe that, because rogues are irreclaimable by the pillory, and by whipping at the cart's tail, therefore rogues and honest people are, and must ever remain, two different species of animated beings. These habits of industry are attainable; and from them habits of goodness will flow, with almost as much moral certainty, as rain is succeeded by fertility, or maturity produced by sunshine.

Α δ' αρετὰ βαίνει διὰ μόχθων.

Agreeably to the opinions which I have in this place endeavoured to explain and enforce, all those persons who are influenced by them, to consider the alteration of our penal

code and of our modes of punishment, an object of political and moral importance, will sincerely rejoice that the subject last under consideration is about to be again submitted to the legislature, under auspices much more favourable to its ultimate success, than at any preceding period. So much, at least, let it be allowed us to hope from the manner in which the announcement of Sir Samuel Romilly's intended motion on the subject towards the close of the last session, appeared to be received, even by those members who had most differed from him in his general views respecting the frequency of our capital punishments. Most of the statesmen who origi nally planned and conducted the transportation system, and who felt themselves pledged to its continuance under the worst possible circumstances, are now no more; and it seems tacitly acknowledged even by its surviving advocates, that the population of the colonies no longer requires to be recruited in the same regular and constant manner from the mother country, and least of all from the very dregs and refuse of its inhabitants, as in former times. The irritation which the promoters of the opposite system naturally enough experienced from the disappointment of their former well founded hopes and claims upon the legislature, has softened into a more temperate feeling, better calculated to work the attainment of its end; and time, "the great physician of all human ills," has deprived their opponents of that unanswerable argument, which they never failed to draw from the infant state of the colonies, and the shame of relinquishing their system without a fair and patient trial of its merits. Once more I repeat, let this preliminary object be fairly settled, and whatever may be the apparent repugnance of the present time to any great and important alteration in the criminal law of the country, there will be no reason to despair of bringing about in the due course of events, that more mild, more equal, and more efficient system of punishment, which requires only the aid of fair experiment, to recommend itself by something better than mere theory, to the most partial admirer of established forms and ordi

nances,

I have advanced but a small way in the chain of arguments which I proposed shortly to develope and explain in the course of my essay, and fear that I have already transgressed the limits which the plan of this publication must necessarily affix. I am besides aware, that what I have now written, consists only in a repetition of doctrines already

promulgated and enforced by much more able advocates than myself. Nevertheless no apology need be made for the re-statement of a question, which at the present moment, the very nature of this work appears peculiarly to demand; and, with this persuasion, if my labours are considered as in any degree worthy of the end proposed by them, it is my design in some succeeding papers, to consider the same subject, with reference to the remaining heads of public example and compensation, which will include the most canvassed doctrine of a proportion between crimes and punishments; and lastly to offer some general observations on the force and tendency of those arguments, on which the opponents of alteration have founded their objection to two of Sir Samuel Romilly's intended bills, during the late session of Parliament.

On the Importance of promoting the General Education of the Poor.

THE evidence of all ages, the occurrences in every country, and even the observations which any individual may make upon the progress of the infant mind, all tend to prove that our nature is liable to evil propensities, which require to be counteracted, and which, if not restrained, will be a source of misery to the individual as well as to those who may come within his reach. In savages, whose passions have not been subjected to controul, the desire of immediate gratification is strikingly apparent, and this in many instances will be ob tained even at the expense of a fellow creature, if he happen to be the weaker party; hence it became necessary that mankind should combine together for mutual security and protection; but this union could never be permanent unless each would agree to make some sacrifice of his own inclinations for the good of the whole; hence private rights must be respected, and those who appeared disposed to trespass upon them restrained or punished: this is the simplest form of society, but even this simple form cannot be maintained without that degree of virtue which consists in abstaining from our own gratification, when the exercise of it would be injurious to another; but the common sense of danger which induced the union here spoken of, would not be sufficient of

itself to form a happy society; the same passions which render individuals "tigers to their species," might actuate collected bodies, and here again, the weaker becomes the prey of the stronger.

To form a happy community, it is essentially necessary that every mind should feel a strong conviction of a superintending Providence, to whom our actions are not indifferent, and whose favour it is our highest interest to conciliate, that he watches with more than parental affection over the whole human race, and that an injury committed by one person upon another, or even upon himself, is an offence to the universal Parent. If these sentiments had a practical effect upon mankind generally, their temporal happiness would be insured; or if they were only partial, and a majority acted upon these principles, public happiness might be maintained; the general interest therefore consists, in securing the preponderance of this class, as upon it the well being of society depends; and in proportion as their numbers diminish there is a tendency to a dissolution of all the ties which connect social beings in one common interest. Man is distinguished from all other visible beings by the faculty of reason, and it appears to have been the divine intention that he should constantly hold that faculty in use; many of the comforts and conveniences of life depend upon it, and as the Author of nature does nothing in vain, he has left mankind to themselves in things which are clearly within the reach of those powers which he has bestowed upon them; therefore, while in the sacred writings he condescends to reveal to us truths beyond the reach of human capacity, in which our present and future happiness are deeply concerned, a strict silence is observed on many interesting subjects within the compass of human intellect; thus, we have no revelation with respect to the number and 'distances of the planets; no indication of the nature of the solar system; no material assistance in the arts and sciences; these being reserved for the exercise of human ingenuity. Hence the amazing difference between the inhabitants of the world according to circumstance and situation; hence the South Sea Islander, and millions of human beings in different parts of the globe, cut off from the civilized part of mankind, remain at the present day under all the disadvantages of barbarism, presenting one vast object for the exercise of benevolence and virtue on the part of those nations who have been favoured with greater degrees of light and knowledge; and as no one can render a benefit to another without feeling

proportionably happy himself, this state of things seems intended by Providence to stimulate to the practice of virtue.

A state of society in which individuals have made great progress in knowledge, and where this knowledge has been transmitted from generation to generation with continual accessions, becomes more complicated than the first simple associations of mankind; here, they whose attainments are greatest, and who have consequently larger opportunities of rendering themselves useful, surpass in influence other members of the community; and as we see different men possess different talents, there must be different ranks or gradations; for he who has the greatest powers of usefulness may be expected to receive a proportionate compensation; hence different ranks and orders will arise, which, as essential to the well being of the whole, must be maintained; but this advanced stage of society (which is precisely our present situation) will be liable to great dfficulties and dangers, if those first principles, which have already been noticed, are not kept constantly in view: if the poorer class, which always constitute the largest portion, and physical strength of a people, become depraved for want of knowledge, there is great danger that evil will preponderate, and social harmony be destroyed; the power of the enlightened part of the community may become too feeble to check the torrent of crime, and the most noble of human institutions may thus be subverted; the blessings of a free constitution in our highly favoured land, can only be continued as long as there is a preponderance of virtue; but when, through the increase of riches, luxury, dissipation, and neglect of the morals of the poor, the balance inclines to the side of vice, from that moment our ruin approaches, and we shall descend from our proud preeminence as a nation,

"To mingle with the wreck of things which were."

If there is one subject more than others which demands, and that loudly, the exertions of the lover of his country, it is that which relates to the morals of the poor; and we are warranted by the observations of that active and intelligent magistrate Patrick Colquhoun, to conclude, that there is great occasion for them, even in England: he remarks, in his Treatise on Indigence, that notwithstanding all that had been done by benevolent individuals for more than a century, their efforts were by no means adequate to the object in view; although there were 194,914 children from five to

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