CHAPTER XI.
Punishment awarded to Criminals.—Capital Punishments.—Plea of Insanity.—Penitentiaries.—Houses of Correction.—Improvement in Laws.—Periodical Publications.—Editors of Newspapers.—State of Literature.
The travellers proceeded to ask some further questions, which had been suggested to them by what they had observed in the course of the trials they had witnessed.
“We perceived,” said they, “that the punishment most frequently awarded was that of confinement in a penitentiary; instead, however, of naming the period of confinement, it was generally announced that the terms of confinement would be determined subsequently. We wish to know the reason of this procedure.”
“We do not,” replied Sir Peter, “in most cases regulate the confinement by time, but inanother way. We require that each man should perform a certain quantity of daily labour, as a compensation—though, of course, often a very inadequate one—for his maintenance; and whatever he can earn above this, is placed in a bank for him. Each man is sentenced to earn a sum, regulated according to his trade, state of health, and other circumstances. When he has earned this sum, he is set at liberty. We think this has a double advantage: it encourages him to labour, because he is made aware that his own industry will affect the period of his confinement; and this has a tendency to create in him a permanent habit of industry. Again, the sum of money he has earned being given to him when released, he is not thrown on the world as a pauper, exposed by his very destitution to fresh temptation, but has the means of carrying on some species of industry.
“We have also as a punishmentsecretbranding (usually on the back), performed in the way of tattooing, as your sailors do. Every culprit is examined as to whether he had been thus branded; in which case, the punishmentfor any subsequent crime is always the more severe. At the same time, as the brand is secret, the individual is not exposed on that account to the scoffs of his neighbours, which might make him regardless of character and produce a hardness of disposition. These are our most ordinary punishments.
“In case of murder, however, and some few other crimes, we resort to capital punishments. This is restricted, as I have intimated, to very few species of delinquency; but when those are perpetrated, the punishment of death is rigidly enforced and speedily inflicted. In any punishment prompt execution adds greatly to the terror; but in this more particularly, because death,some time or other, is a sentence passed by nature upon all men.”
[Here occurs, as a marginal note to Mr. Sibthorpe’s memoranda, a quotation from Shakspeare’s dialogue of Pistol and Fluellin:—
Pistol.—Base caitiff!thou shalt die.
Fluellin.—You say fery true, scald knave,when Cot’s coot pleasure is.]
The infliction of all punishments, including capital, is private; that is, is in the presenceonly of certain official persons, appointed to witness and certify the due execution of the sentence. The travellers could not but acknowledge the brutalising and noxiously hardening effects of our public executions.
“To show you the strictness,” observed Sir Peter, “with which our penal code is administered, I must mention to you that we do not allow the plea of insanity, in any case, as a ground of acquittal, unless that insanity is of such a nature as to warrant the opinion that the individual did not intend to inflict the injury for which he is tried. And in case any degree of insanity appears to have actuated the individual, we inquire whether this disposition had ever been previously displayed; for in this case we hold the relatives or friends, or persons with whom he has lived, as accountable for not having given the magistrates due warning of his state of mind, so as that he should be put into confinement.”
The travellers pressed in objection the various topics commonly urged respecting greater or lesser degrees of moral responsibility, capability of discerning good from evil, &c.; allwhich considerations the Southlanders, it appears, are accustomed to regard as entirely irrelevant. They maintain that criminal legislation has nothing whatsoever to do with moral retribution; the sole object of human laws being the prevention of crime, which can take place in all those cases, and in those only, where the intention of the agent (no matter how that intention originates) is directed towards the action to be prevented.
On the travellers expressing a strong desire to see their penitentiary, and examine its system of management; “We have many penitentiaries,” said Sir Peter, “and in each of them the system adopted differs in some respects from that of others; for we hold it to be a subject of constant experiment to ascertain what mode of discipline may be the best fitted to secure the ultimate object at which we aim, which is, as I have just said, not the infliction of vengeance on the guilty, but the prevention of crime. I shall enable you, however, to judge of our system in this respect by taking you to visit our penitentiaries, according as you can command leisure.
“The systems pursued in some of our houses of correction,” he added, “need, and, I trust, will receive alteration; but I hope you will not think me unduly partial in considering the very worst of our modes of secondary punishment far preferable to yours. Be assured we shall never undertake to found a new nation from the sweepings of our jails; receiving additional corruption—those of them who are capable of it—by unrestricted intercourse with each other during a four months’ voyage, and their moral degradation completed by being reduced to a state of slavery; that is, by being consigned, as in your colony, to masters for whose benefit they are compelled to labour.”
[The manuscript of the travellers did not contain very full information on the subject of penitentiaries, as there were many which they were still designing to visit. It would appear, however, that in some penitentiaries solitary confinement was the practice; in others, the culprits worked in companies; but, as in some of the American penitentiaries, total silence was enforced. Every man was made to work in a mask, in order that he should remain unknownto the rest, and thus escape the hardening effects which are the consequences of exposure of character.]
“There is one part of our system,” said Sir Peter, “which I should mention to you, because it will serve to show you the diligence with which we apply ourselves to the continual improvement both of our civil and penal code. We hold it as a duty belonging to our judges and chief law officers, that they should discuss amongst themselves, from time to time, whatever alteration their experience in the administration of our laws may suggest to any of them as desirable. Whatever report is sent in by their united wisdom to parliament, is received with the utmost deference; and should any doubt remain as to the expediency of adopting their proposal, we invite some of the judges or law officers to assist us in our deliberations, by stating publicly the grounds of their recommendation. We allow them to debate freely, as if they were members of parliament; but of course we do not give them, as they are not members, any vote in the final decision. Indeed,” he observed, “whenever we appoint(as we very constantly do) a commission empowered to collect information on any particular subject, and draw up a report recommending any new laws or practices, we allow the members of that commission to attend our parliamentary meetings and explain their own reasons. We conceive this can be best done by the same individuals whom we appoint to deliberate. We regard them as members of parliament in fact,pro hac vice, except that we do not give them a power of voting.”
Newspapers, magazines, and other periodical publications are abundant and cheap in this country.
In the early part of the traveller’s visit, Lieutenant R. Smith, having accidentally taken up a newspaper which lay on the table, was much interested in its perusal. The leading articles appeared to have been written with considerable discretion and good sense. He asked whether he might regard that paper as a fair specimen of the degree of talent which their newspapers generally presented.
The gentleman of the house replied that, in his estimation, that paper was rather the best of the day. Its conductor was a person of very high character and great attainments.
“You just saw him,” he said, “riding by with our leading minister. We have several papers,—besides magazines and other periodicals,—conducted also with various degrees of talent, and of every shade and variety of political sentiment.”
“In our country,” said Lieutenant Smith, “conductors are not on such familiar terms with our statesmen; indeed they are seldom to be met in cultivated society. We think it the lowest department of literature. In fact, we scarcely deem the editor of a newspaper a literary man, or even a gentleman.”
“I suppose then,” said Mr. Bruce (their host), “that your papers are nothing more than a record of events and advertisements; and that they exercise no influence upon the general sentiments of the country.”
“Quite the reverse,” said the English travellers. “The newspapers produce a very decided influence; so much so that each partyin the state takes care to hold some of them in pay, as advocates of the opinions which that party is anxious to maintain: and the editor of a paper not unfrequently prescribes the opinions or conduct which each party should adopt, many confining their reading almost exclusively to papers on their own side.”
“This is very strange to us,” said Mr. Sibthorpe, “and it appears perfectly inconsistent. Your refusal to associate with the conductors as gentlemen of reputation, must make them unworthy to be received into good society; most emphatically and particularly unworthy, not merely as unfitted for the company of gentry, but as undeserving of the respect of reputable people. Such, at least, seems to us to be the tendency of a ban of exclusion fixed on a class of persons such as these writers. A small shopkeeper indeed, or mechanic, though not admitted into the social circles of the higher classes, may be a worthy and respectable man in his way, and may well be content to associate with those who are in every respect his own equals; but not so a man of such education, knowledge, and talent as are requisite forthe successful conduct of a newspaper. A man so qualified will seldom, we should think, be found consenting to follow an employment which excludes him from the society of gentlemen, unless there be, in some way or other, something of moral inferiority about him. Exceptions there may be; but we should fully expect this to be at least the general rule. We take care, therefore, since newspapers cannot but influence public opinion, to induce men of reputation to engage in this department, by showing that we regard it as a most honourable employment. To act otherwise, would seem to us like proclaiming that we were determined to be rogue-led.”
The English travellers asked if the newspapers had to pay a tax to the state. They were informed, that in this particular state no tax was exacted, but that in other states of the union the practice was different. “We observe,” said they, “a vast number of advertisements of all kinds; and, amongst the rest, that a great variety of books were announced as in the press.”
“Our press,” said one of the company, “isvery active; but you can best judge of the state of our literature by examining hereafter our public libraries. To some of these we shall have great pleasure in conducting you.”