Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/774

Rh 750 PRISON DISCIPLINE rules as to hard labour and the hours of employment. One great drawback to general reform was that a large number of small prisons lay beyond the reach of the law. Those under small jurisdictions in the boroughs and under the petty corporate bodies continued open to the strongest reprobation. Not only were they wanting in all the in dispensable requirements as laid down by the most recent Acts, but they were often unfit for the confinement of human beings, and were described &quot; as fruitful sources of vice and misery, debasing all who are confined within their walls.&quot; They thus remained until they were swept away by the measure which brought about the reform of the municipal corporations in 1835. But by this time a still more determined effort had been made to establish some uniform and improved system of prison discipline. In 1831 a select committee of the House of Commons went into the whole subject of secondary punishment, and re ported that, as the difficulties in the way of an effective classification of prisoners were insurmountable, they were strongly in favour of the confinement of prisoners in separate cells, recommending that the whole of the prisons should be altered accordingly, and the expense borne by the public exchequer. There can be little doubt that this committee, like every one just then, was greatly struck by the superior methods of prison discipline pursued in the United States. The best American prisons had recently been visited by two eminent Frenchmen, MM. Beaumont and De Tocqueville, who spoke of them in terms of the highest praise. It was with the object of appro priating what was best in the American system that Mr Crawfurd was despatched across the Atlantic on a special mission of inquiry. His able and exhaustive report, published in 1834, was a valuable contribution to the whole question of penal discipline, and it was closely and attentively studied at the time. Another select committee, this time of the House of Lords, returned to the subject in 1835, and after a long investigation re-en undated the theory that all prisoners should be kept separate and apart from one another. It also urged in strong terms the necessity for one uniform system of treatment, more especially as regarded dietaries, labour, and education, and strongly recommended the appointment of official inspectors to enforce obedience to the Acts. These recommendations were eventually adopted, and formed the basis of a new departure. This was the first indication of a system which, although greatly modified, enlarged, and improved, is in its main outlines the same as that now in force. It must, however, be borne in mind that the prisons at home still formed an item only, and not the largest, in the scheme of secondary punishment. The jail was only a place of temporary detention, where prisoners awaited trial, suffered short terms of imprisonment, or passed on to the gallows or the penal colonies. The last-named was the chief outlet, for by this time the country was fully committed to the system of deportation. Since the first fleet in 1787 convicts had been sent out in constantly increas ing numbers to the antipodes. Yet the early settlement at Sydney had not greatly prospered. The infant colony, composed of such incongruous materials, of guards and criminals, had had a bitter struggle for existence. It had been hoped that the com munity would raise its own produce and speedily become self-sup porting. But the soil was unfruitful ; the convicts knew nothing of fanning ; there was no one fully competent to instruct them in agriculture. All lived upon rations sent out from home&quot;; and when convoys with relief lingered by the way famine stared all in the face. The colony was long a penal settlement and nothing more, peopled only by two classes, convicts and their masters- criminal bondsmen on the one hand who had forfeited their inde pendence and were bound to labour without wages for the state, on the other officials to guard and exact the due performance of tasks. From the first it had been felt that the formation of a steady respectable class was essential to the future healthy fe of the colony. But such an element was not easy to infuse into the community. A few free families were encouraged to emigrate, but they were lost in the mass they were intended to leaven, swamped and outnumbered by the convicts, shiploads of whom continued to pour in year after year. As the influx in creased diiiiculties arose as to their employment. Free settlers were too few to give work to more than a small proportion. Moreover, a new policy was in the ascendant, initiated by Governor Macquarie, who considered the convicts and their reha bilitation his chief care, and steadily discouraged the immigration of any but those who &quot;came out for their country s good.&quot; The great bulk of the convict labour thus remained in Government hands. This period marked the iirst phase in the history of transportation. The penal colony, having triumphed over early daiigers and difficulties, was crowded with convicts in a state of semi-freedom, maintained at the public expense, and utilized in the development of the latent resources of the country. The methods employed by Governor Macquarie were not perhaps invariably the best ; the time was hardly ripe as yet for the erection of palatial buildings in Sydney, while the congregation of the workmen in large bodies tended greatly to their demoralization. But some of the works undertaken and carried out were of incalculable ser vice to the young colony ; and its early advance in wealth and prosperity was greatly due to the magnificent roads, bridges, and other facilities of inter-communication for which it was indebted to Governor Macquarie. But now the criminal sewage flowing from the Old World to the New was greatly increased in volume under milder and more humane laws. Many now escaped the gallows, and much of the over-crowding of the jails at home already mentioned was caused by the gangs of convicts awaiting transhipment to the antipodes. They were packed oil, however, with all convenient despatch, and the numbers on Government hands in the colonies multiplied exceedingly, causing increasing embarrassment as to their disposal. Moreover, the expense of the Australian convict establishments was enormous, and some change in system was inevitable. These were the conditions that brought about the plan of &quot;assign ments,&quot; in other words of freely lending the convicts to any who would relieve the authorities of the burdensome charge. By this 1 different and more liberal policy than that of Governor Macquarie. to venture in the development of the country. Assignment developed rapidly ; soon eager competition arose for the convict hands that were at first very reluctantly taken. Great facilities existed for utilizing them on the wide areas of grazing land and on the new stations in the interior. A pastoral life, without temptations and contaminating influences, was well suited for convicts. As the colony grew richer and more populous, other than agricultural employers become assignees, and numerous enter prises were set on foot. The trades and callings which minister to the needs of all civilized communities were more and more largely pursued. There was plenty of work for skilled convicts in the towns, and the services of the more intelligent were highly prized. It was a great boon to secure gratis the assistance of men specially trained as clerks, book-keepers, or handicraftsmen. Hence all manner of intrigues and manoeuvres were set agoing on the arrival of drafts, and there was a scramble for the best hands. Here at once was a flaw in the system of assignment. The lot of the con vict was altogether unequal. Some, the dull unlettered and unskilled, were drafted to heavy manual labour at which they remained, while clever and expert rogues found pleasant, con genial, and often profitable employment. The contrast was very marked from the first, but it became the more apparent, the anomaly more monstrous, as time passed on and some were still engaged in unlovely toil while others, who had come out by the same ship, had already attained to affluence and ease. For the latter transportation was no punishment, but often the reverse. It meant too often transfer to a new world under conditions more favourable to success, removed from the keener competition of the old. By adroit management, too, they often obtained the com mand of funds, the product of nefarious transactions at home, which wives or near relatives or unconvicted accomplices presently brought out to them. It was easy for the free new-corners to secure the assignment of their convict friends ; and the latter, although still nominally servants and in the background, at once assumed the real control. Another system productive of much evil was the employment of convict clerks in positions of trust in various Government offices ; convicts did much of the legal work of the colony ; a convict was clerk to the attorney -general ; others were schoolmasters, and were entrusted with the education of youth. Under a system so anomalous and uncertain the main object of transportation as a method of penal discipline and repression was in danger of being quite overlooked. Yet the state could not entirely abdicate its functions, although it surrendered to a great extent the care of criminals to private persons. It had established a code of penalties for the coercion of the ill-conducted, while it kept the worst, perforce, in its own hands. The master was always at liberty to appeal to the strong arm of the law. A message carried to a neighbouring magistrate, often by the culprit himself, brought down the prompt retribution of the lash. Con-
 * time free settlers were arriving in greater number, invited by a
 * Inducements were especially oilered to persons possessed of capital