THIRD READING. (Hansard, 13 June 1865)

§ MR. NEATE

said, he hoped he should he allowed to urge against this measure those objections which he had not had an opportunity of offering before. He objected to the Bill, in the first place, because he deemed it to be an unnecessary continuance of a had system; and secondly, because it delegated important duties to persons not the best qualified to perform them. The measure he thought was wrong in principle. The custody of prisoners was an Imperial duty, which did not properly belong to the magistrates. However skilfully prepared were the provisions of the Bill, he considered that the matters of which they treated were matters rather of administration than of legislation. Another grave objection to the Bill was the appointment of Governors to gaols, which under this system was left in the hands of the magistrates. He had had many communications with Governors of prisons, and they all expressed their dissatisfaction with such an arrangement. Another great objection he had to the Bill was its increased severity; he thought it a great stain on the legislation of the country that we should be employing prison labour on unproductive works. In all other countries, and in all ages, the labour of prisoners, however distasteful and disgusting in its character, was applied to some useful end. Labour for the mere sake of punishment was a form of torture. [An hon. MEMBER: The treadmill.] The original purpose of the treadmill was that the labour which it provided should be productive. He had 124 recently paid a visit to a French prison, where prisoners were confined under sentences similar to our own—periods of one to seven years. There was no solitary or separate confinement; the diet was 1½lb. of brown bread per diem, a pint of good soup of carrots and other vegetables every day, and with meat on Sunday. The prisoners were employed in productive labour, and were permitted one quarter of their earnings day by day, on the purchase of some little indulgence, amounting to about 2d., receiving another fourth on leaving the prison. Prisoners worked together, and took their meals in common; but no conversation was allowed. The prisoners did not sleep separately, but the monitorial system was employed for the purpose of keeping order during the night—one prisoner of better conduct than the rest was placed over a cell in which several slept; and of course the warders paid frequent visits. The prisoners had also the liberty of seeing their friends three times a week. This might to some seem ridiculous lenity. It might be said that we were fitter to give lessons to the French than the French were to teach the English; but, in his opinion, it was more desirable to move towards lenity than towards severity. We professed to be the most Christian, the most religious, the most moral, and the most prosperous community in the world; yet while other nations were steadily pursuing a more humane and gentle system, our legislation was characterized of late years by a return to greater severity of past times.