At last, the convict becomes free. He has earned the remission of a part of his sentence, and he goes out. He does not plunge into the dark, like the English convict, as soon as the gaol doors close behind him. He has established a character so far as that the authorities expect him to do well. He would not otherwise be free; and society regards this as a sort of guarantee on the part of his trainers. Thus, these Irish convicts have no difficulty in getting employment, and beginning an honest life: and they are in fact in great request as labourers,—as the female convicts who have gone through a similar training are as servants. If, after all, unworthy, they have little opportunity for harassing society. All are under the surveillance of the police,—good and bad alike; and their way of life is thoroughly known to those who are in fact responsible for their conduct. An incorrigible offender is presently in durance again; so that the terror of ticket-of-leave men which afflicts English society is almost unknown in Ireland.
It is nothing to our purpose here that the Irish have something worse to dread in the popular disposition to lawlessness, and proneness to murder on land questions. That is a separate affair altogether. Our business now is to see how the curse of our floating criminal class of the worst order can be got rid of; and, if we find that the Directors of Irish prisons can show us the way, to insist that the right way shall be taken by our authorities.
The first step is to insist that the terms of the ticket-of-leave shall be fulfilled. The police must not only know every confined criminal (that is the case already), but must keep every member of the class continually in view; and, whenever a ticket-of-leave man is seen to be living in bad company, to be idle, to be subsisting without honest apparent means, he must be apprehended as a dangerous person, as unworthy of his release, and a proper subject for the full punishment decreed on his trial.
But, if the rascal shifts his place incessantly, and tries new fields of exploit,—what can the police do then? Do not these escaped villains perpetrate new crimes, and receive the punishment of a first offence for what may be the twentieth?
This is too true; and it is one of the main points on which reform is wanted.
It is a scandal and a shame, we all say, that the remnant of our old criminal population,—the generation that is still at its tricks after we have mainly cut off the supply of juvenile apprentices,—is not effectually dealt with by our apparatus of justice. Why cannot we, a practical people, manage a business which after all must be manageable?
We are less able to manage it now than we were five years ago, because Government has thought fit to fix the allowance for the expenses of witnesses so low that the proper evidence of the identity of some culprit with a former offender cannot be had.
The effect is this. John Smith is charged with a burglary or something worse in Devonshire. There is reason to believe that he is the James Salter who has undergone more or less punishment for a robbery in Warwickshire; and he is moreover suspected of being the Jonas Sadler who was in a Derbyshire gaol for some time. The police could clear this up; but if a Warwickshire or a Derbyshire policeman cannot get through a journey to Devonshire on eighteenpence a day, they will not go. They cannot afford to pay out of their own pockets; and their local magistrate writes to excuse them, on the ground of short memory, or some other obstacle. If suspected ticket-of-leave men thus escape identification and its consequences, many more escape even the suspicion. Instead of every known criminal member of the population being watched by the police, it is impossible to get the strongest suspicions verified.
The Recorder of Birmingham tells us in print that he is “informed by the authorities of Birmingham that the governor of the gaol in a neighbouring county wrote to them to request them not to require the attendance of his officers, as the poor men really could not afford the loss imposed upon them by their journeys.” Shall we be so penny wise and pound foolish as to let loose our worst criminals before their time, to murder, rob, and do worse, to save the expenses of witnesses who could tell who they were? This seems incredible; yet this is what is happening, under the direction and control of Sir George Grey.
In 1858, it was found that some abuses had happened, under the pretence of this payment of witnesses. A tariff was framed which may afford sufficient payment to some witnesses, but which certainly subjects others to loss, if they do their duty. As they cannot bear the loss, they shirk the duty. It is well understood also that crimes are passed over without notice, because the witnesses are afraid of the loss they would incur if they were bound over to give evidence. Some of my readers may remember that the magistrates and grand jury of South Lancashire prepared a memorial on this subject, two years ago, after discovering the fatal effects of the reduced tariff.
Other representations of the same kind followed: the whole Bar has but one opinion upon it: and Sir George Grey has so far given way as to have proposed that the pay of witnesses shall be augmented on occasion from the local rates. Those rates are not the fund which ought to be charged in such a case, because the desire for economy will be almost as strong an impediment in the way of justice as the economy of individuals. It is miserable work,—this spreading of temptation to the frustration of justice in a country suffering under the difficulties of a change of system. No money can be better spent than in getting a sure hold of every known criminal, and preventing his doing more mischief.
Till this is done, and until we can show here in this realm of England what Ireland has already shown—the certain reformation and restoration of eighty per cent. of her convicts—we are in danger of a life of terrorism under the virtual