The infliction of all punishments, including capital, is private; that is, is in the presence only 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.; all which 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 unknown to 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.