RURAL LABOURERS NEAR LONDON.—OUR MOTHER
TONGUE.—COCKNEYS.—PROVINCIALISTS.—ON THE NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGN
WORDS.—AUTHORITIES.—SUBURBAN LONDON.—LONDON.—THE THAMES.—“SAINT
PAUL’S FROM BLACKFRIAR’S BRIDGE.”
[Sidenote: _WALK TO LONDON._]
Upon our asking directions, a gentleman who left the first-class
carriage offered to be our guide for a little way. He led us between
fields in which some men were hay-making. We spoke of the “London
lads” we had been riding with, and the gentleman agreed with us that,
wicked as they might appear, they were less degraded than the mass of
agricultural labourers.
“We could not stop to rest here on the stile,” said he, “but that
every single man in that field, in the course of five minutes, would
come to us to ask something for drink; and the worst of it is, it is
not an excuse to obtain money by indirect begging for the support of
their families, but they would actually spend it immediately at the
public-house.”
We told him we had never been in London, and after a little
conversation he said that he had been trying to discover where we
came from, as from our accent he should have thought us Londoners. He
had thought that he could always tell from what part of England any
stranger in London came, but he could not detect any of the provincial
accents or idioms in our language. We told him that we had supposed the
cockney dialect was quite distinct, but certainly never imagined it
at all like our own. On the contrary, he said, except among the vulgar
classes, the Londoner alone has no dialect, but, much more than the
native of any other part of England, speaks our language from infancy
in its purity, and with the accent generally approved by our most
elegant orators and generally acknowledged authorities.
“But a liberal education must remove provincialisms, both of idiom and
accent.”
“In a degree only. A boy will generally retain a good deal of his
provincial accent through the public school and university. At least,
I have paid considerable attention to the matter, and I think I am
always able to detect it, and say with confidence in which quarter of
the kingdom a man spent his youth. You would yourself probably have no
difficulty in detecting a Scotchman.”
“I have noticed that Scotchmen who have resided long in England, and
who had in a considerable degree lost their original peculiarities,
usually spoke in a disagreeably high key and with great exactness and
distinctness of utterance.”
“That is the result of the original effort which it was necessary for
them to use to speak correctly. They speak from the book, as it were,
and the same is more or less noticeable in all provincialists who do
not habitually speak with the accent of their youth.”
[Sidenote: _WORDS AND THEIR AUTHORITIES._]
We then informed him that we were Americans, which much surprised him.
I somewhat doubt myself the correctness of his observation. I am aware
of habitually using many _Yankeeisms_ myself, and have no desire to
avoid them. The New England accent of words, except such as are not
very commonly used, I should think might be generally agreeable to the
most approved standards in England. The educated English certainly
speak with much greater distinctness and more elegance than we commonly
do; perhaps they generally err in being too precise and methodical,
and it may be that the Londoners converse with more rapidity and
ease, or carelessness, than others. That what are shown to us as
peculiarities of cockney dialect are mere vulgarisms and slang, not
altogether peculiar to the metropolis, is very true.
Agreeably to Walker, the educated English often give the sound of
_a_ to _e_, pronouncing Derby, _Darby_; clerk, _clark_, &c. This at
first seemed very odd; but when I returned home, our own way had
become foreign to me. Vase is universally _vawze_ or _vaze_; route,
_rute_. With us, except in society which has a more than ordinary
European element, these, and some other foreign words in common
use, are Anglicized; and though when one is accustomed to the more
polite sound there may seem an affectation of simplicity in this, I
cannot but wish that the custom was more general. The French almost
universally adapt foreign words of which they have need for common
use to the requirements of their habitual tongue, changing not only
the pronunciation but the _spelling_: they write _rosbif_ for the old
English roast beef, _biftek_ for beef-steak. So we write and pronounce
_cotelette_ cutlet; why need we say “angtremay” for _entremets_? or if
we choose that sound, and like it also better than “_side-dishes_,” why
not print it “angtremay?” We write Cologne for Köln; why not Leeong
for Lyons? or if Lyons, let us also speak it Lyons, and consider
Leeong an affectation except when we speak it in connection with other
plainly French words. The only rule with regard to such matters is, to
follow custom. Singularity is impertinent where it can be gracefully
avoided; but as there is more tendency to Anglicize foreign words that
are in general use in America than in England, and this is a good and
sensible tendency, let us not look for our rules to English custom.
Let us read _Venus de Medicis_ Venus de Medicis, rather than stammer
and blush over it because we are not perfect in Italian. I once heard
a clergyman call it “Venu-de-Medisy:” two-thirds of his congregation
understood what he meant as well as if he had given it the true
Italian pronunciation; but if he had read it with the sound they would
naturally attach in English reading to that connection of letters,
nearly all would have known what he meant, and no one would have had a
reasonable occasion to laugh at him. But why is not our own language
fit to speak of it in—the Medicean Venus? Why should the French word
envelope be used by us when we have the English _envelop_? Why the
Italian _chiaro-oscuro_, when there is the English clare-obscure
expressing the same? I am glad to see some of our railroad companies
accepting the word _station_, which is good old English, in place of
the word _depot_, which, as we pronounce it, is neither French nor
English. In England, the designation _station_ is invariable. _Depot_
is only used as a military technicality, with the French pronunciation,
_dapo_. If we really want a foreign word or phrase to express
ourselves, it shows a deficiency in our language. Supply this by making
your foreigner English: we in America must not be chary of admitting
strangers. Naturalize it as soon as possible.
Neither let us think it of great consequence whether we say _Rush-an_
or _Ru-shan_ for Russian; _trawf_ or _truf_ (as usual in England)
for trough; _def_ or _deef_ for deaf; or whether we spell according
to Johnson, or Walker, or Webster, (or Webster modified;) the custom
varies, not only between England and America, but between elegant
scholars of each country in itself. The man is impudent who condemns
me, let me speak or write almost how I may, for I always have some
giant to back me.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _SUBURBAN LONDON._]
Half-a-mile’s walk brought us to a village of plain, low, detached,
paltry shops, where our guide, having given us a very simple direction,
took leave of us. We followed up the broad street; the shops, a large
number of which were ale-houses, soon were displaced in a great measure
by plain, small villas, of stone, or stuccoed brick, standing two or
three rods back from the street, with dense shrubbery, enclosed by
_high brick walls_ before them. Gradually the houses ran together
and became blocks; omnibuses, market-carts, heavy _vans_, (covered
luggage-wagons,) and pleasure-carriages, constantly met and passed, and
when we had walked about three miles, the village had become a compact,
busy town—strangely interrupted once by a large, wild, wholly rustic
_common_. Then the town again: the side-walk encroached upon by the
grocers and hucksters; monster signs of “entire” ales and ready-made
coffins, and “great sacrifices” of haberdashery and ladies’ goods; the
street wide and admirably paved, and crossed at short but irregular
intervals by other narrower streets, and growing more busy every
moment. Still it is nothing remarkable; a wide street, plain brick
houses, a smell of gas now and then, and a crowd. I would hardly have
known, from any thing to be seen, that I was not entering some large
town in our country, that I had never visited before. Indeed, it’s
quite like coming down the Bowery.
People were looking up; following the direction of their eyes, we
saw a balloon ascending. The air was calm, and it rose to a great
height—greater, says the Times this morning, than any ever reached
before.
A shrill cry in the distance, rising faintly above the rumble
of the wheels, and hum and patter of the side-walks, grows
rapidly more distinct, until we distinguish, sung in a high key,
“_Strawberrie—Sixpenny-pottle. Who’ll buy?_” The first of “London
cries.”
We have been walking steadily, in a nearly straight line, for two
hours, and now the crowd thickens rapidly until it is for a moment
at full tide of Broadway density. There is a long break in the brick
house-fronts, and we forge aside out of the crowd and halt to take an
observation. We are leaning over the parapet of _Blackfriar’s Bridge_.
The Thames looks much as I had supposed; something wider than our
travellers like to represent it, hardly an “insignificant stream” even
to an eye accustomed to American rivers, but wide enough and deep
enough and strong enough to make bridges of magnificence necessary to
cross it, and answering all the requirements needed in a ship-canal
passing through the midst of a vast town. A strong current setting
upward from the sea gurgles under the arches; heavy coal-barges slowly
sweep along with it; dancing, needle-like wherries shoot lightly across
it, and numerous small, narrow steamboats, crowded with passengers,
plough white furrows up and down its dark surface.
Upon the bank opposite—almost upon the bank, and not distant in an
artist’s haze—stand blackened walls and a noble old dome, familiar to
us from childhood. It is only nearer, blacker, and smaller—wofully
smaller—than it has always been. We do not even think of telling each
other it is SAINT PAUL’S.
There is a low darkness, and the houses and all are sooty in streaks,
but there is a pure—so far as our lungs and noses know—pure, fresh,
cool breeze sweeping up the river, and overhead a cloudless sky;
and in the clear ether, clear as Cincinnati’s, there is a new
satellite—beautiful, beautiful as the moon’s young daughter. It is
the balloon, now so high that the car is invisible, and without any
perceptible motion it blushes in golden sunlight,—while we have been
some time since left to evening’s dusk.
[Sidenote: “_MOVE ON!_”]
“_Move on!_ move on, if you please, gentlemen,” says a policeman. The
crowd tramps hastily behind us. We turn and are sucked into the motley
channel, which soon throws us out from the bridge upon a very broad
street; up this, in a slackening tide, we are still unresistingly
carried, for it is London, and that was what we were looking for; and
for a while we allow ourselves to be absorbed in it without asking what
is to become of us next.
APPENDIX C.
INFORMATION AND ADVICE FOR THOSE WISHING TO MAKE A PEDESTRIAN TOUR IN
ENGLAND, AT THE LEAST PRACTICABLE EXPENSE.
A young man with small means, and who is willing to “rough it,” wishes
to know with how low a sum of money it would be practicable for him to
undertake a trip to England. I have no doubt there are many such who
would visit the Old World if they were aware how cheaply and pleasantly
they could do so. I have heretofore expressed my own obligation to
Bayard Taylor, and it is probable that what I shall have to say will
be, to some extent, a repetition of the instructions given in a chapter
upon the subject in the later editions of the “Views Afoot.” It will,
however, have more especial reference to travelling on foot in England.
_The Passage._—There are no regular arrangements made in the
packet-ships for those who wish to go to England decently and in
tolerable comfort at a moderate price. It will be with more or less
difficulty, according as _freights_ are active or dull, that you may
obtain a proper “second cabin passage and _found_.” You stand the best
chance to do so in the London lines. A special arrangement with the
Captain is necessary. A party of three or four may at almost any time,
by application to the Captain shortly before a ship sails, engage a
state-room, provide themselves with stores,[17] and hire their cooking
done, &c.; so that the passage shall cost them but from twenty to
thirty dollars. With good messmates, good catering, a liberal gratuity
to the cook, steward, or ship’s servant that waits upon you, and
in a _clean_ ship, you may make the passage so, more agreeably than
in any other way; more so than in the first cabin at four times the
expense. The price of the regular first-cabin passage out is $90. _In
the steerage_, you pay $10 to $12 for a mere sleeping-place, provide
yourself with stores, cook for yourself, or hire some fellow-passenger,
who does not suffer equally from sea-sickness, to cook for you. You
must provide yourself with bedding, cooking utensils, &c. It will
cost you about $20. Secure, if possible, an _upper_ berth, near the
hatchway; be provided with an abundance of old clothes; look out for
pilferers; spend an hour each morning in sweeping and keeping clean the
steerage; nurse the sick; take care of the women and children; and keep
the deck all the time that you otherwise can. You will probably have a
very miserable time, but it will be over after a while, and you will
have seen a peculiar and memorable exhibition of human nature, and will
go ashore with a pleasure not to be imagined. You can go to Liverpool
or Glasgow by the screw-steamers, (second cabin and found,) decently
and quickly, for from $50 to $75. The same by the mail-steamers, not so
comfortably, but more quickly. Most disagreeably, but soon over with,
in the steerage of some of the steamers for $40.
[17] See “Walks and Talks,” Vol. I. p. 21, and consult the ship’s cook
or steward.
_Returning._—You have the same (and rather increased second-cabin
accommodations by the London packets), at about 10 _per cent._ higher
prices. You can live comfortably for two months, and see “the lions” in
Paris or London, for the difference between the first and second-cabin
fare out and home.
Our _Expenses for board and bed_, while in the country in England,
averaged seventy-five cents a-day. Expenses of short conveyance by
rail, coach, and boat; fees to showmen and guides; washing, postage,
and incidentals, (properly included as travelling expenses,) added to
this, made our average expenses about one dollar a-day each. How we
fared, and with what degree of comfort or luxury we were content, the
reader should have already been informed. I have, however, dwelt more
upon the agreeable than the disagreeable side of such travelling. We
often, on entering a town, looked from one inn to another, in doubt
which to select, desiring to avoid unnecessary expense, while we
secured quiet and cleanliness. Sometimes we would enter a house and
ask to see the rooms and know the charges. No offence was ever taken
at this, though once or twice, where we were going to spend a Sunday,
and the rooms were not agreeable, or convenient to write in, we
proceeded further. We soon, however, were able to guess very well the
character of a house by its outside appearance, and could regulate our
disbursements with great exactness.
_Inns._—The great difference between the large “first-class” inns and
the second and third class is, that in the latter the lodgers are so
few that one or two servants can take the place of three or four at
the former. Frequently the landlord may be porter and Boots, (and will
act as _commissionaire_ or _cicerone_;) the mistress, cook; and their
daughter, waiter and chambermaid, &c. In such cases, generally, no
servants’ fees at all are expected, and at most a third or half of what
is honestly due the servants of the stylish inn will be satisfactory.
The small inns are really often more comfortable to the pedestrian than
the large ones; because he can be more at his ease; need not care how
he appears; can wheel the sofa up to the fire or open all the windows;
dine in his slippers, and smoke, if he likes, in the parlour: take
command of the house, in short; see for himself that his shoes are
greased and his linen washed and drying, his knapsack-straps repaired,
lost buttons replaced, and all his rig a-taunto for an early start
without delays in the morning.
If you call for any thing for your table that the house is not
provided with, it will be at once procured from the shops; the cooking
is generally good, and the bread always fine. We usually contented
ourselves with one hot meal in a day. Two of us were without the habit
of drinking tea or coffee, and would often make our breakfast of bread
and milk; lunch on bread and cheese and beer, and take a substantial
meal at the end of our day’s walk. We thought we walked better with
this arrangement than any other.
[Sidenote: _ADVICE TO THE PEDESTRIAN._]
For _less than seventy cents a-day_ it is possible to travel in England
without hardship or injury to health. For how much less I cannot say.
I once stopped alone at a house where I dined with the family on
boiled bacon and potatoes and a bag-pudding, for which I was charged
sixpence; breakfasted on scalded milk and bread for twopence; and was
asked sixpence _in advance_ for lodging. I had a good, clean bed and
washing conveniences in my room. Add to this twopence for tea, and the
day’s living is 33 cents. This was in the north of England, and was
extraordinary. The usual charge for lodging is a shilling, sometimes
ninepence, and sometimes only sixpence. At the first-class inns they
will make you pay well in one way or another. Where we did not dine we
have been charged threepence each for the use of the public room, that
is to say, for sitting in it instead of out-of-doors or in our rooms,
while waiting for tea to be prepared. With regard to servants, the best
way is to ask the landlord to pay them and charge it in the bill. It
relieves you of a great annoyance, and in such cases we never found the
charge added extravagant.
_Equipment._—_Shoes_ can be obtained much cheaper in England than
America, and, indeed, first-rate shoes are hardly to be had in America;
but English shoes, that you would have to buy at the shops, always have
a seam across the instep that is very hard upon a foot unaccustomed
to it; and for this reason, and to ensure a shape to suit you, you
had best get them made at home. The leather should be well-tanned and
dressed thick kip or cowhide, the best that can be procured; the soles
of “English bend,” three-eighths of an inch in thickness; double this
in the heel, which should come so far forward that the break will
be perpendicular with the point of the ankle. Give your order, if
possible, six months beforehand, (I never have known a shoemaker who
would get his work done when he promised to for any consideration,)
and go to the _workman_ yourself to make sure that he understands what
you want, otherwise you will probably receive, just as you are going
on board ship, a parcel by express containing a pair of butterfly
pumps with soles of hummingbird hide. Have a distinct agreement that
they shall be returned if they do not come in time, and if they do
not answer to your order. They should be high enough (6½ inches,
including heel, commonly) to well cover the ankle, and lace up with
but two crossings over the instep. The laces must be made of the best
_leather_, and you should carry half-a-dozen spare ones.
If, finally, the shoes are not large enough to go easily over two
woollen socks on your foot, reject them. Get Shaker _woollen socks_ of
an exact fit to your foot, or as large as they may be without danger
of folding or rubbing into welts under your shoes. Wear them with the
“wrong side” outward. You do not want to wear them double, but your
feet will swell so in a long hot day’s walk, that you will want that
there should have been room enough in your shoes for them to be double
before you started. Break your shoes in on the passage.
Gaiters are worn to protect the feet from dust and gravel coming over
the top of the shoe. They increase the heat of the feet to that degree
that they are best dispensed with. Bathe your feet at every convenient
opportunity on the road, and always as soon as you stop for the night,
and change your socks and put on slippers.
[Sidenote: _ADVICE TO THE PEDESTRIAN._]
I could give good reasons for all that I have recommended with regard
to shoes; and you had better neglect nothing. I took all these
precautions and yet suffered a thousand times more, and was delayed
more, from foot-soreness than from fatigue. English pedestrians and
sportsmen often wear much heavier and clumsier shoes than I have
advised.
_Knapsack._—We had the India-rubber _army_ knapsack, made at Naugatuck,
Connecticut. If you can get them well “seasoned,” so that they will not
stick or smell, and with a good _harness_, they will probably be the
best you can procure. Ours were so, and we found them convenient and to
wear well.
_Clothing_ you can get in England better than at home, if you wish to
buy any. You must dispense with every thing not absolutely essential to
your comfort; for every ounce is felt in a hot day. We carried in our
knapsacks each about as follows:
Four shirts, 1 pair cloth pantaloons, 2 pair socks, slippers,
handkerchiefs, mending materials, toilet articles, coarse towel,
napkin, leather drinking-cup, cap, oil-silk cape, portfolio with
writing and sketching materials, knife and fork, candle of tallow (that
it may be used to grease shoes with upon occasion), matches, a book,
map, pocket-compass, adhesive plaster, cord, shoe-lacings.
Every thing selected with great care for lightness and compactness,
and the whole weighing ten pounds and a-half, including knapsack and
straps. We wore upon the road light cloth coats and waistcoats, and
linen dusters or blouses, and light cassimere pantaloons. We each
carried a strong, hooked hickory-stick, and it will be found best to
do so. We usually wore broad-brimmed, pliable felt hats of the best
quality; they were excellent both in sun and rain. We also had light
linen caps.
For _rainy weather_ a cape of the best black oiled silk, 22 inches
long before, and 16 inches behind, with a low collar, and buttoning
in front, weighing half-a-pound, and folding so small that it could
be carried in a coat pocket—a most capital and serviceable article.
With a loop and a tape it may be gathered tight at the waist under the
knapsack, so as not to be lifted by the wind.
A _flask for drink_ is hardly worth its carriage in England. A man
every way in health should be able to walk a dozen miles or more
without wanting to drink. Where good water is constantly to be had, it
is refreshing to taste it very frequently, and there are no ill effects
to be apprehended from doing so. You will perspire more freely, and I
think stand the heat better; but cold water will not quench thirst,
except momentarily; on the contrary, I believe it increases it. Malt
liquors and spirituous liquors have different effects upon different
individuals. Both are disagreeable to me. Most English pedestrians
drink very freely of malt liquors, and find them very wholesome. On
the Continent I would carry a flask for light wine, such as every
peasant has to his dinner. Its cost is trifling, and there is nothing
in the world which will quench thirst like it, except, perhaps, tea.
It is not very palatable at first, but exceedingly refreshing, and I
believe every way healthful. It has no intoxicating, and very slight
stimulating, qualities. I think it would be a great moral blessing, and
have an excellent effect on the public health, if it could be produced
cheaply, and used as freely as tea and coffee now are in the United
States.
Here I will give you “a secret,” which may, some time, be of use to
you. When you feel very much jaded with a long walk, and hardly able to
go any further, if you can swallow a cup of tea and a bit of toast or
biscuit, and _pour a wine-glass of whiskey into your shoes_, keeping
yourself warm during the halt, you will find yourself good for another
hour or two of hard tramping.
_Routes and Distances._—Unless you are considerably familiar with the
language and history of a Continental nation, I would advise you to
spend most of your time in England. It is better to study thoroughly
the character of one people, and remain so long, if possible, in their
country, that you may feel as if you had lived in it, and made yourself
a part of it, than to run superficially over a dozen. It is, however,
much cheaper, and in many respects more agreeable, to walk in Germany
than in England; and a true American, mingling with the peasant people,
can hardly fail to do them good, and have his own heart enlightened and
expanded by their spirit longing for liberty and universal affection
for his country. It is of walking in England, however, that I wish now
especially to speak.
Your route should be determined by your tastes and objects. If they are
as general as ours, and you design to employ the same time in England
that we did, I could advise but very slight variation from our route.
[Sidenote: _ADVICE TO THE PEDESTRIAN._]
With a week’s more time, you should see more of North Wales, (though,
in general, mountain and lake country _is not England_, and you can
get what tourists go to those districts for better nearer home;)
extend your walk into Devonshire, and keep along the south coast to
Portsmouth. After visiting the Isle of Wight, the old road to London,
running, I believe, through Guildford, is said to be much pleasanter
than the more direct way we came. After spending some weeks in and
about London, follow up the Thames by Henley, and as near the south
bank as you can, to Oxford—then by Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick, and
Kenilworth, to Birmingham; thence, according to your interest, through
the manufacturing districts, and by Chatsworth and the Derbyshire moors
to York; thence by Fountain’s Abbey, through the curious hill-country
of West Yorkshire and Lancashire, into Westmoreland; thence either
north to Scotland, or by Liverpool to Ireland, crossing afterwards
to Scotland from Belfast. Guide-books can be obtained, I believe, of
Mr. Putnam, in New York, by the aid of which and a good map, you may,
before you leave home, judge how much time you will want to spend in
examining various objects of interest, and ascertain distances, &c.
You can thus plot off your route and calculate the time at which you
will arrive at any particular point. Guide-books are very expensive and
heavy, and this is their principal use; further, you are liable to pass
through a town and neglect to see something for which it is peculiarly
distinguished, without you have something to remind you of it.
We travelled at first at the rate of one hundred miles in six days, at
last at the rate of about two hundred; sometimes going forty miles,
and ordinarily thirty, in a day. We usually did thirty miles in eleven
hours, one of which might be spent in _nooning_ under a hedge or in a
wayside inn, and about one mile an hour lost in loitering; looking at
things on the wayside or talking to people that we met, our actual pace
was just about four miles an hour.
You can start with twelve miles in a day, and calculate to average
twenty-five after the first fortnight.
If you can make any thing like a harmonious noise upon any instrument,
for that purpose I would advise you to strap it on. You will understand
its value by reading the life of Goldsmith. It will make you welcome
in many a peasant circle, where you might otherwise have been only a
damper upon all naturalness and geniality.
APPENDIX D.
Principles of the Mark System, framed to mix persuasion with
punishment, and make their effect improving, yet their operation
severe. By CAPTAIN MACHONOCHIE, R. N., K. H., late superintendent of
the British penal settlement at Norfolk Island.
“Our present punishments resemble every thing that is most
deteriorating in ordinary life: and they deteriorate accordingly. If
we would infuse into them those impulses which, under Providential
guidance, make other forms of adversity improving, we would make them
improving also.”
The constituent elements in secondary punishment are labour and time.
Men are sentenced to hard _labour_ for a given _time_:—but the time is
here made to measure the labour,—and the first proposal of the Mark
System is, that instead of this the labour be made to measure the
time. This idea is not peculiar to it. In his letter to Earl Grey the
Archbishop of Dublin uses these words: “The best plan, as it appears to
me, would be, instead of sentencing men to imprisonment for a certain
time, to sentence them to render a certain amount of labour. A fixed
daily task may be imposed on them, but with power to exceed this at
their own discretion, thereby shortening their period of detention.
The effect would be, not only that criminals would thus acquire habits
of labour, but of attaching an agreeable idea to labour. By each
additional step they took on the tread-wheel they would be walking out
of prison—by each additional cut of the spade they would be cutting a
way to return to society.”
[Sidenote: _THE MARK SYSTEM._]
It would be difficult to express the direct primary effect of the
system in happier or terser terms; and even when thus stated, the
improvement contemplated on existing practice appears immense. But
much more when the ulterior consequences are also considered. By
substituting a powerful internal stimulus to exertion for that physical
coercion which must ever be at best an imperfect external one, while
all necessary bondage and suffering as the consequences of crime
would be retained, direct “slavery” would be banished from among our
secondary punishments. The tendencies of our management would be to
good, whereas those of the existing system are “to evil continually.”
Men would improve under it, instead of becoming worse. And the
administration of public justice would acquire a place among the
Christian agencies of our land: it is painful to think how far it is at
present removed in operation from any such character.
But another view may be also taken of the question thus involved, not
less interesting. If we look abroad into ordinary life, we cannot but
be struck with the resemblance which our present forms of secondary
punishment bear to every thing that is in this most enfeebling and
deteriorating, and how directly opposed they are to those forms of
adversity which, under the influence of Providential wisdom, reform
character and invigorate it. Slavery deteriorates—long seclusion
deteriorates—every condition, in a word, more or less deteriorates,
which leaves no choice of action, requires no virtue but obedience,
affords no stimulus to exertion beyond this, supplies the wants of
nature without effort with a view to them, and restores to prosperity,
through lapse of time, without evidence that such restoration is
deserved. Yet this is our present system of secondary punishment. What
improves, on the contrary, is a condition of adversity from which
there is no escape but by continuous effort—which leaves the degree
of that effort much in the individual’s own power, but if he relaxes
his suffering is deepened and prolonged, and it is only alleviated
and shortened if he struggles manfully—which makes exertion necessary
even to earn daily bread—and something more, prudence, self-command,
voluntary economy, and the like, to recover prosperity. To this, as
yet, secondary punishment bears no resemblance; but were our sentences
measured by labour instead of time,—were they to the performance of
certain tasks, not to the occupation of a certain time in evading
any,—the approximation might be made indefinitely close.
Labour being a vague term, the system next proposes that it be
represented by marks,—the earning of so many thousands of which, in
a prison or penal settlement, as the case may be, to be made the
punishment of all offences according to their degree. A proportion
of these marks to be credited to individuals daily, according to the
exertion made in whatever labour is allotted them,—all supplies of
food and clothing to be charged in them,—all misconduct to be punished
by fines in them,—and only the clear balance to be carried to account
towards liberation. By this means both wages and savings’ banks would
be introduced into prisons—wages to stimulate labour, and give an
interest in it, and savings’ banks to give a similar interest to habits
of economy and self-command. To make the resemblance to ordinary
life still closer, and at the same time promote kindly and social,
as opposed to selfish, feeling, it is further proposed that during a
portion of their entire period of detention criminals be distributed
into parties or families of six, with common interests and accounts,
rising or falling together, and thus all interested in the good conduct
of each. By this means a strong physical check would be laid on crime
in prisons, with a yet stronger moral one; and an apparatus would be
gained by which good conduct and exertion would be made popular, and
offence unpopular, in the community, and all would be interested in
promoting the one and keeping down the other. My experience on Norfolk
Island—(which was imperfect, because my views were not then sustained,
as I trust they yet will be, at home, my powers and apparatus were
consequently imperfect, and my results rather indicated tendencies than
gave precise conclusions) yet leads me to attach great value to this,
as to several other details explained in other papers. But I regard
them all only as they seem to me to carry out the principles laid down.
If these are right, when once established, the best details to found on
them will soon become of themselves apparent. With a near tangible end,
like individual reform, in view, no mistakes, however at first great,
can be long persisted in.
[Sidenote: _THE MARK SYSTEM._]
Severity, then, with a directly benevolent purpose,—modelled with a
view to recover criminals as well as punish them,—controlled and guided
by the enlightened pursuit of this noble end, made as great, for the
benefit both of the individual and the community, as is compatible
with it, but neither greater nor other than strictly subordinate to
it,—this is the guide here sought to be introduced into secondary
punishment: and unless it is attentively considered, it will be found
difficult to believe the number of new views that it will open up of
interest and promise. It will adjust the controversy between harshness
and lenity which has long divided reasoners on the subject,—the one
impulse having authorized the most distressing cruelties, while the
other has occasionally led to indulgences scarcely less injurious
in their ultimate consequences to both the criminal and society,
enfeebling the one, and leading the honest labourer, in the other,
painfully to contrast his own position with that of the convicted
felon. It will thus solve many preliminary difficulties, and conduct
to many important conclusions. It will give a new spirit to punishment
by giving it a new direction. By raising its object it will raise its
administration. It will be difficult to be either cruel or careless
with such an object as individual reform in view, and _while wielding
an agency offering a reasonable probability of attaining it_. (The last
is of great importance: we become indifferent, in spite of ourselves,
when engaged in a hopeless task.) It will assimilate this branch of our
administration to those ways of Providence to men which must always
be our surest guides when we seek to influence them. It will thus
imitate the highest wisdom, and thereby enable us to obey the highest
precept. We may love while we chasten, and be substantially kind even
when enforcing the strictest commands of punitive law. It will succeed
with little effort, because it will study the human nature implanted
in us, instead of trampling its impulses under foot. It will further
conduct to great economy as well as efficiency, partly through this
cause, partly because the virtues of industry and self-command which
it will be its great aim to foster will equally bring about both
results. The practical change may be thought a small one on which to
found such anticipations—the change from measuring labour by time to
that of measuring time by labour—or, in other words, from giving our
criminals time-sentences to allotting them tasks:—but the one course
is the direct reverse of the other, and the difference may be thus
the whole difference between right and wrong, success and failure. It
seems, indeed, even impossible to follow out the chain of reasoning
suggested without coming to this conclusion. When men are smitten
with adversity in ordinary life, and thus _punished_ for previous
follies or misconduct, they are not condemned to this adversity for a
certain _time_, but until they can retrieve their position. They suffer
under this _task_; they sorrow over it (but without resentment); they
struggle with it; their characters improve under the various efforts
and emotions called out by it, (both deepened if they have others to
care for as well as themselves;) frequently they rise even higher
than before;—and society is instructed by such examples in every
way—it shrinks from the preliminary sufferings exhibited in them, and
emulates, in due proportion as its own case may require, the manly
struggle that has at length overcome them. And so it might be with
our punishments, if we would model them on the same type. They are now
for the most part barbarous in every sense, in their want of skill
and adaptation to high purpose, and in the crime and misery they thus
gratuitously produce. We might make them beneficent in every sense,
merely by copying the wisdom that is around us;—and when this is fully
understood, it is not to be imagined but that every lover of his kind
will take even an eager interest in bringing about the change. The real
difficulty is to influence to the inquiry.
I must add, that in this condensed statement of the principles of his
system, Captain Machonochie has made no allusion to a very important
part of it—the _anti-criminal_ part, if I may so express it. He
proposes, as a preventive measure, the establishment of Industrial
Schools, to which the children of the poorer classes or vagrants should
be encouraged to come and give their cheerful and active labour, by
receiving marks exchangeable for a good, substantial, but coarse, meal
in the middle of the day, and some other food to carry home at night.
The employments to be as much as possible rural and agricultural, and
in every case at least laborious, fitting those subjected to them to
face hard work in after life.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
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