THE TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS.
At the Birmingham quarter sessions the Recorder, Mr. Hill, delivered a long speech on the subject of the ticket-of-leave system, the pith of which lies in the passages which follow : —
‟I will confess to you that I watched the growing unpopularity of the act, not merely with anxiety, but with alarm, and however imperfectly the law is framed, and however open to animadversion the manner in which it has been carried into effect, it nevertheless embodies two principles, each founded, as I thought, upon just and enlightened principles of jurisprudence. The first is to enable the criminal to work out his freedom for himself by exhibiting proof that he is an altered man, and that he has become imbued with qualities the absence of which led to his fall. The second, to make the discharge only a conditional restoration to liberty. He is not, for the remainder of the term for which his sentence extends, to be placed on a footing with his fellow-citizens. The theory of the law is that he has been set at large because his conduct in prison has induced the belief that he is reformed. But, If his course of life should be such as to destroy that confidence, he is again to be returned to his probation in the gaol ....... The responsibility of the convict discharged on ticket of leave has been in practice little better than nominal. The rule was to send him to the town or district in which his offence had been committed, but no intimation of his return was conveyed to the police, and consequently they had no means of ascertaining whether he had come out of prison on a ticket of leave or whether he had received an unconditional discharge. In the latter event he was subject to no control until he committed a fresh offence. In the former his ticket was liable to recall at the direction of the Secretary of State, and by an endorsement on the ticket itself he was informed that ‛the power of altering the license of a convict will most certainly be exercised in case of misconduct. If therefore, he wishes to retain the privilege which, by his behaviour under penal discipline he has obtained, he must prove by his subsequent conduct that he is really worthy of her Majesty’s clemency.’ Thus it appears that due notice is given to every ticket-of-leave man that any clear manifestation that he does not mean to follow a sober, honest, and industrious course will consign him again to prison, such manifestation being taken as proof that when he left gaol he not in a fit state to be discharged.”
Richard Cope, the unfortunate victim of the murderous attack in Parliament-street, died in the hospital on the night of October 25th. The man in custody for the crime is a ticket-of-leave man. The case will increase the aversion with which the public look upon the ticket-of-leave system.