T LIT I
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.885
Reference →→
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
246
The
is established by the experience of every gentleman here who has acted as a Visiting Justice, as well as by the correspondence which has passed on the subject, and the mode in which a proper system of discipline should be maintained is also clearly laid down in this correspondence-in the Reports of Commissions held from time to time in-England and the Colonies-supported by the opinions of the first authorities of the day on the subject, and by the Report of the Commission appointed here to inquire into it. Report of that Committee-concurring, as I do, in the principles it enunciates-I laid before, the Acting Colonial Engineer, and instructed him that I was not prepared to carry it out fully at once as we had neither place for separate confinement nor the accommo dation which was necessary for the introduction of the new system of prison discipline for all the local prisoners in our gaol. But I told him I was very desirous of making a commencement of the system, and I requested him to consider how far we might make a beginning in Singapore, supposing the transmarine convicts were removed, or reduced to the lowest possible number, and how far he could modify the buildings so as to introduce amongst a considerable number separation and a penal discipline in the earliest stages, that being the basis of the system. This Report, together with an estimate of the expense of carrying it out, is before you, and also a statement of the extent to which he considers the establishment of prison officers should be increased, to enable the new system to be properly dealt with. I myself have slightly revised that establishment, and have put down what I believe is actually necessary in order to give effect to this system, and I now submit for your consideration the expediency of authorizing the alterations necessary in the prison at Singapore to allow of the introduction of this system of discipline, and also an alteration in the establishment-an alteration which consists, as you will
in providing free warders and watchmen in the place of the convict warders who are now almost exclusively employed in looking after their fellow prisoners. I submit to you the expediency of appropriating money for the two purposes suggested.
see,
Mr. Shelford.-Sir, I will not venture to detain the Council more than a few minutes upon this important question, because I am bound to confess that until the other day my personal acquaintance with the prison administration was simply nil. At a recent visit to the prison here, except in the refractory ward and separate cells, I found the prisoners lazily-even drowsily-engaged, working in association, talking together, and even in some cases laughing. They are in association at night, they are abundantly fed; their lodgings are in excellent order; they are well attended to in hospital whenever sick; and, what the native appreciates more than almost anything else, can sleep 11 hours in the 24. That explains the reason why the prisons are always full, and why there are so many reconvictions as we here of, some having been twenty or thirty times convicted. There was brought to my notice a case of a Chinaman who stole a baju; he was a miserable-looking wretch, who, I have no doubt, stole it for the benefit of having a good roof over his head and good food. In fact, except in the refractory ward and cells, the accommodation is so comfortable that as I came out and saw Convict Gaol" over the gate, it occurred to me that a more appropriate inscription would be "Charitable Institution for the Wicked," or perhaps "House of Refuge for the Destitute." A similar laxity, too, seems to prevail in Penang, if one may judge by a letter intercepted from a native convict to his friends in Ceylon, which, with the permission of the Council, I will read.
The Governor. That letter was from a transmarine convict, and it is with the local prisoners only that we have now to do.
Mr. Shelford.-I was not aware that he was a transmarine convict. Well, when I first perused the Report of the Committee that sat last year, it seemed to me that too much stress was laid upon the fact that penal labour must be of an unproductive kind. In the case of an European, no doubt, the degradation, and therefore the severity, of punishment is enhanced by the knowledge of the work being of no good either to himself or to his fellow-ereatures; but in the case of a native, with whom we have mainly to deal, whether from the apathy of his disposition or the dulness of his nature, he has not the capacity of feeling any regret at his penal labours being useless. On at point I agree with Major McNair, in his Report addressed to your Excellency on the 1st January, 1871, that, whether in the lower stage or the later period of their sentences, the labour of prisoners should be remunerative. The honourable gentleman opposite (Dr. Little), in a report which he was good enough to give to the Committee, says this labour ought, if possible, to be remunerative; and so impressed is he with this idea, that he proceeds to advocate the making of coir by machinery in the gaol.
However, after reading over the Report of the Ceylon Committee, and such others as I was able to get hold of, in which much stress is given to the greater deterrent effect of unproductive over industrial labour, it would be absurd in me to present my crude opinion against the experience show in those reports; but if having regard to the purpose of
247
punishment,—not only to punish a man for his crime, but to render that punishment so severe as to deter him from a repetition of it, and send him out of the prison, if possible, a better man than when he entered it,-it, I say, having regard to these points, it would be possible to modify the term of penal treatment so as to make it more productive, it would be better for the Colony, which is going to lose its transmarine convicts. The period during which it is necessary to inflict this penal labour might perhaps be shortened. In the Gold Coast I see that three months are considered sufficient. Now, if that is long enough to bring the swarthy aggro into form, it should certainly be so for the Chinese and other races here, which are inferior in physique to the African.
With regard to the separate system, I understood from the Superintendent that the very little experience he has had of it in our gaol is that it has such effect on the prisoners that they prefer corporal punishment to it. The efficacy of cutting off tails is proved by the fact that since the re-introduction of that system, on the 1st of May, I think, the numbers show a falling off in the police cases. subject, but I have, said enough to show that the prison system is defective, and I I might say a good deal more on the think that the Government is doing right in adopting penal discipline as it obtains in other colonies.
The Colonial Secretary.—Sir, as it appears from the speech of the honourable member on my right that he has no objection to improving the present prison system, it is hardly necessary for me to say much upon that subject. That improvement is loudly called for is shown by the Report laid upon the table. that Report which was differed from by two of the members of the Commission-the I should wish only to notice a point in question whether prison labour should be only of a remunerative nature. The proposal of the Committee has been to impose shot-drill, or some other penal labour, for only a portion, and not for the whole time, of the sentence. than any other gentleman at this table, perhaps, of the effect of that sort of penal Now, I um able to speak, more labour upon all Eastern people. It was introduced in Ceylon in 1867, and I have been in charge there of the largest penal works, on the saltpan, and though the labour which I could give them there-that of collecting salt and carrying it in the hot sun-was the hardest possible description, yet they had shot-drill every morning; they were all under long sentences, and the effect of that shot-drill was remarkable. The natives feared the shot-drill, and certainly it had much more effect upon them, combined with penal diet, than any other labour. It is about the only style of rigorous penal labour we can adopt without very great expense. We have not the means or appliances for introducing the tread-wheel, and we could not make it useful if we had. Shot-drill is the only rigorous penal labour we can impose, and it would be adopted for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening. It is the men who are habitually returning to gaol that would be subjected to it-those who go out and, as my honourable friend said very truly, steal small things for the purpose of being let into a house where they are properly fed and clothed; and if, when these men come in, you give them, for the first month, only rice and water, and put them into little sheds where they do not see each other, and make them break stones after an hour of shot-drill, I have no hesitation, from my experience of that system, in saying that you will find in a twelvemonth your cases diminished one-third. În the Circular despatch of the 15th April, 1871, is quoted a remark of Sir Edward Creasy respecting the system, which the Secretary of State mentions with approval. His Lordship says that "In the colony of Ceylon (where the reform of prison discipline has been carried through with conspicuous ability and zeal by a Commission comprising the Chief Justice and other highly qualified public officers) the effect of shot-drill and hard fare was reported, as far back as June, 1858, to be, that a sensible diminution had taken place in the number of habitual criminals; that the fear of shot-drill and penal dict was deterring the ill-disposed generally from crime; and that the Judges had felt themselves justified in greatly diminishing the scale of their sentences." Sir Edward Creasy, in a subsequent letter, says...“ Our rules are now being enforced throughout the island. The great features in our system are the shot-drill and penal diet, the classification of long-sentenced prisoners, and the remissi- bility of part of the sentence by means of the mark system. We are doing what we can to introduce the separate (not the solitary) system. forbids me to inflict anything like cruelty on a prisoner, but bids me also think of the My idea of humanity interests of the honest men upon whom he has lived by plundering." It will, of course, be the desire of the Government to make the labours as remunerative as possible, and no doubt hard labour can be made remunerative. Stone-breaking is one form of labour, and is always wanted for public works, and will pay. Then it inust be remembered that prisoners committed for gambling, and breaches of the Excise Ordinance, are not to be placed at this rigorous labour, being committed for non-payment of fines, and these men can be
•
*
#