Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 374, December, 1846», sayfa 11

CHAPTER III

Mildred was at this moment checked in her current of observation, and reduced to play something more than the part of spectator. Her ear caught a voice, heard only once before, but not forgotten; she turned, and saw the stranger who had surprised her when, in her girlish days, she was sitting in the minster tower. He immediately introduced himself by asking her to dance.

"I do not dance," she said, but in a manner which did not seem to refuse conversation. The stranger appeared very well satisfied with the compromise; and some pleasant allusion to the different nature of the scene in which they last met, put them at once upon an easy footing.

"You say you do not dance – that is, of course, you will not. I shall not believe," he continued, "even if you had just stepped from your high tower of wisdom, but that you can do any thing you please to do. Pardon so blunt a speech."

"Oh, I can, I think," she replied. "My uncle, I believe, would have taught me the broad-sword exercise, if any one had suggested its utility to him."

And saying this, she turned to her uncle, to give him an opportunity, if he pleased, of joining the conversation. It was an opportunity which Mr Bloomfield, who had heard a foreign language chattered in his ear all the evening, would have gladly taken; but the patience of that gentleman had been for some time nearly exhausted; he had taken his sister under his arm, and was just going to propose to Mildred to leave the room.

The stranger escorted them through the crowd, and saw the ladies into their carriage.

"Can we set you down any where?" said Mr Bloomfield, who, though impatient to be gone, was disposed to be very cordial towards his fellow-countryman. "We are at the Hotel de l'Europe."

"And I opposite at the Hotel de Flandres– I will willingly accept your offer;" and he took the vacant seat in their carriage.

"How do you like Brussels?" was on the lips of both gentlemen at the same time.

"Nay," said the younger, "I have been here, I think, the longest; the question is mine by right of priority of residence."

Mr Bloomfield was nothing loath to communicate his impression of all that he had seen, and especially to dilate upon a grievance which, it seemed, had sorely afflicted him.

"As to the town, old and new, and especially the Grande Place, with its Hotel de Ville, I have been highly interested by it; but, my dear sir, the torture of walking over its horrid pavement! Only conceive a quiet old bachelor, slightly addicted to the gout, accustomed to take his walk over his well-rolled paths, or on his own lawn, (if not too damp,) suddenly put down amongst these cruel stones, rough and sharp, and pitched together in mere confusion, to pick his way how he can, with the chance of being smashed by some cart or carriage, for one is turned out on the same road with the horses. I am stoned to death, with this only difference, that I fall upon the stones instead of the stones falling upon me. And when there is a pavement —a trottoir, as they call it – it is often so narrow and slanting, and always so slippery, and every now and then broken by some step put there purposely, it would seem, to overthrow you, that it is better to bear the penance at once of the sharp footing in the centre of the street. Trottoirs, indeed! I should like to see any one trot upon them without breaking his neck! A spider or a black beetle, or any other creature that crawls upon a multitude of legs, and has not far to fall if he stumbles, is the only animal that is safe upon them. I go moaning all the day about these jogged pointed stones, that pitch me from one to the other with all the malice of little devils; and, would you believe it? my niece there only smiles, and tells me to get thick shoes! They cannot hurt her; she walks somehow over the tops of them as if they were so many balls of Indian rubber, and has no compassion for her gouty uncle."

"Oh, my dear uncle" —

"No, none at all; indeed you are not overburdened with that sentiment at any time for your fellow-travellers. You bear all the afflictions of the road – your own and other people's – very calmly."

"Don't mind him, my dear," said Miss Bloomfield, "he has been exclaiming again and again what an excellent traveller you make; nothing puts you out."

"That is just what I say – nothing does put her out. In that she is a perfect Mephistophiles. You know the scene of confusion on board a steamer when it arrives at Antwerp, and is moored in under the quay on a hot day, with its full complement of passengers. There you are baked by the sun and your own furnaces; stunned by the jabber around you, and the abominable roar over your head made by the escape of the steam; the deck strewed with baggage, which is then and there to be publicly examined – turned over by the revenue officers, who leave you to pack up your things in their original compass, if you can. Well, in all this scene of confusion, there sat my niece with her parasol over her little head, looking quite composedly at the great cathedral spires, as if we were not all of us in a sort of infernal region there."

"No, uncle, I looked every now and then at our baggage, too, and watched that interesting process you have described of its examination. And when the worthy officer was going to crush aunt's bonnet by putting your dressing-case on the top of it, I rose, and arrested him. I had my hand upon his arm. He thought I was going to take him prisoner of war, for he was about to put his hand to his sword; but a second look at his enemy reassured him."

"Oh, you did squeak when the bonnets were touched," cried the uncle, "I am glad of that: it shows that you have some human, at least some feminine, feeling in your composition."

"But àpropos of the pavement," said the young stranger, who could not join the uncle in this banter on his niece, and was therefore glad to get back to some common ground. "I took up, in a reading-room, the other day, a little pamphlet on phrenology, by M. Victor Idjiez, Fondateur du Musée Phrenologique at Brussels. It might as well have been entitled, on animal magnetism, for he is one of those who set the whole man in motion – mind and body both – by electricity. Amongst other things, he has discovered that that singular strength which madmen often display in their fits, is merely a galvanic power which they draw (owing, I suppose, to the peculiar state of their nerves,) from the common reservoir the earth, and which, consequently, forsakes them when they are properly isolated. In confirmation of this theory, he gives a singular fact from a Brussels journal, showing that asphalte pavement will isolate the individual. A madman had contrived to make his escape from confinement, having first thrown all the furniture of his room out of the window, and knocked down and trampled upon his keeper. Off he ran, and no one would venture to stop him. A corporal and four soldiers were brought up to the attack: he made nothing of them; after having beaten the four musketeers, he took the corporal by the leg and again ran off, dragging him after upon the ground. A crowd of work-people emerging from a factory met him in full career with the corporal behind him, and undertook his capture. All who approached him were immediately thrown down – scattered over the plain. But his triumph was suddenly checked; he lighted upon a piece of asphalte pavement. The moment he put his foot upon it, his strength deserted him, and he was seized and taken prisoner. The instant, however, he stepped off the pavement, his strength revived, and he threw his assailants from him with the same ease as before. And thus it continued: whenever he got off the pavement, his strength was restored to him; the moment he touched it, he was again captured with facility. The asphalte had completely isolated him."

"Ha! ha!" cried Mr Bloomfield; "the fellow, after all, was not quite so mad as not to know what he was about. A Brussels pavement, asphalte or not, is no place for a wrestling match. Isolated, indeed! Oh, doubtless, it would isolate you most completely – at least the soles of your feet – from all communication with the earth. But does Mr – what do you call him? – proceed to theorise upon such facts as these?"

"You shall have another of them. Speaking of animal magnetism or electricity, he says – 'There are certain patients the iron nails of whose shoes will fly out if they are laid in a direction due north.'"⁴¹

"But you are quoting from Baron Munchausen."

"Not precisely."

Miss Bloomfield, who had been watching her opportunity, here brought in her contribution. "Pray, sir, do you believe the story they tell of the architect of the Hotel de Ville – that he destroyed himself on finding, after he had built it, that the tower was not in the centre?"

"That the architect should not discover that till the building was finished, is indeed too good a story to be true."

"But, then, why make the man kill himself? Something must have happened; something must be true."

"Why, madam, there was, no doubt, a committee of taste in those days as in ours. They destroyed the plan of the architect by cutting short one of his wings, or prolonging the other; and he, out of vexation, destroyed himself. This is the only explanation that occurs to me. A committee of taste is always, in one sense at least, the death of the artist."

"Yes, yes," said Mildred; "the artist can be no longer said to exist, if he is not allowed, in his own sphere, to be supreme."

This brought them to the door of the hotel. They separated.

The next morning, on returning from their walk, the ladies found a card upon their table which simply bore the name of "Alfred Winston." The gentleman who called with it, the waiter said, had left word that he regretted he was about to quit Brussels, that evening, for Paris.

Mildred read the name several times – Alfred Winston. And this was all she knew of him – the name upon this little card!

There were amongst the trio several discussions as to who or what Mr Alfred Winston might be. Miss Bloomfield pronounced him to be an artist, from his caustic observations on committees of taste, and their meddling propensities. Mr Bloomfield, on the contrary, surmised he was a literary man; for who but such a one would think of occupying himself in a reading-room with a pamphlet on phrenology, instead of the newspapers? And all ended in "wondering if they should fall upon him again?"

THE LAW AND ITS PUNISHMENTS

It is no uncommon boast in the mouth of Englishmen, that the system of jurisprudence under which they have the happiness to live, is the most perfect the world has ever seen. Having its foundation in those cabalistic words, "Nullus liber homo," &c., engraved with an iron pen upon the tablets of the constitution by the barons of King John, the criminal law, in their estimation, has been steadily improved by the wisdom of successive ages, until, in the present day, it has reached a degree of excellence which it were rashness to suppose can by any human sagacity be surpassed. Under its protecting influence, society reposes in security; under its just, but merciful administration, the accused finds every facility for establishing his innocence, and is allowed the benefit of every doubt that ingenuity can suggest to rebut the probability of guilt; before its sacred tribunals, the weak and the powerful, the poor and the rich, stand in complete equality; under its impartial sentence, all who merit punishment are alike condemned, without respect of any antecedents of rank, wealth, or station. In such a system, no change can take place without injury, for it is (not to speak irreverently) a system of perfection.

This is the dream of many – for we must characterise it rather as a dream than a deliberate conviction. Reason, we fear, has but little to do with the opinions of those who hold that English jurisprudence has no need of reform.

The praises which are so lavishly bestowed upon our criminal law may be, to a great extent, just; but it is to be doubted whether they are altogether judicious. It is true, that in no other system of jurisprudence throughout the civilised world, or among the nations of antiquity, has there existed, or is there so tender a regard for the rights of the accused. In Germany, the wretch who falls under suspicion of the law is subjected to a tedious and inquisitorial examination, with a view to elicit from his own lips the proof, and even the confession of guilt. This mental torture, not to speak of the imprisonment of the body, may be protracted for years, and even for life. In France, the facts connected with an offence are published by authority, and circulated throughout the country, to be greedily devoured by innumerable lovers of unwholesome excitement; and not the simple facts alone, but a thousand incidental circumstances connected with the transaction, together with the birth, parentage, and education, and all the previous life of the supposed offender, making in the whole a romance of considerable interest, and possessing an attraction beyond the ordinary tales which fill the feuilleton of a newspaper. In England, the position of the accused is widely different. We avoid the errors and the tyranny of our neighbours; but have we not fallen into the opposite extreme? Our magistrates scrupulously caution prisoners not to say any thing that may criminate themselves. Every thing that authority can effect by means of advice, which, under the circumstances, is equivalent to command, is carefully brought forward to prevent a confession. And if, in spite of checks, warnings, and commands, the accused, overcome by the pangs of conscience, and urged by an irresistible impulse to disburden his soul of guilt, should perchance confess, the testimony is sometimes rejected upon some technical point of law, which would seem to have been established for the express purpose of defeating the ends of justice. Indeed, the technicalities which surround our legal tribunals have been, until very lately, and are still, in too many instances, most strangely favourable to the escape of criminals. The idlest quibbles, most offensive to common sense, and utterly disgraceful in a court of criminal investigation, have at various times been allowed as valid pleas in defence of the most palpable crimes. Many a thief has escaped, on the ground of some slight and immaterial misdescription of the stolen article, such as a horse instead of a mare, a cow instead of an ox, a sheep for a ewe, and so on. True, these absurdities exist no longer; but others still remain, less ridiculous perhaps, but not less obstructive of the course of justice, and quite as pernicious in their example. Great and beneficial changes have been effected in the criminal code, and too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Sir Robert Peel for his exertions in this behalf. To her Majesty's commissioners, also, some thanks are due for the labour they have expended with a view to the consolidation and subsequent codification of the various statutes. Their labours, however, have not hitherto been very largely productive. The excellent object of simplifying our criminal laws still remains to be accomplished, and so long as it does so, so long will it be obnoxious to the censures which are not unsparingly heaped upon it.

But if our jurisprudence be in one respect too favourable to the criminal, in another, as it appears to us, the balance is more than restored to its equilibrium. If, in the process of investigation, justice leans too much to the side of mercy, the inquiry once over, she quickly repents of her excessive leniency, and is careful to justify her ways by a rigorous severity. The accused, if he is not lucky enough to avail himself of the thousand avenues of escape that are open during the progress of his trial, must abandon all hope of further consideration, and look to undergo a punishment, of which the full extent cannot be estimated by any human sagacity. Once condemned, he ceases to be an object of care or solicitude, except so far as these are necessary to preserve his life and restrain his liberty. Through crime he has forfeited all claim upon the fostering care of the state. He is an alien and an outcast, and has no pretence for expecting any thing but misery.

Surely there is something vindictive in all this – something not quite consistent with the calm and unimpassioned administration of justice. The first impressions of any man of ordinary humanity must be very much against a system which fosters and encourages such a state of things. We believe that those first impressions would be confirmed by inquiry; and it is our purpose in the present article briefly to state the reasons for our belief.

The treatment of criminals under sentence of imprisonment must now be well known to the public. Repeated discussion and innumerable writings have rendered it familiar to every body. A man is condemned to undergo, let us say, three years' incarceration in a jail. A portion of the time is to be spent in hard labour. He commences his imprisonment with no other earthly object than to get through it with the least possible amount of suffering. Employment, which might, under better circumstances, be a pleasant resource, is distasteful to him because it is compulsory, and because it is productive of no benefit to himself. The hours that are unemployed are passed in company with others as bad as, or worse than, himself. They amuse themselves by recounting the history of their lives, their hairbreadth escapes, their successful villanies. Each profits by the experience of the whole number, and stores it in his memory for future guidance. Every good impulse is checked, and every better feeling stifled in the birth. There is no room in a jail for the growth of virtue; the atmosphere is not congenial to its development. The prisoner, however well disposed, cannot choose but listen to the debasing talk of those with whom he is compelled to associate. Should he resist the wicked influence for a while, he can hardly do so long. The poison will work. By little and little it insinuates itself into the mind, and vitiates all the springs of good. In the end, he yields to the irresistible force of continued bad example, and becomes as bad as the worst.

But let us believe, for an instant, that one prisoner has resisted the ill effects of wicked association – let us suppose him to have escaped the contamination of a jail, to have received no moral hurt from bad example, to be untainted by the corrupting atmosphere of congregated vice – in short, to return into the world at the end of his imprisonment a better man than he was at its commencement. Let us suppose all this, although the supposition, it must be confessed, is unsupported by experience, and directly in the teeth of probability. He sallies forth from his prison, full of good resolutions, and determined to win the character of an honest man. Perhaps he has a small sum of money, which helps him to reach a part of the country most distant from the scene of his disgrace. He seeks for work, and is fortunate enough to obtain it. For a short time, all goes well with him. He is industrious and sober, and gains the good-will of his employer. He is confirmed in his good intentions, and fancies that his hopes of regaining his position in society are about to be realised. Vain hopes! Rumour is busy with his name. His fellow-labourers begin to look coldly on him. The master does not long remain in ignorance. The discharged convict is taxed with his former degradation, and made to suffer again the consequences of a crime he has well and fully expiated. His brief hour of prosperity is over. He is cast forth again upon the world, denied the means of gaining an honest livelihood, with nothing before him but starvation or a jail. What wonder should he choose the latter! Goaded by despair, or stimulated by hunger, he yields to the first temptation, and commits a crime which places him again within prison walls. It is his second conviction. He is a marked man. He were more than mortal if he escaped the deteriorating effects of repeated association with the hardened and the vicious. His future career is certain. He falls from bad to worse, and ends his life upon the scaffold.

We have imagined, for the sake of argument, a case which, in one of its features, is unfortunately of very rare occurrence. Criminals seldom, perhaps never, leave a jail with the slightest inclination to a course of honesty. Their downward progress, when they have once been exposed to the contamination of a prison life, may be calculated almost with certainty. No sooner is the term of their imprisonment expired, than they step forth into the world, eager to recommence the old career of systematic villany. Good intentions, and the desire of doing well, are almost always strangers to their breasts. But should they, perchance, be alive to better things, and be moved by wholesome impulses, what an awful responsibility rests upon those who, by individual acts, or by a pernicious system, check and render abortive the efforts of a dawning virtue! In the case we have supposed, there is doubtless much that must be laid to the score of human nature. Men will not easily be persuaded, that he who has once made a grievous lapse from the path of honesty, will not be ever prone to repeat the offence. None but the truly charitable (an infinitesimal portion of every community) will expose themselves to the risk of employing a discharged convict. But whilst this much evil is justly attributed to the selfish cruelty of society, a much larger share of blame attaches to the system which affords too plausible a pretext for such uncharitable conduct. It is not merely because a man has offended against the laws, and been guilty of what, in legal parlance, may be a simple misdemeanour, that he is regarded with suspicion and treated with ignominy; but much more, because he has been confined in a jail, and exposed to all the pernicious influences which are known to be rife within its walls. It is deemed a thing incredible, that a man can issue from a hot-bed of corruption, and not be himself corrupt. To have undergone a term of imprisonment, is very generally thought to be equivalent to taking a degree in infamy. On the system, therefore, rests much of the blame which would otherwise attach to the world's cold charity; to its account must be charged every subject who might have been saved, and who, through despair, is lost to the service of the state.

The evils we have described are patent and notorious; the only question, therefore, that arises is, whether they are inevitable and inherent in the nature of things, or whether they may be avoided by greater care and an improved system. Before entering upon this question, it may be well to notice briefly the various opinions that are entertained concerning the proper end and aim of criminal punishment. We take for granted, that in every community, under whatever political constitution it may exist and be associated, the sole object of criminal law is the peace and security of society. With regard to the means by which this object may be best attained, or, in other words, with regard to the whole system of jurisprudence, from a preventive police down to the discipline of jails and the machinery of the scaffold, a great diversity of sentiment must naturally be expected. The pure theorist and the subtle disciple of Paley, maintain that the proper, nay, the sole object of punishment should be the prevention of crime. The philanthropic enthusiast, and the man of strict religious feeling, reject all other motives save only that of reforming the criminal. The dispassionate inquirer, the practical man, and he who has learned his lessons in the school of experience, take a middle course, though inclining a little to the theory of Paley. They hold that, whilst the amount, and to some extent the quality, of punishment should be settled and defined chiefly with a view to prevent the increase of crime by the deterring effect of fear, yet the details ought, if possible, to be so managed as in the end to bring about the reformation of the prisoner. We have no hesitation in avowing, that this last opinion is our own. There is an argument in its favour, which the most rigid disciple of the pure "prevention" theory must recognise immediately as one of his own most valued weapons. The "peace and security of society" are his watchwords. They are ours also. But whilst, in his opinion, the only way to produce the desired result is by a system of terrorism, such as will deter from the perpetration of crime, we believe that a careful solicitude concerning the moral conduct of the criminal during his imprisonment, and an anxious endeavour to instruct and improve his mind, by enforcing good habits, and taking away bad example, would be found equally powerful in their operation upon the well-being of society. For although it is a lamentable fact, that the number of our criminals is always being kept up to its full complement, by the addition of juvenile offenders, so that it would be vain to indulge a hope, without cutting off the feeding-springs, of materially diminishing our criminal population; yet it is equally true that the most desperate and dangerous offenders are they who have served their apprenticeship in jails, and there accomplished themselves in all the various devices of ingenious wickedness. It is these who give the deepest shade to the calendar of crime, and work incalculable mischief both in and out of prison, by instructing the tyros in all the most subtle varieties of villany. To reform such men may seem an arduous, perhaps an impossible task; but it is far less arduous, and certainly not impossible, to prevent their becoming the hardened ruffians which we have, without exaggeration, described them.

The truth must be told. The system of secondary punishments (as they are called, though why we know not) is radically wrong. There is something radically wrong in the discipline and regulations of our jails. The details of imprisonment are faulty and imperfect. Surely this is proved, when it is shown that men are invariably rendered worse, instead of better, by confinement in a jail. Even though it be admitted, for the sake of argument, that the state lies under no obligation to attempt the reformation of its criminals, the admission serves no whit to support a system under which criminals are confirmed and hardened in their vicious courses. The state may refuse to succour, but it has no right to injure. This, as it seems to us, is the strong point against our present system. It does not so much punish the body as injure the mind of the criminal; and, in so doing, it eventually endangers rather than secures the peace of society.

Many remedies have been proposed, but all, with an exception that will presently be mentioned, are rather palliative than corrective. Solitary confinement, for instance, is an undoubted cure for the diseases engendered by bad example and evil communications; but it breeds a host of other diseases, peculiar to itself, and in many cases worse than those it cures. Not to speak of the indulgence which so much idleness allows for vicious thoughts and recollections, the chief objection to solitary confinement is, that, if continued for any length of time, it unfits a man wholly for subsequent intercourse with the world. He leaves his prison with a mind prostrated to imbecility, and a body reduced to utter helplessness; yet he retains, perhaps, the cunning of the idiot, and just sufficient use of his limbs to serve him for a bad purpose. On these painful considerations, however, it is unnecessary to dwell at length. Solitary confinement, without occupation and without intervals of society, was an experiment upon the human animal. It has been tried in this country and elsewhere, and has signally failed. At this moment, we believe, it has few or no supporters.

The plan which has most largely and most deservedly attracted public attention, is that of Captain Maconochie, known by the name of the "Mark System." Captain Maconochie was superintendent of the penal establishment at Norfolk Island, where he had constantly about 2000 prisoners under his command. This office he held for eight years, and had, consequently, the most favourable opportunity of observing the practical working of the old system. Finding it to be defective, and injurious in every particular, he tried, with certain unavoidable modifications, a plan of his own, which, as he asserts, succeeded beyond his expectation. Having thus proved its practicability in Norfolk Island, and satisfied himself of its advantages, he wishes now to introduce it into England; and, with a view of obtaining a favourable hearing and efficient support, he has procured it to be referred to a committee of the "Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law." The committee have reported in its favour; and their report, which is said to have been drawn up by the learned Recorder of Birmingham, contains so concise and clear a statement of the Captain's plan, that we take leave to extract a portion of it: —

"Captain Maconochie's plan," says Mr M. D. Hill, "had its origin in his experience of the evil tendency of sentences for a time certain, and of fixed gratuitous jail rations of food. These he practically found opposed to the reformation of the criminal. A man under a time-sentence looks exclusively to the means of beguiling that time. He is thereby led to evade labour, and to seek opportunities of personal gratification, obtained, in extreme cases, even in ways most horrible. His powers of deception are sharpened for the purpose; and even, when unable to offend in act, he seeks in fancy a gratification, by gloating over impure images. At the best, his life stagnates, no proper object of pursuit being presented to his thoughts. And the allotment of fixed gratuitous rations, irrespective of conduct or exertion, further aggravates the evil, by removing even the minor stimulus to action, furnished by the necessity of procuring food, and by thus directly fostering those habits of improvidence which, perhaps even more than determined vice, lead to crime.