Note 98 — OF MURDER GENERALLY.

It is to be feared that grand juries will discontinue their salutary custom of visiting the prisons, in consequence of a recent decision that they have no right to demand admission. As the propriety of their inspection is generally granted, we may venture to hint a wish that some enactment may pass on this subject, and that the temporary political objection, arising out of the seclusion of state prisoners, may not be permitted to operate as a general and permanent obstacle. It is to the zeal of individuals in tracing abuses, rather than to legislative enactment for their prevention, that we look for the still necessary improvements of our prison discipline; for no government, however vigilant, can guard against the secret misconduct of its obscurer agents; all it can do, is to encourage enquiry, whenever the first hint of delinquency or even of suspicion is communicated. The subject is now under legislative consideration, and we may therefore hope that a due system may be adopted, one which shall equally steer clear of the wasteful expenditure of the Millbank Penitentiary, and the enormities imputed to Ilchester: that prisons may be made places of confinement, coercion, and punishment; but not of torture, contagion, and despair.

The improvement in morals, order, and cleanliness introduced into some prisons by the exertions of a benevolent individual (Mrs. Fry) deserves our notice; her attention indeed has been mainly directed to the mental and religious instruction of female prisoners, but this mental improvement is not without its effect on their bodily health; order, temperance, and cleanliness, will always produce a physical as well as moral improvement on the minds and persons of the lower orders.