THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
Reading edition
ELEGY FOR THE KING OF THE GIPSIES, CHARLES LEE,
Who died in a tent near Lewes, August 16, 1832, aged 74. He was buried in St. Ann's Churchyard, in presence of a thousand spectators.
Hurrah!—hurrah!—pile up the mould: The Sun will gild its sod:— The Sun,—for threescore years and ten The Gipsy's idol God!— O'er field and fen,—by waste and wild, He watch'd its glories rise, To worship at that gorgeous shrine The spirit of the skies. No brick-built dwelling caged him in; No lordly roof of stone;— High o'er his couch the vault of Heaven In star-bright splendour shone! The rustling leaves still murmur'd there; The rambling woodbine flower Its twilight breath, exhal'd to cheer The outcast's desert bower! To him the forest's pathless depths Their mossiest caves reveal'd; To him, fair Nature's hand bequeath'd Her fruits of flood and field;— The flower,—the root,—the beast,—the bird,— All living things, design'd To feed the craving, or delight The gaze of human kind! The pencill'd wood-flower, fair and frail,— The squirrel's cunning nest,— The granite throne, with lichens wild, In broidered vesture drest;— Sweet violets bedded in their leaves, The first soft pledge of Spring;— Such were the gifts by Heaven's own hand Shed on the Gipsy King!— The snow-drop glistening in the wood, The crowsfoot on the lea, Their gold and silver coin pour'd forth To store his treasury; The springy moss, by fairies spread, His velvet footcloth made; His canopy shot up amid The lime-tree's emerald shade. Buck,—pheasant,—hare,—some lordly park Still yielded to his feast; And firing for his winter warmth, And forage for his beast. Happier than herald-blazoned Kings, The monarch of the moor;— He levied taxes from the rich,— They wring them from the poor! With glow-worm lamp, and incense cull'd Fresh from the bean-fields breath; And matin lark,—and vesper thrush, And honey-hoarded heath;— A throne beneath the forest-boughs, Fann'd by the wild bird's wing; Of all the potentates on earth, Hail to the GIPSY KING!
Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
.
AMERICAN PRISON DISCIPLINE.
(By the clever Schoolmaster in Newgate—See Fraser's Magazine.)
It appears, from the testimony of Captain Basil Hall, R.N. that perfect as he describes the American prison discipline to be, yet "there is a gradually increasing culprit population growing up in America, of which the legislation cannot rid the country. These men, who may almost be called the penitentiary population, run the round just as I have observed with respect to the Bridewell at Edinburgh; the same men come and go, round and round again." Well, then, nothing is accomplished in the way of reform, even under this lauded plan, which aims at the twofold object of efficient punishment and reformation, by enforcing reflection. Their error, and consequent failure in producing the good they expected, I conceive arises from their having neglected to adopt any plan for the improvement of the prisoners when they have separated them. They work, it seems, every day for years in silence, without intermission, except the time allowed for meals, which are always taken in solitude. The Bible is the only book allowed them—no paper nor pens: and this is called giving them habits of industry. I should say nothing can be more calculated to disgust them with every description of work all the rest of their days. If you can beget habits of industry, with a proportionate improvement of the mind, and an increased sense of the moral duties, which will bring right notions of meum and tuum, then habits of industry are of the utmost importance to the prisoner; as through these habits only can he obtain his bread, when brought to that state of mind which makes him prefer honesty to roguery. This can only be brought about by reflection, it is true; but I am afraid the term reflection, as here applied, is used in a very abstract sense. If it is meant the culprit should reflect on his having done wrong, I answer this he always does, under any punishment, however slight: he cannot but be aware of the cause which places him under coercion, and regret it. This kind of reflection only makes him more sorry for having been detected in his crime, than for having committed it. To reflect with advantage in solitude, there must be some materials stored in the mind; or books must be read to furnish these materials: if these be supplied, however unwilling a being may be to reflect, no mind will be long able to resist the temptation of mental employment, if in continual solitude. But if a mind, totally void of sources of reflection, be shut up in a cell for years, or even for months, what can be expected but that every day will stultify its powers, and at last render it callous and unimpressable; or in the end imbecile, and so weak as to be irresponsible for its own acts! The Americans do, it seems, in their solitary penitentiaries, teach those to read who cannot under twenty-five years of age; and then they leave them.