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men aware what were the sufferings and abuses detected in this country by the philanthropic Howard, no more than some half century ago? Do they know what my hon. friend Mr. Buxton published in his work on prison discipline, dated, I think, in 1818? Nay, have they read the reports of the prison inspectors but two or three years back, with regard to the gaol of Newgate? If they have, they will be slow in applying to the prisons of Jamaica a test, which those of England itself are but beginning to be able to bear.
Again, it is to be remembered, that in the cases w^hich have attracted so much attention, there has been delinquency alleged on the part of two special magistrates. One has not been heard. One has been dismissed. He does not represent the character of the body.
But I shall now beg leave to introduce another question which the honourable and learned gentleman has altogether avoided, one however which was urged with tremendous and resistless force during the discussions on slavery, the question of punishments: one which does exhibit facts connected with the mass, and not with single cases alone, because we have periodical returns from all the magisterial districts of all the punishments inflicted, made by those who have pronounced the sentence. I refer you to page 332 of the Papers, Part V. You will there find that in the month of May, 1837, there were punished in Jamaica, males by whipping, 282; otherwise than
