Notebook
What can be done to improve our penal system? The question is often put, suggestions are made which may be impractical, or expensive, or are concerned with only one Of the purposes of imprisonment — deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation — and nothing happens. The same old prisons have to make room for more and more prisoners. Last November an inquiry was aPPointed into the prison services under the chairmanship of Mr Justice May; we must 11.0pe that it will come up with some radical i.ileas for change, and that they will not be Ignored. In the meantime the report of the work of the Prison Department for 1978, Published two weeks ago, makes depressing reading. Because of the pressure on accommodation there are now four times as 111, any prisoners sharing a cell as there were '0 years ago; of the 56 prisons opened before 1930 only 10 are considered by the Prison Department to be in good physical condition'. There were far fewer applicants last year for the job of prison officeq the number of occasions on which prison officers took 'industrial action' went up from 42 (in 1977) to 119 (in 1978); the number of 1(31111g prisoners (between 17 and 21) has five by nearly two thirds in the past live years. One of the worst aspects of Overcrowding is that teenage first offenders, and even those on remand, are often cornPelled to share cells with criminals who may have been in and out of prison for 30 years. ,The rate of recidivism is very high, and is bound to go on rising while this situation Persists. Much of the blame for this lies with ,niagistrates, who are generally too ready to 11 and out custodial sentences where another of penalty might be more appropriate. ll!ere is too often the feeling that 'a taste of Prison will do him good', when in fact it is more likely to do harm by introducing a first °ffender to other criminals and setting him on a life of crime. And where a magistrate ight once have imposed a fine, he is now Hk.ely to give a suspended sentence of im,P,r_lsonment: if the offender comes before the rlench again that prison sentence must then Le served. Several prison governors are flown to have pleaded with the Magistrates Itasociation that fewer people, particularly rung people, should be sent to prison, but to ,itt.le effect. The borstal system has also been a rallure: when it was started the majority of young offenders who had been to borstal °institutions did not commit any further rffences. Now at least 70 per cent of them do ,eturn to crime. There is a Green Paper, _Youth Custody and Supervision — A New entence', in which a new form of sentence ProPosed for 17-to 20-year-olds to replace prison, borstal and detention centres. This, ogether with the recommendations of the May committee, could be an important beginning to the major reforms which are needed.
It is odd that no one has yet come forward to dispute the claim, made earlier this week, that the skull of Oliver Cromwell has turned up in Lincolnshire. So I had better do so myself. Three years after his death Crom well's body was exhumed and the head was displayed, on the end of a pole, on the top of Westminster Hall. Then it disappeared and, years later, was acquired by a travelling showman who used to exhibit it. At some point the head was hidden in a chimney, which had the effect of 'smoking' and so preserving it. I have no idea how many times it changed hands in 250 years, but by the early part of this century it was in the possession of a Canon Wilkinson, of Melton in Suffolk. He took the head to the British Museum in the Thirties, where it was subjected to the most detailed scrutiny. By reference to the hair, the warts on the face and the trepanning, and by comparing it with the death-mask, the museum was able to pronounce that it was indeed the Protector's head. Canon Wilkinson kept the head in a box under his bed until he died, when it passed to his nephew who had it interred in the walls of the chapel of Pembroke College, Cambridge. The canon's daughter is still alive; I hope she will be encouraged to confirm this story before the Lincolnshire skull goes to be sold at auction.
'The reader may find it strange that an enemy of judicial killing, and a native of a country which has immemorially detested those blood sports which involve personal hazard should have . .. joined the aficion, become a friend and apologist of the Spanish bullfight.' Thus Kenneth Tynan in Bull Fever, an account of the fights which he saw during the summer of 1952. I too am anti-hinging, fond of animals and an enthusiast of bullfighting. To those who find the spectacle — or, more likely, the idea of it — revolting, I would only say that the spectator can also be witness to great bravery, grace and technical skill by the matador. (Before anyone writes to condemn this 'barbaric sport', let me add that it is not a sport: 'matador' means killer, and the bull which is fought is always killed, even if it succeeds in putting the matador out of action.) Bullfighting has been going through a bad patch in recent years. The suggestion has been made that it has to do with a new mood in Spain since the advent of democracy and a more humanitarian form of government. But the decline began well before the death of Franco: the reasons are rather that there have been no outstanding matadors around in the past ten years, the bulls have been smaller and their horns often shaved.(The most active opponent of horn-shaving, Antonio Bienvenida, was killed at a tienta in 1975 having retired after 30 years in the ring.) Today the regulations for the bulls are more strictly enforced — with a lot more injuries to matadors this year — and Manuel Benitez, 'El Cordobes', has come out of retirement at the age of 43. While his style is, or was, 'as flamboyant as a starlet's autograph' (as Tynan wrote of another matador), and I would not wish to compare him with the great Antonio Ordonez (who still fights occasionally), 'El Cordobes' was a phenomenon of the Sixties and his return may help to revive the fortunes of bullfighting. For anyone travelling to Spain this summer and intending to see a corrida for the first time, the two best books on the subject in English are, pace Hemingway, Bull Fever and John Marks's To The Bullfight.
H. V. Morton had no particular love of bullfighting, but he did write an excellent book, A Stranger in Spain, on his travels in that country. He died in June, within a few weeks of the death of the other Morton, J.B., 'Beachcomber' of the Daily Express. The two were not related, but I was intrigued to learn from an article by Gerald Pawle in this month's Blackwood's magazine that they were in fact good friends and that H. V. Morton was also working on the Daily Express in the Twenties. It was while he was literary editor of that paper that H. V:Morton had his first meeting with Lord Beaverbrook, whose immediate instruction to him was to 'get rid of this chap Beacjicomber'. What a debt we owe to H. V. Morton for daring to question his master's order and for refusing to carry it out.
'Caring about fuel is sharing your car', or some such ridiculous slogan, is likely to be put out by the Government within the next few months. The intention is to repeal the law which at present restricts the advertising of spare seats in cars, and then actively to encourage drivers to offer space in their cars when travelling to work. This is a pretty half-hearted effort on the Government's part, and the saving of petrol will be negligible. Far better to follow the example of Romania, where foreign tourists are not allowed petrol unless they pay in certain currencies, and the number of official chauffeur-driven cars has been greatly reduced. There are already too many public servants using official cars in this country — and the rest of us pay for the petrol which they are wasting. This is something which should commend itself, at a time of public expenditure cuts, to Sir Geoffrey Howe.
Simon Courtauld
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