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• A View of the Hard-labour Bill; Being an Abstract of a Pamphlet, Intituled, “draught of a Bill, to Punish By Imprisonment and Hard Labour, Certain Offenders; and to Establish Proper Places For Their Reception:” Interspersed With Observations Relative T
• Panopticon; Or, the Inspection-house: Containing the Idea of a New Principle of Construction Applicable to Any Sort of Establishment, In Which Persons of Any Description Are to Be Kept Under Inspection; and In Particular to Penitentiary-houses,
• Preface.
• Letter I.: Idea of the Inspection Principle.
• Letter II.: Plan For a Penitentiary Inspection-house.
• Letter III.: Extent For a Single Building.
• Letter IV.: The Principle Extended to Uncovered Areas.
• Letter V.: Essential Points of the Plan.
• Letter VI.: Advantages of the Plan.
• Letter VII.: Penitentiary-houses—safe Custody.
• Letter VIII.: Uses—penitentiary-houses—reformation.
• Letter IX.: Penitentiary-houses—economy—contract—plan.
• Letter X.: Choice of Trades Should Be Free.
• Letter XI.: Multiplication of Trades Is Not Necessary.
• Letter XII.: Contractor’s Checks.
• Letter XIII.: Means of Extracting Labour.
• Letter XIV.: Provision For Liberated Persons.
• Letter XV.: Prospect of Saving From This Plan.
• Letter XVI.: Houses of Correction.
• Letter XVII.: Prisons For Safe Custody Merely.
• Letter XVIII.: Manufactories.
• Letter XIX.: Mad-houses.
• Letter XX.: Hospitals.
• Letter XXI.: Schools.
• Postscript, Part I. Containing Further Particulars and Alterations Relative to the Plan of Construction Originally Proposed; Principally Adapted to the Purpose of a Panopticon Penitentiary-house. *
• Section I.: Principal Particulars. Principal Particulars Either Settled Or Altered, Since the First Hasty Design, As Described In Letter II. And Imperfectly Represented In Plate I. See Plate II. †
• Section II.: General View of the Whole Edifice. In a General View of the Whole Building, According to Its Present Form, Three Very Different, Though Connected Masses, May Be Distinguished.
• Section III.: Annular Well. Annular Well, Instead of Stories of Intermediate Annular Area.
• Section IV.: Protracted Partitions Omitted. Protracted Partitions Omitted; Or Rather, Taken Into the Cells.
• Section V.: Cells, Double Instead of Single.
• Section VI.: Dead-part.
• Section VII.: Chapel. Chapel Introduced. *
• Section VIII.: Inspection-galleries and Lodge.
• Section IX.: Of the Communications In General.
• Section X.: Communications. Prisoners’ Staircases.
• Section XI.: Communications—inspectors Staircases.
• Section XII.: Staircase For Chapel Visitors, and For the Officers’ Apartments.
• Section XIII.: Cell-galleries.
• Section XIV.: Doors.
• Section XV.: Diametrical Passage.
• Section XVI.: Communications—exit Into the Yards.
• Section XVII.: Exterior Annular Well. ‡
• Section XVIII.: Windows Reaching Low, and Glazed; Instead of High Up, and Open.
• Section XIX.: Materials. Arched Work—much Iron—plaster Floors.
• Section XX.: Outlets, Including Airing-yards.
• Section XXI.: Approach and Fences.
• Section XXII.: Means of Supplying Water.
• Section XXIII.: Of the Mode of Warming the Building.
• Section XXIV.: Of the Economy Observed In the Construction.
• Postscript—part II. Principles and Plan of Management.
• Section I.: Leading Positions.
• Section II.: Management—in What Hands, and On What Terms.
• Section III.: Of Separation As Between the Sexes.
• Section IV.: Of Separation Into Companies and Classes.
• Section V.: Employment.
• Section VI.: Diet.
• Section VII.: Clothing.
• Section VIII.: Bedding.
• Section IX.: Health and Cleanliness.
• Section X.: Of Airing and Exercise.
• Section XI.: Schooling and Sunday Employment.
• Section XII.: Of Ventilation, Shading, and Cooling.
• Section XIII.: Distribution of Time.
• Section XIV.: Of Punishments.
• Section XV.: Mode of Guarding On the Outside.
• Section XVI.: Provision For Liberated Prisoners.
• The Following Note Respecting This Work Was Given By Bentham to Dr. Bowring, 24 Th January 1821.
• Panopticon Versus New South Wales: Or, the Panopticon Penitentiary System, and the Penal Colonization System, Compared.
• A Plea For the Constitution: Shewing the Enormities Committed, to the Oppression of British Subjects, Innocent As Well As Guilty;
• Preface.
• Section I.: Subject Matter—object—plan.
• Section II.: Power of Legislation—its Necessity In New South Wales.
• Section III: Legislation—how Far Lawful In New South Wales.
• Section IV.: American, &c. Legislation No Precedent For New South Wales.
• Section V.: Even In America, the Crown Had No Right to Legislate Without Parliament.
• Section VI.: Nullity of Legislation In New South Wales, For Want of an Assembly to Consent.
• Section VII.: Nullity of Governor’s Ordinances. For Want of a Court to Try Offences Against Them.
• Section VIII.: King’s Law-servants Not Infallible.
• Section IX.: Nullity of New South Wales Legislation, Proved By the Granada Case.
• Section X.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
• Section XI.: Governor’s Illegal Ordinances Exemplified.
• Section XII.: Expirees Forcibly Detained.
• Section XIII.: Expirees, During Detention, Kept In a State of Bondage.
• Section XIV.: Statutes Transgressed By the Legislation and Government of New South Wales.
• Draught of a Code For the Organization of the Judicial Establishment In France: With Critical Observations On the Draught Proposed By the National Assembly Committee, In the Form of a Perpetual Commentary.
• Bentham’s Draught For the Organization of Judicial Establishments, Compared With That of the National Assembly, With a Commentary On the Same.
• Emancipate Your Colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Anno 1793.
• Jeremy Bentham to His Fellow-citizens of France, On Houses of Peers and Senates.
• Papers Relative to Codification and Public Instruction: Including Correspondence With the Russian Emperor, and Divers Constituted Authorities In the American United States.
• Part I.—: On Codification.
• No. I.: To the President of the United States of America.
• No. II.: James Madison, Then President of the Congress of the American United States, to Jeremy Bentham, London.
• No. III.: Albert Gallatin, Minister Plenipotentiary From the American United States to the Court of London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, Introducing a Letter From Jeremy Bentham to the Said Governor.
• No. IV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania.
• No. V.: Simon Snyder, Governor of Pennsylvania, to David Meade Randolph, Esq. Williamsburgh, Virginia, On the Subject of the Above Letter of Jeremy Bentham.
• No. VI.: Extract From a Printed Paper, Signed Simon Snyder, Dated Harrisburg, December 5 Th 1816, James Peacock, Printer, Intituled “ Governor’s Message to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ” Containing Seve
• No. VII.: Circular. — to the Governor of the State of
• No. VIII.: Jeremy Bentham, an Englishman, to the Citizens of the Several American United States.
• No. IX.: Jeremy Bentham to James Madison, Late President of the American United States.
• No. X.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
• No. XI.: Alexander I. Emperor of All the Russias, to Jeremy Bentham, London—written With His Imperial Majesty’s Own Hand, In Answer to the Above, [no. X.]
• No. XII.: Jeremy Bentham to the Emperor of All the Russias.
• No. XIII.: Prince Adam Czartoriski, of Poland, to Jeremy Bentham, London. *
• No. XIV.: Jeremy Bentham, London, to Prince Adam Czartoriski of Poland.
• Part II.: Public Instruction.
• No. I.: ( Circular. )— Letter From His Excellency Wilson Cary Nicholas, Governor of Virginia, On the Subject of Public Instruction.—addressed (the Copy of Which This Is a Transcript) to His Excellency John Quincy Adams, Minister Plenipotentiary From the U
• No. II.: ( Circular. )— to the Governor of the State of
• No. III.
• No. IV. Notice Concerning Chrestomathia, By the Paris Lancasterian Instruction Society. Report of the British and Foreign School Society to the General Meeting, Dec. 12, 1816.—EXTRACT.
• Codification Proposal, Addressed By Jeremy Bentham to All Nations Professing Liberal Opinions; Or Idea of a Proposed All-comprehensive Body of Law, With an Accompaniment of Reasons, Applying All Along to the Several Proposed Arrangements:
• Advertisement.
• Part I.—ARGUMENTS.: Positions, With Reasons For Proofs.
• Section 1.: In Every Political State, the Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That It Be Provided With an All-comprehensive Body of Law. All-comprehensiveness, Practicable, and Indispensable.
• Section 2.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Such Body of Law Be Throughout Accompanied By Its Rationale: an Indication of the Reasons On Which the Several Arrangements Contained In It Are Grounded. Rationale, Though Unex
• Section 3.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That Those Reasons Be Such, Throughout, As Shall Show the Conduciveness of the Several Arrangements to the All-comprehensive and Only Defensible End Thus Expressed. Rationale, Indicat
• Section 4.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, of This Rationale, the Several Parts Be Placed In the Most Immediate Contact With the Several Arrangements to Which They Respectively Apply. Rationale, Interwoven, Not Detached.
• Section 5.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That For the Function Exercised By the Drawing of the Original Draught of Such a Code, the Competitors He As Many As, Without Reward At the Public Expense, Can Be Obtained: and So, For T
• Section 6.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that, For the Drawing of Any Such Draught, No Reward At the Public Expense Be Given. At Additional Expense, Reward None.
• Section 7.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Every Draught, So Given In, Be, From Beginning to End, If Possible, the Work of a Single Hand. Hands Not More Than One.
• Section 8.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires—that Such Original Draught, Being the Work of a Single Hand, Be Known to Be So. Hand, Known to Be But One.
• Section 9.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That the Work, Being the Work of a Single Hand, and Known to Be So, It Be Known Whose the Hand Is. Hand, Known Whose It Is.
• Section 10.: The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number Requires, That, For the Drawing of the Original Draught, All Foreigners Be Admitted Into the Competition: and That, In So Far As Applicable, Unless It Be In All Particulars Taken Together Decid
• Section 11.: On the Part of an Individual, Proposing Himself As Draughtsman For the Original Draught of a Code of Laws, Willingness Or Unwillingness to Interweave In His Draught a Rationale As Above, Is the Most Conclusive Preliminary Test, and That
• Section 12.: On the Part of a Ruler, Willingness Or Unwillingness to See Established an All-comprehensive Code, With Its Rationale As Above, and to Receive Original Draughts From All Hands, Are Among the Most Conclusive Tests of Appropriate Aptitude,
• Part II.—TESTIMONIALS.
• I. England
• II. Geneva
• III.: Spain.
• IV.: Portugal.
• V.: Italy.
• VI.: France.
• VII.: Anglo-american United States.
• VIII.: Greece.
• IX.: South America.

A VIEW OF THE HARD-LABOUR BILL;

BEING AN ABSTRACT OF A PAMPHLET, INTITULED, “DRAUGHT OF A BILL, TO PUNISH BY IMPRISONMENT AND HARD LABOUR, CERTAIN OFFENDERS; AND TO ESTABLISH PROPER PLACES FOR THEIR RECEPTION:” INTERSPERSED WITH OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO THE SUBJECT OF THE ABOVE DRAUGHT IN PARTICULAR, AND TO PENAL JURISPRUDENCE IN GENERAL.

BY JEREMY BENTHAM, OF LINCOLN’S INN, ESQ.

originally published in 1778.

PREFACE.

When the proposed Bill, of which the ensuing sheets are designed to give a view, first fell into my hands, I was employed in finishing a work of some bulk, in which I have been treating the subject of punishment more at large. In that work, I should have come in course to speak of the particular species of punishment which is the subject of this bill. In that work, therefore, several of the observations would have come in course to be introduced, which I have here subjoined to several parts of the text I have been abstracting: and being there digested into a method, and forming a part of a system to which I have been giving that degree of regularity which it has been in my power to give it, would probably have come with more force, and shown to more advantage, in company with the rest. On this account, had I been at liberty with respect to time, I should rather have wished to have published the whole together first, before I had detached from it these scattered fragments. The publication, however, of the proposed bill in question, with the intelligence that accompanied it, effectually precluded any such option. To have delayed the publication of this part of my principal work, till the bill had been brought in and passed, would have been to delay it till that season had been over, in which, if in any, such parts of it as relate to the present subject, promised to be most useful.

When I had read Mr. Howard’s book on Prisons, one fruit of it was, a wish still more earnest than what I had been led to entertain from theory, to see some general plan of punishment adopted, in which solitary confinement might be combined with labour. This capital improvement (for as such I cannot help regarding it) in penal legislation, I sat wishing, with scarce any mixture of hope, to see carried into execution: for somehow or other, the progress that had been already made in it near two years ago in the House of Commons,* had escaped me. How great, then, was my pleasure and surprise at seeing a plan (which had already been pre-announced by the Judges in their circuits,) originating, as appeared, from a high department in administration, and carrying wit it every presumption of its being adopted; in which, not only almost all the excellent matter of the book I have been speaking of is engrafted, but many capital improvements superadded! This incident gave me fresh alacrity, and suggested fresh designs.

This bill (or draught of a bill, as it is called in the title, not having been as yet brought into Parliament) is accompanied with a Preface, short, indeed, but ample, masterly, and instructive. In this preface, an instructive but general idea is given of the theoretic principles upon which the plan of the bill is grounded; and a more ample and detailed account of the documents which furnished materials and reasons for the several provisions of detail. A history of the steps that have been taken in the formation and prosecution of the plan is also interwoven.

Upon this it will naturally enough be asked, What was the occasion, and what can be the use of the ensuing sheets? why publish them? I answer—Because the bill itself is in fact not published:† —because, were it published, the contents of it are not quite so perspicuous as I imagined they might be made:—because I hoped to be a means, in some degree, of forwarding the good purposes of it, by stating to the public, more in detail than it would have been competent either to the text or to the preface to have done, the reasons on which the leading provisions in it seemed to be grounded, and by suggesting a few hints in the way of correction or addition.

“Not perspicuous?” I think I hear somebody exclaiming:—“what Act of Parliament was ever more so?” None, I must confess, that I can think of: but this affords me no reason for retracting. The legislator, one would indeed naturally suppose, might (and if he might, why should not he?) speak his own meaning so plainly, that no one could speak it plainer; so concisely, that no one could render his expression more concise; in such a method, both as to matter and form, that no one could cast it into a better. He might, one should think: for what should hinder him? Is he the less qualified for making himself understood and remembered by being a legislator? If he did, then, as he might do, expositions would be useless, and abridgments would be impracticable. But does he?—consult the twelve immense volumes of Acts of Parliaments; to which another is in the way to add itself every three years.

Let me not all this while be understood to reflect censure on a great master of language, on whom nothing less than censure is intended. Had custom (that is, the law of Parliament) left him at liberty to follow the dictates of his own intelligence, little or nothing, I suppose, would have been left to any one else to add to it on the score of perspicuity: if (supposing the bill and the preface to come, as they purport to do, from the same hand,) it be reasonable to judge what he could have done, from what he has done. On this head I have scarce an idea of making any greater improvement on his draught than what he could have made, if he had pleased, and would, if he had thought proper. He thought, I suppose (if it occurred to him to propose the subject to his thoughts,) that one plan of reformation was enough to proceed upon at once. On the present occasion, his business was to reform a part of the system of punishment adopted by our legislation; not to go about reforming the legislative style. He has therefore, of course, conformed in a great measure to the style in use, though with a considerable defalcation from the usual complement of tautologies and redundancies: his publication being a draught of the very instrument which it is intended should pass into an act.

The present abstract of it having no pretensions to be considered in that light, I have held myself at liberty to afford the reader many of those assistances which parliamentary men, in all their authoritative publications, seem so studious to reject. I have therefore prefixed numbers to the sections: I have given them marginal contents: I have made frequent breaks in the letterpress: I have numbered, every now and then, the leading articles, which, though included together in one section, seemed to claim each of them a separate measure of attention; and, by allotting to each a separate line, have displayed them more distinctly than if lumped together in one unbroken mass. These, and other such typographical assistances, are no more than what it is common enough for writers, on the most ordinary subjects, to give their readers: nor would they be looked upon as singular, or indeed worth mentioning, but with respect to those intricate and important discourses which stand most in need of them.

Another, and rather more serious task, has been to break down the long sentences, into which this composition (being intended to be passed into an Act of Parliament) could not but have been cast into a multitude of shorter ones: to retrench the tautologies and superfluities with which this composition, though remarkably scanty on this head (being intended for an Act of Parliament,) could not but abound. In the course of these operations, I have here and there ventured to make some little alteration in the order of the several matters contained in the same section: but with entire sections I have nowhere taken the like liberty.

This abstract, then, (to mention a more general use that may be made of it) will of itself be sufficient to prove, that a sentence of any given length is capable of being cast into as many sentences, and, consequently, that each sentence is capable of being made as short as there can be occasion to desire. It is therefore of itself sufficient to divest the long-windedness of our legislative (one may say in general of our legal) style, of the plea of necessity, the only one which a man could think of urging in its favour. Had this been even my principal object, I should of all others have wished for a bill like this to work upon, for the same reason that grammarians take the works of Pope, and Swift, and Addison, for examples of solecisms in grammar.*

But to return. By the means above mentioned I will venture to hope, and that without any pretensions to make it a ground of vanity, that this abstract may be found to read somewhat more pleasantly than even the bill itself; and that on this head the reader, who means only to take a general view of the bill, and who is not in that line of duty or of study which would lead him to weigh words and syllables, may, as far as he thinks he can depend upon the fidelity of this copy, find it answer his purpose as well as the original.

I am sorry I cannot give equal satisfaction to his curiosity with respect to the Preface; in which the elegance of a style, which is the Author’s own, has been at full liberty to display itself, unfettered by technical forms and prejudices. This I must not transcribe, nor can presume to imitate. The uncouth piles of parliamentary composition have not often been graced with such a frontispiece.

Amongst other things we learn by it, is, that “the difficulties which towards the end of the year 1775 attended the transportation of convicts,”* gave great weight to the inducements, if they were not themselves the sole inducement, that led to the institution of this plan. It may be some consolation to us, under the misfortunes from which those difficulties took their rise, if they should have forced us into the adoption of a plan that promises to operate one of the most signal improvements that have ever yet been made in our criminal legislation. It may not even be altogether extravagant to suppose, that at the end we may be found to have profited not much less than we shall have suffered by these misfortunes, when the benefits of this improvement come to be taken into the account. For let it be of ever so much consequence that trade should flourish, and that our property should go on increasing, it seems to be of not much less consequence that our persons should be safe, and that the property we have should be secure. If, then, the efforts of our statesmen, to save the nation from the stroke of those adversities have not been attended with the success they merited, let them not make it an excuse to themselves for sinking into despondency. Let them rather turn their activity into a new channel: let them try what amends can be made, in some other line, to their own reputation, and to the public service: let them look at home; and if, after all that can be done, the nation must lose something in point of external splendour, let them try what they can gain for it in point of domestic peace.

I understand that the plan is not yet looked upon as absolutely completed, which may be one reason why the circulation of it has been hitherto confined to a few hands. The ample use, however, and liberal acknowledgment that has been made of the helps afforded by former volunteers, induced me to hope, that any lights that could be thrown upon the subject, from any quarter, would not be ill received.

Whatever farther additions or alterations the proposed bill may come to receive before it has been carried through the House, there seems to be no great likelihood of their bearing any very great proportion, in point of bulk, to the main body of the bill as it stands at present. And as it is not yet clear but that it may be carried through in the course of this session in its present state, it seemed hardly worth while to delay this publication in expectation of further materials that may either never come, or not in such quantity as to make amends for the delay. It will be an easy matter, if there should be occasion, to give a supplemental account of such new matter as may arise. The attention of the country gentlemen has already been drawn to the subject by the general accounts given of the plan by several of the judges on their circuits: and it should seem that no farther apology need be made for giving as much satisfaction as can be given in the present stage of the business, to the curiosity which a measure, so generally interesting, can scarce fail to have excited. That curiosity is likely to be farther raised by some fresh inquiries, which I understand it is proposed to institute in the House of Commons: and as the result of these inquiries comes to transpire, the use and application of it will be the better seen, by having so much of the plan, as is sketched out already, to refer to.

The haste with which, on the above accounts, it was thought necessary to send the ensuing sheets to the press, must be my apology for some inaccuracies which, I fear, will be discoverable in them, as well in point of method as of matter. It is not a month since the proposed bill first fell into my hands in the midst of other indispensable avocations.

The use of them, however, if they have any, will, I hope, not be altogether confined to the short period between the publication of them and the passing of the bill into a law. For when a great measure of legislation is established, though it be too firmly established to be in danger of being overturned, it is of use, for the satisfaction of the people, that the reasons by which it is or may be justified, be spread abroad among them.

Lincoln’s-Inn, March 28, 1778.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The persons who are styled “convicts” in the ensuing abstract, are styled “offenders” in the proposed Bill. I gave them the former name, to avoid a confusion I found occur in speaking of them, at times when there was occasion to speak of such fresh offences as may come to be committed by the same persons during their confinement, or of certain other offences which the bill has occasion to prohibit in other persons.

In regard to sex, I make, in general, no separate mention of the female; that being understood (unless where the contrary is specified) to be included under the expression used to denote the male.

A VIEW OF THE HARD-LABOUR BILL.

This Bill has two capital objects: 1st, To provide a new establishment of Labourhouses all over England; 2dly, To extend and perpetuate the establishment already set on foot, for the confinement of convicts, to labour upon rivers. It consists of sixty-eight sections. The fifty-two first are employed upon the former of the above objects: the seven following upon the latter: and the remaining nine upon certain customary provisions of procedure, and a few other matters that apply alike to both.

First with regard to the establishment of Houses of Hard Labour. The first twenty sections are employed in making provision for the erection of the buildings, and for the appointment of the magistrates and other officers to whom the management of that business is committed. The remaining thirty-two sections are employed chiefly in prescribing the regimen to be observed in them when built.

So much for the general outline of this regular and well digested plan. Let us now take a view of the sections one by one.

The first Section, or Preamble, states the general considerations which determined the author to propose the establishments in question. These considerations are, the insufficiency of transportation for the purposes of example and reformation; the superior efficacy of a course of confinement and hard labour; and the unfitness of the present houses of correction for that purpose.

Observations.—Here would naturally be the occasion for a commentator to dilate more particularly than it would have been in character for the bill itself to have done, upon the inconveniences of the old punishment of transportation, which it meant to supersede, and the advantages of the new mode of punishment, which it is the object of it to introduce. This I shall have occasion to do at large hereafter; stating in course the advantages and disadvantages of each: but a slight and immethodical sketch is as much as the present design gives room for.

The punishment of transportation, in its ordinary consequences, included servitude, the punishment here proposed to be substituted in the room of it. At all events, it included banishment. These two it comprehended professedly and with design; besides an uncertain, but at any rate a very afflictive, train of preliminary hardships, of which no account was taken; amongst others, a great chance of producing death.

Taking it all together, it had a multitude of bad properties; and it had no good ones, but what it derived from servitude, or which are to be found in the latter punishment in a superior degree.

1. In point of proportion it was unequal: for a man who had money might buy off the servitude.* With regard to the banishment, it, was again unequal; for nothing can be more unequal than the effect which the change of country has upon men of different habits, attachments, talents, and propensities. Some would have been glad to go by choice; others would sooner die.

2. It was unexemplary: what the convicts suffered, were it much or little, was unknown to the people for whose benefit it was designed. It may be proved by arithmetic, that the purpose of example is, of all the purposes of punishment, the chief.

3. It was unfrugal: it occasioned a great waste of lives in the mode, and a great waste of money in the expenses, of conveyance.

4. It did answer indeed, in some degree, the purpose of disabling the offender from doing further mischief to the community during the continuance of it; but not in so great a degree as the confinement incident to servitude. It has always been easier for a man to return from transportation, than to escape from prison.

5. It answered, indeed, every now and then, the purpose of reformation: But by what means? By means of the servitude that was a part of it. It answered this purpose pretty well; but not so well upon the whole, under the uncertain and variable direction of a private master, whose object was his own profit, as it may be expected to answer under regulations concerted by the united wisdom of the nation, with this express view.

Section II. provides in general terms for the erection of houses for the purposes of confinement and labour throughout England and Wales. These houses are to be entirely separate from all other public habitations, whether destined for the custody or punishment of offenders, or for the maintenance of the honest poor. The legal appellation they are directed to be called by, is that of Houses of Hard Labour.

Observations.—It might, perhaps, be as well to call them Hard-Labour Houses, or Labour-Houses, at once. This, or some other equally compendious, is the name that will undoubtedly be given them by the people at large; the tendency of popular speech being to save words and shorten names as much as possible. Such a name should be analogous to the names Rasp-huys [Rasping-house,] and Spin-huys [Spinning-house,] in use in Holland; and, in short, to our English word Work-house. The technical name would by this means be the same as the popular. This would, pro tanto, save circumlocution, and guard against error in law proceedings. Where departing from the popular forms of speech is not necessary, it is always inconvenient. So much for an object, which, perhaps, may be thought to be hardly worth the words that have been spent upon it.

Section III. is designed to make provision for the raising of the monies to defiay the charges of purchasing ground and building; and it prescribes the proportions in which such monies, when raised, are to be distributed among the districts established in the next section for the purposes of the act.* These proportions it takes from the number of convicts that have been ordered for transportation, in each county, within the compass of a year, upon an average taken for seven years last past. A blank is left for the particular fund out of which the monies are to issue.

Observations.—The contribution by which these monies are to be raised, is made, we see, not a local, but a general one. A local tax, however, is that which seemed most obviously to suggest itself, since the expenditure is local; but a general one appears to be much preferable. Had the tax been local, it would have been raised upon the plan of the county taxes; it would by that means have fallen exclusively upon householders bearing scot and lot. But the benefit of it, be it what it may, is shared indiscriminately among the whole body of the people. Add to this, that the sums of money requisite for this purpose will probably be large. These, were they to be raised at once, in the several districts, in the manner of a county tax, would be apt to startle the inhabitants, and prejudice them against the measure.

As to the proportion in which the supplies are to be distributed among the several districts, this is taken, we see, from the average number of convicts. This was an ingenious way of coming at the extent it would be requisite to give to the respective buildings, and the terms allotted would naturally be proportioned to the extent. Rigid accuracy in this apportionment, does not seem, however, to have been aimed at. According to the method taken, the allowance to the smaller counties will be somewhat greater in proportion than to the larger. There are a great many counties whose average number is settled at one: the computation does not descend to fractions. This, if it be an error, is an error on the right side.

For two of the towns that are counties of themselves, no average number of convicts, I observe, is stated: these are, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Haverfordwest.

Upon turning to the table subjoined to the bill, it appears, that at Haverfordwest there have been no convicts at all within the time in question. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the average is stated at five. The omission in the bill seems therefore to be accidental.

Section IV. provides for the payment and application of the monies mentioned in the preceding section. They are directed to be paid to committees of justices,† or their order, and applied to the building of the houses above mentioned. The deficiencies, if any, in the provision thus made, are to be borne afterwards by the districts.

By Section V., all England, including Wales, is cast, for the purposes of this act, into districts of a new dimension.‡ This division is made commensurate to the division into circuits, as well as to that into counties. A certain number of these districts are included in each circuit; and each district includes one or more counties. Towns, that are counties of themselves, are put upon a footing, in this respect, with counties at large. London and Middlesex form each a district by itself. The whole principality of Wales, together with Cheshire and Chester, are included in one district. The whole number of districts is nineteen. The reason it gives for this junction of the counties is, that it will serve to lessen the expense.

Observations.—The circuit divisions, it seems, were thought too large; the county divisions too small; besides that the latter are unequal. This is the case more particularly with the towns that are counties of themselves, in comparison with some of the larger shires. The use of making the districts less than the circuits, and at the same time larger than the counties, is the adjusting the buildings to a convenient size. An establishment for the reception of a large number of persons may be conducted, as the preambular part intimates, at a proportionably less expense, than an establishment for the reception of a small number. The uses of making them less than the circuits, are two:—1st, The lessening the expenses of conveying the convicts from the place of trial to the place of punishment; 2dly, The lessening the trouble and expense of the justices, who are to travel out of their own counties, to the town where they are to meet to carry the act into execution. It is doubtless on the former principle, that we are to account for the comprising the twelve Welsh counties, together with Cheshire and the city of Chester, in one district; for in this district, extensive as it is, the average number of convicts has been found to be less than in any other. On the two latter principles, it may seem rather inconvenient that this district should be so large. It is to be hoped, on this account, that the situation chosen for the labour-house for this district will be as central as is consistent in other respects with convenience.

Section VI. establishes the committees of justices, who are to be appointed by the general sessions of their respective counties, to meet together for the purposes of carrying this act into execution at a particular place within each of the districts, within which their respective counties are included:* and it settles the proportion which the number of committee-men in each county is to bear to the number of committee-men in every other. These committees are empowered to appoint stated meetings (giving ten days notice) and to make adjournments. The committee-men are to be appointed at the next general sessions after the passing of this act.

Observations.—The power of sending justices as committee-men is given, we may observe, to all the counties at large, in various proportions, from one to five inclusive, likewise to all the town-counties except three—Berwick, Chester, and Haverfordwest. Whether these omissions are accidental or designed, is more than I can take upon me to conjecture.

Section VII. provides against any failure in the sessions to appoint committee-men, or in the committee-men to take upon them their office. If at the next general sessions after the passing of the act, no committee-men should be appointed, or not enough, or if any should refuse, power is given to the custos rotulorum to supply the deficiency within three months.

Observations.—This provision seems to proceed on the supposition, that in some places the measure of the bill may prove unpopular among the country magistrates. By way of a spur to them, this power is therefore given to the custos rotulorum: but may it not be possible, especially in some of the remote counties (suppose the Welsh counties) that even the custos rotulorum may be tinctured with the local prejudices? It should seem there could be no harm, rather than there should be a gap in the execution of the act, in substituting the Lord Chancellor to the custos rotulorum, in the same manner as he is substituted to the sessions.

Section VIII. gives the sessions the power of changing their committee-men from year to year: also of supplying vacancies at any time when they may happen.

Observations.—For conformity’s sake, might not this latter power, in default of the sessions, be given to the custos rotulorum? and, (if such an addition were to be adopted) in his default, to the Lord Chancellor?

Section IX. requires the committees to appoint each a clerk and treasurer, with such salaries as they shall think reasonable, removeable at pleasure: the treasurer to give security in proportion to the sum likely to come into his hands.†

Section X. appropriates the monies to be received by the committees, or their treasurer, to the uses of the act.

Section XI. appoints the place and time of the first meeting of the several committees;‡ empowering them (after choosing their chairman, clerks, and treasurer) to adjourn to any other time and place within the same district. It then directs them, at this or any subsequent meeting, to make choice of a piece or pieces of ground to build on, one or more for each district. The orders for this purpose are to be certified in London and Middlesex to the King’s Bench, and else-where to the judges on their circuits; except that, in the Welsh district, they are to be certified, not to any of the Welsh judges, but to those of Chester: in case of their disapproval, a second order is to be made, and so toties quoties: so also if the spot pitched upon be such as cannot be purchased under the powers given by the act.* With regard to the choice of the spot, it gives some directions. The committees are required to have regard to

1. The healthiness of the situation.

2. The facility of getting water.

3. The nearness to some trading town.

4. But to avoid choosing any place within a town, if any other convenient place can be found.

5. To give the preference to a place surrounded with water, if in other respects healthy and proper.

Observations.—With regard to the places of meeting, it seems rather extraordinary, that in the Welsh district, a place so far from central as Chester should be appointed. This obliges the whole body of committee-men from Wales to travel out of their principality; and a Pembrokeshire justice, who has to traverse all North and South Wales, may have, perhaps, near two hundred miles to go before he reaches the place of his destination. This inconvemence, indeed, is open, in some measure, to a remedy, by the power given to the committees to choose the place of their adjournment; but at any rate, be the place ever so central, in so large a district, it cannot but be very remote from the abodes of the greater part of the committee-men. On this account, more especially if the Welsh district is to remain undivided, might it not be proper to allow to the committee-men, at least to such as had to travel out of their own counties, a small sum (were it no more than ten shillings a-day) to help to indemnify them for their expenses? To many a magistrate, who might, in other respects, be better qualified for the business than a richer man, the expense (to say nothing of the trouble) of making frequent journies to such a distance as he might have occasion to travel to, might be an objection sufficient to prevent his acceptance of the office. There seems, at any rate, to be much more reason for giving a salary to these committee-men, than to persons to be appointed visitors to the labour-houses;† since the visitors may be taken from the neighbourhood of the house, and the committee-men must, many of them, come from a great distance. Suppose the allowance were to be sixpence a-mile (the distance to be ascertained by the oath of the traveller), and a sum not exceeding ten shillings a-day, so long as the committee continues sitting?

The directions respecting the choice of the spot are well imagined, and strongly mark the judgment and attention of the author. His ideas on this matter seem to quadrate pretty exactly with “the singular and well-directed researches” (as he styles them) of Mr. Howard, to whose merits, as a zealous and intelligent friend of human kind, it is difficult for language to do justice.

One direction is, that a preference be given to a spot surrounded with water, if it be in other respects healthy and proper. Unless the water be running water, it is not very likely to be healthy.

Section XII. appoints a nominal proprietor, to whom the ground, when purchased, is to be conveyed. This person is to be the town-clerk, for London; the clerk of the peace, for Middlesex; the clerk of assize of the circuit, for the other English districts; with a blank left for the Welsh; and for this purpose the officers in question are respectively constituted bodies corporate.

Observations.—After such a provision, might it not be necessary, or would it be superfluous, to provide that any action might be brought by the committee in the name of any of the officers therein named, without naming the person who holds the office? This is a precaution taken in some acts. The occasion, if any, which may make it necessary, is that of a vacancy happening in any of those offices, at a time when it is requisite to bring (suppose) an action of trespass, for any encroachment or other trespass committed upon the spot thus to be made the property of the public. The trespass is committed (suppose) at a juncture that does but just admit of an action’s being brought in such time as to be tried at the next assizes. The county is one of those in which the assizes are held but once a-year. To obviate this difficulty, if there be one, why might not the committee be empowered to bring any such action in their own name? in short, why might not the committee themselves be the body corporate? This would save circuity; since whatever is done by the officer above mentioned, must be by their direction, and under their controul.

Section XIII. gives a proportion for determining the size of the several houses. They are to be large enough to contain three times the average number of convicts in a year, it being supposed that each convict will continue in them three years upon an average.

It likewise gives some directions with respect to the apartments. Each house, with its appurtenances, is to contain,

• 1. Lodging-rooms for the convicts.
• 2. Storehouses and warehouses.
• 3. An infirmary, with a yard adjoining.
• 4. Several cells or dungeons.
• 5. A chapel.
• 6. A burying-ground.
• 7. Apartments for the officers.

Observations.—To the above accommodations, it might, perhaps, be not amiss to add a garden, to supply the house with vegetables. The laborious part of the work might be done by the prisoners themselves, who might be employed in it, either some few of them for a constancy, or all of them occasionally. In the latter case, the privilege of being thus employed might constitute an indulgence to be given in the way of reward, as it would be an agreeable relief from their ordinary domestic labour.* It seems probable, that a part of the labour might be more economically employed in this way, than upon the ordinary business of the house; even though the prime cost of a wall to inclose the garden were taken into the account.

With regard to the “cells or dungeons,” as they are called, there are some cautions that seem highly necessary to be observed. That, for the punishment of the refractory, there should, in every such house, be some places of confinement, under the name of dungeons, seems perfectly expedient: at the same time that it is altogether inexpedient there should anywhere be any place that should partake in all respects of the nature of those pestiferous abodes.

The purposes for which dungeons seem in general to have been calculated (I mean such purposes as are Justifiable,) are two: safe custody, and terror. The first must, in all cases, and the second may, in many cases, be desirable. But in aiming at these two purposes, another highly mischievous effect has unintentionally been produced; the exclusion of fresh air, and, as one consequence of it, the exposure of the room to perpetual damps. These apartments have been contrived under ground; hence there have been no lateral outlets, but the entrance has been at top through a trap-door. By this means the air has remained almost continually unchanged; being breathed over and over again, it has soon become highly unfit for respiration, and having in a short time dissolved as much of the damp as it could take up, the remainder has continued floating without any thing to carry it off. The pernicious consequences of such a stagnation, in generating the most fatal and pestilential diseases, have been inferred from theory,† and have been but too fully verified by experience and observation.‡

The business is, then, to make the necessary provisions for the purposes of safe custody and terror, without excluding the fresh air. To effect the first of these purposes, other means in abundance are afforded upon the face of the bill, as it stands at present (and if these be not sufficient, more might be afforded) by the structure and regimen of the prison. Some expedients relative to this design will be suggested in the course of these observations.

With regard to terror, the chief circumstance by which a dungeon is calculated to answer this purpose, is the exclusion of daylight. In a dungeon, this effect is produced by a constant and unalterable cause—the subterraneous situation of the place: but the same effect may be produced more commodiously, by means which might be applied or not, according as they are wanted, and that without excluding the fresh air. The means I am speaking of are very simple. Air travels in all directions; light only in right lines. The light, therefore, may be excluded without the air, by adapting to the window a black scuttle inflected to a right angle. If the door be made on the side opposite to the window, there will be as much draught as if the window opened directly into the air without the scuttle. Light might also be prevented from coming in at the door, by a return made to it in the same manner. By these means the prisoner’s ordinary apartment, or any other apartment, may be made as gloomy as can be desired without being unhealthful.

I do not deny but that the terrors of a dungeon may depend in some degree upon the circumstance of its being under ground. In the imaginations of the bulk of men, the circumstance of descent towards the centre of the earth is strongly connected with the idea of the scene of punishment in a future life. They depend, in some measure, likewise, upon the circumstance of stillness; and the stillness may, at the same distance from a sounding body, be made more perfect in a dungeon than in an ordinary room: the uninterrupted continuity of the walls, at the same time that it excludes fresh air and daylight, serving also to exclude sound. But I cannot look upon the first of these circumstances of terror as being of that importance, as to warrant the paying so dearly for it as must be paid by the exclusion of wholesome air, which is so apt to change a punishment, meant to be slight and temporary, into a capital one. As to the purpose of stillness, it might be answered in a nearly equal degree, by building cells (which, at any rate, should be called dungeons) at a distance from the house. If the utmost degree of stillness were thought not to be absolutely necessary to be insisted on, a man’s own lodging-room might at any time, by the contrivance above mentioned, be fitted up for the purpose. On another account, however, the lodging-rooms are not quite so answerable to the design, as a place on purpose, since something of the effect depends upon the strangeness of the place; and upon its being known to be appropriated to a penal purpose.

After all, it does not seem advisable to rest the whole of the punishment altogether upon the ground of terror, since terror is obliterated by familiarity. To make up a uniform complement of punishment, it is found necessary to have recourse to other circumstances of distress; such as the hard diet appointed by this bill. This consideration makes it the less necessary to be at any inconvenient expense in screwing the sentiment of terror up to the highest pitch.

Section XIV. directs, that as soon as a spot of ground shall have been purchased, advertisements shall be inserted by the committees in the local newspapers, for builders to give in plans, with proposals and estimates: that a plan, when agreed upon by the committee, shall be presented to the judges as before;* and that, after their approbation, signified in writing, the committee may contract with the architect, and superintend the execution.

Sections XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. and XIX. are taken up with a set of regulations, which, though very necessary, are collateral to the main purposes of the act, being employed in giving the usual system of powers requisite to effectuate purchases to be made for public purposes. With regard to these, it will be sufficient to give a very general sketch of the contents.

Section XV. removes the disabilities that proprietors of certain descriptions lie under to alien.

Section XVI. provides for the distribution of the purchase-money among the parties interested.

Section XVII. prescribes the usual course for bringing unwilling proprietors to compliance.

Section XVIII. gives the usual powers for settling disputes concerning the value of the spot, by the verdict of a jury.

Observations.—In settling the fine to be imposed on witnesses in case of contumacy, it limits it, on the side of diminution, to twenty shillings, and on the side of increase to ten pounds. This provision seems liable to an inconvenience to which fines imposed by statute are very apt to be liable, that of the punishment’s proving, in many instances. less than equivalent to the profit of the offence. A witness, we shall say, knows of a circumstance, not notorious in its nature, that tends to diminish the value of the land: or, let the circumstance be notorious, one witness alone is summoned, his design of failing not being suspected. The value in question being the value of the fee-simple, it will be somewhat extraordinary, if the difference made by such a circumstance be not more than ten pounds. In such case, the owner, indemnifying the witness, is sure of gaining more than ten pounds, with only a chance of losing a sum between ten pounds and twenty shillings. A case might be figured, though not so natural an one, in which either the witness or one of the parties might have an inducement to suppress a circumstance that tended to increase the value of the lands.

On the other side, the danger is greater but the inconvenience less. The public does not suffer so much by a charge affecting the public purse, as an individual by a loss affecting his purse to the same amount.

Would there be any improper hardship in obliging the party in this case (as he is in so many more cases of greater inconvenience to him) to be examined upon oath?

If proper evidence cannot be got at one time, it ought to be got at another. The trial, therefore, should be adjourned; or rather, to prevent private applications to the jurymen, a new trial should be appointed. Power should be given in such case to compel the appearance of the contumacious witness by arrest; and if at last he appears and is examined, the natural punishment for his offence would be the being subjected to the costs of the preceding trial; since, if any part of the charge were not borne by him by whose delinquency it was occasioned, it must fall upon somebody who was innocent. This punishment, however, ought to be open to mitigation in consideration of his circumstances; since a charge to this amount, though it might be a trifle to one man, might be ruin to another.

In order, however, to ground a warrant for the apprehension of a witness who, on a former trial, had made default, an averment upon oath should be exacted from the party on whose behalf the warrant is applied for, that in his belief the person whose testimony is required is a material witness.

In justice to the author, it may be proper, in this place, to observe, that the deficiencies, if such they should be thought, which the above proposals are calculated to supply, are not chargeable upon this bill any more than they are upon all the acts in the statute-book that have correspondent passages.

Section XIX. provides, as is usual, that the costs of such a trial shall await the verdict.

Section XX. makes a saving for dwelling-houses and pleasure-grounds.†

So much concerning the ground-plot and the buildings. Next come the provisions relative to the regimen of the labour-houses: these occupy the thirty-two following sections, all but six, from the thirtieth to the thirty-fifth inclusive, which concern the disposal of convicts, previous to the commencement of their punishment.

Section XXI. provides, that when the houses are ready, or nearly so, the committees shall appoint officers, lay in stock, and establish regulations in the cases not provided for by the bill: with power at any time to make additions and alterations: every regulation to be approved of by the judges afore mentioned.

Section XXII. enumerates the different classes of officers to be appointed for each labour-house: empowers the committees to make removals and supply vacancies, and to exact security for the due execution of the respective offices.

These officers are to be,

• 1. Two visitors.
• 2. One governor.
• 3. One chaplain.
• 4. One surgeon or apothecary.
• 5. One storekeeper.
• 6. One task-master.
• 7. One gaoler.
• 8. “Such under-keepers, and other officers as the committee shall judge necessary.”

Section XXIII. respects the salary of the governors: it directs that this salary shall be so ordered by the committee as to “bear a constant proportion to the quantity of labour performed in each house;” and arise chiefly, or, if possible, totally from that source: and this to the end that “it may become the interest as well as the duty of each governor to see that all persons under his custody be regularly and profitably employed.”

Observations.—The principle here laid down as the ground of the above provision is an excellent lesson to legislators, and is of more use in that view, than, from its seeming obviousness when announced, it might at first appear to be. It is owing to the neglect of it, that we hear such frequent complaints of the inexecution of the laws—a misfortune ordinarily charged to the account of individuals, but which ought in fact to be charged upon the laws themselves. The direction here given is a happy application of that principle. It is by strokes like these that genius and penetration distinguish themselves from shallowness and empiricism. The means that are employed to connect the obvious interest of him whose conduct is in question, with his duty, are what every law has to depend on for its execution. A legislator, who knows his business, never thinks it finished while any feasible expedient remains untried, that can contribute to strengthen this connexion. The Utopian speculator unwarrantably presumes, that a man’s conduct (on which side soever his interest lie) will quadrate with his duty, or vainly regrets that it will not so.

The object in view in it, we see, is partly economical and partly moral: that such a profit be drawn from the labour of the convicts as may altogether, or at least in part, compensate the expense of the establishment; and that the morals of the convicts may be improved by a habit of steady and well-directed industry. The means by which it aims at the attainment of this object, are the giving to the person who has the government of the convicts, an interest in causing the labour to be thus applied. This, as far as it goes, is excellent, but perhaps there are means by which the power applied to produce labour might receive a still further increase. This power can operate no farther than as it comes home to the persons whose labour is in question. These persons are the convicts. Giving the governor an emolument in proportion to the labour they exert, it is expected, will cause them to exert more labour than they would otherwise: why? because the governor will employ such means as he has in his hands to induce them to exert it. These means must be either punishment or reward, these being the only certain inducements by which one man can influence the conduct of another. Of these two inducements, punishment is the most obvious, and at first view, the least costly to him who is to apply them. Taken singly, however, it is not always the most efficacious, nor in the end the most economical. The quantity of work done will depend upon the ability of the workmen; the quantity of work which a task-master can exact by dint of punishment, will depend upon the apparent ability of the workmen. Now, if the apparent ability of the workmen were always equal to the real, punishment alone might be sufficient to extract from him all the labour he can exert. But this is not the case: a man can always suppress, without possibility of detection, a great part of the ability he actually possesses, and stifle in embryo all the further stock of ability he might have possessed in future. To extract, therefore, all the labour that can be got from him, it is necessary to apply reward in aid of punishment; and not only to punish him for falling short of the apparent measure of his ability, but to reward him for exceeding it. Thus it is, that the course which recommends itself to sentiment, as the most humane, approves itself to reason as the most useful.

It seems, therefore, as if it might be an useful supplement to the above provision, if the convicts themselves were to be allowed some profit, in proportion to the produce of their own labour. This profit should be the gross profit, because that depends upon themselves; not the clear profit, because that depends upon the economy of the governor. Such a provision would have a double good effect—on the welfare of the public at large, in making their labour more productive, and on their own happiness, by making them take a pleasure in their business.

It is to be observed, however, that this regulation can have effect only in the case where the produce of the labour of one man can be distinguished from that of the labour of another. From a passage in section 27th, it looks as if the notion of the author were, that it could be done in all kinds of manufactures. But this, I fear, is hardly the case. If not, would it or would it not be worth while to restrict the employment of the convicts to such manufactures in which it could be done? Where it cannot, the profit that each man can reap from his own labour will be lessened in proportion as the number of his comrades is increased. To illustrate this,

He shares, it is true, in the profit upon their labour; but over this he has not that command that he has over his own. He knows, therefore, that he cannot depend upon it: if he could depend upon it, it would not be worth his while to exert his own.

A question that occurs here is, in what manner shall the workmen be let in to participate of the profits? Shall he be enjoined a certain task without profit, and then be allowed the whole profit upon the overplus? or, shall he be enjoined a less task, and then be allowed a share only in the profit upon the overplus? or, shall he be allowed a share, but of course a less share, upon every part of the produce of his labour, be it less or more? All these three expedients appear to be practised in different foreign work-houses, the first (or possibly the second) in the great house of correction at Ghent;* the second, in the house of correction at Delft in Holland;† the third, in the first great house of correction in Hamburgh.‡ The first, however, is liable to this objection: if the task be such, as any man of the least degree of adroitness can perform, it must, to some of the most adroit, be a very slight one: to such persons the reward will be a very lavish one; more, certainly, than is necessary, perhaps more than is expedient. If it be such as requires more natural adroitness than falls to the share of every body, some will be altogether excluded from the reward. The second expedient, too, will, in a greater or less degree, be liable to the one or the other of these objections. The third is free from both: this, therefore, seems to be the preferable one of the three.

As to the making the emoluments of the governor bear a constant proportion to the quantity of labour, the best way seems to be, to give him so much per cent. upon the produce of it, at the same time insuring it not to fall short of such or such a sum; suppose one hundred pounds a-year. The sum it is thus insured at must, on the one hand, be as much as is requisite to induce a competent person to undertake the charge: on the other hand, it must not be so much as appears likely to come near the probable profit that might be made from the percentage upon the produce of the labour. If this profit were to be less than the salary allowed in lieu of it, or indeed, if it were but little more, it would not make it worth his while to bestow the trouble it might take him to improve that fund to the best advantage.

Section XXIV. gives power to the committees to “increase, diminish, discontinue, or vary the number of officers,” with the approbation of the judges as before; “except by taking away or discontinuing the offices of

• “1. Visitor.
• 2. Governor.
• 3. Chaplain.
• 4. Surgeon or Apothecary.”

Observations.—Possibly the meaning might have been more clearly expressed by giving the power to suppress any of the officers mentioned in section 22d, (except as herein is excepted) or create any new ones, or alter the number of officers in each office. Thus ample, at least, I take the powers to have been, that were meant to be conferred.

Section XXV. establishes the economical powers of the governor.

1. It constitutes him a body corporate.

2. It empowers him to contract for the articles wanted in the house: to wit,

• 1. For clothing, diet, and other necessaries, for the use of the convicts.
• 2. For implements and materials of any manufacture they may be employed in.

3. It empowers him to carry on such manufacture, and to sell the produce.

4. It empowers him to draw on the treasurers of the several counties included within the district, for the amount of the above expenses.

5. Also for the other expenses of the house, under the following heads, viz.

• 1. Salaries.
• 2. Wages.
• 3. Coroner’s fees.
• 4. Funeral charges.
• 5. Repairs.
• 6. Other necessaries in general.

6. It empowers him to draw for the first quarter in advance: such draught being allowed by the committee, and countersigned by their clerk.

7. Lastly. Whatever monies he receives as above, it enjoins him to apply to the purposes for which they are issued.

Observations.—It could hardly have escaped the notice of the author, to what a degree the power of making these contracts lies open to abuse; and yet, upon the face of the clause now before us, this power is committed solely to the governor, without any express reference to the committee for their concurrence. The danger, however, is not altogether unprovided against. They have a general power of displacing him; and the dependence seems to have been upon their availing themselves of that power to exercise an occasional negative upon these contracts, or to make such general regulations as they should deem requisite to obviate the abuse.

Section XXVI. proportions the sum to be drawn for upon each county, &c. within the district, to the average number of the convicts, as declared in section 8.* Disputes concerning the proportions, it refers to the judges, as before,† whose determination it makes final.

Section XXVII. prescribes the accounts that are to be kept by the governor, storekeeper, and task-master.

1. The governor is directed to enter into a book “all accounts touching the maintenance of the house, and the convicts therein.”

2. The governor and storekeeper are each to keep separate accounts of all the stock brought into the house.

3. The storekeeper is to deliver out the stock to the task-master, and take receipts from him.

4. The task-master is to deliver out the work to the convicts.

5. The task-master is to keep accounts of the quantities daily worked by them respectively.

6. He is to return the materials, when wrought, to the storekeeper, taking his receipt for them.

7. He is to dispose of the wrought materials, with the privity of the governor, to whom he is to pay the produce; for which the governor is declared to be accountable to the committee.

8. The governor and storekeeper are to keep separate accounts of the materials wrought and disposed of, under the following heads:—

• 1. Species and quantity of the materials in question.
• 2. For what sold.
• 3. When sold.
• 4. To whom sold.

Section XXVIII. directs the manner in which the above accounts shall be audited by the committee:—

1. They are to examine the entries, to compare them with the vouchers, to verify them by the oaths of the governor and storekeeper, and upon that to allow or disallow them.

2. An account, if allowed, is to be signed by two or more members of the committee.

3. If the balance should be in favour of the governor, they are to pay him by draughts in the manner above set forth:‡ if against him, they may either leave it in his hands, or order it to be paid over as they think proper.

Section XXIX. empowers the committee, in case of their suspecting fraud, to examine upon oath any persons whatsoever respecting the above accounts; and in case of any false entry, or fraudulent omission, or other fraud, or any collusion of an officer or servant with any other officer or servant, or with any other person, to dismiss the officer or servant, and appoint another: or, if they think fit, to indict the offender at the next sessions of the peace for the place wherein the house is situated: and it limits the punishment to a fine not exceeding ten pounds, or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both; saving the right of action to any party injured.

Observations.—With respect to the punishment of officers, this section, when compared with section 24, seems not altogether free from ambiguity. After empowering the committee to dismiss officers for misbehaving in any of the manners specified, it goes on and subjoins, in the disjunctive, another mode of punishment: they may be dismissed, it says, “or” indicted. It looks, from hence, as if it were not the intention of the author, that an offender of the description in question should be punished by dismission and indictment both; yet this he might be, notwithstanding, under the general power of dismission at pleasure, given by section 24; unless this section be understood pro tanto to repeal the other.

It may be said, by way of reconciling the two sections, that the sense is, that the offender may, if thought proper, be dismissed, or he may be indicted; but that if he has been dismissed, he is not to be indicted. But suppose him to have been indicted first, and perhaps convicted, may he, or may he not then afterwards be dismissed?

As to the quantum of punishment allowed to be inflicted upon indictment, this may, perhaps, be liable, though in a much inferior degree, to the objection against a correspondent provision stated in section 18.

With respect to the jurisdiction within which the indictment is to be preferred, may there not be some danger in confining it to the sessions of the peace for the very place within which the house is situated? Suppose the delinquent to be a governor, and the house to be situated in a small town, such as Warwick or Wells.* the house at Warwick is calculated for 118 convicts; that at Wells for 126. The contracts for the maintenance of the house are all to be made by the governor: might not this privilege give him a considerable degree of influence among the grand jurymen for such small places as those towns? There are no separate sessions, indeed, for Wells or Warwick; so that the grand jurymen at the sessions there, would come out of the body of the county: but it might very well happen, on any given occasion, that the grand juries for the respective counties might, the greater part of them, come out of those towns; and the towns of Lincoln, Norwich, Durham, York, Gloucester, Worcester, Exeter, and Chester, all of them places wherein the committees are to meet, and within which, therefore, labour-houses are likely enough to be situated, have all separate sessions of their own. The houses, indeed, are directed not to be “within any town, if any other convenient place can be found;” that is, not encompassed with buildings; but this may not everywhere hinder their being within the jurisdiction; nor is the direction peremptory; and they are recommended to be near a town, to wit, a town of trade. The danger, certainly, is not very great; but it may be obviated without difficulty. All that is necessary is, to empower the committee, if they think fit, to prefer the indictment in any adjoining county at large; or in London or Middlesex, if the district be in the home circuit.

Section XXX. declares for what offences, and for what terms, convicts may be committed to these houses. These are

Offenders are to be sent to the houses as soon as the committee certifies to the judges, as before,† that the house is ready to receive them.

Section XXXI. empowers the several courts, in the meantime, until the labour-houses are made ready, to commit offenders to the county bridewells, enjoining the justices in sessions to fit up those places for the “temporary reception, safe custody, employment, and due regulation of the offenders” that are to be sent there: and it declares that for such time the places in question shall be deemed labour-houses, for all the purposes within the meaning of this act.

Section XXXII. is confined to male convicts. It empowers courts to commit offenders of the male sex to work upon the Thames, or upon any other river that may be fixed upon for that purpose by an order of council. These are to work under the direction of a superintendent: to be appointed, for the Thames, by the justices of Middlesex; for any other river, by the justices of such adjoining counties as shall be fixed upon by the privy council.

The provisions of this section are in the preambular part of it declared to be designed “for the more severe and effectual punishment of atrocious and daring offenders.”

Observations.—The confinement and labour upon the Thames is looked upon, it appears from this, as being severer than the confinement and labour is at present in the county bridewells, or is expected to be in the labour-houses in question. It is not expressly referred to the option of the courts, which of these two species of hard labour or confinement they will order a man to: but as, by separate clauses, they are empowered to order a convict of the description in question to each, and not peremptorily enjoined to order him to either; it follows of necessity, that it was meant they should have that option. The preambular words above quoted being too loose to operate in the way of command, can be intended only for direction.

With regard to the superintendent under whose management the Thames convicts are to be, it speaks of him as one who is to be appointed by the Middlesex justices. Now, the present act, under which the present superintendent has been appointed, is, by the last section of the bill, to be repealed. This being the case, it looks as if a fresh appointment of the same or some other person to be superintendent would be necessary, unless some slight alteration were made in the wording of this clause.

Section XXXIII. extends the provisions respecting convicts sentenced to transportation, to capital convicts pardoned on that condition: and it allows and enjoins any one judge, before whom the offender was tried, upon a written notification of his Majesty’s mercy, given by a secretary of state, to allow the offender the benefit of a conditional pardon, as if it were under the great seal.

Section XXXIV, proscribes the method in which an offender is to be conveyed from the place of sentence to the place of punishment, together with the documents by which the right of conveying him thither, and keeping him there, is to be established.

Upon the making of any order for the commitment of an offender to hard-labour, a certificate is to be given by the clerk of the court to the sheriff or goaler who has him in custody.

In this certificate are to be specified,

• 1. The Christian name of the offender.
• 2. His surname.
• 3. His age.
• 4. His offence.
• 5. The court in which he was convicted.
• 6. The term for which he is ordered to hard-labour.

Immediately after the receiving such certificate, the gaoler is to cause the offender to be conveyed to the place of punishment, and to be delivered, together with the certificate, as the case is, to the governor or superintendent, or “such person or persons as such governor or superintendent shall appoint:” and the person who receives him is to give a receipt in writing, under his hand: which receipt is declared to be a sufficient discharge to the person who delivers him. This certificate, “the governor or superintendent, or other person or persons to whom such offender shall be so delivered,” is required “carefully to preserve.”

Observations.—With respect to the words, “such person or persons as such governor or superintendent shall appoint,” I doubt some little difficulty may arise. Does the passage mean any person in general acting under the governor or superintendent? any person employed by them as a servant in the discharge of the duties of their office? or does it mean, that some one particular person or persons should be appointed by them for this particular purpose; so that a delivery made to any other person in their service should not be good? On the one hand, it is not every person who may be occasionally employed in the service, whom it would be safe to trust with such a charge: on the other hand, it might be attended with a good deal of inconvenience, if upon any occasion the governor or superintendent, and any one person respectively appointed by them for this purpose, should by any accident be both absent, or disabled by illness. A remedy for both inconveniences may be the directing the governor to give standing authorities for this purpose in writing, to such a number of his servants, as may obviate any danger there might be of their being all out of the way at the same time. In such case, there could be no inconvenience in making it necessary to the discharge of him who is to deliver the prisoner, that he who is to receive him shall have produced and shown him such authority.

Section XXXV. provides for the fees and expenses of conveyance. The clerk of the court, on granting the certificate, and the sheriff or gaoler, on delivering the offender, are to have the same fees as would respectively have been due to them, had he been “sentenced to” transportation.

The expense of those fees, and the other expenses of conveyance, are to be borne by the jurisdiction over which the court presides; and are to be paid by the clerk of the court, upon an order made by the general sessions of the peace for the jurisdiction.

Section XXXVI. appoints, in general terms, the powers a governor or superintendent, or persons acting under them, are to have, and the punishments they are to be liable to in case of misbehaviour: those powers and these punishments it declares to be the same as are incident to the office of a sheriff or gaoler.

Section XXXVII. gives directions respecting the species of work in which the convicts are to be employed. For this purpose it marks out two classes of employments, correspondent to so many different degrees of bodily strength. Those whose strength is in the first degree, whether of the one sex or the other, it destines to labour of the “hardest and most servile kind:” those whose strength is in a lower degree, to “less laborious employments:” and in determining whether an offender shall be deemed to come under one of these classes or another, it directs that the three circumstances of health, age, and sex, be all taken into consideration.

Of each of these classes of employment it gives examples. Of the hardest and most servile kind it proposes,

• 1. Treading in a wheel.
• 2. Drawing in a capstern for turning a mill, or other machine or engine.
• 3. Beating hemp.
• 4. Rasping logwood.
• 5. Chopping rags.
• 6. Sawing timber.
• 7. Working at forges.
• 8. Smelting.

Of the less laborious class, it instances:—

• 1. Making ropes.
• 2. Weaving sacks.
• 3. Spinning yarn.
• 4. Knitting nets.

Of these and other such employments, it leaves it to the committees to choose such as they shall deem most conducive to the profit, and consistent with the convenience, of the district.

Section XXXVIII. regulates the lodgment of the offenders.

1. The males are at all times to be kept “separate from the females; without the least communication on any pretence whatsoever.”

2. Each offender is in all cases to have a separate room to sleep in.

3. Each offender, as far as the nature of his employment will admit, is to work apart from every other.

4. Where the nature of the employment requires two persons to work together, the room they work in is directed to be of “suitable dimensions.”

5. Such two persons shall not continue together but during the hours of work.

6. Nor shall the same two persons work together for more than three days successively.

7. If the nature of the work requires “many” to be employed together, “a common work-room or shed” may be allotted them.

8. But in this case the governor, or somebody under him, “shall be constantly present to attend to their behaviour.”

9. If the work require instruction, instructors shall be provided, who shall be paid by the committee.

It likewise gives some directions concerning the dimensions and structure of the lodging-rooms.

2. They are to have no window within six feet of the floor.

Observations.—Nothing can be better contrived than this little string of regulations. They appear to be such as cannot but be conducive in the highest degree to the two great purposes of safe custody and reformation. They involve, it is true, a very considerable degree of expense; but perhaps there is no case in which there is more to be said in behalf of a liberal supply.

With regard, indeed, to the first of the above restraints, this, it must be confessed, is of itself, in some cases, a pretty severe, and, upon the whole, rather an unequal punishment. The amorous appetite is in some persons, particularly in the male sex, so strong as to be apt, if not gratified, to produce a serious bad effect upon the health; in others it is kept under without difficulty. On the score of punishment, therefore, this hardship, could it be avoided, would, or account of its inequality, be ineligible. Under a religion which, like the Mahometan or Gentoo, makes no account of the virtue of continence, means perhaps might be found, not inconsistent with the peace of the society, by which these hardships might be removed. But the Christian religion, at least according to the notions entertained of it in Protestant countries, requires the temporal governor to put an absolute negative upon any expedients of this sort. Since, then, the gratification of this desire is unavoidably forbidden, the best thing that can be done is to seclude the parties as much as possible from the view of every object that can have a tendency to foment it. On this account, the first of these regulations is as strongly recommended by humanity as a means of preserving the quiet of each individual convict, as it is by policy as a means of preserving the peace of the whole community of them at large. Happily, the dispositions of nature in this behalf second, in a considerable degree, the dispositions of the legislaton. Hard labour, when not compensated by nourshing and copious diet, has a strong tendency to diminish the force of these desires, whether by diverting the attention, or by diminishing the irritability of the nervous system, or by weakening the habit of body: and the desire, when the habit of gratifying it is broken off, subsides, and becomes no longer troublesome.

With regard to the size of the rooms, this we see has limits set to it on the side of augmentation; on the side of diminution, it has none. This partial limitation, I must confess, I do not very well perceive the reason of. Errors, if at all, seem more to be apprehended on the side of diminution than on that of augmentation. That the rooms should not be less than of a certain size, is conducive to health. The danger seems to be, lest the committees should, out of economy, be disposed to put up with narrower dimensions. If the sums provided by the bill out of the national fund are not sufficient, the deficiency, we may remember, is to be provided for by the counties.

Section XXXIX. prescribes the times of work.

1. The days of work are, unless in case of ill health, to be all days in the year: except

• 1. All Sundays.
• 2. Christmas-day.
• 3. Good-Friday.

2. The hours of work, as many as daylight and the season of the year will permit, including two intervals; to wit,

3. At the close of the day, when workingtime is over, such of the materials and implements as admit of removal, are to be removed from the work-rooms to places proper for their safe custody, there to be kept till it come round again.

Observations.—With respect to the hours of work, the duration of daylight, if taken for the sole measure, (as one would suppose it to be by this passage in the bill) would, I doubt, be found rather an inconvenient one. In the depth of winter, the time of working can scarcely begin so early as eight in the morning, nor continue so late as four in the afternoon. In the height of summer, it may begin earlier than three in the morning, and it may continue later than nine in the evening; but if from eight till four, that is, eight hours, be enough, from three to nine, that is, sixteen hours, were even nothing more than the duration of the labour to be considered, is surely too much. But labour of the same duration and intensity is severer in summer than in winter, heat rendering a man the less able to endure it. The better way, therefore, seems to be, if not to make the time of working longer in winter than in summer, at least to make it of an equal length. As eight hours, or the least time of daylight, therefore, is evidently too short a time, this will make it necessary to have recourse to lamps or candles. As the walls and floors will of course be of brick or stone, without any combustible linings, these artificial lights can scarcely be attended with any danger.

Whatever be the hours of labour fixed upon as most proper for an average, there are some among the employments above mentioned,* that will probably be found too laborious for a man to be confined to during the whole time. In such a case, either he must remain without any thing to do, or employed in some kind of work so much less laborious as to serve as a kind of relaxation from the other. The latter course seems beyond comparison the best. On this account, it seems as if it would be of advantage that no person should be confined exclusively to the most laborious of the classes of employments above specified; but that such offenders as were destined principally to an employment of that class should, for some part of the day, be turned over to one of the sedentary kind. On the other hand, neither would it be so well, perhaps, that offenders of the least robust class should be confined wholly to employments purely sedentary. The relief of the former and the health of the latter would, it should seem, be best provided for by a mixture of the laborious and the sedentary. By this means, the time of the convicts might, it should seem, be better filled up, and the total quantity of their labour rendered more productive

The great difficulty is, how to fill up their time on Sundays: for, with regard to men in general, more particularly to persons of this stamp, the danger always is, that if their time be not filled up, and their attention engaged, either by work or by innocent amusement, they will betake themselves either to mischief or to despondency. Divine service, it is true, is appointed to be performed, and that twice-a-day; but that, according to the ordinary duration of it, will not fill up above four hours; that is, about a quarter of the day.

To fill up the remainder, four expedients present themselves:—1. One is to protract the time of rest for that day, which may be done either by letting them lie longer, or sending them to bed earlier.

Another is, to protract the time of meals.

A third is, to protract the time of divine service.

A fourth is, to furnish them with some other kind of employment.

The two first are commonly enough practised by the working class of people at large who are at liberty; but when put both together, they will not go any great way.

The time of attendance at church might be lengthened in two ways: 1. By adding to the ordinary service a standing discourse or discourses, particularly adapted to the circumstances of the congregation. This might consist, 1st, of prayers, 2dly, of thanksgivings, neither of which, however, could with propriety be very long; and 3dly, of a discourse composed of moral instructions and exhortations. The instructions and exhortations would naturally have two objects: the conduct of the hearers, 1st, during the continuance of their punishment: 2dly, after their restoration to society

2. Another way of adding to the church service is by music. This will, at any rate, be a very agreeable employment to many, and, if properly managed, may be a very useful one to all; even to those who have no natural relish for music in itself. The influence which church music has over the generality of men, in bringing them to a composed and serious turn of mind, is well known. The music might be either vocal only, or assisted by an organ. In either case, the vocal part might, with a little instruction, be performed by the congregation themselves, as it is at the Magdalen, and other public foundations.

3. As to other employments, walking (in as far as their limits will permit them) might go some way towards filling up their time. This would be an additional use for the garden proposed in the observations to section 13. On this occasion, to prevent insurrections and cabals, the convicts might be connected two and two together; a slight chain, not heavy enough to incommode them by its weight, might answer the purpose. Each offender would by this means be a clog and a spy upon his companion. In this view, the idea adopted in section 38, with regard to the manner of working, might be pursued, so as that the same two persons should not be coupled together two successive days; nor should it be known before-hand, what two persons are to be together. To prevent this, the names should be drawn out every day by lot. By this means, supposing an offender had succeeded so far in a project of escape or mischief, as to engage some one of his comrades to join with him, he could not, for a long time afterwards, unless by a very extraordinary turn of chance, resume the conversation without the privity of two others, whose dispositions could not be known before-hand. If the expedient of a garden were to be employed, such an arrangement would have a farther good effect, in rendering it more difficult for them to wander out of bounds, and do mischief to the cultivated part of it.

The interruptions of bad weather, and the shortness of the day, at any other time than the height of summer, would still leave a considerable part of their time which could not be filled up in this manner; either, therefore, they must be permitted to employ themselves in some other manner, or they must be compelled to absolute inaction. They cannot, as other persons of the working class do, employ themselves on those days in visiting their friends.

They may employ themselves, it is true, in reading the Bible or other books of piety: but there will be a great many who cannot read; and of those who can, many will have so little inclination, that on pretence of reading, they will do nothing.

It is to little purpose to issue directions, which, in the nature of them, furnish no evidence of their having been complied with. The not attending to this, is a common stumbling-block to superficial reformers. The evidence of a man’s having complied with a direction to work, is the work he has done: this may be judged of at a glance. But what is the evidence of a man’s having employed himself in reading? His giving a good account of what he has read. Unquestionably: but such an one as it would be to little purpose to think of exacting, for, though his attention has been diligent, his memory may be weak. Besides, who is to Judge? who could find time enough to catechise such a multitude? It would require no small number of schoolmasters to turn such an establishment into a school.

Upon the whole, I can see no better expedient at present, than that of permitting them (not obliging them, but permitting them) to betake themselves to some easy sedentary employment, such as knitting, spinning, or weaving, that might afford them a small profit. This profit, if made their own, would make the employment pleasant to them. Devotion, it is true, is better on such a day than industry; but industry is better on every day than total idleness, that is, than despondency or mischief. The necessity in this case seems at least as strong as that which has induced the legislature to permit the practice of certain trades on the day in question, and which is universally understood to authorize persons of all descriptions to pursue most of their household occupations. It were hard if an institution, confessedly no original part of the religion we profess, but only adopted into it by early practice, and in later times sanctioned by human authority, must, at all events, be permitted to oppose the main ends of religion, innocence and peace.

I speak all along under correction, and what I propose is only upon the supposition that no other means can be found of filling up their time in a manner more suitable to the day.

With regard to the making the windows not less than six feet above the floor, this regulation is also recommended by Mr. Howard. His design in it, I cannot find he has anywhere mentioned; I suppose it to be to prevent the convicts from looking out. The prospects or moving scenes, whatever they might be, which the windows, if lower, might open to their view, might serve to distract their attention from their work. This privation may be considered in the light of an independent punishment, as well as in that of a means of insuring their subjection to the other.

Besides this, Mr. Howard is strenuous against glass windows: he would have nothing but open grating. In this case, the height of the windows would be a means, in some measure, of sheltering the inhabitants from the wind, though, on the other hand, it would expose them more to rain. I know not, however, that he has been anywhere explicit in giving his reasons for reprobating these conveniences.

One reason may be the insuring a continual supply of fresh air; but this does not seem conclusive. In apartments, indeed, so crowded and ill-contrived as many of those he had occasion to visit, the windows, being glazed, might, by accident, be attended with bad effects; for I think he complains, in many places, of the closeness of such rooms, owing, as it seems, either to the windows not being made to open, or to the inattention or ignorance of the gaoler or prisoners in not opening them. But under the excellent regulations provided for these houses, the apartments never will be crowded; they will not be crowded more than those of a private house; and in a private house it never surely was understood to be necessary, or even of use to health, that there should be nothing but grates for windows. If the convicts were to eat in a common room, the setting open the doors and windows for an hour and a-half, (which is the time allotted them for meals,) would be quite sufficient for the purpose of ventilation.

Another reason for having nothing but grating may be the contributing to give a gloomy and distressful appearance to the outside of the prison. This reason, as far as it applies, seems to be a very good one. But it applies only to the front of the house; for this is all that need, or indeed that ought, to be exposed to the eyes of passengers. The apartments thus exposed might be destined for those whose labour was the hardest, and whose treatment, upon the whole, was designed to be the severest; or the whole or a great part might be taken up with common working-rooms, not made use of for lodging-rooms.

Section XL. regulates the articles of diet and apparel. For food the convicts are to have

1. Bread, and any coarse meat, “or other inferior food.”

2. For drink, water or small beer.

3. The apparel is to be coarse and uniform, with certain obvious marks or badges on it. The declared purposes of these marks are, 1st, to humiliate the wearer; 2dly, to prevent escapes.

4. The articles under the above heads are to be ordered in such a manner as the “committee shall from time to time appoint.”

5. No offender is to be permitted to have any other food, “drink, or clothing, than such as shall be so appointed.”

Persons wilfully furnishing him with any articles of the above kind, other than what shall have been so appointed, are to forfeit not more than £10, nor less than 40s.

Observations.—The expedient of marking the apparel is well imagined, and quadrates with the practice of several foreign countries.* It is designed, we see, to answer two purposes: 1st, that of a separate punishment, by holding up the wearer in an ignominious light; 2dly, that of safe custody, to ensure the continuance of the whole punishment together. The first of these purposes it may be made to answer as completely as any other that can be proposed: with respect to the latter, it will readily be acknowledged not to be perfectly efficacious.

Marks employed for this purpose, may be either temporary or perpetual. Against perpetual marks, in every case, then, except where the confinement is meant to be perpetual, there is this conclusive objection, that they protract a great part of the punishment beyond the time that was meant to be prescribed to it. Temporary marks may either be extraneous or inherent. The marks here proposed are evidently of the former kind. These, so long as they continue, are very efficacious means of detection, and may be made more palpable than any that are inherent. They serve very well, therefore, as obstacles to an escape during the first moments; in short, until such time as the fugitive can by force or favour procure fresh apparel. But if he is once housed among his friends or confederates, the use of them is at au end. If his person be not known, he may go about boldly like another man.

Inherent marks seem never hitherto to have been thought of. These may be produced by either mechanical means or chemical.

Instances of mechanical means are the partial shaving of the head, or of the beard, or the chin, or mouth; or the shaving of one eye-brow. But the mark made by the partial shaving of a part of the face, of which the whole is usually kept shaved, is as soon got rid of as any mark that is but extraneous: besides that, it is inapplicable to boys and women. The mark made by the shaving of one eye-brow seems to promise better; but it is not free from all objections. In the first place, it is not absolutely a sure one. Some persons have naturally so little hair on their eye-brows, that, if the whole of it were taken off from both, it might not be missed: and artificial eye-brows are said to have been made of mouse-skin, or in other ways, and that so natural, as not to be detected without previous suspicion. In the next place, there is some danger that a mark continually renewed, as this must be, by repeated shavings, would be in some degree perpetual. If the same eye-brow were to be constantly subjected to the operation, the hair might be so thickened as to appear different from the other eye-brow. If sometimes one eye-brow and sometimes the other were to be shaved, there must frequently be times when the growth of them will be alike, and the distinction no longer apparent. As far, then, as it goes, the best expedient seems to be the keeping them constantly both shaved.

Instances of chemical means of producing marks are washes applied to the forehead, or to one or both cheeks, or, in short, to the whole face, so as to discolour it. Chemistry furnishes many washes of this sort. Of several of these I have often undesignedly made trial upon myself. Various metallic solutions produce this effect in a state so diluted as prevents any objection on the score of expense.† The stain lasts without any fresh application, as long as the stratum of skin which it pervades; that is, to the best of my recollection, about a week. No other washes have ever yet been found to discharge it.

Marks of this kind, we see, cannot be put off like those of the former; nor, if made as extensive as they may be, can they be concealed without such a covering as would be almost equally characteristic with the mark itself. When the term of punishment was so near being expired, that it could manifestly not be worth while to run the risk of an escape, they might be disused. For greater security, they might be so shaped, perhaps, as to express the surname of the offender, the first letter of his christian name, and the name of the place in which the labour-house he belonged to was situated.

One great advantage of these permanent marks with respect to the offender, is, that they would render the use of chains less necessary. The convicts upon the Thames, in consequence of repeated escapes, are made to work constantly in fetters.

By Section XLI. officers and servants belonging to the house are specially restrained from contravening the regulations established in the preceding section Upon any such delinquency the offender is to be suspended by the governor forthwith the governor is to report him to the visitors, and the visitors to the committee at their next meeting. The committee is to inquire upon oath, and, if found guilty, to punish him by

• 1. Forteiture of his place;
• 2. Or fine, not more than ten pounds;
• 3. Or imprisonment, for not more than six months.
• 4. Or any number of such punishments in conjunction.

An exception is made with regard to any diet or liquors ordered, in case of illness, by the surgeon or apothecary.

Observations.—The fine in this and the preceding section is not liable to the objection made to the like provision in section 29. The profit of the offence can never, in any shape, come nearly equal to the greatest quantum of the fine. Let the offences in the two cases be compared, it will be seen how much greater the temptation is in the latter than in the former.

The regulations in this and the preceding section, about not punishing the convicts with any extra articles of consumption, might need to be a little altered, if what I have ventured to propose concerning the allowing them a part of their earnings* were to be adopted. These earnings must either be hoarded up for them, to be given them at their discharge, or allowed them to be spent. In the first case, the danger is, lest an advantage so distant should not, in their imprudent minds, have influence enough to operate as an inducement. “I may be dead before then,” a man may say, “and what use will all the money be of to me? besides, if I am alive, how can I be sure that I shall get it? What need have I, then, to punish myself with working more than I am obliged to do?” I should not, therefore, expect any very general or considerable good effect from such an allowance, without the liberty of spending it, or at least a part of it, at present. The business, then, would be, to determine the articles in which they might be allowed to spend it. Even drink, so it be not any of those drinks that are known commonly by the name of spirituous liquors, need not be absolutely excluded: but, for very good reasons, which are strongly insisted on by Mr. Howard,† no profit upon the drink should be allowed to the governor, or any persons under him: or else (what would come nearly to the same thing) if there were a profit allowed upon that article, it should not be greater, nor indeed so great, as the profit to be allowed upon the other articles among which they were to be permitted to take their choice. The smallness of their fund would probably of itself be sufficient to limit their consumption within the bounds of sobriety. If not, the quantity of drink of each sort, which any one man should be allowed to purchase, might be expressly limited. The circumstances of their being so much apart from one another, and so much under the eye of their inspectors, would obviate the difficulty there would be otherwise in carrying such a limitation into effect.

Section XLII. makes provision for the equipment of the offender upon his discharge. Upon his commitment, the clothes he brings with him are to be cleaned, ticketed, and laid up. Upon his discharge, they are to be delivered back to him, together with such additional clothing as the visitors shall think proper. A sum of money is also to be allowed him for his immediate subsistence, to the amount of not more than five pounds, nor less than forty shillings. And if he has behaved himself well during his confinement, the visitors are to give him a certificate to that effect under their hands.

Observations.—There is something singularly characteristic in the foresight and humanity displayed in this provision. It is copied from the experimental act of 1776. After a long seclusion, the convict is once more turned adrift into society. His former connexions are by this time, perhaps, dissolved; by death, by change of abode, or by estrangement: at any rate, he is probably at a distance from them. His known delinquency and his punishment, though, after such a course of discipline, it is to be hoped it will not operate upon all persons so as to prevent their employing him, may, however, operate upon many. Meantime, if he be totally unprovided, he must either sink at once into the idleness and misery of a poor-house, or beg, or starve, or betake himself to courses similar to those which brought him to the place of punishment he is just freed from. The expedient, therefore, of giving him a temporary supply, is an highly proper one, though not so obvious as, for the credit of human sagacity and compassion, it were to be wished it were.

But supposing an offender’s behaviour to have been such as renders it improper for the visitors to give him the certificate here mentioned, what is to become of him then? Were no certificate to be given in any case, some persons might, perhaps, be induced to run the hazard of employing a convict, to whom it would not have been proper to have granted one. But when it is known that a certificate of good behaviour is granted to the generality of the convicts, the denial of such a certificate to any one amounts in fact to a certificate of the contrary. In such a case, it is not very probable that he will find employment anywhere. The supply provided for him, liberal as it is, can reprieve him only, not save him, from the above-mentioned dilemma.

In such a case, I see but two courses that can be taken. One is, to empower the committee to continue him in his confinement, till his behaviour shall have entitled him to his certificate: the other is, to enlist him by compulsion in the land or sea service. How far it would be consistent with the honour of either of those services to admit a man with such a stamp of uncancelled ignominy upon him, is more than I can take upon me to determine. At any rate, it seems hardly proper to let him rank upon a par with honest men. In the sea service, provisions being found him, his pay might very well bear to be reduced below the common level: in the land service, provisions not being allowed, the subsistence is too bare to admit of the least reduction.

It is to be hoped, indeed, that after so strict and well-regulated a course of discipline as that prescribed by the bill, there will be very few convicts to whom it will be necessary to deny the certificate in question; but it is fit that every case that can happen should be provided for.

Section XLIII. provides that the offenders shall be divided into three classes; in each of which every offender is to be ranked, during an equal part of his time: and as he advances from a prior to a subsequent one, his confinement and labour are to be gradually less and less severe. The different gradations of severity are to be settled from time to time by regulations to be made by the committee, so as not to clash with the provisions of this bill.

Observations.—This division of the convicts into classes will be examined, when we come to consider the uses that are made of it.

Section XLIV. regulates the furniture and police of the lodging-rooms.

1. Every lodging-room is to be “provided with matting for lying upon, a coverlid, and two or more coarse blankets.”

2. “Also with proper tools or instruments for their employment.”

3. No person (except as herein is excepted) is to “be permitted to go at any time into these rooms, or to see or converse with the offenders.”

4. Persons excepted are, 1. The officers and servants of the house; 2. Any person who has an order from any member of the committee.

5. At night, as soon as the time of work is over, a bell is to be rung, the doors of the rooms locked, and the lights in them put out; and from that time, till the hour of work comes round again, a watchman is to patrole over every part of the house every half-hour at least.

Observations.—Under the article of bedding, I see no mention made of sheets. Was this omission undesigned, or was it meant that they should have none? or would not the use of linen, if not absolutely necessary, at least be conducive, however, to the preservation of their health? Mr. Hume, I think, in his History, Mr. Barrington,* and, I believe, medical writers, have mentioned the use of linen as being a principal cause why the leprosy, which was once so common in this country, is now so rare.

I see no mention neither of a bedstead. Mr. Howard in general terms recommends bedsteads for health and cleanliness.† A bedstead, however cold the materials (suppose iron,) will be warmer than the stone or brick floor, with only matting to cover it; for the surface of the iron in the bedstead being much less than that of the covered part of the floor, the natural warmth of the body, accumulated on the bedding, will be conducted away much less readily by the former than by the latter. At any rate, the elevation given by a bedstead will save the bedding from being trampled on, and covered with dust and dirt. It will also give access for the air to ventilate the under part of it.

Bedsteads are actually allowed to felons in many gaols.*

I see no provision made here for firing: yet some provision of this sort seems absolutely necessary, at least in extreme cold weather, for those whose employments are chiefly of the sedentary kind, and for all of them at times, when no work is done, as on Sundays. For this purpose, it is by no means necessary, nor even advisable, that there should be a fire to every room, nor between every two rooms, nor indeed that there should be in any of the rooms any fireplaces at all. The most economical way as yet in use, of generating and applying heat for this purpose, seems to be that which is practised in hot-houses, by means of flues or lateral chimnies, in which the smoke deposits its heat in its passage to the atmosphere. The fire employed in heating the bread-oven might, perhaps, be occasionally made useful in this way. I have heard it suggested, that the steam of boiling water might perhaps be applied to the purpose of heating rooms, in a method that might be more economical than that of heating them by smoke. If this expedient were employed, the coppers in which the victuals were boiled might perhaps be adapted to this purpose.†

The provision for excluding promiscuous visitants seems highly eligible. In a nation, however, so jealous of every thing that savours of secresy in the exercise of coercive power, even over the most obnoxious of its members, it required no mean degree of intrepidity to propose it. I had, in truth, but little hope of seeing it proposed, much less adopted and acquiesced in, as it already is in the instance of the Thames convicts. An acquiescence so complete and general as this has been found to be, argues a greater fund of solid sense, and less sensibility to inflammatory ideas, than perhaps, before the experiment was made, could reasonably have been hoped for. This, together with many other examples to the like effect, may serve to silence at least, if not to remove, any objections that may be entertained against a measure acknowledged to be beneficial in itself, on the score of its being obnoxious to popular sentiment, unwarranted by the dictatcs of utility.

The establishment of Visitors, who are frequently to be changed, and the admission of occasional visitants by order from any member of the committees, are expedients that seem amply sufficient for obviating any real danger of abusive severity. It is surely a notion too wild to be seriously entertained, by any one who will give himself leisure to reflect, that the whole body of country magistrates, and the whole circle of their acquaintance, are likely to be tainted with the principles of aristocratic tyranny. Supposing this, against all probability, to be the case, and that any one habit of undue severity were established, any one false brother would be sufficient to betray the secrets of the confederacy, and expose it to the resentment of the public.

At the same time, it is highly expedient to give as little admittance as possible to persons of such ranks in life as are most obnoxious to the punishment inflicted in these houses. The cirumstances of secresy and seclusion give an air of mystery to the scene, which contributes greatly to enhance the terrors it is intended to impress. True it is, that the convicts, as they come to be discharged, and to mix again with society, will circulate, among persons of the same ranks in life, such accounts of what they have seen and felt, as it may be thought will be sufficient to correct any inaccuracies in the notions that may have been suggested by imagination. This, however, I take it, will not be altogether the case. Experience and ocular observation might indeed, in time, dissipate the illusion, and bring down the apparent horrors of the scene to a level with the real suffering; but in the susceptible minds of the giddy multitude, it is not mere report alone that can obliterate the influence of first impressions.

Section XLV. makes provision for communicating to these societies the benefits of religion.

1. On all Sundays, as also on Christmasday and Good-Friday, there is to be morning and evening service, with a sermon after each; at which services all the convicts (unless disabled by illness) are to be present.

2. The two sexes are to be kept at a distance from, and, by means of partitions, out of sight of, one another.

3. Of the officers and servants, such as can be spared from their employments, are likewise (unless prevented by illness) to be present.

4. The chaplain is required to visit, at their request, and empowered to visit at his own discretion, any of the offenders, sick or in health, who may stand in need of his spiritual assistance: so that his visits interfere not with their stated labours.

Observations.—It were to be wished on this occasion, if it could be done without inconvenience, that such of the convicts as may happen to be of a religion different from the established, might have the benefit of spiritual consolation in their own way. It is no answer, to say with a sneer, that the inhabitants of these houses are in little likelihood of being encumbered with religious scruples; for a total indifference to religion is by no means a necessary accompaniment to an occasional deviation from the dictates of morality; on the contrary, it is no uncommon thing to observe, in the same person, a great inattention to the essentials of morality, joined to an anxious attention to the inessentials and externals of religion. This point, however, could not be compassed without some difficulty. It would be endless to set up as many chapels as there may chance to be sects in this community. At any rate, it is not the belonging or professing to belong to any other sect, that should be allowed to excuse a man from attending the stated service; for, if this were the case, persons who cared nothing about religion would be apt to profess themselves of some dissenting sect, that, instead of going to chapel, they might spend the time in idleness. The being obliged to give such attendance would be no hardship to any, even in a religious view; for I do not believe there is at this time of day any sect which holds it sinful merely to be present at divine service performed according to the rites of the church of England.* I suppose there are few, indeed, but would even think it better to attend that service than none at all.

Jews and Catholics would be the worst off: Jews, with their continual domestic ceremonies, and Catholics with their numerous sacraments. Catholics† seem, at first sight, to be without hope of remedy: a door, however, though but a narrow one, is opened for their relief, by the general power vested in the members of the committees to give orders of admission. As to Jews, I must confess, I can see no feasible way of making, in each labour-house, the provisions requisite for satisfying all their various seruples. As it happens, there seems reason (I do not know whether to say to hope, but at any rate) to believe, that of such of them as are likely to become inhabitants of these houses, there are not many on whom these scruples would sit heavy. The only expedient I can think of for the indulgence of these people is, to have one labour-house for all the convicts of this persuasion throughout the kingdom. In such case, it would be but reasonable that the whole community of Jews should be at the expense of this establishment, including the charges of conveyance. They might then have their own rabbis, and their own cooks and butchers.

The provision for the concealment of the sexes from each other has been exemplified by the practice in the Magdalen and other chapels.

In some of the larger houses, considering the number of persons, either sick or in health, who might be disposed to receive the assistance of a minister, or to whom a zealous minister might be disposed to give it, especially if these additions were to be made to the service that are proposed under section 39, a single chaplain might hardly be sufficient to go through all the duty. In such case, the contributions that might be required of occasional visitors at chapel, who are likely to become numerous, might probably provide for another chaplain.

Section 58, which relates to convicts working upon rivers, provides for the burial of such as die under confinement. I see no such provision relative to such as may die in the labour-houses. Would it not be proper to annex to each house a piece of ground to be consecrated for that purpose?

Section XLVI. makes provision for the article of health.

1. There are to be two or more yards, in which the offenders are to be permitted to take the air by turns, as their health may require, in these yards, if proper employment can be found, they are also to be permitted to work, instead of working in the house.

2. Any oflender appearing to be sick, is, upon report made by the surgeon or apothecary that his sickness is real, to be ordered by the governor to the infirmary, if his sickness be of a nature to require it, and entered in a book upon the sick list, and upon the surgeon or apothecary’s report of his being recovered and fit to work, he is to be brought back to his lodging-room, and put to work again, as far as is consistent with his health.

Observations.—The number of yards is required, we see, to be two at least: the intention is mainfest enough, though it is not mentioned: it is, that the two sexes may, in conformity to the plan of separation marked out in sections 38 and 41, have each a yard to themselves.

As to the purpose of airing, the best place of all is the top of the house. The air on the top of the house is likely to be purer than the air in any yards can be, surrounded as such yards must be by a high wall: 1st, such a situation would be higher than the damp or the noxious effluvia would ascend, were the air to remain unchanged: 2dly, besides this, the air, on account of the openness of the situation, would, in fact, be continually renewing.‡ For this purpose, it would be necessary the roof of the house should be flat, and covered with lead. The infirmary might be situated in the highest story, so that from thence to the leads would be but a few steps. It is doubtless for these or similar reasons, that a situation thus elevated is very generally chosen for the infirmary in foreign prisons.* In order that those whose health might require it, might enjoy the benefits of air and exercise in some degree, even in rainy weather, it would be of great use if the building, or a great part of it, were raised upon arcades. This Mr. Howard recommends strongly for so much of it as is occupied by lodging-rooms, on the score of security.

The expense, indeed, of building upon arches, and of leading, would be very considerable; but the plan seems to be, not to spare expense. The Conciergerie at Paris,† the Dol-huys at Amsterdam,‡ the Maison de Force at Ghent,∥ are raised upon arcades:§ in the Bastile at Paris, the roof is flat and leaded. I must confess, I see not why England should be less able to bear such an expense than France, Holland, or Austrian Flanders.

Section XLVII. regulates the appointment, powers, and salaries of the visitors.

1. Each committee is to appoint two visitors, “Justices of the Peace, or other substantial householders,” who are to be resident in the district.

2. Of these visitors, one is to be changed every year: no one is to continue for more than two successive years; but any one, after an interval of two years, may be again appointed.

3. The visitors are to attend at least once in every fortnight.

4. At each attendance they are to go through the following heads of duty:

• 1. To examine the state of the “house” [buildings.]
• 2. To see every convict.
• 3. To inspect the accounts of the governor and storekeepers.
• 4. To hear any complaints concerning the behaviour of the officers and servants.
• 5. Or of the convicts.
• 6. And in general to examine into the conduct and management of the house.

5. For these purposes, every visitor is empowered to examine any persons upon oath.

6. They are likewise empowered to apply punishments or rewards as under-mentioned.

7. They are from time to time to make their reports to the judges,¶ as before, or to the committee of the district.

8. They are to have a gratuity, if they think proper to demand it, for each attendance, to be settled by the committee, and approved of by the judges.

Observations.—The rotation established among these officers is grounded upon approved principles, that are exemplified in many other instances. If the same two visitors were to be continued for life, the degree of discipline kept up in the house might come to depend more upon the notions and temper of those two persons, than upon settled rules. Having no emulation to animate them, they might grow torpid and indifferent: they might contract too close an intimacy with the governor and other officers, so as to be disposed to connive at their negligence or peculation: they might make what is called a job of their office, looking upon the emoluments of it as an establishment for life. On the other hand, were both visitors to go out at once, the fresh comers would for a time be new and awkward in their office; and the fund of experience collected at each period would be dissipated by every fresh appointment. But upon this plan, that fund is continually accumulating, and is transmitted entire through every succession. At the same time, by admitting the re-election of a visitor after a certain interval, room is left for accepting the services of such gentlemen as, in point of inclination and ability, may show themselves most competent to the office.

Section XLVIII. gives power to the visitors to suspend any officer or servant, except the governor, in case of “corruption, or other gross misbehaviour.”

Section XLIX. appoints the duty of the task-master.

1. He is constantly to superintend the works carried on by the convicts.

2. He is to “take an account of every neglect of work or other misbehaviour.”

3. Also of any instance of extraordinary diligence or good behaviour.

4. He is to make his reports from time to time to the governor, who is to cause them to be entered in a book to be kept for that purpose.

Section L. defines the powers of the governor in punishing offences committed in the house. These are enumerated under the following heads:—

• 1. Disobedience of the “orders of the house.”
• 2. Idleness, negligence, or wilful mismanagement of work.
• 3. Assaults, not attended with any dangerous wound or bruise, by one convict upon another.
• 4. Indecent behaviour.
• 5. Profane cursing and swearing.
• 6. Absence from chapel.
• 7. Irreverent behaviour at chapel.

2. For any of the above offences, the governor may punish by close confinement in a “cell or dungeon,” for any term not exceeding three days, and keeping the offender upon bread and water only.

3. Touching any of the above offences, the governor may examine “any” persons upon oath.

Section LI. empowers the visitors and the committee to punish certain other instances of bad behaviour in a severer manner.

1. To the visitors power is given to punish, in any convict, the following additional offences:—

• 1. Absolute refusal to perform his work.
• 2. Wilful abuse of the materials.
• 3. Attempts to escape.
• 4. Assaults on any person at large, who happens to be present.
• 5. Assaults on any officer or servant of the house.

2. They are empowered also to punish any assaults by one convict upon another, that may happen not to have been punished by the governor.

3. Also any of the offences which the governor is authorized to punish in the case where, by reason of the enormity or repetition of the offence, the punishment which the governor is empowered to inflict of his own authority, is thought by him not to be sufficient.

4. For any of the above offences, the visitors may punish by either

• 1. Moderate whipping.
• 2. Confinement upon bread and water in a dungeon, for any time not exceeding ten days.
• 3. Or both the above punishments in conjunction.

5. Concerning the above offences they are empowered to examine upon oath, with an injunction that it be in the presence of the offender.

6. In the cases No. 2 and 3, “the governor may, and he is hereby required to, order such offender to the cells or dungeons,—and is immediately,” or at the next coming of the visitors, to “report such offence to such visitors; who are hereby empowered and required to inquire and determine concerning the same.”

7. In case of any offence which the visitors shall deem worthy of a greater punishment than they are authorized to inflict, they shall report the offence, with the nature and circumstances of it, and the name of the offender, to the next meeting of the committee.

8. To the committee power is given to punish offences thus reported to them, by either

• 1. Moderate whipping.
• 2. Confinement upon bread and water in a dungeon.
• 3. Turning down from a higher class to a lower.
• 4. All or any of the above punishments in conjunction.

9. “In case of removal into a prior class, the offender shall, from the time of making such order of removal, go through such prior class, and also the subsequent class or classes, in the same manner, and for the same time, as under his or her original commitment.”

Section LII. is the converse of the section last preceding: it opens a door to pardon, upon the ground of extraordinary good behaviour.

1. If in any convict committed by justices in sessions, the visitors “shall at any time observe, or be satisfactorily informed of, any extraordinary diligence or merit,” and make report accordingly, “the said justices” [shall] “may, if they think proper, advance him into a higher class.”

2. When any convict has been promoted as above, the time of his confinement is to “be computed as if he or she had regularly passed through the prior class or classes.”

3. With regard to any convicts committed by the judges,* whether originally, or upon a pardon granted upon that condition, for a certain term, the judges are, upon a like report, to have like power to alter and shorten his confinement.

4. Convicts, committed for life, may, upon being reported to the judges as aforesaid, be by them reported to his Majesty for mercy.

Observations.—This and the two last preceding sections bearing a close relation to one another, I shall consider them together. As to the last of the two paragraphs I have printed in italics, I must confess I am not altogether certain about the sense of it. My doubt is, whether a convict, upon his degradation into a lower class, is to be punished with respect to the severity of his treatment only, or, besides that, with respect to the duration of his confinement. I am inclined to imagine, both ways; but this construction seems not to be absolutely a necessary one.

A convict, suppose, has been committed for three years. He has served the first year of his time, and half his second. Of course, he has been half a year entered in the second class. He now commits an offence which the committee think proper to punish with degradation: he is turned down into the first class. What now is to become of him? Is he to stay two years and a half longer, to wit, one half year more in the first class, and a year in each of the other classes, or only one year and a half, that is, half a year in each of the three classes? In the first case, it seems hardly proper to say, that he has gone through “such prior class, and also the subsequent classes, in the same manner and for the same time as under his original commitment;” for it seems that he has gone through such prior class, and also the subsequent classes (in the same manner, perhaps, but) for a longer time than he was to have had to go through them in under his original commitment. Had there, however, been no distinction in the treatment to be given to the respective classes, it must have been understood in this sense, as prolonging the total time; for the provision would have had nothing but the circumstance of time to operate upon.

Another doubt I have respecting the clause in section 50, which limits the time for which a governor is empowered to keep a convict in a dungeon upon bread and water to three days. This passage I know not very well how to reconcile to a clause in section 51. In this latter section, in case of an offence which, in the opinion of the governor, deserves a greater punishment than what he is himself authorized to inflict, he is directed to report it to the visitors, who, in such case, are authorized to order the offender to confinement in a dungeon, there to be kept on bread and water, if that be the mode of punishment they think proper to adopt, for ten days. Thus far, then, their power extends; to the confining a man for ten days. To the governor, in the last preceding section, it was not thought proper to give so great a power: his power was to extend no farther than to the confining a man for three days; yet in this same section, in the case above mentioned, where, by the supposition, he cannot punish by confinement for more than three days, the governor is empowered and “required” to order the convict to the dungeon, and “immediately, or the next time the visitors shall come,” report the offence to them, for them to punish it. Now, for what time the convict committed in this manner to a dungeon is to remain there, is not expressly said: as no time is mentioned for his releasement, it seems impossible to put any other construction upon the clause than that he is to stay there till the coming of the visitors. But the visitors may not come for a fortnight.* So long, then, may a convict remain in one of these dungeons by the authority of a governor. The consequence is, that indirectly a power is given to this officer, of inflicting a punishment more than three times as great as that which it is thought proper, in direct terms, to empower him to inflict; and (as far as concerns this species of punishment) greater than that which it has been thought proper, in any terms, to empower the visitors to inflict. On this occasion, no mention, I observe, is made of dieting upon bread and water: the governor is simply required to order the offender to one of the dungeons. Is he then, or is he not, in this case, authorized to add that hardship to the confinement? Is the dieting in this manner, or is it not, to be regarded as an article included of course in the regimen of a dungeon? This power of punishing an offender previously to trial, is confined, I observe, to the governor: it is not given to the visitors.

The provision for disposing of the convicts into classes,† so as to be liable to be advanced or to be degraded,‡ seems an excellent expedient for strengthening the influence of the several authorities to which it is meant to subject them. It seems extremely well contrived for exciting emulation; for making a standing and palpable distinction betwixt good and ill behaviour, and for keeping their hopes and fears continually awake. If it should be thought proper to indulge the convicts with a share in the profit of the labour,∥ this would afford a farther means of adding to the distinction.

Here ends that part of the bill which concerns the establishment of labour-houses. What follows in the seven next sections is confined to the system of labour to be carried on upon rivers. The greater part of them are employed in re-enacting so many corresponding clauses of the present act.§ Concerning these, it will not be necessary to be very particular.

Section LIII. establishes, in general terms, the authority of the superintendents above spoken of.¶ It empowers them, upon the delivery of any male convict into their custody, to keep him, for the term mentioned in his sentence, to hard labour. This hard labour is to be applied “either to the raising of sand, soil, and gravel, or in any other laborious service for the benefit of the navigation of the Thames, or of such other navigable rivers or harbours as aforesaid;”** when on the Thames, “then at such places only, and subject to such limitations, as the Trinity-House shall from time to time prescribe.”

Observations.—This, as to the greater part of it, is an exact transcript of the latter part of section 5 of the present act.††

Section LIV. prohibits superintendents from employing their convicts in delivering ballast to ships: it restricts the application of the labour to the above-mentioned object of benefiting the navigation of the rivers or harbours in question; except that it permits the employing them in making or repairing embankments or sea-walls.

Observations.—This section is an exact transcript of section 6 of the present act, with the addition only of the above exception. As this new kind of employment was meant to be permitted, the insertion of the above exception for that purpose, was no more than prudent, at least, if not absolutely necessary: for the main design in making of embankments or sea-walls is to save the land from being carried away or overflowed; and it may be of little or no service to the navigation. Mr. Campbell, superintendent of the Thames convicts, pursuing the spirit of his instructions rather than the letter, has already ventured to employ his convicts in some useful works on shore: perhaps it might not be amiss to add a retrospective clause for his indemnity.

As to the prohibition above mentioned, no reason for it is given. I imagine the reason to have been the preventing that intercommunication which, in such a case, would have been necessary between the convicts and the ships’ crews. It can have nothing to do with any privileges of the Trinity-house; not being confined to the Thames, but extended to all rivers and harbours where convicts shall be employed.

Section LV. provides for the diet and apparel of convicts, under the care of superintendents, as section 40 did for those who are to be confined in the labour-houses. In point of diet, it directs that they be fed with bread, and any coarse or inferior food, and water or small beer, as in section 40; only the word “meat” is dropped here after the word coarse (whether by accident or design is more than I can determine.) The apparel it leaves altogether to the “discretion of the superintendents:” it likewise prohibits the supplying the convicts with any other food, drink, or clothing, under a penalty of not more than ten pounds, nor less than forty shillings.

Observations.—This section is the same as section 7 of the present act; except with regard to the penalty, which, by the present act, is not to be more than forty shillings.

Section LVI. invests superintendents with the power of correction. A convict refusing to perform his work, or “guilty of any other misbehaviour or disorderly conduct,” may be punished by the superintendent, by “such whipping, or other moderate punishment, as may be inflicted by law on persons committed to a house of correction for hard labour.”

Observations.—This section is the same in every respect as section 8 of the present act.

Section LVII. provides a supply for convicts of this description, upon their discharge, to the same amount as section 52 did for the convicts in the labour-houses. It likewise provides for the discharge of any convict, previous to the expiration of his term, upon a letter written, upon a recommendation from the judges as in section 60, by a secretary of state. The sum of money, and the clothing, it refers, in this case, to the determination of the above judges.*

Observations.—This section is the same, in every respect, as section 9 of the present act.

Section LVIII. makes provision in the lump for the assistance, medical and religious, to be given to the convicts in question, as likewise for the burial of such as may chance to die, as also for these and all other expenses attending the keeping of the convicts under the care of such superintendents. These expenses it directs to be annually laid before the House of Commons, and undertakes, that, after deducting the net profits (if any) of the labour, they shall be provided for in the next supplies granted by parliament. The chaplains, surgeons, and apothecaries to be provided, are to be such as “the superintendent shall find it expedient, or shall be required” (it does not say by whom) “from time to time to employ.” The convicts are to be “buried in the most commodious parts of the shores, in or near which they have been employed,” and “according to the form prescribed by the liturgy of the Church of England. The necessary charges of such funerals, and also of the coroners, who shall sit on the bodies of such convicts, are to be defrayed in the manner above mentioned.”

Section LIX. provides, that such chaplains shall read morning and evening prayer, and preach a sermon after each, every Sunday, as also on Christmas-day and Good Friday.

Observations.—These two sections are so many additions to the present act. In this the whole business was referred so entirely to the discretion of the superintendent, that no express provision was made for either the spiritual or medical assistance, or the burial of the convicts. Neither was any provision made for the coroner’s fees; whereby that expense (which was not altogether a trifling one) falls solely as yet upon the counties bordering that part of the Thames they are employed upon; that is, upon the counties of Kent and Essex, one or both of them. These omissions are supplied in the bill before, as it was highly requisite they should be.

In the meantime, they have been voluntarily supplied by the attention of Mr. Campbell, the present superintendent. A surgeon of a battalion attends the convicts once a-day; and the surgeon-general of the artillery visits them once a-week. A clergyman, sent by the Countess of Huntingdon, gives them the assistances belonging to his profession, without any gratuity from Mr. Campbell, or any expense to the establishment. Not content with performing the ordinary duty in the manner provided for in the bill, he is assiduous in giving them the benefit of his instructions by every means, and at every opportunity in his power. He has distributed Bibles among them; and has endeavoured to direct their attention to the sacred writings, by giving them rewards for performing little exercises proposed to them as tests of their proficiency.

The loose and general way in which these and other exigencies are provided for, with respect to convicts of the description now before us, especially when compared with the strict and minute attention paid to the regimen of the labour-houses, are strong testimonies of the extraordinary confidence reposed in the present superintendent. I have never heard of any fact so much as surmised, that afforded the least reason for deeming that confidence misplaced, and I have much reason for entertaining a contrary opinion; yet I should be sorry to see the merit of this individual officer made an argument for entailing powers so unlimited upon what person soever may chance at any time hereafter to bear his office. The establishment upon the Thames has been acknowledged to be intended but as a measure of experiment; it is to be hoped, therefore, that when the effect of the regimen prescribed for the hand-labour houses has been approved by experience, it will be extended to the establishments upon rivers. Jealousy, not confidence, is the characteristic of wise laws.

Section LX. enjoms the governors and superintendents to make returns of the state of the convicts under their care. These returns are to contain the following particulars:—

• 1. The name of each convict committed to their custody.
• 2. His offence.
• 3. His sentence.
• 4. His state of body.
• 5. His behaviour while in custody.

They are also to exhibit the names of all such convicts, as, since the last return, have passed out of their custody, whether

• 1. By death.
• 2. By escape.
• 3. By releasement, whether by order of a Secretary of State or otherwise.

For the purpose of making these returns, regular books are to be kept by the persons who are respectively to make them.

They are to be made by the superintendent of the Thames convicts to the King’s Bench, the first day of every term; by the governors of labour-houses, and the superintendents of any other work, to the judges, as before,* at each assize; to the justices of the peace for every county and division within the district, at the two sessions holden next after Easter and Michaelmas.

They are to be made upon oath, to be administered to them by the respective courts.

Observations.—The ordering these returns is a measure of excellent use in furnishing data for the legislator to go to work upon. They will form altogether a kind of political barometer, by which the effect of every legislative operation relative to the subject, may be indicated and made palpable. It is not till lately that legislators have thought of providing themselves with these necessary documents. They may be compared to the bills of mortality published annually in London; indicating the moral health of the community (but a little more accurately, it is to be hoped,) as these latter do the physical.

It would tend still farther to forward the good purposes of this measure, if the returns, as soon as filed, were to be made public, by being printed in the Gazette, and in the local newspapers. They might also be collected once a-year, and published all together in a book.†

Section LXI. provides a penalty for escapes. This penalty, if the convict had been ordered to hard labour in lieu of capital punishment, is death: if in lieu of transportation, in the first instance, an addition of three years to his term of servitude; in the second instance, death.

Observations.—I cannot help entertaining some doubts of the expediency of capital punishment in case of escapes. Punishments that a man has occasion to choose out of, should be commensurable. That which is meant to appear the greater, should either be altogether of the same kind, or include one that is of the same kind with the lesser; otherwise, the danger always is, considering the variety of men’s circumstances and tempers, lest the punishment which appears the greater to the legislator and the judge, as being in general the greater, should appear the lesser to the delinquent. On the other hand, you may be sure of making your punishment appear the greater to the delinquent, when, keeping to the same species, you can either increase it in degree, or add a punishment of another species. A fine may to one man be worse than imprisonment; imprisonment may to another man be worse than a fine: but a fine of twenty pounds must to every man be worse than a fine of ten pounds; imprisonment for six months, than imprisonment for three: so also must imprisonment, though it were but for a day, added to a fine of ten pounds, than a fine of ten pounds by itself.

In the present instance, it may very well happen, that a convict may even prefer certain death to his situation in a labour-house or on board a lighter: in such case, the punishment of death, it is plain, can have no hold on him. What is still more likely to happen is, that although he would not prefer certain death to such a situation, he would yet prefer such a chance of death as he appears likely to be liable to, after having effected his escape. I say, after having effected it: for the attempt, I observe, is not made punishable in this manner.

It may be objected in the first case, that if death were preferable in his eyes to servitude, he would inflict it on himself. But the inference is not just. He may be restrained by the dread of future punishment; or by that timidity which, though it might suffer him to put himself in the way of dying at a somewhat distant and uncertain period by the hand of another, would not suffer him, when the time came, to employ his own. In either of these cases, capital punishment, so far from acting as a preventative, may operate as an inducement.

In cases of escape, little, it should seem, is to be done in the way of restraint, by means that apply only to the mind: physical obstacles are the only ones to be depended on. To the catalogue of these, large additions and improvements have been made, and still more, as I have ventured to suggest, might be made, if necessary, by the present bill. The degree of security which these promise to afford, seems to be quite sufficient, without having recourse to capital punishment. This will save the unpopularity of inflicting a punishment so harsh, for an offence so natural.

In preference to capital punishment, I would rather be for applying hard labour for life. Such a punishment is already admitted of by this bill.*

Section LXII. inflicts penalties on such persons as may be instrumental to escapes.

1. Any persons rescuing such a convict, either from the place of his confinement, or from the custody of any who are conveying him to it, or assisting in such rescue, are to suffer as for rescuing a felon, after judgment, from a gaoler.

2. Any persons who, by supplying arms, or instruments of disguise, or otherwise, assist a convict in escaping, or attempting to escape, are to suffer as for felony.

3. Persons who, having the custody of such a convict, or being employed by one that has, permit him to escape, if voluntarly, are also to suffer as for felony.

4. If negligently, are to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and are to be liable to a fine not exceeding ten pounds, or to imprisonment for not more than six months, or to both.

Observations.—The punishment here appointed for negligently permitting an escape, is, I fear, liable to be too small; especially considering, that a wilful permission of this sort may frequently, for want of direct proof, be no otherwise punishable than as an act of negligence. If a convict of this stamp be a man of substance, as may sometimes happen, he may be very well able to give an underkeeper such a reward for his connivance as may very well indemnify him against the chance of losing ten pounds, and suffering even a six months’ imprisonment. What is remarkable, this punishment is no greater than that which, in another part of this bill,† is appointed for the trivial offence of supplying a convict with prohibited meat or drink. Instead, therefore, of saying that it should not be more than the quantum specified, I would rather say that it should not be less. At any rate, it should contain some imprisonment; for, against imprisonment, a man cannot be so completely indemnified as against fine.

I see no punishment for the attempt to rescue, or the assisting in such attempt: yet the attempt to rescue is an offence as much more atrocious than the assisting in a quiet attempt to escape, as robbery is than simple theft.

What is the use of describing the punishment of a rescuer in a round-about way by reference? why not make it felony at once? The standing punishment for the rescuing of a felon (meaning a simple felon) is no more than simple felony. It ought, however, to be greater, or else the assisting in a quiet attempt to escape ought to be less: otherwise the offender has nothing to determine his choice in favour of an offence less mischievous, in preference to an offence more mischievous.

I take for granted it could never have been the intention that, under this clause, the rescuer of a capital felon pardoned on condition, should suffer capitally.

Section LXIII. is calculated to facilitate the prosecution of persons concerned in escapes.

1. Convicts escaping may be tried in the county in which they are retaken.

2. In a prosecution for an escape or rescue, or attempt to escape or rescue, either against the convict himself, or any person assisting him, the certificate above mentioned (after proof made that the culprit is the same that was delivered with such certificate) is to be deemed conclusive evidence of his being the person who was ordered to the confinement therein mentioned.

Observations.—To show the beneficial effects of these provisions, in saving useless trouble, the way would be to state and explain the several rules of law which they dispense with; but this is a piece of information that would not be very interesting to readers at large, and lawyers have no need of it.

Section LXIV. appoints the mode of procedure for the recovery of the pecuniary penalties inflicted by this bill, when no particular method is prescribed.* It is to be summary, before two justices of the peace: the imprisonment, in case of failure, is to be for not less than one month, nor more than six. The other provisions are what are usually inserted in cases of summary procedure.

Section LXV. is another provision of procedure, dispensing, for the purposes of this act, with the general rule of law, that judges must be in the jurisdiction for which they are doing business. It sometimes happens, that the court-house for a town that is a county of itself, is the court-house for the county at large, but the judges’ lodgings are not situate in both. It therefore declares, that, for the above purposes, they shall be “constrved and taken to be situate in both.”

Observations.—Here the hand of the lawyer is visible: a plain man would have contented himself with saying, that a judge of the description in question might do such business as might be done at his lodgings, for any county, although he were in an adjacent one. But there never was yet a lawyer, who, when either would equally well serve the turn, did not prefer a false account to the true one. The old maxim, which, to another man would seem inflexible, “nothing can be in two places at once,” bows down before him. These paradoxes are a kind of professional wit, which is altogether innocent in the intention, though not altogether harmless in its effects. This is no reflection on the author: it is only attributing to him, in common with every body, what nobody is ashamed of.

Section LXVI. allows persons prosecuted for anything done in pursuance of this bill, to plead the general issue: if the suit terminate in their favour, gives them treble costs; if against them, and by verdict, exempts them from costs, unless the judge certify his approbation of the verdict.

Section LXVII. limits the place and time of such a prosecution. The jurisdiction is to be that wherein the act was done; the time, within six months of it.

Section LXVIII. and last, repeals the present act, except with regard to such offenders whose terms are unexpired.

Observations.—Perhaps the simpler, and more commodious way, would be to take a section by itself, for giving the requisite continuance to the above terms, and doing what else is necessary (for I suspect that more may be necessary) to prevent the unintended consequences of such a repeal; and then, in another section, to repeal the act simply and absolutely.

Some hundred years hence, when conciseness shall be deemed preferable to prolixity, and the parliamentary style shall have been divested of all those peculiarities which distinguish it, to its disadvantage, from that of common conversation, the formulary for that purpose may be as follows:—

The Act 16 George III. c. 43. stands repealed.

The Act 16 George III. may be repealed, but the memory of the proposer of it will survive.

SUPPLEMENTAL HINTS AND OBSERVATIONS.

The following observations, though they connect with the subject of Section 1, could not well have been introduced previously to Section 30, 43, and 52.

Besides those stated under Section 1, a farther advantage which the punishment proposed to be established in the labour-houses has over transportation, is that of superior divisibility; by which means the quantity of it is capable of being proportioned with greater nicety, to the different degrees of malignity in different offences. The punishment of hard labour is divisible in point of intensity as well as of durations; and a division of it in the former of these ways is actually directed to be made in section 43. That of transportation is divisible no otherwise than in point of duration. In this point it is, in its own nature, indeed, incapable of being divided to as great a degree of nicety as hard labour is. Very little advantage, however, of this property of it, has been made in practice. I am not certain whether there may not have been a few instances in which convicts have been transported for as short a time as three years; but in general, the only terms in use have been for seven years, for fourteen years, and for life. In the duration of the confinement in the hard-labour houses, as many different periods are allowed on one occasion or another, as may be marked out between one year and seven years. I cannot see, however, why even a greater latitude than this should not be admitted of, especially on the side of diminution; in other words, why a shorter time than a year should in no case be allowed. One should think, that for many of the offences that are punishable by transportation, a less term than one year, and for petty larceny, a less term than two years (the terms respectively allowed of,) might suffice. But on this head I shall insist no farther, as it would lead me from the particular object of the proposed bill, to discussions that belong to a general survey of criminal jurisprudence.

Another point in which the punishment proposed by the bill, has the advantage of transportation, is that of being in the way of being remitted at any time, on the ground of merits displayed subsequently to the offence. Provision, we may remember, is made for that purpose in section 52. But a convict who is transported, though he be not out of the reach of pardon, is out of all hope of pardon on that ground, since he lies out of the reach of all observation which could dictate the expediency of such indulgence.

The following hints connect, in some measure, with the subject of section 13, and with a principle adopted in section 40.

A suitable motto over the doors of these houses might have many good effects. It might contribute to inculcate the justice, to augment the terror, and to spread the notoriety of this plan of punishment.

The following sentence might, perhaps, answer the purpose:—“Had they been industrious when free, they need not have drudged here like slaves.”

Or this,—

• “Violence and knavery
• Are the roads to slavery.”

The latter is that which I should prefer, on many accounts. It is more expressive, indicating more particularly the kind of misbehaviour that was the cause of their punishment; and the proverbial turn of it, together with the jingle, will render it more apt to be circulated and remembered by the people. Violence respects those who may be committed upon a pardon for robbery, or those who may have been committed in any way for malicious mischief; knavery, the common run of thieves and sharpers. Fraudulent and forcible, is a division that runs in a manner through the whole catalogue of offences against the police.

The efficacy of this motto might be still farther assisted by a device. Over the door there might likewise be a bas-relief, or a painting, exhibiting a wolf and a fox yoked together to a heavy cart, and a driver whipping them: the wolf as an emblem of violence and mischief; the fox of knavery. In the back ground might be a troop of wolves ravaging a flock of sheep, and a fox watching a hen-roost.

Bas-rehefs, if made in artificial stone, might be cast, a number of them in the same mould, and be the same for all the labour-houses.

Should it be thought an improvement, a monkey, as being more peculiarly the emblem of wanton mischief, might be added to the above train. Among the offences which it is proposed should be punishable in this manner, are many that come under the denomination of malicious mischief. In this case, the inscription, instead of “Violence and knavery,” had need to be, “Mischief, rapine, knavery.” The danger is, lest the addition of an animal, whose manners are calculated more constantly to excite merriment by their drollery, than displeasure by their mischievousness, should give such a cast of ridicule to the whole contrivance, as should counteract the design of it.

The device adopted in the house of correction at Mentz, and other foreign prisons, according to the account given of it by Mr. Howard,* does not seem so well imagined as it might be. It consists of a waggon drawn by two stags, two lions, and two wild boars; and the purport of the inscription is, that “if wild beasts can be tamed to the yoke, we should not despair of reclaiming irregular men.” The equipage here represented, has nothing in it that is very characteristic of the persons whose conditions it is meant to allegorize; and there seems to be something awkward in making the hopes of succeeding, with regard to men, rest, as it were, upon no better footing than the success of the contrivance there imagined respecting brutes. I have read of hogs being now and then employed in some parts of France to help to draw a plough. We have read of gods and goddesses, and now and then, perhaps, a Roman general in his triumph, who have been drawn by lions; but I never heard yet of a stag’s being yoked to a waggon, either as a truth, or in the way of fable; much less appearance is there of its being acknowledged for a known truth that waggons may be made to draw with a team composed of stags, and boars, and lions.

Let me not be accused of trifling: those who know mankind, know to what a degree the imagination of the multitude is liable to be influenced by circumstances as trivial as these.

With regard to the site of the building,† might it not be a proper direction to give, that care should be taken to have such a quantity of ground all around the building included in the purchase, as might prevent any houses from being built within such a number of yards distance? An establishment of this sort might, in some way or other, afford inducements to people of the lower classes to settle near it. But the near vicinity of any house might be productive of several bad effects. it might facilitate escapes; it would take away from the sequestrated appearance of the scene; it would put the convicts and their neighbours into the way of engaging in conversations which might be of prejudice to both.

With regard to such convicts as it may be thought expedient to put to works of the sedentary kind, it might be of use, on the score of economy, if such of them as have a trade of their own that can be carried on in the house, should be permitted to work at that trade, in preference to another. Hatters, stocking-weavers, tailors, shoemakers, and many other handicrafts, might carry on their trades in such a situation, nearly as well as anywhere else; so it were in the wholesale way, and not for particular employers. The trades that will be set up in the house for the instruction of the convicts will hardly be of the most lucrative kind; and if they were, it can hardly be expected that a man should earn as much at a trade that is new to him, as at one he has been bred up to. The difference would be so much loss to the public during the time a convict continues in the labour-house. But it might, besides that, be a loss to him, and through him to the public, for the remainder of his life: if his confinement has been long, he may have lost, by the time it is over, a great part of his skill. In the compass of a few years, a course of hard labour may have irrecoverably deprived a man of that pliancy of muscle and nicety of touch that is necessary in some trades.

The convicts who come within the view of this institution may be distinguished into two classes: the one consisting of malefactors by profession, who possess no honest talent; the other of persons of different trades and employments, who have subjected themselves to the censure of the laws by an occasional deviation from integrity. The first cannot but be benefited by the institution in point of talent, as well as in other respects; the others, howsoever benefited in other respects, may, in many cases, be sufferers in point of talent, if their industry be forced out of its old channels

[* ]See Preface to the Bill, p. 5.

[† ]I mean, in the sense ordinarily put upon the word published. It is not sold at any of the shops; it has no bookseller’s nor printer’s name; it seems to have been designed for the perusal, not of the world at large, but only of Members of Parliament, and of the Author’s private friends.

[* ]See Bishop Lowth’s Grammar, passim.

[* ]Page 1.

[* ]In virtue of the Statute 4 Geo. I. c. 2, the Court used to contract with some person to convey the convict to the place of destination: there-upon the convict is made over “to the use of” the contractor and “his assigns,” who are declared in general terms to “have a property or interest in” his “service,” for the time specified in the sentence.

[* ]See Table, col. 8th, p. 34.

[† ]See Sect. VI.

[‡ ]See Table, cols. 2 & 4.

[* ]See Table, cols. 5 & 3.

[† ]See Table, col. 8.

[‡ ]Ibid. col. 3.

[* ]See Sect. XVII. & XX.

[† ]See Sect. XXII.

[* ]Mr. Campbell, superintendent of the Thames convicts, employs a part of the ground he has the management of, in raising vegetables for their use.

[† ]See, with respect to the effects of air tainted with respiration, Priestly on Air, vols. 1 & 2. With respect to damps, Fordyce’s Elements of the Practice of Physic, title Catarrh, and Hamilton’s Essays.

[‡ ]See Howard on Prisons, passim.

[* ]See Sect. XI.

[† ]It would save paper were the six last sections generalized by an act on purpose. The same thing may be observed respecting a string of provisions at the end of the bill.

[* ]See Howard, 143.

[† ]lb. 132.

[‡ ]lb. 116.

[* ]See Table, col. 5.

[† ]See Sect. 11, 21.

[‡ ]See Sect. XXV.

[* ]See Table, col. 3.

[† ]See Sections 11, 21, 26.

[* ]See Sect. XXXVII.

[* ]See Howard on Prisons.

[† ]Solution of gold in aqua regia, produces a purplish colour; solution of silver in aqua fortis, and solution of mercury in the same acid, a black. Solution of silver is the operative ingredient in several of the fluids that are advertised to dye the hair.

[* ]See Observations to Sect. XXIII.

[† ]P. 49.

[* ]Observations on the Statutes, Title Consuctudines et Assisa Forestæ, p. 193, 3d edit.

[† ]P. 71, 264.

[* ]Howard, 96, 264, 292, 404, 407, 443, 454.

[† ]Mr. Howard found stoves, and a regular provision for firing, in several foreign prisons. See Howard, 109, 114, 137.

[* ]In the prisons at Paris, however, Protestants are excused from hearing mass. See Howard, 81.

[† ]By Stat. 27 Eliz. c. 2, for a popish priest or other ecclesiastical person to be in any part of the realm is treason; and for any one wittingly and willingly to receive, relieve, or comfort him. is a capital felony.

[‡ ]Howard, 82, 91.

[* ]Howard, 82, 91, 96.

[† ]Ibid. 82.

[‡ ]Ibid. 128.

[∥ ]Ibid. 140.

[§ ]Ibid. 82.

[¶ ]See Sections 11, 21, 24, 26, 30.

[* ]At the Old Bailey, or on the circuits.

[* ]See Sect. 47.

[† ]See Sect. 43.

[‡ ]See Sect 51.

[∥ ]See observations on Sect. 23.

[§ ]The name given to the head person who is to have the charge of the convicts upon this establishment, is changed from Overseer (the word used in the former act) to Superintendent.

[¶ ]See Sect. 32, 33, 34, 36.

[** ]See Sect. 32.

[†† ]By the present act, I mean all along the Stat. 16 Geo. III. ch. 43, being that which is in force at the time I write.

[* ]See Sections 11, 21, 24, 26, 30, 47, 52.

[* ]See Sections 11, 21, 24, 26, 30, 47, 52.

[† ]A few years ago, I began sketching out a plan for a collection of documents of this kind, to be published by authority, under the name of bills of delinquency, with analogy to the bills of mortality above spoken of: but the despair of seeing anything of that sort carried into execution, soon occasioned me to abandon it. My idea was to extend it to all persons convicted on criminal prosecutions. Indeed, if the result of all law proceedings in general were digested into tables, it might furnish useful matter for a variety of political speculations.

[* ]See Sect. 52.

[† ]Section 41, 55.

[* ]See Sections 40, 55. See also Sections 18, 41, 62, where other modes of procedure seem to be intended.

[* ]P. 108.

[† ]See Sect. 11.