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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow SECTION XVIII.: WINDOWS REACHING LOW, AND GLAZED; INSTEAD OF HIGH UP, AND OPEN. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4

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SECTION XVIII.: WINDOWS REACHING LOW, AND GLAZED; INSTEAD OF HIGH UP, AND OPEN. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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SECTION XVIII.

WINDOWS REACHING LOW, AND GLAZED; INSTEAD OF HIGH UP, AND OPEN.

Being informed, that in a building of this height, and consequently of this thickness, glass would not cost more than wall, my instructions to the architect were, Give me as much window as possible; provided they are not brought down so low as to render it toocold. In consequence, I have two windows in each cell: each 4 feet wide and 5 feet high.

It was Mr. Howard that first conceived the prevailing antipathy to glass: it admits prospect, and it excludes air. Prospects seduce the indolent from their work: air is necessary to life. On any other than the Panoptican plan, the antipathy may have some reason on its side: on this plan, it would have none. Blinds there are of different sorts which would admit air, without admitting prospect: glazed sashes when open will admit air. But blinds, as soon as the inspector’s back was turned, would be put aside or destroyed; and windows would be shut: for the most ignorant feel the coldness of fresh air, and the learned only understand the necessity of it to health and life. True: but in a Panopticon the inspector’s back is never turned. In this point, as in others, who will offend, where concealment is impossible?

In Mr. Howard’s plan, observe what is paid for shutting out prospects. The tall must be kept from idling as well as the short; and a tall man may make himself still taller by mounting on his bed, or standing on tiptoe. Therefore, windows must not begin lower than seven feet from the floor. But above this seven feet there must be a moderate space for a hole in the wall called a window: partly for this reason, and partly to make sure of sufficient height of ceiling, a cell must be at least ten feet high in the inside. Such accordingly is the construction, and such the height, of the cells at Wymondham.*

To what climate is this suited? To the East or West-Indies; perhaps to some part of Italy; certainly not to any part of our three kingdoms. To what employments? To laborious employments—to employments that are to be carried on out of doors; to few that in such a place can be carried on within doors—to few indeed that can be termed sedentary ones. What weaver, what spinner, what shoemaker, what tailor, what coachmaker, can work with drenched or frozen hands?

To mitigate the cold, and to exclude snow and rain, Mr. Howard allows a wooden shutter. But to do this, such a shutter must exclude light. What is the wretched solitary to do then? creep into his bed, or sit down and pine in forced and useless indolence.

Mr. Howard, with all this, allows no firing. One would think from him there were no winter.

The thicker walls are, and the higher above the floor holes in the wall instead of windows are, the better they serve to keep out cold and rain: hence another reason for piling bricks upon bricks, and giving rooms in prisons the height of those in palaces.

In rooms that have no light, that is, not three or four feet above the eye, weaving can scarcely be carried on: from such rooms, that profitable employment, that quiet employment, in other respects so well suited to an establishment of this kind, is therefore in all its infinity of branches peremptorily excluded. For this, therefore, among other reasons, there must be other places for working in. Accordingly, at Wymondham, for 50 feet 4 by 14:8 of cells, you have on one part 20:6 by 10 feet of work-room; and in another part, a work-room of the same dimensions for only 29 feet 4 by 14 feet 8 of cells.

At Wymondham, these holes are guarded each of them, inside and out, by a double grating: a single one under the eye of an inspector is enough for me. Were a prisoner to elude this eye (though how he is even by night to elude the eye of a watchman, constantly patroling, I do not know,) and get through this grating (though how a man is to force iron bars without tools, I am equally at a loss to conceive,) where will he find himself? In the yards? No, but in a well, in which he has a wall of 13 feet high to climb, as we shall see, ere he can reach the yards. And were he over this wall, where would he be then? In a space inclosed by another high wall, with three centinels in an inclosed walk, patrolling on the other side.

So far from there being any need of double gratings, the single grating need not have cross bars. It is not necessary it should be capable of resisting either long-continued attempts, or violent ones.

If anywhere, in any particular pile of cells, any unguarded circumstance in the construction afforded the means of descent otherwise than by climbing down instead of dropping, advantage could not be taken of the weakness from any other pile in the circuit: in the polygonal form, the projecting angles rendering it impossible to climb horizontally on the outside, from a window of any cell to any window of the cell contiguous on either side.

If fastened up in two places on each side, and in the middle at top and bottom, the gratings may want about 7 inches of reaching the brick work at bottom, and about ten inches of reaching that at top; especially if they terminate at top and bottom, not in a horizontal bar, but in a row of perpendicular spikes: by this means, little more than 3½ feet in height of grating will serve for a window 5 feet in height; and in width little more than 2½ feet of grating will serve for 4 feet.

Among the offenders who are liable to be consigned to these scenes of punishment, it is but too common to see boys of little more than ten years of age. A thin person, boy or man, can generally get his body through, wherever he can pass his head; that is, if not hindered by the breadth of his body, he will not be by the thickness. But a person cannot press against the point of a spike, as he could against a bar. From these data, gratings might be formed, requiring a much less quantity of materials than what is commonly employed, yet of sufficient strength for the present purpose.

[* ]See Sir T. Beevor’s Letters in Annual Register for 1786, Letter III.

[]Viz. a little less than one third addition.

[]Viz. a little less than one half of addition.

[]There would be an advantage in placing it as near to the outside of the wall, and by that means as far from the inside of the cell, as it can be, consistently with strength; that is, so as not to be liable to be thrown down by a push, together with the brick-work or stone in which it is bedded. Why? Because by this means so much room may be gained to the cells—the pier under each window forming a kind of dresser answering the purpose of a table.

Above the third story of cells, bars can hardly be deemed necessary. The window of the lowest being 10½ above the sunken external area, the following table shows the heights from which a fugitive would have to drop from the respective windows upon a stone pavement: it being taken for granted that the cell affords neither a rope, nor materials of which a rope could be made in the compass of a night, by persons exposed, occasionally at least, if not constantly, to the eyes of a patrolling watchman:—

Lower story,10 f.6 in.
Second story,196
Third story,286
Fourth story,37 f.6 in.
Fifth story,466
Sixth story,556