The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• 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.

SECTION XXIII.

OF THE MODE OF WARMING THE BUILDING.

The possible differences in the mode of applying artificial heat to a building by means of culinary fire, may be comprised in the following short analysis: It may be either open or close; if close, either unventilative or ventilative. The open, in which the fuel is burnt on hearths or in grates, with or without the benefit of a chimney, is that most in use in our three kingdoms. The unventilative is exemplified in the Dutch, Russian, and Swedish stoves; and in England in those used for hot-houses, and in those used in dwelling-houses and other buildings under the name of Buzaglo, who first brought them in vogue: the ventilative, in the stoves called Dr. Franklin’s, or the Pennsylvania stoves, and in those for which Messrs. Moser and Jackson* have enjoyed a patent for some years.

The common, or open mode, is what, on account of the expense, nothing but absolute necessity would justify the employment of in a prison. Expense of chimneys, grates, and other fire implements; expense of fuel, and of the time employed in conveying it: these expenses must be multiplied by the whole number of cells; for whatever need there is of it for any one, the same is there for every other. Even the mischief that might be done by fire, through design or carelessness, secure as a building thus constructed is from such mischief in comparison of an ordinary house, is not altogether to be neglected.

The second, or unventilative method, besides its being far from a pleasant one to those who are not accustomed to it, is by no means exempt from the suspicion of being unfavourable to health. The heat subsists undiminished, no otherwise than in as far as the air in the room remains unchanged: calefaction depends upon the want of ventilation. The air will not be as warm as is desired at a certain distance from the heated stove, without being much hotter than is desired in the vicinity of it: between the two regions are so many concentric strata, in one or another of which every sort of putrescible substance will find the state of things the most favourable to the prevalence of that noisome and unhealthy fermentation. The breath and other animal effluvia, while they are putrifying in one part of the room, may be burning in another. The unchanged and unchangeable air is corrupted; the lungs, the olfactory nerves, and the stomach, are assailed in all manner of ways at once, by empyreuma, by putridity, and by respiration.†

In the different modes of producing these noisome effects, there are degrees of noisomeness. An iron stove is worse than an earthen one: it contracts a greater degree of heat; and the vapour produced by the solution of a metal in burnt animal or vegetable oil, is an additional nuisance, over and above what an unmetallic earth will produce.

Over these impure methods of obtaining heat, the ventilative is capable of possessing a great advantage. The air which is to receive the heat being continually renewed, may be brought from the pure atmosphere without; and instead of being stagnant, flows in in a perpetually-changing stream. Instead of burning in one part, while it is freezing in another, the air of the room is thus rendered throughout of the same temperature. A succession of cold air from without is the less necessary, as the warm air, what there is of it, is not less pure;‡ and this pure, though heated air, if introduced, as it ought to be, from the lower part of the room, helps to drive up before it, to that part of the room which is above the level of the organs of respiration, that part of the air which, by having been breathed already, has been rendered the less fit for breathing.

By the Pennsylvanian stoves, these advantages were, however, possessed in but an imperfect degree.—Why?—Because the warming-chamber was a metallic one; it was of iron. By partitions made between an iron back to the grate, and another such back, or the brick-work behind, the air was made to pass through a long, though tortuous channel of that metal, in a too highly heated state.

In the room of the metal, substitute a pure and unmetallic earth, the mischief has no place.

The misfortune is, that by means of earth alone, the operation has not hitherto been found practicable, unless perhaps it be upon a large scale. In iron, your warming-chamber may be very thin, is soon heated, and is not liable to be put out of order by the heat. In earth, that receptacle, if thick, that is, of the thickness that must be given to it if made of bricks, is a long while in heating, a great deal of the heat is absorbed and lost in it; it gives out its heat with difficulty to the air, which, before it has had time to take up a sufficiency of the heat, is passed through and gone;* add to which, that in joining the bricks, mortar must be used, and this mortar will be liable to shrink and crack by the heat, and lose its hold. On the other hand, if the earth be thin, as in retorts and crucibles, it will be liable to break by accidental violence, or crack by change of temperature; and, at any rate, it will not receive the heat from the fuel, or communicate it to the air, so soon as metal would.

The warming-chamber, or set of warming-chambers, employed by the artists above mentioned, is calculated to obviate both those inconveniencies. It consists of earthen retorts, open at both ends, and inclosed in iron ones. The air which is to be heated, passes through the interior earthen vessel without coming in contact anywhere with the exterior iron one. The iron retort, being that which alone is exposed to the immediate action of the fire, defends from accidents the earthen one within. The earthen one, being the only one of the two that is in contact with the air, defends that element from the contaminating influence of the heated metal on the outside.

The ventilative plan, modified in such manner as to avoid the use of iron for the inside of the warming-chamber, at least of iron in a too highly heated state, being determined upon, the question is, how to apply it in such a building to the most advantage?

The first expedient that occurs is the making of what use can be made of the fires employed for the preparation of the food. From this source, any quantity of heat might doubtless be obtained; but whether in such a situation it could be obtained to any considerable amount upon advantageous terms, seems rather disputable. In ordinary kitchens a good deal is produced, more or less of which might be employed perhaps in this way to more advantage than it is in common. But in a building of this form, and designed for such inhabitants, if the heat employed in the preparation of the food were disposed of to that purpose to the best advantage, the quantity that would remain applicable to any other purpose would, I believe, turn out to be but inconsiderable. That it would not be always sufficient for that of the warming of such a building I am altogether confident.†

The deficiency must at any rate be made up by stoves to be provided on purpose. In this view, the sort sold by the ingenious artists above mentioned, present themselves as the most eligible yet known.

What, then, is the degree of artificial heat which the whole of the apparatus employed should be capable of maintaining?—what size and number of stoves would be necessary to insure it?—from whence ought the air to be taken into the warming-chamber?—whereabouts to be discharged from it?—how to be made to visit every cell?

As to the number of degrees of extra heat which the apparatus should be capable of affording, it should hardly be less than 40 of Fahrenheit’s scale. Forty added to 32, the degree at the freezing point, would make 72, 17 degrees above the height commonly marked temperate. But in time of frost, the heat is commonly more or less below the freezing point: one instance I remember of its being so much lower as 46 degrees; 14 below 0. This, it is true, was for a few hours only, and that in the open air, and in a situation particularly exposed. And in a building where the kitchen fires might at any rate afford something, and the warmth of so many bodies, added to that of so many lights, would afford something more, and where the thickness of the walls would afford so much protection against sudden vicissitudes, no such very extraordinary deficiencies seem probable enough to be worth providing for. My learned adviser, above mentioned, thinks I may venture to set down the lowest degree to be apprehended as 25. Forty added to this makes 65; 10 degrees above the temperate point. This may be more than will ever be necessary. But in a permanent provision, some allowance should be made for accidents, and in a business of such uncertainty, still more for miscalculation. Officers, it is to be remembered, not less than prisoners, must be kept in view. Should necessity be the only object to be provided for in the one case, comfort and custom must be attended to in the other. Happily for the least regarded class, in a building of this form, to be warmed in this manner, very little distinction in regard to this important branch of comfort can be made.

As to the number and size, the seven supports (one of the eight being made use of as a water-pipe) afford so many chimneys, each of which is capable of receiving its stove. But how many out of the seven would be necessary, and those of what size? Experience would determine: but as a provision must be made in the construction of the building antecedent to any experience that can be obtained in the building itself, data collected from experience of other buildings must be looked out for. Such data are not altogether wanting. A single stove of Moser and Jackson’s construction, being employed in St. George’s Church, Bloomsbury, raised the heat eleven degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale, and it did not appear that it was able to raise it any more. To produce in that church 40 degrees of extra heat, the number above fixed upon for our prison, it would therefore require four such stoves. What follows?—That to ascertain, a priori, from the above datum, as well as may be, the size and number of stoves of the same construction necessary for our building, three other data would be necessary: the dimensions of the above stove; the dimensions of the inside of that church; and the dimensions of the inside of the Panopticon proposed; noting, withal, that the quantity of glass in the central sky-light, in the annular sky-light, and in the cell windows, added to the number of the partition-walls between cell and cell, would probably lay the Panopticon under some little disadvantage in comparison with that church.

In the above manner, some conjecture may be formed relative to the total quantity of calefactive power that would probably be requisite: I mean, of the sum of the contents of the warming-chambers, in whatever manner they may be disposed.

But when the sum total of the contents is fixed upon, the number and relative size of the several warming-chambers is not a matter of indifference. Equality of distribution requires that the number should be as great as possible, and the capacities of the several warming-chambers equal. Eight supports, that is, eight chimneys to the twenty-four piles of cells, would give a stove to every three piles of cells. The dead-part occupying the space of five piles of cells, the middle one of the three supports that look to the dead-part would be the proper one to give up, and make use of as a water-pipe; the seven others would afford seven stoves among nineteen piles of cells.*

Will the distribution thus made be sufficiently minute? Experience alone can decide with certainty. Of the three piles of cells corresponding to each stove, the middle one, if there were any difference, should receive more heat than the other two. But this difference I should expect to find little or nothing; and if it were but small, it would be rather a convenience than otherwise: varieties of temperature might thus be adjusted to differences with regard to employment, health, constitution, and good behaviour.

At its exit from the warming-chamber, shall the heated air be suffered to take its own course, or shall it meet with a tube to conduct it to the part at which it begins to be of use? This, too, would be matter of experiment, and the experiment might be performed without any considerable expense. Terminating in the nearest part of the intermediate well, each tube would require about 14 feet in length. For the materials, the worst conductors of heat that would not be too expensive, should be selected: a square pipe of four thin boards of that length, each four or five inches over. These might be covered with a case of loose cloth, of the texture of the warmest blanketing, which, to keep off the dust, and contribute still more to the confinement of the heat, might be enclosed in a similar tube. If by the help of these radial tubes, the distribution were not found equal enough, they might be made to terminate in a circumferential one of similar materials: the whole of the channel of communication, or discharging duct, as it might be called, would thus represent the exterior part of a wheel, composed of hollow spokes terminating in a hollow felly. The felly thus constituted should be pierced at equal and frequent intervals with equal apertures, the sum of which should be equal, and no more than equal,* to the sum of the apertures of the radial tubes.

Why these radial tubes? since, as far as they extended, they would prevent the horizontal distribution of the heat, and, though composed of such materials as to absorb as little of it as possible, they would at any rate absorb some.—For this reason: that without them a great part of the air, indeed the greatest, by mounting directly to the ceiling of the sunken story, would be already four or five feet above the floor of the lowest story of the cells: and the ceiling, as well by the nature of its materials as by its relative extent of surface, would absorb beyond comparison more of the heat than would be absorbed by the tubes.

The horizontal distribution of the heated air being thus provided for, how to provide for its distribution in a perpendicular direction among the six stories of cells in the same pile? For if no particular provision were made, the natural tendency of the heated air being to make its way out by the shortest passage, the greater part of it would mount up perpendicularly to the sky-light, where it would necessarily find chinks at which it would make its exit, without ever having visited the cells.

To prevent this aberration, and to ensure a regular draught through every cell, I insert a chain of tubes reaching from bottom to top, but with regular interruptions.† In the floor of each cell of the lowest story of cells, close to the front wall, at an equal distance from the two side-walls, and consequently at the crown of the arch, I leave a round hole, say four inches in diameter, passing through the brick-work into the sunken story below. To this hole I adapt a hollow tube of thin cast iron, of the same diameter. This tube is continued in height to within a few inches of the ceiling above; which brings it to between eight and nine feet in length. Arrived at that height, it terminates in a horizontal mouth, which may be closed by a sort of grating, transformable at pleasure into an unperforated plate.‡ Between this mouth and the lower end of the tube, is a wire grating, to prevent correspondence by papers. Immediately over this tube, is the open end of a similar tube with an expanding aperture, flush with the ceiling, and consequently at a few inches distance from the mouth of the first-mentioned tube; partly for the purpose of inviting the current that way in the same manner, partly for the sake of conveying the breathed air of that lowermost cell into the upper region of the next above it; and so all the way up.

The uppermost of all this chain of tubes runs through the roof, and opens immediately above. It may be there covered with a horizontal valve, the weight of which will be sufficient to close it, and exclude the colder air on the outside. When lifted up by the stream of heated air from within, the efflux of that air will be sufficient to prevent the influx of the colder air from without.

Why, instead of a single hole in the brickwork, a tube, and that running to such a height?—For two reasons: that it may not afford a means of secret converse between the cells; and that the air which has been breathed in the cell below may not be conveyed to any part, in which it would be liable to be breathed again, of the cell above: it is accordingly discharged as high as possible above the level of the organs of respiration.

Should the precaution be deemed necessary, a few slight bars might be disposed in such a manner as to prevent a prisoner from introducing his head or ear near enough to the mouth of the tube to gain an opportunity of converse. But frugality forbids the being at the expense of these bars, before experience has shown the need of them. The probability is, that no such need would ever occur; since a man could not make use of the aperture of the tube for speaking, without mounting upon something, nor mount upon any thing for that purpose without subjecting himself to a great chance of being observed. Nor then would it avail him anything, unless the person to whom he addressed himself in the cell above or underneath were elevated and occupied in the same manner at the same time, which, without doubling the chance of detection, could not be. Add to which, that if there be more than one in either cell, they too must be privy to the intercourse; and in a situation like this, privity without disclosure may in justice, and ought in policy, to be put, in respect of punishment, upon a footing with complicity.

The level at which the warmed air was discharged could not be too low: the only spot in which there can be a certainty of placing it without inconvenience is the floor of the intermediate area and the space under the lodge. Thus situated, the tube would not be above seven or eight feet below the level of the floor of the lowermost story of the cells which are to be warmed by it. If it were in the ceiling, it would be already three or four feet above them, and before it could cross the intermediate well, would have been carried still higher. If it were anywhere between the floor and ceiling, it would be in the way, and stop the passage, unless it were considerably higher than a man’s head, and then it would require pillars here and there to support it. To sink it to that level, either the stoves themselves might be sunk down accordingly, or a perpendicular tube might drop from the warming-chamber to join the radial tube. The former expedient seems the most economical and the most simple.*

It might perhaps be no bad economy to have a sort of curtain for the annular skylight, to cover it as soon as the lights are lit in cold weather. When not used, it might be kept coiled up on rollers, at the upper part of the sky-light, that is, at the part where it joins the roof of the inspection-tower, and from thence drawn down over and across the annular well, and fastened by rings to ranges of hooks inserted a little above the interior windows of the chambers over the cells. It might be of the thickness and texture of the warmest sort of blanketing. It would be assistant to warmth, not only by keeping the air from impinging against the glass of the sky-light, and there discharging its heat, but likewise by stopping the current, and directing it towards the cells. The sky-light, it should be observed, must unavoidably be secured by innumerable crevices, one between every two panes: for in that situation, in order to prevent their cracking by the vicissitudes of temperature, the panes, instead of being fixed in the frame, and the crevices stopped with putty, must be placed so as to lap over one another, without any thing to close the chinks.

Provision remains yet to be made for the lodge. This might be effected by a small tube running from each of the stoves. It need be but a small one; for the warmth yielded by the supports themselves through which the smoke is passing, cannot but be considerable. Not improbably it would be sufficient. If upon trial it should prove otherwise, it would be easy to add the tubes To distribute the heat the better, and assist the ventilation, they should open at the circumference of the room, but just above the floor, alternating with the chimneys. The air, as fast as it was heated by the chimneys or by respiration, would, together with the heated air from the tubes, make its way out at the central aperture. There would be no danger either of phlogistication from the iron, or want of ventilation. The utmost heat which the smoke could impart to the chimneys would not be considerable enough to produce the former inconvenience, and the central aperture is a sufficient security against the latter.

Were it not for the distance there is between the spot where the air receives its heat, and the apartments for which it is wanted, it is evident the discharging-ducts could not be too short; since the more extensive they are, the more of the heat they absorb.

As to the inspection-galleries—being immediately over the spot at which the discharge of the heated air is effected, they can be at no loss for a supply: it is but leaving here and there in the floor an aperture capable of being closed at pleasure. Indeed, it matters not how thin the floors of those galleries are: if of mere boards, the mere crevices might answer the purpose.

From whence shall the air be admitted into the warming-chambers of the stoves? From the entrance, by an admission-duct—a sort of an aeriduct, if the term may be allowed, appropriated to the purpose. In general, this is a point very little attended to. Air of some sort or other will be found everywhere, and any sort, it is thought, may serve. Air already within the building might even be taken in preference; since by the stay it has made there it has already acquired some heat. But if the dependence is on what draws in through doors and crevices, there can be no air any further than in proportion as there is an influx of cold air at all those inlets. The cold air that comes in at the crevices will in most instances find its way to the bodies of those whom it is intended to keep warm: that which comes in at the doors will in every instance. But if a supply, adequate to the evacuation kept up by respiration and other causes, is introduced through the warming-chambers, no such influx of cold air will take place.

This aeriduct, then, will be nothing but a flue similar to those employed for conveyance of the smoke in hot-houses. Short tubes of iron will serve for its junction with the warming-chambers. The quantity thus drawn in can scarcely be sufficient for respiration;* if it were, the deficiency might be made up by tubes discharging the cold air at a height above the heads of the inhabitants, and pointing upwards.†

The Penitentiary-act puts an inexorable negative upon all this contrivance. According to that act, all penitentiary-houses must absolutely be warmed, “dried and moderately warmed in damp or cold weather,” “by flues,” and these flues must come “from the flues in the kitchens, and other public fires belonging to each house.”*

The invention of Messrs. Moser and Jackson, as well as all other inventions, past, present, and to come, that make no use of flues, is here rejected, seven years before it was ever thought of. I must be allowed a word or two in behalf of these ingenious artists: I am a co-defendant with them—a partner in their guilt. The same statute which prohibits their mode of warming a penitentiary-house, proscribes my mode of building one, and my mode of managing one, in almost every circumstance. What has the service been a gainer by this rigour? We shall see. Economy, I presume, and that alone, was the power that dictated it. Humanity, however peremptory she might be in her injunctions that felons should have warm bed-chambers, would not of herself have been thus particular about the mode.

On the kitchen fires, which are put foremost, seems to be the grand reliance: the other public fires seem rather to be thrown in as make-weights.

That economy could draw much advantage from this source will not, I believe, seem very probable to any one who may have cast an eye over one of the preceding pages. A Panopticon Penitentiary-house is a room: this statute Penitentiary-house was to have been a town, with streets in it. In the room, this resource seemed to amount to little: what would it amount to in the town? I would as soon think of warming London by the fires of the tavern kitchens.

Thus, then, stands the economy of the contrivance. That the bed-chambers may be economically warmed by flues from kitchens, kitchens and kitchen fires, and so forth, are to be multiplied till there are enough of them for the bed-chambers. Could the new-invented stoves be employed on any terms under this act? By prescribing the one mode, does it peremptorily proscribe the other? Would an indictment lie, or only a mandamus?—This is more than I would presume to answer. But what must be done at all events, or the positive injunctions of the law disobeyed, is—to build the kitchens. That done, and whatever degree of heat is necessary being produced in that way, whatever degree is not necessary, might perhaps be produceable in the most economical manner by the new-invented stoves.

A little lower we shall see more of these culinary laws: but the virtue of the present one is not yet exhausted. To decide this, as well as all other questions relative to the construction of the building, three superintendents are employed. Suppose the three (no very unnatural supposition) to have taken up each of them a different system about warming: one a patron of the ingenious artists above mentioned; another a disciple and partisan of Dr. Franklin’s; the third an adorer of the memory of the departed sage to whom this statute is so much indebted, and an inexpugnable defender of the letter of the law: so many superintendents, so many irreconcilable modes of warming the house. How would they agree?—As the three original superintendents did about the place where it was to be put.

The error lies, not in regulating badly, but in regularing at all. Economy, household economy, is the child of the hour: it changes with prices, which change with the progress of ingenuity, the course of taxation, the copiousness of supply, the fluctuations of demand, and a thousand incidents besides. Meddling with matters like these the legislator will probably be wrong to-day; he will certainly be wrong to-morrow.

Were I obliged to make a law about heat, I would rather enact the degree, than the mode of producing it. In no cell shall the heat be suffered to be fewer than such a number of degrees, nor more than such another number, above the freezing point in such orsuch a scale. Insure this degree, you whose business it is, as cheaply as you can. Is the temperature thus fixed upon a proper one? It will not be less so a thousand years hence. Minuteness might be objected, but not improvidence.

To what end this economy all the while?—That felons may have fires, or what is equivalent, in their bed-chambers. I say in their bed-chambers. For in these cells they are to do nothing but “rest:”* this is carefully provided: other apartments are to be given them for working-rooms and dining-rooms.† Fires in bed-chambers for felons? Is it every gentleman whose bed-chamber has a fire in it, or so much as a place to make one? In the coldest and dampest weather, is it altogether universal, even in the most opulent families, to have a fire to go to bed by?

“And have not your felons, then, this luxury?” Yes; that they have—and glad I am they have it. Why?—because it costs nothing: they have no other rooms than their bed-chambers. Is it that they may have warm rooms to sleep in? No; but that such of them as are employed in sedentary trades, may work and sit comfortably in the short intervals of their work, instead of shivering in forced and comfortless inaction. By night as well as by day, they work as long as health and ease permit. They are not, like some we shall see hereafter, compelled to laziness beyond that of the laziest child of luxury—chained to their beds by law.

[* ]Ironmongers in Frith-street, Soho.

[† ]Get the stove heated upon your entrance into a German inn: in about half an hour you perceive an abominable stink; in another half hour, a slight degree of warmth; in a third, the heat begins to be comfortable; in a fourth, it is become suffocating. Open a door or window for relief: in rushes the air in partial gusts, and gives you cold.

In hot-houses, though the unpleasant effects of this mode of warming are perceptible to many people, they are however less so than in common dwelling-rooms; hot-houses being so much less inhabited by animals, whose only effect on the air is to taint it, than by vegetables, which, howsoever they may vitiate it in certain ways, are found to purify as well as sweeten it in others.

[‡ ]It is suggested to me by Dr. Fordyce, that in such a building matters might be contrived so that scarce any air should enter anywhere that had not passed through the warming-chamber. I make use of that word to express the receptacle through which the air is to be made to pass in order to receive the heat.

[* ]Could not the means be found of detaining the air with advantage till it had imbibed a sufficient degree of heat—for instance, by a pair of valves? This is one of many points that might require to be considered.

[† ]The most economical mode of dressing food by culinary fire, is either baking or boiling.—Baking, if performed upon the most economical plan, might be conducted in such a manner as not to afford any heat at all applicable to any other purpose, as will be seen below. The most economical mode of boiling is in what are commonly called coppers,—because usually made of that material—vessels bedded in brick-work, with a place for fuel underneath, closed by a door which is never opened but for the introduction of the fuel. In this way, a small proportion of fuel, comparatively speaking, serves, scarce any of the heat being discharged into the room.

On the common plans, the door consists of a single iron plate. It might be made double: consisting of two parallel plates, an inch or so asunder, with a bottom between: the interval might be filled up with sand, or some other pure earth that is a worse conductor of heat, if any such there be. The heat would thus be the better kept in, and the outer partition of the door might be made to receive so little of it as not to contribute in the smallest degree to the contamination of the air.

The heat contained in the steam raised by the boiling, should not be suffered, as in private kitchens, to escape in waste. It should be collected, and applied by tubes issuing from the covers of the coppers, after the manner of a retort or still-head. In proportion to the quantity of the provision that could thus be dressed by steam, would be the quantity of heat that would be saved. The steam vessels would be ranged in front of the boiling vessels, upon an elevation somewhat higher. The boiling vessels, in order to catch as much of the current of fire as possible in its way to the chimney back, should extend as far back as was consistent with convenience. Hence, too, another advantage: they would have the more surface, and the more surface the more steam they would yield to the steam vessels with a given quantity of heat in a given time. The better to confine the heat, it might be worth while, perhaps,a to make the steam vessels, as also the covers and necks of the boilers, double, with a lining of some badly conducting substance, such as flannel or feathers, between the parallel plates.

The following fact, communicated by an intelligent and reverend friend, will help to show how far any attention that can be paid to the confinement of heat is from being a trivial one:—

In the parish of P—, in the county of W—, live two bakers, T. W. and T. R.—T. R.’s oven is better protected than that of T. W.; that is, so situated and circumstanced, that whatever heat is introduced into it is better confined within it, less drawn off from it by surrounding bodies. Observe the consequence:—To bake the same quantity of bread takes upwards of three times the quantity of fuel in the badly protected oven, that it does in the other.

The following are the data, in the precise state in which they were given; from whence the accuracy of the calculation may be judged of:—

In T. W.’s oven (the badly protected one) it takes 15 pennyworth of wood to bake 40 gallon loaves.

In T. R.’s, it takes but 8 pennyworth of wood (4 faggots at 2d. each) to bake 50 gallon loaves; and when he bakes a second time the same day, it takes but half the quantity.

In a vessel consisting chiefly of iron, weighing upwards of a ton, contrived for the purpose of hatching eggs, Dr. Fordyce, many years ago, produced by a single lamp of the smallest kind in use, and communicated to the iron, a permanent degree of heat equal to that of boiling water. In the same vessel, by the same means, he produced an addition of heat to the amount of 60 degrees, raising the temperature from 40 to 100 in a large space in which a constant current of air was pervading every part. The use of feathers, supposed to be the worst conductors of heat existing, was the contrivance on which the production of those effects principally depended.—Suppose the knowledge thus gained applied to the purpose of dressing the food in the manner of an oven, what would be the surplus of heat applicable to the purpose of warming the building? None.

[* ]Total capacity out of the question, the mere number would not raise the price to more than 24½ guineas: the price of one of the least size sold by Moser and Jackson being no more than 3½ guineas; but the quantity of calefactive power obtainable from seven such small stoves would probably go but a little way towards furnishing 40 degrees of heat to such a building.

[* ]If greater, the heated air might be discharged at the nearest part of the circumferential tube, before it had attained the most remote.

[† ]For the general idea of a set of perforations for this purpose, and a view of the necessity of employing them, I am indebted to the obliging suggestion of Dr. Fordyce.

[‡ ]A neat contrivance for this purpose is employed by Messrs. Moser and Jackson. Out of a circular plate of brass, spaces are cut in the form of radii, equal in dimensions to the quantity left. Under the metallic star thus formed, a similar one is stowed, connected with the upper one by a pivot on which it turns. On giving a slight turn to the under star, it moves from under the upper one by which it was covered before, fills up the interstices, and the aperture is completely and exactly closed.

[* ]True it is, that though the air when heated will not naturally descend, yet sudden gusts may carry it even in that direction, besides that the heat of every stratum of air will of itself in a certain degree be communicated to every stratum of air that is contiguous. But these are assistances too inconsiderable to be adequate to the purpose. They would still leave a great disparity between the temperature of the lowest story and those above it.

[* ]The quantity thus requisite is easily ascertained. The quantity of fresh air necessary to support a man without inconvenience for a given time, has been pretty well determined. This quantity, multiplied by the greatest number of inhabitants the building can ever inclose at the same time, would give the quantity of fresh air requisite for the supply of the building during that time.

[† ]Another use, which, though collateral to the above design, is not the least considerable of the advantages that might be reaped from it, is the opportunity it would afford of a set of experiments relative to the economy of heat. With the least quantity and expense of fuel possible, how to produce and support for a given time a given degree of heat, applicable to the several purposes for which heat is required? Such is the problem to be solved: a subject which has never yet been taken up upon principles, or upon a large scale. Of what importance the solution of such a problem would be to the population and wealth of nations, may be seen at a single glance. Fuel of the fossil kind is a limited resource; the nation which consumes it lives upon a capital which must sooner or later be exhausted. The population of a country in which artificial heat is a necessary of life must therefore ultimately depend upon the quantity it can keep up of such sort of fuel as can be obtained from the vegetable kingdom, the only sort which is capable of being regularly reproduced.

The facilities which a building upon the panopticon principle would afford for experiments in this view, will readily be apprehended. In the seven stoves, without putting more than one to each chimney it admits of, trial might be made of so many different forms. The ventilative mode would of course be taken for the common basis: but this ground-work is susceptible of a great variety of modifications. The construction pursued by Messrs. Moser and Jackson, with all its superiority over all preceding methods, may yet be found to fall considerably short of perfection in this line. Doubling the warming-chamber occasions a great consumption of fuel, and renders this mode of warming far from being so cheap as could be wished.Could not the same degree of extra heat be given to a building by a less degree of ignition given to a larger quantity of air? For, as Dr. Fordyce has clearly demonstrated to me, the less the degree of heat which the air contracts in the warming-chamber, the better, for very material reasons. Reducing the degree of heat given to the air by augmenting the quantity of air to which heat is given, could not there be found some single substance of which a warming-chamber might be made, without the addition of another receptacle to line or to inclose it? Is it most advantageous to make the warming-chamber divided into partitions, as practised by Moser and Jackson, or entire? and if entire, to what extent can such a warming-chamber be carried to advantage? What is the most advantageous form for the warming-chamber, and what the most advantageous mode of applying the fire to it, and connecting it with the fire-place? The relation being ascertained between a degree of heat as indicated by the thermometer on the one hand, and the expansive force on the other, and thence the velocity of current, and quantity of air so heated, discharged out of a mouth of known dimensions within a known time, could not a given degree of heat be secured at pleasure to the air thus discharged, by closing the mouth with a valve loaded by a weight, which would thus indicate and express by pounds and ounces the several degrees and quantities above mentioned, and consequently the calefactive powers of the stove? Such are among the questions which the inquiry would have in view. Hitherto, partly for want of science, partly for want of a proper theatre for experiment, whatever has been done by artists in this line has been little more than random guess-work. Means might not improbably be found, in some such way as above hinted at, of ascertaining a priori, I mean previously to any trial made in the particular building to be warmed, the calefactive power of a given stove, that is, the quantity of air heated to a given degree, which it is capable of yielding to that or any building within a given time. This indication being obtained, the several calefactive powers of different stoves might be compared while they were at work at the same time, whereas without it the comparison could no otherwise be made than by setting them to work in the same building at different times. The species and quantity of fuel employed in the different stoves, the temperature of the air in different parts of the building, and of the atmosphere without the building during the whole continuance of the experiments,—these or other influencing or resulting circumstances would need to be carefully marked and registered. In the same way, the comparative calefactive powers of different sorts of fuel might also be ascertained. I have already hinted at the inquiries that might be made relative to the application of the heat to baking, boiling, and other domestic operations—not to mention those which, like malting, brewing, and distilling, are conducted upon a more extensive scale. Were a course of experiments to be carried on with any such views, on so new and so peculiarly favourable a theatre, it might be of use that the plan of operations should be made public beforehand, that such lights and instructions as might be obtainable from the philosophical world might be collected before the commencement of the course. Philosophy is never more worthily occupied, than when affording her assistances to the economy of common life: benefits of which mankind in general are partakers, being thus superadded to whatever gratification is to be reaped from researches purely speculative. It is a vain and false philosophy which conceives its dignity to be debased by use.

[* ]19 Geo. III. c. 74, § 33.

[* ]Section 33.

[† ]Ibid.

[† ]The most economical mode of dressing food by culinary fire, is either baking or boiling.—Baking, if performed upon the most economical plan, might be conducted in such a manner as not to afford any heat at all applicable to any other purpose, as will be seen below. The most economical mode of boiling is in what are commonly called coppers,—because usually made of that material—vessels bedded in brick-work, with a place for fuel underneath, closed by a door which is never opened but for the introduction of the fuel. In this way, a small proportion of fuel, comparatively speaking, serves, scarce any of the heat being discharged into the room.

On the common plans, the door consists of a single iron plate. It might be made double: consisting of two parallel plates, an inch or so asunder, with a bottom between: the interval might be filled up with sand, or some other pure earth that is a worse conductor of heat, if any such there be. The heat would thus be the better kept in, and the outer partition of the door might be made to receive so little of it as not to contribute in the smallest degree to the contamination of the air.

The heat contained in the steam raised by the boiling, should not be suffered, as in private kitchens, to escape in waste. It should be collected, and applied by tubes issuing from the covers of the coppers, after the manner of a retort or still-head. In proportion to the quantity of the provision that could thus be dressed by steam, would be the quantity of heat that would be saved. The steam vessels would be ranged in front of the boiling vessels, upon an elevation somewhat higher. The boiling vessels, in order to catch as much of the current of fire as possible in its way to the chimney back, should extend as far back as was consistent with convenience. Hence, too, another advantage: they would have the more surface, and the more surface the more steam they would yield to the steam vessels with a given quantity of heat in a given time. The better to confine the heat, it might be worth while, perhaps,a to make the steam vessels, as also the covers and necks of the boilers, double, with a lining of some badly conducting substance, such as flannel or feathers, between the parallel plates.

The following fact, communicated by an intelligent and reverend friend, will help to show how far any attention that can be paid to the confinement of heat is from being a trivial one:—

In the parish of P—, in the county of W—, live two bakers, T. W. and T. R.—T. R.’s oven is better protected than that of T. W.; that is, so situated and circumstanced, that whatever heat is introduced into it is better confined within it, less drawn off from it by surrounding bodies. Observe the consequence:—To bake the same quantity of bread takes upwards of three times the quantity of fuel in the badly protected oven, that it does in the other.

The following are the data, in the precise state in which they were given; from whence the accuracy of the calculation may be judged of:—

In T. W.’s oven (the badly protected one) it takes 15 pennyworth of wood to bake 40 gallon loaves.

In T. R.’s, it takes but 8 pennyworth of wood (4 faggots at 2d. each) to bake 50 gallon loaves; and when he bakes a second time the same day, it takes but half the quantity.

In a vessel consisting chiefly of iron, weighing upwards of a ton, contrived for the purpose of hatching eggs, Dr. Fordyce, many years ago, produced by a single lamp of the smallest kind in use, and communicated to the iron, a permanent degree of heat equal to that of boiling water. In the same vessel, by the same means, he produced an addition of heat to the amount of 60 degrees, raising the temperature from 40 to 100 in a large space in which a constant current of air was pervading every part. The use of feathers, supposed to be the worst conductors of heat existing, was the contrivance on which the production of those effects principally depended.—Suppose the knowledge thus gained applied to the purpose of dressing the food in the manner of an oven, what would be the surplus of heat applicable to the purpose of warming the building? None.

[a]Dr. Fordyce, from experience, says certainly.