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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.

SECTION I.

LEADING POSITIONS.

This surely is no place for anything like a complete and regular system of prison-management. Such an enterprise would have been above my strength. It would have required opportunities which I have not possessed, and time more than at present can be spared.

A work of this kind is, however, still to execute. Mr. Howard’s publications present no such work. They afford a rich fund of materials; but a quarry is not a house. No leading principles—no order—no connexion. Rules, or hints for rules, in places which, unless by reading the book through again, you can never find a second time; recommendations, of which the reason is not very apparent, and for which no reason is given; some perhaps for which no sufficient reason, if any, could be given. My venerable friend was much better employed than in arranging words and sentences. Instead of doing what so many could do if they would, what he did for the service of mankind, was what scarce any man could have done, and no man would do but himself. In the scale of moral desert, the labours of the legislator and the writer are as far below his, as earth is below heaven. His was the truly christian choice; the lot, in which is to be found the least of that which selfish nature covets, and the most of what it shrinks from. His kingdom was of a better world; he died a martyr, after living an apostle.

To please everybody, is acknowledged to be in no instance a very easy task. There are perhaps few instances in which it is less so than this of penitentiary discipline. There are few subjects on which opinion is more under the sway of powers that are out of the reach of reason. Different tempers prescribe different measures of severity and indulgence. Some forget that a convict in prison is a sensitive being; others, that he is put there for punishment. Some grudge him every gleam of comfort or alleviation of misery of which his situation is susceptible: to others, every little privation, every little unpleasant feeling, every unaccustomed circumstance, every necessary point of coercive discipline, presents matter for a charge of inhumanity.

In the midst of these discordant sentiments, this promiscuous conflict, in which judgment and regulation are so apt to be led astray, sometimes by the negligence of insensibility, sometimes by the cruel anxiety of cowardice, sometimes by the excess of tenderness, and now and then perhaps by the affectation of it, a few leading positions, if by good fortune any such should be to be found, to which men of no description whatever, be their degree of judgment or cast of temper what it may, shall find it easy to refuse their assent, will not be without their use: unfortunately, the application of those principles will still leave but too wide a field for uncertainty and variance. But even in case of variance it will be something to have placed the question upon clear ground, and to have rendered it manifest to every eye on what point it turns, whether the disagreement is an irremediable one, or whether any means of putting an end to it may be hoped for from farther investigation.

But, in the first place, a summary view of the objects or ends proper to be kept in view in the planning of such a system may not be without its use. They may be thus distinguished and arranged:—

1. Example, or the preventing others by the terror of the example from the commission of similar offences. This is the main end of all punishment, and consequently of the particular mode here in question.

2. Good behaviour of the prisoners during their subjection to this punishment; in other words, prevention of prison offences on the part of prisoners.

3. Preservation of decency, or prevention of such practices in particular as would be offences against decency.

4. Prevention of undue hardships; whether the result of design or negligence.

5. Preservation of health, and the degree of cleanliness necessary to that end.

6. Security against fire.

7. Safe custody, or the prevention of escapes, which, as far as they obtain, frustrate the attainment of all the preceding ends.

8. Provision for future subsistence; i. e. for the subsistence of the prisoners after the term of their punishment is expired.

9. Provision for their future good behaviour, or prevention of future offences, on the part of those for whose former offences this punishment is contrived. This is one of the objects that come under the head of reformation.

10. Provision for religious instruction;—a second article belonging to the head of reformation.

11. Provision for intellectual instruction and improvement in general;—a third article belonging to the head of reformation.

12. Provision for comfort; i. e. for the allowance of such present comforts as are not incompatible with the attainment of the above ends.

13. Observance of economy; or provision for reducing to its lowest terms the expense hazarded for the attainment of the above ends.

14. Maintenance of subordination; i. e. on the part of the under officers and servants, as towards the manager in chief—a point on the accomplishment of which depends the attainment of the several preceding ends. No one of these objects but was kept in view throughout the contrivance of the building; none of them that ought to be lost sight of in the contrivance of the plan of management. The management was indeed the end: the construction of the building but one amongst a variety of means, though that the principal one.

I may perhaps subjoin in the way of recapitulation, a general table of ends and means—a tabular view of the several expedients employed or suggested for the attainment of the above ends.

In the meantime, this summary enumeration of the ends themselves may serve to direct our attention, and afford us some guidance in judging of the proposed expedients as they present themselves; and incidentally of the regulations and expedients that have been established or recommended by others, either with a view to the same ends, or at least with relation to the same subject.

From the different courses taken in the pursuit of these several ends, or some of them, errors have been adopted, by which the lot of the persons devoted to this punishment has been affected in opposite ways: the treatment leaning, in some instances, too far on the side of severity; in others, too far on the side of lenity and indulgence. It is for the correction and prevention of such errors, that the three following rules are proposed, to serve as guides in the pursuit of the above enumerated ends. These are the leading positions above alluded to. Should their propriety be admitted, there is not a single corner of the management in which their utility will not be recognised.

1. Rule of Lenity.—The ordinary condition of a convict doomed to forced labour for a length of time, ought not to be attended with bodily sufferance, or prejudicial, or dangerous to health or life.*

2. Rule of Severity.—Saving the regard due to life, health, and bodily ease, the ordinary condition of a convict doomed to a punishment which few or none but individuals of the poorest class are apt to incur, ought not to be made more eligible than that of the poorest class of subjects in a state of innocence and liberty.

3. Rule of Economy.—Saving the regard due to life, health, bodily ease, proper instruction, and future provision, economy ought, in every point of management, to be the prevalent consideration. No public expense ought to be incurred, or profit or saving rejected, for the sake either of punishment or of indulgence.

Propositions of such latitude may be thought to require a few words of explanation:—propositions of such importance may require something to be said in the way of justification. The precaution is not superfluous. The reader who feels himself interested in the subject would do well to scrutinize them. It is but fair he should have this warning; for if these are really fit to compose a test, no plan of management has yet been either pursued or proposed, that will abide it.

Injuries to health and bodily ease are apt to result principally from either that part of the management which concerns maintenance, or that which concerns employment. The supply for maintenance may be defective in quantity, or improper in quality: the labour exacted in the course of the employment may be improper in quality, or excessive in quantity.

What must not be forgotten is, that in a state of confinement, all hardships which the management does not preserve a man from, it inflicts on him.

The articles of supply necessary to preserve a man from death, ill health, or bodily sufferance, seem to be what are commonly meant by the necessaries of life. The supplies of this kind with which, according to the rule of lenity, every such prisoner ought to be furnished, and that in the quantity requisite to obviate those ill consequences, may be included under the following heads:—

1. Food, and that in as great a quantity as he desires.

2. Clothing at all times in sufficient quality and quantity to keep him from suffering by cold, with change sufficient for the purposes of cleanliness.

3. During the cold season, firing or warmed air sufficient to mitigate the severity of the weather.

4. In case of sickness, proper medicine, diet, and medical attendance.

5. In the way of precaution against sickness, the means of cleanliness in such nature and proportion as shall be sufficient to afford a complete security against all danger on that score.

The reasons against inflicting hardships affecting the health, and such privations as are attended with long-continued bodily sufferance, are—

1. That being unconspicuous, they contribute nothing to the main end of punishment, which is example.

2. That being protracted, or liable to be protracted, through the whole of a long and indefinite period, filling the whole measure of it with unremitted misery, they are inordinately severe; and that not only in comparison with the demand for punishment, but in comparison with other punishments which are looked upon as being, and are intended to be, of a superior degree.

3. That they are liable to affect and shorten life, amounting thereby to capital punishment in effect, though without the name.

Punishments operating in abridgment of life, through the medium of their prejudicial influence with regard to health, are improper, whether intended or not on the part of the legislator. In the latter case, the executive officer who subjects a man to such a fate without an express warrant from the judge, or the judge who does so without an express authority from the legislator, appoints death where the legislator has appointed no such punishment, and incurs the guilt of unjustifiable homicide, to say no worse of it.

If intended on the part of the legislature, they are liable to the following objections:—

1. They are severe to excess, and that to a degree beyond intention as well as proportion. Styled less than capital, they are in fact capital, and much more; the result of them being not simple and speedy death, as in the instances where death is appointed under that name, but death accompanied and preceded by lingering torture.

2. They are unequal; causing men to suffer, not in proportion to the enormity of their offences, either real or supposed, but in proportion to a circumstance entirely foreign to that consideration; viz. their greater or less capacity of enduring the hardships without being subjected to the fatal consequence.

Food is the grand article. It is the great hinge on which the economy of supply turns. It is the great rock on which frugality and humanity are apt to split. Food ought not to be limited in quantity, for this reason:—Draw the line where you will, if you draw it to any purpose, the punishment becomes unequal. Unequal punishment is either defective or excessive: it may be in both cases at once; but in one or the other it cannot but be. In the present instance, the sole result of the inequality is excess: so many as the allowance fails to satisfy, so many are subjected to an additional burthen of punishment foreign to the design. Draw the line where you will, you can never draw it right: useless or improper is the only alternative: it is only in proportion as humanity loses, that frugality can gain by it. Pinch many, and those hard, your line is proportionably unequal and unjust: pinch few, and those but slightly, what you save is but little, and you serve Mammon for small wages. The inequality is all sheer injustice; it has no respect at all to conduct: the punishment proportions itself, not to the degree of a man’s delinquency, but to the keenness of his appetite. It is not the injustice of a day, nor of a week, but of whole years; and the weight of it rather accumulates than diminishes by time. As the quantity of food desired by a man, living in other respects in the same manner, is pretty much the same, if the measure falls considerably short of any man’s desires any one day, so will it every other: as his hunger would not cease even at the conclusion of his meal, much less will it during any part of the interval betwixt meal and meal: the consequence is, that the whole measure of his existence is filled up with a state of unremitted, not to say increasing sufferance.

I have distinguished this mode of producing sufferance from an injury to health, merely not to strain words: but the difference is but in words. If a man experience a constant gnawing of the stomach, what difference is it to him whether it comes from improper food, or from want of food? If a constant shivering, what matters it whether from an ague, or from want of fire?

By this violation of the law of lenity, true economy does not gain near so much as at first sight might appear. That a man who is ill fed will not work so well as a man who is well fed, is allowed by everybody. But the great cause that prevents economy from gaining by this penury is, that what is grasped with one hand is squandered with the other. Those who limit the quantity of food, neither confine the quality to the least palatable, which is in a double point of view the cheapest sort, nor avoid variety and change. Provocations are thus administered, while satisfaction is denied; and what is saved by pinching the stomach is thrown away in tickling the palate. Make it a rule to furnish nothing but of the very cheapest sort, and if there should be two sorts equally cheap, to confine the men to one, you need not fear their eating too much. Every man will be satisfied: no man will be feasted, no man will be starved.

This abundance will be no violation of the rule of severity. The lot of delinquents will not be raised above that of the innocent at large, except in as far as the latter is sunk below the ordinary level by accidental imprudence or misfortune. All men in a state of innocence and liberty do not in fact enjoy a full supply of necessaries. True: but there are none but what might, if they would dispense with luxuries. The deficiencies produced by accidental misfortune are supplied by public bounty; and, bating such accidents, the wages of labour, at the lowest rate known in the three kingdoms, are such as will leave nothing to desire on the head of real necessaries.* To the extent of their means, the poorest enjoy, at any rate, the liberty of choosing.

This economy will be no violation of the rule of lenity: though superfluous gratifications be so far denied, no bodily sufferance is produced. The privation is not carried beyond the bounds which the rule of severity prescribes. While so many honest men fail of being satisfied in quantity, why should criminals be indulged in quality?†

Nor does the rule of severity exclude a certain measure even of super-necessary gratification. The rule of economy, as we shall see, not only admits but necessitates the calling in the principle of reward; and reward might lose its animating quality, if it were debarred from showing itself in a shape so inviting to vulgar eyes. Nor, when all the luxury that economy can stand in need of is thus admitted, need there be any apprehension lest the rule of severity should be violated by the admission, and the lot of labouring prisoners be rendered too desirable. The irksomeness of the situation strikes every eye: the alleviations to it steal in unobserved.

Punishments affecting health, or life, by imposing on men the obligation of exercising any employment injurious in that way, are productive of the collateral inconvenience of imposing hardship on innocent men, by holding up the occupation they follow in an ignominious point of view, and disposing them to be discontented with their lot.

An occupation of this nature will hardly be imposed, but under the notion of causing to be done for the community, something or other which would not be done for it at all, or at least not so well or not so cheap, otherwise. But no occupation of that tendency can be assigned, which would not be, and, if the law permits, is not already, embraced by a sufficient number of free individuals, who being paid what, in their instance and according to their estimation, is an equivalent, carry it on by choice. Whether the work done by compulsion, is done, upon the whole, cheaper, for its goodness, than the work done voluntarily, is as it may be: but what is certain is, that those who submitted to it without regarding it as a hardship, find it converted to their prejudice into a hardship which it was not before.

As to the rule of economy, its absolute importance is great—its relative importance still greater. The very existence of the system—the chance, I should say, which the system has for existence, depends upon it. That in all other points of view this mode of employing criminals is preferable to any other, seems hardly to be disputed: but what men are afraid of is the expense. Let the rule of economy be steadily submitted to, and prudently turned to account, frugality will gain as much by the penitentiary system as every other end of punishment.

In such a situation, whatever expense is incurred, or saving foregone, for the mere purpose of adding to the severity of the punishment, is so much absolutely thrown away. For the ways in which any quantity of suffering may be inflicted, without any expense, are easy and innumerable. Instances of this waste have been already seen in a preceding section:* more will be found in a succeeding one.†

The measure of punishment prescribed by the rule of severity, and not forbidden by the rule of lenity, being ascertained, the rule of economy points out, as the best mode of administering it, the imposing some coercion which shall produce profit, or the subtracting some enjoyment which would require expense.

[* ]The qualification applied by the epithet ordinary, and the words length of time, seemed necessary to make room for an exception in favour of temporary punishment for prison offences, at the expense of bodily ease.

[* ]See this abundantly proved by Dr. A. Smith in the Wealth of Nations.

[† ]The privation, there is reason to think, is much more apparent than real. At the utmost, it can amount to no more than the loss of such part of the gratification as depends on relish: that which depends upon appetite remains untouched, being inseparable from the satisfaction of the demands of nature. This latter part is perhaps the more considerable; nor is the loss incurred on the other score sustained without an indemnification. In the pursuit of that part of the gratification which depends on relish, a great part of that which depends on appetite is habitually given up. Eating oftener, or more than they need, men eat with so much the less appetite. The poor give up one part of the gratification, the rich another. Whether the poor sustain any habitual loss, even in point of relish, is, after all, not altogether clear. The loss of the enjoyment of occasional feasting, is perhaps the only real loss sustained. In this, too, the poor are but upon a par with the richest class of all. Food affords a feast to those only to whom it is rare; those who appear to feast always, never feast at all. Confinement to the least palatable kind of food, so far, then, from being too severe à punishment, would be no punishment at all, were it not for some antecedent experience of better fare. What punishment is it to the Hindoo to be forbidden roast-beef, and to be confined to rice? How many dishes are coveted by the rich, that would be spurned at by the poor!

[* ]See Part I. Sect. 24.

[† ]Section Employment.