Second report of the Surveyor-General of Prisons.

  • Great Britain. Surveyor-General of Prisons.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second report of the Surveyor-General of Prisons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    58/280 (page 46)
    tiiiiity for applying any remedy calculated to avert such a consequence of imprisonment. These observations are based on the extensive experience of a very acute observer, and appear to be confirmed in a rcmarkal3le degree by the facts recorded during the experi¬ ment which has been made at Pentonville. In the practical application of the discipline it would therefore appear that it is to the early symptoms of Consumption that attention should be particularly directed ; and that when such symp¬ toms are detected, or that Mental affections appear, some mo¬ dification of the discipline should be immediately resorted to. At Pentonville Prison, labour in the outer air has been advantageously adopted; and arrangements are now in pro¬ gress for separating a proportion of the area within the boundary wall to be cultivated as a Garden, with a view to afford further means of employment for such prisoners as require it on medical grounds. The following extract from the Report of the Warden of the Eastern Penitentiary at Philadelphia, dated 31st of De¬ cember, 1845, bears upon the question of exercise and occu¬ pation :— “ The physician, as empowered by law, has been unwearied in examining into and selecting cases in which exercise and labour in the open air were pro¬ per either as preventives to disease, or calculated to accelerate convalescence.” Allusion is elsewhere made to the inconvenience which is felt at that institution from not being able to furnish out¬ door occupation in winter. In an Essay on Prison Discipline recently published by Dr. G. S. Plowe,* of Boston, in America, in the form of a Report to the Boston Prison Discipline Society, speaking of the Separate System of the Philadelphia Prison, he says (p- '3) •- “ If the system, as it has been administered in this country, does not keep up so high a degree of health as the congregate system, it certainly admits of such modifications as will enable it to do so. “ The cultivation of gardens introduced into the discipline of the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania and the airing-grounds of the New Model Prison of London, will certainly be beneficial to the prisoners’ health.” And he remarks in a preceding passage:— “ But if the recent improvements by which a few prisoners are allowed to labour daily in the gardens should be extended to all, and if the same improve¬ ments should be adopted in other separate-system prisons, then the balance of health would be greatly in their favour.” * Dr. G. S. Howe, being a warm advocate of the system, on conviction and experience, will be admitted as a good authority on the subject.