A letter on the nature and effects of the tread-wheel, as an instrument of prison labour and punishment, addressed to the Right Hon. Robert Peel ... / with an appendix of notes and cases. [By J.I. Brisco] by one of his constituents, and a magistrate of the county of Surrey.

  • Briscoe, John Ivatt, 1791-1870.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter on the nature and effects of the tread-wheel, as an instrument of prison labour and punishment, addressed to the Right Hon. Robert Peel ... / with an appendix of notes and cases. [By J.I. Brisco] by one of his constituents, and a magistrate of the county of Surrey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    taken of any of the prisoners,11 when “ he weighed 8st. 111b.—10th October, 9st. 1 lib., and on the 10th of January, 1824, 8st. 121b.11 He recommenced his labours on the Tread-wheel on the 21st or 22nd of Sep¬ tember, after having been a wardsman for some time, and he has lately had an extra allowance of food. I again sent for him to ascertain his feelings concerning the labour on the Tread-wrheel as far as respected himself, in conse¬ quence of the confidence which Mr. Drummond states is to be placed in his opinion. His wrords were :— <£ I .certainly consider the labour to be severe, but if I had more food, in short, as much as I could well use, I do not think it would hurt my constitution.11 ■ The present general dietary of the prison exceeds what the majority of the honest and industrious agricultural labourers have—and which the Governor stated to me cannot now be supplied for Qs. per week. This man has already had an increase upon this allowance of food, and if it were to be increased still further, he thinks that the Wheel might not injure his constitution; and it is possible, that at such an expense the county might fight off some part of the mischief which he allows must inevitably befal him otherwise. Surely it would be a much cheaper, as well as a more effectual remedy to take him from the Wheel: for after all the increase of diet he has been allowed he was only one pound heavier on the last than on the first time of resting: and as he was not weighed when he went into prison, we know nothing of his actual loss or gain. Mr. Drummond tells us further, that 44 since he has been at work on the Tread-wheel, he has experienced pains different from those he ever felt before, and thinks the pains proceed as much from cold after being overheated,