Memorandum of a late visit to some of the principal hospitals, prisons, etc., in France, Scotland, and England. Embraced in a letter to the acting committee of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.

  • Packard, Frederick A. (Frederick Adolphus), 1794-1867.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorandum of a late visit to some of the principal hospitals, prisons, etc., in France, Scotland, and England. Embraced in a letter to the acting committee of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    There are eight officers, the chief of whom is a trained military man. Each of them has some military badge—such as gold lace on the hat, collar, or cuff; and this is not without its effect on minds like their's. The appearance of the boys on parade—facing, marching, and counter-marching in single and double file—re- sembles that of a corps of cadets. If a boy's shoe is untied, or his collar unbuttoned, or his hands or face dirty, his rations are stopped. Every thing betokens absolute subordination. The boys stand when they eat; and the order and silence which reign through the shops and yards are very impressive. An escape is difficult, as the coast-guard could not be passed without detection. The dormitories are high, spacious and well ventilated. The infirmaries, though imperfectly lighted and ventilated, are very convenient in respect to fire places, boilers, bath-tubs, water- closets, &c. The cooking and baking, as well as the making, mending and washing of clothes, is all done by the boys. There were several large clothing contracts on hand for prisoners in the hulks. The income from labour during the week ending May 17, was about seventy-five dollars. A chaplain is attached to the institution, and resides on the prison land, though not within the walls. He has no other occupation but teaching and preaching. Part of the boys are employed in shoemaking and tailoring, while the rest are at school or on the farm; and in these employ- ments they succeed each other at stated hours of the day. Each boy's clothing—every article of it—is marked P. P. (Parkhurst Prison) with his ward and number; and each has also an iron ring rivetted on one ankle as a mark of degradation, which is removed only for faultless behaviour. Ten or twelve only, I observed, were without it. The principle of the school is to use no books. The session for each section is two hours long, and all the lessons are taught on a black board, from a gallery, by dictation. After the lesson is given, the class retire to an adjoining room, the walls of which are lined with slate. Each pupil has a yard square of room on which he writes what he knows or remembers of the lesson. There is a library connected with the school. It is worthy of remark, that the time spent in instruction here, is not taken at the close of a day's hard-labour, when body and mind are exhausted, but at agreeable intervals between other em- ployments. The mode of instruction is, moreover, fitted to the capacities and circumstances of the learners, at the time, and not 2