Thoughts on prison labour, &c. &c. ... / by a student of the Inner Temple.

  • Student of the Inner Temple.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thoughts on prison labour, &c. &c. ... / by a student of the Inner Temple. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/488 (page 20)
    humane feelings diiigent observation^ send cor reel disci'imi- nation, are to be expected to assist in their formation ! ! From the preceding analysis it will be seen, that at the date of the returns, out of twenty-four Tread-wheel prisons, this novel penal engine had not had a trial of more than three weeks in two of them; two months in another; three months in another; four months in four others; five months in another; and six, seven, eight, and nine months, respectively, in four others; making together thirteen cut of the twenty-four prisons. In five more prisons the Wheel had been in use a year; in another a year and a half; in two others two years and a half; and in three others, respectively, three years, three years and a half, and four years. Thus, in hut five of the twenty four prisons had the Tread-wheel been introduced above a year ; in one of which (Flaver- foi-d west) it is capable of working no ^ more than sixteen; and in another (Aylesbury, where alone it had been used so long as four years) no more than twenty-four individuals. Yet, under all the disadvantages of very insufficient experiment, and of the labour operating under f circumstances most calculated for its sufferance (where, in two or three instances, it had been tried both for a considerable period, and on an average complement of treaders), the official, and in one sense premature, re¬ turns enumerate several casualties, and contain several * So tlie Horsley Gaol Wheel can only accommodate twelve on ; and but nine or ten were at that at Lancaster Gaol, which on page 139 of the Appendix to the Fifth Report of the Prison Discipline Society is stated to hold only four persons at a time.'’ t Alluding to these particular prisons being mostly filled with hardy agricultural subjects, whose periods of imprisonment are generally short.