money in luxurious viands, and sit down to dinner with fetters on his feet, and fried pork in his stomach.

Restriction to diet in prisons is still more necessary, when it is remembered, that it is impossible to avoid making a prison, in some respects, more eligible than the home of a culprit. It is almost always more spacious, cleaner, better ventilated, better warmed. All these advantages are inevitable on the side of the prison. The means, therefore, that remain of making a prison a disagreeable place, are not to be neglected; and of these, none are more powerful than the regulation of diet. If this is neglected, the meaning of sentencing a man to prison will be thisand it had better be put in these words

Prisoner at the Bar, you are fairly convicted, by a Jury of your country, of having feloniously stolen two pigs, the property of Stephen Muck, farmer. The Court having taken into consideration the frequency and enormity of this offence, and the necessity of restraining it with the utmost severity of punishment, do order and adjudge, that you be confined for six months in an house, larger, better, better aired, and warmer than your own, in company with 20 or 30 young persons, in as good health and spirits as yourself. You need do no work; and you may have any thing for breakfast, dinner and supper, you can buy. In passing this sentence, the Court hope that your example will be a warning to others; and that evil disposed persons will perceive, from your suffering, that the laws of their country are not to be broken with impunity.'

As the diet, according to our plan, is always to be a part of the sentence, a Judge will, of course, consider the nature of the offence for which the prisoner is committed, as well as the quality of the prisoner: And we have before stated, that all prisoners, before trial, should be upon the best prison diet, and unrestricted as to what they could purchase, always avoiding intemperance.

These gradations of diet being fixed in all prisons, and these definitions of Jail and House of Correction being adhered to, the punishment of imprisonment may be apportioned with the greatest nicety, either by the statute, or at the discretion of the Judge, if the law chooses to give him that discretion. There will be

Imprisonment for different degrees of time.

Imprisonment solitary, or in company, or in darkness.
In jails without labour.

In houses of correction, with labour.

Imprisonment with diet on bread and water.

Imprisonment with common prison diet.

Imprisonment with best prison diet.
Imprisonment with free diet.

Every sentence of the Judge should state diet, as well as light or darkness, time, place, solitude, society, labour or ease; and we are strongly of opinion, that the punishment in prisons should be sharp and short. We would, in most cases, give as much of solitary confinement as would not injure mens' minds, and as much of bread and water diet as would not injure their bodies. A return to prison should be contemplated with horror -horror, not excited by the ancient filth, disease, and extortion of jails; but by calm, well-regulated, well-watched austerity -by the gloom and sadness wisely and intentionally thrown over such an abode. Six weeks of such sort of imprisonment would be much more efficacious than as many months of jolly company and veal cutlets.

It appears, by the Times newspaper of the 24th of June 1821, that two persons, a man and his wife, were committed at the Surrey Sessions for three years. If this county jail is bad, to three years of idleness and good living--if it is a manufacturing jail, to three years of regular labour, moderate living, and accuinulated gains. They are committed, principally for a warning to others, partly for their own good. Would not these ends have been much more effectually answered, if they had been committed, for nine months, to solitary cells upon bread and water, the first and last month in dark cells? If this is too severe, then lessen the duration still more, and give them more light days, and fewer dark ones; but we are convinced the whole good sought may be better obtained in much shorter periods than are now resorted to.

For the purpose of making jails disagreeable, the prisoners should remain perfectly alone all night, if it is not thought proper to render their confinement entirely solitary during the whole period of their imprisonment. Prisoners dislike this-and therefore it should be done; it would make their residence in jails more disagreeable, and render them unwilling to return there. At present, eight or ten women sleep in a room with a good fire, pass the night in sound sleep or pleasant conversation; and this is called confinement in a prison. A prison is a place where men, after trial and sentence, should be made unhappy by public lawful enactments, not so severe as to injure the soundness of mind or body. If this is not done, prisons are a mere invitation to the lower classes to wade, through felony and larceny, to better accommodations than they can procure at home:-And here, as it appears to us, is the mistake of the many excellent men who busy themselves (and wisely and humanely

6

busy themselves) about prisons. Their first object seems to be the reformation of the prisoners, not the reformation of the public; whereas the first object should be, the discomfort and discontent of their prisoners; that they should become a warning, feel unhappy, and resolve never to act so again as to put themselves in the same predicament; and then as much reformation as is compatible with this, the better. If a man says to himself, this prison is a comfortable place, while he says to the chaplain or the visitor, that he will come there no more, we confess we have no great confidence in his public declaration; but if he says, this is a place of misery and sorrow, you shall not catch me here again,' there is much reason to believe he will be as good as his word; and he then becomes (which is of much more consequence than his own reformation) a warning to others. Hence it is we object to that spectacle of order and decorum--carpenters in one shop, taylors in another, weavers in a third, sitting down to a meal by ring of bell, and receiving a regular portion of their earnings. We are afraid it is better than real life on the other side of the wall, or so very little worse, that nobody will have any fear to encounter it. In Bury jail, which is considered as a pattern jail, the prisoners under sentence of confinement are allowed to spend their weekly earnings (two, three, and four shillings per week) in fish, tobacco, and vegetables; so states the jailer in his examination before the House of Commons:-and we have no doubt it is well meant; but is it punishinent? We were most struck, in reading the Evidence of the Jail Committee before the House of Commons, with the opinions of the jailer of the Devizes jail, and with the practice of the Magistrates who superintend it. *

Mr T. BRUTTON, Governor of the Gaol at Devizes.-Does this confinement in solitude make prisoners more averse to return to prison? I think it does.-Does it make a strong impression upon them? I have no doubt of it.-Does it make them more obedient and orderly while in gaol? I have no doubt it does.--Do you consider it the most effectual punishment you can make use of? I do. -Do you think it has a greater effect upon the minds of prisoners, than any apprehensions of personal punishment? I have no doubt of it-Have you any dark cells for the punishment of refractory prisoners? I have. Do you find it necessary occasionally to use them? Very seldom-Have you, in any instance, been obliged to use the dark cell, in the case of the same prisoner, twice? Only on ene occasion, I think.-What length of time is it necessary to confine

* The Winchester and Devizes jails seem to us to be conducted upon better principles than any other, though even these are by no means what jails should be.

a refractory prisoner to bring him to his senses? Less than one day. -Do you think it essential, for the purpose of keeping up the disci pline of the prison, that you should have it in your power to have recourse to the punishment of dark cells? I do; I consider punishment in a dark cell for one day, has a greater effect upon a prisoner than to keep him on bread and water for a month. '-Evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1819, p. 359.

The evidence of the Governor of Glocester jail is to the same effect.

Mr THOMAS CUNNINGHAM, Keeper of Glocester Gaol.-Do you attribute the want of those certificates entirely to the neglect of enforcing the means of solitary confinement? I do most certainly. Sometimes, where a certificate has not been granted, and a prisoner has brought a certificate of good behaviour for one year, Sir George and the Committee ordered one pound or a guinea from the charity. -Does that arise from your apprehension that the prisoners have not been equally reformed, or only from the want of the means of ascertaining such reformation? It is for want of not knowing; and we cannot ascertain it, from their working in numbers.-They may be reformed? Yes, but we have not the means of ascertaining it. There is one thing I do which is not provided by the rules, and which is the only thing in which I deviate from the rules. When a man is committed for a month, I never give him any work; he sits in solitude, and walks in the yard by himself for air; he has no other food but his bread and water, except twice a week a pint of peas soup. I never knew an instance of a man coming in a second time, who had been committed for a month. I have done that for these seventeen or eighteen years. What has been the result? They dread so much coming in again. If a man is committed for six weeks, we give him work. Do you apprehend that solitary confinement for a month, without employment, is the most beneficial means of working reform? I conceive it is.-Can it operate as the means of reform, any more than it operates as a system of punishment? It is only for small offences they commit for a month.-Would not the same effect be produced by corporal punishment? Corporal punishment may be absolutely necessary sometimes; but I do not think corporal punishment would reform them so much as solitary confinement.-Would not severe corporal punishment have the same effect? No, it would harden them more than any thing else.-Do you think benefit is derived from the opportunity of reflection afforded by solitary confinement? Yes. And very low diet also? Yes.'-Evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1819, p. 391.

We must quote also the evidence of the Governor of Horsley jail.

Mr WILLIAM STOKES, Governor of the House of Correction at Horsley. Do you observe any difference in the conduct of prisoners who are employed, and those who have no employment ? Yes, a good deal; I look upon it, from what judgment I can form, and I

have been a long while in it, that to take a prisoner and discipline him according to the rules as the law allows, and if he have no work, that that man goes through more punishment in one month, than a man who is employed and receives a portion of his labour three months; but still I should like to have employment, because a great number of times 1 took men away, who have been in the habit of earning sixpence a week to buy a loaf, and put them in solitary confinement; and the punishment is a great deal more without work. -Which of the prisoners. those that have been employed, or those unemployed, do you think would go out of the prison the better men I think, that let me have a prisoner, and I never treat any one with severity, any further than that they should be obedient, and to let them see that I will do my duty, I have reason to believe, that, if a pr sover is committed under my care, or any other man's care, to a house of correction, and he has to go under the discipline of the law, if he is in for the value of a month or six weeks, that man is in a great deal better state than though he stays for six months; he gets hardened by being in so long, from one month to another. You are speaking now of solitude without labour; do you think he would go out better, if he had been employed during the month you speak of? No, nor half; because I never task those people, in order that they should not say I force them to do more than they are able, that they should not slight it; for, if they perform any thing in the bounds of reason, I never find fault with them: The prisoner who is employed, his time passes smooth and comfortable, and he has a proportion of his earnings, and he can buy additional diet; but if he has no labour, and kept under the discipline of the prison, it is a tight piece of punishment to go through. Which of the two should you think most likely to return immediately to habits of labour on their own account? The dispositions of all men are not alike; but my opinion is this, if they are kept and disciplined according to the rules. of the prison, and have no labour, that one month will do more than six; I am certain, that a man who is kept there without labour once, will not be very ready to come there again.-Evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, pp. 398–9.

Mr Gurney and Mr Buxton both lay a great stress upon the quiet and content of prisoners, upon their subordination and the absence of all plans of escape; but, where the happiness of prisoners is so much consulted, we should be much more apprehensive of a conspiracy to break into, than to break out of, prison. The mob outside may, indeed, envy the wicked ones within; but the felon who has left, perhaps, a scolding wife, a battered cottage, and six starving children, has no disposition to escape from regularity, suflicient food, employment which saves him money, warmth, ventilation, cleanliness, and civil treatment. These symptoms, upon which these respectable and excellent men lay so much stress, are by no means proofs to us that pri sons are placed upon the best possible footing.