ENGLISH PRISONS UNDER
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
ENGLISH PRISONS UNDER
LOCAL GOVERNMENT:
BY SIDNEY & BEATRICE
WEBB, WITH PREFACE
BY BERNARD SHAW
\n-
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
V YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA
AND MADRAS MCMXXII
J5
2.025
> 6
CONTENTS
PREFACE BY BERNARD SHAW - - - vii
AUTHORS' NOTE - - - l.\x\
CHAPTER I
MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS IN THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH,
AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES i
CHAPTER II
THE STATE OF THE PRISONS, 1700-1773 18
CHAPTER III
JOHN HOWARD - 32
CHAPTER IV
PARLIAMENTARY ACTION, 1774-1791 - - 38
\PTER V
NATIONAL PRISONS (THE HULKS AND MILLBANK) 43
( I! W'lI.K VI
PRISON ADMINISTRATION FROM 1774 TO 1816 - 50
(a) The County Justices
(6) The Municipal Corporation*
1 1 AFTER VII
THK RENEWAL OP PARLIAMENTARY \ 1823 - 06
CONTENTS (continued)
CHAPTER VIII PAGE
RIVAL POLICIES IN PRISON ADMINISTRATION : 76
(a) The Treatment of Untried Prisoners
(b) The Profitable Employment of Prisoners
(c) Isolation versus Classified Association
(d) The Tread-wheel
(e) Administrative Chaos
(/) The Beginnings of Central Supervision
CHAPTER IX
CENTRAL SUPERVISION AND CONTROL : FIRST PERIOD, 1835-1864 - 113
(a) Cellular Isolation
(b) The Enforcement of Penal Diet
(c) The Enforcement of Penal Labour
(d) Two Prison Reformers and a Scandal
CHAPTER X
PENAL SERVITUDE - 180
CHAPTER XI
CENTRAL SUPERVISION AND CONTROL : SECOND PERIOD, 1865-1877 - 186
CHAPTER XII
ACT OF 1877, AND THE Du CANE REGIME - - 201
EPILOGUE - - 232
INDEX - ..... - 252
VI
PREFACE
By BERNARD SHAW
THE SPIRIT IN WHICH TO READ THIS BOOK.
IMPRISONMENT as it exists to-day, and as it is
described hereafter in these two volumes : English
'tons under Local Government and English Prisons
To-day, is a worse crime than any of those com-
mitted by its victims ; for no single criminal can
be as powerful for evil, or as unrestrained in its
exercise, as an organized nation. Therefore, if any
person is addressing himself to the perusal of these
dreadful books in the spirit of a philanthropist bent
reforming a necessary and beneficent public
institution, I beg him to put it down and go about
le other business. It is just such reformers who
have in the past made the neglect, oppression, cor-
ruption, and physical torture of the old common gaol
tin- pretext for transforming it into that diabolical
den of torment, mischief, and damnation, the modern
model prison.
If, on the contrary, the reader comes to the books
as a repentant sinner, let him read on.
THE OBSTACLE OF VINDICTIVENESS.
The difficulty in finding repentant >inners when
in (jmstion ha> t\v<> roots. The In
1 \\v an- all brought up to believe that we may
;ct injuries on anyone against whom we can make
a case of moral : rity, We have thU
I into us in our childhood by the inlli
on ourselves of such injuries by our p;i md
hers, or indeed by any elder who happens to be
^e of us ! second is that we are all brought
ve, not now that the kin- ran do no wrong,
viii PREFACE
because kings have been unable to keep up that
pretence, but that society can do no wrong. Now
not only does society commit more frightful crimes
than any individual, king or commoner : it legalizes
its crimes, and forges certificates of righteousness for
them, besides torturing anyone who dares expose
their true character. A society like ours, which will,
without remorse, ruin a boy body and soul for life
for trying to sell newspapers in a railway station, is
not likely to be very tender to people who venture to
tell it that its laws would shock the Prince of Dark-
ness himself if he had not been taught from his earliest
childhood to respect as well as fear them.
Consequently these two volumes go to a desper-
ately sophisticated public, as well as to a quite
frankly vindictive one. Judges spend their lives con-
signing their fellow creatures to prison ; and when
some whisper reaches them that prisons are horribly
cruel and destructive places, and that no creature
fit to live should be sent there, they only remark
calmly that prisons are not meant to be comfortable,
which is no doubt the consideration that reconciled
Pontius Pilate to the practice of crucifixion.
THE OBSTACLE OF STUPIDITY.
Another difficulty is the sort of stupidity that
comes from lack of imagination. When I tell people
that I have seen with these eyes a man (no less a man
than Richard Wagner, by the way) who once met a
crowd going to see a soldier broken on the wheel by
the crueller of the two legalized methods of carrying
out that hideous sentence, they shudder, and are
amazed to hear that what they call medieval torture
was used in civilized Europe so recently. They for-
get that the punishment of half-hanging, unmen-
tionably mutilating, drawing and quartering, was on
the British statute book within my own memory.
The same people will read of a burglar being sentenced
to ten years' penal servitude without turning a hair.
They are like Ibsen's Peer Gynt, who was greatly
reassured when he was told that the pains of hell are
BY BERNARD SHAW ix
mental : he thought they could not be so very bad if
there was no actual burning brimstone. When such
people are terrified by an outburst of robbery with
violence, or Sadistically excited by reports of the
White Slave traffic, they clamor to have sentences
of two years' hard labor supplemented by a flogging,
which is a joke by comparison. They will try to
lynch a criminal who illtreats a child in some sensa-
tionally cruel manner ; but on the most trifling pro-
vocation they will inflict on the child the prison
demoralization and the prison stigma which condemn
it to crime for the rest of its life as the only employ-
ment open to a prison child. The public conscience
would be far more active if the punishment of im-
prisonment were abolished, and we went back to the
rack, the stake, the pillory, and the lash at the cart's
tail.
BLOOD SPORTS DISGUISED AS PUNISHMENT
ARE LESS CRUEL THAN IMPRISONMENT BUT
MORE DEMORALIZING TO THE PUBLIC.
The objection to retrogression is not that such
punishments are more cruel than imprisonment.
They are less cruel, and far less permanently injurious.
The decisive objection to them is that they are sports
in disguise. The pleasure to the spectators, and not
pain to the criminal, condemns them. People
will go to see Titus Oates flogged or Joan of Arc
burnt with equal zest as an entertainment. They
will pay high prices for a good view. They will
ivluctantly admit that they must not torture one
>ther as long as certain rules are observed ; but
y will hail a breach of the rules with delight as
excuse for a bout of cruelty. Yet they can be
med at last into recognizing that such exhibitions
are degrading and demoralizing ; that the execu-
t i< ner is a wretch whose hand no decent person cares
nd that the enjoyment of the S] rs is
<li>h. We have thru to find some form of torment
which can give no sensual satisfaction to the tor-
iii.ld'-n Mom public vi<-\v. That
x PREFACE
is how imprisonment, being just such a torment,
became the normal penalty. The fact that it may
be worse for the criminal is not taken into account.
The public is seeking its own salvation, not that of the
lawbreaker. It would be far better for him to suffer
in the public eye ; for among the crowd of sightseers
there might be a Victor Hugo or a Dickens, able and
willing to make the sightseers think of what they are
doing and ashamed of it. The prisoner has no such
chance. He envies the unfortunate animals in the
Zoo, watched daily by thousands of disinterested
observers who never try to convert a tiger into a
Quaker by solitary confinement, and would set up a
resounding agitation in the papers if even the most
ferocious man-eater were made to suffer what the
most docile convict suffers. Not only has the
convict no such protection : the secrecy of his
prison makes it hard to convince the public that he
is suffering at all.
HOW WE ALL BECOME INURED TO
IMPRISONMENT.
There is another reason for this incredulity. The
vast majority of our city populations are inured to
imprisonment from their childhood. The school is
a prison. The office and the factory are prisons.
The home is a prison. To the young who have the
misfortune to be what is called well brought up it is
sometimes a prison of inhuman severity. The chil-
dren of John Howard, as far as their liberty was
concerned, were treated very much as he insisted
criminals should be treated, with the result that his
children were morally disabled, like criminals. This
imprisonment in the home, the school, the office, and
the factory is kept up by browbeating, scolding,
bullying, punishing, disbelief of the prisoner's state-
ments and acceptance of those of the official, essen-
tially as in a criminal prison. The freedom given by
the adult's right to walk out of his prison is only a
freedom to go into another or starve : he can choose
the prison where he is best treated : that is all. On
BY BERNARD SHAW xi
the other hand, the imprisoned criminal is free from
care as to his board, lodging, and clothing : he pays
no taxes, and has no responsibilities. Nobody
expects him to work as an unconvicted man must
work if he is to keep his job : nobody expects him
to do his work well, or cares twopence whether it is
well done or not.
Under such circumstances it is very hard to con-
vince the ordinary citizen that the criminal is not
better off than he deserves to be, and indeed on the
verge of being positively pampered. Judges, magis-
trates, and Home Secretaries are so commonly under
the same delusion that people who have ascertained
the truth about prisons have been driven to declare
that the most urgent necessity of the situation is that
every judge, magistrate and Home Secretary should
serve a six months' sentence incognito ; so that when
he is dealing out and enforcing sentences he should
at least know what he is doing.
COMPETITION IN EVIL BETWEEN PRISON
AND SLUM.
When we get down to the poorest and most
>ressed of our population we find the conditions
of their life so wretched that it would be impossible
to conduct a prison humanely without making the lot
of the criminal more eligible than that of many free
< itizens. If the prison does not underbid the shun
in human misery, the slum will empty and the prison
will fill. This does in fact take place to a small
a present, because slum life at its worst is so
atrocious that its victims, when they are intelligent
; to study alternatives instead of taking their
l>t blindly, eoneludr th;t prison is the most comfort-
;il>l<- place to spend the winter in, and qualify them-
/es accordingly by committing an offence for whirl i
. will get MX months. But this consider it i< n
lets only those people whose condition is n<t
It d by sponsible publicist : the remedy is
.littedlv not t<> m.ikr the prison worse but the
r, Unfortunately the admitted claims of
xii PREFACE
the poor on life are pitifully modest. The moment
the treatment of the criminal is decent and merciful
enough to give him a chance of moral recovery, or,
in incorrigible cases, to avoid making bad worse, the
official descriptions of his lot become so rosy that a
clamor arises against thieves and murderers being
better off than honest and kindly men ; for the official
reports tell us only of the care that is taken of the
prisoner and the advantages he enjoys, or can earn
by good conduct, never of his sufferings ; and the
public is not imaginative or thoughtful enough to
supply the deficiency.
What sane man, I ask the clamorers, would accept
an offer of free board, lodging, clothing, waiters in
attendance at a touch of the bell, medical treatment,
spiritual advice, scientific ventilation and sanitation,
technical instruction, liberal education, and the use
of a carefully selected library, with regular exercise
daily and sacred music at frequent intervals, even at
the Ritz Hotel, if the conditions were that he should
never speak, never sing, never laugh, never see a
newspaper, and write only one sternly censored letter
and have one miserable interview at long intervals
through the bars of a cage under the eye of a warder ?
And when the prison is not the Ritz Hotel, when the
lodging, the food, the bed, are all deliberately made
so uncomfortable as to be instruments of torture,
when the clothes are rags promiscuously worn by all
your fellow prisoners in turn with yourself, when the
exercise is that of a turnspit, when the ventilation and
sanitation are noisome, when the instruction is a
sham, the education a fraud, when the doctor is a
bully to whom your ailments are all malingerings,
and the chaplain a moral snob with no time for any-
thing but the distribution of unreadable books, when
the waiters are bound by penalties not to speak to
you except to give you an order or a rebuke, and then
to address you as you would not dream of addressing
your dog, when the manager holds over your head a
continual threat of starvation and confinement in a
punishment cell (as if your own cell were not punish-
BY BERNARD SHAW xiii
ment enough), then what man in his senses would
voluntarily exchange even the most harassed freedom
for such a life, much less wallow luxuriously in it, as
the Punch burglar always does on paper the moment
anyone suggests the slightest alleviation of the pain
of imprisonment ?
GIVING THEM HELL.
Yet people cannot be brought to see this. They
ask, first, what right the convict has to complain
when he brought it on himself by his own misconduct,
and second, what he has to complain of. You reply
that his grievances are silence, solitude, idleness,
waste of time, and irresponsibility. The retort is,
' Why call that torture, as if it were boiling oil or
red hot irons or something like that ? Why, I have
taken a cottage in the country for the sake of silence
and solitude ; and I should be only too glad to get
rid of my responsibilities and waste my time in idle-
ness like a real gentleman. A jolly sight too well off,
the fellows are. I should give them hell."
Thus imprisonment is at once the most cruel of
punishments and the one that those who inflict it
without having ever experienced it cannot believe to
be cruel. A country gentleman with a big hunting
stable will indignantly discharge a groom and refuse
him a reference for cruelly thrashing a horse. But
it never occurs to him that his stables are horse
prisons, and the stall a cell in which it is quite un-
ural for the horse to be immured. In my youth
I saw the great Italian actress Ristori play Mary
art ; and nothing in her performance remains
more vividly with me than her representation of
'f of Mary at finding herself in the open air ;i
months of imprisonment. When I first saw a stud
lunters turned out to grass, they reminded me so
ni;ly of Ristori lli.it I at once understood
they had been prisoners in their stables
obvious as it was, I had not thought of before. And
sort of thoughtlessness, being continuous ;m<l
unconscious, inflicts more siiffrriiu; than ,".11 the malice
xiv PREFACE
and passion in the world. In prison you get one
piled on the other : to the cruelty that is intended and
contrived, that grudges you even the inevitable
relief of sleep and tries to make that a misery by plank
beds and the like, is added the worse cruelty that is
not intended as cruelty, and, when its perpetrators
can be made conscious of it at all, deludes them by a
ghastly semblance of pampered indulgence.
THE THREE OFFICIAL AIMS OF
IMPRISONMENT.
And now comes a further complication. When
people are at last compelled to think about what they
are doing to our unfortunate convicts, they think so
unsuccessfully and confusedly that they only make
matters worse. Take for example the official list of
the results aimed at by the Prison Commissioners.
First, imprisonment must be " retributory ' J (the
word vindictive is not in official use). Second, it
must be deterrent. Third, it must be reformative.
THE RETRIBUTION MUDDLE.
Now if you are to punish a man retributively, you
must injure him. If you are to reform him, you must
improve him. And men are not improved by injuries.
To propose to punish and reform people by the same
operation is exactly as if you were to take a man
suffering from pneumonia, and attempt to combine
punitive and curative treatment. Arguing that a
man with pneumonia is a danger to the community,
and that he need not catch it if he takes proper care
of his health, you resolve that he shall have a severe
lesson, both to punish him for his negligence and
pulmonary weakness and to deter Others from follow-
ing his example. You therefore strip him naked, and
in that condition stand him all night in the snow. But
as you admit the duty of restoring him to health if
possible, and discharging him with sound lungs, you
engage a doctor to superintend the punishment and
administer cough lozenges, made as unpleasant to
the taste as possible so as not to pamper the culprit.
BY BERNARD SHAW xv
A Board of Commissioners ordering such treatment
would prove thereby that either they were imbeciles
or else they were hotly in earnest about punishing
th" patient and not in the least in earnest about
curing him.
When our Prison Commissioners pretend to com-
bine punishment with moral reformation they are in
the same dilemma. We are told that the reformation
of the criminal is kept constantly in view ; yet the
destruction of the prisoner's self-respect by systema-
tic humiliation is deliberately ordered and practised,
and we learn from a chaplain that he " does not think
it is good to give opportunity for the exercise of
Christian and social virtues one towards another "
among prisoners. The only consolation for such
contradictions is their demonstration that, as the
tormentor instinctively feels that he must be a liar
and a hypocrite on the subject, his conscience cannot
be very easy about the torment. The contradic-
tions are obvious enough here, because I put them
< >n the same page. The Prison Commissioners keep
them a few pages apart ; and the average reader's
memory, it seems, is not long enough to span the
gap when his personal interests are not at stake.
PLAUSIBILITY OF THE DETERRENCE
DELUSION.
Deterrence, which is the real object of the courts,
has much more to be said for it, because it is neither
ply and directly wicked like retribution, no
k excuse for wickedness like reformation. It is an
unquestionable fact that, by making rules and forcing
^Q who break them to suffer so severely that others
likr them become afraid to l>n akthem, discipline-
be maintained to a certain extent among creatures
use enough to understand its necessity, or,
if they do understand it, without conscience enough
efrain from violating it. This is the crude basis
11 our disciplines, home discipline, school
. factory discipline, army ..ivy discipline.
1 as prison discipline and the whole fabric of crimi-
xvi PREFACE
nal law. It is imposed not only by cruel rulers, but
by unquestionably humane ones, the only difference
being that the cruel rulers impose it with alacrity and
gloat over its execution, and the humane rulers are
driven to it reluctantly by the failure of their appeals
to the conscience of people who have no conscience.
Thus we find Mahomet, a conspicuously humane and
conscientious Arab, keeping his fierce staff in order,
not by unusual punishments, but by threats of a hell
after death which he invented for the purpose in
revolting detail of a kind which suggests that Maho-
met had perhaps too much of the woman and the
artist in him to know what would frighten a Bedouin
most. Wellington, a general so humane that he
sacrificed the exercise of a military genius of the first
order to his moral horror of war and his freedom from
its illusions, nevertheless hanged and flogged his
soldiers mercilessly because he had learnt from exper-
ience that, as he put it, nothing is worse than im-
punity. All revolutions have been the work of
men who, like Robespierre, were sentimental human-
itarians and conscientious objectors to capital punish-
ment and the severities of military and prison dis-
cipline ; yet all the revolutions have after a very
brief practical experience been driven to Terrorism
(the proper name of Deterrence) as ruthless as the
Counter-Revolutionary Terror of Sulla, the latest
example being that of the Russian revolution now
in progress. Whether it is Sulla, Robespierre,
Trotsky, or the fighting mate of a sailing ship with a
crew of loafers and wastrels, the result is the same :
there are people to be dealt with who will not obey
the law unless they are afraid to disobey it, and whose
disobedience means disaster.
CRIME CANNOT BE KILLED BY KINDNESS.
It is useless for humanitarians to shirk this hard
fact, and proclaim their conviction that all law-
breakers can be cured by kindness. That may be
true of most cases, provided you can find a very
gifted practitioner to take the worst ones in hand,
BY BERNARD SHAW xvii
with unlimited time and means to treat them. But
if these conditions are not available, and a policeman
and an executioner who will disable the wrongdoer
instantaneously are available, the police remedy is
the only practicable one, even for rulers filled with the
spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. The late G. V.
Foote, a strong humanitarian, once had to persuade
a very intimate friend of his, a much smaller and
weaker man, to allow himself to be taken to an
asylum for lunatics. It took four hours of humani-
tarian persuasion to get the patient from the first
floor of his house to the cab door. Foote told me
that he not only recognized at once that no asylum
attendant, with several patients to attend to, could
possibly spend four hours in getting each of them
downstairs, but found his temper so intolerably
strained by the unnatural tax on his patience that if
ng point had been reached, as it certainly
would have been in the case of a warder or asylum
attendant, he would have been far more violent, not
to say savage, than if he had resorted to force at once,
and finished the job in five minutes.
From taking this rational and practically compul-
sory use of kindly physical coercion to making it so
painful that the victim will be afraid to give any
iblc next time is a pretty certain step. In
prisons, the warders have to protect themselves
again -t violence from prisoners, of which there
is a constant ri-k and very well founded dread,
there are always ungovernably savage crimi'
who have little more power of n -fi Mining from furious
assaults than some animals, including quite carefully
bred dogs and horses, have of refraining from biting
and savaging. The <>ln< -ial punishment is flogging
and pi r >r months But the immediate
assault* i'T has to be effected by
whole body of \\ within reach ; and who-
ever supposes that ti suffers nothing more
heir h;tii(N than the minimum <>f force necessary
to r him knows nothing of prison life and less
xviii PREFACE
Any criticism of the deterrent theory of our prison
system which ignores the existence of ungovernable
savages will be discredited by the citation of actual
cases. I should be dismissed as a sentimentalist if I
lost sight of them for a moment. On any other subject
I could dispose of the matter by reminding my critics
that hard cases make bad law. On this subject I
recognize that the hard cases are of such a nature
that provision must be made for them. Indeed hard
cases may be said to be the whole subject matter of
criminal law ; for the normal human case is not that
of the criminal, but of the law-abiding person on
whose collar the grip of the policeman never closes.
Only, it does not follow that the hardest cases should
dictate the treatment of the relatively soft ones.
THE SEAMY SIDE OF DETERRENCE.
Let us now see what are the objections to the
Deterrent or Terrorist system.
I. It necessarily leaves the interests of the victim
wholly out of account. It injures and degrades him ;
destroys the reputation without which he cannot
get employment ; and when the punishment is
imprisonment under our system, atrophies his powers
of fending for himself in the world. Now this would
not materially hurt anyone but himself if, when he
had been duly made an example of, he were killed like
a vivisected dog. But he is not killed. He is, at the
expiration of his sentence, flung out of the prison into
the streets to earn his living in a labor market where
nobody will employ an ex-prisoner, betraying himself
at every turn by his ignorance of the common news
of the months or years he has passed without news-
papers, lamed in speech, and terrified at the unaccus-
tomed task of providing food and lodging for himself.
There is only one lucrative occupation available for
him ; and that is crime. He has no compunction
as to society : why should he have any ? Society,
for its own selfish protection, having done its worst
to him, he has no feeling about it except a desire to
get a bit of his own back. He seeks the only com-
BY BERNARD SHAW xix
pany in which he is welcome : the society of criminals;
and sooner or later, according to his luck, he finds
himself in prison again. The figures of recidivism
\v that the exceptions to this routine are so few
to be negligible for the purposes of this argument.
The criminal, far from being deterred from crime, is
forced into it ; and the citizen whom his punishment
- meant to protect suffers from his depredations.
OUR PLAGUE OF UNRESTRAINED CRIME.
It is, in fact, admitted that the deterrent system
does not deter the convicted criminal. Its real
efficacy is sought in the deterrent effect on the free
iti/ens who would commit crimes but for their fear
mnishment. The Terrorist can point to the wide
i$e of evil-doing which, not being punished by law,
i- rampant among us ; for though a man can get
himself hanged for a momentary lapse of self-control
under intolerable provocation by a nagging woman,
uto prison for putting the precepts of Christ above
orders of a Competent Military Authority, he can
be a quite infernal scoundrel without breaking any
penal law. If it be true, as it certainly is, that it is
conscience and not the fear of punishment that makes
ilized life possible, and that Dr. Johnson's
How small, of all that human hearts endure
That part that laws or kings can cause or cure !
is as applicable to crime as to human activity in
gen- none the less true that commercial
presents an appalling spectacle of pillage
l corruption in the press and in the
pul: lying advertisements which make people
nk poisons in the belief that they are health
f traps to catch the provision for the widow
! the fatherless and divert it 1<> the pockets of
company promoting rogues, of villainous oppression
ioor and cruelty to ih< defenceless ; and i
arguable that most of thU eould, lik- bur md
forgery, be kept within 1 e bounds if it^
ators were dealt with as burglars and forgers
dealt with to-day. It is, of course, equally
xx PREFACE
arguable that if we can afford to leave so much vil-
lainy unpunished we can afford to leave all villainy
unpunished. Unfortunately, we cannot afford it :
our toleration is threatening our civilization. The
prosperity that consists in the wicked flourishing like
a green bay tree, and the humble and contrite hearts
being thoroughly despised, is a commercial delusion.
Facts must be looked in the face, rascals told what
they are, and all men called on to justify their ways
to God and Man up to the point at which the full
discharge of their social duties leaves them free to
exercise their individual fancies. Restraint from
evil-doing is within the rights as well as within the
powers of organized society over its members ; and
it cannot be denied that the execution of these
powers, as far as it could be made inevitable, would
incidentally deter from crime a certain number of
people with a marginal conscience or none at all, and
that their codification would create fresh social
conscience by enlarging the list of things which law-
abiding people make it a point of honor not to do,
besides calling the attention of the community to
grave matters in which they have hitherto erred
through thoughtlessness.
DETERRENCE A FUNCTION OF CERTAINTY,
NOT OF SEVERITY.
But there is all the difference in the world between
deterrence as an incident of the operation of criminal
law, and deterrence as its sole object and justification.
In a purely deterrent system, for instance, it matters
not a jot who is punished provided somebody is
punished and the public persuaded that he is guilty.
The effect of hanging or imprisoning the wrong man
is as deterrent as hanging or imprisoning the right
one. This is the fundamental explanation of the
extreme and apparently fiendish reluctance of the
Home Office to release a prisoner when, as in the
Beck case, the evidence on which he was convicted
has become discredited to a point at which no jury
would maintain its verdict of guilty. The reluctance
BY BERNARD SHAW xxi
is not to confess that an innocent man is being pun-
ished, but to proclaim that a guilty man has escaped.
For if escape is possible, deterrence shrinks almost
to nothing. There is no better established rule of
criminology than that it i c not the severity of punish-
ment that deters, but its certainty. And the flaw
in the case for Terrorism is that it is impossible to
ain enough certainty to deter. The police are
compelled to confess every year, when they publish
ir statistics, that against the list of crimes reported
to them they can set only a percentage of detections
and convictions. And the list of reported crimes can
l>nn only a percentage, how large or small it is
impossible to say, but probably small, of the crimes
actually committed ; for it is the greatest mistake
to suppose that everyone who is robbed runs to the
] M.I ice : on the contrary, only foolish and ignorant
<r very angry people do so without very serious con-
sideration and great reluctance. In most cases it
costs nothing to let the thief off, and a good deal to
prosecute him. The burglar in Heartbreak House,
> makes his living by robbing people, and then
blackmailing them by threatening to give himself up
to the police and put them to the expense and dis-
comfort of attending his trial and giving evidence
i enduring all the worry of the police enquiries,
joke : he is a comic dramatization of
recess that is going on every day. As to the
"[ ie-]>ectablc families who black-
i tin- m by offering them the alternative of
making good their thefts and frauds or having the
:ne disgraced, ask any experienced family
r.
uht win tin r the chances of acquittal count for
. much except with very attractive women ; but
>rth mentioning that juries will snatch at the
ilimsiest pretexts for refusing to send people 4 who
age their sympathy to the gallows or to penal
even on evidence of murder or theft
which would make short work of a repul-
on.
PREFACE
SOME PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
Take my own experience as probably common
enough. Fifty years ago a friend of mine, hearing
that a legacy had been left him, lent himself the
expected sum out of his employers' cash ; concealed
the defalcation by falsifying his accounts ; and was
detected before he could repay. His employers
naturally resented the fraud, and had no desire to
spare the culprit. But a public exposure of the affair
would have involved shock to their clients' sense of
security, loss of time and consequently of money,
and the unpleasantness of attendance in court at the
trial. All this put any recourse to the police out of the
question ; and the delinquent obtained another post
after a very brief interval during which he supported
himself as a church organist. This, by the way, was
a quite desirable conclusion, as he was for most
practical purposes an honest man. It would have
been pure mischief to make him a criminal ; but
that is not the present point. He serves here as an
illustration of the fact that our criminal law, far
from inviting prosecution, attaches serious losses and
inconveniences to it.
It may be said that whatever the losses and incon-
veniences may be, it is a public duty to prosecute.
But is it ? Is it not a Christian duty not to prosecute ?
A man stole 500 from me by a trick. He speculated
in my character with subtlety and success ; and yet
he ran risks of detection which no quite sensible man
would have ventured on. It was assumed that I
would resort to the police. I asked why. The
answer was that he should be punished to deter others
from similar crimes. I naturally said, " You have
been punishing people cruelly for more than a century
for this kind of fraud ; and the result is that I am
robbed of 500. Evidently your deterrence does not
deter. What it does do is to torment the swindler
for years, and then throw him back, a worse man
in every respect, upon society with no other employ-
ment open to him except that of fresh swindling.
However, your elaborate arrangements to deter me
BY BERNARD SHAW xxiii
from prosecuting are convincing and effective. I
could earn 500 by useful work in the time it would
take me to prosecute this man vindictively and worse
than uselessly. So I wish him joy of his booty, and
invite him to swindle me again if he can/' Now this
- not sentimentality. I am not a bit fonder of being
>windled than other people ; and if society would
treat swindlers properly I should denounce them with-
< ait the slightest remorse, and not grudge a reasonable
expenditure of time and energy in the business. But
iirow good money after bad in setting to work a
wicked and mischievous process like the one described
in this book would be to stamp myself as a worse man
than the swindler, who earned the money more
energetically, and appropriated it no more unjustly,
than I earn and appropriate my dividends.
I must however warn our thieves that I can pro-
mise them no immunity from police pursuit if they
Sometime after the operation just recorded,
an uninvited guest came to a luncheon party in my
house. He (or she) got away with an overcoat and
a pocketful of my wife's best table silver. But
instead of selecting my overcoat, he took the best
overcoat, which was that of one of my guests. My
guest was insured against theft ; the insurance com-
pany had to buy him a new overcoat ; and the matter
thus passed out of my hands into those of the police.
But the result, as far as the thief was concerned,
the same. He was not captured ; and he had
the social satisfaction of providing employment for
rs in converting into a strongly fortified obstacle
flimsy gate through which he had effected an
e, thereby giving my flat the appearance of a
ate madhoi;
On another occasion a drunken woman obtained
admission by presenting an authentic letter from a
arted member of the House of Lords. I i
guests at the moment ; and as she, too, wanted
an overcoat, she took mine, and actually interviewed
with it most perfunctorily concealed under her
When I called her attention to it, she handed
xxiv PREFACE
it back to me effusively; begged me to shake hands
with her ; and went her way.
Now these things occur by the dozen every day,
in spite of the severity with which they are punished
when the thief is captured by the police. I daresay
all my readers, if not too young to have completed a
representative experience, could add two or three
similar stories. What do they go to prove ? Just
that detection is so uncertain that its consequences
have no really^ effective deterrence for the potential
offender, whilst the unpleasant and expensive con-
sequences of prosecution, being absolutely certain,
have a very strong deterrent effect indeed on the
prosecutor. In short, all the hideous cruelty prac-
tised by us for the sake of deterrence is wasted : we
are damning our souls at great expense and trouble
for nothing.
JUDICIAL VENGEANCE AS AN ALTERNATIVE
TO LYNCH LAW.
Thus we see that of the three official objects of our
prison system : vengeance, deterrence, and reforma-
tion of the criminal, only one is achieved ; and that
is the one which is nakedly abominable. But there
is a plea for it which must be taken into account, and
which brings us to the root of the matter in our own
characters. It is said, and it is in a certain degree
true, that if the Government does not lawfully
organize and regulate popular vengeance, the popu-
lace will rise up and execute this vengeance lawlessly
for itself. The standard defence of the Inquisition
is that without it no heretic's life would have been
safe. In Texas to-day the people are not satisfied
with the prospect of knowing that a murderer and ra-
visher will be electrocuted inside a jail if a jury can
resist the defence put up by his lawyer. They tear
him from the hands of the sheriff ; pour lamp oil
over him ; and burn him alive. Now the burning
of human beings is not only an expression of outraged
public morality : it is also a sport for which a taste
can be acquired much more easily and rapidly than
BY BERNARD SHAW xxv
a taste for coursing hares, just as a taste for drink
can be acquired from brandy and cocktails more easily
and rapidly than from beer or sauterne. Lynching
mobs begin with negro ravishers and murderers ; but
they presently go on to any sort of delinquent,
provided he is black. Later on, as a white man will
burn as amusingly as a black one, and a white woman
react to tarring and feathering as thrillingly as a
negress, the color line is effaced by what professes to
be a rising wave of virtuous indignation, but is in
fact an epidemic of Sadism. The defenders of our
penal system take advantage of it to assure us that
if they did not torment and ruin a boy guilty of
sleeping in the open air, the British public would rise
and tear that boy limb from limb.
Now the reply to such a plea, from the point of view
of civilized law, cannot be too sweeping. The govern-
ment which cannot restrain a mob from taking the
law into its own hands is no government at all. If
idru can go to the guillotine unmolested in France,
and his British prototype who drowned all his wives
in thtir baths can be peaceably hanged in England,
<as can protect its criminals by simply bringing its
civilization up to the French and British level. But
indeed the besetting sin of the mob is a morbid hero
worship of great criminals rather than a ferocious
abhorrence of them. In any case nobody will have
ontery to pretend that the number of criminals
who excite popular feeling enough to risk lynching is
more than a negligible percentage of the whole. The
>ry that the problem of crime is only one of organ-
izing, regulating, and executing the vengeance of the
mob will not bear plain statement, much less dis-
cussion. It is only the retributive theory over again
in r kesi
11 IE HARD CASES THAT MAKE BAD LAW.
Having now disposed of all the official theories as
-h they are, let us return to the facts, and d
with the hard ones iirM. Everyone \vh<> has any
rience of domesticated animals, him :
xxvi PREFACE
or other, knows that there are negatively bad speci-
mens who have no conscience, and positively bad
ones who are incurably ferocious. The negative
ones are often very agreeable and even charming
companions ; but they beg, borrow, steal, defraud
iind seduce almost by reflex action : they cannot
resist the most trifling temptation. They are in-
dulged and spared to the extreme limit of endurance ;
but in the end they have to be deprived of their
liberty in some way. The positive ones enjoy no
such tolerance. Unless they are physically restrained
they break people's bones, knock out their eyes,
rupture their organs, or kill them.
Then there are the cruel people, not necessarily
unable to control their tempers, nor fraudulent, nor
in any other way disqualified for ordinary social
activity or liberty, possibly even with conspicuous
virtues. But by a horrible involution, they lust
after the spectacle of suffering, mental and physical,
as normal men lust after love. Torture is to them a
pleasure except when it is inflicted on themselves.
In scores of ways, from the habitual utterance of
wounding speeches, and the contriving of sly injuries
and humiliations for which they cannot be brought to
book legally, to thrashing their wives and children
or, as bachelors, paying prostitutes of the hardier
sort to submit to floggings, they seek the satisfaction
of their desire wherever and however they can.
POSSIBILITIES OF THERAPEUTIC TREAT-
MENT.
Now in the present state of our knowledge it is
folly to talk of reforming these people. By this I do
not mean that even now they are all quite incurable.
The cases of no conscience are sometimes cases of
una wakened conscience. Violent and quarrelsome
people are often only energetic people who are under-
worked : I have known a man cured of wife-beating
by setting him to beat the drum in a village band ;
and the quarrels that make country life so very
unarcadian are picked mostly because the quarrelers
BY BERNARD SHAW xxvii
have not enough friction in their lives to keep them
good humored.
Psycho-analysis, too, which is not all quackery and
pornography, might conceivably cure a case of Sadism
as it might cure any of the phobias. And psycho-
analysis is a mere fancy compared to the knowledge
we have been gathering recently as to the functions
of our glands in relation to our conduct. In the
nineteenth century this knowledge was pursued
barously by crude vivisectors whose notion of
finding out what a gland was for was to cut it violently
out and see what would happen to the victim,
.in while trying to bribe the public to tolerate such
horrors by promising to make old debauchees young
In. This was rightly felt to be a villainous busi-
besides, who could suppose that the men who
did these things would hesitate to lie about the results
when there was plenty of money to be made by repre-
senting them as cures for dreaded diseases ? But
not asked to infer that because some-
thing has happened to a horribly mutilated dog it will
i also to an immutilated human being. We
now make authentic pictures of internal organs
by means of rays to which flesh is transparent. This
makes it possible to take a criminal and say authori-
ively that he is a case, not of original sin, but of an
; linen t, or excessively efficient, thyroid gland, or
pituitary idand, or adrenal gland, as the case may be.
Tliis of course does not help the police in dealing with
a criminal : they must apprehend and bring him to
trial all tin- >ame. But if the prison doctor were able
to say " Put some iodine in this man's skilly, and his
racter will change/' then the notion of punishing
'ead of curing him would become ridiculous. Of
course tin- matter is not so simple as that ; but a
le case < an be made out for at least a
ure that in. my cases which are now incurable
disposed of in the not very rem<>t< future by
either nidii. ing tl. nt to produce more thyroxin
01 pitnitiin or adrenalin or what not, or else acuninis-
. | .
xxviii PREFACE
tercel in cases of myxoedema. Yet the reports of the
work of our prison medical officers suggest that
hardly any of them has ever heard of these discover-
ies, or regards a convict as anything more interesting
scientifically than a malingering rascal.
THE INCORRIGIBLE VILLAINS.
It will be seen that I am prepared to go to lengths
which still seem fantastic as to the possibility of
changing a criminal into an honest man. But I
cannot add too emphatically that the people who
imagine that criminals can be reformed by setting
chaplains to preach at them, by giving them pious
books and tracts to read, by separating them from
their companions in crime and locking them up in
solitude to reflect on their sins and repent, are far
worse enemies both to the criminal and to society
than those who face the fact that these are merely
additional cruelties which make their victims worse,
or even than those who frankly use them as a means
of " giving them hell/' But when this is recognized,
and the silly reformers with their sermons, their
tracts, their horrors of separation, silence, and soli-
tude to avoid contamination, are bundled out of our
prisons as nuisances, the problem remains, how are
you to deal with your incorrigibles ? Here you have
a man who supports himself by gaining the confidence
and affection of lonely women ; seducing them ;
spending all their money ; and then burning them
in a stove or drowning them in a bath. He is quite
an attractive fellow, with a genuine taste for women
and no taste at all for murder, which is only his way
of getting rid of them when their money is spent
and they are in the way of the next woman. There is
no more malice or Sadism about the final operation
than there is about tearing up a letter when it is done
with, and throwing it into the waste paper basket.
You hang him or chop his head off. But presently
you have to deal with a man who lives in exactly
the same way, but has not executive force or courage
enough to commit murder. He only abandons his
BY BERNARD SHAW xxix
victims and turns up in a fresh place with a fresh name.
He generally marries them, as it is easier to seduce
them so.
Alongside him you have a married couple united
by a passion for cruelty. They amuse themselves
by tying their children to the bedstead ; thrashing
th m with straps; and branding them with red hot
pokers. You also have to deal with a man who on
the slightest irritation flings his wife under a dray, or
throws a lighted paraffin lamp into her face. He has
been in prison again and again for outbursts of this
kind ; and always, within a week of his release, or
within a few hours of it, he has done it again.
Now you cannot get rid of these monsters by sim-
ply cataloguing them as subthyroidics and superad-
renals or the like. At present you torment them for
a fixed period, at the end of which they are set free
to resume their operations with a savage grudge
against the community which has tormented them.
t is stupid. Nothing is gained by punishing
people who cannot help themselves, and on whom
deterrence is thrown away. Releasing them is like
asing the tigers from the Zoo to find their next
meal in the children's playing ground in Regent's
rk,
THE LETHAL CHAMBER.
most obvious course is to kill them. Some of
the popular objections to this may be considered for
noment. Death, it is said, is irrevocable; and
r all, they may turn out to be innocent. But
\ ou cannot handle criminals on the assumption
. be innocent. You are not supposed
to handle them at all until you have convinced
yourself by an elaborate trial that they are guilty.
Bcs tnprisonment is as irrevocable as hangi
tet hod oi taking a criminal's life ; and when
iers hanging or suicide to imprisonment for
, as he sometimes does, he says,in effect , that he
r YOU took his life ;ill ;it oi ; !ilessly,
n minute by minute by long d; arc.
xxx PREFACE
You can give a prisoner a pardon ; but you cannot
give him back a moment of his imprisonment. He
may accept a reprieve willingly in the hope of a par-
don or an escape or a revolution or an earthquake
or what not ; but as you do not mean him to evade
his sentence in any way whatever, it is not for you to
take such clutchings at straws into account.
Another argument against the death penalty for
anything short of murder is the practical one of the
policeman and the householder, who plead that if
you hang burglars they will shoot to avoid capture
on the plea that they may as well be hanged for a
sheep as for a lamb. But this can be disposed of
by pointing out, first, that even under existing circum-
stances the burglar occasionally shoots, and, second,
that recommendations to mercy, verdicts of man-
slaughter, successful pleas of insanity and so forth,
already make the death penalty so uncertain that
even red-handed murderers shoot no oftener than
burglars less often, in fact. This uncertainty would
be actually increased if the death sentence were, as
it should be, made applicable to other criminals than
those convicted of wilful murder, and no longer made
compulsory in any case.
THE SACREDNESS OF HUMAN LIFE FROM
THE WARDER'S SIDE.
Then comes the plea for the sacredness of human
life. The State should not set the example of killing,
or of clubbing a rioter with a policeman's baton, or
of dropping bombs on a sleeping city, or of doing
many things that States nevertheless have to do.
But let us take the plea on its own ground, which is,
fundamentally, that life is the most precious of all
things, and its waste the worst of crimes. We have
already seen that imprisonment does not spare the
life of the criminal : it takes it and wastes it in the
most cruel way. But there are others to be consid-
ered besides the criminal and the citizens who fear
him so much that they cannot sleep in peace unless
he is locked up. There are the people who have to
BY BERNARD SHAW xxxi
lock him up, and fetch him his food, and watch him.
Why are their lives to be wasted? Warders, and
especially wardresses, are almost as much tied to the
prison by their occupation, and by their pensions,
which they dare not forfeit by seeking other employ-
ment, as the criminals are. If I had to choose between
a spell under preventive detention among hardened
Is in Camp Hill and one as warder in an ordi-
nary prison, I think I should vote for Camp Hill. War-
ders suffer in body and mind from their employment ;
and if it bo true, as our examination seems to prove,
i they are doing no good to society, but very
larm, their lives are wasted more completely
:i those of the criminals ; for most criminals are
ged after a few weeks or months ; but the
der never escapes until he is superannuated, by
which time he is an older gaolbird than any Lifer
in the cells,
THE PRICE OF LIFE IN COMMUNITIES.
How then does the case stand with your incurable
pathological case of crime ? If you treat the life
he criminal as sacred, you find yourself not only
ing his life but sacrificing the lives of innocent
n and women to keep him locked up. There is
of sense or humanity in such a course. The
mnnn-nt we face it frankly we are driven to the con-
clusion that the community has a right to put a price
the right to live in it. That price must be suffi-
tolive without wasting and destr
tin- lives of others, whether by direct attack like
kntation like a leech, or having
to be held in a leash with another person at the <
Persons lacking such -elf-control have, in
i"rica, been thrust out into the sagc-bn^h to
d.-r there until they die of thirst, a cruel and
lly way of killing them. We in ml
could drive them ilie sea, if we were equal Iv
Thi- dread of clean and wilful killing leads
more cruel evasions of the comin.'ndm-
I kill." It has never been '-iN
xxxii PREFACE
obey it, either with men or with animals ; and the
attempts to keep the letter of it have led to burying
vestal virgins and nuns alive, crushing men to death
in the press-yard, handing heretics over to the secular
arm, and the like, instead of killing them humanely
and without any evasion of the heavy responsibility
involved. It was a horrible thing to build a vestal
virgin into a wall with food and water enough for a
day ; but to build her into a prison for years as we do
with just enough loathsome food to prevent her from
dying is more than horrible : it is diabolical. If no
better alternatives to death can be found than these,
then who will not vote for death ? If people arc fit
to live, let them live under decent human conditions.
If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human
way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven
to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the
hard cases which are at present made the excuse for
dragging all the other cases down to their level, and
the only one that will create a sense of full social
responsibility in modern populations ?
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.
The slaughtering of incorrigibly dangerous persons,
as distinguished from the punitive execution of
murderers who have violated the commandment not
to kill, cannot be established summarily by these
practical considerations. In spite of their cogency
we have not only individuals who are resolutely and
uncompromisingly opposed to slaying under any
provocation whatever, we have nations who have
abolished the death penalty, and who regard our
retention of it as barbarous. Wider than any nation
we have the Roman Catholic Church, which insists
literally on absolute obedience to the commandment,
and condemns as murder even the killing of an
unborn child to save the mother's life. In practice
this obligation has been evaded so grossly by the
Inquisition, for example, which refused to slay the
heretic, but handed him over to the secular arm with
a formal recommendation to mercy, knowing that
BY BERNARD SHAW xxxiii
the secular arm would immediately burn him that
the case of the Church might be cited to illustrate the
uselessness of barring the death penalty. But it also
illustrates the persistence and antiquity of a point
of conscience which still defies all arguments from
expediency. That point of conscience may be called
a superstition because it is as old as Buddhism or the
story of Cain and older, and because it is difficult to
find any rational basis for it. But there is something
to be said for it all the same.
Killing is a dangerously cheap way out of a diffi-
culty. " Stone dead hath no fellow " was a handy
formula for Cromwell's troops in dealing with the
Irish ; still, that precedent is not very reassuring.
All the social problems of all the countries can be got
rid of by extirpating the inhabitants ; but to get
rid of a problem is not to solve it. It may be argued
t if society were to forgo its power of slaying, and
also its practice of punishment, it would have a
strong incentive to find out how to correct the
apparently incorrigible. It is true that whenever it
has renounced its power to slay it has substituted a
horribly rigorous and indeed virtually lethal imprison-
ment ; but this does not apply to homicidal lunatics,
our comparatively lenient treatment of whom at
Broadmoor could obviously be extended to sane
murderers. Besides, the proposal to slay the incor-
rigibly dangerous is not peculiar to murder. It has
nothing to do with capital punishment as at present
practised : indeed it implies that executions of
murderers, traitors, pirates, ravishers, incendiaries
and vitriol throwers under existing laws may be a
ste of useful human life. The Oxford
Dictionary owes several of its pages to a homicide
\vhowasdetainedat Broadnvor (the English A^vlum
:minal Lunatics) during the pleasure of the
Crown. The iv;:llv hard hose which might,
if not disposed of by the lethal meth<
ing s tigers are caged pending the discovery
of some method of taming them. Granted that it is
questionable whether the public conscience which
xxxiv PREFACE
tolerates such caging is really more sensitive or
thoughtful than that which demands the lethal
solution, and that at the present time executions,
and even floggings, do not harden the authorities and
lower the standard of humanity all through our penal
system as continuing penalties do, yet the reluctance
remains. The moment it is pointed out that if we
kill incurable criminals we may as well also kill
incurable invalids, people realize with a shock that
the urge of horror, hatred, and vengeance is needed
to nerve them or unnerve them to slay. The
moment I force humane people to face its considera-
tion as I am doing now, I produce a terrified impres-
sion that I want to hang everybody. In vain do I
protest that I am dealing with a very small class of
human monsters, and that as far as crime is concerned
our indiscriminate hanging of wilful murderers and
traitors slays more in one year than dispassionate
lethal treatment would be likely to slay in ten. I
am asked at once who is to be trusted with the appal-
ling responsibility of deciding whether a man is to
live or die, and what government could be trusted not
to kill its enemies under the pretence that they are
enemies of society.
GOVERNMENTS MUST PRESUME OR
ABDICATE.
The reply is obvious. Such responsibilities must
be taken, whether we are fit for them or not, if civil-
ized society is to be organized. No unofficial person
denies that they are abused : the whole effect of this
book is to shew that they are horribly abused. I can
say for my own part as a vehement critic and oppo-
nent of all the Governments of which I have had any
experience that I am the last person to forget that
Governments use the criminal law to suppress and
exterminate their opponents whenever the opposition
becomes really acute, and that the more virtuous the
revolutionist and the more vicious the Government,
the more likely it is to kill him, and to do so under
pretence of his being one of the dangerous persons for
BY BERNARD SHAW xxxv
whom the lethal treatment would be reserved. It
has been pointed out again and again that it is in the
very nature of power to corrupt those to whom it is
entrusted, and that to God alone belongs the awful
prerogative of dismissing the soul from the body.
Tolstoy has exhausted the persuasions of literary art
in exhorting us that we resist not evil ; and men have
suffered abominable persecutions sooner than accept
military service with its chief commandment, Thou
It kill.
All this leaves the problem just where it was. The
-ponsible humanitarian citizen may indulge his
pity and sympathy to his heart's content, knowing
t liat there, but for the grace of God, goes he whenever
a criminal passes to his doom ; but he who has to
govern finds that he must either abdicate, and that
promptly, or else take on himself as best he can many
of the attributes of God. He must decide what is
good and what evil ; he must force men to do certain
:gs and refrain from doing certain other things
ther their consciences approve or not ; he must
1st evil resolutely and continually, possibly and
bly without malice or revenge, but certainly
with the effect of disarming it, preventing it, stamp-
ing it out, and creating public opinion against it.
In short, he must do all sorts of things which he is
manifestly not ideally fit to do, and, let us hope, does
with becoming misgiving ; but they must be done,
the san i or ill, somehow and by somebody.
If 1 to ignore this, everyone who has had any
nee of government would throw these pages
de as those of an inexperienced sentimentalist or
Impossibilist / ist.
Nev ertain lin< - liave to be drawn limit-
activities of governments, and allowing the
to be a law unto himself. For instai
.ire obliged (if we are wise) to tolerate sedition
blasphemy to a considerable extent because sedition
and blasphemy are nothing more than the advocacy
of ( < I forms of governm
, and reli; 1 without Mirh changes
xxxvi PREFACE
there can be no social evolution. But as govern-
ments are not always wise, it is difficult enough to
secure this intellectual anarchy, or as we call it,
freedom of speech and conscience ; and anyone who
proposed to extend it to such actions as are contem-
plated by the advocates of lethal treatment would be
dismissed as insane. No country at peace will tolerate
murder, whether it is done on principle or in sin.
What is more, no country at war will tolerate a refusal
to murder the enemy. Thus, whether the powers of
the country are being exercised for good or evil, they
are exercised ; and whoever proposes to set to those
powers the limit of an absolute obedience to the com-
mandment Thou shalt not kill, must do so quite
arbitrarily. He cannot give any reason that I can
discover for saying that it is wickeder to break a
man's neck than to cage him for life : he can only
say that his instinct places an overwhelming ban on
the one and not on the other ; and he -must depend
on the existence of a similar instinct in the commun-
ity for his success in having slaying legally ruled out.
THE RUTHLESSNESS OF THE PURE HEART.
In this he will have little difficulty as long as the
slaying is an act of revenge and expiation, as it is at
present : that is why capital punishment has been
abolished in some countries, and why its abolition is
agitated for in the countries which still practise it. But
if these sinful elements be discarded, and the slaying is
made a matter of pure expediency, the criminal being
pitied as sincerely as a mad dog is pitied, the most
ardent present advocate of the abolition of capital
punishment may not only consent to the slaying as
he does in the case of the mad dog, but even demand
it to put an end to an unendurable danger and horror.
Malice and fear are narrow things, and carry with
them a thousand inhibitions and terrors and scruples.
A heart and brain purified of them gain an enormous
freedom ; and this freedom is shewn not only in the
many civilized activities that are tabooed in the
savage tribe, but also in the ruthlessness with which
BY BERNARD SHAW xxxvii
the civilized man destroys things that the savage
prays to and propitiates. The attempt to reform an
incurably dangerous criminal may come to be classed
with the attempt to propitiate a sacred rattlesnake ;
and a higher civilization does not make still greater
sacrifices to the snake : it kills it.
I am driven to conclude, that though, if voluntary
custodians can be found for dangerous incorrigibles,
as they doubtless can by attaching compensating
advantages to their employment, it is quite possi-
ble to proceed with slaying absolutely barred, there
is not enough likelihood of this renunciation by the
State of the powers of life and death to justify me in
leaving lethal treatment out of the question. In
any case it would be impossible to obtain any clear
thinking on the question unless its possibilities were
frankly faced and to some extent explored. I have
faced them frankly and explored them as far as seems
necessary ; and at that I must leave it. Nothing
that I have to say about the other sorts of criminals
will be in the least invalidated if it should be decided
th-.it killing is to be ruled out. I think it quite likely
that it may be ruled out on sentimental grounds
exactly as it is practised on sentimental grounds.
By the time we have reached solid ground the shock
of reintroducing it (though this has been effected
and even clamored for in some countries) may be
too great to be faced under normal conditions. Also,
as far as what il crime is concerned, the matter
;ot one of the first importance. I should be sur-
i in so large a population as ours, it
would ever be thought necessary to extirpate one
ninal as utterly unmanageable every year; and
this means, of course, that if we decide to cage such
people 1 , the cngc need not be a very large one.
writing as an advocate one wax-
other. I with European
An: ilization, which, hnving no long<
a century ago executed people for offences n
pun; v months or c\vn weeks imprison-
ment, has advanced to a point at which in half
xxxviii PREFACE
a dozen crimes are punishable by death : murder,
piracy, rape, arson, and (in Scotland) vitriol throwing.
The opponents of capital punishment usually believe,
naturally enough, that the effect of abandoning the
notion of punishment altogether as sinful (which it
is) will sweep away the scaffold from these crimes
also, and thus make an end of the death penalty.
No doubt it will ; but I foresee that it will reintroduce
the idea of killing dangerous people simply because
they are dangerous, without the least desire to punish
them, and without specific reference to the actions
which have called attention to their dangerousness.
That extremity may be met with an absolute veto, or
it may not. I cannot foresee which side I should
take : a wise man does not ford a stream til he gets
to it. But I am so sure that the situation will arise,
that I have to deal with it here as impersonally as
may be, without committing myself or anyone else
one way or the other.
THE SOFT CASES THAT WE TURN INTO
HARD ONES.
Now let us look at the other end of the scale, where
the soft cases are. Here we are confronted with the
staggering fact that many of our prisoners have not
been convicted of any offence at all. They are await-
ing their trial, and are too poor and friendless to find
bail ; whilst others have been convicted of mere
breaches of bye-laws of which they were ignorant,
and which they could not have guessed by their
sense of right and wrong ; for many bye-laws have no
ethical character whatever. For example, a boy
sells a newspaper on the premises of a railway com-
pany, and thereby infringes a bye-law the object of
which is to protect the commercial monopoly of the
newsagents who have paid the company for the right
to have a bookstall on the platform. The boy's
brother jostles a passenger who is burdened with hand
luggage, and says "Carry your bag, sir?" These
perfectly innocent lads are sent to prison, though the
warders themselves admit that a sentence of im-
BY BERNARD SHAW xxxix
prisonment is so ruinous to a boy's morals that they
would rather see their own sons dead than in prison.
But let us take the guilty. The great majority of
them have been convicted of petty frauds compared
to which the common practices of the commercial
world are serious crimes. Herbert Spencer's essays
on the laxity of the morals of trade have called no
trader successfully to repentance. It is not too
much to say that any contractor in Europe or
America who does not secure business by tenders and
estimates and specifications for work and materials
which he has not the smallest intention of doing or
putting in, and who does not resort to bribery to
have the work and materials he actually does do and
put in passed by anybody whose duty it is to check
them, is an exceptional man. The usage is so much
a matter of course, and competition has made it so
compulsory, that conscience is awakened only when
the fraud is carried to some unusual length. I can
remember t\vo cases which illustrate what I mean
very well. A builder of high commercial standing
contracted to put up a public building. When the
rk began, he found that the clerk of the works,
whose business it was to check the work on behalf
of the purchaser, lived opposite the building site.
The contractor immediately protested that this was
not part of the bargain, and that his estimate had
been obtained on false pretences. The other is the
case of the omnibus conductors of London when the
alarum punch was invented and introduced. Ti
immediately struck for higher wages, and got them,
frankly on the ground that the punch had cut off the
oentage they had been accustomed to add to tl
;es by peculation, and that it should be made up
i hem.
Both thc^e cases prove that dishonesty does not
when it becomes general. The contractor might
as well intimate for the work he really does and
material he actually uses; for, after all, since his
object i- in I- mpt the purchaser by keeping pi;
n, he has to give him the benefit of the fraud. If
xl PREFACE
the purchaser finds him out and says, for example,
" You estimated for galvanized pipes and you have
put in plain ones/' the contractor can reply, " If I
had put in galvanized pipes I should have had to
charge you more/' In the same way, the bus con-
ductors might just as well have struck for an increase
of wage as stolen it : the event proved they could have
got it. But they thought they could secure employ-
ment more easily by asking for a low wage and making
it up to their needs surreptitiously. It is one of
the grievances of clerks in many businesses that they
have to connive at dishonest practices as part of the
regular routine of the office ; but neither they nor
their employers are any the richer, because business
always finally settles down to the facts, and is con-
ducted in terms not of the pretence but of the reality.
MOST PRISONERS NO WORSE THAN
OURSELVES.
We may take it, then, that the thief who is in
prison is rot necessarily more dishonest than his
fellows at large, but mostly only one who, through
ignorance or stupidity, steals in a way that is not
customary. He snatches a loaf from the baker's
counter and is promptly run into gaol. Another
man snatches bread from the tables of hundreds of
widows and orphans and simple credulous souls who
do not know the ways of company promoters ; and,
as likely as not, he is run into Parliament. You may
say that the remedy for this is not to spare the lesser
offender but to punish the greater ; but there you miss
my present point, which is, that as the great majority
of prisoners are not a bit more dishonest naturally
than thousands of people who are not only at liberty,
but highly pampered, it is no use telling me that
society will fall into anarchic dissolution if these
unlucky prisoners are treated with common human-
ity. On the contrary, when we see the outrageous
extent to which the most shamelessly selfish rogues
and rascals can be granted not only impunity but
encouragement and magnificent remuneration, we
BY BERNARD SHAW xli
are tempted to ask ourselves have we any right to
restrain anyone at all from doing his worst to us. The
first prison I ever saw had inscribed on it CEASE TO
DO EVIL : LEARN TO DO WELL ; but as the inscription
- on the outside, the prisoners could not read it.
It should have been addressed to the self-righteous
free spectator in the street, and should have run ALL
HAVE SINNED, AND FALLEN SHORT OF THE GLORY OF
GOD.
\Ye must get out of the habit of painting human
character in soot and whitewash. It is not true that
men can be divided into absolutely honest persons
and absolutely dishonest ones. Our honesty varies
with the strain put on it : this is proved by the fact
that every additional penny of income tax brings in
less tLan the penny preceding. The purchaser of a
horse or motor-car has to beware much more carefully
than the purchaser of an article worth five shillings. If
you take Landru at one extreme, and at the other the
prisoner whose crime is sleeping out : that is to say
whose crime is no crime at all, you can place every
sane human being, from the monarch to the tramp,
somewhere on the scale between them. Not one of
them has a blank page in the books of the recording
angel. From the people who tell white lies about
their ages, social positions, and incomes, to those who
grind the faces of the poor, or marry whilst suffering
from contagious disease, or buy valuable properties
from inexperienced owners for a tenth of their value,
or sell worthless shares for the whole of a widow's
savings, or obtain vast sums on false pretences held
forth by lying advertisements, to say nothing of
bullying and beating in their homes, and drinking and
debauching in their bachelorhood, you could at any
inoni' -nt find dozens of people v er been
imprisoned and never will >rse
my but the very worst of our convicts.
Much of the difference be i the bond and the free
terence in circumstances only : if a man is
hungry, and his children are ailing only because they
can tell whether he wouM
xlii PREFACE
steal a loaf if his children were crying for bread and
he himself had not tasted a mouthful for twenty-four
hours. Therefore, if you are in an attitude of moral
superiority to our convicts : if you are one of the
Serve Them Right and Give Them Hell brigade, you
may j ustly be invited, in your own vernacular, either to
Come Off It, or else Go Inside and take the measure
you are meting out to others no worse than your-
self.
GOOD SOLDIERS OFTEN BAD CITIZENS, AND
BAD CITIZENS GOOD PRISONERS.
The distinction between the people the criminal
law need deal with and those it may safely leave at
large is not a distinction between depravity and good
nature : it is a distinction between people who can-
not, as they themselves put it, go straight except
in leading strings, and those who can. Incurable
criminals make wellbehaved soldiers and prisoners.
The war of 1914-18 almost emptied our prisons of
ablebodied men ; and in the leading strings of mili-
tary discipline these men ceased to be criminals.
Some soldiers who were discharged with not only
first-rate certificates of their good conduct as soldiers,
but with the Victoria Cross " For Valor," were no
sooner cast adrift into ordinary civil life than they
were presently found in the dock pleading their mili-
tary services and good character as soldiers in miti-
gation of sentences of imprisonment for frauds and
thefts of the meanest sort. When we consider how
completely a soldier is enslaved by military discipline,
and how abhorrent military service consequently
is to civically capable people, we cannot doubt, even
if there were no firsthand testimony on the subject,
that many men enlist voluntarily, not because they
want to lead a drunken and dissolute life (the reason
given by the Iron Duke), or because they are under
any of the romantic illusions on which the recruiting
sergeant is supposed to practise, but because they
know themselves to be unfit for full moral responsi-
bility, and conclude that they had better have their
BY BERNARD SHAW xliii
lives ordered for them than face the effort (intolerably
difficult for them) of ordering it themselves.
This effort is not made easier by our civilization.
A man who treated his children as 'every laborer
treated them as a matter of course a hundred ye
ago would now be imprisoned for neglecting them
and keeping them away from school. The statute
book is crammed with offences unknown to our grand-
fathers and unintelligible to uneducated men ; and
the list needs startling extension ; for, as Mr. H. G.
Wells has pointed out, its fundamental items date
from the Mosaic period, when modern Capitalism,
which involves a new morality, was unknown. In
more obvious matters we notice how the standard of
dress, manners, and lodging which qualifies a man
socially for employment as a factory hand or mechanic
has risen since the days when no person of any refine-
ment could travel, as everybody now travels, third-
class.
REMEDIES IN THE ROUGH.
\\V may now begin to arrange our problem com-
prehensively. The people who have to be dealt witli
specially by the government because for one reason
or another they cannot deal satisfactorily with them-
selves may be roughly divided into three sections.
First, the -mall number of dangerous or incorrigibly
mischievous human animals. With them should be
associated all hopeless defectives, from the idiot
Darenth to the worst homicidal maniacs at Broad-
moor. Second, a body of people who cannot provide
or order their lives for themselves, but who.
under discipline and tutelage, with their board and
;ing and clothing provided for tli in the
case of soldiers, are normally happy, \\vllbehaved,
lul citizens. (There would be several degrees
tutelage through which they mi^lu >moted
if they were fit and willing.) Third, all normal per-
is who have tivsp : one of
s of self-discipline which arc as commo:
lucky enough to fall im<>
xliv PREFACE
the hands of the police in consequence. These last
should never be imprisoned. They should be re-
quired to compensate the State for the injury done
to the body politic by their misdeeds, and, when
possible, to compensate the victims, as well as pay the
costs of bringing them to justice. Until they have
done this they cannot complain if they find them-
selves distrained upon ; harassed by frequent compul-
sory appearances in court to excuse themselves ;
and threatened with consignment to the second class
as defectives. It is quite easy to make careless-
ness and selfishness, petty violence and dishonesty,
unremunerative and disagreeable, without resort-
ing to imprisonment. In the cases where the
offender has fallen into bad habits and bad company,
the stupidest course to take is to force him into the
worst of all habits and the worst of all company :
that is, prison habits and prison company. The
proper remedies are good habits and good company.
If these are not available, then the offender must be
put into the second class, and kept straight under
tutelage until he is fit for freedom.
DIFFICULTY OF THE UNDISCIPLINED.
The difficulty lies, it will be seen, in devising a
means of dealing with the second class. The first is
easy : too easy, in fact. You kill or you cage : that
is all. In the third class, summoning and fining
and admonishing are easy and not mischievous : you
may worry a man considerably by badgering him
about his conduct and dunning him for money in a
police court occasionally ; but you do not perma-
nently disable him morally and physically thereby.
It is the offender of the second class, too good to be
killed or caged, and not good enough for normal
liberty, whose treatment bothers us.
THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE.
Any proposal to place men under compulsory
tutelage immediately raises the vexed question of
what is called " the indeterminate sentence/* Par-
BY BERNARD SHAW xlv
liament has never been prevailed on to create a pos-
sibility of a criminal being "detained preventively' 1
for life : it has set a limit of ten years to that condi-
tion. This is inevitable as long as the tutelage is
primarily not a tutelage but a punishment. We have
a law under which a drunkard, politely called an
inebriate, can voluntarily sentence himself to a term
of detention for the sake of being restrained from
yielding to a temptation which he is unable to resist
when left to himself. Under existing circumstances
nobody is likely to do that twice, or even once if he
has any knowledge of how the inebriates are treated.
The only system of detention we know is the prison
system ; and the only sort of prisoner we have any
practice in dealing with is the criminal, with his
dismal routine of punishment in the first place, deter-
rence in the second place, and reform in the very
remote third place. The inebriate volunteer prisoner
y soon finds that he is being treated as a criminal,
and tries in vain to revoke his renunciation of his
liberty.
Otherwise, say the authorities very truly, we should
be overwhelmed with volunteers. This reminds us
of the Westminster Abbey verger who charged a
French gentleman with brawling in church. The
magistrate, enquiring what, exactly, the foreigner
had done, was told that he had knelt in prayer.
1 But," said the magistrate, " is not that what a
church is for ? " The verger was scandalized. " If
we allowed that," he said, " we should have people
praying all over the place. 1 ' The Prison Commis-
sioners know that if prisons were made reasonably
happy places, and thrown open to volunteers like
my, they might speedily be mvivrowded.
And this, with its implied threat of an enormous
aggravation of the Budget, seems a conclu
objection.
THE ECONOMIC ASPECT.
But if its effect would be to convert a large mass
of more or less dishonest, unproductive or half pro-
xlvi PREFACE
ductive, unsatisfactory, feckless, nervous, anxious,
wretched people into good citizens, it is absurd
to object to it as costly. It would be unbearably
costly, of course, if the life and labor of its subjects
were as stupidly wasted as they are in our prisons ;
but any scheme into which the conditions of our
present system are read will stand condemned at
once. Whether the labor of the subject be organized
by the State, as in Government dockyards, postoffices,
municipal industries and services and so forth, or
by private employers obtaining labor service from
the authorities, organized and used productively it
must be ; and anyone who maintains that such or-
ganization and production costs the nation more than
wasting the labor power of ablebodied men and
women either by imprisonment or by throwing crim-
inals on the streets to prey on society and on them-
selves, is maintaining a monstrous capitalistic para-
dox. Obviously it will not cost the nation anything
at all : it will enrich it and protect it. The real
commercial objection to it is that it would reduce the
supply of sweatable labor available for unscrupulous
private employers. But so much the better if it
does. Sweating may make profits for private persons
here and there ; but their neighbors have to pay
through the nose for these profits in poor rates, police
rates, public health rates (mostly disease rates), and
all the rest of the gigantic expenditure, all pure
waste and mischief, which falls on the ratepayer
and taxpayer in his constant struggle with the fruits
of the poverty which he is nevertheless invited to
maintain for the sake of making two or three of his
neighbors unwholesomely and unjustly rich.
It is not altogether desirable that State tutelage
should be available without limit for all who may
volunteer for it. We can imagine a magistrate's court
as a place in which men clamoring to be literally
" taken in charge " are opposed by Crown lawyers and
court officials determined to prove, if possible, that
these importunate volunteers are quite well able to
take care of themselves if they choose. Evidence of
BY BERNARD SHAW xlvii
defective character would be sternly demanded ; and
if these were manufactured (as in the not uncommon
case of a poor woman charging her son with theft
to get him taken off her hands and sent to a reforma-
tory) the offender would be ruthlessly consigned to my
third division, consisting of offenders who are not to
be taken in charge at all, but simply harried and
bothered and attached and sold up until they pay
the damages of their offences.
But as a matter of experience men do not seek the
avowed tutelage of conditions which imply deficiency
of character. Most of them resent any sort of tute-
lage unless they are brought up to it and therefore
do not feel it as an infringement of their individuality.
The army and navy are not overcrowded, though the
army has always been the refuge of the sort of imbe-
cile called a ne'er-do-well. Indeed the great obstacle
to the realization of the Socialist dream of a perfectly
organized and highly prosperous community, without
poverty or overwork or idleness, is the intense repug-
nance of the average man to the degree of public
regulation of his life which it would involve. This
repugnance is certainly not weaker in England than
elsewhere. Englishmen are born Anarchists ; and
as complete Anarchism is practically impossible, they
seek the minimum of public interference with their
personal initiative, and overshoot the mark so ex-
cessivelv that it is no exaggeration to say that civili-
perishing of Anarchism. If civilization is
to be saved for the first time in history it will have to
be by a much ,^r< \tcnsion of public regulation
ion than any community has hitherto
been willing to submit to. When this extension ta
place, it will provide the discipline of public sen
:e masses of the population who now look alter
mselves very indifferently, and are only nominally
to control their own destinies ; and in this way
:iy people of it that now finds itself in
prison will be kept straight automatically. But in
case there is no danger of a tutelary system bein^
mped by a rush of volunteers qualifying th
xlviii PREFACE
es for it by hurling stones through shop windows
or the like.
All this does not mean that we must have inde-
terminate sentences of tutelage. The mischief of
the present system is not that the criminal under
preventive detention must be released at the end of
ten years, but that if he relapses he is sent to penal
servitude instead of being simply and sensibly re-
turned to Camp Hill. What it does mean is that if
the tutelage be made humane and profitable, the
criminal, far from demanding his discharge, will rather
threaten the authorities with a repetition of his crime
if they turn him out of doors. The change that is
needed is to add to the present power of the detaining
authorities to release the prisoner at any time if they
consider him fit for self-responsibility, the power of
the prisoner to remain if he finds himself more
comfortable and safe under tutelage, as voluntary
soldiers feel themselves more comfortable in the
army, or nuns in a convent (sometimes a very
strict prison), than cast on the world on his own
resources.
WHITHER THE FACTS ARE DRIVING US.
So much for the difficulty of the indeterminate
sentence, which is quite manageable. Its discussion
has led us to the discovery that in spite of the un-
christian spirit of our criminal law, and the cruelty of
its administration, the mere logic of facts is driving
us to humane solutions. Already it is a fact that no
judge or magistrate is obliged to pass any sentence
whatever for a first offence except when dealing with
a few extraordinary crimes which have affected our
imagination so strongly that we feel bound to mark
our abhorrence of them by special rigor not only to
those convicted of them, but, very illogically and
unjustly, to those accused of them : for example,
persons accused of high treason were formerly not
allowed the help of counsel in defending themselves.
And when the account of our system of preventive
detention at Camp Hill is studied in connection with
BY BERNARD SHAW xlix
the remarkable series of experiments now being
made in America, it will be seen that nothing
stands between us and humanity and decency but
our cruelty, vindi tr. n ss, terror, and thoughtless
indifference.
CRIME AS DISEASE.
It must not be imagined that any system will
reach every anti-social deed that is committed. I
have already shewn that most crime goes undetected,
unreported, and even unforbidden ; and I have
suggested that if our system of dealing with crime
: e one with which any humane and thoughtful
person could conscientiously co-operate, if we com-
pensated injured persons for bringing criminals to
justice instead of, as at present, making the process
expensive and extremely disagreeable and even terri-
fying to them, and if we revised our penal laws by
striking out of their list of criminal acts a few which
ought not to be there and adding a good many which
ought to be there, we might have a good many more
delinquents to deal with than at present unless we
concurrently improved the education and condition
of the masses sufficiently to do away with the large
part of lawbreaking which is merely one of the symp-
toms of poverty, and would disappear with it. But
in any case we should diligently read Samuel Butler's
Erewhon, and accustom ourselves to regard crime as
pathological, and the criminal as an invalid, curable
or incurable. There is, in fact, hardly an argument
that can be advanced for the stern suppression of
crime by penal methods that does not apply equally
to the suppression of disease ; and we have already
an elaborate sanitary code under which persons neg-
lecting certain pa-cautions against di are not
only prosecuted but in some instano i iim 8
quite mistaken ones, as Hie history of vaccination
has proved) persecuted very cruelly. We actually
fore nts to subject their children to surgi
me of which are both dangerous a
highly quebtionuble. But we have so far stopped
1 PREFACE
short of making it a punishable offence to be attacked
by smallpox or typhus fever, though no legal assump-
tion is more certain than that both diseases can be
extinguished by sanitation more completely than
crime by education. Yet there would be no greater
injustice in such punishment than there is in the
imprisonment of any thief ; and the judge in Erewhon
who sentenced a man for phthisis in a sanctimoni-
ous speech in which he recapitulated the career of
crime which began with an accident in childhood, and
ended with pulmonary tuberculosis, was not a whit
more ridiculous than the similar speeches made at
eveiy sessions by our own judges. Why a man who
is punished for having an inefficient conscience should
be privileged to have an inefficient lung is a debatable
question. If one is sent to prison and the other to
hospital, why make the prison so different from the
hospital ?
But I make the parallel here because it brings out
the significance of the fact that we admit without
protest that we have to put up with a good deal of
illness in the world, and to treat the sufferers with
special indulgence and consideration, instead of
turning on them like a herd of buffaloes and goring
them to death, as we do in the case of our moral
invalids. We even punish people very severely for
neglecting their invalids or treating them in such a
way as to make them worse instead of better : that is,
for doing to them exactly what we should do ourselves
if instead of going wrong in body and losing health
they had gone wrong in mind and stolen a handker-
chief. There are people in the world so incredibly
foolish that they expect their children to be always
perfectly truthful and perfectly obedient ; but even
these idiots do not expect their children to be per-
fectly well always, nor thrash them if they catch
cold. In short, if crime were not punished at all,
the world would not come to an end any more than it
does now that disease is not punished at all. The
real gist of the distinction we make is that the con-
sequences of crime, if unpunished, are pleasant,
BY BERNARD SHA\Y li
whereas the consequences of catching a chill are its
own punishment ; but this will not bear examination.
A bad conscience is quite as uncomfortable as a bad
cold ; and though there are people so hardily con-
stituted in this respect that they can behave very
ishly without turning a hair, so are there people
of such hardy physical constitution that they can
abuse their bodies with impunity to an extent that
ild be fatal to ordinary persons. Anyhow, it is
not proposed that abnormal subjects should be
unrestrained.
the other hand avoidable illnesses arc just like
ble crimes in respect of being the result of
10 form of indulgence, positive or negative. For
practical purposes the parallel between the phy-
1 and moral invalid holds good ; only, we may
to reconsider the absolute sacredness of the
nhy>i<Ml invalid's life. I shall not here attempt to
*e the result of that consideration, but it is
clear that if we decide that this sacredness must be
maintained at all costs, and that the idiot in Dar-
enth, who lies there having food poured into it
so that its heart may continue to beat and its
lungs to breathe automatically (for it can do noth-
voluntarily), must be preserved from death
much more laboriously than Einstein, then we
must hold the criminal equally fetish unless we
to keep the v abject in its pivsmt di-
trous confusion.
REFORMING OUR CONSCIENCES.
in the public coi which is
necessary before these considerations can take effect
in .'ibnlisliiiik' our villainous system of dealing with
ill never be induced by sympathy with the
r even disgust at the prison. The pro-
of the population directly concerned is too
11 : to the great i, by, imprisonment
so unlikely to occur indeed, so certain
never to occur that they cannot be
li (.1 to take anv interest in tin
lii PREFACE
long as the question is only one of the comfort of the
prisoner, nothing will be done, because as long as the
principle of punishment is admitted, and the Sermon
on the Mount ridiculed as an unpractical outburst
of anarchism and sentimental it y, the public will
always be reassured by learning from the judges
(none of whom, by the way, seems to know what
really happens to a prisoner after he leaves the dock)
that our prisons are admirable institutions, and by
the romances of Prison Commissioners like Du Cane
and Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, who arrange prisons
as children build houses with toy bricks, and finally
become so pleased with their arrangements that they
describe them in terms which make us wonder that
they do not commit crimes themselves to qualify
themselves for residence in their pet paradises. I
must therefore attack the punitive position at another
angle by dealing with its psychological effect on the
criminal.
EXPIATION AND MORAL ACCOUNTANCY.
No ordinary criminal will agree with me for a
moment that punishment is a mistake and a sin.
His opinions on that point are precisely those of the
policeman who arrests him ; and if I were to preach
this gospel of mine to the convicts in a prison I
should be dismissed as a hopeless crank far more
summarily than if I were to interview the Chief
Commissioner at Scotland Yard about it.
Punishment is not a simple idea : it is a very com-
plex one. Far from being merely some injury that
an innocent person inflicts on a guilty one, and that
the guilty one evades by every means in his power,
it is a balancing of accounts with the soul. People
who feel guilty are apt to inflict it on themselves if
nobody will take the job off their hands. Con-
fessions, though less common than they would be if
the penalties were not so soul-destroying, are received
without surprise. From the criminals' point of view
punishment is expiation; and their bitterest com-
plaints of injustice refer, not to their sentences, but to
BY BERNARD SHAW lih
the dishonesty with which society, having exacted
the price of the crime, still treats the criminal as a
defaulter. Even so sophisticated a man of the world
as Oscar Wilde claimed that by his two years' im-
prisonment he had settled accounts with the world
and was entitled to begin again with a clean slate.
But the world persisted in ostracizing him as if it had
not punished him at all.
This was inevitable ; but it was dishonest. If we
are absurd enough to engage in a retributive trade in
crime, we should at least trade fairly and give clean
receipts when we are paid. If we did, we should soon
find that the trade is impracticable and ridiculous ;
for neither party can deliver the goods. No dis-
charge that the authorities can give can procure the
ex-prisoner an eligible situation ; and no atonement
that a thief or murderer can make in suffering can
make him any the less a thief or murderer. And
nobody shirks this demonstration as much as the
thief himself. Human self-respect wants so des-
perately to have its sins washed away, however pur-
gatorially, that we are willing to go through the most
fantastic ceremonies, conjurations, and ordeals
have our scarlet souls made whiter than snow. Wr
naturally prefer to lay our sins on sea, ts or on
Cross, if our neighbors will let us oft' so easily ;
but when they will not, then we will cleanse ourscl
by filtering a penalty sooner than be worried by
consciences. This is th real foundation of the crimi-
la\v in human Miprrstition. This is why, when
mploy a discharged prisoner, he invariably
: hat what ho did is paid for, and that we h
right to bring it against him after he has suffe
the appointed penalty.
not admit the plea, we should consider
whether \\e should exact the penalty. I am not
uin- that Hit- plea should be admitted: I am
j that tli.' bargain -Imnld i
I am mOl than the rriminal 1
would destroy the
can he any forgiveness oi sin, W!>
liv PREFACE
cannot be undone ; and the man who steals must
remain a thief until he becomes another man, no
matter what reparation or expiation he may make or
suffer. A punishment system means a pardon sys-
tem : the two go together inseparably. Once admit
that if I do something wicked to you we are quits when
you do something equally wicked to me, and you are
bound to admit also that the two blacks make a
white. Our criminal system is an organized attempt
to produce white by two blacks. Common sense
should doggedly refuse to believe that evil can be
abolished by duplicating it. But common sense is
not so logical ; and thus we get the present grotesque
spectacle of a judge committing thousands of horrible
crimes in order that thousands of criminals may feel
that they have balanced their moral accounts.
FAMILIAR FRAUDS OF THE TRADE IN SIN.
It is a game at which there is plenty of cheating.
The prisoner pleads Not Guilty, and tries his best to
get off, or to have as light a sentence as possible.
The commercial brigand, fining himself for his
plunderings by subscribing to charities, never sub-
scribes as much as he stole. But through all the
folly and absurdity of the business, and the dense
mental confusion caused by the fact that it is never
frankly faced and clearly stated, there shines the
fact that conscience is part of the equipment of the
normal man, and that it never fails in its work. It
is retributive because it makes him uncomfortable ;
it is deterrent because detection and retribution are
absolutely certain ; and it is reformative because
reformation is the only way of escape. That is to
say, it does to perfection by divine methods what the
Prison Commissioners are trying to do by diabolical
methods without hope or even possibility of success.
REVENGE THE DESTROYER OF CONSCIENCE,
The effect of revenge, or retribution from without,
is to destroy the conscience of the aggressor instantly.
If I stand on the corn of a man in the street, and he
BY BERNARD SHAW Iv
winces or cries out, I am all remorse, and overwhelm
him with heartfelt apologies. But if he sets about
me with his fists, the first blow he lands changes my
mind completely ; and I bend all my energies on
doing intentionally to his eyes and nose and jaw what
I did unintentionally to his toes. Vengeance is
mine, saith the Lord ; and that means that it is not
the Lord Chief Justice's. A violent punishing, such
as a flogging, carries no sense of expiation with it :
whilst its effect lasts, which is fortunately not very
long, its victim is in a savage fury in which he would
burn down the gaol and roast the warders and the
governor and the justices alive in it with intense
satisfaction if he could.
Imprisonment, on the other hand, gives the con-
science a false satisfaction. The criminal feels that
he is working off his crime, though he is doing it
involuntarily, and would escape at any moment if he
could. He preserves his sense of solvency without
ceasing to be a thief, as a gambler preserves it by
nis losses without ceasing to be a gambler.
THE SENTIMENTALITY OF REVENGE.
There is a psychological limit to punishment.
dare not kill a hopelessly diseased or dangerous
i by way of punishment for any offence short of
murder as we would chloroform a hopelessly diseased
or dangerous dog by way of kindness. Until
urged our souls of malice, which is pure senti-
ment, we cannot get rid of sentimentality ; and the
sentimentality which makes us abominably cruel in
direction makes us foolishly and superstitiously
Let sternly in others. Homicidal lunatics
iums "They cannot hang us." I
u re, but refrain for obvious reasons, simple
>y carrying out which any person can
unit a murder with the certainty of bei
uoor instead of to the gallows. Now th" kill-
of a sane murderer requires a great deal of c
ration, and should nr\vr be a matter of course,
ra which raise no convincing j-
hi PREFACE
sumption that those who commit them are excep-
tioi ally likely to commit another. But about a
chronically homicidal lunatic there should be no
hesitation whatever as long as we practise judicial
killing at all ; and there would not be if we simply
considered without malice the question of his fitness
to live in society. We spare him because the gallows
is a punishment, and we feel that we have no right
to punish a lunatic. When we realize that we have
no right to punish anybody, the problem of disposing
of impossible people will put itself on its proper foot-
ing. We shall drop our moral airs ; but unless we
rule killing out absolutely, persons who give more
trouble than they are worth will run the risk of being
apologetically, sympathetically, painlessly, but effec-
tually returned to the dust from which they sprung.
MAN IN SOCIETY MUST JUSTIFY HIS
EXISTENCE.
This would at least create a sense of moral respon-
sibility in our citizens. We are all too apt in take our
lives as a matter of course. In a civilized community
life is not a matter of course : it can be maintained
only on complicated artificial conditions ; and who-
ever enlarges his life by violating these conditions
enlarges it at the expense of the lives of others. The
extent to which we tolerate such vital embezzlement
at present is quite outrageous : we have whole classes
of persons who waste, squander, and luxuriate in the
hard earned income of the nation without even a
pretence of social service or contribution of any kind ;
and instead of sternly calling on them to justify
their existence or go to the scrap heap, we encourage
and honor them, and indeed conduct the whole
business of the country as if its object were to produce
and pamper them. How can a prison chaplain ap-
peal with any effect to the conscience of a professional
criminal who knows quite well that his illegal and
impecunious modes of preying on society are no
worse morally, and enormously less mischievous
materially, than the self-legalized plutocratic modes
BY BERNARD SHAW Ivii
practised by the chaplain's most honored friends with
the chaplain's full approval ? The moment we cease
asking whether men are good or bad, and ascertain
simply whether they are pulling their weight in the
social boat, our persistent evil doers may have a very
unpleasant surprise. Far from having an easy time
under a government of softhearted and softheaded
sentimentalists, cooing that " to understand every-
thing is to pardon everything/' they may find them-
selves disciplined to an extent at present undreamed
of by the average man-about-town.
CIVILIZED MAN IS NOT BORN FREE.
And here it will occur to some of my readers that a
book about imprisonment should be also a book about
freedom. Rousseau said that Man is born free.
Rousseau was wrong. No government of a civilized
state can possibly regard its citizens as born free.
On the contrary, it must regard them as born in debt,
and as necessarily incurring fresh debt every day
they live ; and its most pressing duty is to hold them
to that debt and see that they pay it. Not until it
is paid can any freedom begin for the individual.
\Vhen he cannot walk a hundred yards without using
such a very expensive manufactured article as a
street, care must be taken that he produces his share
of its cost. When he has paid scot and lot his
leisure begins, and with it his liberty. He can then
say boldly, " Having given unto Csesar the things that
are Caesar's I shall now, under no tutelage or compul-
sion except that of my conscience, give to God the
things that are God's." That is the only possible
basis for civil liberty ; and we are unable to attain it
because our governments corruptly shirk the du:
of Caesar; usurp the attributes of God ; andm
unholy mess of which this horrible prison syst
of ours is only one symptom.
OUR NATURE NOT SO BAD AS OUR PRISON
SYS1 EM,
\Vr must, however, be on our gn m-t a^crib-
Iviii PREFACE
ing all the villainy of our system to our cruelty and
selfish terrors. That would be inconsistent with the
fact that, as I have pointed out, the operation of the
criminal law is made very uncertain, and therefore
loses the deterrence it aims at, by the reluctance of
sympathetic people to hand over offenders to the
police. Vindictive and frivolous as we are, we are
not downright fiends, as we should be if our modern
prison system had been deliberately invented and
constructed by us all in one piece. It has grown upon
us, and grown evilly, having evil roots ; but its worst
developments have been well meant ; for the road to
hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones.
The history of it will be found in the body of this
book ; but a word or two of it is needed here to save
the reader from closing the volume in despair of
human nature.
THE HISTORY OF OUR PRISONS.
Imprisonment was not originally a punishment
any more than chaining up a dog, cruel as that prac-
tice is, is a punishment. It was simply a method of
detention. The officer responsible for the custody
of an offender had to lock or chain hirp. up some-
where to prevent him from running away, and to be
able to lay his hand on him on the day of trial
or execution. This was regarded as the officer's
own affair : the law looked to him for the delivery of
the offender, and did not concern itself as to how it
was effected. This seems strange nowadays ; but
I can remember a case of a lunatic on a battleship,
who had one man told off to act as his keeper.
The lunatic was violent and troublesome, and gave
his keeper plenty of severe exercise ; but the rest of
the crew looked on with the keenest enjoyment
of the spectacle, and gave the lunatic the strictest
fair play by letting his keeper fight it out with
him unaided. And that is what the law did mostly
in England until well into the nineteenth century.
To this day there is no prison in some of the
Virgin Islands. The prisoner is tied by the leg. to
BY BERNARD SHAW lix
a tree, and plays cards with the constable who guards
him.
The result was that the provision of lock-ups be-
came a private commercial speculation, undertaken
and conducted for the sake of what could be made out
of it by the speculator. There was no need for these
places to be lock-ups : the accused could be chained
up or gyved or manacled if no safe prison was avail-
able ; and when lock-ups came to be provided as a
matter of business, the practice of chaining was con-
tinued as a matter of tradition, and formed a very
Dimple method of extorting money from prisoners by
torture. No food was provided by the State : what
prisoner ate was charged against him as if he were
in a hotel ; and it often happened that when he was
acquitted 1 taken back to prison as security for
his bill and kept there until he had paid it.
ler these circumstances the prison was only a
building into which all classes and sorts of detained
persons were thrown indiscriminately. The rich
could buy a private room, like Mr. Pickwick in the
;t ; but the general herd of poor criminals, old
and young, innocent and hardened, virgin and prosti-
e, mad and sane, clean and verminous, diseased
and whole, pigged together in indescribable promis-
< uity. I repeat: nobody invented this. Nobody
intended it. Nobody defended it except the people
who made money by it. Nobody else except the
knew about it : they were as innocent as
Mr. Pickwick of what \\ent on inside the prison walls.
And, as usual in England, nobody bothered about it.
e people with money could avoid its grossest
discomforts on the negligibly rare occasions when
HI into thr hands of the officers of the 1
It was by t e accident of beingpricked foi -lu rill
that John Howard K-arnt what the inside of a gaol
HOWARD'S GOOD I MENTIONS.
: -i^itati-m piiMMi-
>ns : t; >ts full responsibility
Ix PREFACE
for the prisoner from the moment of his arrest. So
far, so good. But in the meantime imprisonment,
instead of being a means of detention, has become not
only a punishment, but, for the reasons given at the
outset of this preface, the punishment. And official
shallowness, prevailing against the poet Crabbe's
depth, has made it an infernal punishment. Howard
saw that the prisoners in the old gaol contaminated
one another ; and his remedy was to give them
separate cells in which they could meditate on their
crimes and repent. When prisons with separate
cells were built accordingly, the prison officials
soon found that it saved trouble to keep the prisoners
locked up in them ; and the philanthropists out-
Howarded Howard in their efforts to reform criminals
by silence, separation, and the wearing of masks, lest
they should contaminate one another by the expres-
sion of their faces. Until about eighteen months
ago, the convicts in Belgian prisons wore iron masks.
Our own convicts wore cloth masks for some time, and
would probably be wearing them still had not our
solicitude for their salvation killed and driven them
mad in such numbers that we were forced to admit
that thorough segregation, though no doubt correct
in principle (which is just where it is fatally incorrect)
does not work. Frightful things in the way of soli-
tude, separation, and silence were done in American
prisons, and are still being done there.
The reader will find as much as he can stand in the
body of this book, and a good deal more in English
Prisons To-day, edited by Stephen Hobhouse and
Fenner Brockway, in which the system is described
from the prison cells, not by common criminals,
but by educated and thoughtful men and women
who, as agitators for Women's Suffrage or as Con-
scientious Objectors to military service, have been
condemned to imprisonment of late years. Our
horror at the disclosure must not blind us to my
immediate point, which is, that our prison system
is a horrible accidental growth and not a deliberate
human invention, and that its worst features have
BY BERNARD SHAW Ixi
been produced with the intention, not of making it
worse, but of making it better. Howard is not
responsible : he warned us that " absolute solitude
is more than human nature can bear without the
hazard of distraction and despair/' Elizabeth Fry
saw nothing but mischief in prison silence and
prison solitude. Their followers were fools : that
is all. We can still plead that though we have been
ignorant and thoughtless we meant well. We can
claim the epitaph of the wife-beating father of
Dickens's blacksmith in Great Expectations :
For whatsome'er the failings on his part,
Remember, reader, he were that good in his
heart.
THE SO-CALLED CRIMINAL TYPE.
Perhaps the most far-reaching service done by the
Brockway-Hobhouse report is the light it throws on
the alleged phenomenon of a Criminal Type. The be-
lief in this has gone through several vicissitudes. At
first a criminal was supposed to be a beetle-browed,
bulldog-jawed person for whom no treatment could be
too bad. This suited the prison authorities, as nothing
is so troublesome to them as waves of public sympathy
with criminals, founded on imaginative idealizations
of them. But the authorities changed their note
when a scientific version of the type was put forward
by Lombroso and a body of investigators calling
rists. These gentlemen found
t crimi; -I asymmetrical features and otln-r
stigmata (an effective" word). They contended t
the he victims of these congenital
peculiarities, and could not help themselve th
obvious conclusion w;is th;it they were not morally
responsible for their actions, and then fore should not
be punished for them, the prison authorities saw t!
occupation threatened, and denied that, there was any
1 1 ways ex< the beet le-bn > '
builds vlncli the criminal i Burned to have
ini|><iM'<l on his naturally Grecian feature by a life
villainy. It was soon noticed th /body 1
Ixii PREFACE
asymmetrical features, and that the stigmata of the
Lombrosic criminal were as characteristic of the
Church, the Stock Exchange, the Bench, and the
Legislature as of Portland and Dartmoor. That
settled the matter for the moment. The criminal
type was off.
But nobody who has ever visited a prison has any
doubt that there is a prison type, and a very marked
one at that. And if he is saturated with the teach-
ings of the Natural Selectionists, according to which
changes of type are the result of the slow accumula-
tion of minute variations, and therefore cannot be
visibly produced in less than, say, a million years,
he will conclude, like Lombroso, that the criminal is
a natural species, and therefore incorrigible.
HOW TYPES ARE MANUFACTURED.
But twentieth century observation has lately been
knocking nineteenth century science into a cocked
hat. I have in my hand number seventy-four of the
privately printed opuscula issued by the Society
which calls itself the Set of Odd Volumes. It is
entitled The Influence Which Our Surroundings
Exert On Us, and is the work of Sir William Arbuth-
not Lane, one of our most distinguished surgeons.
In it he she\vs that by keeping a man at work as a
deal porter, a coal trimmer, a shoemaker or what not,
you can, within a period no longer than that spent
in prison by typical criminals, produce a typical deal
porter, coal trimmer and so on, the changes involved
being visible grotesque skeletal changes for which
Huxley or Owen would have demanded a whole
evolutionary epoch. No Bolshevik has yet written
so revolutionary a pamphlet as this little record of
a recent after-dinner speech.
What it means is that the criminal type is an arti-
ficial type, manufactured in prison by the prison
system. It means that the type is not one of the
accidents of the system, but must be produced by im-
prisonment no matter how normal the victim is at the
beginning, or how anxious the authorities are to keep
BY BERNARD SHAW Ixiii
him so. The simple truth is that the typical crimi-
nal is a normal man when he first enters a prison,
and develops the type during his imprisonment.
Hitherto the Darwinian criminologists have declined
to believe this, like Moliere's doctor who asserted
that the coachman must be alive because he had
been ill only three days, whereas Hippocrates
describes his disease as proving fatal at the end of
MX weeks. It is Sir William Arbuthnot Lane who
now comes forward with the modern equivalent of the
famous mot " Hippocrates may say what he likes ;
but the coachman is dead." And as the official
Id will believe a surgeon baronet when they will
believe nobody else in heaven or on earth, I call
him to witness accordingly.
PSYCHIATRISTS AND ENDOCRINISTS.
This does not mean that no other types are to be
noted in prison. By all means let the endocrinists
go on dividing abnormal people, in prison and out,
into hyper and sub pituitaries and thyroidics and
adrenals. They need not, as the habit of the scien-
tific world is, quarrel furiously with me for remarking
that another type can be externally imposed on their
pituitaries and thyroidics and adrenals impartially,
fact that a man has an excessive adrenal secre-
i may be a reason for trying to check it inst
: ng him. It d<vs no1 the fact that
<>u keep one adrenal ii servitude and another
in the House of Lords for ten years, the one will
shew the si onvict, and the other
of a typical pc !di t ion ' tigmata of adren-
m.
e Of th must n
\vhieh Lombmso fell when it was
:! that by his di.'i^nosis everybody was more
imin;i!. [ suggest tli.it this \v;is not quite
i reductio-ad-absurdum as it seemed.
a< counted n<>us insensibility
misery they are in; on
n prisoners by the fact that some of the most
Ixiv PREFACE
mischievous and unhappy conditions of prison life
are imposed on all respectably brought up children as
a matter of course. It is arguable that what Lom-
broso took to be criminal stigmata were genuine
prison stigmata, and that their prevalence among
respectable people is due to the prison conditions to
i,h respectable people are subjected for the first
twenty years of their life.
THE CASE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
I take up another much discussed and most read-
able modern book : Queen Victoria, by Lytton Stra-
chey. It contains some shocking pages, made bearable
by the comedic power of the author, but still ghastly
reading. Queen Victoria was very carefully brought
up. When she was eighteen they came to her and
told her that she was queen of England. She asked
whether she could really do what she liked ; and
when this was reluctantly admitted by her careful
mother, Victoria considered what wonderful and
hitherto impossible happiness she could confer on
herself by her new powers. And she could think of
nothing more delightful than an hour of separate
solitary confinement. She had never been alone
before, never been unwatched by people whose busi-
ness it was to see that she behaved herself, and to
rebuke her and punish her if she did anything they
disapproved of. In short, she had been treated as a
dangerous criminal, unfit to be trusted with any
initiative or moral responsibility.
It would carry me too far to trace the effects of
this monstrous bringing-up on the course of history.
The book should be given to every prisoner who finds
his solitary confinement every day from half-past
four in the afternoon to next morning more than he
can bear. He will find that there are worse things
than solitude when the only company available is
that of the warders and governor. And he will under-
stand why the next thing the queen did was to turn
her mother practically out of the house. She was,
as the prisoner would say, getting a bit of her own
BY BERNARD SHAW Ixv
back. He will, if he is an intellectually curious
prisoner, and has not been long enough in prison to
have his intellect atrophied, make a list of the
miseries that are common to the lot of our little
Queen Victorias and their brothers out of prison and
the thieves and murderers in prison. Confinement,
dience, silence at associated work, continual
supervision by hostile guardians reporting every
infraction of rule for punishment, regulation of every
moment of one's life from outside, compulsory exer-
cise instead of play, systematic extirpation of initia-
tive and responsibility, uncongenial and sometimes
impossible tasks, and a normal assumption that every
original and undictated action will be a wrong action.
That is the lot of the well-brought-up child : whether
heiress to a throne or heir to a country rector, like
Samuel Butler, who was beaten until he acquired
and retained until his death some of the stigmata of
a chained dog.
PREVALENCE OF CRIMINAL CHARACTERIS-
TICS IN POLITE SOCIETY.
Butler, a man of exceptionally strong character
\\hich reacted violently against his training, would
e been what the Prison Commissioners call a bad
oner, and therefore does not illustrate the normal
effect of the system. Even Queen Victo
with all JUT characteristic prison transitions from
.inny t< ge, and her inability to understand
or tolerate any other condition, was too CT
uneducated, and original n t to read vigorously
against h< .instances. It is when we look at
on in bulk that \\v aiv forced to
ait that child training (or rail ,ing) as we
practise it produces moral imb< Abort
dozen millions of persons, on whose edur < ti<>n enor-
ad been spent publicly and prr
have gone like sheep to the slaughter lat< 1\ ; and
ors are ^ elaborate arrangements to
go again. A glance at the newspapers which c
ly for sses which go through the full
Ixvi PREFACE
routine of preparatory school, public school, and
university, will shew that the ideals of those classes,
their points of honor, their glories, their boasts,
their anticipations of future exploits, are precisely
those of criminals. They always are ready (Steady,
boys, steady) to fight and to conquer again and again.
Ned Kelly, Charles Peace, Dick Turpin and Claude
Duval, the Black Prince, Harry the Fifth, Robin
Hood, Paul Jones, Clive, Nelson and Captain Kidd,
Cortez and Lord Roberts, were not all on the side of
the law ; but their morality was the same : they all
held that pugnacity, the will to conquer, and the sort
of courage that makes pugnacity and the will to
conquer effective, are virtues so splendid that they
sanctify plunder, devastation, and murder in direct
proportion to the magnitude of these operations.
The relaxations of the operators are love affairs and
luxurious banquets. Now pray what else is the
romance of the thieves' kitchen and of the surrepti-
tious conversations of the prison exercise ring and
associated labor shop ? The difference is no more
essential than that between whiskey and champagne,
between an ounce of shag and a box of Havanas,
between a burglary and a bombardment, between a
jemmy and a bayonet, between a chloroformed pad
and a gas shell, between a Browning pistol bought at a
pawnbroker's and a service revolver. Gild the reput-
able end of it as thickly as we like with the cant of
chivalry, patriotism, national prestige, national secur-
ity, duty, and all the rest of it : smudge the other
end with all the vituperation that the utmost trans-
ports of virtuous indignation can inspire ; and how is
the divine judgment, by which all mankind must
finally stand or fall, to distinguish between the vic-
tims of these two bragging predatory insects, the
criminal and the gentleman ?
The most obvious reply is " By their number/'
For the depredations of the criminal are negligibly
small compared to the military holocausts and rav-
aged areas, the civic slums, the hospitals, the ceme-
teries crowded with the prematurely dead, the labor
BY BERNARD SHAW Ixvii
markets in which men and women are exposed for
sale for all purposes, honorable and dishonorable,
which are the products of criminal ideals imposed
on the entire population. The common thief and
burglar, miserably sweated by the receiver to whom
he has to sell his plunder, steals a few spoons or dia-
monds at a monstrous risk, and gets less than a tenth
of their value from a rascal who runs no risk worth
considering ; and the poor wretch is content with the
trumpery debauch his hard earned percentage brings
him. The gentleman steals a whole country, or a
petual income for himself and his descendants,
and is never satisfied until he has more conquests
and more riches to boast of. What is more, the
illicit thief does not defend his conduct ethically.
He may cry " To hell with the parsons and with
honesty and white-livered respectability !" and so
forth ; but he does so as a defier of God, a public
enemy, a Satanic hero. The gentleman really be-
es that he is an instrument of national honor, a
nder of the faith, a pillar of society ; and with
this conviction to strengthen him he is utterly un-
')us in his misplaced pride and honor, and
plays the wholesaler in evil to the criminal's petty
retail enterprises.
THE ROOT OF THE EVIL.
I what is at the bottom of it all? Just the
^omething to be imposed on us
n without, like the tricks taught to a performing
V the whip. Such ma: red virtue
!u< whatever, as appears promptly
. when UK- whip U n -moved. All communi-
st 11 ve finally by their ethical values : th;r
. Living virtuously is an
t only by living in full responsi-
bility for our own actions ; and as the process is one of
d error as well as of accepting the ^ of
experience, society must, whether it likes it
ip with a certain burden of individual
who has never made a mi will
Ixviii PREFACE
er make anything ; and the man who has never
done any harm will never do any good. The disas-
trous people are the indelicate and conceited busy-
bodies who want to reform criminals and mould
children's characters by external pressure and muti-
lation. The cowards who refuse to accept the inevit-
able risks of human society, and would have every-
body handcuffed if they could lest they should have
their pockets picked or their heads punched, are bad
enough ; and the flagellomaniacs who are for ever
shrieking the exploded falsehood that garotting was
put down by flogging, and that all crimes, especially
the sexually exciting ones, can be put down by more
flogging, are worse ; but such obvious cases of phobia
and libido soon make themselves ridiculous if they
are given a free platform. It is the busybody, the
quack, the pseudo God Almighty, the Dr. Moreau of
Mr. H. G. Wells 's ghastliest romance, continually
lusting to lay hands on living creatures and by reck-
less violation of their souls and bodies abort them into
some monster representing their ideal of a Good
Man, or a Model Citizen, or a Perfect Wife and Mother :
he is the irreconcilable enemy, the ubiquitous and
iniquitous nuisance, and the most difficult to get rid
of because he has imposed his moral pretensions on
public opinion, and is accepted as just the sort of
philanthropist our prisons and criminals should be
left to, whereas he (or she) is really the only sort of
person who should never be admitted to any part of
a prison except the gallows on which so many less
mischievous egotists have expired. No one who has
not a profound instinctive respect for the right of all
living creatures to moral and religious liberty : that
is, to liberty of moral and religious experiment on
themselves, limited only by their obligations not to
become unduly burdensome to others, should be let
come within ten miles of a child, a criminal, or any
other person in a condition of tutelage. Indelicacy
on this point is the most conclusive of social
disqualifications. When it is ignorant and short-
sighted it produces criminals. When it is worldly-
BY BERNARD SHAW Ixix
\vise and pompous it produces prison commis-
sioners.
RECAPITULATION.
For the sake of mental convenience, I recapitulate
the contentions presented in this preface.
1. Modern imprisonment : that is, imprisonment
ctised as a punishment as well as a means of
detention, is extremely cruel and mischievous, and
therefore extremely wicked. The word extremely
ised because our system was pushed to a degree
.vhich prison mortality and prison insanity forced
it back to the point at which it is barely endurable,
which point may therefore be regarded as the prac-
ticable extreme.
2. Although public vindictiveness and public dread
largely responsible for this wickedness, some of
the most cruel features of the prison system are not
understood by the public, and have not been delib-
erately invented and contrived for the purpose of
increasing the prisoner's torment. The worst of
in are (a) unsuccessful attempts at reform, (b)
essful attempts to make the working of the prison
aper for the State and easier for the officials, or
(c) accidents of the evolution of the old privately
ned detention prison into the new punitive State
prison.
3. The prison authorities profess three objects :
(a) Retribution (a euphemism for v , (b)
errence (a eui'h'-inism for Terrorism), and (c)
:orm of ti They achiexr tlu i
ciously. ' in ill-' second through !
-duty of detection .in.l pio^cu-
ir nKlli' i.-l and
secure the c<> of th, jmi
ilv because tin- pros* tttoi i- put to sr.
,md lo-- oi tim- lli.it li<
throwing: , partly because most
people desire to avoid an unquestionable t.nnilv
disgra< b more than to seam ion-
rtty !>' ause tin- proportion of
Ixx PREFACE
avowedly undetected crimes is high enough to hold
out reasonable hopes to the criminal that he will never
be called to account. The third is irreconcilable with
the first ; and the figures of recidivism, and the dis-
covery that the so-called Criminal Type is really a
prison type, prove that the process is one of quite
uncompensated deterioration.
4. The cardinal vice of the system is the anti-
Christian vice of vengeance, or the intentional dupli-
cation of malicious injuries in compliance with the
expiatory superstition that two blacks make a white.
The criminal accepts this, but claims that punish-
ment absolves him if the injuries seem fairly equiva-
lent ; and so, when absolution is necessarily denied
him, and he is forced back into crime by the refusal
to employ him, he feels that he is entitled to revenge
this injustice by becoming an enemy of society. No
beneficial reform of our treatment of criminals is
possible unless and until this essentially sentimental
vice of vengeance is unconditionally eradicated.
5. Society claims a right of self-defence, extending
to the destruction or restraint of lawbreakers. This
right is separable from the right to revenge or punish :
it need have no more to do with punishment or
revenge than the caging or shooting of a man-eating
tiger. It arises from the occurrence of (A) intoler-
ably mischievous human beings, and (B) persons
defective in the self-control needed for free life in
modern society, but well behaved and contented
under tutelage and discipline. Class A can be pain-
lessly killed or permanently restrained. The requisite
tutelage and discipline can be provided for Class B
without rancor or insult. The rest can be treated not
as criminals but as civil defendants, and made to pay
for their depredations in the same manner. At pre-
sent many persons guilty of conduct much viler than
that for which poor men are sent to prison suffer
nothing worse than civil actions for damages.
6. The principle to be kept before the minds of the
citizens is that as civilized society is a very costly
arrangement necessary to their subsistence and
BY BERNARD SHAW Ixxi
urity they must justify their existence in it by
contributing their share to the cost, and giving no
more than their share of trouble, subject to every
possible provision by insurance against innocent
bility ; and that this is a condition precedent
to freedom, and might on extreme provocation be
>rced to the full extent of removing cases of incur-
ns disability by simply putting an end to
existence.
An unconquerable repugnance to resort to
killing having led to the abolition of capital punish-
ment in several countries, and to its reservation for
dally dangerous or abhorrent crimes in all the
others, it is possible that the right to kill may be
ounced by all civilized States. This repugnance
may be intensified by the removal of the distinction
between sin and infirmity, or, in prison language,
bet\ rime and disease, because it leads to the
irpation of the incurable in\ \\vll as to that
of the incurable criminal.
the other hand, the opposite temperament,
wlii >t squeamish about making short work of
1 cases, may be reinforced by the abandonment of
1 pretentiousness, vengeance, malice, and all
uncharitableness in the matter, and may become
scrupulous than at present in advocating eutha-
icurables.
party may prevail, capital puni^hi
ly to disappear, and with it the ear-
g of certain offences as calling for specially
deterrent severities. But it does not follow that
ial trcatm- no cases will be barred.
< Mi th' contrary! it may be rxt< n<lr<l t<> criminals of
. All lli.il ran br v.iid at ]>iVM>nt i- that if
bsolutely barred, sufficient restraint must be
ti (1, not as a :>ut as a necessity for
1 'ii 1 t y . But there will be no excuse for mak i
rr unpleasant than it need be.
8. In ill rases where detention
the riminal's I > contact with
1 influences of his day should be respected.
Ixxii PREFACE
Conversation, access to books and pictures and music,
unfettered scientific, philosophic, and religious acti-
vity, change of scene and occupation, the free forma-
tion of friendships and acquaintances, marriage and
parentage : in short, all the normal methods of
creation and recreation, must be available for
criminals as for other persons, partly because depriva-
tion of these things is severely punitive, and partly
because it is destructive to the victim, and produces
what we call the criminal type, making a cure im-
possible. Any specific liberty which the criminal's
specific defects lead him to abuse will, no doubt, be
taken from him ; but his right to live must be accep-
ted in the fullest sense, and not, as at present, as
merely a right to breathe and circulate his blood. In
short, a criminal must be treated, not as a man who
has forfeited all normal rights and liberties by the
breaking of a single law, but as one who, through
some specific weakness or weaknesses is incap-
able of exercising some specific liberty or liber-
ties.
9. The main difficulty in applying this concept
of individual freedom to the criminal arises from the
fact that the concept itself is as yet unformed. We
do not apply it to children, at home or at school, nor
to employees, nor to persons of any class or age who
are in the power of other persons. Like Queen Victoria,
we conceive Man as being either in authority or as
being subject to authority, each person doing only
what he is expressly permitted to do, or what the
example of the rest of his class encourages him to
consider as permitted. The concept of the free man,
who does everything he likes and everything he can
unless there are express prohibitions to which he is
politically a consenting party, is still unusual, and
consequently terrifying, in spite of all the individu-
alist pamphlets of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. It will be found that those who are most
scandalized by the liberties I am claiming for the
convict, would be equally scandalized if I claimed
them for their own sons.
BY BERNARD SHAW Ixxiii
The conclusion is that imprisonment cannot be
fully understood by those who do not understand
freedom.
Ayot St. Lawrence,
Dec. -Jan., 1921-22.
AUTHORS' NOTE
THE reader will find in the following pa^vs an
attempt at an historical account of the administra-
tion of prisons in England and Wales from the
seventeenth to the twentieth century. It was begun
as a part of the study of English Local Government,
to which we turned in 1899, and of which the most
considerable instalments (except for a History of
Liquor Licensing in England, 1903) were published as
The Parish and the County in 1907 and The Manor
and the Borough in 1908. The subject had then to
be put aside for five years under stress of more
urgent work ; but in 1913 we were able to publish
The Story of the King's Highway. Then came the
interruption of the Great War. If, at the beginning
of 1922, we issue English Prisons under Local
Government, it is in order to provide a convenient
hMorir.il introduction to a more important work, in
which we have taken great interest, without having
been able to share in the labour that its production
has involved. In the book entitled English Prisons
To-day, being the Report of the Prison System Enquirv
Committee, by Stephen Hobhouse and A. Fenner
Brockway (Longmans) , to be published simult aneoi
volume, the student will find an authentic
I description of the English prison system of
lay. That elaborate monograph, t<> which a vast
t of care and thought has been devoted, will,
oped, serve as the starting point of further
reform of prison administration. For such an
Ivtic description the present volume may supply
a convenient hi>t< >riral background. We have sought
to avoid encroaching on tin- )i 1<1 <>t tli i larger work ;
Ixxv
AUTHORS' NOTE
but we have added, as an epilogue, some of the
reflections and tentative suggestions to which we
have been led by our historical survey.
In dealing with the material from 1835 onward,
we had, for the better part of a year, the assistance
of Mr. Felix Crosse, to whom we are indebted, very
largely, for Chapter IX. We also owe thanks to
Miss Ivy Schmidt for much unstinted labour in the
preparation of the book, and the whole production
of the index.
SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB.
41, Grosvenor Road,
Westminster.
December, 1921.
Ixxvi
English Prisons under Local
Government
CHAPTER I
THE MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS IN THE
SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND
EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
Ix English law, the prison has always been the
King's ; yet through all the centuries prior to 1877
it has to be dealt with as a part of Local Govern-
ment. Though all prisons were, in legal theory, those
of the monarch, and though from time immemorial
the King's Courts at Westminster had special prisons
of their own, 1 up and down the country were other
prisons for the maintenance and government of
which neither the King, nor any branch of the Central
ministration, made any provision or admitted any
responsibility. 4
1 To these National Prisons must be added that of the old Savoy Palace,
long used as a prison for soldiers. The Tower of London, a prison for
political offenders, was rarely so employed after 1715, but prior to 101
last inmate as a prisoner was Thictlewood, as late as 1820. During the
T 1914-8, it was again used, both as the place of custody.
and execution of enemy spies, and as a place of detention for persons
arrested by the Provost Marshal of the London Military District. The
s Bench. Marshalsea, and Fleet Prisons were chiefly for debtors, but
K-rsons committed for contempt of court, pr
isons were closed in 184.- rged
I King's Bench Prison, thenceforth called the Queen's Bench
Pri* was closed, after 1869, as a debtors' prison, it was for
some years used as a place of tcmp( , >tion for convicts on discharge.
See The London Prisons, by \V ! Dixon, 18.50 ; Her Majesty's
Tower, by the Memorials of the Savoy, by V
. 1878. Of life in ison, an inimitable picture is
Dornt, by Charles Dickens.
pl,\ I n spite of a whole
I
2 MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS
For the safe custody of a person apprehended, the
constable or other apprehending person was himself
responsible, and it had always been left to the deci-
sion of the parochial or manorial authorities in each
place whether or not they would provide a " cage/' 1
watch-house, or temporary " lock-up/' Once brought
before a Justice of the Peace, the person apprehended
had (if not liberated on bail) to be either discharged
or committed to some lawful place of detention, to
which the parish constable had to convey him. These
lawful places of detention were, down to the six-
teenth century, only the common gaols. 2 From
1557 and 1576 onwards there existed also an increas-
ing number of prisons bearing another name, and
maintained under different statutes, known as houses
of correction or bridewells.
century of controversy as to prison administration and the widespread
interest in the subject, we have found nothing that can be called a history
of English prisons or their administration. The elaborate descriptions of
John Howard (1777-1791), James Neild (1812), and Sir Thomas Fowell
Buxton (1818), together with the extensive Parliamentary inquiries into
Penitentiary Houses, Police and Prisons, between 1811 and 1835, still
afford the most useful material prior to 1835, as the voluminous Parlia-
mentary papers and Home Office reports do after that date. Much,
too, is to be gained from the abundant pamphlet literature, which is
specially prolific between 1780 and 1830, and again between 1844 and 1865.
The manuscript minutes of Quarter Sessions and Municipal Corporations
between the seventeenth century and 1877, so far as we have been able to
consult them (see The Parish and the County and The Manor and the
Borough] are, with the exception of those of Gloucestershire and, to a
lesser extent, Middlesex, disappointingly meagre as to prisons. The
publications of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline are
important between 1816 and 1824. On the whole, the nearest approach to
a history of English prison administration is afforded by the two works
entitled The Prison Chaplain : a Memoir oj the Rev. John Clay, by W. L.
Clay, 1 86 1, which contains extensive extracts from the reports, between
1825 and 1856, of the ablest of prison chaplains, and Our Convict System
by the same author, 1862. These can now be supplemented by The English
Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 1921, a semi-official but
fairly candid and extremely instructive apologia. The principal books and
pamphlets are cited in the footnotes.
1 At the Deptford Vestry, in 1808, it is " agreed that as there appears
to be an actual necessity for a place of confinement within the Manor of
Hatcham, the Churchwardens are hereby authorized to cause a proper
place to be erected in such convenient spot as they shall choose, at the
expense of this parish." (MS. Vestry Minutes, Deptford, December i4th,
1808.)
2 It had been expressly provided by 5 Henry IV, c. 10, that all felons
should be imprisoned in the common gaol, and not elsewhere ; but the
privileges of existing franchise gaols were not interfered with.
MULTIPLICITY OF GAOLS 3
(a) The Common Gaol
Of common gaols, as distinguished from houses of
correction, there seem to have existed, in the six-
teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, up
and down the country, something like a couple of
hundred, provided, owned and maintained by many
diverse authorities. It is characteristic that no com-
plete list of such gaols existed, and it cannot be
stated exactly how many places of lawful detention
there were. ' The gaol itself is the King's/' say the
old law books, " but the keeping thereof is incident
to the office of sheriff, and inseparable from it." 1
But the gaol of which the County Sheriff had the
keeping was only the county gaol. The towns which
were counties in themselves had their own gaols under
the exclusive jurisdiction of their own corporation
officers. Not only these exceptional towns, but
practically every municipal corporation, however
small, might have its own gaol, in the keeping of the
mayor or bailiffs, or of some other officer named in
the charter, or of the corporation itself. Many
liberties, franchises, or other parts of counties had
separate gaols from which the sheriff of the county
equally excluded. Private gaols still existed in
the hands of bishops and other ecclesiastical poten-
tates, of manorial lords and other territorial digni-
taries, who clung to them as income-yielding pro-
perties. 8 All these were in theory the King's prisons,
he Justice of the Peace, by R. Burn (Vol. II, p. 127 of edition of 1758) ;
;:stitutfs,\ -,89.
he gaol belonged to the Bishop, as lord of th
"f tl, arc in 170 i that the gaoler ironed his
:ntf "ii t!, .' foreman of the ('.
James O>!' I d to th- Km^. and v Council
;shop to b' : his gaol,
somewhat improved. (MS. Acts of the Privy Council.
George III, Vol. IV, pp. 172-298 ; \ 1 73, etc., March 29th and
h .UK! A; .767. John Howard, by Hep-
>i.)
Gatehouse prison was the property of the Dean and
I [oward's State of the Prisons, 2nd edn. 1780, p. 203). The Bury
1 mu mis G Danvcrs (ibid., p. 203).
Windsor ('.is?].- prison for debtors, and George II
S (ibid., p. 301 SHI and m
i the gaoler had lx- his turbi
4 MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS
and those who " kept " them were responsible to the
law as keepers of common gaols.
\Ye must, however, rid our minds of the modern
conception of a prison. The common gaol of the
sixteenth, seventeenth or eighteenth century in no
way resembled the gigantic, specially erected, semi-
castellated buildings with which we are now familiar,
containing hundreds of convicted criminals under-
going punishment. It was, to begin with, theoreti-
cally, a place of detention only, not of punishment. 1
The ancient punishment for felony was death, and
that for misdemeanours the stocks or the pillory, fine
or whipping. Hence the gaol, as a place of detention
in safe custody, was hardly ever a building specially
erected for the purpose. It was part of an ancient
castle, as at York and Lancaster ; or a few rooms in
an old tower or municipal gatehouse, as at Canter-
bury and Lincoln ; or, as at Kidderminster, two or
three dark " dungeons " under the market-house,
court-house or other public building ; or even, as at
Reading, " three rooms in a public-house belonging
to the town," and kept as a perquisite by the eldest
sergeant-at-mace. 2
and disorderly prisoners. The common gaol at Exeter belonged to J. R.
Walter, to whom the gaoler paid 22 a year for his post (ibid., p. 344) ;
whilst a vile den used as a prison at Penzance belonged to Lord Arundel as
lord of the Hundred of Penwith (ibid., p. 354). Penrhyn debtors' prison
was the property of the Earl of Godolphin, to whom it yielded ^4 a year.
Lostwithiel debtors' prison belonged to the King as Duke of Cornwall (ibid.,
P- 335). as did Chester Gaol to His Majesty as Earl of Chester (ibid., p. 400).
It was the Bishop of Durham who owned the County Gaol at Durham
(ibid., p. 378). The Duke of Leeds got 24 a year from the profits of
Halifax prison (ibid., p. 377) ; the Duke of Norfolk something out of those
of Sheffield prison (ibid., p. 374), and the Duke of Devonshire out of the
Knaresborough debtors' prison (ibid., p. 372). Lord Derby made ^13 a
year out of the Macclesfield prison (ibid., p. 407) ; and the Earl of Chol-
mondeley something out of two or three other small prisons in Cheshire
(ibid., pp. 408-9). The two prisons at Ripon belonged to the Archbishop
of York and the Dean and Chapter of Ripon respectively (ibid., p. 371),
whilst the Dean of York had his own prison yielding him 4 a year for the
175 parishes of the " Liberty of St. Peter " (ibid., p. 369).
* In the first view of gaols they are certainly to be considered only as
places of security, where the bodies of prisoners may be kept till released
by due course of law." (A letter by the Rev. S. M. Lowder . . . respecting
Cardiff Gaol (Cardiff, 1789). See also Observations on (he State of the English
Prisons, by Alexander Wedderburn, successively Lord Loughborough, and
the Earl of Rosslyn, 1793.)
2 The State of the Prisons, by John Howard, 2nd edn., 1780, p. 300.
Even in 1812 the Aston Common Gaol (Warwickshire) was " two dark and
PROFIT-MAKING ENTERPRISES 5
From the standpoint of the modern administrator,
the most remarkable feature of the administration
of all these common gaols is the fact that they were
carried on as private profit-making concerns of the
gaolers. 1 So completely was it assumed and ac-
cepted that the keeping of a gaol was a profitable
business that it was exceptional for any salary to be
attached to the post ; and, down to 1730, this un-
salaried office was even made the subject of purchase
and sale. 2 The gaoler avowedly lived by the fees
which he extracted from the prisoners committed
to his custody. These fees, originally authorized by
no statute, varied from gaol to gaol, and rested on
ancient custom, which had usually been embodied
in a detailed table, authorized or ratified by the local
Justices in Quarter Sessions. 3 Every incident in the
prison life, from admission to discharge, was made
the occasion for a fee. " For arresting any freeman
of this town inhabitant within the watch " was, by
the gaoler at Kingston-on-Thames, charged six-
pence. 4 But this was cheap. At the ancient South-
wark prison, where the fees in 1748 " remain yet
unsettled, for want whereof divers impositions may
accrue to the poor prisoners therein," the Lord
Mayor and Recorder settled in that year that the
damp dungeons sunk ten steps underground . . . within the backyard
of an alehouse " (The State of the Prisons, by James Neild, 1812, pp.
48-9).
House of Lords, in 1701, refused to pass a Bill for " regulating "
the overcrowded King's Bern: isons, expressly on the ground
that if there were a diminution in the number of prisoners " the profits
by accruing will not be a proportional recompense to the offio
.I the Coir i^'s four Courts at Westminster will be
ut prisons and without officers to assist them " (House of Commons
Journals. . 1701).
1 The Warden of the Fleet pris< Id to be a corporation sole,
: il succcssi ^ of Commons Com i. 1729,
foun : i sold by the late occupant to the then holder
lor ^5,000. The purchase of the office of gaoler was forbidden by 3 Geo. I,
10 (1730).
; ween 1773 and 1780, made a point of recording such table*
..I his bool from
1603 oscs he records " no table of fees " ; and in many
>rmally authori/. (1 until after
in July. 177.5. :l-scx) Justices thought fit to raise the
gaolers' fees at the Clcrkcnwoll prison " (Howard's Slat* of the Prisons,
1780. p. 195).
4 This was according to a table of fees dated 1603 (ibid., p. 238).
6 MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS
payments merely ' for the admission of every
prisoner " should be eleven shillings and fourpence. 1
Other charges would be made for the privilege of
detention in this or that part of the prison ; for a
separate room or share thereof ; for a bed ; " for a
flock, dust or other ordinary mattress ; for lodging
every night in a feather bed " ; for the use of bed-
clothes ; for a copy of the commitment or warrant ;
for signing the certificate to obtain a supersedeas ;
" for the benefit of the rules/' enabling prisoners to
enjoy a wider ambit of liberty ; 2 and " to the smith,
for ironing and taking off/' 3 These fees were some-
times at different rates for " knights, esquires, or
gentlemen/' on the one hand, and " yeomen, artificers
and labourers " on the other ; 4 or at different rates
for felons, misdemeanants and debtors respectively. 5
Even when the prisoner had been acquitted, or had
completed his sentence, or had paid his fine or debt,
he could not obtain his release until he had paid not
only all the fees already due but also a special fee
for his discharge. The mere " turning the key " had
to be paid for, at the New Prison, Clerkenwell, to the
extent of one shilling. 6 " Gaol fees for discharge of
every prisoner " were, at the Leicester County Gaol,
thirteen and fourpence and two shillings for the
turn key. 7 In 1729 the judges solemnly decided
that, if a man was committed on more than one
suit, he was liable to pay separate fees for each
of them, so that one and the same prisoner had on
1 Ibid., p. 215.
2 At Newcastle-on-Tyne, for instance (ibid., p. 382), though the best-
known instances of " rules " were those of the London prisons of the Fleet,
King's Bench and Marshalsea. De Foe remarked that " The King's Bencli
is in Southwark, its rules arc more extensive than those of the Fleet, having
all St. George's Fields to walk in, but the prison-house is not so good. By
a Habeas Corpus you may remove yourself from one prison to the other ;
and some of those gentlemen that are in for vast sums, and probably for
life, choose the one for their summer, the other for their winter habitation ;
and, indeed, both are but the show and name of prisons " [for those having
pecuniary resources, that is]. (De Foe's Tour through the whole Island of
Great Britain ; The London Prisons, by Hepworth Dixon, 1850.)
a As at Stamford. (Howard's State of the Prisons, 2nd cdn., 1780,
p. 238.)
* As at the Durham County Gaol (ibid., p. 380).
5 As at the Shropshire County Gaol (ibid., p. 315).
6 Ibid., p. 195. ' Ibid. t p. 271.
THE GAOLER'S EXTORTIONS 7
this ruling to pay two, four, or six admission fees,
ironing fees, rules fees and discharge fees. 1
These lawful fees were, however, only part of the
gaoler's profits. The fact that he exercised uncon-
trolled power over his prisoners gave him practically
unlimited opportunities for extortion. Whatever
allowance was made by the Justices for the provision
of bread for the convicted felons was " farmed " by
the gaoler, with the consequent shrinkage of the loaf.
Charitable bequests and donations for the relief of
poor debtors suffered taxation as they passed through
his hands, and were distributed according to his
caprice. In every gaol, moreover, there were degrees
of discomfort, pain and risk of death, from the over-
.vded, fever-haunted common dungeon, to the
comfortable bedroom in the gaoler's private apart-
ments ; from the positive physical torture of heavy
and tightly fastened irons 2 to the liberty of residing
outside the prison itself but " within the rules " ;
from the minimum of bread and water provided by
charity or the county allowance up to a diet limited
. by the prisoner's ability to pay for it ; from the
ndurable mental anguish of solitary confinement
in ,i dark cell or the indescribable promiscuity of
' the common side " up to the occupancy with wife
niilv of a private suite of apartments. For
iy gradation of comfort in these various respects,
made to pay whatever lie or his
Finally, we have to note that
ler almost always rateivd, with an exorbitant
!f, for the prisoner's needs and
lu.\ . He supplied tin- food, tli- . the lh :
beddi] d tin- furniture bought by the
admitted friends and allowed social
1 House of Commons Journal 'oth, 177*'
was 1. 76, that foe shall be taken by the
discharge, though there has been more
h fee shall be 1 78. d. , and to 1 1 is. "
State of th
:ioney to i knocked off, for fettering
some gaol -lerablo cmlu .s'tate
W.i. H . and Borough of Southwat ' . lv Willi.un
.
8 MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS
intercourse ; he provided, for a fee, such games as
skittles, and the means of gambling of every kind ;
and there was in almost every prison, with or without
the Justices' licence, a most profitable " tap " or
bar for the sale of alcoholic drinks. 1
Out of the gaoler's receipts, lawful or unlawful, he
had usually to pay such taxes as might be levied on
the gaol, as for instance, window duty, which the
Worcester gaoler said " brought him under the dis-
agreeable necessity of stopping up some windows/' 2
Whether he ever provided the prisoners or any of
them with food at his own expense we cannot dis-
cover, 3 but it is clear that, for the most part, the
1 The grant of a licence for the sale of spirits in a prison was not forbidden
until 1751 (24 George II, c. 40), whilst the grant of an alehouse licence and
the sale of beer does not seem to have been forbidden by statute until
1784 (24 George III, c. 54, Sec. 22).
The " tapster " of the Fleet prison bought, at public auction in 1775, the
remainder of a lease, not only of the beer and wine cellars, but also of
fifteen rooms for prisoners, which he let to such as could pay. This abuse
had lasted continuously for a century, notwithstanding its exposure by
the House of Commons Committee in 1729. (Howard's State of the Prisons,
2nd edn., 1780, p. 178.)
An eye-witness in 1776 tells us that " there have been no less than 30
gin-shops at one time in the King's Bench, and I have been credibly in-
formed by very attentive observers that upwards of two hogsheads or
1 20 gallons of gin . . . sold weekly, besides other spirits. . . . The beer
consumed on an average amounts, by calculation, to eight butts a week."
(State of the Gaols in London, Westminster, and Borough of Southwark, by
William Smith. M.D., 1776, p. 49.)
Notwithstanding all statutes, beer continued openly to be sold in prisons.
At the King's Bench, for instance, the " tap " went on right down to its
closing in 1842, yielding a profit of over ^800 a year. (Report of the House
of Commons Committee on the King's Bench, Fleet and Marshalsea Prisons,
1815, p. 16 ; The London Prisons, by Hepworth Dixon, 1850, p. 115.)
And nearly everywhere the bringing of ale and beer into the prison was
expressly permitted.
At the county bridewell at Leicester, Howard found painted up, in
1779 :" By Order of the Court at Easter Sessions, 1779, that there shall be no
ale or beer brought into this prison on a Sunday, nor after seven o'clock in
the evening on a week-day." (State of the Prisons, 2nd edn., 1780, p. 272.)
That much of the ill-health of prisoners was directly caused by excessive
drinking in prison was expressly stated in A Dissertation on the Diseases
of Prisons and Poorhouses, by Dr. J. M. Good, 1795, pp. 29-32, 68-70.
2 Howard's State of the Prisons, 2nd edn., 1780, p. 308. So also at Bod-
min, ibid., p. 353. He naturally paid for his own alehouse licence. He
paid also the water rate, where such a rate existed, as at the New Prison,
Clerkenwell, and the Tothill Fields Bridewell, both in London (ibid., pp.
198, 202).
8 As the sort of exception which indicates what was the rule, we find that
at the Wilts County Bridewell at Marlborough, used also as a gaol, the
keeper's salary had, in 1779, been lately " raised from 20 to ^50 to supply
the prisoners with bread." (Howard's State of the Prisons, 2nd edn., 1780,
P- 3390
THE "COUNTY BREAD ' J
prisoners had to keep themselves, with the aid of
such chanty as they could get, supplemented in some
cases by the meagre and partially distributed
" county bread " or " county allowance," a varying
sum, given in money or food out of the county
funds for the maintenance of convicted felons. 1 For
the repair of the structure of the prison, the gaoler
under no responsibility and went to no expense.
His sole obligation was to prevent the prisoners from
escaping. This was the legal excuse for chains and
irons. But the keeping of the prison involved, in all
but the smallest gaols, some turnkeys or assistants,
whom the gaoler engaged and, in so far as they did
not pay themselves by their own special fees and
minor extortions, himself paid out of his pocket.
All this was incident to his well-recognized and
profitable business of keeping a gaol, with which
nobody thought of interfering.
1 This" county allowance," made under 14 Elizabeth, c. 5, was originally
in all cases confined to convicted felons, and in many gaols Ho wan 1
found it confined to this class. It seems that, originally, no provision was
the maintenance of other classes of prisoners, such as debtors, or
" fines," convicted misdemeanants, or persons committed for failure to
find sureties, or persons simply awaiting trial. " By the Common Law,"
,aw Officers unhesitatingly report to the Privy Council in 1765,
icrs, being in prison on suspicion of having committed an offence,
k-gal right to support and maintenance from the Sheriff or gaoler."
of the Privy Council, George III, Vol. IV, p. 17.', Man.li 29th,
1765-)
Such prisoners were assumed to provide for themselves by working,
from friends, or begging nail legai
of prisoners, and charitable gilts. In I '.iirr the Grand
poorpris< ;
State of the Prisons, 2nd edn., 1780, p. 271). In Dr
nd to geir '/ ''/.. p. 280). At tho
echapeld' lung out a begging box . . . i
use and attend it in turn them only a f
is pittance none partake but those who at en:
keeper 2s HUMS with half a gallon of bo
' at Maids:
the dozen ; and debtors havr amongst them
ever. ,if " (ibid., p. 225). Outside t r. unity (,
rton Ang' ! M-I-II, in nd oi
1 in the wall. " I'adloi l-d 1.
;<>< <i all day, " oil- >se who pass by, nets, laces, nurses,
. At Christmas, felons chained together arc
1 to go about, one of them carrying a sack or basket for food :
.;y " (ibid., p. 337; so at Exeter als
oners' basket carrier "was at
ion to c'l i Is for the poor
(Canterbury in the Olden Times, by John Brent, 18; ---3.)
io MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS
The question inevitably arises how far the
Justices of the Peace were responsible for the
manner in which the prisoners were treated in
the gaols to which they committed them. For
such common gaols as belonged to the county
(omitting, therefore, those attached to municipal
corporations, lords of the manor or special franchises)
the Justices in Quarter Sessions had, by statute, a
certain measure of responsibility. Not to mention
various statutes of the sixteenth century, under
which the Justices had power to build gaols, 1 they
had, in 1700, been expressly authorized afresh to
repair or rebuild at the cost of the county any such
gaol as had been " presented " by the grand jury as
insufficient or inconvenient. 2 During the first half
of the eighteenth century they seem to have made
hardly any use of this power, and they cannot, there-
fore, be accounted irresponsible for the insecurity,
insanitation and overcrowding of the county gaols
and, indirectly, for the cruelty and disease caused by
these defects. 3 Nor were they quite without power
and responsibility in the matter of the maintenance
of the prisoners. By a statute of 1572 the Justices
could levy a sum not exceeding sixpence or eight-
pence a week on each parish in the county, and with
the proceeds provide food for the poor prisoners. 4
This was the well-known !< county allowance,"
usually taking the form of two pennyworth of bread
J jj Henry VIII, c. 2 (1531), 33 Henry VIII, c. 17, 37 Henry VJJI,
c. 23, i Mary, Sec. 2, c. 14, 5 Elizabeth, c. 24, 13 Elizabeth, c. 25. " That
Act," said Coke of the 1531 statute, " had little effect, for that the justices
did little or nothing." (Institutes, Vol. II, p. 705.) A good survey of the
statutes as to prisons from 13 jo to 1815 is given in A Letter to the . . .
Marquis of Buckingham, etc., by Sir Edmund Carrington. (1818.)
2 ii & 12 William III, c. 19 (1700). An attempt to amend this Act in
1722 did not become law. (House of Commons Journals, Feb. i8th and
March 2Qth, 1723.)
3 In 1736 the Justices of Kent, and in 1753 those of Devonshire, got Local
Acts specially empowering them to build new gaols, though it docs not
appear that any consideration for the health or comfort of the prisoners
instigated their action. (House of Commons Journals, Feb. i6th and 2^th,
1736, and Feb. 23rd and March 5th, 1753.) When the ruinous condition
of the Suffolk County Bridewell at Lavenham was demonstrated to the
Justices by the escape of successive prisoners, what they did was to send
the keeper " some thumbscrews to secure the rest "! (Appendix to State
of the Prisons, by John Howard, 1780, p. 207.)
4 14 Elizabeth, c. 5 (1572).
THE SUPPLY OF FOOD n
day, but varying from gaol to gaol. 1 The Justices
might also, under an Act of 1667, levy a further sum,
not exceeding sixpence per week, on each parish for
the purpose of providing a stock of materials on
which to set the poor prisoners to work ; the profits
being devoted to their relief. 2 This provision
remained, we believed, inoperative, as we have found
no mention of the prisoners in the gaols (as dis-
tinguished from the houses of correction) ever being
set to work. Beyond these two permissive statutes
and the general obligation to keep the gaols in repair,
we cannot find that the Justices of the Peace had any
legal duty in the matter. Even more undefined by
common law or statute were the responsibilities of
the legal owner and nominal keeper of the common
gaols of the county, the high sheriff himself, and of
the municipal corporations or officers, the lords of
manors or franchises, and the various ecclesiastical
1 I loward found every variety of practice with regard to the pro\ ;
of the prisoners' maintenance out of county funds. Usually the debtors
>thing but what they could beg in charity, with, occasionally, the
proceeds of small legacies. But if certified to be poor by the officers of their
!iey might be allowed to come in with the criminals. The " felons "
all persons awaiting trial, and misdemeanants of all
always got the " county bread " as it was called. This might be (as
umouth County Gaol) only a penny per day or (at the Dorset,
'. mts and i .ire County Gaols) a penny-halfpenny a day ;
or (as at the Lincolnshire County Gaol) eight pennyworth of bread and
.ly. More usually, at Howard's visits, i
twopence per day or a shilling a week, given either in money or bread. At
Norfolk County Gaol the prisoners got, in addition, 14 Ib. of cheese a
week for the whole lot of th- m. At the Derbyshire County Gaol they got
'(nnyworth of bread a week each ; at the Gloucester, Berks and
ester County Gaols three pennyworth of bread a day ; at th<
hire County Gaol, fifteen pennyworth of bread and nine pennyworth of
cheese per week ; whilst at the Northumberland County Gaol they got
h of bread and two pennyworth of meat daily, or four times
as much as at Monmouth. In view of the \
the allowance should have be<
Iving semi-starvation in years of dearth. Yet the pr.
nucd at Bristol in i8i,s time many gaols
to a fixed weight of bread. Th.- I Id is County Gaol gave 16 oz.,
. County Gaol 22 oz. daily, the Warwick County Gaol 24 oz., the
Bedford County Gaol t\\<> half-peck loaves a week, the Hunts <
' nly two >ock loaves a week. The Ess<
a quart of small beer a day : and at the Bucks
iol both debtors and felons got a pound of bread a day and two
larles II, c. 4. The total neglect of this statute and the failure of
-s to ma! , mcc of other than con-
M described in the Letter to the Right Hon. Robert Peel
tison Labour, by John Headlam, 1823, pp. 5-13.
12 MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS
or other dignitaries, who found themselves in
possession of ancient prisons. In practice, so far as
we can ascertain, every real or nominal keeper of a
prison did exactly as he pleased. Right down to the
third quarter of the eighteenth century at any rate,
neither the Justices of the Peace nor anyone else
ever thought of visiting the gaols, or taking any
thought for their administration. 1
(b) The House of Correction
When we turn from the common gaol to the House
of Correction we find ourselves confronted with an
entirely different code of law, from which, in the
absence of other evidence, we might have inferred
an administration on a diametrically opposite prin-
ciple. Instead of the prison being, as in the case of
the common gaol, the private concern of the gaoler,
the various Bridewells or Houses of Correction were
professedly under the direct administration of the
Justices of the Peace. These institutions, of which
from first to last there may have been a couple of
hundred, were established, by virtue of an Act of
1576, on the model of the Bridewell organized in the
City of London between 1552 and I557, 2 not as part
of the prison administration, but as an adjunct of the
1 Writing in 1777, Howard remarks as follows : " I have often enquired
of gaolers whether the sheriffs, Justices or town magistrates inspected their
gaols. Many of the oldest have answered, ' None of those gentlemen ever
looked into the dungeons or even the wards of my gaol.' Others have said,
' Those gentlemen think that if they came into my gaol they should soon
be in their graves.' Others, ' The Justices think the inside of my house
too close for them : they satisfy themselves with viewing the outside.'
Now, if magistrates continue thus negligent of their duty, a general,
thorough reformation of our prisons must be despaired of." (State of
the Prisons, by John Howard, 1777, p. 379.)
2 For this, the model for all places subsequently called after its name,
see Solitude in Imprisonment, etc., by Jonas Hanway, 1776, chs. II and III ;
Bridewell Royal Hospital, Past and Present, by A. J. Copeland, 1888 ; The
London Prisons, by Hepworth Dixon, 1850, ch. XIII, pp. 265-73 ; the fourth
plate of Hogarth's " Harlot's Progress," which depicts a scene in the
interior of this prison. Ned Ward's London Spy, 1703, gives a vivid descrip-
tion of the life of its inmates at that date, whilst the pamphlets of the Rev.
Thomas Bowen, entitled Extracts from the Records and Court Books of
Bridewell Hospital, with remarks, 1798, and Remarks upon the Report of a
Select Committee on Bridewell Hospital, 1799, afford some idea of its later
administration. It ceased to be used as a place of confinement in
1860.
THE BRIDEWELLS
relief of destitution. 1 The}' had as their object, not
the punishment of criminals, but very nearly what
it was afterwards sought to effect by the ordinary
Poor Law workhouse, namely, the elimination of the
able-bodied idler, vagrant or unemployed from the
recipients of what would nowadays be called outdoor
relief. The House of Correction was, in fact,
originally a place in which persons wantonly idle or
disorderly might be compulsorily set to work, partly
in order to produce their keep, parti)' with a view to
their reformation of character, and partly with the
intention of thereby deterring others from idleness
and disorder. Under the statute of 1576, and all the
subsequent amending Acts, it was the Justices in
Quarter Sessions who had the entire responsibility
for these bridewells, as they were often called, alike
with regard to erection, maintenance, staffing,
regimen and discipline. They appointed and paid
the master or governor, made whatever arrangements
they chose as to feeding, working and correcting the
prisoners, and were by law, in all respects, the owners
and managers of the institutions. So little at the
outset were these places regarded as places of punish-
ment, and so much as means of finding employment
for the unemployed poor, that it was evidently not
unusual, about the middle of the seventeenth century,
ih' inmates regular wages in return for their
work. In the North Riding of Yorkshire the Justices
:i MipulaUd, in the contract which they made
with the governor of their House of Correction at
.on for t! u of a House of Correction at
is stated by the North Kidiu^ Justu. -, .is b.-in- " that the trade
in thM ; isc ;i multitude of poor, who in v.
u th^ sai-1
else cast upon \vithoiit Home
o great a in ult I'n. l'\" f.\ ;//: A' .<//>.'<; (>?MJ ''i Sessions Ktcords, v.-i iv.
x Jubticc
1 8, was repaired, the following ins .19 set over the gate-
1 sorts of work for the poor of this parish of St.
i also the county, according to law, and for
such as will beg and live idly ty of Westminster." (Thi London
<on, 1850, p. 249 ; The Criminal Prisons of London,
by 1! ,iad J. Biimy, 1852, p. 36.2.)
14 MAINTENANCE OF PRISONS
Thirsk, " that he shall allow unto the people to be
employed as aforesaid, for their said work and labour,
the several salaries hereafter agreed on and set down,
that is to say, as shall be set down by Justices of the
Peace in pursuance of the statute made for servants'
and laborers' wages in the time of King James "
the inmates of the House of Correction thus being
secured constant employment at the full rates current
in the district for free labour. 1 We cannot unravel
the economic complications of these seventeenth
century bridewells, with their beating of hemp and
picking of oakum, their spinning of yarn and making
of cloth. So far as reformatory influence is con-
cerned, there is a certain amount of evidence that for
that first generation of their existence, the local
bridewells, like their London prototype, achieved a
fair measure of success, and that the Justices of the
Peace were diligent in their administration, with the
result that Lord Coke could sharply distinguish
between them and the common gaols. " Few or
none," said he, " are committed to the common
gaol . . . but they come out worse than they went
in. And few are committed to the House of Correc-
tion or Working House but they come out better/' 2
It is, however, clear that, by the end of the seven-
teenth century, these distinctive features had almost
entirely disappeared. The Houses of Correction had
by that time lost all real connection with the Poor
Law and had become places of punishment of minor
offenders of all sorts. The Justices no longer con-
cerned themselves with the provision of work for the
unemployed poor, or of disciplinary employment for
sturdy rogues and vagabonds. They merely handed
over to the master a power to exact from his prisoners
whatever labour he chose, partly as a means of
relieving the county from the expense of maintaining
them, 3 partly as punishment, but in the main as the
1 See the North Riding Quarter Sessions Records, Vol. V, p. 107, for the
contract in full, dated April 2jt\\, 1652.
2 Coke's Institutes, II, 729.
3 It had always been assumed that no charge would be thrown on the
county funds for the prisoners' maintenance. The Act of 1609 (7 James I,
THE MASTER'S ENTERPR1M 15
master's own perquisite by way of supplement to a
small salary. Once the master appointed and his
salary fixed, on the understanding that there was to
be no other expense thrown on the rates, the Justices,
at any rate after the Restoration, seem usually to
have given no more thought or attention to the
House of Correction than they did to the county
gaol. Both institutions were, in effect, run as private
ventures of their masters or keepers. This gradual
assimilation of the bridewell and the common gaol
was fostered by converging tendencies. The practice
of merely " passing " vagrants, with or without a
whipping, instead of committing them to the local
bridewell, and the habit of farming the whole poor
to a contractor who set up his own workhouse, must
have diminished the use of the Houses of Correction
by the classes for which they had been originally
intended. 1 On the other hand, the Justices not un-
tliat the said rogues, vagabonds and idle persons
during such time as they shall continue and remain in the said house of
correction shall in no sorts be chargeable to the county for any allov,
at their bringing in or going forth, or during the time of their abode
there, but shall have such and so much allowance as they shall deserve
A-n labour and work." When the Middlesex Justices, in 1615,
ir new h'.use of correction they appointed a governor at an
/2oo a year, out of which he was directed t<> pay a
mati lain, a porter and s<: ; v.mts. As |..r the prisoners,
; hat " every person < onimitt'-d thith-r shall !" wl to labour
and have no other nurture than that he or she shall get with their labor,
: 11 (if any
washed, " all, together v. ; ense.
lle&ex County Record . Vol. u. pp. ii 7 -.-o.) In the North Riding, the
Justices, in 1620, appointed one " G. :
Leeds, cl ; nn.ling a sufficient stock to be employed in
the said house " and also " bedding and ma drink.
necessaries to those who happen to be committed." I Ic was
to be paid an i m of /oo i . ear and ^
nnploying and ruling." and if
at an ;i.-d upon to inul " stock " (i.e
mast abate out of his yearly pay 10 for every ^K
so pr iding Quarter Sessions Record*. Vol. II,
u the governor tOO
loo for ad' 1 . ^k and abated /n .
lers were not only those committed for ah
in 1615, one T. T., having already been branded on the left
Mer with " a rogue inco; vithout reformatory
>f Correction for life (inprrpctttwn). (Mtddlf-
\' Records, Vol. II, p. 140.) Even more remarkable U the sen*
ho, in 1626, was " committed to the House of Co;
16 MAINTENANCE OF PRISON >
naturally thought it preferable on many grounds to
commit minor offenders to the House of Correction,
where they were supposed to be set to work, rather
than to the demoralizing common gaol. Already, in
1609, this tendency had been marked by an Act
expressly authorizing penal discipline instead of
mere reformatory treatment, in the Houses of
Correction. 1 The practical identity of the two kinds
of prison was recognized by statute in 1720, when the
Justices were expressly authorized to commit va-
grants and other minor offenders, as well as persons
unable to find sureties, either to the common gaol
or to the House of Correction, as they might think
proper. 2 As the difficulty of profitably employing
the prisoners' labour increased, the master of the
House of Correction, like his colleague the gaoler,
evidently strove to increase his income by fees 3 and
extortions. He naturally objected both to any
falling off in numbers and also to being restricted
to only the poorest kind of prisoners. We find him
desiring to have the sheriff entrust him with the
charge of debtors (which was not statutorily author-
ized until 1865) and the Justices commit felons into
his custody. In the early part of the eighteenth
century it became, in fact, in most counties, difficult
be there flogged and there detained until it shall appear to the Court that
the female bastard, begotten by him of the body of Ann M., is dead.
(Ibid., Vol. III.)
1 7 James I, c. 4. In 1617, the Middlesex Justices try to arrange that
" servants, apprentices and other unruly and disordered persons," sent to
the House of Correction merely " to receive correction for the better
humbling of them to their duties," should be kept apart from the " rogues "
and criminals. (Middlesex County Records, Vol. II, p. 130.)
2 6 George I, c. 19.
3 Though the exaction of fees characterizes the common gaol rather than
the House of Correction, they were not unknown in the latter. Thus,
already in 1607, we find the North Riding Justices ordering, for the Thirsk
House of Correction, that prisoners " upon their delivery or discharge . . .
shall give for their fees . . . five shillings as they shall be able, otherwise
three and fourpence." (North Riding Quarter Sessions Records, Vol. I,
p. 75.) Even at the City of London Bridewell, we hear, in 1703, of prisoners
being detained solely for non-payment of fees. (The London Spy, by Ned
Ward, 1703.) Howard mentioned the charging of fees in 1773-80 at many
Houses of Correction (apart from those which were combined with the gaols),
e.g., Kingston-upon-Hull Bridewell (p. 374), York City Bridewell (p. 369).
North Riding Bridewell at Thirsk (p. 366), East Riding Bridewell at
Beverley (p. 366), Bristol City Bridewell (p. 360), Somerset County Bride-
well at Taunton (p. 357), Cornwall County Bridewell at Bodmin (p. 352).
GAOL AND BRIDEWELL 17
to discover any practical distinction between the
House of Correction and the common gaol, 1 whether
in administration, discipline or the character of the
inmates. 1 In many cases the gaol and the House of
Correction were one and the same. In many others,
though the two institutions were nominally distinct,
they were kept in the same or adjacent buildi]
under one and the same officer. 3
But the sheriff had no control over the House of
Correction, whilst the Justices had only concurrent
jurisdiction over the gaol. In strict law, a debtor
could be committed only to a gaol, a vagrant only
to a House of Correction. Not until the Prisons Act
of 1865 were they made by statute identical under
the name of Local Prison.
with the exaction of fees so also with the allowance of the " county
bread " ; by 1773, Howard found nearly half the bridewells assimilated
in this respect to the common gaols, the prisoners receiving from a penny
to fourpence per day each, in money or bread. In about half the bridewells,
however, the prisoners still had no allowance, and received what they
earned, or begged or received jfrom friends.
* Henry Fielding, in 1751, said that magistrates shrank from committing
offenders to the bridewells for fear of thereby completing their demoraliza-
In Fielding's view these places were quite as contaminating as gaols.
(Enquiry into the Causes of the Increase of Robbers, 1751, p. 64.)
3 On the other hand, at a few places, the Poor Law origin and primary
purpose of the House of Correction are recalled by its becoming closely
associated with the workhouse ; as at Thame (Oxfordshire), where a
building given to the custody in 1708 for a bridewell was used also as the
h workhouse, the keeper, in 1779, farming the whole of the poor at
lamp sum of 480 a year. (Howard's State of the Prison*, 2nd edn.,
1780, pp. 304-5.) A similar engrafting of the parish poorhouse on a county
bridewell was found at Wrexham in Denbighshire (ihitl., p. .ji^. The
rington Borough Bridewell consisted merely of two rooms in the work-
house yard, under the workhouse master ; ao also at Poole, in I '
CHAPTER II
THE STATE OF THE PRISONS, 1700-1773
THE Political Science student has nowadays no
difficulty in seeing that the appalling condition of
the prisons in the eighteenth century, and the long
drawn-out tragedy of prison life is to be ascribed less
to any culpable neglect of the sheriffs and the Justices,
in the discharge of duties which had never been
precisely denned or even explicitly imposed on them,
than to the amazing administrative device, at that
time almost universally adopted, of converting the
keeping of a prison into a profit-making private
business. We can now realize that, so long as the
keeper of the gaol was permitted to make a profit
out of the prisoners committed to his charge, it was
quite impracticable to secure conditions of health
or decency, or even of common humanity let alone
uniformity or reformative treatment. 1 The absence
of an adequate salary and the opportunities for
exaction had attracted to the office of gaoler, as was
bitterly remarked, none but " low-bred, mercenary
and oppressive, barbarous fellows, who think of
nothing but enriching themselves by the most cruel
extortion, and who have less regard for the Iife x 0f a
poor prisoner than for the life of a brute." 2 /The
1 It would be instructive to analyse and compare the results on tin-
public service of a like conversion into profit-making ventures, character-
istic of the eighteenth century, of such public offices as the superintendence
of a poorhouse or workhouse, the management of a market, the head-
mastership of an endowed school, the keeping of a private lunatic asylum,
and the " farming out " of the upkeep of a road or the collection of tolls.
It is to be noted that, even at the beginning of the nineteenth century, so
wise a man as Jeremy Bentham was seriously proposing, as the basis of his
" panopticon," letting the management by contract to the highest bidder.
A hundred years later there were still economists who wished to farm out
road maintenance.
2 Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1767.
18
FILTH AND STENCH 19
first concern of the eighteenth century gaoler was
naturally to avoid incurring any expense. Hence the
use of irons and chains for safe custody, instead of
walls and warders ; the immuring in underground
dungeons and windowless garrets, and the herd-
ing together in roofless yards, of prisoners of
both sexes and all ages, healthy and sick, innocent
and guilty ; hence also the indescribable lack of
sanitary accommodation, the scarcity of water and
the non-provision of food, clothes or firing. " The
felons in this country," said a writer in 1767, " lie
worse than dogs or swine, and are kept much more
uncleanly than those animals are in kennels or sties.
. . . The stench and nastiness are so nauseous . . .
that no person enters there without the risk of his
health and life.'^>We give, as one of many samples,
a description by a medical man, of what he saw with
his own eyes in two of the important prisons under
the Middlesex Justices. " Vagrants and disorderly
women of the very lowest and most wretched class
of human beings, almost naked, with only a few
filthy rairs almost alive and in motion with vermin,
their bodies rotting with the bad distemper, and
covered with itch, scorbutic and venereal ulcers ;
and being unable to treat the constable even with
a pot of beer to let them escape, are drove in shoals
to gaols, particularly to the two Clerkenwells and
Tothill Fields ; there thirty, and sometimes near
forty of tli'-- unhappy wretches are crowded or
crannn (1 t'^rtlnT in one ward where, in the dark,
:id beat each other in a most shock
don. In the morning . . . the different w;i
. are more like the Black Hole in Calcutta than
places of confinement in a ChriMi.tn country."' From
all this filth and contamination arose the notorious
" gaol fever " a malignant t'.rm of typhus, apj
mknown, as we must with -h.nne confess, in
isons of oth r < -oun tries which, it -was con-
1 GtHlUman's Magatinf. Ii
' Mate oftk* (. don. WatminiUr. and Borough
MO.
20 STATE OF THE PRISONS
stantly asserted, killed off more of the prison inmates
than were either hanged or transported, and chose
its victims, it is needless to say, without regard to
the verdicts of the juries. The constant presence of
contagious fever in the gaol served as a full excuse
for the neglect of the sheriff to enter its portals, and
frequently also for the non-residence of the gaoler.
Now and again a malignant outburst of gaol fever
would stretch, like the arm of an avenger, from the
prison house to the court of justice, and sweep away,
in a few days, judges and advocates, jurymen and
witnesses alike. 1 The constant prevalence of disease,
and the extent of the mortality among the prison
population, was known to every reader. In the
sonorous language, possibly of Dr. Johnson himself,
the widely read Gentleman's Magazine declared, in
1759, that " the corrosion of resentment, the heavi-
ness of sorrow, the corruption of confined air, the
want of exercise, and sometimes of food, the con-
tagion of diseases from which there is no retreat, and
the severity of tyrants against whom there can be
no resistance, and all the complicated horrors of a
1 At the Lent assize in Taunton, 1730, some prisoners who were brought
thither from Ivelchester (Ilchester) gaol infected the court, and Lord Chief
Baron Pengelly, Sir James Shepherd, sergeant, John Pigot, Esq., sheriff,
and some hundreds besides, died of the gaol distejnper. At Axminster, a
little town in Devonshire, a prisoner, discharged from Exeter gaol in 1755,
infected his family with that disease, of which two of them died, and many
others in that town afterwards. (State of the Prisons, by John Howard,
p. 12 of 2nd edn., 1780.) The same results must have followed in innumer-
able unrecorded cases, from the notorious " Black Assize " at Oxford, in
1577, down to Howard's own day. In 1743, as we learn incidentally from a
letter in The Champion, March 3rd, 5th and 8th, quoted in the Gentleman's
Magazine of March, 1743, p. 141, the distress among the woollen workers
of Somerset and Devon had " filled the gaols and prisons of the county so
as to create a gaol pestilence, of which 100 died at Exeter in one prison in
the space of a year, and which killed thousands in the country . . .
between Taunton and Exeter, particularly at Tiverton, in which town 1,700
died in about fifteen months, and the parish was at the expense of 1,500
coffins. In October, 1750, occurred the well-known " Black Sessions "
at the Old Bailey, when " the foul steams of the Bail Dock, and of two
rooms opening into the Court in which the prisoners were the whole day
crowded together," were specially noticed. Nearly everyone in court was
taken ill, and of six judges on the bench " four died, together with two or
three of the counsel, one of the under sheriffs, several of the Middlesex jury
and others present, to the number of forty." (Gentleman's Magazine,
January, 1753.) The assizes for Hampshire had to be adjourned for ten
weeks in 1767 on account of the outbreak of malignant fever in Winchester
Gaol (ibid., July, 1767).
CRUELTY 21
prison, put an end every year to the life of one in four
of those that are shut up from the common comforts
of human life. Thus perish yearly five thousand men,
overborne with sorrow, consumed by famine or
putrified by filth, many of them in the most vigorous
and useful part of life/' 1
Mere parsimony could not, however, make the
gaol yield a profit, and many eighteenth century
gaolers accordingly varied the squalid misery of
prison life by deliberate torture for the purpose of
extortion, and the systematic encouragement of
drunkenness and vice. We need not follow the
revelations made by a House of Commons Committee
in 1729 of the fiendish cruelty of the tyrants who
governed the Fleet and Marshalsea Prisons. There
is abundant evidence that, even if the persistency
and extravagance in cruelty of Bambridge and his
associates was abnormal, a whole system of skilful
extortion under the pressure of wanton discomfort
and physical pain, and of the sale of licentious indul-
gence to those who consented to pay, prevailed in the
majority of the contemporary prisons. " A prison,"
said a writer in 1726, " is a place fitter to make a
rogue than reform him. Bolts and chains are used
as bugbears to extort money from those who are
supposed to have it, while such as pay readily are
indulged in the greatest freedom and excesses, be
r < -rimes of what nature so ever."* " Every
capital prison/' said Jonas Hanway, " is a public
house." 1 " To advance the rent thereof/' the House
of Commcv ressly declared, in 1729, " and to
consume tin liquors there vended, they not only
encourage riot and drunkenness, but also prevent
needy prisoner from being supplied with the
1 Gentleman's Magaxine, January, 1759 "In the Idler (No. 38). Johnson
'prisoner* dies every year (Hnkl>..k
: Boswell's Life of Johnson. Vol. I. p. 348, n<>-
ndon Journal. March ith. 1726.
3 Ho adds, "Though spirituous liquors, commonly so called, are pro-
imc of cordials they pass, while by the force of
wine and malt liquor all the bad effects of intoxication are cot
.hutive Justice and Mercy, etc., by Jonas Hanway,
1781, p. 80.)
STATE OF THE PRISONS
mere necessaries of life in order to increase an exorbi-
tant gain to their tenants/' 1 " Gaolers who hold or
let the tap," remarked Howard half a century later,
" find their account in not only conniving at and
promoting drunkenness and midnight revels. What
profligate and debauched company of both sexes do
we see let into our gaols that the tap may be kept
running." 2 We must spare even the student some of
the contemporary descriptions of the prisons. Here,
as one sample, is a picture which the Gentleman's
Magazine gave to its readers in 1757. " Clerkenwell
Bridewell, though originally intended only to punish
idleness by labor, has, by the interest of the keeper,
been made the receptacle of felons, and is thus
become the seminary of wickedness in all its branches.
The idle apprentice, as soon as he is committed to
this house of correction, becomes the associate of
highwaymen, housebreakers, pickpockets and stroll-
ing prostitutes, the witness of the most horrid
impiety and the most abandoned lewdness, and
generally leaves whatever good quality he brought in,
together with his health, behind him. The men and
women prisoners are all together till they are locked
up at night, and have perpetual opportunities of
retiring to the dark cells as often as they please :
the women, indeed, are generally such as do not
need much solicitation to this commerce ; but as
the county allowance is no more than a pennyworth
of bread and some water in twenty-four hours, and
many of them are totally destitute both of money
and friends, they would have no alternative but to
become prostitutes for subsistence or to perish with
hunger. When the time of confinement limited by
the sentence is expired, the prisoner, though she may
be detained for her fees, is not entitled to the county
allowance ; so that some have been kept a fortnight
in this prison without any food at all besides what
they could procure either from charity or from lust.
1 House of Commons Committee, 1729: see Prison Discipline, by J.
Field, 1856, p. 7.
2 State of the Prisons, by John Howard (Warrington, 1777), p. 31.
LICEXTIOUSX1 23
But this is not all, the gatekeepers and other petty
officers of the prison consider all the women prisoners
as their seraglio, and indulge themselves in the
?romiscuous use of as many of them as they please.
here are also two wards called the bawdy houses,
iu which the locker, for a shilling, will at any time
lock up a man and woman together for the night, and
he is so solicitous to encourage this practice for the
sake of his fee that he addressed the author of the
Reasons/ after he had been three days in custody,
in these terms : ' When you have a mind to have one
of these girls that you fancy lie with you all night
\< >u may have her ; the custom is to pay for her
bed and tip me a shilling/ But this lewdness is not
only practised by one prisoner with another, but by
people that go thither on purpose, so that the place
may be considered as a great brothel, kept under the
protection of the law for the emolument of its
mil Many dissolute persons resort thither,
especially on Sunday, and after having singled out a
girl, reated her in the tap-house, they are con-
ted by the locker, under pretence of shewing
them the prison, to a private place, where they remain
d as long as they please. It is also a mart
re those who subsist by keeping prostitutes in
their houses, come to supply themselves with the
number they want. It is common eper of
a bagnio pr his servant to come to this place, call
two of wine, look over the girls,
[uire wh-n their times are out, ; ving made
ice of such as they think fit for tin ir purpose,
pay their fees and t. in lion;
alous relationship between the gaoler
hi^ p: ; course, exhaust the
tragic r the prison life .f that time. The
ntlentan's Magazine, Tune, 1757, quoting from and reviewing th<-
pamphlet entitled RMSOHS for tkc Reformation of tkt 7/ous* of Corrtcho* ml
mwell. 1757. The pamphlet, which was by Jacob lh\. hmnrlf a
pri*>; M, contains 56 page -
I SchftMt for Ike Employment / .//
/vrsons sfMt ,i ' >tu* of ( 'i CltrktHtPtll. i
temporary priion odminmtm-
24 STATE OF THE PRISONS
modern reader finds it difficult to realize the amazing
heterogeneity of the prisoners themselves. In one
and the same herd, exposed practically to identical
treatment, were often to be found, not only convicted
felons and mere misdemeanants, but also untried
persons arrested on suspicion of every grade of guilt ;
individuals detained merely for non-payment of
fines, fees or costs ; poor men committed in default
of finding sureties for their appearance to answer
for trumped-up charges, and even unequivocally
innocent witnesses put in prison only to ensure their
being on hand when wanted. 1 Along with all these
would be the perennial crowd of mere debtors
persons arrested on civil process for simple inability
to discharge their real or alleged liabilities to their
creditors. These prisoners, herded together day and
night in lawless promiscuity, necessarily lived in the
closest association. The jovial debtor possessed of
unsuspected resources, the professional thief liberally
provisioned by his " pals/' even the convicted felon
with his right to the " county bread/' were actually
better off than the untried prisoner, innocent witness
or destitute debtor, who, if friendless, were within
measurable distance of starvation. In the community
of prison life, those who had food shared it with
those who had none. Thus, in the relations of
gratitude and good fellowship which inevitably
sprang up between hardened profligates and inno-
cent novices, the very virtues of the prison house
increased its moral contamination. In each of the
larger prisons the community evolved for itself a
whole code of rules at which the gaoler connived,
even if they pressed with cruelty on the poorest and
weakest of the inmates. Thus the immemorial abuse
of " garnish/' which existed in all prisons of any size,
compelled every newcomer to pay a stated sum, to
1 We have it on the testimony of an ex- Lord Chancellor that, as late as
1793, mere witnesses, " merely because they are poor, and unknown,
perhaps without a suspicion of crime . . . are bound over to give evidence,
and having no person to answer for them, are committed to secure their
testimony." (Observations on the State of the English Prisons, etc., by A.
Wedderburn, successively Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn, 1793,
p. 28.)
GARNISH 25
be spent by the whole community in drink. If the
unfortunate victim was unable or unwilling to pay,
he was stripped of his clothing or made to run the
gauntlet. 1
That this state of affairs should have remained
practically unmitigated down to the last quarter of
the eighteenth century, is but another proof of
administrative indifference and incapacity of H<
\vrian England. " There is nothing more scandal- us
in the history of England in the eighteenth century,"
says Lecky, " than the neglect by legislators and
statesmen of these abuses." 2 It was in vain that a
diligent member of Parliament, named Pocklington,
brought before the House of Commons in 1696 the
iniquities that were going on in the Fleet Prison, and
even succeeded in getting them exposed by a Select
Committee. This inquiry led, in 1697, to the
abolition of the immemorial privilege of sanctuary
at Whitefriars and the Savoy, but effected nothing
for the reform of the gaols. 8 It was in vain that, on
1 Howard describes the custom of garnish as existing in 1773-80 in nearly
risons. At the Essex County Gaol at Chelmsford, " in the taproom
there hung a paper on which, among other thing-
topav <>r run the gauntlet. '" icted by written rule
n and the Derby Town Gaol. At the
Kichmond Gaol (North Riding) the exaction had been officially sanctioned
t.-es approved by two justices in 1671. At the S
. iol at Shrewsbury the Justices, in 1774, expressly prohibited it.
(The Stab of the Prisons, and edn, 1780, pp. 199. 220. 277. 3 But
the greatest place for garnish was Newgate, where the cruel rigour of its
exaction was described in Stcclc's comedy, The Lying Lover, Gay's lit
Opera, and the anonymous History of the Press Yard. was also
specially characteristic of the large debtors' prisons in London, wh<
was described as early as 1618. " Thy chamber fellows come upon thee for
a garnish. v them, or hast no money, t! loak
thy shoulders." (Certaine Characters and Essays of Prison and
tiers, by ( - il, 1618.) In 1752 we read that " the si
of London in going ii.
the gaols of London or Middl. Sl \ shall, for th future, pay any garnish, it
vrs a great oppression." (Gentleman's
Magatins 11 force in
(State oi ns, 2nd edn., 1780, p. 17
Newgate i ui<l in the great London debtors' prisons we suspect
it lasted d- see the Report < MS of Commons
Fleet and Marshals** Prisoi
(See also The Old Bailey and Newgate, by Charles Gordon. i</
i I I-ccky. 1887, Vol. VI, p. 249.
1697 ; Tk* Prison Chu
.- Lord Macaulay, Vol 11
26 STATE OF THE PRISONS
the formation of the Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge in 1699, that militant ecclesi-
astic, Bishop Compton, noticed the state of the prisons,
and got appointed a small committee, which visited
Newgate and the Marshalsea ; and produced, under
Dr. Thomas Bray, an admirable manuscript report
on prison reform which remained quite unheeded.
Though the Society continued occasionally to concern
itself with prison administration during the ensuing
decade, we cannot discover that its praiseworthy
efforts had the slightest result. 1 It was equally in
vain that the most appalling cruelties in the Fleet
and Marshalsea Prisons were laid bare by the House
of Commons Committee of 1729, under General
Oglethorpe, in a lengthy Report which is one of the
most horrifying of prison documents. The criminal
prosecutions then undertaken against Huggins,
Bambridge, Acton and Barnes, the principal culprits,
all eventually miscarried ; and the investigation was
not continued, partly, as Smollett hints, for political
reasons. 2 It was not that the subject was allowed to
remain absolutely unnoticed. The House of Lords
had its own Committee in 1729, on the state of im-
prisoned debtors. 3 A few years later, William Hay,
1 See, for this long- forgotten episode, Howard and the Prison World, by
W. Hepworth Dixon, 1849, when the report of 1702 was for the first time
printed ; Memoirs of the Life of Robert Nelson, by Charles Frederick
Secretan, 1860, p. 102, etc. ; The Life of John Howard, by John Field, 1850,
pp. 91-2, 484 ; Prison Discipline, by the same, 1848, pp. 2-3, 119 ; The
Prison Chaplain, by W. L. Clay, 1861, p. 27.
2 For the horrors brought to light by this investigation, see House of
Commons Journals, Vol. XXI, p. 274, etc., 1729, for .Report of House of
Commons Committee of 1729; The Tryal of William Acton . . . upon an
Indictment for the murder of T. Bliss, 1729 (see British Museum, Volume
6056, b. 74) ; the long reports of the prosecutions in Howcll's State Trials,
Vol. IX ; History of England, by T. Smollett, Vol. II, ch. xv, p. 267, of
1848 edition ; Maitland's History of London, Vol. If, p. 990 ; 2 'he London
Prisons, by Hepworth Dixon, 1850, p. 116 ; Lije of John Howard, by J.
Field, 1850, pp. 92-100 ; The Prison Chaplain, by \V. L. Clay, 1801. The
oppressions of the Fleet Prison had long been known ; see The ULconomy
of the Fleete, or an Apologetic answer of Alexander Harris unto 19 articles
set forth against him by the Prisoners, 1600, reprinted by the Camden Society
in their Vol . XXV, 1 879. Later pamphlets are A n Oration on the Oppression
of Jailers which was spoken in the Fleet Prison (n. d. about 1730) and The
Humours of the Fleet, written by a Gentleman of the College, by W. Paget,
I749-
3 This led, after two years' delay, to a small Act intended to mitigate
some of the worst hardships of debtors (2 George II, c. 22) ; which failed,
however, to get put into practice.
' THE LORDS' GROATS " 27
M.P., whose labours for Poor Law Reform deserve
more recognition than has been accorded to them,
and who presided over another committee in 1735,
introduced Bill after Bill for the erection of new local
prisons and their supervision by inspectors appointed
by the Lord Chancellor. 1 The veteran philanthropist,
General Oglethorpe, who had been instrumental in
the inquiry into the Fleet Prison in 1729,
obtained another committee on the King's Bench
^on in 1/54, which revealed a continuance of the
known evils of promiscuity, extortion, drunken-
ness and every kind of irregularity. 2 All that Par-
liament or the local authorities could bring them-
selvjs to do was now and again to propound some
futile expedient to palliate a particular evil. Thus
agonized petitions of poor distressed debtors,
starving and dying of fever for no crime except that
of poverty occasionally met by the illogical
ice of particular Insolvent Acts, whereby all
io happened to be in durance on a certain
were released. In 1759 Parliament went so far
\\vll-known " Lords' Act," that
crcc putting their debtors in prison might be
ilivd to allow them fourpence a day for main-
But the legal delays and complications
involved in putting this Act into force were so great
it Howard, twenty years la
id th.it scarcely any debtors succeeded in ob-
" groai Parliai the same
inmittcc on tho Krfonu <-f thr I'..>r 1
* of Commons Journals, 1 7.15 . I Vor ks of V.
IM Journals, 1754 ; sec also The Extraordinary Case of
nek Prison, 1768 (H:
56, b. 7.1
rrod to about 1700 ;
See alao Le*al and other
t should not be \m prison* d for Dr>
<&o; TH* Cry of tkt Oppresud. by Mono Pn SOM*
necessary Obttrvations on an Act of tkt Last Session . . . for the Relief of
Insolvent Debtors, by Roderick Mackenzie. 1725 ; and the anonymous
/ /: '!</)/. ,,/!/ M MMOf/M 1>>-''!. I7''I.
28.
1CS Of
MUdtaMMMlSu.i' \ '. 1-. 1 1 tofSWtkOllAdobtllMd 1 IM ;!u i; r- -li'
28 STATE OF THE PRISONS
time ordered the Justices in Quarter Sessions to
fix a scale of fees to be exacted from the debtors,
but it neither limited their amount, nor took any
steps to see that its injunction was carried out.
All the common gaols and Houses of Correction in
the country were, as we have seen, according to the
meanest standards of health and decency, imper-
fectly constructed, and many of them were so ruinous
and dilapidated that escapes and rescues were not
infrequent. Beyond passing in 1700, and again in
1711, futile Acts, limited in duration, permitting the
Justices, for a brief period and under impracticable
limitations and conditions to levy a rate for the repair
and building of county gaols, 1 the only remedy that
Parliament could devise was to add the crime of
rescue or connivance at a prisoner's escape to the
ever-growing number of capital offences. 2 The dis-
astrous results of converting the keeping of a prison
into a private profit-making concern, made glaringly
obvious in 1729 by the scandals of the Fleet and
Marshalsea Prisons, were met only by such naive
injunctions as forbidding the purchase and sale of
the gaoler's office, prohibiting the sale in prisons of
the fourpence a day to which they had a right by that Act ; the means of
procuring it being out of their reach." (State of the Prisons, by John
Howard, 2nd edn., 1780, p. 6). Things had not changed in this respect in
1812 (State of the Prisons, by James Neild).
1 ii & 12 William III, c. 19 (1700) ; 10 Anne, c. 14 (1711). Quarter
Sessions could act only after " the insufficiency and inconvenience of their
gaol had been formally presented by the grand jury ; and it was expressly
stipulated (sec. 4) " that this Act be not in any wise hurtful or prejudicial
to any person or persons having any common gaol by inheritance, for term
of life, or for years ; but that they shall have and enjoy the said gaols, and
the profits, fees and commodities of the same, as they had or might law-
fully have had before making this Act, and as if this Act had never been
made." When counties found themselves eventually driven to rebuild
their gaols, they nearly always thought it necessary to obtain a Local
Act.
2 " Evidence came before the old Parliamentary Commission (1727-9)
showing that the warders (of the Fleet Prison) were in the regular habit of
selling the ' right of escape ' to such (debtors) as could afford their terms."
(The London Prisons, by Hepworth Dixon, 1850, p. 116.) The Act against
accomplices in escapes was 16 George II, c. 31 (1743). An armed gang of
a score of violent robbers attacked the "Westminster Gatehouse Prison and
forcibly rescued a notorious highwayman. As several " other offenders
who have been taken into custody have of late, with forced violence, been
rescued and set at liberty by great numbers of armed persons," the King
offers a reward of 100 for the apprehension of any highway robber.
(London Gazette, January 3oth, 1749.)
THE VISITING JUSTICES 29
spirituous liquors as distinguished from beer, com-
manding that no prisoner should be taken by an
officer to any " tavern . . . without his consent,"
nor charged " for liquor or other things other than
such as he shall freely and particularly call for." 1
In 1744 the House of Commons inserted in a general
Vagrancy Act a clause ordering Quarter Sessions to
appoint two Justices to visit and report on the
county Houses of Correction.* In 1759 it went so
far as to hide away, in the body of a statute relating
to the effects of debtors, a provision requiring Quarter
Sessions to draw up rules and orders " for the better
government of their respective gaols," to be sub-
mitted to the judges of assize for their approval, and
to be forwarded " to the gaoler or keeper of each
prison, to be kept hung up in some public room."
The Justices, it is clear, remained unconscious that
any direct responsibility rested on them for seeing
that the gaols were properly kept, nor can we find
that the House of Correction, any more than the
gaol, was actually visited and inspected by them.'
The root of the failure to get these reforms carried
out. when enacted by Parliament, is to be
found in the complete absence of administrate
machinery, and of anything in the nature of Political
ncc to point to the necessary conditions of admin -
e reform. Parliament might pass a law, but
\-as nobody's business even to commu the
i to such local authorities as existed. It was
part of the duty of the Secretary of State, nomi-
nal! ;<<! with Home Affairs, to know what the
local authorities were doing. He received from
LO annual or other reports. He had no inspec-
tors to find out what was happening. He regarded
it as beyond his function even to remonstrate with
any local authority in the execution of its duty, let
- George II, c. 28 (1739). * J7 George II, c. s
3 .v, lata u i 779 H..W.IT.I ro ordi ih.t ti..- SuffolJ tout) i tt m n .n
CUre, which was so ruinous that the primers had to be chained t
r escape, had not been once visited by any magistrate
; years. (State of th iid edn., 1780,
jo STATE OF THE PRISONS
alone intervene authoritatively to get the laws
carried out. Moreover, he had, almost invariably,
no legal power to order the local authorities to
do, or to abstain from doing, anything. It was
characteristic of the eighteenth century constitution
of England (as it seems to be of the nineteenth and
twentieth century constitution of the United States)
that, generally speaking, only the Courts of Law
could enforce the execution of a statute, and then
only in particular cases brought before them. 1
When any local personage intervened at all in
prison administration it seems to have been regarded
as an extraordinary event, worthy of special praise
or requiring exceptional explanation. Thus, we are
told by the proud biographer of a Lord Mayor name;]
Brown, that he forbade the detention in Newgate of
acquitted prisoners merely because they could not
pay the gaoler's fees a reform which does not seem
to have outlasted his own administration. 2 And
when, at a specially virulent outbreak of gaol fever
at the Old Bailey in 1750, the Lord Mayor, two
judges, one alderman, two or three counsel, several
jurymen, and the under-sheriff all died of the gaol
fever brought by the prisoners from Newgate to the
Court, 3 a public spirited sheriff thought it his " indis-
pensable duty " to remove the " apprehensions ' J
of the bench and the bar, by ordering Newgate to be
cleansed, and the prisoners to be washed before being
brought into Court. 4 The " dangerous nuisance "
1 Tin- sludcnt of the illations between the English Home Office and the
local authorities throughout the nineteenth century, notably as regards
, local i) iice, and even the Children Act of 1008 (in special
contrast with the central departments which have since developed into the
Ministries of Education and Health), cannot fail to note the long-continued
retention of the eighteenth century standpoint.
2 Life and Character oj Mr. Alderman 1'roivn, 1741, quoted in Place,
Add. MSS. 2 7 82<>-4J.
3 Crown Law, by Sir M. Foster, p. 74 ; State oj the Prisons, by John
Howard, 2nd edn. (Warrington, 1780), p. 12 ; Gentleman's Magazine,
January, 1753 ; Letter to Sir Robert Ladbroke, by S. Denne, 1771, pp. 14-15-
4 Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1750, p. 235 ; January, 1764, p. 16. Some
particulars of Alderman Janssen's energetic action when sheriff are given
in The Right Method of Maintaining Security in Person and Property, by
Philonomos, 1751, pp. 52-7. At the instance of Dr. Stephen Hales, a wind-
mill ventilator was constructed at Newgate, but it was soon disused ; see
Dcnne's Letter to Sir Robert Ladbroke, etc., 1771, p. 7.
PUBLIC APATHY 31
of Newgate, as a permanent centre of infection,
continued to create spasmodic panics of fear in the
Metropolis ; and in 1767 Parliament brought itself
to command the City Corporation to provide a new
building a command not yet obeyed, 1 in 1780,
when the Lord George Gordon rioters burnt the old
prison to the ground. But except for such occasional
and quite ineffectual injunctions, Parliament and the
local authorities did but reflect, for the first seventy
rs of the eighteenth century, the attitude of
ordinary prosperous citizens described by Howard,
who " when they are told of the misery which our
prisoners suffer, content themselves with saying,
' Let them take care to keep out. 1 " 8 The appalling
visions of horror incidentally given in the plays and
els of Gay and Smollett and Fielding, like the
ions before the House of Commons Committee
in 1729, seem to have been taken by contemporaries
matters of course. Even to such cxa-pli-
/ens as John Wesley and Samuel Johnson c
an active-minded, reforming administrator like
Henry Fielding the state of the prisons seemed an
evil for which there was no remedy. 3
' lie first stone of the new building had been laid in 1770. but the work
had been proceeded with very slowly. Not until : luclion of
' was the new one energetically taken in hand and corny'.
Tkt Stale of the Prisons, by John Howard ( x 77).
3 1 any
small. What -
and the b
persons in prison w .1 *, (b) those a\
/. ic) those awaiting tri r for
<f) those .
The
498
oy (soldi-
i mates w iol, 89; Lancastci
15-:s: 1 < , i ,| J6; th - iM.-.H tttttty GftOl M. th- .:..::', .nl un- v
.aols and bridewells
! .1 1!
CHAPTER III
JOHN HOWARD
How long this state of unconcern in the many, and
of mingled acquiescence and hopelessness in the few,
would have persisted, if there had not intervened
an exceptional personality, it is useless to discuss.
John Howard (I726-I7QO) 1 was inspired by the same
faith and belonged to the same set as the little knot
of social reformers who were destined, a few years
later, to start the national movement for a Reforma-
tion of Manners that we have elsewhere described. 2
Like Wilberforce, Zouch and Jonas Hanway, he was
a fervent Evangelical of the peculiar philanthropist
type, believing in " grace/' but determined to save
men's souls by subjecting them to the discipline of
1 Though there have been almost innumerable accounts of Howard,
these have nearly always been written " for edification," and it cannot be
said that there exists any adequate biography of him, or any scientific
study of his work. Of the contemporary appreciations, that by his friend
Dr. John Aikin, entitled A View of the Character and Public Services of the
late John Howard, 1792, is perhaps the most interesting ; whilst of the
biographies, the Memoirs of John Howard, by James Baldwin Brown, 1823,
and The Life of John Howard, by Rev. John Field, 1850, contain the fullest
information. Howard and the Prison World, by W. Hepworth Dixon, 1849,
and Howard and his friends, by John Stoughton, 1884, are specially useful.
The proceedings of the International Penitentiary Congress at St. Petersburg
in 1889 were largely devoted to commemoration and appreciation of
Howard. Other works include Memoirs of Howard, by T. Taylor, 1836 ;
Correspondence of John Howard, by J. Field, 1855 ; Prisons and Reforma-
tories at Home and Abroad, by R. W. Bellows, 1872 ; The Condition of
Gaols as described by John Howard, by J. B. Bailey, 1884 ; The Experiences
and Opinions of John Howard on the Health of Prisoners, by R. D. R.
Sweeting, 1884 ; History of England, by W. E. H. Lecky, 1887, Vol. VI,
PP- 2 55-7 I Through the Prison Bars, by W. H. Render, 1894 ; John Howard,
by E. C. S. Gibson, 1901 ; John Howard, the Prisoners' Friend, by L. O.
Cooper, 1904 ; Life of John Howard the Philanthropist, by H. H. Scullarcl,
1911. The work entitled Howard Letters and Memories, by W. Tallack,
1905, is not about Howard. For his position in county organization, see
The Parish and the County, by S. and B. Webb, 1907.
"History of Liquor Licensing in liu^huul, 1903.
32
HIS CHARACTER 33
continuous work, physical abstemiousness and re-
ligious exercises a regimen to -which he unhesitat-
ingly subjected his family and himself. Like so many
of these religious-minded social reformers, he belonged
by birth to the commercial world, but had become a
landed proprietor enjoying easy access to the govern-
ing class. But Howard had remarkable qualities of
own, which peculiarly fitted him for the task of
starting a new era in prison administration. En-
dowed with no special intellectual capacity, and very
imperfectly educated, he had a curiously childlike
simplicity of thought and directness of aim, combined
with absolute fearlessness and an indomitable per-
ency of will. His whole life was marked by purity
of motive, and an ever-present impulse to relieve
human suffering. He had almost a passion for
travelling, for observing details and for noting them
recise language. Like a child, or an un-
sophisticated visitor from another world, he seems to
have had no prepossessions, and to have taken noth-
ing for granted. Every assertion of fact he tested
by personal observation. Every obligation he took
literally and to its fullest extent. Every instance
of human suffering that came under his eyes he
llenged as an evil which could, ought and must,
ih be remedied. 1
We are not concerned to tell here the story of
Howard's lif ; his casual upbringing, his desultory
foreign travel, his outbursts of self-examination and
iple piety, his domestic happiness and sorrow,
and his admirable efforts as a country squire to r
ial condition ;md reform the h;ibits of his
dependents and neighbours. By a fortunate acci-
dent he was in 17; k. <1 f.r the office of
sheriff of Bedfordshire. It was characteristic of thr
that he accepted the position without demur or
testa n*>tv: 'lin,^ r th.it, as a conscientious
ay* Carlylr. " full of Knglin!; -:linh vera
with all i
v and sagacity c best Ft
commission) * paid in money and not expressly otherwise."
34 JOHN HOWARD
Nonconformist, he could not take the sacramental
test required by law, and ran the risk of being pro-
ceeded against and fined. Once installed, he set
himself to carry out, with an unaccustomed literalness,
all the duties of the post. He went calmly through
the usual ceremonies, paraded in his carriage, pre-
ceded by the antiquated javelin men, and followed
by a long retinue of the gentlemen of the county,
to meet the judges of assize, escort them to their
lodgings and attend them in court. But unlike all
previous sheriffs he did not stop at the ceremonial
part of his office. He unquestioningly assumed that
he was, really as well as legally, the keeper of the
county gaol. Whilst sitting in court he observed the
miserable appearance of the prisoners, and had noted
that " some, who by the verdict of the juries were
declared not guilty ; some on whom the grand jury
did not find such an appearance of guilt as subjected
them to trial ; and some whose prosecutors did not
appear against them, after having been confined
for months/' were dragged back to gaol. 1 He
followed his prisoners into their confinement, in-
spected the building, its cells, and its sanitation, and
inquired into the system of management for which
he was nominally responsible. We do not gather
that the common gaol of Bedford was worse than
others, but Howard saw enough to determine him on
reform. To his simple mind it seemed obvious that
the root of all the evils of prison management was the
fact that it was allowed to be a profit-making busi-
ness. He startled the Justices with the proposal
that all fees should be abolished, that the gaoler
should be paid a fixed salary, and that the gaol
should come directly under the administration of
Quarter Sessions. "The bench/' he tells us, " were
properly affected with the grievance, and willing to
grant the relief desired, but they wanted a precedent
for charging the county with the expense/' ' I
therefore rode/' he continues simply, " into several
neighbouring counties in search of one, but I soon
1 The opening words of his Slate of ihe Prisons, 1777.
HIS JOURNEY 35
learned that the same injustice was practised in them,
and looking into the prisons, beheld scenes of cala-
mity which I grew daily more and more anxious to
alleviate/' 1 In the course of the ensuing twelve
months John Howard travelled all over England,
presently including in his inspection the bridewells,
or Houses of Correction. By the end of that year he
had, at the age of about forty-eight, at last found his
special vocation, that of an investigator or unofficial
inspector of places of detention. From this time
onward his biography consists of an almost continu-
ous series of sixteen years of voyages of discovery,
not only into all parts of the United Kingdom, but
also throughout the countries of Europe. The out-
come of this unique peregrination was the publica-
tion, in four successive volumes, between 1777 and
1791, of what was practically one continuous series
of extracts from his notebook, affording in its wealth
of dry detail a convincing description of the horrors
of nearly all the prisons of England and Wales, and
many of those in other countries.*
Meanwhile the question of prison administration
1 been independently raised in Parliament. In
1773, Popham, member for Taunton,
introduced a Bill for authori/.ing the payment,
* The Slate of the Prisons in England and n ' Preliminary
Observations and an Account of some Foreign Prisons (Warrington, 1777).
Appendix to ike Stale of the Prisons in England and H < ^ntatning
'.her Account of Foreign Prisons and Hospitals, with additional Remarks
on tkf Prisons of this Country (WarrinRton, 1780). (A ST. n of
The .s/u.v of the Prisons, in 1800, published in 1780, incorporates most of
the Apf>f> In 178.1 a second and :
enlar
poratad.)
i various pap***
I'lague, togflher tvith further Observations on some /'<
n* and H- ftemarks on the present state of those
in Great Britain and Ireland
Append tm; Ohservationt concerning Foreign Prisons and
r.ird in his concluding Tow. Together with
Inward from John Havfiarth. M /)
A fourth edition of the Stale of the l'<
ird's death, which contained, for English prisons, nearly all th-
riven in all the preceding work* Howard's statements a*
u;'i!inn| l, v tl I >:! of lltr /';.>:-- SfNf // '.' ' it: /.'-. i
36 JOHN HOWARD
of the county rate, of the gaol fees of prisoners who
re acquitted or otherwise discharged. This meas-
ure, like so many others before it, miscarried, owing
to the apathy or hostility of the members. 1 But
before the opening of the next session, a rumour of
the eccentric conduct of the High Sheriff of Bedford-
shire had got abroad, and Popham wisely arranged
to call him as a witness in support of his resuscitated
measure, now enlarged into two separate Bills. 2 The
instantaneous change of tone in the House of Com-
mons which Howard's examination brought about,
was, we think, largely due to the novelty both of the
motive and of the method of his activity. To the
typical eighteenth century member of Parliament,
usually himself a Justice of the Peace, it was a start-
ling fact that any gentleman should take literally
his official obligations as sheriff, and should further,
at his own cost, and at the risk of his life, extend his
inspection to the fever-haunted interiors of the gaols
of other counties. Howard's somewhat naive use
of the method of statistical enumeration seems to
have brought home to the matter-of-fact mind of the
eighteenth century legislator both the truth and the
importance of his allegations. Instead of sensational
denunciation of oppression and cruelty, disease and
promiscuity, Howard laid before the committee a
detailed statement, with regard to each prison that
he had visited, of the exact fees taken by the gaolers,
the cubic contents, window space or depth below
ground of each apartment, the number, sex, age and
grade of the prisoners confined together or apart, the
exact kinds of chain or irons used, the amount and
quality of the food (or the absence of food) of the
prisoners, and the state of the sewers and water
supply. To this diagnosis of evil he added a number
of practical suggestions for reform. These sugges-
1 House of Commons Journals, Vol. XXXIV, pp. 138, 142, 288 ; Almon's
Debates and Proceedings of the House of Commons, Vol. VIII, p. 215.
2 House of Commons Journals, Vol. XXXIV, p. 535, March 4th, 1774 ;
Memoirs of the Life of John Howard, by J. Baldwin Brown (1823), p. 133 ;
Life of Howard, by J. Field (1850), pp. 116-18; John Howard and the,
Prison World, by W. Hepworth Dixon (1849), pp. 155-7.
HIS POLICY 37
tions resolve themselves, omitting unnecessary detail,
into four cardinal principles of gaol administration,
the provision of structurally secure, roomy and
sanitary prisons j 1 the transformation of the gaoler
or master from an independent profit-maker into a
salaried servant of the public authority ; the sub-
jection of all prisoners to a reformatory regimen of
diet, work and religious exercises ; and the systema-
tic inspection of every part of the prison by some
outside public authority. From 1774 to 1791 we
see Parliament, in bungling, piecemeal fashion,
trying to get these principles embodied in statute
lilst here and there, up and down the country,
philanthropic and enterprising Justices of the Peace
strive to induce their fellow Justices at Quarter
Sessions to put them into practice.
1 The general accuracy of Howard's inferences and suggestions with
regard to site, construction, cubic space, ventilation, cleanliness, drainage,
.ing, food, etc., and the extent to which his rough common sense
anticipated the scientific conclusions of Parkes and Corneld at the end of
the ii hown in The Experiences and Opinions
of John Howard on the Health of Prisoners, by R. D. R. Sweeting, 1884.
See also for a useful summary The Condition of Gaols, Hospitals and other
ttions as described by John Howard, by J. B. Bailey, 1884.
CHAPTER IV
PARLIAMENTARY ACTION, 1774-1791
THE first legislative result of Howard's investigation
was the passing, in 1774, of Popham's two Bills.
The more important of these, " An Act for preserving
the health of prisoners in gaol and preventing the
gaol distemper/' 1 directed the prisons to be periodi-
cally cleansed, the prisoners to be washed, separate
sick rooms to be provided, and a prison doctor to be
appointed, who was to report to Quarter Sessions
every three months on the health of the prisoners
generally. The other, " An Act for the relief of
prisoners who shall be acquitted or discharged/'
directed that such prisoners should be immediately
set at large in open court, and peremptorily forbade
the exaction from them of any discharge fees, in
lieu of which the county treasurer was to pay the
gaoler a sum not exceeding thirteen and fourpence
for each case. 2
Meanwhile the intellectual lead in prison reform
had been taken by men of larger outlook than How-
ard, chief among them Sir William Blackstone, then
at the height of his influence ; and Sir William Eden,
afterwards Lord Auckland. 3 Taking for granted,
as the basis of decent prison administration, Howard's
1 14 George III, c. 59. 2 14 George III, c. 20.
8 Paul mentions also Sir Charles Bunbury and Sir Gilbert Elliott (Address
. . . to the Magistrates, etc., by Sir G. O. Paul, Bart., 2nd edn., Gloucester,
1808, p. 14). Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, first
published between 1765 and 1769, and running rapidly through successive
editions, contained in some of them (see for instance, Vol. IV of the gth,
loth, and nth editions, Ch. xx, p. 371) a recommendation of the proposed
new penitentiaries. For Sir William Eden, afterwards the first Baron
Auckland, see his Journal and Correspondence, edited by the Bishop of
Bath and Wells, 4 vols., 1861-2.
38
THE PENITENTIARY ACT 39
four principles of secure and sanitary structure,
systematic inspection, abolition of fees and reforma-
tory regimen, Blackstone and Eden drafted a com-
prehensive Bill, laying down, in connection with the
proposed erection of one or more national peniten-
tiaries (made necessary by the sudclm arrest of
isportation to North America by the American
r of Independence, 1776-83), a highly developed
tern of prison discipline. This discipline involved
adoption of certain administrative devices, each
li was destined, in after years, to become the
subject of controversy, sometimes as to its intrinsic
utility, sometimes as to the relative scope to be given
it. The most novel was the principle of non-
:nong the prisoners themselves, to be
secured by solitary cellular confinement at night and
when not at work, and, so far as practicable, by
t unions supervision during associated labour and
e. With this went the exaction from every
oner of labour of " the hardest and most servile
I in which drudgery is chiefly required/ 1 ( )n the
other hand, it was contemplated that this labour
should be profitable, it being expressly provided
t both officers and convicts should be stimulated
by sharing in the profits. Moreover, the severity
both of the confn and of the labour was to be
not according to the offence of the pri-
son- according to his good behaviour in prison.
and nn for wl s committed. A
n intended to secure the maximum of
minimum of pleasure was settled for
all ng the regular supply of coarse but nniri
is food, perfect cleanliness, a fixed daily routi
on clothing and the total exclusion of luxir
nusements. Wit the
reed attendai frequent religious servi*,^.
iseworthy innovation
in organized attempt to provide employment
icouragement for the convict on his d
code on dis< passed
40 PARLIAMENTARY ACTION
into law in the session of 1779, did not, in respect of
its immediate purpose, ever become operative. Not
one"' of the national penitentiaries therein proposed
was actually erected, and, even as a Government
project this Act was superseded, twenty years later,
by the celebrated contract with Jeremy Bentham
for a monster " panopticon " a scheme which was in
its turn to prove abortive. But the labour which
Blackstone and Eden had spent on the 1779 Act was
not thrown away. It is easy to trace the principles
of this measure, and sometimes even its phraseology,
in the legislation of the next twelve years. General
statutes of 1782 and 1784, relating to Houses of
Correction, and one of 1784, relating to local gaols,
embodied some of its ideas. 1 Even more important
in their influences were the Local Acts which half a
dozen progressive counties obtained between 1785
and 1788 for the rebuilding and reorganizing of their
prisons. 2 In these Acts, notably in the first of them,
that promoted by the Gloucestershire Quarter Ses-
sions, the clauses drafted by Blackstone and Eden
were, to a large extent, incorporated. Encouraged
by this support, the prison reformers in Parliament
succeeded, in 1791, in passing what may be described
as the first general Prisons Act, applying the prin-
ciples of the projected national penitentiary to all
places of confinement in England and Wales. 8 With
the effort to carry this measure through Parliament,
all the impetus given by Howard's revelations seems
to have come abruptly to an end, and for twenty
1 22 George III, c. 64 (1782) ; 24 George III, c. 55 (1784) ; 24 George III,
c. 54 (1784). The two former Acts were to some extent the outcome of a
House of Commons Committee of 1776 on the whole subject of poor relief
and the treatment of vagrancy. This committee obtained elaborate
statistical returns as to the Houses of Correction, which were presented in
1776, with the suggestion that the information therein contained afforded
a basis for legislation regulating all these institutions. (Second Report of
Committee on the Poor Laws, etc., 1776.)
2 25 George III, c. 10 (Gloucestershire) ; 26 George III, c. 24 (Shropshire) ;
26 George III, c. 55 (Middlesex) ; 27 George III, c. 58 (Sussex) ; 27 George
III, c. 60 (Staffordshire) ; 28 George III, c. 82 (Cheshire).
8 31 George III, c. 46 (1891). This Act, which was until 1823 the main
code applying to all places of confinement, was brought in by Powis, M.P.
for Northampton, and largely based on the Gloucestershire Local Act of
1786. (Address . . . to the Magistrates, etc., by Sir G. O. Paul, Bart., 2nd
edn., 1808, p. 22.)
THE FIRST PRISONS ACT 41
years most of them fully occupied by the war with
France Parliament practically let the subject
alone.
The Act of 1791 represents a high-water mark in
the conception of prison discipline, which was, we
think, not again reached until the Act of 1835. But,
like all the other legislation of this period, it had two
fundamental defects. The Parliamentary drafts-
men of these years were apparently incapable of
inventing forms of procedure easily capable of appli-
;ion by different localities. The difficulties and
complications of action under the 1791 statute were
so great that it often proved impossible to put it in
force, and reforming Justices continued to apply to
liament for Local Acts. A more fatal flaw was
permissive character of nearly all the clauses. 1
eighteenth century Parliament could not bring
itself to command the Justices to erect new buildings,
however deficient might be the accommodation ;
nor, when the Justices did build, even to insist on the
-oners being given separate sleeping apartments.
It could not decide to make the gaoler simply
salaried servant of the Justices, and, because it
: from explicitly commanding the levy of a
iled to abolish his fees, or the profit-mal
;racter of his post. It could not even make up
its mind to order the Justices to provide food foi
s of tlirir prisons. Even where tin- da
datory in tlu-ir term>, there was no penalty
or other sanction to secure compliance, and, as
need hardly remind the Political Science student ,
nery by which negligent or con tin
local authorities could be required to obey t
or by which their neglect could be brou
knowledge of Parliament or the Nat
In short, the legislation of 1774
County Justices and Municipal Corporations, the
fhc grca* i ) Act as well as of all tl Acts
'if St*u of the Kngli by Alexander \
i...iu ; hi. : , lad i t "i !- i-. '-, r ' ; '- RW
of 1'ntons. by John Urowrter, 1808, Append
42 PARLIAMENTARY ACTION
lords of manors and owners of franchises practically
as free as before to neglect or maladminister the
three or four hundred places of lawful confinement
under their several jurisdictions.
CHAPTER V
NATIONAL PRISONS (THE HULKS AND MILL-
BANK)
\Vi: must here interpose, in our account of English
Prisons under Local Government, a description of the
partial assumption by the National Government
from 1779 onwards, of the duty of maintaining places
of confinement and punishment for certain classes
of convicted criminals. 1 For nearly another cen-
tury the maintenance of the prisons continued to
be the duty of the local authorities ; and it was no
alteration in theory that led to the establishment of
a few national prisons. But sheer necessity first
compelled the Government to supplement the local
1 > y some directly under its own management ;
,tiid tin- experience of these government prisons
still more the persistent controversy as to the effect
of t e was destined to ha\v a marked
<:t on the course of prison administration, so that
story cannot be made clear without son
: of this episo<
assumption by the National Government of
the duty of establishing and maintaining prisons
is \\v ha\ v mentioned in Chapter IV, from
ige of the transportation of criminals
\iiu'rica by tin- mitl.i tin- American
H at Wcht
<>wn prisons of the King's Bench. Marnhnlnca and
almost entirely for debtors and ot
process ot The Tower of Lou
after 1715. was for political offenders ; and that of the Savoy Pa to
rs. (Tht London Prison*, by V-
Tontr, by the same, 4 vols , 1869-71 ; Memorial* of the Savoy,
", 1878.)
43
44 NATIONAL PRISONS
War in 1776. At that date something like a thous-
and criminals were being got rid of annually by
transportation; 1 and as the Justices utterly failed to
1 We leave on one side the whole subject of transportation, as to which
the literature is voluminous. Beginning in the seventeenth century (the
earliest case in 1619) apart from the mediaeval expedient of simple
banishment as a mere arbitrary shipment " to the plantations " of un-
desirable citizens, it grew, after the Civil War, when local castles were no
longer kept up as fortresses (Observations on the State of English Prisons,
by Alexander Wedderburn, Earl of Rosslyn, 1793, p. 5), into a systematic
disposal of felons whom it was thought better not to hang. It became, in
fact, virtually a branch of the slave trade, of the nature of which some
impression may be formed from the incidental references in the memoirs
entitled, A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, by Cordy Jcaffreson
(1878). Curiously enough, Lecky regards it as having been " remarkably
successful " (History of England, by W. E. H. Lecky, 1887, Vol. VI, p. 253).
It first received legislative sanction in various Acts of Charles II (13 and
14 Car. II, c. 12 ; 16 Car. II, c. 4 ; 18 Car. II, c. 3). An Act of 1718
(4 George I, c. 2), professing concern for the ill-stocked labour market of
the plantations, authorized the infliction of transportation as a sentence
for various crimes ; and both assize judges and Quarter Sessions made
extensive use of this power, which saved the expense of keeping felons in
gaol. With the growth of the African slave trade, the shipment of English
felons became unprofitable to the contractors who undertook the trans-
portation. This led to other proposals. Not altogether ironically, Mande-
ville suggested that, instead of transporting our felons to the American
plantations, where they depraved their companions, the negro slaves, we
should offer them as slaves to " the several powers of Barbary," in redemp-
tion of their English captives, and thus exchange " lazy, cowardly thieves
and incorrigible rogues for brave, laborious and useful people." (An
Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn . . . to
which is added A Discourse on Transportation, etc., by B. Mandeville,
J 7 2 5. PP- 4 8 -5 !) An anonymous pamphleteer of 1754 proposed to allot
them as slaves to the herring fishery, five to each fishing smack, " by which
true policy we might soon be enabled to undersell the Dutch in foreign
markets." (Proposals to the Legislature for preventing the frequent executions
and exportations of Convicts in a letter to . . . Henry Pelham, 1754.) But
the difficulty was got over by the Justices paying the contractors a bounty,
usually of ^5 per head, to take the convicts away. The Government was
paying a similar sum in 1740, in respect of convicts sentenced in the Home
Circuit, the contractor having to ship them to some part of North America,
and having (under 4 George I, c. 2) the right to sell or assign them for any
sort of labour for the period of the sentence, usually seven or fourteen
years. More than one-third usually died on the voyage. Those who
survived were put up for sale by the regular slave auctioneers, and Francis
Place has preserved the " account sales " of such convicts at Char lest own
in 1740, and at Potomac River, Annapolis and Rappahanoc in 1744,
showing that seventeen of them realized ^1,224 in the depreciated local
currency, equal to about 80 sterling. (Place MSS. 27826-45.) The later
establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay, and the subsequent
developments at Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island, and finally at
the Swan River, are well known. It is, however, less familiar that the
Justices continued, right into the nineteenth century, to ship off by private
contract the convicts whom they sentenced at Quarter Sessions. (Such
contracts were specifically authorized in the MS. Minutes, Quarter
Sessions, Wiltshire, Michaelmas, 1804.) Credit must be given to the Roman
Catholic clergy for the first outspoken and persistent denunciation of the
system, see The Horrors of Transportation unfolded to the People, and The
Catholic Mission to Australia, by W. (afterwards Archbishop) Ullathorne,
THE HULKS 45
comply with the request of Parliament that the local
prisons should be enlarged so as to accommodate
such a number, something had to be done. In this
emergency the Government obtained power to con-
fine the " transports " temporarily in hulks ; and
two old vessels at Woolwich were hastily converted
into places in which these convicts could be kept in
safety, whilst they were employed on public works
connected with the arsenal and the dockyard. This
iporary expedient was continued for more than
eighty years, additional hulks being used in the
Thames and the Medway, and in Portsmouth Har-
bour. 1
Of all the places of confinement that British history
records, the hulks were apparently the most brutal-
1836. Sec, on the whole subject, Transportation and Colonization, by John
:aore Land, 1837 ; the Report of the House of Commons Committee on
Transportation (by Sir William Molesworth), 1838 ; Our Convict System, by
02 ; Colonial Policy, by Earl Grey, 1853 ; A Letter to the
People of Great Britain and Ireland on Transportation, showing the effects
of irresponsible power jon the physical and moral condition of the convicts, by
John Frost, 1857; Elude sur la Colonisation par les transports Anglais,
.. Campion, 1901 ; History of Penal Methods, by George Ives, 1914,
pp. 127-70 ; Memorials of Millbank, by Arthur Griffiths, 1875 ; A Colonial
Autocracy, by Marion Phillips (and other records of Australia) ; Incidents
of the Convict System in Australasia, by Eric Gibb, 1895 ; Convict Life in
New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, by Charles i 889 ; The
Convict Ship, 1844, and England's Exiles, 1842, both by Dr. Browning ;
Old Convict Days, by L. Becke, 1889.
ifl subject can dispense with perusal of the terribly
graphic description in the novel of Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His
>*l Life, 1875; see also his Stories of Australia in the Early Days,
r details as to the hulks, see 16 George III, c. 43 ; 18 Georp
c. 62 ; 19 George III, c. 74 ; 24 George III, c. 56 ; 28 George III, c. 24 ;
>: ^ 1 1 1 ...'; the 28th Report of the Committee on Finance, 1789 ;
rts of the House of Commons Committee on the Laws relating
.tiary Houses, 181 1 (especially the third report) ; The State of the
is in England. Scotland and Wales, by James Neild, 1812 ; Report
iulks to the House of Commons, by A. Gral 14 ; Memoirs,
Vaux, 1827 ; Report and Minutes of Evidence on tin- Hulks at
Woolwich, 1847 ; the various Reports < t Prisons
aid Management Ik Establ. 1854,
yrt from the Select Committee on Secondary Punish i
with .Vote* and Append** (iSu), pp. 17-22; London Prisons, by 1
Kon, 1850 ; The Criminal Prisons of London, by H. May hew
and [ . Our Convict Sysi< L. Clay,
of Millbank, by A 1875, Cl>
The Punishment and Prevention of Crime, by Sir Edmund Du Cane, 1885,
pp. 117 2; ; History of Penal Method*, by Gcorr *M, pp. i
The hulks were not anally i i gland until 1858. One was
established at Bermuda and one at Gibraltar, established i
.ill 1875.
46 NATIONAL PRISONS
i dug, the most demoralizing and the most horrible.
The death rate was appalling, even for the prisons
of the period. Though the convicts had the advan-
tage of working in the open air, the cruelties to which
they were subjected by day, and the horrors of their
association by night, make the record one of the very
blackest, which (as having nothing to do with prisons
under Local Government) the reader may here be
spared.
What the Government intended was to erect, under
the Act of 1779, one or more penitentiaries on the
most approved lines, in which the convicts who could
no longer be transported to America might be put
to hard labour, and the most important point-
kept for long terms from molesting English society.
Unforeseen difficulties in the extraordinarily incom-
petent administration of those days, prevented any
of the penitentiaries under the Act of 1779 from being
built. 1 Meanwhile, the urgency passed away when
it was decided to transport the convicts to the newly
discovered continent of Australia. During the next
three-quarters of a century this transportation to
Australia continued. On the accession of Queen
Victoria there were about 45,000 in confinement
there, or on licence. From the first shipment in
1787 (to New South Wales) down to the last in
1 The Penitentiary Act, 19 George III, c. 74 (1779), extended by succes-
sive continuing Acts, authorized the appointment of three "supervisors"
to select a site. The three appointed one being Howard himself, another
his Quaker friend Dr. Fothergill, and the third a " professional philan-
thropist " named Whatley obstinately refused to agree on any one site.
(See Correspondence of John Howard, by J. Field, 1855, pp. 61-7, for the
letters that passed.) Howard wanted a site at Islington, not far off that
eventually chosen for Pentonville Prison ; whereas Whatley insisted on a
site at Limehouse. Three others were appointed in 1781 (Acts of Privy
Council, George III, Vol. XIX, p. 179, March 2nd, 1781), but the scheme
made no progress. In 1786 Pitt was hoping that the building might be
begun in a few weeks (Pitt to Wilberforcc, Sept. 23rd, 1786, in Private
Papers of William Wilberforce, by A. M. Wilberforce, 1897). By 1794 a
site had been selected (where Battersca Park now is) ; but difficulties had
arisen in its acquisition, to overcome which an Act was passed (34 George
III, c. 84). The proposal was then eclipsed by Bentham's project of a
" panopticon," out of which, after many vicissitudes, Millbank Prison
eventually emerged. See Report of Select Committee on Police and
Convict Establishments, 1798 ; 39 George III, c. 52 ; 52 George III, c.
44 ; 56 George III, c. 63 ; 59 George III, c. 136 ; and Jeremy Bentham's
Works, Vol. IV.
THE PANOPTICON 47
1867 (to the Swan River), something like a hundred
and fifty thousand convicts must have been poured
into Australia, Tasmania and Norfolk Island, a large
proportion of whom never returned to England.
But the resumption of transportation did not
completely solve the problem for the Government.
The crowded state of the hulks, and the very con-
siderable cost at which they were maintained, was a
perpetual reminder of the need for a proper place of
confinement and punishment prior to transportation.
We need not here seek to unravel the complication
of Bentham's proposal of the panopticon, or model
prison, on which he ventured so much of his capital,
and engaged in so prolonged a controversy with the
eminent. In 1810, Sir Samuel Romilly varied
his j>ersistent campaign for a reform of the criminal
law by a definite proposal to the House of Commons
that the long-deferred building of a national peniten-
v should be at once undertaken. 1 This proposal,
warmly supported by \Yilberforce and Whitbread,
met by the Government with the appointment of
a Select Committee to inquire into the whole ques-
ti< m of transportation, the hulks and the old contract
with Jeremy Bentham for a " panopticon/' In
1811, this committee got to work, under the chairman-
ship of George Peter Holford, who was destined to
become, for the next two decades, one of the ablest
and most ; prison reformers.* Before
iSio ; June 5th, 181 i.
No life of George M.P., has been wril not
mary of National Biography. Yet no student of
this period can help being impressed by In : p.imphlt
ing a< 1 1830, and 1
" supervisors " who were appointed to build Mil: ithe
, being Lord Farnborough and the Kcv. J. T. Becher). As the most
member of the board of governors of tl he was engaged in
all the controversies as to the excessive cost, the diet scale, the hard
was attacked (Memorials o
in i?66,
anger son lord, a Master in Chancery, of Wcston Dirt
cstershirc). Called to the B. he was, in 1802, elected M
.- of the boroughs in the hands of the administrat :..- sat in
(with a J i so6-;) *<* twenty- four years.
rcpuvntm,; su. . . .iv iv Bossiney, Lostwrthiel, Dungannon, ii.istim:*
all Cover boroughs. In 1804 he was
appointed .crcUry of the Board of Control for India, an office
48 NATIONAL PRISONS
this committee Holford called his friends Paul and
Becher, as well as the keepers of Newgate and Horse-
monger Lane gaols, skilfully managing to bring into
sharp relief the horrors of the old-fashioned prisons,
as compared with the new establishments of Glouces-
tershire and Nottinghamshire. This led the com-
mittee to report emphatically in favour of " a system
of imprisonment not confined to the safe custody of
the person, but extending to the reformation and
improvement of the mind, and operating by seclusion,
employment and religious instruction/' 1 It was the
report of this committee that finally buried Ben-
tham's scheme, and caused the Government in
1812, to set about building Millbank Prison on six-
teen acres of marsh bought from the Marquis of
Salisbury for 12,000. For nine long years the
erection proceeded of what was subsequently
described as a " monument of ugliness/' and was,
at any rate, one of the most costly of all the buildings
which he held until 1810. On going out of office, he was pressed by the
Home Secretary to become chairman of the Prison Discipline Committee
appointed in that year ; and thus began his career as a prison reformer.
He died in 1839 (see Annual Register for 1839, p. 336). Apart from a
youthful volume of poems (1789) and an early book on West Indian
missions (Observations on the necessity of introducing . . . clergymen into
. . . the West Indies, 1808), neither of which is in the British Museum,
together with Thoughts on the Old and New Principles of Political Obedience,
1793, and a couple of theological treatises, his principal work is his Account
oj the General Penitentiary at Millbank (1828), a useful treatise on prison
administration. The best idea of his work can be gathered from the
frequent references in Hansard for 1806, 1812-6, 1819-20, 1823-4, and
1826, and in the Gentleman's Magazine from Vol. LVIII onwards.
The following (probably incomplete) list of pamphlets by Holford affords
some idea of his persistent industry : Speech of G. Holford, Esq., on the
motion made by him . . . for leave to bring in a Bill for the Better Manage-
ment of the Prisons belonging to the City of London, 1814 ; Speech . . . on
the Bill to amend the laws relative to the Transportation of Offenders, etc.,
1815 ; The Convict's Complaint, supposed to be written on board the hulks,
etc., 1815 ; Thoughts on the Criminal Prisons of this Country, etc., 1821 ;
A Short Vindication of the General Penitentiary at Millbank, 1822 ; Speech
. . . in support of an Amendment to withhold from the Visiting Justices
the power of authorizing the employment without their own consent of prisoners
committed for trial, 1824; Second Vindication of the General Penitentiary,
1824 ; Substance of a Speech . . . in committee . . . for consideration of
the laws relating to prisons, 1824 ; The Convict's Complaint, 1815, and the
thanks of the Convict in 1825, etc., 1825 ; Third Vindication of the General
Penitentiary, etc., 1825 ; Statements and Observations concerning the Hulks,
etc., 1826 ; Letter to the Editor of the Quarterly Review . . . relative to the
supposed ill-success of the General Penitentiary at Millbank, 1830.
1 First Report from the Committee on the Laws relating to Penitentiary
Houses, H.C. No. 199, May 3ist, 1811, p. 4.
MILLBANK 49
that the world had then seen since the Pyramids of
pt, the total expense from first to last amounting
to not far short of three-quarters of a million sterling. 1
It may be doubted whether the Taj at Agra, the
Cloth Hall at Ypres or the Cathedral of Chartres, had
cost anything like this sum. From 1821 onward the
National Government had therefore, in addition to
the hulks, its own " model " prison for convicted
criminals ; and, as we may here note, from 1842
onward another at Pentonville. The controversies
about these institutions, to some of which we shall
recur, served only to complicate the interminable
ions about prison administration which we
! presently describe.
n Account of the General Penitentiary at Millbank, by George Peter
Holford. 1828; Memorials of Millbank, by Arthur Griffiths, 1875; The
London Prisons, by W. Hepworth Dixon. 1850 ; The Criminal Prisons of
London, by ew and J Binny, 1862.
Jeremy Bentham's voluminou < on prison administra;
beginning with hw pamphlet entitled A View of the Hard Labour Bill,
1778, and his volume Panopticon, or th* Inspection House, 1791, can be
most conveniently read in Vol. IV of his Works, edited by Sir J. Bowling ;
aee alao La Formation du Radicalisme Philosophique. by Elie Halevy,
especially Vol. I, La Jeunesse de Bentham, 1901.
CHAPTER VI
PRISON ADMINISTRATION FROM 1774 TO
1816
(a) The County Justices
WE may now resume the story of the local prisons.
The majority of the country gentlemen who, as
high sheriffs and Justices of the Peace, were respon-
sible for the administration of county prisons, had
remained unmoved by Howard's exposures. They
did not even comply with the two Acts of 1774,
though Howard himself went to the expense of
having them reprinted "in an intelligible form/'
and sent them to every keeper of a county gaol in
England. 1 Within a few years, however, the Justices
were everywhere driven to bestir themselves by an
unforeseen pressure from without. The sudden
stoppage of transportation to the American Colonies
had, as we have seen, forced the Government to es-
tablish the hulks and project the national penitenti-
aries. The Act of 1779 had incidentally provided
that, pending the completion of these national
prisons, the local gaols and Houses of Correction
were to be deemed penitentiaries, to which criminals
might be condemned in lieu of transportation.
Characteristically enough, no one seems to have made
1 Life of John Howard, by J. Field, 1850, p. 117. On his subsequent
visits he nearly always has to report non-compliance with the express
direction of Parliament that a copy of the Act should be hung up in the
prison. In spite of the Act of 1774 the Clerk of Assize and the Clerk of the
Peace still went on claiming fees from acquitted or discharged prisoners,
and these found it prudent to comply even with illegal requests of this
sort ; see Proceedings of Grand Juries . . . of the County of Gloucester,
by Sir G. O. Paul (Gloucester, 1808), p. 43.
50
THE NEW GAOLS 51
any preparations to receive this new contingent of
prisoners. " The judges," wrote Sir G. O. Paul,
" proceeded to sentence convicts as directed, whilst
the Justices on their part have neglected to provide
the ' proper places ' to receive them as also directed ;
and of course the ordinary wards of county gaols
became . . . dangerously overcrowded/' 1 causing,
in 1783, renewed outbreaks of gaol fever, which
spread to houses in the neighbourhood of the prisons,
and infected remote parishes to which discharged
prisoners returned. Hence we find " the high sheriff
and grand jury of the county of Berks " petitioning
! lament in 1783, showing that they " in common
i the rest of the kingdom have suffered during
ir by the difficulties which have arisen in
inflicting the due and accustomed punishment on
offenders not sentenced to die ... their gaol is
inconveniently full of convicts, from whence much
danger arises of escapes and of infectious distempers
t may spread." 2 As the House of Commons
found no remedy for this plethora of convicts, there
ensued, throughout the country, a prolonged series
of building operations. By the year 1789, as Howard
with some complacency enumerates, no fewer than
forty-two new gaols or Houses of Correction began to
be built. 1 In most cases, however, the building
operations were greatly drawn out by the inefficiency
'tier Sessions as an administrative body ;
and they were often obstructed by the strenuous
the county ratepayers, so that it was
until the beginning of the nineteenth century tint
they were all completed. 4
icetdtngs of the Grand Juries . . . of the County of Gloucester in
and Executing a General Reform in the Construction and Regula-
ns (Gloucester, 1808), p. 47.
>use of Commons Journ is a similar
M.ir. h iitii, 1784), The Lancashire
the same state of things in November, 1783,
necessary to build a " new House of Corrcc-
tt Preston " (Manchester Mercury. Nov. 25th, 1 783).
' Account of the Principal Lazarettos', etc., by John Howard (Warrington,
1780!
Justices' proposal to erect a new gaol in
*tnpf ippositmnofa cting ; r 1808,
52 PRISON ADMINISTRATION
Unfortunately, the majority of county benches
were satisfied with bricks and mortar. In hardly
any of the new buildings was the separate and cellular
system completely adopted even for sleeping pur-
poses, and in many of the prisons the herding together
of all classes of prisoners by day and by night still
continued. In the majority of county gaols the
gaoler still had to live mainly by his fees, perquisites
and exactions ; whilst in many country bridewells
the inmates remained without any systematic pro-
vision of food. In about half a dozen counties there
is evidence that the Justices in Quarter Sessions
appointed a prison committee of Visiting Justices,
or formally adopted, by way of prison regulations,
a few extracts from the 1779 or 1791 Act. But the
Visiting Committee did not visit, and the regulations
were not even hung up. In Middlesex, for instance,
as Sheridan told the House of Commons in 1800,
" the Prison Committee . . . did nothing more than
meet in the committee-room and examine whom ?
the very persons from whom they could least
expect any impartial accounts whether or not the
prisoners were properly taken care of the gaoler,
the doctor and the parson." 1 The ordinary Justices
of the Peace had, in fact, not yet realized that what
was demanded of them was a laborious personal
inspection. As was commented by one of their own
number, " The pursuits of pleasure, the attraction
of gain, the negligence of many, and the ill-placed
confidence of others, lead astray from those duties,
which, being equally the business of everybody, are
but too frequently neglected ; and the artful gaoler,
with words of submissive cant, finds no great diffi-
culty in persuading a bench of magistracy so circum-
stanced to waive the trouble of visiting his prison/' 2
"It is not so much for want of good laws/' said a
it was again violently opposed as extravagant, but the Justices persisted
(Worcester Herald, Aug. 2oth, 1808). In 1812 the new gaol is still reported
as building (State of the Prisons, by James Neild).
1 See the report of the debate in the Portsmouth Telegraph, July 28th,
1800.
2 The State of the Prisons, by James Neild, 1812, p. Iv.
THE JUSTICES' NEGLECT 53
county magnate in 1793, " as from their inexecution,
that the state of the prisons is so bad. In two differ-
ent counties the Justices took into consideration the
late Act (1791), and gravely resolved to wait till
they saw what effect it had in other places. 1 ' 1
" Notwithstanding these anxious endeavours of many
individuals in the House of Commons to promote
what seemed to be a reigning spirit without doors,"
relates in 1808 the ablest of contemporary Justices,
" no sooner was the whole scope and purpose of the
Act for this county (Gloucestershire) made applicable
to all the other counties of England . . . than the
spirit of execution ceased ; so that if ... the Act
of the 3ist (George III) had contained an ordinance
for committing to the flames the modern statutes for
the construction and regulations of prisons, the pur-
poses of these laws could not have made a less general
progress, or have been more disregarded. I have
reason to think," he adds in despair, " that in no one
:uty of England have the powers of the three Acts,
of the 22nd, the 24th, and the 3ist George III, been
fully carried into effect." 2 The one tangible result
! To ward's labours, so far as concerns the majority
of county prisons, was to prevent the more malignant
outbreaks of gaol fever. This distemper, optimisti-
remarks Howard in 1789, 'by whidi su-h
numbers, not only of guilty but of innocent persons
were destroyed, is now almost eradicated," 8 pro-
bably by the adoption of the most elementary
sanitary precauti I our gaols may, for
t part, be visited without danger. But it is
observed that at this point the spirit of improve
unh,i]>; - ms to stop, scarcely touching upon
1 Observations on the State of the English Prisons, etc., by
ucccMivety Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn, 1793,
Address . . . on tks subject of framing Rules. Orders and Byelaws for
thf prisons, c: G. O. Paul (Gloucester, 1808), p. 26.
Some confirmation is afforded by Howard's stat< i private
letter in 1785. that the prisoners enlisted in the army and navy <
late war. had not, as formerly had always been the case
regiments and ships (Howard to Whitbread. 1783, in Correspondence of
Jokm Hovtrd. by J. Field. 1835, P
l
54 PRISON ADMINISTRATION
that still more important object, the reformation of
the morals of the prisoners/' 1
To this general apathy as to any reform of prison
discipline there were, however, some notable excep-
tions. In Sussex, the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of
Richmond, bestirred himself, immediately after
Howard's first visit, to get built new county prisons
at Horsham in 1775 and at Petworth in 1781, in
which the novel principles of cellular construction,
separate confinement and continuous employment
were so vigorously applied that these prisons became
a terror to the local criminal population. 2 In
Wiltshire by 1784 the Justices had, at their principal
county gaol, given the gaoler a definite salary,
prohibited him from trafficking with the prisoners,
stopped the sale of drink in the gaol and also the
bringing of it in from outside, excluded all visitors
except by Justice's order, and built a row of solitary
cells. At this gaol, at Fisherton Anger, near Salis-
bury, we learn that there had been erected " twenty-
four apartments for the reception and separation of
1 Society JOY Giving Effect to H.M. Proclamation against Vice and Im-
morality Account of the Present State of the Prisons, 1789, p. iii. The
passage is quoted from Howard's Account of the Principal Lazarettos, etc.
(p. 233), then just published. As a later prison reformer, Matthew Daven-
port Hill, observed : " With the exception of those changes which approve
themselves to the common instincts of benevolence, such as cleanliness,
ventilation, drainage, etc., the seed sown by Howard fell in stony places.
Whatever required the faintest tincture of philosophy for its appreciation
was lost, and had to be re-found, and in many cases it has been re-invented."
(The Recorder of Birmingham : a Memoir of M. D. Hill, by R. and F.
Davenport Hill, 1878, p. 152.) The so-called " Proclamation Society,"
printed in 1789 " eight pamphlets containing extracts from Mr. Howard's
Account of the Present State of the Prisons, together with a general
introduction," each dealing with an eighth part of England and Wales ;
and distributed these among the Justices and other leading inhabitants of
these respective districts. (See An A ccount of the Present State of the Prisons
and Houses of Correction in the Chester, North and South Wales Circuits,
1789, and the similar ones for other districts.)
2 Lord Mansfield used to relate how he was inclined to blame the Duke
of Richmond for extravagance in building the Sussex County Gaol at
Horsham four times as large as was required, and how willingly he retracted
his opinion on learning that the new gaol had been constructed to contain
only the same number as the old one. If it was three parts empty in 1791
it was because prisoners seldom came there a second time. (Holliday's
Life of Lord Mansfield, see Prison Discipline, by J. Field, 1856, p. 102.)
These two prisons were the first in England to be constructed on the
cellular plan. The severity of their regimen was rebuked in the House of
Commons in 1816 (Hansard, May I3th, 1816), and solitary confinement was
thereupon given up in favour of labour in association.
REFORMED GAOLS 55
prisoners. One of these lately condemned for a
's imprisonment petitioned to be hanged," so
feared was this solitary confinement. 1 In Norfolk,
the " new bridewell erected at Wymondham . . .
under the direction of the public-spirited magistrate,
Sir Thomas Beevor, Bart./' was by 1785 " governed
on a plan very different (from) and far superior to
other Houses of Correction. One part of the plan
was to keep the prisoners apart in several distinct
rooms or cells, and employ them ten or twelve hours
in a day in some useful labour, by which they might
earn a part, at least, of their maintenance, and be
prevented from corrupting each other/' 2 Similarly,
in the \Yest Riding ol Yorkshire, an enlightened
magistrate in 1788 drew up on Howard's lines an
elaborate code of rules for the administration of the
new House of Correction then building at Wakefield ; 3
and when it was opened in 1791, Quarter Sessions, at
the instigation of Lord Loughborough, sent an
officer to Wymondham to learn the system of dis-
cipline and employment there in use, upon which a
ited report was circulated to all the Justices of
Riding. 4 The Lancashire Justices, largely at
the instigation of T. B. Bayley, an enthusiastic
of Howard, opened at Manchester in 1790,
" a spacious and handsome prison," framed upon
Mr. Howard's plan of solitary confinement, for which
e there are upwards of a hundred cells so
distinctly separate that the prisoners cannot have the
itercourse with one another." ..." On
the admission of a prisoner he will be immediately
hod in a b;ith tor the purpose, and his clothes
scoured to prevent any infectious communication.
re are working shops provided for those who can
be employed ; for the refractory there are dark coll- .
s, Moral and Political, particularly respecting th
of Good Order and Religious (Economy in our prisons . . . by J. H. Esq.
>\bly Jonas Hanway), 1784, pp. 13-15.
* Newcastle Chronicle, Aug. aytb, 1783.
* Ueds Intelligence, Sept. x6th, 1788.
oln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, March ^th,
56 PRISON ADMINISTRATION
and for the sick there are hospital rooms/' 1 The
Suffolk magistrates completed, in 1792, their new
gaol at Ipswich, which was, we learn, " divided into
four parts, one for debtors, another for convicts, a
third for felons and a fourth for women. They have
separate cells, and are provided with a comfortable
dress at the expense of the county : each has a
bedstead, straw mattress, sheet, blankets and cover-
let. From the structure of the building no gaol
distemper can possibly arise, and every prisoner on
his entrance is obliged to strip and be bathed before
he is apparelled with the clothing of the house ; nor
are strangers admitted to see them/' 2
The partial reforms carried out by the Justices of
Sussex, Wilts, Norfolk, the West Riding, Lancashire,
Suffolk and others were thrown into the shade by
the great campaign of prison reform, extending over
more than thirty years, carried on by the ablest, the
most persistent, and on the whole, most successful
of Howard's followers, Sir George Onesiphorus Paul,
1 Leeds Intelligencer, March 23rd, 1790 ; see Biographical Memoirs of the
late Thomas Butterworth Bayley, by Dr. Thomas Percival (Manchester,
1802), p. 4 ; and The Parish and the Courtly, by S. and B. Webb. It is
reported that the popular name of the gaol, " the New Bailey," was taken
iroin that of its chief promoter.
* Leeds Intelligencer, July 3oth, 1792. It was for the assistance of the
Suffolk Justices in 1785, who were then thinking of erecting this new gaol
at Ipswich, and a new House of Correction at Bury, that Dr. Jebb wrote
his Thoughts on the Construction and Polity of Prisons, with Hints for their
Improvement, by John Jebb (with Preface by Capel Lofft), 1786. The
Dorset County Gaol at Dorchester, reformed by Sir G. O. Paul's friend,
Morton Pitt, with an exemplary system of account books ; the Stafford
County Gaol and the Oxford County Gaol are also mentioned as prisons
managed somewhat on Howard's principles. (Life of Lord Mansfield,
by Holliday ; Observations on the State of the English Prisons, etc., by
Alexander Wedderburn, successively Lord Loughborough and Earl of
Rosslyn, 1793, pp. 8, 20.) In the minutes of the Bucks Quarter Sessions we
find, in 1785, a code of thirteen rules adopted for the gaol, and another,
closely resembling it, for the Houses of Correction, enforcing sanitation
and work, and providing a fixed diet table for all prisoners, whilst fees of
all kinds were abolished. (MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Buckingham-
shire, Midsummer, 1785, and Easter, 1786.) They were amplified and
improved in 1795 and 1800. (Ibid., Michaelmas, 1795, and Midsummer and
Michaelmas, 1800.) In Norfolk, in 1795, a committee was appointed to
consider the state of the gaol ; and on its report fees were prohibited, a
salary of ^160 was given to the gaoler, paid turnkeys were appointed, the
prisoners were classified, convicts were put in separate cells, and so on.
(MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Norfolk, Oct. 7th, 1785.) We infer that,
of the other counties, those which, by 1804, had paid most attention to
prison administration, were Cornwall, Devon, Hants, Hereford and Derby.
MR G. O. PAUL 57
Bart., an active magistrate of Gloucestershire. 1 In
the critical year of 1783 the state of the Gloucester-
shire prisons amounted to a grave public scandal.
At the County Gaol in Gloucester City, the whole
herd of prisoners, " those committed for trial, and
those convicted, the young and the old, are indis-
criminately driven at night into one dark pen. . . .
A ponderous chain crosses this place of rest, and
passing the middle link of each man's fetter, it is
made fast at each end, and the whole number are
threaded together. . . . There are at present forty
prisoners so threaded together every night/' 8 The
half a dozen little Houses of Correction scattered up
and down the county were no less insanitary, whilst
they added the additional cruelty of providing no
food for their inmates, who were in a state of semi-
starvation. The promiscuity and licence which
prevailed made the prisons, said the grand jury,
" a seminary of vice and a certain introduction to
the most infamous practices/' 3 Throughout the
county, Paul declared, three prisoners died of dis-
temper for every one executed, and of those who died
the vast majority were either persons awaiting trial
or debtors. What was worse, both the moral and
-ic only life of Paul is that in the Dictionary of National Biography.
The Bibliographer's Manual of Gloucestershire Literature, by F. A,
I W. Bazeley (Gloucester, 1895), records over a dozen separate
publications by Pan
<ns. Most will be found in ;
Proceedings of the Grand / .of the County of Gloucester on Designing
:ing a General Reform in the Construction and Regulation of the
: G. O. Paul, 3rd cdn. (Glc.-,.
, Address to the Magistrates . . . 1789, on a Motion to consider the Appoint-
mtnt of Officers and of adopting Regulations for the Government of the New
ster, 1808) ; his Thoughts on the Alarming Progress
of Gaol Fever (< , . is Address delivered at a General Meeting
thy Proceedings of th* Committee
to rebuild the New Gaols and Bridewells (( ) ; his Address
on the Administration and Practical Effects of th* System of Prison
>i (Gloucester, 1809) ; and the various editions of tl
i and By flaws d are also three pamphlets by
>6, 1812,
and one of 1 803 a to building a new shire hall. As to his pos
administration, sec / '.and the County, by S. and B. Webb, 1907.
'Subsequently, fourteen of these were discharged as ' (Sir
'roceedines, p. 44.)
he Defects of Prisons and their present Sy
58 PRISON ADMINISTRATION
the physical infection spread to every village to
which an acquitted prisoner returned. Paul deter-
mined to make the Gloucestershire prisons a model
for all England. From 1783 onward, in the minutes
of Quarter Sessions and the local newspapers, we
watch this indefatigable reformer setting in motion
all the cumbrous machinery of county government,
drafting resolutions and " presentments " for the
grand jury, making speeches at Quarter Sessions,
delivering addresses at county meetings, printing and
circulating these in pamphlets to the magistrates of
the county, and persuading them step by step to
prison reform. Yielding to Paul's indomitable energy,
the Gloucestershire Justices obtained, in 1786, a
Local Act enabling them not i only to jrebuild their
county gaol and Houses of Correction," at a cost of
nearly 50,000, but also to carry out the principles
of the Penitentiary Act of 1779. The new prisons
were built on the cellular system : each inmate had
a separate cell, and was, " as far as the nature of his
employment permitted/' kept during the day apart
from his fellows. " Labour of the hardest and most
servile kind, in which drudgery is chiefly required,
and where the work is little liable to be spoilt by
ignorance, neglect or obstinacy, such as treading in a
wheel, drawing in a capstern for turning a mill or
other engine," was to be the daily routine of all
convicted prisoners. 1 Intercourse with friends was
strictly forbidden, but the prisoners were to be
visited not only by the warders, but once each day
by the governor himself, and once or twice a week,
separately, by the chaplain and the surgeon. No
alcohol or other luxuries were to be permitted, but
sufficient food, clothing and bedding were to be
supplied to every inmate. Irons, chains and brutali-
zing punishments were abolished. All fees, exac-
tions, perquisites and opportunities for traffic with
the prisoners were peremptorily swept away. The
Regulations for the Inspection ... o/ ... prisons, etc.,
County of Gloucester, 1790, p. 67. The phraseology is taken from a clause
of the 1779 Act.
THE NEW RULES 59
keeper or gaoler was replaced by a salaried governor,
a staff of male and female warders, a surgeon and a
chaplain. All this was the work of Paul, and of
Paul alone : he was, as has been truly said, " the
head and heart of the committee, the (draftsman of
the Bill, the financier who raised the funds, the clerk
he works at all the five new buildings, the author
the reformed system of discipline, the general
Visiting Justice of the county, and the scapegoat on
whose head were laid all the stupid anathemas that
the scheme provoked/' 1 Whatever may nowadays
be thought of the sternness of the regimen, or of his
\\ IK ilt -hearted adoption of the panacea of cellular
isolation, in the sphere of administration he was
evidently an inventor and a reformer. His greatest
merit was that, in the elaborate " Rules, Orders, and
Regulations for the Conduct and Government of the
Prisons/'* which he drew up for his county, he greatly
improved, not only on Howard's general suggestions,
also on the definite injunctions which Eden and
Blackstone had incorporated in the Penitentiary Act
: 779. We are, for instance, inclined to believe that
>we to Paul the first expressly formulated scheme
direct administration by the Justices themselves,
as distinguished from the mere vesting of personal
authority in the governor or gaoler, whether under
ling contract or otherwise. It was from hi^
admirable rules that other county benches slowly
and gradually learned such administrative devices,
now become commonplace, as ih< making of all
contra* supplir .lie Justices themselves,
<;ad of by the governor or other officer,*
reqi ' the governor, the surgeon and
' . ntrol of all the
n'uUs. Ordfrs and ByeUtws for tk< GovfrnttK
',r. '// . ,,.'.'....-. ;..,-, ...,,;/. .1 ,,;. :,,,.;,, QovcMtar, 179)
'ed code, aliio by Sir G. O. Paul, WM published in 1810, and icccrivc
full Qua
taelnuiM. i - , i I
a|d. p< . necln and hin oi
Oo PRISON ADMINISTRATION
chaplain should each keep an exact diary of the day's
work, to be regularly presented to the Justices, the
institution of a " visitors' book/' in which the
Visiting Justices were to write their observations,
the express recital in minute detail of the duties to
be performed by each officer, the elaborate detailed
rules for sanitation, the changing of linen, opening
windows, etc., and the formulation of fixed and
varied diet-tables, minutely specifying each day's
meals. No student of the minutes of the Gloucester-
shire Quarter Sessions 1 can doubt that it was due
almost entirely to Paul's personal working out of
every administrative detail, his perpetual reports to,
and discussions with, his fellow Justices, and his
own " uninterrupted superintendence " of each prison
that the Gloucestershire County Gaol and Houses of
Correction attained, by 1812, what the most compe-
tent observer described as " the highest pitch of
perfection in polity " then known. 2
Meanwhile in Nottinghamshire another prison
reformer, the Rev. J. T. Becher, whom we have
known of also as an experimenter in workhouse
management and an early advocate of Friendly
Societies, was developing a more attractive suggestion
of the 1779 Act> the profitable employment of the
prisoners. Incidentally he gives us, in his account
of the Southwell House of Correction in 1806, a
lurid vision of what an unreformed county prison,
thirty years after Howard's visits, could still be like.
" When a prisoner arrived at the gate," he tells us,
" his commitment was inspected, and he was con-
signed to the ward appropriated to offenders of his
denomination, without undergoing any previous
investigation to ascertain his cleanliness or health ;
by which negligent omission vermin and the itch
1 See, for instance, MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Gloucestershire, Jan.,
1790 ; ibid., Jan., 1792 ; ibid., Easter, 1892 ; and his evidence in the First
Report from the House of Commons Committee on the Laws relating to
Penitentiary Houses, 1811, and in the Report of the House of Commons
Committee on the State of the Gaols, 1819.
2 Slate of the Prisons, by James Neild, 1812, p. 249. A good description
of the Gloucestershire reforms is given in The Prison Chaplain, by W. L.
Clay, 1861, pp. 63-8.
PROMISCUITY 61
uere not infrequently communicated to the whole
of his miserable associates. If he were convicted of
felony or aggravated misdemeanour, or even charged
with these offences, he was fettered and confined in
the felons' ward : a drunken turnkey, to whom the
small pittance of 5 was allowed by the county, secured
him in the dungeon at night and released him in the
morning. . . . Without moral instruction, without
laborious industry, pinched with hunger, and genera ly
more than half naked, he dragged about his chains in
all the squalid wretchedness of abject penury until the
day of trial arrived, or the term of his sentence ex-
pired ; when, emaciated by the baneful atmosphere of
the dungeon, and unhabituated to the exercise of any
employment by which a livelihood might be acquired,
he was turned loose upon the public to practise all
his former crimes with the additional artifice and
dexterity derived from the lessons of his abandoned
companions. . . . Those committed for inferior
offences, such as trifling assaults, non-payment of
penalties, misbehaviour in service or apprenticeship,
icts of vagrancy, avoided the miseries of a dun-
geon ; but were necessitated to use the same apart-
ment for every purpose . . . nearly 18 ft. 6 in.
square ; oi this space the bedsteads occupy more
n a fourth part, yet in this contracted place have
been generally collected from seven to el men
and often more ; three, sometimes four, and even
five, in one bedstead, lying on loose straw, without
any bedclothes except such as the precarious hand
of f ; ip or charity accidentally supplied. Night-
S cooking utensils, plates, basi at dressed
and raw, potatoes, coals and various articles of diet
or dress all promiscuously jumbled together, dirty
and clean, in thi> Mii.ill m<.in; where even :
tched prisoners complained that the vermin and
tilth ere to be accounted amongst the mo-
ics attending their sentence se who in
r part oi prison could procure
illowed to from tin i .or
occ ioncy or moder-
62 PRISON ADMINISTRATION
ate quantities ; to persons connected with those in
the vicinity of Southwell dinners ready dressed were
regularly sent ; to others coming from places more
remote, sustenance sufficient for a week was brought ;
to those belonging to the associated poachers, money
was by the fraternity remitted ; and those who had
neither friends nor money, being destitute of employ-
ment, were barely prevented from starving by the
daily county allowance consisting of one pound of
bread and one penny in money/' 1
Becher got the Justices to build a new House of
Correction, on the windmill plan, with a central
house and three wings affording accommodation for
six distinct classes of prisoners/'* The leading idea
of his system of prison administration was the en-
couragement of industrious habits, by the provision
of comfortable conditions of life and remunerative
work, in pleasant association a device which we
shall discuss hereafter. To stimulate the good will
of the prisoner, by sharing profits and giving intel-
lectual and religious instruction was, in fact, the
central idea of this system of " discipline/' In
their leisure time the inmates were supplied with
improving books, and " encouraged to read to each
other " round the fire. " It is supposed/' remarked
the House of Commons Committee of 1811, " that
the vigilance of those who have the care of the
prisoners will be able to prevent any mischief that
might result from the communication of a few indi-
viduals with each other ; and that, in the small
circle in which the offender is allowed to move, he
may be expected, under proper management, to
form habits of industry and self-restraint, which he
will be likely to practise on his return to society." 3
1 A Report concerning the House of Correction at Southwell, by Rev. J. T.
Becher (Newark, 1806), pp. 4-5.
* New rules were not adopted by the Nottinghamshire Quarter Sessions
until 1808 ; and Becher described the reformed system of separate night
cells, regular employment in productive work, under salaried officers, with
systematic inspection by visiting Justices, before the Committee on the
Laws relating to Penitentiary Houses (First Report, H.C., No. 199, May 3ist,
1811).
8 First Report of House of Commons Committee on the Laws relating to
Penitentiary Houses, 1811, p. 20.
MUNICIPAL NEGLECT 63
(b) The Municipal Corporations
Thj t\vo or three hundred gaols and Houses of Cor-
rection which were not under the County Justices
were even less affected by Howard's influence than
the hundred or so of county prisons. The Municipal
Corporations, the lords of manors, and the owners
of special franchises 1 seem, for the most part, to lui\v
paid no attention whatever, either to Howard's
strictures or to the injunctions of Parliament. They
neither put their vile dungeons and lock-ups into a
sanitary state, 8 nor promulgated the regulations
prescribed by statute. Still less did the majority of
towns go to the expense of building new gaols on an
improved plan. Here and there, in the course of the
next half -century, a Municipal Corporation put up a
v prison building, 3 but the civic authorities, for
the most part, paid no more heed to prison adminis-
tration than did the private owners of gaols. Be-
en 1800 and 1830, as the House of Commons was
1 I ! ^ of the Duke of Devonshire, who
lilt, in 1794, the small gaol that he owned at Knaresborough for the
ur of Forc-st of Knaresborough. Lord Middleton, too, as lord of
ir of Pevcrd, built in 1805 a new gaol of four rooms, " in the
f a publichouse." (State of the Prisons, by James Neild, 1812.)
ntrrbury < 1, Howard notes, in 1779, " no regard is
to the claus^ " (in the" Act of 1774) " enjoining that omv in tin-
ill IK- \vi i " (Howard's State of the Prisons,
2nd edn , 1780, p. 227.) Similar oil ur in many <
*T! us of Doncaster (1779), Lynn (17-
: (1788), Northampton (1792), and Leicester (1793) have
followed later by \\ r (1800). \Yolvnhampton (t8oo), IVnzance
(1803), York (1807), Chester (1807), Portsmouth (1808), Lincoln (1808).
'Ch (1809), Ipswich (l8lo). and NYw. astlr-oii '1 yii-v I'.ut the thirf
pool, when- the corporation built a n< \v House of
6, and started on a new gaol Old
Tower," once the fortified ma: nf..i tunat. -K -. whrn
i. th<- corporation b
lie old one, and presently ioun
mod Mtil 1811 was it to its
prison according to the 1 solitary on a
very extensive scale, and ha-. ssiblc con
'V of Great
'let on a Visit to some of the Prison <-.d and the
It, 1820 ; Sir 1 *>k,
Memorials of Liverpool. 1875, Vol. I, pp. 217, 247, 293, and Municipal
Archives and Records. 1886, pp. 133, 234, 256, 311 The Manor and
the Borough, by S. an >, 1908, p. 484.)
04 PRISON ADMINISTRATION
informed, the fifty or sixty county authorities in
England ai.d Wales spent over three million pounds
in building and equipping new prisons. In that
period the couple of hundred Municipal Corporations
spent only 600,000 on the same service. The only
towns that went to any considerable expense in the
matter were the City of London, Bristol, Liverpool,
York, Newcastle and Nottingham. 1
In 1812. when we get the next general survey of
prisons, nine-tenths of those outside the county
jurisdictions seem to have remained pretty much as
they were in Howard's time. The most important
of all the prison authorities, the corporation of the
City of London, was beyond all comparison, the worst.
Even the complete destruction, by the rioters of 1780,
of Newgate and the Borough Compter two of the
worst of its five prisons led to practically no im-
provement/ Notwithstanding the suggestions of
Howard, the Corporation rebuilt Newgate on the bad
old plan of promiscuous herding together, by day and
1 An account of the total expenses incurred in building . . . the several
gaols . . . since 1800, H. of C., No. 316, of 1831 ; The Manor ar,d the
Borough, by S. and B. Webb, 1908, p. 726.
2 For the state of Newgate and other City prisons from 1774 to i8i< s
the two pamphlets by Josiah Dornford in 1786 ; Hints respecting the Prison
of Newgate, by Dr. J. C. Lettsom, 1794 ; A Memorial respecting the improper
conduct of the Jailer of Newgate, etc., by Thomas Lloyd, 1794 ; the Letter
to the Livery of London on the City Prisons, by Sir Richard Phillips, 1808 ;
the evidence given by the keeper of Newgate himself before the House of
Commons Committee on the Laws relating to Penitentiary Houses, Nos.
199 and 2i7ofi8n ; State of the Prisons, by James Neild, 1812 ; Holford's
speech in the House of Commons, June i4th, 1814 (Hansard, Vol. XXVIII),
when the City Corporation managed to defeat a Bill for reform ; the
Letter to the Common Council and Livery of the City of London on the Abuses
of Newgate, by the Hon. H. Grey Bennet, 1814, reprinted in the Pamphleteer,
Vol. XXII, 1818 ; the two Reports from the Committee of the House of
Commons, Newgate and other City prisons (1814), and on the King's Bench,
Marshalsca, the Fleet and the City of London prisons (1815), also reprinted
in the Pamphleteer, Vol. VI, 1815 ; the Report of two Committees of the
Common Council of the City of London on Gaols and Gaol expenses
(Minutes of Common Council, July 5th, 1814, and March I3th, 1817), and
the proceedings in the Common Council thereon between 1814 and 1818 ;
the anonymous pamphlet, A Twelve Months' Visit to Newgate in the Year
1817, 1819 ; the truly awful description given by Thomas, afterwards Sir
Thomas, Fowell Buxton, Bart., in his Inquiry whether ( rune and Misery
are Produced or Prevented by the Present System of Prison Discipline, 1818 ;
and the first and second Reports from the Committee on the Prisons within
the City of London and Borough of Southwark, Nos. 275 and 392 of 1818.
See also The Old Bailey and Newgate, by Charles Gordon, 1902 ; and
Chronicles of Xc;i>atc, by Arthur Griffiths, 2 vols., 1875 ; The J\ifnn
the Borough, by S. and B. Webb, 1908, p. 608.
NEWGATE 65
night the untried with the guilty, the young with
the old. The administration under the Court of
Aldermen was as defective as the building. There
3 the same old absence of work, and practical
absence of discipline. The wickedest convicted felon
who could afford to pay the keeper's fees might live
in comparative comfort on " the Master's Side/' or
even get private apartments on " the State Side "
whilst the common herd of pickpockets and burglars,
untried persons awaiting trial, and simple misde-
meanants, hardened villains and young children, all
pegged together on " the Common Side." Porter
could be bought in unlimited quantities by any
prisoner who could pay for it, and though spirits were
forbidden, so much was smuggled in that the prison-
ers were frequently seen drunk. 1 The turnkeys, as
well as the keeper, expected to receive fees, and knew
how to make themselves disagreeable if they were
disappointed. Irons, and " double irons " were in
common use. The lawless extortion of " garnish "
made every newcomer, exactly as happened a hun-
dred years before, either " pay or strip." The four
other prisons belonging to the City of London were,
in their various ways, as old-fashioned as Newgate.
One of them, the Borough Compter, which had been
rebuilt in 1780-7, was found by Buxton in 1818, in
.ill respects so vile that, after giving a terrible des-
cription of its horrors, he declared it " difficult to
determine whether the vice it encourages is, or is not
surpassed by the measure of misery it inflicts." 1
i .ward ha<! drawn attention in 1789 to the continuance of
London prison -he gaolers' taps arc
ire not publicans continually waiting to serve the prisoners
now sold by the debtors ? And do not
turnkeys keep shops in the gaols? " (An Account of the Principal Lazarettos,
>ward, 1780, p. 233.)
nquiry whether Crime and Misery are Produced or Prevented by our
nt System of Prison Discipline, by T. Fo\v 1818,
's before Howard l
"Anew b.ul pl.in M!H of the
prison (An Account of Ike Pn>
T of John
Howi \ 1850, p. 396 .1 Inute description in 18x8,
1812, shows that things had positively got worse
i (State of the Prisons, by James NHld, 1812,
P- 396). in spite of the pointed remarks of the House of Commons Com-
s of 1814 and 1815.
CHAPTER VII
THE RENEWAL OF PARLIAMENTARY
ACTIVITY, 1811-1823
BEYOND an occasional inquiry into the cost of the
hulks and the practicability of penal colonies, the
House of Commons and the Ministers of the Crown-
occupied, it is fair to say, by the war with France
seem, between 1791 and 1810, to have taken no more
interest in prison administration than the majority
of local authorities. But though the labours of John
Howard, of Blackstone and Eden, of Paul and other
reforming Justices, had done little to raise the general
level of the local prisons, the impression created by
their writings and their experiments 1 lived on as a
ferment, producing, in the first decade of the nine-
teenth century, a new crop of investigators and
reformers. Chief among the former was James
Neild (1744-1814), who modelled his career upon
that of Howard. Like his great exemplar, he be-
longed to the commercial class, rising in the prime of
life to the position of a landed proprietor, a Justice
of the Peace for three counties, and in due course
High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. He had, from
1 Besides the pamphlets of Paul and Beclier already referred to, we may
mcii'inn that ')n the Prevention of Crime and on the Advantages of Solitary
Confinement, by Rev. John Brewster, 1792 ; and that by him On the
Jteltgious Improvement of Prisons, 1808 ; the Observations on the State of
English Prisons and the means of improving them, by Alexander Wedder-
burn, successively Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn, 1793 ; Hints
respecting the Prisons of Newgate, by Dr. J. C. Lettsom, 1794 ; A Disserta-
tion on the Diseases of Prisons and Poorhouses, by Dr. J. M. Good, 1794 ;
and Thoughts on the necessity of Moral Discipline in Prisons, etc., 1797, by
Rev. Thomas Bowen, the chaplain of the City of London Bridewell, on
the condition of which he published two other pamphlets, referred to
elsewhere.
66
JAMES NEILD 67
1762 onward, taken a benevolent interest in the relief
of poor debtors, and after retiring from business he
devoted all his spare time for twelve years to jour-
neying over Great Britain, for the purpose of des-
cribing, in minute detail, the structure, condition and
administrative methods of more than 350 prisons.
These detailed descriptions appeared in the Gentle-
man's Magazine between 1804 and 1806, and were
embodied, in 1812, in a magnificent quarto, em-
bellished with plates. 1 This fresh use of the concrete
statistical method, done upon identically the same
lines as Howard's work, was enlivened by admirably
written descriptions and fortified by the current
philosophy of punishment. But the time had passed
when the House of Commons could be moved by any
enumeration of individual instances ; and we doubt
ther Neild's work would have made much
impression if the cause of prison reform had not
attracted the support of such potent intellectual and
emotional movements as Philosophic Radicalism and
mgelical Christianity. From the standpoint of
local government we are not much concerned with
Bentham's proposals in 1794 that the national
ernment should allow him to erect and manage on
contract system a monster " penitentiary " for the
reception of its convicts. But, however absurd we
y deem some of the details of Bentham's adminis-
trative projects, it was the publication in 1811, of his
Thtorie des Peines et des Recompenses,* which gave
to the merely empirical proposals of the prison
itc of the Prisons in England, Scotland and Wales, extending to various
places therein assigned not for the Debtor only, but for felons also, and other
tl offenders, together with some useful documents, observations and
rwiwrJ - -iii.iptf.1 .' : i-.n ,IH<I improve th>- conation of pritomn ;>. IMMW^
I he extra-
between Neild and Howard, alike in career, position,
'fortunes, has been
asurer of the Society for
and Discharge of Persons imprisoned for Small Debts ; at
1800 he published An Account of the Persons Confined for Debt. He died
in 1814, resembling Howard, too. in not living to witness any appreciable
improvement in the prisons which he had described.
lition of this work, published in 1811. was made
lv known to English reformers by the long summary of
iew for i H
68 RENEWED ACTIVITY
reformers an intellectual framework connecting them
with the wider movement for the reform of the crimi-
nal law, and, indeed, also with that for the general
reorganization of society on utilitarian principles.
It was, however, not enough to regard the problem
of prison administration from a purely intellectual
standpoint, and it was therefore fortunate that the
efforts of the utilitarians were seconded by the no
less influential Evangelicals, who managed to create
that stir of semi-religious excitement without which,
as it has been said, " no philanthropic project is ever
fairly launched in England/' 1 Chief among these
new supporters of prison reform were the Quakers,
in close touch with their brethren in Pennsylvania,
where societies for the relief of prisoners had been
established in the opening years of the century. In
1808 a similar society was started in London. 2 These
new forces produced, from about 1810, a distinct
revival of Parliamentary agitation.
The first sign of this awakening was Sir Samuel
Romilly's eloquent appeal to the House of Commons,
early in 1810, for a reform of the whole criminal law,
including the administration of the prisons. For the
next couple of years the agitation was kept going
by the proceedings of George Peter Holford's Select
Committee on transportation, the hulks and Ben-
tham's " panopticon/' to which we have already
referred, and which incidentally threw much light
on the prison experiments of Gloucestershire, Not-
tinghamshire, Sussex, and other counties where the
Justices had built " model " prisons. 3 In 1812
Sir Francis Burdett made the House of Commons
listen to a recital of horrors perpetrated at Lancaster
Castle, the ancient gaol of the county. 4 But the
only legislation affecting local prisons that at once
ensued was a series of little Acts springing directly
1 Our Convict System, by W. L. Clay, 1862, p. n.
r~^* An Account of the Origin and Object of the Society for the diffusion of
I knowledge upon the punishment of death, and the Improvement of Prison
L Discipline, 1812.
3 Three Reports of the Committee on the Laws relating to Penitentiary
Houses, 1811-2.
* Hansard, July 3rd, 1812, Vol. XXIII, p. 895.
PARLIAMENTARY REFORMERS 69
from Neild's concern for the poor debtors. The Com-
missioners of Customs and Excise were authorized to
contribute towards the maintenance of the numerous
persons committed as debtors for fines and penalties
under the revenue laws. 1 The old law requiring
every county to contribute towards the poor prisoners
in the King's Bench and Marshalsea prisons was
made more effective, and extended also to the Fleet
prison.* Any magistrate was empowered to order
parish relief for any poor debtor in a municipal or
franchise gaol. 3 A more important Parliamentary
campaign, led by the Hon. Henry Grey Bennet,
George Holford, and Sir William Eden, with the
support of Sir Francis Burdett, Sir Samuel Romilly,
and Lord Holland, took place in 1814 and 1815.
The Grand Jury of Middlesex formally presented
Newgate Gaol as a public nuisance ; and Eden,
Holford, and Bennet managed to get a committee on
the City of London prisons, which revealed a contin-
uance of all the old horrors. 4 Holford brought in a
Bill to compel the Corporation to appoint a special
prisons committee, which should get rid of the old
contracting system, and directly administer these
important gaols. The Corporation fought this meas-
ure tooth and nail, the Aldermen declaring such a
statutory committee to be derogatory to their
1 53 George 1 1
53 George III, c. 113 (1813), amending 43 Elizabeth, c. 2. n GCOFL
and 12 George II, c. 29. This Bill >ns of the
Thus, at the Gloucestcrshi s, we
read: " A Bill '.-is am-ndcd by the Committee of the House of Comr
relief of the poor prison
Fleet and Marshalsca prisons, having been submitted to the perusal <
Court, to. -ii a letter directed to the Clerk of the Peace, foi
>n of this Court, fro; a ton. Esq. : this Court h.
perused the same, are of it tin- attention of the 1 this
Conn- to be requested to th- progress of the said Bill through th
ions, as the least sum, namely 45, thereby proposed to be
'lie stock or rates of thi County ( : poor
prisoners conn '* Bench. Fleet and Marshalsea prisons, far
lc cxprn < 1 > is County in allowances made to debtors
themselves w a gaols oi
lutes, Quarter Sessions, Gloucestershire, April
1813.)
[60.
4 Kcpor mmons on Newgate
1814.
70 RENEWED ACTIVITY
dignity, and the reforms proposed to be unnecessarily
extravagant. In the end the Bill was defeated in a
thin house by a few votes. 1 Meanwhile a little Bill
was got through, giving the Justices in Quarter
Sessions more complete authority to appoint salaried
chaplains to their gaols and Houses of Correction. 2
Another Act required annual returns to be made to
the Home Office, and laid before Parliament, giving
exact particulars as to the persons committed to
prison in each county or other local jurisdiction. 3
A useful little measure, also arising directly from
Neild's criticisms, enabled the Home Secretary to
order the removal of any lunatic person from a
prison to an asylum. 4 Presently, the prison reformers,
headed by Bennet, successfully carried through a
more notable reform. In 1814 Bennet had vainly
striven to pass, against the resistance of the City of
London, a Bill to abolish gaolers' fees. 5 In 1815 he
was successful in passing into law, apparently by
general approbation, a drastic measure sweeping
away all prison fees, and making it expressly a penal
1 Hansard, Vol. XXVIII, June 14111, July 4th and nth, 1814.
2 55 George III, c. 48 (1815), amending 13 George III, c. 58 and 22
George III, c. 64. This was itself amended by 58 George III, c. 32 (1818).
3 55 George III, c. 49 (1815).
4 56 George III, c. 117 (1816). This measure was by no means universally
enforced. The Gaol Returns for 1833 speak of the presence of one lunatic
in Cold Bath Fields prison, one at Northampton County Gaol, one at
Nottingham County Gaol, one at West Haverford in Pembrokeshire, four
at Ilchester, one at the Surrey County Gaol, one at that of Warwickshire,
two in the County Gaol of Westmorland, one at Worcester, one in York
Castle, one in the House of Correction at Northallerton, five in Newgate,
and one in White Cross Street. The House of Correction at St. Augustine's,
Kent, accepted insane prisoners when necessary. At Cold Bath Fields
prison the reception of such persons was clearly not unusual, as the rules
in force between 1831 and 1835 charged the surgeon to visit lunatic prisoners
" confined there at the expense of the county," and to " report their state
and condition to the Visiting Magistrates at the next general meeting."
5 Hansard, Vol. XXVIII, June istli, 1814. The total abolition of prison
fees, first suggested by Howard, had seemed in 1773 an impracticable
reform. It was in vain that Dr. William Smith pointed out, in 1776, that
" No Act of Parliament, rule of court or mandate of magistrates will avail
against the avarice, extortion and barbarity of gaolers ; and if their fees
are not utterly abolished, regulations of every kind will prove insufficient."
(State of the Gaols in London, Westminster, and Borough of Southwark, by
William Smith, M.D., 1776, p. 16.) What was advocated in 1793 was
merely that the gaoler should be paid a salary, and should be required to
account for all fees and prisoners' earnings. (Observations on the State of
the English Prisons, by Alexander Wedderburn, successively Lord Lough-
borough and Earl of Rosslyn, 1793, p. 19-)
ELIZABETH FRY 71
offence for any officer to exact any fee from any
prisoner whatsoever. 1
At this point in the squalid tragedy of the prison-
house there enters on the scene that stately, fas-
cinating and emotional moral genius, Elizabeth Fry
(1780-1845) . A wealthy and highly-connected mem-
of the influential sect of Quakers, calmly confident
of her managing skill, her gift for exhortation, and
above all, of the " power of the spirit/' this remark-
able woman succeeded where Parliament itself had
failed, in persuading the Aldermen of the City of
:don to introduce some imperfect, and it is to be
feared, short-lived reforms in the most notorious of
their gaols. Already in the hard winter of 1812-3
she had visited Newgate, and had realized the debas-
tragedy of prison life the disorderly, dram-
king, half-naked women, vagrants and felons,
convicted and unconvicted alike, some with little
c liildren clinging to their skirts, penned up promiscu-
ously in crowded wards and yards, reeking with filth
and infested with vermin. At Christmas, 1816, she
started, with a few friends, a beneficent crusade of
moral suasion within the prison walls, offering to the
f-m;il' prisoners food, clothing, cheerful employment,
religious services and care of their children, in return
for a voluntary subordination to the rule of sobriety ,
iliness and decent conversation. Her meth<
attained her end, at least temporarily,
and the brutal i.\vd was reduced at any rate to
1 55 George III. c. 50 (1815), araer
Thes^ ench,
rt of
on the St .ilsea
the curious
reason that as these wer
was n is in
n to
il funds | s us to believe that
See Memoirs of the Life of 1 s from her journal .
, edited by two of her daughters ry and K
i 17; Memoirs oj is Tunpson, 1847 I
in, 1847; ^aphies. by L. B-
Walford, 1888 ; Chronicles of Newgate, by A: II
; Through Prison Bar*.\ Elitabtth .
Lewis, 1910.
REXEWKD ACTIVITY
outward order. Made widely known by a letter of
Robert Owen in October, 1817, the fame of her work
spread to chapels, churches, and the drawing-rooms
of the wealthy ; and during the next two decades
we see arising "Ladies' Prison Committees" in
provincial towns, which combined, with the question-
able devices of almsgiving and sensational revivalism,
a practical concern for the health, decency and future
welfare of the women prisoners. The particular
scheme of prison administration gradually evolved
by Mrs. Fry and her friends, which we shall presently
discuss, was pressed upon local authorities by the
now active "Society for the Improvement of Prison
Discipline/' which published frequent descriptions of
the results of its inspections of the gaols, and con-
stantly held up to odium the local authorities which
effected no reforms. 1 The immediate, and we are
inclined to think, the most useful outcome of this
missionary devotion was the stimulus which it gave
to legislative reform. Inspired by the example of
their relative and co-religionist, the powerful families
of the Gurneys, Buxtons, Hoares and Barclays, threw
their energies into prison improvement ; and matter-
of-fact administrators like Paul and Becher, Holford
and Bennet, found themselves reinforced, both in the
House of Commons and in the pamphleteering press,
by these fervent magnates of the financial world. 2
1 This was the society started in 1808 by William Allen, Basil Montagu,
Sir Richard Phillips and other rather sentimental reformers for the diffusion
of knowledge upon capital punishment, including incidentally prison
reform. In 1816, after a period of suspended activities, this society seems
to have developed into a wider organization, commonly known as " The
Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline," in which the Gurneys,
Hoares, Frys, Barclays, and their allies took the leading parts. This
society, which lasted right down to the passing of the General Prisons Act
of 1835, set going frequent inspections of the gaols and bridewells, published
valuable descriptions of their condition and other usual reports, and
exercised no little Parliamentary influence. As a guide for these inspections,
the society printed a set of 175 searching questions, covering the whole of
prison administration, from the position and construction of the gaol down
to the arrangements for the discharge of prisoners. (Inquiries relative to
Prison Discipline, 2nd edn., 1820.)
2 The most impressive of the pamphlets of these years was the Inquiry
whether Crime and Misery are Produced or Prevented by our Present System
of Prison Discipline, by T., afterwards Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart.,
1818. This was a graphic description of the horrible condition of about a
dozen prisons in London and other towns, which went through six
PEEL'S ACT 73
Successive Committees of Parliament revealed the
unmistakable connection between the rapid increase
of crime, the overcrowding of the gaols and the up-
growth of a whole population of juvenile and pro-
fessional criminals. The statistical returns now
laid annually before Parliament under the Act of
5, supplied irresistible arguments to the reformers. 1
In i8jj Feel succeeded Lord Sidmouth as Home
retary, and, urged on all sides to consolidate the
criminal law, decided to begin with the least contro-
-uil department, that of the Gaol Acts, and to
embody in his consolidating measure the commonly
opted principles of prison reform, for the applica-
tion of which an influential Select Committee had
ju-t strongly pressed. 8 His Bill, considered by a
nmittee in 1822, and passed into law in
1823, was the first measure of general prison reform
to be framed and enacted on the responsibility of the
national executive. 3
ithin the year. See also his Severity of Punishment, etc., 1822,
and the Memoirs of Sir Thomas Powell Buxton, Bart., by Charles Buxton,
1872. In 1819, J. J. Gurney, a Norwich banker, and his sister, Elizabeth
made a round of visits to provincial prisons, and published Notes of a
U in Scotland and the North of England icith Elizabeth
s'-ph John Guriu-y (1819, reprinted in The Pamphleteer, Vol.
also his Letter to the Magistrates for the 7 ngs of the
County of York in reply to the Report of the Visiting Magistrates of York
Castle relative to that prison (York, 1819) ; his Thoughts on Habit and
Discipline, of which a second edition was published in 1844, and Memoirs
J. Gurney, with selections from his journal and correspondence, by J. I 1 ..
S 54-
returns," says UK- Fifth Kcport of the
Pris , " that in 1818, out of 518 prisons in the
.mgdom(t' 107,000 P' :miiu-il in
the course of that year) " such a total must include every tiny place of
uement in -us only ihr in;
Mini- ti. l.i\\ ; in 59 of the numiu:
no divisi separation of males fn ;
acre was only one division of i s into separate classes, though
\ George III, c. 54, ha : i that n such divisions should bo
made ; in 68 there were but 2 divisions, and so on ; whilst
were the prisoners separated according to the statute. Again, in 445 out
518 prisons, no work of any dcs
,'mcnt carried on was of the slightest possible
: ioo jails, which had been built to contain only
nne as many as 13,057 persons confi ;
ons of London, by Henry Mayhcw and John
97-)
* Report <>t H'MIS. of Commons Committee on the State of the Gaols,
1820.
4 George IV, c. 64 (18^3).
74 RENEWED ACTIVITY
The " Act for consolidating and amending the
laws relating to the building and regulating of certain
>ls and houses of correction in England and Wales"
represented a great advance in prison administration.
Besides consolidating the whole of the statute law
on the subject, it for the first time made it peremp-
torily the duty of the Justices to organize their
prisons on a prescribed plan, and to furnish quarterly
reports to the Home Secretary upon every depart-
ment of their prison administration. They were
expressly required to adopt, as the basis, Howard's
four principles of the provision of sufficient, secure
and sanitary accommodation for all prisoners, the
transformation of the gaoler or master from an inde-
pendent profit-maker into the salaried servant of the
local authority, the subjection of all criminals to a
reformatory regimen, and the systematic inspection
of every part of the prison by visiting justices. The
Act, moreover, prescribed, in clauses of elaborate
detail, most of the administrative devices introduced
by Paul, such as the exclusion of the gaoler and other
officers, not only from all private trading with the
prisoners, but also from any housekeeping or " farm-
ing " contracts with the local authority, the super-
vision of female prisoners exclusively by matrons
and female warders, 1 and the requirement that the
gaoler, the chaplain and the surgeon should person-
ally visit every cell at stated intervals and keep
detailed journals of their daily work, for regular
presentation to Quarter Sessions. The prisoners
1 " One of its provisions, which placed female prisoners under officers of
their own sex, was due to Mrs. Fry." (The Recorder of Birmingham : a
Memoir of M. D. Hill, by R. and F. Davenport-Hill, 1878, p. 180.) Even
prison matrons had only just begun to be appointed, and female warders
were unknown. In 1816, on the formation of the establishment of Millbank
Penitentiary, the Dorset prison reformer, Morton Pitt, informed the com-
mittee that " the situation (of matron) is a new one. I never knew but
two instances of a matron in a prison, and those were the wives of turnkeys
or porters." (Memorials of Millbank, by Arthur Griffiths, p. 40, of 1884
edn.) No matron was appointed even at the well-administered House of
Correction at Preston until 1825. (Annual Report of the Chaplain to
Quarter Sessions, 1825.) It may be remarked that, in no fewer than eight
of the prisons that he visited (namely, Worcester, Chelmsford, Horsham,
Monmouth, Gloucester, Exeter, Bodmin and Brecon), Howard had found
women in charge of prisons mainly occupied by men.
CLASSIFICATION 75
e protected against irons and chains and tyran-
nical punishments by compulsory notification to the
iting Justices of every instance of their use. More
Datable proved the idea of the "classification''
of prisoners into five different groups for their
association in productive labour, by which it was
intended that they should earn their maintenance.
With this idea came elaborate provisions for the
instruction of the prisoners in reading and writing,
the copious supply to them of pious literature, for
their participation in frequent religious services, and
even for their taking the Sacrament. These new
features were the result of the pressure of Mrs. Fry
and her friends embodied in the extensive propa-
clist work of the Society for the Improvement
of Prison Discipline. <But though Parliament had
brought itself at last to dictate to the Justices the
^t system on which they were to administer their
prisons, it \\ould not contemplate (nor did Peel even
suggest) the appointment of Government inspectors
insist on the law being obeyed, 1 nor did the Act
provide any machinery for compelling negligent or
recal< itrant local authorities to comply with its
requirements. Moreover, it applied only to 130
ing all those of the county Justices, those
of i h<; Cities of London and Westminster, and those of
only seventeen provincial towns ; and it did nothing
form ritlirr tin- three great debtors' prison^
London* or tin- one hundred and fifty or so gaols and
bridewell in the franchises and the minor municipal-
d.ite the " iilthiest and most
in the Kingdom/'*
icnt insp<
1 by the "We object," said Sydney
, " t'j th- :. lor reasons so very ob\
it is scarcely necessary to enumerate them. The prison inspector would
have a good salary ; th ;land, is never omitt ! It is equally
course tii Id be taken from among Treasury retainers,
: look at a prison."
of a furl nssioners on the State and Managc-
of the Fleet and Marshalsca prisons, and the prisoners c< < rein,
1818.
//am, by W. L. (1 p. 98. ' ipal
.-iid on and Westminster,
CHAPTER VIII
RIVAL POLICIES IN PRISON ADMINISTRA-
TION, 1816-1835
THE twelve years 1823-1835, witnessed a steady, but
uneven, application of Peel's great measure to the
130 prisons which came within its scope. The direct
administration of these gaols and Houses of Correc-
tion by the Justices themselves now became general ;
and this direct administration, as was inevitable,
brought the country gentlemen face to face with all
the difficulties of the problem. We see arising a
whole group of controversies about the rival advan-
tages of particular devices separate confinement or
" classified association/' profitable employment or
the tread-wheel ; the compulsory setting to work of
persons awaiting trial or their free maintenance
over which, for the next half-century, active chair-
men of Quarter Sessions and zealous Visiting Justices,
prison chaplains and humanitarian critics bombarded
each other and their Members of Parliament with
argumentative reports and pamphlets for, or against,
their several panaceas. We shall attempt here a
brief examination of the various devices tried by
local authorities down to 1835. To estimate their
value the student must keep in mind what the con-
troversialists themselves seldom clearly realized,
namely, the complex character of the object aimed
were Bristol, Canterbury, Chester, Coventry, Exeter, Gloucester, Hull,
Leicester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Liverpool, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham,
Portsmouth, Worcester and York. We do not know why these towns,
including both small and large, were specially selected, or why the relatively
large municipal prisons of Leeds, Bath, Dover, Ipswich, Oxford and
Cambridge were exempted.
76
UNTRIED PRISONERS 77
at in the treatment of prisoners. To the oriinal
end of safe custody had, by this tin: u
ntial the maintenance of the p:
according to the scanty knowledge and
of the time, imprisonment .M ft puii
it was assumed, to be made di ^alike to the
prisoner himself, and to otii- i t :-. It had, at
the. same time, to be, at any rate, morali/
< >f tin- population, and- as possible
' 'i the delii ,d habits of mind
and body. A less openly avowed, but at this stage
of local government, a more potent motive of prison
administration, was the desire to reduce to the ut-
most its cost to the community. These five distinct
and often mutually conflicting aims were accepted,
then as now, with more or less confusion of thought,
by all prison administrators and critics. What
gave acrimony to the interminable controversy
which now set in, was not so much the conflict of
evidence as to the efficacy of the particular devices,
as the unavowed differences in opinion upon the
relative importance to be attached, not merely to
maintenance of the prisoners in physical and
mental health, but also to success in deterring,
success in reforming, and success in economizing
public expenditure.
(a) 7 ait of Untried Prison i >
One of the first phases of the controversy con-
cerned th<
was an old commonplace of tin -i inn a! >uch
pri il conviction, were deemed to be
and, as a matter of fact, something like
:u were eventually acquitted or di--
l. 1 Yd e have seen, dunng the CIL
tury,
san*ii
tistics from 1810 to 1831 summarized in the Kt port from tkt
mttfe on Secondary Punithnunt* . . . with \otcs and Appt
RIVAL POLICIES
felon. Even when the worst of the positive abuses
Kad~been remedied when gaol fever had been got
rid of, fees abolished, bounds set to the tyranny of
the gaoler, extreme promiscuity mitigated there
was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no
reasonable provision made for treating as innocent
the suspected felon awaiting trial, or the person
committed merely in default of finding sureties.
Here is a description of the treatment of untried
prisoners, which that entirely veracious Quaker,
Thomas Fowell Buxton, saw with his own eyes in
1818, in the prisons administered by the Middlesex
Quarter Sessions and the Corporation of the City of
London. " The prisoner, after his commitment is
made out, is handcuffed to a file of perhaps a dozen
wretched persons in a similar situation, and marched
through the streets, sometimes a considerable dis-
tance, followed by a crowd of impudent and insulting
boys ; the moment he enters prison irons are ham-
mered on to him ; then he is cast into the midst of a
compound of all that is disgusting and depraved.
At night he is locked up in a narrow cell with perhaps
half-a-dozen of the worst thieves in London, or as
many vagrants, whose rags are alive and in actual
motion with vermin ; he may find himself in bed,
and in bodily contact, between a robber and a
murderer ; or between a man with a foul disease on
one side, and one with an infectious disorder on the
other. He may spend his days deprived of free air
and wholesome exercise. ... He may be half-
starved for want of food and clothing and fuel. . . .
His trial may be long protracted ; he may be
imprisoned on suspicion and pine in gaol while his
family is starving out of it, without any opportunity
of removing that suspicion, and this for a whole year.
If acquitted he may be dismissed from gaol without
a shilling in his pocket, and without the means of
returning home/' 1 Nor were untried prisoners treated
1 An Inquiry whether Crime and Misery are Produced or Prevented by our
Present System of Prison Discipline, by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1818,
p. 15, etc. We read, in 1823, of a scene in Westminster, where " A party
MARCHING TO GAOL 79
more considerately in the provinces. In 1822
it was the practice in the West Riding " for the
prisoners ... to be marched from Wakefield to the
place where the court is to sit, chained two together
by their necks, besides the usual handcuffs on their
wrists ; in this way they are marched sometimes to
Skipton, nearly thirty-five miles ; to Knaresborough
twenty-five miles, and other places of shorter dis-
tance, to take their trial. The exposure of fifty or
sixty prisoners on the high roads in these populous
districts is certainly a great evil as regards the
prisoner himself, who is not yet proved guilty/' 1
Not until 1823 did any local authorities convey
untried prisoners in the decent seclusion of a covered
van ; and when in that year the Surrey Justices
introduced this reform, 2 their example was not
followed even by the Middlesex Justices for four
years. It was not until 1827, too, that the West
Riding Justices gave up marching their prisoners
on foot from town to town, and provided a covered
van for their conveyance. 8
Once lodged in gaol, there seems to have been no
question, so long as the prison was regarded merely
i place of detention, of distinguishing in treatment
between untried and convicted prisoners, except that,
in some cases, the " county bread " was confined to
vi ted felons ; whilst persons awaiting trial, like
the debtors and " fines/' lived or starved as they
might. By 1815, at any rate, this minimum of food
seems to have been in some form or another supplied
to all the inmates of a prison. With the gradual
>rm of prison regimen, the situation of the untried
prisoner, s< health and decency \\
: to thr unusually large number of 102 prisoners long
together, and conducted from this prison
through t ; -I streets of a populous district,
to !" formally s<-t at liberty by proclam.i
'. cd towards females." (Fifth Report of the
i nt of Prison Discipline, 1823, p. 60.)
lit Of
^, p 70.
: ditto. iSj<. p. 57.
. ditto, lo. -i i, u.j.
RIVAL POLICIES
improved with that of the convicted feign. But the
ne identity of treatment continued. Where, as
iii Southwell, work was exacted, the same task was
to all alike. 1 So long as this work was of a profit-
able nature, conducted on profit-sharing principles,
its provision was not regarded as a hardship, but even
as an indulgence. Presently, however, the simplicity
of the tread-wheel, which we shall subsequently
describe, led to its being substituted in many gaols
for every other kind of employment. The exaction
of this hard and monotonous, and to some persons,
painful toil, with none but derogatory associations,
at once altered the circumstances ; and a heated
controversy arose as to the legitimacy of applying
it to untried prisoners. An unconvicted inmate of
the Northallerton Gaol who had been given the
alternative of a bread and water diet or the tread-
wheel, got the eminent advocate Scarlett to apply on
his behalf for a mandamus to compel the Justices
to afford him better treatment. The Court of King's
Bench decided, however, that though the Justices
were bound to find the prisoners work by which they
could maintain themselves, they had full discretion as
to the kind of work, and that even untried prisoners
could not insist on being maintained in idleness.
" A man who was committed to prison," said Chief Jus-
tice Best, " was not to be placed in a better situation
than one who was at liberty . . . as a man at liberty
would not be sustained in idleness, so a man in prison
could not ask more/' 2 The use of the tread-wheel for
convicted and unconvicted prisoners alike was ac-
cordingly continued in Northallerton and some other
1 The Nottinghamshire Justices ordered, in their reformed House of
Correction at Southwell, that the governors shall employ on some work
or labour, which is not severe, all such prisoners as are kept and maintained
at the County expense, though by the warrant of commitment such persons
are not ordered to be kept to hard labour the only distinction being that
unconvicted persons, like those sentenced to mere imprisonment, were
allowed to receive one-half of their earnings, whilst prisoners sentenced to
hard labour received only one-fourth. (Second Report of the House of
Commons Committee on the Laws relating to Penitentiary Houses, June
loth, 1811, pp. 109-18.)
2 2 Barnewall and Cresswell, 286 ; Quarterly Review, Jan., 1824, Vol.
XXX, p. 404 ; see also Prison Discipline and Secondary Punishments, by
P. Laurie, 1837, p. 10.
THE TREAD -WHEEL 81
gaols, and was strenuously defended by the chairman
of Quarter Sessions for the North Riding. 1 It was,
on the other hand, furiously denounced as inhuman
and barbarous by Sydney Smith in the Edinburgh
Review, and enlightened public opinion swayed to
and fro betweeiuiiciplme and humanitarian ism. In
the first draft of Peel's -ivat measure, laid before
the House of Commons in 1822, he proposed to
authorize the Justices to find employment for the
untried prisoner, " in any work of which he shall be
capable, at regular wages " from the county fund.
This was objected to by Holford, on the ground of
expense, it being argued " that such persons ought to
provide for their own support. " a IttJtheAct of 1823,
as eventually passed, the dispute as to the legitimacy
of the tread-wheel was slurred over, and it was simply
le lawful to employ untried prisoners with their
own-consent. 8 This, however, left unaffected the
tice of those Justices who, like those of the North
Riding, duly asked their untried prisoners whether
or not they would consent to work, but limited the
rnatives to bread and water on the one hand,
and the tread-wheel on the other. It was an aggra-
vation that the human force which worked the
tread-wheel in the Northallerton Gaol was leased out
liko so much water-power or steam, to a local miller,
who exacted much or little labour according to the
requirements of his trade. 4 It took another Act to
make it clear to reluctant Justices that, in the
unconvieted persons, the consent to work " shall
id shall not be extorted or obtained by
{ i m or threat of deprivation of an < r
other allowance," and it was expressly declared that
no ] conviction " shall under any p
1 Letter to the Right Hon. Robert Peel . . . on Prison Labour, 1823 ;
Second Letter to the Right Hon. Robert Peel, on Prison Labour. 1824, both
HwulUm ; Edinburgh Review, 1821; Quarterly Review.
130-
Substance of the Speech of George Holford, Esq., in the f louse of Commons,
.1 Committee of the whole House for considering the laws
'>ts. 1824.
64, sec. 37 (1823).
* // ,th. 1824.
82 RIVAL POLICIES
tence be employed on the tread-wheel either with
without his consent." 1 Here ended this particular
,y, and, with it, all discussion as to the
treatment of untried prisoners. So far as we are
able to ascertain, local authorities, between 1824 an d
1835, refrained from exacting labour on the tread-
wheel from unconvicted prisoners, but continued to
subject them to the same regimen as actual convicts,
except that, in a few exceptional prisons, they were
permitted to supply themselves with extra food if
they had the necessary means, and to enjoy occa-
sional intercourse with outside friends or legal ad-
visers. To the reader unaware that a not altogether
dissimilar condition of things exists to-day, it will
seem incredible that neither Parliament nor the
Government could bring itself to the point of
realizing that the only justification for the im-
prisonment of unconvicted persons is the necessity
of ensuring that they should not escape trial ; and
that there is no warrant for subjecting them to
any other discipline, discomfort, or involuntary
labour than is actually necessitated by their tem-
porary seclusion and by the privacy requisite to
prevent both mutual annoyance and mutual con-
tamination, of which it seems plain that the nation
should, at least in the first instance, bear the expense.
j
(b) The Profitable Employment of Prisoners
Passing from untried prisoners to the convicts, in no
department of prison administration did the rival
ends of sparing expense, reforming the prisoners and
deterring from future crime, come more sharply into
conflict than in that of prison employment. The
exaction of a given amount of physical effort had
been, from the time of Howard, an essential part of
any deliberate system of prison discipline. But the
reforming Justice of the Peace, at the opening of the
nineteenth century, saw no difference, in deterrent
nwl reformatory qualities, between one kind of
1 5 George IV, c. 85, sec. 16 (1824).
PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT
manual labour and another. What he wantedjvas
to 1 ; mischief and make him
earn as much his mail tenanre.
The prison workshop became, in fact, like tiie ek
eenth century " House of Industry," merely a device
for profitably employing one class of paupers, and
thus reducing the burden cast upon the rates. In
tli is spirit was couched an order of the Norwich
Bridewell Committee for December loth, 1805, that
eighty yards of hempen cloth should be provided,
together with hose-yarn for twenty-four pairs of
stockings to be knitted by the female prisoners ; and
a later order, issued on February 3rd, 1807, for twine
for making fishing nets. 1 Thus, all sorts of handi-
crafts were carried on in the reformed gaols, some of
these becoming regular factories, dominated by the
hum and clatter of their scores of looms in constant
work, and earning a profit which defrayed a large
proportion of the cost of the prisoners' maintenance.
This transformation of the prisons into " busy scenes
of cheerful industry/' the men in the weaving shed or
tailor's workshop, the women in the sewing room or
Miry, delighted the somewhat emotional philan-
thropists of the Society for the Improvement of
Prison Discipline ; and secured, right down to her
death, the warm approval of Mrs. Fry.* The new
House of Correction, for instance, which the Lan
Justices built at Preston in 1790, was highly
imended by Neild in 1806-12 and by J. J. dm
in 1819,' as a model of what :i prison should !>. h
was, in .in til.- inxt, run nriinlv as a cotton weav
uMaiitly a hundred and iifty
i the period, and keeping t he
rest Coring, shoe-making.
11 Committee Book, Norv , cs, Dec. i
1 ,. .i:i.l I . 1. <nl. [807
il 1821 ; ace tho en-
Third ; ike Committee of the Society /or ... the Improvement of
Gentleman's M-wun. . tte of the Prisons, by J.
\otfs on a Visit to som* of the Prisons in S,
of England. 19.
4 The Prison Chapl> (lay, 1861, p. 103.
84 RIVAL POLICIES
The expediency of this prison employment became
11 10 subject of prolonged controversy. From the
idpoint of those who were above all things anxious
to use the prison as a reformatory institution there
was much to be said for these experiments. ' We
treat mankind/' said Becher, " as constituted of
habits, and our principle is to eradicate those which
are bad, and to implant others that are better ;" 1 and
he proceeded to cite individual cases in which " a man
filthy, diseased, drunken, idle and profane/' became,
during his imprisonment, "clean, sober, healthy,
diligent, and to all appearance a good moral man, by
which I mean to imply that he does not swear, nor
behave inattentively during the hours of devotion,
nor invade the little property of his fellow prisoner,
or quarrel with him, or do any act unbecoming a man
of sound principles." The manufacturing enter-
prises of Preston and Southwell undoubtedly pro-
vided both a rough and ready technical education,
and a potent stimulus to regular industry. The well-
conducted prisoner, at the end of his term, found
himself in possession, not only of a small sum of
money, earned by his own exertion, to tide him over
temporary unemployment, but also of a new handi-
craft, or with increased capacity for working regu-
larly at his old one not to mention the advantage
of a written " character " for skill, good conduct and
industry.
Unfortunately, even the ablest of the reforming
Justices were not single-minded in their desire to
reform the habits of the criminals in their charge.
They never shook themselves free from the notion
that all prisoners should maintain themselves. As
formerly in the Poor Law Houses of Industry, the
desire to earn a profit led to the adoption in the prison
of administrative devices which went far to neutralize
the good effects of stimulating industry. There
grew up a system of profit-sharing, under which the
comfort of each prisoner, and the sum which he drew
1 First Report from House of Commons Committee on the Laws relating
nitf'nliary Houses, 1811, Appendix, p. 38.
'EARNING THEIR KEEP 11 85
at his discharge, depended solely on the productivity
of his labour. 1 Hardened criminals, with no inten-
tion of mending their evil ways, were able, by
superior strength and skill, or their knowledge of a
profitable handicraft, to earn comparatively large
sums, whilst the weak, unskilled or incompetent
inmate, however good his conduct, and however
sincere his desire to reform his ways, found himself
gaining no more than the minimum subsistence. JTo
attain the maximum of reformatory effect, the re-
ward of the prisoner ought to have been quite uncon-
nected with difference of productivity, and to have
taken the form of a payment by time, dependent not
on skill, but on regularity and devotion to industry.
Even more disastrous than the profit sharing
was the association in large workrooms brought
about by the desire to make the prisoners' labour
profitable. To confine each prisoner to the labour
which he could perform in his own cell might have
been reformatory, but could not be made remunera-
tive. " Work which is to produce profit/' explained
an experienced administrator in 1821, " will run
counter to discipline and moral improvement. It will
often be found convenient to the taskmaster to bring
together for purposes of manufacture prisoners who
ought not on other accounts to be permitted to asso-
ciate with each other." 1 These ill-effects were intensi-
1 Thus, at Preston, the count}' took 40 per cent, of the earnings, the
taskmaster 10 per cent., and the prisoners 50 per cent., part being paid
at once, and the rest on discharge. (See, for instance, MS. Minutes,
Quarter Sessions, Lancashire, April I3th, 1820.) " Prisoners (1815-1824)
. . . wore discharged with more money in their possession than they could
have saved in t ' labour " (Chaplain's KYpoj t on 1 ':
House of Correction, 1843). Even in the hulks the practice
to be industrious by all.
them to spend a small portion of Mings " in <\. (State-
ments and Observations concert- '-<lks, etc., by George Holford, 1826,
p. 25.) Under Bcchcr's new >ners in the Nottii
it Soutlnvi 11 got. if sentenced to hard labour one-third,
if un 1 to imprisonment, one-half :
. found. \VP are enthusiastically told, that, .already
lodged, clothed, fr-l ' trd and provided with constant
it. " by diligence thry might be enabled to upcn
mg solely mrnt, ui.
'! activity were instantaneously dii
throu he house."
* Thoughts on the Criminal Prisons of this Country, by G. Holford, V
86 RIVAL POLICIES
fied when the Justices ''farmed out" the prisoners'
labour. The Justices found the choice of trades, the
purchase of plant and material, and the selling of the
product involved them in much trouble, and the specu-
lation frequently led to actual loss. 1 We soon find
Paul urging the Gloucestershire Justices to adopt an
easier plan. " I cannot help impressing on the mind
of the magistrates," he said in 1792, " that if the
work is to be made productive the method must be
changed. The buying a variety of new materials,
the vending goods manufactured, requires an atten-
tion and control of the magistrates over the officers
that will be scarcely exercised. The labour of the
prisoners should be farmed/' 2 " Farming " became,
accordingly, as in the workhouses, the common
expedient for the organization of labour. 3 Some-
times the gaoler or master took the whole proceeds
of the prisoners' work as part of his remuneration.
In other cases an outside employer would pay the
Justices a lump sum for the privilege of sending in
materials for the prisoners to work up. The " far-
mer " having no interest in rescuing the prisoners
from idleness, or reforming them by regularity, only
provided work as and when it was profitable to him-
self. The gaoler, who was also a speculator in labour,
combined men, women and children in associated
employment, irrespective of their mutual contamina-
tion. Clever artisans who could earn the most
money, or were useful in instructing others in profit-
able trades, naturally became his favourites for
1821, p. 62 ; Quarterly Review, Jan., 1824. At the newly established
Millbank Penitentiary (opened in 1816) all sorts of trades, glass bead blow-
ing, the manufacture of tin ware, rug making, were tried ; but, in 1822, after
a convincing report by Holford, they were all abandoned as failures except
tailoring, shoemaking, weaving and needlework. (Memorials of Millbank,
by Arthur Griffiths, p. 45, of 1884 edn.)
1 It seems always to have paid well at the Preston House of Correction,
a textile factory in a textile-working district, where the net cost of each
prisoner to the "county rate was reduced to less than 3d. per day.
2 MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Gloucestershire, Easter, 1802.
3 " It was the prevailing opinion at that time (1812) that those who
superintended convicts should be paid out of their earnings." (Statements
and Observations concerning the Hulks, etc., by George Holford, 1826, p. 13.)
The National Government leased out to a contractor the labour of the
prisoners in the hulks, and this system was continued for forty years.
FAILURE TO DETER 87
prison indulgencies, irrespective of the crimes for
which they had been committed ; whilst it was the
incorrigibly idle and destructive who were recom-
mended for remission of sentences, or employed
merely as wardsmen or cooks. 1 " Trading gaolers/'
1 one of them in 1822, " are the bane of improve-
ment ; if the prison be crowded, it is to their interest
to recommend the idle and ignorant to the considera-
tion of the magistrates, and it is not likely they will
> part with the industrious, orderly mechanic/' 1
There was, however, another objection made to the
conception ol prison discipline, so much admired by
Becher, Elizabeth Fry and the philanthropic school
generally. It was urged that it tended to ignore what
must always be one main object of the treatment of
criminals, that of deterring from future crime, by
<-ry person with a strong motive for
temptation to transgress the laws of
! -resently complained that, under the
utable employment, the prison became,
many a poor labourer or mechanic, rather a
i able place. The healthy surroundings, ample
but simple food, and regular employment in associa-
tion compared favourably with his lot when out of
gaol. It began to be alleged that the great increase
he numbers committed to prison was due to their
positive attractiveness. " Our gaols and Houses of
it was said by Baron Western in 1821,
re generally considered by offend rvery class
a sure and comfortable asylum whenever
i 1 vtt.T fortunes for i of refuge
ihrunfortH their profession." 1 " 11 prisons/'
he i "d, " are to be made into places in whirh
per exes and all ages may be well fed,
clot ( lged, educated and taught a trade ; wl
ociety and are required not
;
Oughts on the Dtf< '> of Prisons, by Thomas Lc Br
r, 1822, p. 36.
s upon Prison Discipline, etc , a .V.'.'-r a Hressed to the Lord
nant of the Cwntv of J : ron) We* 1
88 RIVAL POLICIES
to take heed of the morrow, the present inhabitants
should be turned out, and the most deserving and
industrious . . . should be invited/' 1 It was this
aspect of the case that aroused the indignation of
the " common sense " school. " I would banish,"
wrote Sydney Smith in the widely read Edinburgh
Review of 1822, " all the looms of Preston Gaol, and
substitute nothing but the tread-wheel or the cap-
stern, or some species of labor where the laborer
could not see the results of his toil where it is as
monotonous, irksome and dull as possible pulling
and pushing, instead of reading and writing no
share in the profits not a single shilling. There
should be no tea and sugar, no assemblage of female
felons round the washing-tub nothing but beating
hemp and pulling oakum and pounding bricks no
work but what was tedious, unusual and unfeminine/' 8
A^general revolt set in against the once-favourite
panacea of profitable employment. The capitalist
employers outside began to object. 8 To the " com-
1 Ibid., p. 1 6. The underlying assumption of such critics was expressed,
in 1835, by Whitworth Russell (then about to be appointed an inspector of
prisons) ; that it was not desirable, under " any circumstances to give to
a prisoner that which would place him in a better situation than he would
have been had he never entered prison." (First Report of House of Lords
Committee on Gaols and Houses of Correction, 1835, p. 116.) But this was
to fall into the same verbal fallacy as the champions of the New Poor Law.
What was required was to make the conditions of prison as of workhouse
life, less pleasurable, taken as a whole, than private employment, not
necessarily less really advantageous to the inmate, or even less pleasurable
in particular respects. " There are, I fear," rejoined Holford, " numbers
of persons in this country who wear clothes which are insufficient to protect
them from the inclemency of the weather, or who are lodged in close and
ill-ventilated apartments, or who inhabit damp and unwholesome situations,
or are employed at noxious trades, or work at unseasonable hours, or are
subject to other hardships or privations of the like nature ; but I have
never heard it contended that these evils, from which it is not in our power
to relieve other classes of the community, are on that account to be im-
posed upon prisoners . . . The dietary of a prison becomes therefore a
medical question." (Thoughts on the Criminal Prisons of this Country, by
George Holford, 1821, p. 57.)
1 Edinburgh Review, Feb., 1822. Under the stress of this attack, the
Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, which had enthusiastically
supported the regime of profitable employment in its Third Report of 1821,
devoted much of its next report to a repudiation of a policy of undue
indulgence, and strenuously asserted that " severe punishment must be
the basis of prison discipline." (Fourth Report, 1822.)
* A citizen of Birmingham writes to Lord Sidmouth that " a manufac-
1 un r of pins in this place employs the prisoners in the gaols of Warwick,
Stafford and Northampton in the making of pins by which means the
CELLULAR ISOLATION 89
mon sense " school of prison reformers, it must have
seemed a fortunate circumstance that the industrial
revolution was rendering it every day increasingly
difficult to make any actual profit out of the demor-
alized and indiscriminately collected gaol inmates.
' The late improvements in machinery/' Sir G. O.
Paul told a House of Commons Committee in 1819,
" have so ... annihilated the objects of work by
hand that the power of supporting a system of hand
labor in prison, to be productive of emolument, is
entirely out of the question/' 1
(c) Isolation versus Classified Association
Another controversy as to prison discipline, des-
tined after 1835 to become the most virulent and
most notorious of them all, was already latent in the
divergent practice of the various county benches.
This concerned the amount and kind of human in
course to be permitted to the prisoner. The g rr> ss
promiscuity of the old prisons had led Howard
constantly to insist on the importance of " separa-
tion " and "classification/' by which he seems to
have meant solitary sleeping cells, which he had
seen at Ghent in 1775 and in Swiss prisons in 1/76,
with common dayrooms and workrooms, each to
be used in common by the prisoners belonging
.-.s of the poor of this place is greatly augmented, and poor ;
considerably increased to the injury of numerous families and in .
contradiction to an Act of 1'arliament made for th.it purpose. ..." The
. but replies that application must be
> ^21.)
1 Report of House of Commons Committee, P.P. VII, 1819, p. 403. " It
has long since been discovered in most of the gaols and Houses of Correction
13 country, that manufactures can seldom be carried on in a prison,
r hiinuiKuu U
with any r-as<n.il>lr prospect of gain, iy without
much risk of loss. y be a few prisons sUu.iUiI in parts of the
in: tloui : which persons may be
willing to send mat' neighbourhood, pa
manship of them whrn t < manufa* ; lr ; Inn
employment must l> as, and liable to cease at any moment, and
in those who manage Houses of Con
s for sale on bi ..< county to an
amount, o .isons.toi nket
of the Central Penitentiary at Millbank, by George
HuHord. iS,y, p. 198.)
9 o RIVAL POLICIES
to a distinct class. The General Penitentiary
i of 1779 had carried the plan a step further,
providing, as the severest discipline, for separate
cellular confinement during both day and night,
accompanied by religious instruction and " well
regulated labor/' 1 Howard's disciples first put these
ideas into practice at the new Sussex county prisons
at Horsham and Petworth, where the isolation seems
to have been strict and the discipline at first severe.
Sir G. O. Paul, acting on the advice of his chaplain,
" discarded the system of classes " according to term
of sentence, prescribed by the Penitentiary Act,
and adopted " a more temperate system for the whole
term " of imprisonment for all convicted persons.
The Gloucestershire regimen was a carefully thought-
out plan of separate sleeping and separate employ-
ment in isolated cells, varied with daily chapel,
twenty-minutes' tread-wheel and twenty minutes'
walk all in silent association and professedly tem-
pered, every day or every few days, by regular visits
from and conversation with the master and the chap-
lain, the surgeon and the Visiting Justice. Other
1 19 George III, c. 79, sec. 8, 38, etc. We shall recur, in a subsequent
i or, to the controversy as to " solitary confinement " and the so-called
" Separate System." The earliest English proposal for " separate apart-
ments for condemn- -d prisoners " meaning only prisoners condemned to
death appears to have been made by the Christian Knowledge Society
in 1710. Merely for the sake of safe-keeping without fetters, Mandevillc,
in 1725, had strongly urged its adoption in Newgate for tried and untried
prisoners alike : "I would have," he said, " everyone of the malefactors
locked up, by himself, and they should never be suffered to converse
together. . . . Build a hundred small rooms, perhaps of 12 ft. square. . . .
They should all have such conveniences that those who were shut up in
them should, during their stay, have no occasion to stir out of them on
any account. . . . Thus we might secure prisoners without galling them
with irons before we are sure that they deserve to be punished at all."
(An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn, etc., by
!->. .Mandeville, 1725, pp. 37-8.) The reformatory effects of solitary con-
finement were strongly urged in an able pamphlet of 1771, entitled A Letter
to Sir Robert Ladbroke, Knight, Senior Alderman . . . of the City of
London ; with an attempt to show the good effects which may reasonably be
expected from the confinement of criminals in separate apartments, by Rev.
Samuel Dcmne, Vicar of Wilmington, 1771. After Howard's visits, it was
fervently advocated by Jonas Ilanway ; see especially his Solitude in
Imprisonment with profitable labor and a spare diet, the most humane and
effectual msans of bringing malefactors who have forfeited their lives and are
subject to transportation to a vi^ht sense of their condition, etc., 1777 ; and
thn idea was patronized by Archdeacon Paley in his Moral and Political
Philosophy of 1785.
ASSOCIATION 91
reformed prisons adopted similar combinations of
cellular isolation during the night, and non-inter-
course during the day. What specific results in
reforming and deterring these experiments may have
had are insufficiently recorded. Already in the
speeches and writings of prison reform- TS Betw
1810 and 1823, we note some .reaction against the
strict enforcement of non-intercourse. This cha;
opinion was due partly to rumours of insanity
ig caused by the rigorous solitude of Petworth
and other highly-reformed prisons, and partly to the
of this punishment for seditious offenders. 1
But the -experiment of cellular confinement prior
to 1835 can i n most counties, scarcely be said to have
been tried, as before it could be thoroughly tested,
the new prisons were found quite inadequate for the
great increase of persons committed. The popula-
_ . ig b
and bounds, and this was accompanied from 1811
tion of the principal counties was increasing b
onwards, and especially from about 1816, by a great
increase in crime. 2 Rather than incur the expense
ual new buildings, even the reforming
Justices fell back on the easier expedient of " classi-
fication." This meant associating the whole of each
class such as felons, misdemeanants, debtors,
ics," untried prisoners, women and boys in a
common dayroom or workroom, and even installing
two, three or four of a class in a single sleeping cell. 1
It was, to many Justices, a recommendation that the
reversion to associated labour in a common workroom,
by permitting the use of machinery and division of
iiiilly coir. in 1810, of " t] with
solitary confinement] have of late years been ini:
US , . . f<T the offend-
s of Quarter Sessions, been sentenced to two years of solitary
prison: Hansard, June 5th, 1810, p. 350.)
good stai ->f this increase is afford n <>f
commitments to th< County Gaol at Bury St. Edmunds for the
years 1805-34, given in the Report of the House of Lords Committee on
Gaols and Houses of Correction, 1835, p. 231.
L, in 1 8x6 d governor of Millbank I
ported that " the system of indi-
1 separation was i ct except at the Clou
i Is of Millbank, by A imths, p. 39 of 1884
RIVAL POLICIES
labour, made less difficult the profitable employment
of the prisoners. At Ilchester in 1822 the Com-
missioners found that the eagerness with which prison
labour was pursued had brought about a condition
of utter promiscuity. Seven shops had been con-
structed on the ground floor for the manufacture of
woollen and linen cloth and the trade of shoemaking.
In the upper story spinning-machines had been
installed and a carpenter's shop built. To meet the
demands of what tended to become a highly organ-
ized industrial community, the principle of classifica-
tion was necessarily disregarded, prisoners being
selected to associate with one another according to
their varying degrees of proficiency, so that a young
offender, if inexperienced, might be placed under the
tuition of a hardened criminal who possessed strength
or a highly developed knowledge. In regard to
the women, this cult of industry took the obnoxious
form of compelling untried prisoners to work in the
wash-house in the company of convicts. The par-
ticular class of prison reformers who now came to the
front very much preferred the associated day rooms,
trusting for reformatory influences to the contagious
outbursts of religious emotion generated by prayer
meetings. The sterner administrators, whilst not
resisting this daytime association, found in a con-
tinuous application of the tread-wheel throughout the
day the deterring influence which Paul had sought in
the strict isolation of each prisoner from any inter-
course from the others. The Act of 1823, as it
emerged from the House of Commons, abandoned the
idea of individually separate confinement which had
inspired the legislation of 1779-1791, adopting,
instead, the now favoured principle of classification.
Up and down the country the Justices promptly fol-
lowed the lead given by Parliament, the more readily
because the counties were thus spared what seemed
the colossal expense of completely cellular construc-
tion. In Gloucestershire itself, immediately the Act
was passed, Quarter Sessions appointed a Committee
to revise the prison rules according to the new statute,
CLASSIFICATION 93
providing especially for the classification of prisoners,
so that mj)ajlicular_" juvenile offenders, mayie kept
separate from old, hardened mid riders." 1
The Buckinghamshire Justices prudently allocated
their five prisons to four distinct classes, each with
male and female divisions, so that the " Old Gaol "
and the "Old Datchet" prisons were wholly given
up to persons awaiting trial for felony, the " New
Datchet " prison to persons awaiting trial for mis-
demeanours, the " New Gaol " to convicted felons,
and the " Bridewell " to convicted misdemeanants.*
So completely had Parliament gone back on separate
cellular confinement that the 1824 Act expressly
provided that " where in any prison there shall be
only one prisoner belonging to any class, such
prisoner may be assigned, with his or her con-
sent, to any other class of prisoners of the same
sex." 3
The result of this reaction was quickly noted by the
more observant gaol chaplains, prison masters and
Visiting Justices. To allow unchecked intercourse
among prisoners in a common working room, or even
on a common tread-wheel still more, to lock up
three or four together in a sleeping cell was to
bring back all the opportunities for mutual contami-
nation which had excited the sternest reprobation
of the more prudent followers of Howard. It was
really no diminution of this evil to speciali/c the con-
i nation. " If each [gaol] class," it was afterwards
not* <!, IV>-J),M lively be composed of burglars, or
assault and battery men, or sturdy beggars, they will
acquire under it increased proficiency only in picking
locks, fighting, or imposing on the tender mercies
1 M s, Quarter Sessions, Gloiu
1 Caster, 1825.
H. Quarter Sessions, Buckingham* So in
iighamshirc it was ordered that " the House of Correction situate at
11 be applicable to the following classes of priso;
. prisoners 1 of felony ; Second, prisoners cor : mis-
>1 on charge or suspicion of felony ;
it ted on charge or suspicion of misdemeanours, or
nth, vagrants." (MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions,
-3-)
c. 85, sec.
94 RIVAL POLICIES
of mankind/' 1 But the very basis of the classifica-
tion the kind of offence for which the prisoners
were being punished 2 in no way corresponded with
their habitual characters. No distinction was made
between a theft committed by a professional criminal,
nearing the end of a long career of crime, and a theft
into \vhich a starving youth had been tempted as a
first offence. Moreover, occasionally " the burglar
was sent to prison for trying his hand at begging, a
professed sheepstealer for doing a little business as
a thimblerig man, and a London thief for showing
fight at a country fair/' 3
Thus, whilst the Act of 1823, with its classifica-
tion ideal, may have levelled up many of the worst
gaols among the hundred and thirty to which 'it
applied, it positively lowered the standard in the
best of the reformed prisons. Prison administration
had by this time become a matter of systematic
and continuous observation, and the evil effects of
even classified association were quickly noted by the
ablest critics. Presently English public opinion
began to be influenced by the news of the remarkable
results achieved by certain American experiments in
completely solitary " separate " and " silent associa-
tive " imprisonment, with and without labour. We
do not need to explore the heated controversy which
went on between the prison reformers of New York
and Boston, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as to the
merits of their respective systems. 4 What reached
1 Modern Prisons, by Col. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Jebb, 1844.
* This was thebasis adopted in the sixty-eight county and corporation gaols
in which the Municipal Corporation Commissioners Reports, and the Par-
liamentary Gaol Reports for 1833, show classification to have been enforced
in its entirety ; and also in the twenty which had recourse to a partial system.
The same is true of the model House of Correction established at Southwell,
as is clear from the system of rules adopted in 1823. The futility of the
classification system is forcibly described in Prison Discipline, by Rev. J.
Field, 1858, pp. 30-62 ; see also Chapters on Prisons and Prisoners, by Rev.
Joseph Kingsmill, 1852, and Modern Prisons, their Construction and Ventila-
tion, by Sir Joshua Jebb, 1844.
3 Modern Prisons, by Col. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Jebb, 1844,
p. 8.
4 We shall recur to the American experiments, which led to heated con-
troversy. It must suffice to point out here that (whilst earlier reported in
France by the Due de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt and in England by the
book, A Visit to the Philadelphia Prison, by Captain R. F. Turnbull, 1796),
THE SILENT SYSTEM 95
England, and that not until about i8jo, was the
consensus of experience and opinion upon the impor-
tance of preventing all intercourse between one
prisoner and another. Meanwhile the most heroic
of prison chaplains, John Clay, was beginning at the
Preston House of Correction his thirty years' detailed
study of prison life. Disheartened at the effects of
' profitable employment/' and disgusted at the
mutual contamination of the prison yard, he began
to insist, in his annual reports to the Lancashire
Quarter Sessions, on the necessity of " non-inter-
course discipline ... of some system of non-inter-
course" if the " Separate " was too costly, at any
rate, the " Silent." 1 Not until 1834, however when
the West Riding and Cumberland Justices had al-
ready put an end to association in their prisons
could Clay induce the Lancashire Quarter Sessions
to take up " the system of silence and non-intercourse
by and amongst prisoners which hath lately been
adopted with great success in the gaols at Wakefield
and Carlisle." 2 In Middlesex, where the prisons were
densely crowded, and very badly administered, eight
or ten of the Justices among them, Samuel Hoare,
Mr. Sergeant (afterwards Sir Albert) Pell, Samuel
Mills, and George Byng, M.P., formed a sort of
league for reform. 3 They thought themselves for-
tunate, in 1829, in getting appointed as the governor
of the House of Correction at Coldbath Fields, a
certain George Laval Chesterton, who perceiving
' that the paucity of cells . . . presented an irre-
in- (liable obstacle to the adoption of the Separ
they known in this country in 18.28-34
ivels in North America of I'.-iptain i'.nsil Hall. T^J.J ; Three Years
rth A merica, by James Stuart, of which a second c ; published
>rt on a Code < . the
>ns, based on solitary confinement. wl.i.-h (./ System of
Penal Law) was publish* -<1 in London in 1828 ; and above a! Ubo-
ratc rcpo: I Penitentiaries of the United States, by ford,
Chaplain : a Memoir of John Clay, by W. L. Clay. 1861,
1 M ;. Quarter Sessions, Lancashire, Sept. nth, 1834. The new
ruK-s W.MV n i illy adopted till a year later. (Ibid., Sept mth, 1835.)
Revelations of Prison -u, 1856, \ 16,
J- 35 37 i Peace, War, and same, 1853, pp. 241-5.
96 RIVAL POLICIES
System/' introduced in 1834 the " Silent System "-
a population of 914 prisoners being suddenly " ap-
prised that all intercommunication by word, ges-
ture or sign was prohibited/' 1 This return to non-
intercourse discipline, which presently spread to
other counties, where " a fictitious, artificial and
superficial " isolation 2 was substituted for the " real
isolation " of cellular confinement, coincided with a
new epoch in English prison history, and started a
more specialized controversy lasting for a whole
generation, which will be dealt with in a following
chapter.
(d) The Tread-wheel
In the revulsion of feeling against the profitable
employment of prisoners, we find prison administra-
tors turning between 1818 and 1826 eagerly to the
tread- wheel (less correctly designated tread-mill). " I
should . . . use no other secondary punishment than
the tread-mill/' wrote Sydney Smith, as a magistrate
for Yorkshire, to the Home Secretary, " varying in all
degrees from a day to a life. . . . This punishment
would be economical, certain, well-administered,
little liable to abuse, capable of infinite division, a
perpetual example before the eyes of those who want
it, affecting the imagination only with horror and
disgust, and affording great ease to the Government/' 3
This form of penal labour had been suggested in so
many words by the .Penitentiary Act of 1779, which
directed the Governors to keep the prisoners " to
labour of the hardest and most servile kind, in which
drudgery is chiefly required, and where the work is
little liable to be spoiled by ignorance, neglect or
obstinacy, and where the materials or tools are not
easily stolen or embezzled, such as treading in a wheel,
1 The Criminal Prisons of London, by Henry Mayhew and J. Uinny,
1862, pp. 287-8.
8 Modern Systems of Criminality, by C. Bernaldo de Quiros, 1911, pp.
180-3.
3 Sydney Smith to Robert Peel, March 2yth, 1826. (Sir Robert Peel,
edited by C. S. Parker, 1899, p. 402.) This, it will be noted, was after
the publication of the Parliamentary Return Papers on the Effect of the
Tread- wheel in the prisons where it has been established, 1825.
THE WALKING WHEEL " 97
or drawing in a capstern, for turning a mill or other
machine or engine/' 1 The suggestion of a " walking-
wheel " was revived by Bentham in 1796,* and a
tread-wheel was in use at the Gloucester County Gaol
in 1811, with the express object, as the rules declared,
of enforcing " the hardest and most servile kind "
of labour contemplated by the 1779 Act. 8 A simple
form of tread- wheel, easily applicable to all prisons,
was devised about 1818, by William (afterwards Sir
William) Cubitt (1785-1861), then an engineer at
Lowestoft, for use in the Suffolk County Gaol at
Bury ; and it was from this example that the prac-
tice spread. 4 The cheapness and simplicity of the
" stepping-mill," or " everlasting staircase/ 1 as it
was called, the severity of the physical labour which
it exacted, and the manner in which this " wheel-
stepping " was hated by the prisoners, all commen-
ded the new device to Quarter Sessions, and " tread-
wheels" grinding corn, or grinding nothing but air,
raising water, or supplying power to hemp-beating,
cork-cutting, or other machines were fitted up in
v reformed prison. " It was heresy ... to ques-
tion its reforming efficacy on convicts ; the only point
vhic li there existed any difference of opinion was
to the number of diurnal revolutions which yielded
;mum of reforming power. Some magistrates
kept their prisoners treading from morning to night,
1 19 George III., c. 74, sec. 33. At Mont St. Michel (France) the prison-
ers were made to hoist up all the supplies by a huge tread-wheel ; and
the same mechanical device has been frequently used in all ages.
1 Letters on the Management of the Poor, by Jeremy Bentham (Dublin,
1796).
very words of sec. 33 of the 1779 Act are copied in the General
'.i/ions for the Inspection and Control of all the Prisons . . . for the
rcster. 1700, p. 67. Sir G. O. Paul, in 1811, described how
all al Mkcn, two by two, from their
the power of which raises the water to the top of the
aers doing a spell of al> v minutes
sinning their other employment in the working
from House of Commons Committee on Laws relating
to PI- 24.)
4 See Cubitt 's lif- in Dictionary of National Biography ; Description of the
Tread-mill invented by Mr. W. Cubitt (Society for the Improvenv t
\\ Disciplinr). 1822 ; Description of the Patent Improved Trea*
isc (Norwich, 1824) ;< Revelations of Prison Lift, by <
i. 1856, Vol. I. pp. 224-5 : Papers on
^d, 1825 (Parliam- j>er).
9 8 RIVAL POLICIES
till the)' half-killed them ; others were content with
[iiiring a modicum of wholesome exercise on the
wheeMor three or four hours a day/' 1 In a short
time a great storm of controversy arose. It was
alleged on the one hand, and vehemently denied on
the other, that labour on the tread-wheel was so
exhausting as to break down the prisoners' health ;
that it led to rupture and other bodily injuries ; and
that it amounted in some cases to positive torture.
Independent observers denounced it as certain to
counteract, any efforts making for the reform of the
prisoner's character. The controversy continued
long after 1835, an( l we need not here pursue its
various ramifications. It is, however, clear that the
Justices' enthusiasm for their device, and their ignor-
ance of its effects on the human body, led them, in
many cases, to impose excessive tasks. Its use for
women had, after a generation of cruel experiment,
to be entirely given up. All the early tread-wheels,
moreover, constructed so that six, twelve, or eighteen
prisoners stepped side by side, allowed them full
opportunity of conversing together, and so brought
back much of the evil promiscuous association. Yet,
in spite of all criticism, it spread from gaol to gaol,
vehemently attacked by humanitarians, not only as
cruel, but also as ineffective in working any reform of
the convict ; and no less obstinately defended by
Justices in search of a punishment at once cheap
and easy of application, and potent as a deterrent.
We infer, from the mass of conflicting partisan
statements, that the tread-wheel was a success, in
so far as it afforded a cheap and easy method of
forcing prisoners to work. When exacted in suffi-
' l The Prison Chaplain, by \V. L. Clay, 1861, p. 98. " There is so little
uniformity as regards the number of hours devoted to labour, the height
of the steps of the wheel, and the rapidity of its rotation, that in some
prisons the punishment is nearly three times as severe as in others. . . .
In Bedford Gaol the labour performed is equal to an ascent of 5,000 feet
. . . while in Knutsford House of Correction it is 14,000 feet." (Report
from the Select Committee on Secondary Punishments . . . with notes and
appendix, 1832, p. 6). The Warwickshire Justices were proposing, in
1824, to require the equivalent of 17,000 feet. (Quarterly Review, January,
1824, Vol. 30, p. 409 ; Sixth Report of the Society for the Improvement
of Prison Discipline, 1824, p. 305).
JAMES MILL 99
quantity this form of penal discipline certainly
deterred persons from using the gaol as a convenient
place of refuge in seasons of adversity. On the other
hand, the weight of evidence indicates that labour
on the tread-wheel was habitually injurious to the
bodily health of women, and occasionally to that of
men, whilst it was always physically depressing,
personally degrading, and unproductive either of
mental initiative, or emotional regeneration. 1
This battle between the respective adherents of
reformatory and deterrent labour continued to rage
throughout the next generation, and may be said,
indeed, to be still one of the unsettled questions of
prison administration. It seems, in fact, to be im-
possible to find a regimen simultaneously combining
deterrent pain fulness and reformatory invigoration.
This was pointed out in the celebrated article on
prisons which James Mill contributed to the Encyclo-
pedia Britannica in 1823, * n which he advocated
strenuously the plan of " reform by industry, 1 ' as
against Elizabeth Fry's panacea of " reform by reli-
gious emotion," and also against the " common sense
school " of Sydney Smith and others, which sought
only penal deterrence. In this article, amid much
which has lost interest for the present generation,
his elaborate dissertation included one suggestion
Parliamentary Paper, entitled " Communications made to or
cd by the Secretary of State for the Home Dq respecting
the use of Tread-wheels in Gaols." (H. of C., 1823) ; Correspondence
Relative to Prison Labour, by Sir John Coxe Hippisley. 1823; A J
on the Nature and Effects of the Tread-wheel, by John Watt Briscoo, i
Is of the Society for "tin- Improvement of Prison
1823 and 1824, which
Report from the Select Committee on Secondary Punish;
vith notes and appendix, 1833; Prison Disc: (. IK Id, 1848,
Vol. I, pp. 28-31 ; Revelations of Prison Life, by G. 1 < 856 ;
The Criminal Prisons of London, by Henry : 1 862,
S8 33'7 (where the mo. described
Deport of the Home Office Committee on Prisons,
*895,
nig soon after 1822 (Prison Discipline, by J. Field, 1848, p. 28);
louse of ( it ColdbaT .md the Sir
i at Brixt
lle.scx, 1822, and Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1822);
'^m at Preston in
n).
ioo RIVAL POLICIES
which has, so far as we know, never been put in
operation. James Mill urged that whatever might be
indispensable as deterrent punishment and the far
more important reformatory treatment might, with
advantage, be sharply separated, and made to follow
one on the other. It was for the judge to determine by
his sentence the nature and amount of the punish-
ment, properly so called, to be inflicted on the crimi-
nal, in order to deter him and others from similar
transgressions. After the punishment had been
inflicted, the criminal might be detained in confine-
ment and subjected to an appropriate regimen,
designed exclusively with a view to reforming his
character, and fitting him to become a productive
citizen. Have we here the germ of the system now
called Preventive Detention and the Indeterminate
Sentence ? James Mill laid stress on the distinction
between the judicial function of deterring and the
administrative function of curing. We should prefer
to regard both the deterrent punishment, if there is
anything to be said for its infliction, even in the form
of loss of liberty and initiative, and the reformatory
treatment, which ought to be the main factor, as
parts of a cure, designed, on the one hand, to supply
for the future an adequate inhibitory motive, and on
the other, to develop in the patient good habits and
mental initiative.
(e) Administrative Chaos
These leading controversies only imperfectly repre-
sent the divergencies of prison discipline and regimen
adopted by local authorities between 1823 and 1835.
From the standpoint of the prisoner himself, the na-
ture and frequency of the punishments to which he
was subjected for breaches of the now elaborate
prison rules, were as important as the amount and
kind of the labour regularly exacted from him.
Heated were the discussions among justices and
philanthropists as to the expediency of flogging, or
as to the relative advantages of the dark cell, starva-
RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 101
tion diet and extra turns on the tread -wheel. 1 On the
other hand, there were cliques and coteries of prison
reformers who attached more importance to the kind
and amount of religious exhortation and instruction
given in the gaol, varying, as this did, from a perfunc-
tory service on Sundays for those who cared to attend,
up to daily revivalist prayer meetings by enthusiastic
evangelists of both sexes. 8 Already in 1810 Windham
had declared himself " very jealous as to the manner
in which religious instruction was inculcated." It
might, he said, " be so done as to generate a sort of
mischievous fanaticism, superinducing hypocrisy
upon their original depravity/' 3 Religious adminis-
trations were certainly intended to exercise a very
direct influence upon prison discipline, as may be
seen from the elaborate instructions to the chaplain
at the Norwich Bridewell, so highly praised by James
Nield. A curious incident at Monmouth Gaol
in 1825 suggests the prison authorities to have been
anxious to enforce the Anglican supremacy in gaols,
as the chaplain refused to admit a Nonconformist
minister, conversant with Welsh, to attend a con-
demned prisoner who could speak no English. At
York Castle, on the other hand, a priest was admitted
to those of the political offenders who were Catholics,
and, from the keepers' statements, it appears to have
been customary to have recourse to him on all such
occasions. 4 In the all-important matter of diet, the
Justices adopted haphazardly anything from a
stinted allowance of bread and water, up to three
meals a day, full, nutritious and appetizing, and
scussion in the House of Commons when t lu-
ggable H. Grey Bonn. t. M.I'., vainly obj< . n the
Prisons Hill author whipping of prisoners on th-
auth II,. st.iird that 6,959 floggings had
ring th- pn-rrclmg year (Hansard,
lt. Observations on the
Effect of Corf htnent. 1827; and that
Additional Obsf nations on Pe, ntdcnce and the Reforma-
tion of Criminals, by William Koscoc, 1823.
"Sec the pr to Elitabcth Fry: and her Observations
on the Visiting. Superintendence and Government of Female Prisoners.
1827.
*Hansatd .1. r ,,. o . May 9th, 1810.
r \ 84), 1820.
M
102 RIVAL POLICIES
agreeably varied according to a weekly menu. Some
prisons, moreover, permitted even convicted men to
supplement the regular dietary by purchasing more
luxurious food, tea, coffee, beer and tobacco. It is
needless to say that the various dietetic policies,
which were hotly discussed in connection with the
leading case of Millbank Penitentiary, were pursued
with the very minimum of reference to physiology
or psychology. The close connection now believed
to exist, not only between diet and physical health,
but also between the properties of specific quantities
and qualities of foodstuffs, on the one hand and the
development of cruelty, sensuality, will-power and
intellectual alertness on the other, was entirely
beyond the ken of that generation. Thus, the ex-
tremes of semi-starvation or over-feeding were dic-
tated more by parsimony or sentimental kindness
than by any theory or observation as to deteriorating
or reformatory results thereby produced. 1 Moreover,
the" keener observers were beginning to point out
that, not only the material conditions to which pri-
soners were subjected, but also the personalities
with whom they came into contact, could not fail
1 The cost of food varied from threepence up to sixpence per day.
" The same inequality exists in the diet of the prisoners ; the weekly
cost of feeding a prisoner in the Gaol at Hereford being 33. 7fd., and in
the House of Correction at Preston, is. njd." (Report from the Select
Committee on Secondary Punishments . . . with notes and appendix,
1832, p. 6). An elaborate table of different prison dietaries for hard
labour is given in the Fifth Report of the Society for the Improvement
of Prison Discipline, 1823, Appendix, pp. 129-172.
To give one instance of the contrasts in prison diet, we may adduce
the Somerset House of Correction at Shepton Mallet, where, in 1833,
each prisoner had, daily, one pound of bread, one pound of potatoes,
six ounces of beef without bone, and one-and-a-half pints of oatmeal
gruel ; and, when working on the tread-mill, also a pint-and-a-half of
soup, or gruel when leaving work. (This, by the way, was exactly the
diet adopted at the General Penitentiary, Millbank, in 1823, see the Report
of the Select Committee of that year on the Penitentiary.) On the other
hand, at the Cornwall County Gaol, at Bodmin, the daily ration was, for
the first month, only a pound-and-a-half of bread, with the addition,
after that period, of a portion of gruel. (First Report of Poor Law Inquiry
Commissioners, Appendix A, Chapman's Report, p. 460.) In Suffolk,
at the same date, an Assistant Commissioner comments on the " absolute
uselessness of punishing mothers " (of illegitimate children) " by sending
them to gaol where they are well fed and moderately wrought. . . .
When the period of their confinement expires, they come in a condition
xvhich renders them exceedingly liable to repeat the act for which they
were sent to prison." (Ibid, Stuart's Report, p. 339.)
DOGS AS WARDERS 103
to influence their mental state. A leading tendency
in the new regimen was the emphasis laid upon the
punitive aspect of prison life in limiting intercourse
between the governor or warder and the prisoners to
the mere issue of instructions or the hearing of com-
pkiints. Provision for this was made in the regula-
is for Chester Castle issued in 1802, and in those
ting for Winchester and Fisherton Anger Gaols
in I822. 1 The objectionable results of the employ-
ment of criminals as assistant turnkeys, warders,
< linen, monitors and even as schoolmasters,
already being urged towards the end of the eighteenth
century, 2 were presently insisted upon. On the
other hand, to engage for every large prison a
ularly salaried staff of minor officials, adequate
to the rapidly increasing number of prisoners,
seemed to the majority of the Justices a wanton
extravagance. 1
N T or shall unnecessary conversation be held (on the part of the
with them (the gaolers) at any time " (Regulations for Chester
Castle, 1802). The Governor " must not, at any time, and more par-
ticularly in the presence of Visitants to the Prison, hold unnecessary
conversation with the prisoners, but must give his commands and receive
their wants in as few words as possible." On the other hand, it was
:iiat " the Governor must guard himself against every impulse
sonal resentment ; he must command with temper, enforce
his just authority with firmness, and punish resistance without favour
y. With tin.- legal powers entrusted to him it cannot be necessary
unless in cases of st-lf-dcfence ; much less can it
to any good purpose to give his orders in a violent or insulting torn-,
. . . The same humanity ami temper which
juired of the Governor in the execution of his duties must i
on by him in the conduct of every inferior othccr of the prison, none of
whom shall ever strike any prisoner, except in self-defence, or i:
r person from any assault or menacing action, tending
to assault, from the prison
* Desultory Reflections on Police, with an Essay on the Means of Preventing
-.9 and Amending Criminals, by Sir William Blizard, 1785.
told, said to mbir
the pressure of > ; you must suggest nothing thai
>f House of L State of t
' 8 35. P- 237.) Dogs were frequently used b
l'-ntally 1- actice of using m.
id of officers continued . . . till iR.^ 1820
ison, ten offic< vo dogs." (Remarks
'f- County Chairman upon the Tables published by David Ricardo,
February, 1850, in his pamphlet upon the Appointment of a G<
.ocstcr. 1850.) So extensive was the use made of
prisoners as minor gaol official* tl
the mon^'
. of Middlesex " found ti
104 RIVAL POLICIES
All these controversies concerned, however, only
those local authorities which, under the influence of
the 1823 Act, had more or less assumed direct res-
ponsibility for the state of the prisons under their
jurisdiction. Up and down the country about 150
little gaols and Houses of Correction belonging,
in about 120 different towns, to the smaller municipal
corporations, the lords of manors and owners of
special franchises had, for the most part, remained
totally unaffected by any notions of reform. Peel,
in omitting these prisons from the scope of the Acts
of 1823 and 1824, had expressed the hope that those
responsible for their maintenance would themselves
remedy the evils. 1 The private owners of franchises
did nothing at all. 2 Only in about a score of cases
was the power to contract for the maintenance of
borough prisons in the county gaols made use of by
the smaller municipal corporations. 3 Here and there
compelled to add in the Coldbath Fields House of Correction alone no
fewer than " eighty- two new officers under the designation of sub- warders."
(Revelations of Prison Life, by G. L. Chesterton, 1856, Vol. II, p. 3.)
1 " Upon mature deliberation," he said, in 1824, " I have resolved to
abstain from legislating for the prisons of local jurisdictions, except so
far as to enable them to contract with the counties. It is not that I am
insensible of the lamentable and disgraceful situation in which many
ol them are, but 1 indulge the hope that many of them will contract
with the counties, that many of them will build new gaols, and that
when, in a year or two, we come to examine their situation, we shall
find but few which have not, in one or other of these ways, removed
the grievance of which such just complaint is made. When that time
arrives, if I find that there are local gaols in which classification and
employment are neglected, I shall not hesitate to ask Parliament for
powers to compel them to make the necessary alterations." (See quota-
tion in Sixth Report of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline,
1824, p. 14.) This Parliamentary promise was not fulfilled. The evidence
given in 1835 showed that the Home Office paid no heed whatsoever
to the subject. (First Report of House of Lords Committee on the State
of the Prisons, 1835, pp. iii., 275-7.)
* At Birmingham, in 1828, Joseph Parkes declared that " the dungeon
is a reproach to a Christian country, and the native land of Howard.
From twenty to fifty people are, I understand, generally in confinement,
and if they cannot pay for better accommodation, chaffed straw is their
bedding. Broken windows, through which cold and wet enter in streams,
have been deemed a convenience, and justified lest fever and malaria
should be engendered in the damp and pestiferous air of the dungeon."
(The State of the Court of Requests and the Public Office of Birmingham,
by Joseph Parkes, 1828, p. 5 )
8 Report from the Select Committee on Secondary Punishments . . .
with notes and appendix (1833, p. 50). Out of the two hundred towns
(having, we infer, about 130 paols and houses of correction in actual \is< 4
in 1832, some having been closed), we find the tiny borough of Bucking-
THE CORPORATION PRISONS 105
the corporation of a borough exempted from the
1823 Act might bring itself to build a new prison, but
then only on the old lines, without undertaking what
seemed the unnecessary expenditure involved in
cellular construction. 1 Right down to 1835 it could
be assumed that " a corporation prison " was " the
worst prison in the world/'* Some even of the coun-
ties and large towns which had been brought within
the scope of the 1823 Act did little or nothing to
reform their prisons in compliance with its require-
ments. Few prison authorities made the statistical
returns required ; in few cases did the prison chap-
lain make the annual report called for by the Act ;
in very few prisons had matrons been appointed for
ham contracting with the Bucks Justices (MS. Minutes, Quarter Sessions,
Buckinghamshire, Easter, 1832) ; the borough of Abingdon "purchased
; iv ilege of committing to the county bridewell by a grant of the laud
aich that bridewell is erected." (First Report of Municipal Cor-
poration Inquiry Commissioners, 1835, Appendix, Vol. 1, p. 5.) Salisbury
^es and Calne, sent their prisoners to the Wilts County Gaol, and
contributed to the county rate (pp. 1,343, 1,233, 1,267) Maidstone, finding
. A quite insecure, closed it about 1820, and contracted with Kent
for its prisoners (p. 765) ; Newport (I. of W.), joined with the rest ot the
: Wight in erecting a prison for the whole island, paid for by a s;
rate (p. 784) ; the City of Worcester sent its convicts sentenced to hard
labour to the County Gaol (p. 157). In 1826, a Parliamentary Return
showed that only fourteen small boroughs had contracted with their
.lies, wiiilht nine more were in negotiation (H. of C., April
t of the Committee of the Society for the
<veineiit of Prison Discipline, 1827, p. 398). Between thirty and
forty small towns had closed their prisons, or allowed them silently to
. (See Fifth Report.)
llowing boroughs exempted from the 1823 Act, seem
; MI and 1834; Barnstaple (]
. t ot Municipal Corporation Conu;. >5, p. 431) ; Basing
(p. i,: icford (p. 439) ; Bradnuuh (p. 458) ; Carmarthen (p. 214) ;
; 1-almouth (p. 502) ; m (p. 973) ; Plymouth
.miwich ipp. 1,045-52) ; South M.
. } , \Yinche.su-i v p. -
The central go was as neglectful as th By
kM various local authorities , ;>ona
lo the scope of the 1823 Act urns
to the Home Office as to the state of then prisons. . . ision was
disregarded, and the Home Office, whieh has never cared U>r regular
reports of the local administration for which it was nominally respor.
made no ... so of
Lords* Committee on lie Gaols, 1835, p. 275.)
* First Kepo; o of Lords Committee on the State of the Gaols
as to the .1 of these smaller prisons, see Second
and Appendix, pp. 175-93. It is fair to say that these
>m the xh. .- most part, very small,
n about a dozen towns
. idgc. Ipswich
in a prison.
io6 RIVAL POLICIES
the female wards. 1 The two most important of
prison authorities, the County of Middlesex and the
City of London, remained, to the last, pre-eminent
in maladministration. The Justices of Middlesex, for
instance, could still be properly upbraided in the
House of Commons, as late as 1828, for maintaining
prisons actually increasing in iniquity, vilely over-
crowded, grossly disorderly, and in a state of incred-
ible filth. 2 The corporation of the City of London
continued frankly impenitent as to the condition of
Newgate, which, a leading alderman declared, " I
do not think you could improve/' 3 On this, the
Hausa~at Lords Committee reported emphatically,
in 1835, that "imprisonment in Newgate, Giltspur
Street and the Borough Compter . . . must have the
effect of corrupting the morals of their inmates, and
manifestly tend to the extension rather than to the
suppression of crime." 4
(f) The Beginning of Central Supervision
To the political student of the twentieth century,
or to the busy House of Commons politician of to-day,
it will seem incomprehensible that nothing should
have been done by the Home Office to bring about the
redress of the worst of the scandals of the London and
provincial prisons. We fail nowadays adequately
1 First Report of the House of Lords Committee on the State of the
Gaols, 1835, p. 275 ; Second ditto, p. 333. " Of 136 prisons which arc
included in the Act (4 Geo. IV, c. 64) 36 only had a sufficient number
of cells to admit of each offender being placed apart at night. The total
number of persons confined in these prisons at one time in the last year
(1834) was 18,197, but the number of sleeping rooms and cells therein
was only 11,704. . . . There are, altogether . . . about 1,300 day rooms."
(House of Lords Committee on the State of the Gaols, etc., 1835, Appendix,
p. 146.) Thus, seventy years after Howard began his visits, there were,
in all England, even with 136 professedly reformed prisons, only 36
the detailed returns indicate only 24 in which it was possible to maintain
the primary condition of " non-intercourse at night " (Ibid, pp. 147-50.)
8 Dr. Lushington, M.P., in Hansard, February 28th, 1828. The Middle-
sex County Gaol at Clerkenwell had, in 1834, only 32 sleeping apartments
for 414 prisoners, and the House of Correction at Coldbath Fields only
417 cells in which to put 1,245 prisoners. (House of Lords Committee
on the State of the Gaols, 1835, Appendix, p. 148.)
3 Sir Peter Laurie. (See Fourth and Fifth Reports of the House of Lords
Committee on the State of the Gaols, 1835, p. 457.)
4 First Report of House of Lords Committee on the State of the Gaols,
etc., 1835, p. iii.
PEEL'S INTERVENTION 107
to realize both the absence of administrative machin-
ery between the central and local governing authori-
ties, and the almost complete lack of responsibility of
the Cabinet for what was being perpetrated in the
prisons of the King. Right down to the end of Lord
Sidmouth's term of office as Home Secretary in 1822,
find the very scantiest attention paid in Whitehall
to what was going on in the local gaols and bridewells.
\Ye owe, apparently, to the advent of Peel almost the
beginning of departmental supervision of prison
administration. We learn from a letter of the Earl
of Egremont of April igth, 1822, that he had, in his
capacity of Lord Lieutenant for Sussex, distributed,
to the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions and the
Visiting Magistrates, copies of a communication from
the Home Office relating to the condition of the
County Gaol. Somewhat earlier the surgeon of
Lancaster Castle transmitted a report on the sanitary
condition and health of the prison ; while on the death
of a prisoner in Coventry Corporation Gaol, the Home
Office procured a report of the results of the inquest
and of statements made by the gaoler, the surgeon
and a fellow-prisoner of the deceased, and a summary
description of the whole episode.
It must be remembered that Peel had at his dis-
posal no official staff by which he could continuously
inform himself of what was going on in the prisons,
no Home Office inspectors or Government
tors. Some of the reformers of the eighteenth
ui rv had realized the necessity for some social
ne connecting the local prison with the National
Government, as well as between the keeper of the
local prison and the owners thereof. The only sug-
tliM.t scrms t<> h:i\v hrcn made was that 1
link should be snppli< J by the County Justi
a project was in harmony with an already exi>-
practice, for in 1703 the Corporation of Norwich
recorded its desire that the " Justices of peace
doe proceed forthwith in repairing and enlar^:
>\ of this City according to the late Act of
Parliam What, therefore, had been achieved
io8 RIVAL POLICIES
a century later was the awakening, at least in some of
the Justices, of a more lively sense of their responsi-
bilities. The magistrates certainly regarded them-
selves as the source of authority for dealing with any
emergency arising out of prison administration, sub-
ject to the final ruling of the Quarter Sessions or the
Judges on Circuit. In the course of correspondence
with the Home Office in 1822 on the subject of
prisoners' letters, the Dorset magistrates drew
attention to the following definition of their powers,
contained in the Prison Regulation adopted in 1802 :
' That if any of these rules should appear incon-
venient in practice, such may, at any time, be sus-
pended by the Visiting Magistrates, and that the
reason of such suspension be reported by them to the
next General Quarter Sessions of the Peace to be
held for the said county, in order that any regulations
that may be thought necessary may then be adopted."
At Dorchester Gaol, the difficulties arising out of the
unusual duties imposed by the presence of such a
political offender as Richard Carlile drove the keeper
to pay almost daily visits to the local Justice of the
Peace, Archdeacon England, who issued instructions
to meet each special case, and reported his decisions
to the Home Office. At Ilchester, Henry Hunt's
treatment was regulated from a similar source, and
during the first six months of his confinement the
Magistrates' Journal bore witness to the practical
significance of their regime. An instructive letter
may be quoted in which the Visiting Magistrates
apply to the Home Office for instructions. The
Prison Discipline Act of 1824 contributed more
strength to the arm of the Justices by the seventeenth
section, which empowered any Justice, without being
appointed a Visitor, to visit any prison and to report
any abuses he might discover at the next General or
Quarter Sessions of the Peace.
It must not, however, be overlooked that a differ-
ent theory of the Justices' authority existed which
rendered them immediately subordinate to the sheriff.
A movement in this direction appears during a dis-
SHERIFF AND JUSTICES 109
cussion of the action of the magistrates in debating
some regulations of their own authority for a new
gaol built at Fisherton Anger in Wiltshire in 1822. A
debtor imprisoned there alleged in a petition to the
Home Office that they curtailed the privileges of the
debtors, and questioned their validity. During the
inquiry which ensued, Peel corresponded, not with
the magistrates, but exclusively with the H
Sheriff of the county. It was left to him to transmit
the opinions and suggestions of the National Govc
ment to the Justices, and to convey in answer their
vindication of their conduct.
At Dorchester Gaol the superior powers of the
sheriff seem to have been recognized by the magis-
trates, for Carlile having uttered threats of his power
to escape during November, 1823, the Chairman of
Quarter Sessions invited the sheriff to meet the visit-
ing magistrates and himself to examine the prisoner
in the presence of the gaoler and his assistants. When
reporting this to the Home Office, the Chairman de-
fined his view of the relations subsisting between
sheriff and Justices in terms which admitted of no
misapprehension, and he was not corrected by the
Home Secretary.
With such inadequate powers, and under such un-
certainty as to their authority, the Justices of the
Peace, it is plain, could effect but little as supervisors
lie local prisons. Their haphazard and spasmodic
intervention, kindly intentioned as it usually was,
must have rendered the administration even more
uncertain and chaotic than it would otherwise L
been. Yet for a dozen years after Peel's assump.
of office in 1822, the Home Office struggled on with-
out any better nuu him-ry for supei \ ml control
the gaols and l>rid<'\\vlls, and without any otluT
of securing the enfoi <
l8j I :han was aU< .
ton d annual gaol statistics am! cca-
sioi d almost accidental, con over
d to be reported to
Whitehall,
no RIVAL POLICIES
Such was the state of the prisons when, in 1832, the
Whig Government and the Reformed Parliament
took over the administration of the nation's affairs.
The wholesale demoralization of the Old Poor Law
and the political partizanship of the close municipal
corporations were the first to be investigated of the
evils of English local government. Incidentally,
these two commissions of inquiry, with their scores
of peripatetic assistant commissioners, confirmed
the allegations of the little knot of prison reformers,
and brought to notice the intimate connection that
existed between pauperism and prison discipline,
corrupt municipal corporations and overcrowded
and insanitary gaols. The Whig Ministry, in all
its projects of reform, was dominated by two
leading assumptions, both of them derived at
second-hand from Bentham, and untiringly pressed
on them by Nassau Senior and Chadwick, namely,
the value of uniformity of administration through-
out the country and the impossibility of attaining
this uniformity without a large increase in the
activity of the central government. The prison
was a sphere in which these principles were
specially applicable. From the standpoint of crimi-
nal jurisprudence it seemed intolerable that persons
convicted of similar crimes and sentenced to identical
punishments should be in one place subjected to
physical privation and torturing labour ; in another,
contaminated by dirt, disease, idleness and licen-
tious intercourse ; whilst in others they were supplied
with plentiful food, profitable employment, comfort-
able lodging and technical and religious instruction.
The divergent results of these opposite policies were
registered, sometimes in appalling statistics, in the
calendar of convictions and reconvictions of the differ-
ent county and borough assizes and sessions. Some
more uniform treatment of convicted prisoners
seemed imperative, alike for equity and for social
reform. xThe need for expert centralized inspection
and control was equally manifest. Half a century of
experience had proved beyond doubt that it was
THE 1835 COMMISSION in
futile to pass elaborate Acts of Parliament, if there
was no official machinery for ensuring that these
Acts should be obeyed by the multitude of local
prison authorities. It was hopeless to expect that
the country gentlemen, busy commercial men, or
little shopkeepers, acting as Visiting Justices or
borough aldermen, would observe, record and enforce
the complicated, difficult and costly requirements of
" enlightened " prison discipline. The terrifying in-
crease in the number of commitments to prison made
the problem of prison administration at once gravely
urgent and peculiarly difficult. 1 These points were
brought out with emphasis by a House of Commons
Committee of 1832, when the hands of Ministers were
too full to permit of new legislation. 2 This could not,
however, long be delayed. It was plainly only in
order to register a foregone conclusion that a com-
mittee was appointed by the House of Lords in 1835,
under that veteran prison reformer, the Duke of
Richmond, to inquire into the state of all the prisons
in England and Wales. The recommendations of
this Committee, which were supported by the most
comprehensive and the most searching survey of
English and Welsh prisons yet produced, 8 were
immediately embodied in an Act " for effecting
greater uniformity of practice in the government of
the several prisons in England and Wales, and for
;ippointing inspectors of prisons in Great Britain.*
I IVi-l in despair, " I'm- numlx-i of convicts
is too overwhelming for the means of proper and effectual punishment."
(Peel to Sydney Smith, March i^lh, 1826, Sir Robert Peel, edited by C.
rki-r, 1*99, p- 42.) " The number of persons charged with criminal
s and comm, at gaols of Kn^lund and Wr.lrs fur
was, in (the) seven years ending December 3ist, 1817, 56,308 ;
ditto, 1824, 92,848; ditto, 1831, 121,518." . . . These numbers do not
comprise arough the prisons,
.mary convictions 1> ^'istratcs, vagrants,
ucrs for re-ex. and debtors. (Report from the Select Com-
.' on Sccon hments . . . with notes and appendix, 1832, p. 3.)
8 See the separate pu Report from the Select Committee on
Seco>; with notes and appendix, 1833. In the
current phraseology of the day, "secondary punishments included
every kind of sentence short of the " capital " punishment of hanging.
'- voluminous nv successive reports of the House of Lords
on the State of the Gaols and Houses of Correction, 1835,
ngthy descriptions.
3 and 6 William IV, c. 38 (1835).
H2 RIVAL POLICIES
By this revolutionary statute the immemorial auto-
nomy of the two hundred local authorities in England
and Wales which still maintained prisons, was, at
one blow, destroyed. For the next forty years county
and borough justices go on administering their gaols,
and paying for them out of local funds, but subject
always to ever increasing regulations made by the
Home Office on every detail of prison life ; inces-
santly watched and criticized by a staff of salaried
inspectors reporting to the Secretary of State and to
the public ; and obliged, from time to time, to intro-
duce whatever changes in regimen were dictated by
prison reformers in Parliament. Thus, just as the
" private venture " gaol keeping of the eighteenth
century had been succeeded by the anarchic local
autonomy of the first third of the nineteenth century,
so this itself was, from 1835 onward, superseded by
the Whig regime of centrally controlled local admin-
istration under professional officers. It is with this
epoch of prison administration, passing, in 1878, into
a completely nationalized service, that we have now
to deal.
CHAPTER IX
CENTRAL INSPECTION AND CONTROL:
FIRST PERIOD, 1835-1864
the forty years that followed the ACL
\ve watch the successive administrators at
itehall struggling with the actual administrators
of the prisons to bring about prison reform. Unfor-
tunately there was no agreement as to what was
desirable. The period, .was one of almost incessant
itroyersy. The philanthropic movements of the
preceding half -century remained powerful factors.
But the prison reformers were divided among them-
selves as to the means by which the regimen of the
gaols and bridewells was to be regenerated. What
they quarrelled about ; and what Justices and Home
Office officials perpetually experimented with, were
iicular devices by which prisoners might be suffi-
inisUed to deter others from crime ; pre-
from escape, disorder or rioting t in
then deemed reasonable health, and pos-
ined in character. The last tiling
ih liought about was the relation in which the
ition of prisons should stand towards the
government of the country. It says much for the
ion of Political Science in the England of
1835-1877 that what we now see to be one of the most
.damental issues whether the keeping of the
isons should be a function of local or of
national government was scarcely even raised until
ml of the period, to K summarily
113
H4 CENTRAL INSPECTION
decided by Parliament upon grounds having little
relevance to prison administration. 1
(a) Cellular Isolation
Foremost among these problems of prison regimen
was the controversy that raged over the enforcement
of cellular isolation. We have already referred to the
proposals of prison reformers of the eighteenth cen-
tury that, as the obvious way of preventing the
scandalous evils of unrestrained association among
prisoners, these should all be provided with separate
sleeping apartments. What Howard apparently
desired was that each prisoner should sleep alone,
but that all should work during the day in supervised
association with each other. This was presently
improved upon by making the cellular isolation
complete, by day as well as by night. We come
therefore to the endless controversy as to the advan-
tages and drawbacks of solitary confinement, with
the various mitigations that the experience of a
century has suggested. In the form of the " Separ-
ate System/' combined with silence among prisoners
in association, it became in England the official
panacea for all the defects of prison administration ;
as, indeed, it has very largely remained down to
the present day. The determined adoption by the
Home Office officials, from 1835 onwards, success-
ively ratified by Lord John Russell and Sir James
Graham, of this combination of physical and mental
isolation of each prisoner is, perhaps, the most
momentous official decision in English prison history.
In order to appreciate the controversy that arose
over this policy of cellular isolation and the absolute
prohibition of speech among the prisoners a con-
1 By far the most important sources of information for the period
1 835-64 are the various official documents, notably the twenty annual reports
of the Inspectors of Prisons, 1836-59 ; the eleven reports of the Surveyor-
General of Prisons (Colonel Jebb), 1844-62 ; the reports of the Directors
of Convict Prisons, 1851-79 ; the Report of the Committee on Prison
Discipline in Gaols and Houses of Correction in England and Wales,
1850 ; the Reports of the Commissioners on the Birmingham and Leicester
prisons, 1854 ; and the Report of the House of Lords Committee on the
present state of discipline in Gaols nnd Houses of Correction, 1863.
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 115
troversy which continues to this day we must here
interpose some account of its origin. 1 The well-
meaning but unimaginative philanthropists among
the Evangelicals and Quakers of Pennsylvania,
who had succeeded in abolishing capital punish-
ment in 1786, were shocked at the moral con-
tamination involved in the association among
the prisoners in their gaols, and repelled by the
sight of the gangs of prisoners with shaven heads,
working on the roads in fetters and iron collars.
Zealous reformers accordingly devised the system of
cellular isolation, not merely (as Howard had advo-
cated) during the time for sleep, but throughout all
the twenty-four hours of the day and night, and for
the whole period of the sentence. The old Walnut
Street prison at Philadelphia, about 1790, was pro-
vided with thirty solitary cells, in which prisoners
slept, ate and worked without ever emerging from
their narrow isolation. In 1818 even this was im-
proved on, for the new prison then erected was wholly
arranged in solitary cells, in which not even the
provision of work broke the terrible monotony. This
' benevolent " imposition of absolutely solitary con-
finement for long terms aroused the greatest enthu-
siasm among large numbers of wholly philanthropic
people, and led to official inquiries from the most
ightened European countries. 1
1 For exact p vlvania proceedings (which do not
appear to have original- .1 with the Society of Friends as a body, though
some leading Quakers were among the religious philanthropists con-
cerned), see " i e System in British Prisons," by Stephen Hob-
house, in The Friends' Quarterly Examiner. July, 1918; reprinted as a
tiaries of the United States, by W. Crawford, 1834. Crav,
nt by the :mient to ;
1 invest it e sent at aboui
same . ivinimn. and Prussia. They saw
s. and their several reports, whilst difl
considcra! weight, all concurred generally in recommm
i of < -Hular isolation. The <
De Tocqucvillc and G. de !' I* SysUmt Penitcntiaire atix lat$
\ from Belgium (La Kfforme
, 1837-8) ; whilst Prussia sent the celebrated cxj
nie Gefangnissverbtsscrung insbfsondfre die
Bedeut-.tnz nnd Durchfuhrung
1 Tocqucvillc and De Beaumont's book
man, and also pu 1 vdamfriha's Sittlichc Zuslande, i
n6 CENTRAL INSPECTION
Now, it is important to recognize that, in this
introduction of solitary confinement, what was
primarily aimed at was the religious and moral
regeneration of the prisoner, which, it was supposed,
would be promoted by uninterrupted introspection.
Solitary confinement was, in all seriousness, humanely
imposed as a reformatory device. It arose, indeed,
in the monasteries. It had been introduced into
prison discipline by Pope Clement IX in the erection
in 1703 of the cellular prison of San Michele at Rome.
For the same reason it was advocated by Bishop
Butler in a sermon of 1740, and patronized by Arch-
deacon Paley in his Moral and Political Philosophy
of 1785. By the time that a dreadful experience
had proved beyond all possibility of denial that unin-
terrupted introspection and self-communion in soli-
tary confinement did not, in fact, lead to penitence
and moral regeneration, but that it did result in loss
of health, mental depression, a permanent lowering
of mental and physical capacity, the most agoniz-
ing suffering, much insanity, repeated attempts at
suicide and an appalling death rate, it was found
to be, very naturally, of all punishments, the one
most dreaded by criminals. Moreover, of all prison
j systems it afforded the smallest chance of escape and
jgave least trouble to the officials. It needed the
I least staff and (once the capital cost of the building
j had been provided) it was the most economical.
Finally, it seemed to possess, so far as the prison
regimen was concerned, the great quality of unifor-
mity. The cells could be made identical in size,
shape and bareness ; the utensils (and also the food)
could be absolutely standardized ; the necessary visits
to each cell could be rigidly regularized. Because of
its attractiveness in these respects, we shall find the
system of an absolute mental and physical isolation
of each prisoner, for which the name of solitary con-
finement will be as far as possible repudiated,
England's Mustergefangniss in Pentonville, 1846. The effect of their
official reports to their respective governments was to set going in Western
Europe the building of'ceOular prisons.
THE SEPARATE SYSTEM 117
exercising for a hundred years a constant attractive
" pull " on prison regimen.
The results of the genuine solitary confinement, as
practised in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, were too j
appalling to permit of its introduction to this country, J
in all its rigour, by the Home Office of 1835. What
the most enlightened prison administrators aimed at
enforcing in Millbank Prison, and at prescribing for
the prisons under Local Government, was officially
designated the " Separate System/' which was J
regarded as quite a humane arrangement. " In the [
Act (2 and 3 Victoria c. 56)," says Colonel (afterwards ;
Sir Joshua) Jebb, " which rendered separate confine-
ment legal, it was specially enjoined that no cell
should be used for that purpose which is not of such
a size, and lighted, warmed, ventilated, and fitted
up in such manner as may be required by a due re-
gard for health and furnished with the means of
enabling the prisoner to communicate at any time
with an officer of the prison/ 1 It was, moreover,
required by the same Act, that each prisoner should
have the means of taking exercise when required ;
that he should be supplied with the means of moral
and religious instruction, with books, and also with
labour and employment. It does not seem, so far,
as if there were any lessening of the solitude. In-
deed, the Separate System is elsewhere defined, by
the Surveyor General of Prisons, as that mode of
penal discipline " in which each individual prisoner is
confined in a cell, which becomes his workshop by
day and his bedroom by night, so as to be effectually
prevented from holding intercourse with or even
sufficiently to be recognized by a fellow-
prisoner/' Another exponent of the advantages oL
the Separate System gives us its real difference
from solitary confinement. Under solitary confine-
ment, tho chaplain of Pentonville Prison tells us,
" the prisoner is wholly deprived of intercourse with
other human beings/ 1 Under separate confinement
" he is only kept rigidly apart from other criminals,
but is allowed as much intercourse with instructors
nS CENTRAL INSPECTION
and officers as is compatible with judicious economy." 1
\Ye must give full weight to this distinction between
the system of solitary confinement and the official
view of the English " Separate System/' But we
imagine that, to the prisoner himself, the most
serious point was that, under both systems, he was
locked up alone in his own cell for twenty-two (or
even more) hours out of the twenty-four. His
cellular isolation was an invariable fact. The extent
to which his solitude was, in practice, mitigated by
" social intercourse " with the governor, the chaplain,
the doctor and the warders, on the occasion of their
visits to his cell, was, we fear, to say the least, un-
certain.
An alternative to complete cellular isolation had
been found at the prison at Auburn, in New York
State, in the prisoners working by day in association,
but in absolute silence. 2 This so-called " Auburnian,"
or " Silent System " was strongly advocated by those
who were unable to contemplate the building of
new cellular prisons sufficient to accommodate
separately for working purposes all the prisoners of
the country. Moreover, by permitting work in silent
association, it made possible the introduction of a
much greater variety of employment, by which it
was hoped to make the prisoners pay for their own
keep, and from which it was reasonably expected
that better results could be obtained than from the
tread-wheel or the crank. The obvious drawback
was that prisoners could never be prevented from
trying to communicate with each other ; so that the
system of silent association was found not only to
require a very extensive supervisory staff, but also
to lead, in practice, to a terrifying number of punish-
1 Results of Separate Confinement at Pentonville, by Rev. J. T. Burt,
1852, p. 92 ; compare Prisons and Prisoners, by Joseph Adshead, 1845, and
Gaol Revelations, by a Governor, 1852.
2 " This form of discipline is said to have been originated in the Belgian
prison of Ghent, visited by John Howard in 1775 ; and it is, in essential
features, the system which we know in our British prisons to-day only
at Auburn the silence was enforced most cruelly with the constant use of
the whip." (The Silence System in British Prisons, by Stephen Hobhouse,
1918, p. 9.)
THE GOVERNMENT BIAS 119
ments for breach of the rule oi silence. Here, for
the moment, we leave the problem, in order to trace
the course of events from 1835.
What becomes at once apparent from the records
hat the inspectors whom the Home Office ap-
pointed, 1 and whose reports, after 1835, became the
principal sources of information about the English
prisons, were strongly prepossessed in favour of the
physical and mental isolation of every prisoner.
The Home Office appears, from the outset, to have
committed itself in favour of the system of cellular
isolation. The Government seems almost to have
charged the inspectors to collect evidence favouring
the new panacea, and to have judged all prisons
according to the degree in which it was adopted.
This, of course, is easily accounted for by the horrible
evils of the unrestrained association that still con-
tinued in nearly all prisons under Local Government.
Already in 1836, as the inspectors entered upon /
their service, the condition of Newgate, the first /
prison they visited, supplied them with illustrations
for a thesis in defence of isolation. They drew a
lurid picture of the Chapel Yard. 2 " Here/' they
declared, " were associated together the convicted,
and tho untried, the felon .and the misdemeanant,
sane and the insane, the old and young offender.
... In Ward No. 12 were six prisoners, four con-
victed and two untried. . . . Here we found a man
aged 38, under sentence of twelve months 1 im-
onment for an assault on a lad, with an intent
ter the Act of 1835, f fur
iord, who
to report on the Arm-til an j>. \\Tiit-
t Millh.mk 1'iison, \\vrr.issi. i lomc
sion-
hc South-
West' made less impression. Of th< orate
,'oscd
The Prison Chaplain, by W. L. < rd (1788-
1847), who had been secretary to the London Prison Discipline Society, and
to philanthropy, see Dictionary oj National flto/fi,
uM( uly m 1847 whilst actually attending a meeting el
uRsioncru of Pcntonvillc Prison, in the prison itself.
Parliamentary Papers, 1836, xxxv, 4, 7, 8, 17.
120 CENTRAL INSPECTION
to commit an unnatural offence ; two lads of 17
and 1 8 years of age, one under a fourteen days'
sentence ; the other untried, being charged with a
slight offence for which he was afterwards sentenced
to a month's imprisonment ; a man, aged 35, under
sentence of transportation for life, for forgery ;
another aged 34, under seven years' sentence of trans-
portation ; and the sixth, aged 34, for the non-payment
of several small sums of money. ... In No. 20,
the receiving ward, all offenders are kept on their
first committal, without any reference whatever
to the varieties of case or character, until the
surgeon has seen them, which is generally in the
forenoon of the morning after they are committed.
. . . Such of the prisoners as the surgeon has declared
to be in a fit state to be removed into the wards, have
then their places assigned to them, a duty which
belongs to the principal turnkey of the second station;
but, as he is frequently absent on various occupations,
it is constantly performed by the inner gateman of the
second station, a convicted prisoner. One of the
principal turnkeys informed us that on an average
this gateman, a prisoner, assigns to the prisoners
their wards at least three days in the week. Thus
the important duty of classifying the prisoners, so
far as the accommodation of the gaol will permit, is
entrusted to a convict, himself a wardsman, and who,
of course, takes care to select for his own ward those
whom he thinks best able to pay his ward dues ;
and so great is the authority exercised by him, and
so numerous are his opportunities of showing
favouritism, that all the prisoners may be said to be
in his power. If a man is poor and ragged, however
inexperienced he may be in crime, or however trifling
may be the offence for which he has been committed,
his place is assigned among the most depraved, the
most experienced, and the most incorrigible offenders,
in the Middle Yard. . . .
" Early in the morning, each day during the session
week, all the male prisoners against whom bills of
indictment have been found, are mustered in the
FAILURE OF CLASSIFICATION 121
Master's Side Yard, and, before the sitting of the
court, are taken down to the Bail Dock, sometimes
as many as sixty or seventy together. Here they are
often kept day after day, expecting their trials, some-
times from 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning until
eleven at night. Some of the prisoners have spoken
of this as the time of their greatest suffering : one in
particular said, ' There \ve are mixed up with horrid
characters, and are like wild beasts in a den. The
conversation is gross and horrible ; some behave
more as if they were going to a fair than to a trial.
They annoy all those who are not of their set, and
who seem alive to a sense of their situation/ Here, as
everywhere else in Newgate, we find the evils of
prison association/'
The attempt to combat the evils of association in
prison life by subjecting the inmates to a system of
classification, founded upon the offences committed
or upon psychological examination, the inspectors
dismissed in terms of emphatic disapproval. " It is
maintained/' they said, " that, by a proper classi-
fication, we may get rid of the apprehension and mis-
chief of gaol contamination. We deliberately deny
this. This opinion is based upon a foundation which
both reason and experience abundantly prove to be
delusive. Classification is professedly regulated by
one or other of these two standards gradation iii
crime or diversity of character. Now we submit t '
an attempt to classify according to the degree of
imputed guilt is entirely futile ; the standard itself
is purely technical, inasmuch as the law places in tin-
i<i category crimes which, in moral atrocity, are
separated by the widest assignable interval. But
even granting that the legal denomination embraces
< rimes of the same degree of moral turpitude, the
imputed guilt of the prisoner will not necessarily
consign him to the society of his equals in moral
depravity ; because a most atrocious character may
li.ippen to be committed on a charge involving only
trivial criminality. Is this accident, then, to asso-
him with trivial offenders ? By the system of
122 CENTRAL INSPECTION
classification by crime, it must be so ; but the advo-
cates of this system seek to avoid the lamentable
consequences of this branch of the arrangement by
taking refuge in the other. They offer to determine
the class in which the prisoner shall be placed by
the actual moral habits and character of the offender.
They profess to determine the case by a reference to
a test of which they cannot have any cognizance ;
by an inquiry into circumstances which are impene-
trably veiled from all human scrutiny the internal
habits and disposition of the mind and heart ! ''
With the advocacy of cellular isolation, the con-
demnation of its only serious rival, work in associa-
tion under the sway of rigidly enforced silence, was
clearly involved. In the following extract from their
second report, the inspectors pass judgment with a
fullness of detail which depicts the whole system
as exemplified under peculiarly favourable circum-
stances, with the wide modifications that these would
require in the structure of prison administration.
The importance of this passage is enhanced by the
fact that it condemns in advance almost exactly the
system which has been the basis of the English
prison system for the last twenty years. " We
say, in the first place," they declare, 1 " that so
far as the prevention of intercourse is concerned, the
Silent System is not efficacious. If it be granted that
communication may be carried on by signs, or in a
subdued tone of voice, then it is in evidence that this
system does not and cannot prevent such intercourse.
The difficulty of enforcing the prohibition of inter-
communication under this system is felt and acknow-
ledged by some of its warmest advocates. . . . Upon
[the prisoners] the persuasion of the obvious fact, that
communication cannot be prevented, will operate
most prejudicially ; it will act at once as a constant
spur and a premium to their ingenuity, which will
have abundant scope to exercise itself amidst the
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1837, xxxii, 2, 3, 4. This adverse account
of Oildbaui Fields Prison should be compared with that of the governor,
in A' , Life, by (',. T,. <"h -stcrton,
FAILURE OF SILENT SYSTEM 123
multiplied and perplexing engagements of the moni-
tors. . . . The truth of this is demonstrated by the
following among other remarkable facts, that in the
prison of Coldbath Fields, in which the Silent System
is believed to be brought to the greatest degree of per-
fection, under the management of a highly intelligent
and able governor, who has at his command every
possible advantage for working the system, there
were in the year 1836 no less than 5,138 punishments
" for talking and swearing. . . . The warmest advo-
cates of the silent system admit that they cannot
carry it into operation without that constant employ-
ment of means which are obviously adverse to the
spirit of the constitution, and to the first principles
of justice. They confess that they must be permitted
to inflict punishments for every detected violation of
the rules. . . . Nor is the nature of those punishments
less objectionable than their frequency. They con-
sist in reduction of food, or in confinement in dark
and ill- ventilated cells ; both of which have such a
tendency to impair the prisoners 1 health, that the
governor has thought it necessary to reduce the
punishment to a degree that impairs its efficacy.
Nevertheless, the prisoners persevere in counter-
feiting ill-health, and, for the purposes of carrying on
the deception, they frequently resort to practices
of an abominable and revolting nature. Here then,
My Lord, is one punishment, or to speak more
correctly, here are many punishments superimposed
upon that to whi h the prisoner was originally sen-
tenced, who is thus oppressed by sufferings and priva-
! >cyond the awards of law. . . . But there is
tlu r i-vil inherent in this system, which will tend
more effectually to secure its condemnation. We
ide to the employment of prisoners as wardsmen
I monitors to aid in carrying it into operation.
This practice (an unavoidable one under the system
in question) is directly opposed to every principle of
justice, Is a culprit, probably the greatest delinquent
in the prison walls, probably the most ingenious vil-
nost fini-lu'<l hypocritej < < -rtainly one of the
CENTRAL INSPECTION
most guilty in the eye of the law (for it is only from
those whose term of imprisonment is long that such
agents are selected) is this man to be released from
the condition of a criminal suffering for his offences,
and placed in a situation which invests him with
authority, which is every moment felt over his fellow-
prisoners, every one of whom is perhaps less stained
with moral turpitude than himself ? In confirma-
tion of this reasoning we find it stated by the governor
of the Westminster Bridewell ' that the oldest thief
makes the best monitor/ Some notion may be formed
of the extent to which this unjust principle must
prevail under the Silent System from the fact that,
in Coldbath Fields Prison, containing on an average
nine h ndred prisoners, no less than 218 of them are
removed from the operation of the law and the en-
durance of their punishment, by being appointed to
offices of trust or authority : besides these 218
prisoners, there are 54 regular officers ; so that
here we have 272 persons appointed to superintend
682 prisoners (i.e., 900 minus 218 who have appoint-
ments), being in the ratio of one officer to two and a
half prisoners an exorbitant proportion. This intelli-
gent governor also says that he is much discouraged
at times by circumstances of the following nature :
after he has taken pains in instructing an individual
for the purpose of qualifying him to be an officer
of the prison, he finds all his labour lost, by the person
so instructed feeling alarmed at the arduous nature of
the duties, and declining to undertake them. The
governor further states, in reference to his selection of
fit and proper persons to serve as monitors, etc., that
in order to make that selection he must rely in a great
measure upon the knowledge and recommendation of
the turnkeys, a circumstance which affords scope
for patronage and has a tendency to produce serious
evils ; that in order to keep the monitors up to the
performance of their duties, it is necessary to receive
reports against them from prisoners. ... At one
prison a man, who had filled the office of monitor
under the Silent System in another prison, was so
USELESS PUNISHMENTS 125
persecuted by his fellow prisoners, that the governor,
unable otherwise to protect him, was obliged to re-
move him to a separate cell, as the only means by
which he could shield him from the vengeance to
which his conduct as monitor exposed him from those
over whom, in the discharge of his duties, he had pre-
viously, and in another prison, exercised authority.
. . . But the amount and severity of the punishment
involved in the Silent System is not felt chiefly
by the convicted prisoner ; it falls with even
greater weight upon the untried. From the novel
character of the system, from the multiplicity as well
as trifling nature of its regulations, some time must
necessarily elapse before the recently committed
prisoner can be made acquainted with them ; the
consequence of this is, that the earlier portion of the
prisoner's confinement, that too which precedes
his trial, is the most irksome and vexatious. His
thoughts and attention must be occupied in acquiring
a knowledge of the rules and a readiness in practising
them ; or else in undergoing the various punishments
to which his ignorance, his inadvertence, or his stub-
bornness exposes him. . . . That the untried pri-
soner is subjected to a greater proportion of suffering
than the convicted, we find instanced in one prison
where ninety untried prisoners were visited with
224 punishments ; whilst 236 convicted prisoners
were visited with 574 punishments. They assemble
together social beings, interdict communication be-
tween them, and then punish them for yielding to that
I powerful of human impulses the desire of
interchanging thought with those with whom they
compelled to associate. Here is a difficulty
contrived with perverse ingenuity, as if merely
for the purpose of overcoming it, and when it
, as it must perpetually, the system revenges
itself upon the prisoner for the remissness of the
offic
The system of physical isolation continued to
receiv. trilmt m the inspectors couched in
ing degrees of warmth, one devoting some pages
126 CENTRAL INSPECTION
to a graphic description of the torments which befell
the unconvicted prisoner on his apprehension, when
it was usually his fate to be conducted to a police
station, r ' where the means of separation are so
defective, that he may be confined with drunkards,
burglars and pickpockets. With these companions
he may pass the night and also the Sunday, if appre-
h. nded on the preceding evening. When brought up
to the Police Office, he is taken through the public
streets, and at the office he finds a collection, from the
various stations, of some of the worst characters in
London, to whom he thus becomes personally known.
A case lately occurred of a prisoner being robbed by
his fellow-prisoners in a lock-up room of one of the
Police Offices, where he was detained upwards of five
hours, and where nine men and four women were
placed together in the same apartment. If re-
manded for re-examination or committed for trial,
the prisoner is sent to the gaol in a van employed for
the conveyance of prisoners. There are three of
these vans constantly engaged for this purpose.
They are 8 ft. 4 in. long, 4 ft. 5 in. wide, and 5 ft.
5^ in. high, and will each conveniently accom-
modate about twenty prisoners ; but upwards of
thirty are occasionally conveyed. No officer, either
male or female, is inside the van. It can excite no
surprise that, under such circumstances, scenes of
gross indecency constantly occur. We have ourselves
been frequently present when the van has reached the
prison and seen profligate characters, of both sexes,
after being thus mingled together, descend from that
carriage with clothing not sufficient to cover their
nakedness. That robberies should occasionally take
place in these carriages must, we conceive, be re-
garded as a matter of course. Prisoners in a state of
the most beastly drunkenness, infected with the itch,
covered with vermin and most obnoxious from their
filth and effluvia, the desperate burglar, the notorious
pickpocket, the abandoned prostitute, and even the
unnatural offender, are here crowded together in the
smallest possible space ; and among them are not
THE 1839 ACT 127
infrequently prisoners of decent habits accused of
trifling offences, servant girls, refractory apprentices,
and others creditably brought up and reputably
connected." 1
The inspectors' Third Report of iS^Swas precedec
by a hundred pages of introduction devoted to the
defence of cellular isolation in which all the argument^
in its favour are marshalled ; and in conclusion th(
erection of a model penitentiary is urged, where the
system might be put into force as a pattern for al
the county and borough gaols. This extremely able
but as we should now say, strongly biased report
may not unfairly be described as, " after Howard V
book, the most important volume in the history o
prison discipline ." a Like the Poor Law Report o:
1834 and the Municipal Corporations Report of 1835,
which are open to a similar condemnation for bias,
it carried conviction to those who read it, andj^siiltfid, J
in- immediate legislation. We can to-day see its ,
faults and its shortcomings, but, at the moment it
was irresistible. It was, for all its ability, a piece \
of " unfair special pleading. All the strongest
evidence against their theory was suppressed, and
the arguments of their opponents [were] feebly
stated " by these zealous inspectors. It was an-
swered in more than one quarter ;* but it prevailed.
The new Prisons Act of 1839 (2 and 3 Vic. c. 56)
'I the classification clauses of 4 Gco. IV , and
e explicit approval of separate confii:< inmt by
uiing the conditions of its enforcement, and In-
providing for the issue of certificates to those- prison
authorities which complied with the Home < M
<1< mauds.
Thr immediate result of this Act was probably not
so much to stimulate local authorities to extend 1
physical isolation as to arouse criticism upon the
uliaracntary Papers, 1837, xxxii, 18, 19.
1 The Prison Chaplain, by W. L. Clay, 1861. p. 183.
Ibid., p. 185.
* i instance, tho .irticlr in The Monthly Law Review for October
, 1837 ; Revelations of Prison Life, by G. L. Chcstt
1856, Vol. I. p;
128 CENTRAL INSPECTION
existing methods of its administration. The West-
minster Bridewell was unfavourably reported on by
an inspector, and the Superintending Committee of
Millbank Prison decided to mitigate the severity of
its regimen on account of a " distressing increase in
the number of persons who had become insane/'
But in the main the tide was greatly in favour of
cellular isolation, and the opening of Pentonville
in 1842, and the completion in 1845 of the " Prison
Palace " at Reading, 1 seemed to establish it as an
accepted article of faith.
It must not be supposed that the triumph of cellu-
lar isolation was wholly the work of the Home Office.
An active minority of prison reformers took the same
side. Lord Brougham's Committee, appointed in
1847 to consider the administration of criminal jus-
tice with special attention to juvenile offenders,
reported in favour of cellular isolation as opposed to
the Silent System with classified association, but
added an injunction that the greatest caution should
be used in its application when accompanied by hard
labour. The evidence given was largely but by no
means unanimously in its favour. Clay, the able
chaplain of Preston Gaol, pronounced it to be the only
possible basis for a system of reformation ; and the
governor of Tothill Fields Prison supported him with
the allegation that of all forms of punishment it
aroused the most active apprehension in the prison-
er's mind. Mr. Sergeant Adams, on the other hand,
while refusing credence to the reports that solitary
confinement produced insanity, considered that it
left the prisoner in a state of " harmless docility."
Captain Maconochie, then governor of Birmingham
Borough Gaol, carried his opposition much further.
On his first appearance before the Committee, he
declared that a two years' sentence of separate con-
finement was more damaging than fourteen years'
transportation, and that at Pentonville the prisoners
were in a state of complete physical and mental
prostration. On a later occasion he modified his
1 Prison Discipline, by J. Field, 1848.
CONFLICTING TESTIMONIES 129
attitude so far as to deny that mental alienation
could be directly traced to this system, but he main-
tained that its reformatory influence was counter-
balanced by a condition of extreme mental irritation
prevailing during the early stages, and by the reaction
which followed when men became gradually acclima-
tized, and settled down and " made themselves
comfortable." Other witnesses, if not hostile, were
distinctly critical. The chaplain of Bath Gaol con-
sidered it dangerous to maintain the system with all
its ugour right up to the moment of a prisoner's
discharge. He therefore advocated a relaxation
during the latter half of the sentence.
Outside the ring of prison specialists, too, consider-
able hostility must have existed towards solitary
confinement, as a whole generation later, when op-
posing the Prisons Bill of 1877, Newdegate stated
in the House of Commons that more than thirty
years previously he had visited the United States,
and had been so much impressed with the evils of the
system, that in conjunction with some Warwickshire
and Middlesex magistrates he had opposed its intro-
duction throughout England, and had delayed it
until sweeping reforms could be effected. The
prevailing looseness of opinion on the whole sub-
ject was advertised by the fact that, in its Report,
Lord Brougham's Committee made much of the
illusory distinction between " solitary " and " sepa-
rate " confinement. The same diversity of opinion
appeared in the evidence given before Sir Geo.
Grey's Committee on Prison Discipline in 1850. The
Committee itself summed up strongly in favour of
separation. It condemned the want of uniformity
in applying the system and resolved that every
prison should contain enough cells to secure separate
confinement for every prisoner. All untried prisoners
should be kept in separation ; and short-sentence
men should serve their whole time in cellular isola-
tion, whilst the early portion of a long sentence should
be served under the same conditions.
Of the witnesses, the prison inspector, J. G. Perry,
130 CENTRAL INSPECTION
advocated separation for a reason hitherto rarely
noted. He considered that it stimulated charitable
feelings towards a prisoner on his discharge, as em-
ployers of labour considered that he had passed
through a process of reformation, whereas prison life
spent in promiscuity they treated as a sure means of
impairing a man's character ; and they therefore
refused applications for employment from those who
had emerged from a period of imprisonment of that
kind. Other advocates of separation, including the
governor of Reading Gaol, spoke of it as eminently
deterrent to the vagrants ; but in this they were
contradicted by the governor of Wakefield Prison.
The surgeon of Pentonville Prison stated that such
cases of insanity as he had observed had occurred
only in the early stages of confinement. A suggestion
recalling the previous committee was made by the
Duke of Richmond, who emphasized the need exper-
ienced in Pentonville Gaol for a period of work in
association before the prisoners were brought to-
gether on the transports.
Charles Pearson, to whose insistence the Com-
mittee was largely due, presented a separate report,
attacking the cellular system of confinement in its
head-quarters at Reading Gaol. He alleged that it
involved a violation of the law in neglecting to en-
force hard labour, 1 and encouraging, as it did, long
hours of drowsy idleness, that it fostered all the evils
incidental to solitude. He considered that its ineffi-
cacy was proved by the number of punishments
inflicted at Reading, and declared that murders
committed upon wardsmen were generally the work
of prisoners placed in separate confinement, whose
minds were so exasperated by the system that they
mistook perfectly indifferent conduct for tyranny
or ill-treatment.
I However, notwithstanding much adverse criticism
1 In the Reading Gaol, the insistence of the chaplain (Rev. J. Field)
had led to the prisoners being pressed to spend almost their whole waking
life in committing to memory the Old and New Testaments, merely varying
their perpetual reading by such light work as they chose. Hence the
nickname of the " Read, read, reading gaol."
TRIUMPH OF SEPARATION 131
from men who were devoting all their energies to the
problem of prison reform, as well as from prison
officials themselves, cellular isolation constantly
extended its range of adherents. In 1857 the inspec-
tors reported that, in the Southern and Western
district, " so universal ... is the testimony in
favour of the Separate System in the English prisons
. . . that there remain only two county prisons in
which it has not been adopted, either wholly or in
part ; and in those exceptional instances new build-
ings are now in progress which promise soon to assimi-
late them to the more perfect establishments of the
kind/' 1 This diversity of opinion was reflected in the
administration of the prisons. The Surrey and Mid-
dlesex gaols were very backward ; the City of London
House of Correction at Holloway alone maintaining
a complete form of separation. Others, again,
seemed anxious simultaneously to reap the benefits
of the two rival systems, and the Preston House of
Correction provided in 1857 for both the " separate "
and the " silent " treatment within its walls. As
usual, the inspector spoke with the utmost confidence
of the enormous superiority of the methods which
made for a stronger measure of " perfection/'
The next Committee appointed to report on gaol dis-
i])line, sitting under Lord Carnarvon in 1863, to
which we shall subsequently have occasion to refer,
considered that " the system generally known as the
Separate System must now be accepted as the foun-
dation of prison discipline, and that its rigid mainten-
ance is a vital principle to the efficiency of county and
borough iNiols/' 1 The Committee recommended legis-
lation which should render its adoption obligatory
upon all gaols, a behest which they conceived might
be most strictly enforced by making the Treasury
;it in aid of the cost of the prison conditional upon
its fulfilment. They urged emphatically that the
principle should pervade the whole system oi discip-
line, for in their opinion neither in the school, nor at
1 Parliamentary Papcrt, 1857, vii 406
Ibid . 1863, ix, 5.
132 CENTRAL INSPECTION
chapel, nor during exercises was there any adequate
reason for its relaxation. No important voice was
now raised against complete cellular isolation.
We may regard this House of Lords Committee of
1863 as the last occasion on which even an oppor-
tunity was allowed for cellular isolation to be seriously
treated as an open issue. In the same year the inspec-
tors presented the following enthusiastic account of
the extension of isolation since 1843. l " In laying
before you this report, it is very satisfactory to refer
to the great and manifold improvements that have
taken place in the construction and discipline of
prisons in England and Wales since the enactment of
Statute 2 and 3 Victoria, Chapter 56, by which the
separate confinement of prisoners, as contra-distin-
guished from ^ solitary confinement, was first sanc-
tioned by law. In the year 1843, when I had the
honour to be appointed to my present office, there
were two prisons only in the part of the country now
comprised in the southern district, in which advan-
tage had been taken of the provision of the Act, the
County Gaol of Shrewsbury and the City Gaol of
Bath, the former having undergone alterations in
1840 to fit the cells for separate confinement, and the
latter having been rebuilt with cells upon the plan of
Pentonville Prison two years afterwards. These
prisons, at the time to which I refer, contained less
than an aggregate number of 200 certified cells,
whereas at the present time there are more than 8,000
in the southern district which have received the legal
sanction to be used in the same form of discipline.
. . . Nor has the expectation of the public on the
large outlay of money in the building and improve-
ment of prisons been disappointed ; immediately
on the change of discipline followed so great a reduc-
tion in the number of commitments that in many
instances the prisons, although suited in size to the
supposed exigencies of the several jurisdictions, were,
in a few years found to be unnecessarily spacious ;
and in many instances cells forming part of the
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1863, xxiii, 5.
PENAL DIET 133
excess were left to the Government for the confine-
ment of transports and penal servitude prisoners
during their probationary period."
In the next year the Bill which was to become the
Prisons Act of 1865 put an end to doctrinal contro-
v< -rsy by definitely requiring that every prison should
contain cells for separate confinement, equal in
number to the highest average of prisoners housed
in it. It was doubtless a good thing that Howard's
demand for a separate sleeping apartment for each
prisoner should at last become the law of the land.
Unfortunately, as we think, this plainly necessary
reform was, in the minds of prison administrators,
bound up with the far more doubtful device of cellu-
lar isolation during the greater part of the prisoner's
waking life.
(b) The Enforcement of Penal Diet
The attempt to institute uniform dietaries through-
out all the prisons was also a distinguishing feature
of the era of control an attempt taking the form
of superseding by positive injunction the previous
prohibition of luxuries.
On this point the reformers had to reckon with a
public opinion which suspected a tendency to pamper
the prisoners, and feared that an ample diet would
render a gaol agreeable as a place of residence. In
the middle of the century the Recorder of Birming-
ham, Matthew Davenport Hill, was asked by a Com-
mittee sitting on Criminal and Destitute Juveniles,
whether he considered the gaol dietary too liberal.
His answer may be quoted as an expression of a very
common attitude i 1 " From all the information I
can obtain it is so beyond all doubt, and the mischiefs
that flow from that, which I conceive an error, are
very fatal indeed. I remember some twenty years
ago this was the state o^ things. There were three
classes of persons : there was the soldier who kept
guard over the convict ; there was the convict, and
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1852. vii. 61.
CENTRAL INSPECTION
there was the pauper. Now, one would say, accord-
ing to a natural justice, the soldier who was in execu-
tion of his duty, and a member of an honourable
profession, should have the best diet ; the pauper,
who is to be considered, by law at least, as the victim
of misfortune, should have the second best ; and the
convict, who is in prison in consequence of his own
.Time, should have the worst diet. That order was
exactly reversed. The convict had the best diet,
the pauper the second best, and the soldier had the
worst. A convict has been heard to say, when some
little diminution in his rations was made, ' We shall
be treated as bad as soldiers by and by/ '
It is due to the Home Office to admit that, in its
efforts to deal with this very difficult question, it
did not allow itself to be unduly influenced by popu-
lar clamour. In 1842, Sir James Graham, perhaps
the ablest of all the successors of Peel at the Home
Office, instructed the inspectors to report to him upon
the whole system of prison administration, with spe-
cial reference to the question of diet. Their report
was adopted as the basis of a code of prison adminis-
tration, which the Home Secretary immediately com-
municated to the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions in a
circular dated January 27th, 1843. The inspectors
laid down the principles which directed official action
in this matter until 1863. ' The principle/' they
said, " which we are of opinion ought to be acted on
in framing a scale of prison diet, and that which we
have endeavoured to carry into effect as far as pos-
sible in the annexed scale, is, that that quantity of
food should be given in all cases which is sufficient
and not more than sufficient, to maintain health and
strength, at the least possible cost ; and that, whilst
due care should be exercised to prevent extravagance
or luxury in a prison, the diet ought not to be made
an instrument of punishment. . . . We are of opin-
ion that there always ought to be three meals each
day in prison, and that at least two of the three should
be hot ; that there should be variety in the kinds of
food forming the diet, with occasional changes, and
THE GRAHAM DIETARIES 135
that a considerable portion of the food should be
solid ; that in the selection in the kinds of food, it is
essential for the maintenance of health to include
substances which are necessary for the support of the
various parts of the body/'
The dietaries actually adopted appear in the
accompanying tables.
THE GRAHAM DIETARIES OF 1843.
I. WITHOUT HARD LABOUR.
Class i.
Class' 2.
Class 3.
Class 4.
'.Kill 7
days.
7 days to
2r.
21 days to
4 months.
More than
4 months.
Bread
Potatoes
ozs.
112
ozs.
ozs.
140
M
6
ozs.
168
32
12
solid food
IT2
168
210
ju
Soup
Gruel
Cocoa
pints.
M
pints.
14
pints.
2
14
pints.
3
M
Total liquid food
M
14
16
i?
II. WITH HARD LABOUR.
Bread
Potatoes
solid food
Gruel
1
Total liquid food
Class 2.
Class 3.
Class 4.
Class 5.
7 to 21
days.
2 1 days to
6 weeks.
6 weeks to
4 months.
More than
4 months.
ozs.
168
ozs.
140
64
6
ozs.
168
3*
12
ozs.
154
112
16
1 68
210
2X3
282
pints.
i
14
pints.
2
1!
pii
M
pin
3
ii
3
15
16
17
17
The immediate results of the measure may be seen
in the report issued at the beginning of the year 1844
for the preceding year. 1 ' I have/' says the inspec-
tor, " particular pleasure in reporting that, in the
icntary Papers, 1843, xxv, xxvi, 253.
136 CENTRAL INSPECTION
y great proportion of the prisons comprised within
this extensive district, the means taken for ensuring
prisoners a certain quantity of plain and wholesome
food have been attended with great success by Ihe
very general adoption of the official dietaries or
their equivalents. . . . Among other evils foretold
as the certain result of this interference with the food
for prisoners, there is one more warmly insisted upon
than others, and which I advert to, rather from the
strenuousness of its advocates, than from* its real
importance. I allude to the anticipation that by the
adoption of those dietaries, or their equivalents, the
situation of the convict as to food, would be so super-
ior to that of a considerable proportion of the hum-
bler classes, {hat it would induce a preference for a
prison, and thereby directly encourage crime. . . .
But I am prepared to show, that even if the morals of
the people were as vitiated as apprehended, the
quantity of food prescribed for prisoners by authority
is no encouragement to crime, but directly the re-
verse, and prisoners are less likely to be satisfied
with the new diets than the old. I have already
found this to be the case, in one instance at Chester,
where the prisoners declared that they liked the
quality of the new, but preferred the quantity of the
old. The reason is obvious. The food prescribed in
thtf official dietaries consists of various articles, all
alimentary of the human body, and generally solid
in form. The ordinary diet for prisoners, previous
to the recent interference of authority, was most
disproportionately given in a liquid form, consisting,
independently of the bread, of thin gruel, and in
some cases with the addition of thin soup, well
satisfying the immediate cravings of hunger by its
bulk, but affording no sufficient supply to the
constantly consuming elements of the human body.
Hence the numerous trifling cases of dyspepsia and
other ailments connected with the digestive functions
which, under long imprisonment, crept into serious
maladies, breaking down the constitution or ending
in death. That the new dietaries are of a sufficiently
LACK OF UNIFORMITY 137
nutritious character, though less repletive than the
former, I have no doubt ; and I have just received
the voluntary evidence of a keeper of a House of
Correction in an agricultural district, which had been
previously remarked for its sharp discipline and spare
food, where the Justices had, of their own accord,
adopted the official tables upon the recommendation
of the circular from the Home Office/ 1
It is by no means easy to estimate the significance
of these dietaries in English prison history, as their
adoption was very far from being universal, or even
widespread. We may draw some inferences from
the treatment accorded to certain modifications
proposed by the Home Office four years later. In
1850 the Chairman of the Berkshire Visiting Justices,
in the course of evidence given before the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons, made the sin-
gular and instructive statement that the Berk-
shire Quarter Sessions had approved the Home
Office dietary, but added " that he had had no
authority to introduce it." Further information on
this point is obtained in a resolution of the Commit-
tee of 1863, which noted that Sir James Graham's
dietary had been so modified, wherever it had been
accepted in any shape, that its fundamental principle,
the avoidance of any penal character, had been direct 1 v
ignored. Absence of uniformity in this, as in every
other form of administration, characteri/ed the
county and borough prisons. One of the witnesses,
Doctor Edward Smith, who had been summoned on
account of his careful researches into the question,
said that Sir James Graham's dietaries had been
adopted in only half the gaols, extraordinary discre-
pancies existing in the others. He compared Cardiff,
where no meat at all was allowed, with the Middlesex
gaols which provided 6 ozs. of cooked meat on four
days in the week ; and he added : " There is
uniform dietary enforced by the Government, and I
think that that is a fundamental defect. A dietary
commended by the Home Office, and any scheme
of dietary must be sanctioned by the Homo Sc
138 CENTRAL INSPECTION
tary ; but there is none enforced, and the result is
that the Visiting Justices of the different prisons
adopt such a plan as seems to them to be good within
the limits which are allowed by the Home Secretary.
Therefore it seems to me that the want of an author-
ized and enforced system of dietary by the Home
Office is that which leads to all the diversity now
existing in that respect/' 1
Thus, during the twenty years, 1843-1863, a stan-
dard dietary existed, approved and recommended by
the Home Office ; but in the absence of all means of
enforcing its adoption, the diets in actual use varied
from the lavish feeding of the Middlesex gaols, and
some of the large borough gaols, to the county prisons
where the Justices generally aimed at placing the
food on a standard below that of the workhouses.
We may believe that, in the minds of the Home
Office administrators it was, very largely, with the
object of remedying this state of things that the
House of Lords Committee of 1863 was appointed.
This Committee, to which we shall hereafter allude,
was able to secure the renewed attendance of Edward
Smith, as the medical practitioner who had devoted
most attention to working class and convict diet.
Poor as his science must now seem, it was the best
available at the time. For some years the results
of his researches had been published in pamphlet
form, or among the transactions of learned societies ;
and at the instance of the British Association he had
recently reported elaborately upon the dietaries in
use at the Coldbath Fields Prison, and at the West
Riding Gaol at Wakefield, investigating the strain
produced by various forms of labour by experiments
performed upon himself. It had been his endeavour
to determine the lowest adequate measure which
supplied the human system with the elements of
nutrition in their due proportions. This he fixed at
1,400 grains of carbon and 70 grains of nitrogen. He
considered it a necessary condition for the adoption
of a scientific dietary that the prisoner's mode of life
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1863, ix, 76.
DR. EDWARD SMITH 139
should be assimilated as far as possible to that of the
ordinary labourer, noting that close confinement
admitted of less vital action and less conversion of
food tissue. Under such circumstances the nitrogen-
ous element, which was supplied mainly by meat and
milk, required intensification by a heavier meat diet.
But labour in the open air might, he alleged, be
treated as a positive substitute for meat, and must
therefore be a necessary and constitutional part of
every prison system. In no case must the need for
an increased diet consequent upon intensified labour
be measured directly by the increased waste of the
body, as, whilst the latter might, in the case of tread-
wheel labour, be multiplied five or six times, the con-
sumption of nitrogen did not increase in any propor-
tionate degree. He thought that the needs thus
arising might generally be met by an increase in the
farinaceous foods ; and he prescribed, as the basic
elements of his dietaries, bread, rice, oatmeal, pota-
toes, milk and meat liquor. He advised that food
should be served hot, as in that state it was a vital
stimulant.
Having reached these conclusions, Dr. Smith
naturally looked unfavourably upon the existing
dietaries, which he pronounced injurious to the pri-
soner and a loss to society. He expressed approval
of the cardinal principle underlying Sir James Gra-
ham's dietary, that the prisoners' food should not be
used as an instrument of punishment, but considered
that the dietary itself was conceived without the smal-
lest regard to the value of foodstuffs as scientifically
determined. He declared the lowest classes, ap-
ited for prisoners serving short sentences, to be
utterly inadequate. The nutritive elements of Class
i resolved themselves into 350 grains of carbon and
17^ of nitrogen, as against 1,400 and 70 grains whirh
he had fixed as the minimum. Frequent repetition
of short sentences on such a basis would produce a
most prejudicial effect. The higher classes of dietary
h<- prniiMimrrd over-alni"<l,mt , in view oft' <^es-
iiicc of meat. He pointed to the establish-
I 4 o CENTRAL INSPECTION
ment of a uniform scale of dietary for all prisons as
the ideal to be striven for, and recommended the
appointment of a special committee to undertake
a series of experiments, on the prescribed basis of the
dietary of the agricultural population, accompanied
by light labour and open-air exercise. So soon as
the uniform system of hard labour should be intro-
duced it would become possible to secure uniformity
of diet throughout the whole scale of prison life.
In the meantime the Government had not been
inactive. In November, 1863, a Commission con-
sisting of the medical officers from Millbank, Dart-
moor and Gosport prisons, who had been appointed
some time earlier to inquire into the dietary of con-
vict establishments, was asked by Sir George Grey
to include county and borough gaols within its sphere
of research. In a letter, dated December i8th, it
was explained that the Home Secretary did not
repudiate the fundamental principle of Sir James
Graham's dietary, but interpreted it to mean that
whilst health must be maintained, all approaches to
luxurious living had to be avoided. The familiar
principle was once more solemnly rehearsed that
prison fare was not to compare favourably with that
of free labourers or workhouse inmates. And,
finally the Commission was instructed to inquire into
the advisability of placing long sentence prisoners, at
the very beginning of their terms of imprisonment,
upon the dietary of the class to which they had been
allotted.
The conclusion of the Commission, whose report
was submitted on April 28th, 1864, formed, in some
sense, an answer to the charges and suggestions of the
Committee of the House of Lords. Dr. Edward
Smith was treated with scanty respect. It was
pointed out that his presumed discoveries had been
made under constantly changing circumstances. In
the first instance the experiments had been performed
upon himself and other private individuals ; the
conclusion had then been compared with the cir-
cumstances of Lancashire operatives, persons of
COCOA AS A LUXURY 141
middle age ; and, finally, their results had been ap-
plied to the inmates of prisons, a much younger class
of men, serving five different periods of imprison-
ment, varying from less than one week to more than
four months. It further transpired that tables of
weighing drawn up at three different gaols set forth
results which corresponded in no way with those
recently proclaimed by Dr. Smith as subsisting be-
tween the alleged needs of the human system and
the increase or decrease of weight occasioned by the
several dietaries of 1843. The positive results of
the Commission's labours lost in independence of
character by the admission, at the outset, that scien-
tific experiments could possess only a limited value.
The Commission had therefore felt compelled to
accept in general terms the guidance of the inspectors;
and it pronounced in favour of the Home Office dietary
as adequate to provide a rough practical scale, but
standing in need of modification at almost every
stage. In passing a general criticism on this dietary
they considered it quite impossible to " study this
table without coming to the conclusion that Sir James
Graham did unconsciously introduce a strong penal
element into classes one and two, and a slight element
of luxury into class five ; for, on the one hand, we
have no knowledge of any class of persons who volun-
tarily limit themselves to bread and water gruel for
a week, still less for three weeks at a time, and, on
the other hand, we think that the cocoa in class five
is both pleasant and costly enough to be considered
a luxury." 1
In framing its own scale of diet, the Commission
explained that it had been governed by the principle
of causing all prisoners sentenced to the longer term
to pass through every scale in the dietary. In thU
decision it had been influenced by reports submitted
upon an experiment undertaken at the West Rid
on at Wakefield. On September ist, 1862,
Visiting Justices had sanctioned the adoption of an
exp- ; al diet, in which a more generous allow-
1 Parliament. lix, 569.
CENTRAL INSPECTION
ance of food was to be the reward of industry and
good conduct. They defended this enterprise on
the ground " that their experience and observation
had led them to entertain for some time strong
objections to the existing arrangement by which
prisoners, sentenced for the longer terms of imprison-
ment, were placed on the higher diet assigned to such
terms as soon as they entered the prisons. They
believed that the best arrangement of a prison dietary
would be one by which the prisoner having assigned
to him, at first, the lowest possible diet consistent
with the maintenance of health, should be enabled to
earn by industrious exertion, a diet gradually im-
proved through progressive stages. Common sense
seemed to them to indicate that the amount of food
given should have some relation to the labour under-
gone, and that the natural stimulus offered by having
an object to work for would act beneficially on the
prisoner in a sanitary as well as in an industrial point
of view/' 1 The experimental diet, except for the
Class i prisoners serving ten days or under, exceeded
the ordinary diet in extent, and except for Class i,
the loss of weight occasioned by it was less. Unfor-
tunately for the Commission, the medical officer of the
prison reported unfavourably upon the experiment,
alleging that it resulted in increased mortality, loss
of weight, and failure in health and strength. On
May ist, 1863, the experiment was abandoned at the
instance of the Secretary of State.
The Commissioners, however, were of opinion that
the Visiting Justices had been successful in their
attempt to show that the experimental dietary was
not answerable for this depreciation in the prisoners'
health, urging that these cases of mortality were
exceptional. They, therefore, advocated a resump-
tion of the experiment, and the introduction of its
principles into every county and borough gaol.
To the injunction of the Home Secretary that the
prisoners' fare should not contrast favourably with
tho meals within the reach of the free labourer, the
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1804, xlix, Oo8.
'LESS ELIGIBILITY J
Commissioners returned an answer which deserves
to be quoted. 1 " It is," they said, " extremely
difficult to ascertain what the ordinary food of free
labourers is. Even if the inquiry was limited to that
class of free labourers which is known to be the worst
fed, namely, agricultural labourers, the true facts of
the case would not be readily obtained. And even
if it were to appear that, as a class, their food was
badly chosen, badly cooked, and insufficient in
quantity ... it would not be incumbent upon us in
framing dietaries for prisoners, to imitate their bad
example, or to conform ourselves to their exceptional
circumstances. The duty which the authorities have
to discharge in respect of the diet of prisoners, seems
to us to be strictly analogous to that which they
already perform in regard to other matters which
involve their health and strength ; and just as it
would not be right to subject our prisoners to the
dirt, overcrowding, and defective ventilation to
which the majority of them had been exposed when
they were free, so ought it to be with their food. The
quality and amount of it ought to be determined,
not by the standard of any class of labourers, but by
the actual necessities arising out of the prisoners'
altered circumstances. ... Of the able-bodied in-
mates of the workhouse, we will only observe that,
while they differ materially from the prisoner in the
consciousness which they have of freedom to quit
their temporary asylum, they can only be brought
into comparison with prisoners under short sentences,
for whom even Sir James Graham provided a scanty
and unattractive dietary."
The difficulty occasioned by the diverse kinds of
" hard labour," the Commissioners attempted to
meet by suggesting that " no labour which does not
visibly quicken the breath and open the pores should
be described as hard "; and they held it to be more
economical to " apportion the punishment to the
diet than to raise tin- diet to the level of the punish-
ment."
1 1'
144 CENTRAL INSPECTION
Guided by these considerations, the Commissioners
adopted a scheme which they calculated would save
the nation 16,000 a year. It is set forth in the
accompanying table.
This dietary represents the last attempt to arrive
at uniformity during the rule of the local authorities.
The result is made clear by Sir George Grey's words
in the House of Commons during the debates in the
Prisons Bill of 1865. "I sent," he said, 1 "the
dietary tables, suggested by the Committee to whom
this subject was referred, to the -authorities of every
prison in the kingdom. In some prisons they have
been adopted, and in other reasons have been given
for not adopting them. . . . They have brought me
to the conclusion that you cannot lay down abso-
lutely a fixed dietary scale, and that if you have a
maximum and a minimum the difference would be so
wide that it would be of little use. The recommenda-
tions of the Committee, however, have led to improve-
ment in the existing dietary tables, and to a greater
approximation to uniformity than has prevailed at
any former period." The result of forty years of
" chipping and changing " in prison diet was to leave
the question practically as unsettled as ever. The
results of particular dietaries were, in fact, scarcely
more definitely ascertained than the objects and pur-
poses to be aimed at were agreed upon.
(c) The Enforcement of Penal Labour
The subject of prison labour has already demanded
some attention as presenting difficulties in the ad-
ministration of cellular confinement, and as a ques-
tion to be solved before any satisfactory scheme of
diet could be adopted. In some respects it raised
more issues than any other topic of prison discipline.
It was not only the field upon which the protagonists
of an exclusively penal and deterrent regimen met the
advocates of reformatory treatment, but it was beset
with difficulties of a technical nature in connection
1 Hansard, Vol. 177, 1865, Feb. 13, p. 217.
THE NEW DIETARIES
145
a
a
31
CO X
= s
S^
fl
PH
1
Wllfl 2 i
*1V P.
"S <D ' ) 3 "o "o *P -r "o*
liJlll'lE gg
1
g 00 "p, 00 "p, M PO ^-O M J
oo o "a,
M ^
M
a
t00".00 OfO'TOc^ I
SS M M M |
00 00 "p,
hH
gOO "Q^ O "p\ O N M- M 00 J
M M
oo oo "p.
Class II.
"0 0," 1 M ^ll ONI
H
j
u
* o | o I oo j o I 1 o
O 00 1
g>~
^2*p
S5 ifi 1
Tuesdays (Bread
Thursdays ] Potatoes
Saturdays (Soup
f : I 111
W en S^cy
I 4 6 CENTRAL INSPECTION
with the interpretation of the term " hard labour, "
d in the Acts of 1824 and 1835. Finally, it
brought the life of the prison into immediate touch
with the outer world, through the competition of
prison industry with capitalist enterprise and free
labour.
We have seen that the previous era of prison reform
had called into being a special instrument, the tread-
wheel, for providing the prisoners with penal and
irksome work. The cellular system now called for a
new invention which was supplied in the crank,
devised about 1846 by one Gibbs, of Pentonville. 1
In the early years of the period under review the
crank was widely adopted, being installed either
wholly in the prisoner's cell, or with its regulative
machinery outside the cell. The whole field of
prison industry ranged between institutions such as
Coldbath Fields Prison, where a sternly punitive un-
productive system of labour was enforced, and those
such as that of Wakefield, which aimed avowedly
at fitting their inmates for the pursuits of an indus-
1 Report of Survey or- General of Prisons, 1847, p. 17. As seen, about
1860, at Coldbath Fields Prison the crank is thus described : " Crank
labour consists in making 10,000 revolutions of a machine resembling in
appearance a Kent's Patent Knife Cleaner, for it is a narrow iron drum
placed on legs, with a long handle on one side, which, when turned, causes
a series of cups or scoops in the interior to revolve. At the lower part of the
interior of the machine is a thick layer of sand, which the cups, as they
come round, scoop up, and carry to the top of the wheel, where they throw
it out and empty themselves, after the principle of a dredging machine. A
dial-plate, fixed in front of the iron drum, shows how many revolutions the
machine has made. It is usual to shut up in a cell the man sent to crank
labour, so that the exercise is rendered doubly disagreeable by the solitude.
... As may easily be conceived, this labour is very distressing and severe.
... A man can make, if he work with ordinary speed, about twenty
revolutions a minute, and this, at 1,200 the hour, would make his task
of 10,000 turns last eight hours and twenty minutes." (The Crim-
inal Prisons of London, by Henry Mayhew and John Binny, 1862,
p. 308.)
I u its modern form (see the description in Appendix 15 to Annual Report
of the Prison Commissioners for 1879) the crank handle turned a cylindrical
drum, to which clip- brakes of various construction were applied so as to
retard its motion by friction. These clip-brakes had admittedly failed
in the past to supply a resistance which could be relied on as " definite,
uniform and constant, under all circumstances " ; but it was contended, in
1879, that these mechanical imperfections had been overcome, and that it
was then possible to instal machines in each cell " by which the amount of
force exerted by any prisoner could be measured as easily as his ration of
food could be weighed." We do not find that the prisoners were convinced
of this undeviating constancy.
EFFECT OF TREAD-WHEEL 147
trious existence. Between these two extremes lay
almost every kind of occupation. There was the
type which frankly stood to make the prison self-
supporting, as in the County Gaol at Dorchester,
where in 1838 the inspectors found the inmates
engaged in almost every form of simple industry, of
which the annual profits occasionally approached a
hundred pounds. On the other hand, there were
instances of most futile attempts to conform to Home
Office instructions. In 1852, at the County House
of Correction at Wisbech, the inspector saw the occu-
pants engaged in the useful and instructive task of
separating white and black oats, " three pints being
considered the day's work."
There seems undoubtedly to have been a powerful
opposition to unproductive penal labour from the
very outset on the part of persons who represented
the various elements collected around prison life.
In 1837, the governor of the House of Correction
at Coldbath Fields, George Laval Chesterton, who
readily admitted a reputation for unflinching severity,
described at length the risks to health attendant upon
the infliction of tread- wheel punishment. " The
prisoners," 1 he said, " coming off the wheels warm,
for relief, and sitting in that state, on the stages,
must be bad. I think tread- wheel labour injurious
to the health of some of the prisoners to corpulent,
or infirm, and aged, or tall persons ; but not to boys,
lads, or men of light weight, if in good health. . . .
I find that the men in general are greatly distressed,
after three months' continuous labour, but tall and
heavy men in a less time ; they fall away in flesh,
get into bad condition, and become generally de-
pressed ; the effect upon those who had been addicted
to hard drinking, and who are sentenced to very
long terms of imprisonment, is, in most cases, seri-
ously injurious to the system. . . . With regard to
women, I believe tread-wheel labour, if judiciously
used, is highly beneficial to health, particularly in
I'.ipers, I-M;. ; see also his Revc
Prison Lift, 1856, V.-I I. pp. 324-5.
148 CENTRAL INSPECTION
s of disorderly women, prostitutes, etc., com-
mitted for periods not exceeding three months, and
who generally come into prison in a deplorable
condition from drink and intemperance, and quit it in
good health. ... I do not think that the state of the
mind produced by tread- wheel labour is favourable to
moral reformation. It is more severely felt by some
prisoners than others. It decidedly gives rise to
every deception and falsehood. The prisoners oc-
casionally attempt to avoid taking their turn ; they
watch opportunities for this purpose ; they deceive
the doctor ; they feign sickness of various kinds
(seldom on meat days, however, unless after dinner).
. . . There is scarcely a man who comes here sen-
tenced to hard labour, who, by his own account, has
not had some most afflicting illness, or met with
some serious accident disabling him from hard work.
This state of mind cannot be favourable to reforma-
tion. . . ." The inspectors in the general survey
of 1843 expressed an even more outspoken disap-
proval of this mode of punishment, and urged its
confinement within the narrowest limits. " We are
of opinion/' they said, 1 " that tread-wheel labour is
often very unequal in its operation, and that, under
certain circumstances, it is prejudicial to health,
particularly where there is predisposition to disease ;
that in default of proper precaution it exposes the
prisoners to serious accidents ; and that it is liable to
abuse. For three reasons, therefore, and in order to
check the excessive use of the tread-wheel labour, we
are of opinion :
1. That tread-wheel labour is improper for
females.
2. That tread- wheel labour is improper for boys
under fourteen years of age.
3. That no prisoner who is not sentenced to hard
labour should under any circumstances be
placed an the tread-wheel.
4. That no prisoner should be placed upon the
1 Parliamentary JPapers, 1843, xxv, xxvi,^6.
OPINIONS AS TO TREAD-WHEEL
tread-wheel, or put to other hard labour,
without the previous permission of the Medi-
cal Officer.
. . . We are of opinion that it is very desirable that
useful employment, with the necessary materials and
instructions, should be provided for all prisoners,
in order that all convicted prisoners sentenced to
hard labour, but not placed on the tread-wheel, and
all prisoners sentenced to simple imprisonment
(except those of the first division) may be put to
work ; and that prisoners before trial, debtors, and
misdemeanants of the first division, may have the
option of employment/'
In 1850 the surgeon to the House of Correction at
Kirton-in-Lindsay spoke in the following terms of the
tread-wheel as a factor in the greater frequency of
illness and in the impaired moral of the inmates of
that gaol. ' Before the tread-wheel was intro-
duced," he said, 1 " there was much less illness than
there has been since. . . . The majority of prisoners,
except the skulkers, lose in weight. It is im-
possible by any vigilance to prevent this skulking
to escape the tread-wheel. Some of the prisoners are
sure to baffle you. They frequently swallow soap,
which has the effect of purging them and bringing on
a low fever, during the continuance of which it is
impossible to put a man on the wheel. They formerly
ate large quantities of salt, in order to bring on fever,
and to prevent this they were deprived of their salt
bags. ... I think it very desirable as a matter of
health, as well as in a moral point of view, that some
other employment should be substituted for the
tread-wheel labour ; and as an immediate measure,
I would recommend that, during the last quarter
of an hour before breakfast, and the last half-hour
before dinner and supper, the prisoners should leave
thr wheel and walk about to cool themselves gradu-
ally, instead of going straight into the cold passages
to get their meals."
Governing opinion, however, seems to have looked
1 Parliamcntai , 1850, xxviii, 442.
.150 CENTRAL INSPECTION
upon strictly penal labour with a consistently f avour-
!e eye. Such, at least, is the inference which it
would seem proper to draw from the resolutions of
the two Committees. In regard to the first, the
Committee of 1850, we may treat the predominant
motive as a desire to fulfil the injunctions of the two
Prison Acts. For, apart from an approving refer-
rnce to the universal infliction of crank labour at
Leicester County Gaol, the subject is directly ap-
proached only in the twenty-fifth Resolution of the
Report, where the opinion is expressed that " pro-
vision ought to be made in every prison for enforcing
sentences of imprisonment with hard labour/'
In the evidence given before that Committee almost
every aspect of the subject was touched upon.
Labour of a predominantly agricultural character
found a warm advocate in Charles Pearson, to whose
efforts the appointment of the committee was largely
due. He defended it as readily learned, susceptible
of considerable variation and beneficial to the health
of prisoners. He laid stress upon its economic
merits, drawn from the cheapness of the appliances
required, and the remunerative character of its out-
put. Captain Maconochie, governor of Birmingham
Borough Gaol, opened another line of inquiry by
stating that a gentleman of Birmingham had pro-
tested against the adoption of productive labour as
involving the menace of unfair competition with free
labourers. This particular anxiety was no doubt
powerful in hindering many gaols from having re-
course to industrial occupations, one of the Leicester-
shire Visiting Justices telling the Committee that the
County Prison had refrained from introducing the
local industry of stocking frames, as the authori-
ties anticipated that, while the real influence of such
a step upon the markets must be very slight, a fierce
outcry would be raised, exaggerating it beyond
measure.
The subject of prisoners' earnings was variously
regarded. The chaplain of Durham Gaol thought it
desirable that prisoners should be allowed to earn
THE CRANK 151
a certain sum, which they might receive on their
discharge as a means of giving them a fresh start.
In opposition to this, the Earl of Chichester, a Com-
missioner of Pentonville, said that at Millbank each
prisoner had received at one time the full amount of
his earnings, but this practice had been found to
neutralize the penal aspect of imprisonment, and
had been abandoned. Crank-labour was attacked
and defended with equal warmth. The prison in-
spector, J. G. Perry, considered it extremely injurious
as the prisoner felt himself degraded by the unpro-
ductive character of the work, which gave rise to
increased animosity against the law and its officers.
They, in their turn, found in their power to vary the
intensity of labour an opportunity of gratifying their
spite against any individual prisoner.
The chaplain of Bath Prison repeated these charges
adding that the crank offered no real index of the
labour expended. He considered that the appoint-
ment of a task which left the prisoner entirely depen-
dent upon the warders' goodwill justified him in
describing crank-work as a species of " torture."
Moreover, its futility as a deterrent was demonstrated
by the fact that, notwithstanding these elements of
intense severity, committals became no less fre-
quent.
The advocates of the crank quite frankly grounded
their case upon its harshness and irksome severity.
One of the directors of the Government Convict
Prisons, Captain O'Brien, considered that it possessed
advantage of being readily adaptable to the phy-
sical capacity and condition of the health of every
prisoner. Amongst its warmest defenders were the
governor and the chaplain of Leicester County Prison,
the year 1848 crank labour was in this gaol
extended to all convicted prisoners sentenced to 1
labour. The work was of a very severe character,
mum of 14,000 revolutions being daily de-
manded of each adult male prisoner. In consequence
there were numerous cases of fniluiv to accomplish
the appointed task, and punishments rained thick
I 5 2 CENTRAL INSPECTION
and fast. During a single month (January, 1849)
the punishment of confinement in the solitary cells
ordered on as many as eighty-five occasions, and
floggings were proportionately numerous. Hespair
and insubordination became rife, and the inspectors
took note of " that dogged spirit of resistance that
is eminently characteristic of the inmates of this
prison. 1 ' Still unshaken in their conviction of the
excellence of task-work on the crank, and desirous
of avoiding an increase in the number of floggings,
the Visiting Justices, acting entirely upon their own
authority, modified the character of the labour so
as to make punishment the immediate and unavoid-
able consequence of a failure to carry out the ap-
pointed task. They adopted the simple expedient
of making the prisoners 1 meals dependent upon the
performance of a certain amount of labour. Thus,
1,800 revolutions were required to earn breakfast,
4,500 more for dinner, 5,400 for supper, leaving still
2,700 to be performed afterwards. This system
continued in force until May, 1852, by which time
the very numerous cases in which privation of meals
was inflicted had given rise to a dropsical disease
termed " crank oedema," which at last caught the
inspectors' attention. On crank work, in general,
the following judgment was passed in the report of
the Royal Commission. 1 " We think . . . that ^it
ought to be applied only to persons confined for short
terms of imprisonment, whom it may be difficult, per-
haps impracticable, to train to industrial labour. In
the next place, we think it ought to be applied, not
in separate cells but in association, in a large apart-
ment, or a detached building. . . . When the pri-
soner is working at the crank machine alone within his
cell, the means of increasing the intensity of the
labour, with or without his knowledge, being in the
hands of the prison officer . . . the prisoner will be
almost sure ... to conceive the belief that the
intensity of the labour has been arbitrarily and for
mere purposes of severity, increased by the prison
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1854, xxxiv, p. xiii.
CRITICISM OF THE CRANK 153
officer, and thus a feeling of irritation against the
prison authorities is daily engendered. 11
The special use to which the crank had been put at
Leicester was condemned as constituting an infringe-
ment of the Act of 1824. 'We entertain/' they
said, " also strong objection to task-labour which is
not of a productive or industrial description ; nor do
we think that such labour, as it is tasked at the crank-
machines, is strictly in conformity with the provisions
of the loth Section of the Gaol Act, 4 Geo. IV. Cap.
64, which enacts that every prisoner shall be employed
so many hours in every day, not exceeding ten . . .
and clearly indicates that continuous hard labour
during the day, not dependent upon the completion
of a set task, was contemplated by the legislature/'
After pointing out that the crank was introduced
to provide a deterring influence which seemed to be
demanded by the well aired and decently furnished
cell under the Separate System, the Commissioners
continued i 1 ' We are of opinion that it would be
desirable altogether to discontinue the present system
of tasked labour at the crank machine, and to sub-
stitute for it continuous labour during the day, with
intervals of rest, as it has been practised at the tread-
wheel ; the cranks, when so used, being set at the
same fixed weight for all prisoners. ..."
It is thus clear that there was a considerable body
pinion hostile to purely penal labour, and in some
mces in favour of the substitution of industii'l
and product i\ . The House of Lords Commit-
tee of 1863 provided another opportunity of stating
the position. Both inspectors condemned the crank
in much the same terms as they had employed
thirteen years before, and the Chairman of the Berk-
shire Justices roundly stated that it had proved ,i
failure, adding :* ' You may tell a man that he shall
work so many turns and have no breakfast, as was tin-
case at Birmingham, so many turns or no dinner, or so
many turns and no supper, but it was found that,
iry Papers, 1854, xxxiv, p. x;
* Ibid., i
i 5 4 NTRAL INSPECTION
first of all, there is something in the Saxon blood
which every now and then rebels, and you cannot
make a man work ; then what are you to do ? At
Birmingham the food was withdrawn, and the men
at last became so ill that some of them died. There
- a great inquiry into the matter in a court of law,
and the result was, that the governor was sentenced
to three months' imprisonment/' The governor of
Taunton Gaol said that vagrant and workhouse
offenders were quite undeterred by the prospect of
crank labour. The most genuinely idle men, to
meet whose cases it was specially designed, regarded
it without dismay. In his prison it was reserved as a
punishment for acts of insubordination.
It is interesting to note theft on this occasion, in
addition to the usual arguments advanced in favour
of industrial labour, it was contended that a distinctly
penal element might be imported into it. One
prison inspector, J. G. Perry, urged that such occu-
pations might be regulated to suit each man's strength,
since anyone acquainted with the trade could easily
judge whether a prisoner was working up to his full
capacity. He stated that it had been found parti-
cularly beneficial for criminals convicted as receivers,
vagrants, trained and habitual thieves, and men com-
mitted for murderous assaults. His brother inspec-
tor suggested the introduction of task work into
industrial occupations as a means of executing sen-
tences of hard labour. The Governor of Taunton
Gaol considered that the same end might have been
attained by lengthening the hours of labour ; making
a statutory day's work consist of eleven hours.
The desire for uniformity, together with the power-
ful voice of Colonel (afterwards Sir Joshua) Jebb,
easily carried the day. The House of Lords Com-
mittee summed up with an almost vindictive
emphasis in favour of tread-wheel and crank.
Pointing out that an undesirably wide variety
of methods of enforcing hard labour existed, the
Committee considered it urgently necessary to
secure an authoritative definition of the term by Act
THE MINISTER'S DECISION 155
of Parliament. It was most undesirable that the
wish to foster industrious habits or to make prison
labour remunerative should in any way hamper the
enforcement of hard labour as a penal measure.
Moreover it was doubtful whether industrial labour
in prisons could ever be continuously remunerative.
The Committee declared itself unable to accept the
statement that the crank or tread-wheel produced an
irritating or deteriorating effect on the prisoner ; and
it registered a special protest against the terms ad-
vanced by Inspector Perry. Nothing but the tread-
wheel, the crank and shot drill, could, in the opinion
of their lordships, be fitly described as hard labour.
The Committee further proposed that, in default of a
complete uniformity which the varying lengths of
sentence rendered impossible, a daily working period
of eight hours should be awarded to hard labour
prisoners during the first three months of their first
year's imprisonment, and of six hours for the second
three months. This recommendation, it was pointed
out, fell far short of giving practical effect to the
powers of punishment sanctioned by the Act of
1824.
The findings of the Committee were intended to
influence the Secretary of State in drafting his Bill.
He, however, asked the inspectors for their views
upon the verdict of the Committee. The inspectors
once more denied that the tread-wheel, crank or
shot drill constituted the only employment which
could justly be designated hard labour, which was
rather the fitting term to be bestowed upon any
occupation whatever when imposed by task. They
repeated their former statements as to the inequali
involved in labour at the two first-named machines
! the failure of such tasks to exert a deterring influ-
ence ; and they added that shot drill had already
been abandoned at Coldbath Fields Prison. They
strongly advocated oakum picking as easily adjust-
able to each prisoner's powers and as permitting of
work in solitude in his own cell. The uncertainty
produced in the Home Secretary's mind by these irre-
i 5 6 CENTRAL INSPECTION
concilable divergences was reflected in his introduc-
tion of the Bill. " It is very easy/' he observed, 1 " to
say that certain employments shall be considered
hard labour, but it is impossible without subjecting
the authorities of prisons to great inconvenience, and
depriving them of their fair discretion, to say, as
recommended by the House of Lords Committee,
that hard labour shall consist of nothing else but the
tread- wheel, crank and shot drill. ... I propose,
therefore, to enumerate certain kinds of hard labour,
with a view to indicate generally the views of Parlia-
ment in the subject. After that I should propose to
give to the Visiting Justices, with the concurrence
of the Secretary of State, a discretion as to what
kind of hard labour shall be adopted where the enum-
erated kinds are not or cannot be enforced. A maxi-
mum of hours . . . now exists by law. I propose
that that shall be also a minimum to be undergone
by persons during the earlier part of a prisoner's
sentence. I have adopted this view after communi-
cation with persons of experience, who think it
extremely desirable, in order to stimulate the indus-
try and good conduct of prisoners, that power should
be given to the magistrates to diminish even the
minimum amount of hard labour after a certain
period of the sentence has expired."
In the 1865 Act, in its final form, the subject of
labour received but scanty notice. It was laid down
that hard labour should be divided into two classes,
the first comprising work upon the tread-wheel,
crank, shot drill, stone-breaking and kindred occu-
pations ; while the second should admit of any hard
bodily exertion that the Justices might provide.
Not a word was said of industrial labour, unless,
indeed, by way of implied condemnation in the speci-
fic injunction that every prison in which prisoners
under sentence of hard labour were confined must
provide the necessary appliances for executing the
sentence. The Home Office was plainly hostile to
any development of industrial or remunerative labour
1 Hansard, Vol. 177, 1865, Feb. 13, pp. 215-6.
THE DANGER OF WRITING 157
in gaols, but the Minister thought it more discreet
not expressly to prohibit it.
(d) Two Prison Reformers and a Scandal
These three questions, the merits of the separate
system, the principles of prison diet, and the charac-
ter of prison labour, were, so far as concenied prisons,
the main problems of legislators and administrators
during this period. Great diligence and not a little
ingenuity was shown by the Home Office in comply-
ing with the demands of the Acts of Parliament whilst
nevertheless leaving some margin for local conditions
or the exigencies of special cases. But it is impossible
to avoid the conviction that the failure of prison
administration of these years lay less in unwise
decisions upon points of administrative detail, than in
the refusal to conceive of the prison regimen as a
whole. What was important was the net result on the
prisoner's body and mind of his sojourn in gaol a
topic that needed fresh study by courageous minds
prepared to ignore the phraseology of Acts of Parlia-
ment. To this deficiency must be ascribed the very
scanty attention paid by prison inspectors and Par-
liamentary Committees alike to the subject of the
prisoners' education. In the majority of gaols a
perfunctory compliance with the tenth regulation of
the Gaol Act was the utmost limit of mental training.
Even in prisons like Norwich Castle, where the magis-
trates were sufficiently enthusiastic to enforce a love
of learning under the penalty of close confinement
in his cell for the defaulter, the instruction must L
been derisory in view of the statement of the chaplain
that " in no case has he suffered them (the prisoners)
to learn to write except as a stimulant to further
improvements ; he promises that they shall learn
to write, as soon as they have got to a certain point
in reading." This curious prejudice was shared by
11 ic chaplain of Swaffham House of Correction, who
told the inspectors that it would be " very disadvan-
tageous -rodiicthv of evil, if the prisoners u
I 5 8 CENTRAL INSPECTION
taught to write/' With regard to teaching writing
and arithmetic at Reading, "the chaplain feels]Jthat
much discretion ought to be used in communicating
this extent of secular knowledge to criminals. Such
instruction might prove injurious both to the culprit
himself and to society. . . . It is only, therefore, when
the feelings and conduct of an offender give the hope
of his reformation, that instruction, beyond that of
teaching to read, is imparted/' 1 Where a library
-ted, the books were not of a character to awaken
a taste for literature in those who, in the most favour-
Le instances, had only a rudimentary facility in
ding and writing. At Maidstone Gaol the books
had been assembled under the chaplain's direction
I comprised " 13 Volumes of Tracts, 2 Volumes
Cheap Repository Tracts, 2 Volumes of Bishop
ilson's Sermons, Bishop Home on the Psalms, Law's
Serious Call, Josephus on the Jewish Wars, Burnet on
the Psalms, Bishop Watson's Apology, Bishop
Porteous' Evidences, Jones on the Trinity, Bishop
Hall's Comfort to the Afflicted " ; and we read also of
Leslie's Short Method with the Deists ; and the same
author's Short and Ready Method with the Jews*
Such an absurd collection was by no means pecu-
liar to Maidstone. In fact, education in gaol meant,
to the chaplains of the time, little more than the
i eduction of the prisoners to a state of abject sub-
mission supposed to be produced by compelling them
to contemplate pictures of the eternal sufferings to
vx'hich they were destined.
In contrast with the obtuseness of prison adminis-
trators of this period appears the work of two re-
formers, of whom one devoted himself to direct legis-
lative action, whilst the other tried experiments in
prison regimen within the limits that the law im-
posed.
The first, Charles Pearson, 8 belongs to the generation
educated by Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir T. Fowell
1 Prison Discipline, by J. Field, second edition, 1848, Vol. I, p. 158.
8 Parliamentary Papers, 1837, xxxii, 387.
As to Charles Pearson, who is not included in the Dictionary of National
Biography, see The Prison Chaplain, by W. L. Clay, 1861, pp. 256-60.
CHARLES PEARSON 159
Buxton. He was, he tells us, 1 " Under-Sheriff of
London and Middlesex for the years 1832, 1833,
and 1834. During that time I may say that I almost
resided in the prisons of the City. I ... made a
close investigation of the circumstances and motives
of action of the prisoners confined there. I have for
the last third of a century, visited almost every
prison in every town that I have been in, both at home
and abroad ; and I have read every work which has
been published within my reach upon the subject.
I have filled the stituation of Chairman of a Commit-
tee of the Corporation for the administration of
justice, whose duty it was to inquire into these sub-
jects ; and I now hold the office of City Solicitor,
which is in the nature of a public prosecutor in the
City, and my duties and habits have led me to a
close and constant examination of all matters con-
nected with prisons and prison discipline/'
In 1847 he secured election to the House of Com-
mons (for Lambeth) solely for the purpose of securing
a decisive hearing to his views on prison reform.
In January, 1849, ne ne ^ a sor ^ f convention of
prison reformers in the City of London, at which he
expounded his plans during six days' sessions. On
May isth of the same year he moved for the appoint-
ment of a committee to report on the practicability
of establishing a uniform system of prison discipli
The Home Secretary promised to grant a committee
early in the following session, and it was appointed
in February, 1850. Pearson was naturally included
in its membership ; but he also gave evidence before
it, developing his opinions at length and embodying
them in a separate report. His scheme was a med
administrative reforms and wildly impi
ticable schemes of making prison labour economically
profitable ; and it is < hieny interesting as foreshad-
owing some of the changes actually adopted in 1877.
men th.it should be
i>ut what 1
mniul nn
IPCTS, 1850. X
CENTRAL INSPECTION
themselves than the deterrence of the whole class
from which they were drawn. A true intellectualist,
Tie thought that if prison life was widely known to be
irksome and hard, the potential criminal would weigh
discomfort against the difficulties of free labour ;
and that he would reach in his own mind, the con-
clusion that " Liberty was the best policy/' His
powerful criticism of the existing system struck at
the whole method of dealing with crime, from the
sentence of the judge to the minutest detail in the
administration of the gaol. He quoted statistics
to show that committals had increased within three-
quarters of a century more than tenfold ; from 1,174
in a year in Howard's time to 13,422 in a year shortly
before 1850. After making allowance for the growth
of population and the increased vigilance of the
police, Pearson saw the main cause of the increase
of criminals in the comfort of modern prison life.
This he contrasted with the ordinary workmen's
existence in the following terms : "I am," he said, 1
" stating a fact, and an opinion founded on my
experience, that inasmuch as prisoners are now
better lodged, better fed, better taught, better
attended medically, and that the education and
moral and religious instruction, and all the ma-
terial and comforts of life are greater for p isoners
than they are for people in free life, the convic-
tion produced upon my mind is, that to this state
of things is to be attributed a large amount of
the increase of petty offences, by which persons
find a refuge in a gaol ; and that the old system,
wicked and bad as it was, did deter prisoners from
the commission of crime. ..." For an ideal prison
administration, he proposed* " as one branch of
punishment, enforced silence, perfect and absolute
silence. ... I contemplate ... a restriction to
seven hours sleep. There is nothing that a criminal
so much covets as that dreamy, drowsy, lazy, idle,
yawning, imaginative state, between sleeping and
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1850, xvii, 472.
2 Ibid., 1850, xvii, 509.
PEARSON'S PLAN 161
waking, when he is living, as it were, in an imagina-
tive world. There is nothing which is calculated so
to rivet upon a man his evil passions and feelings,
as the habit which is fostered in our gaols of permit-
ting, if not compelling, a man to be in a warm bed
for 10 hours, such as we have heard of, between the
sheets in a warm hammock, in a warm room at
Reading. To tame the fiercest animals we resort to
the privation of sleep, and there is no criminal who
would not feel the utmost repugnance to that mono-
tony of life which stinted him to a small measure
of sleep, and required him to observe strictly the
hours prescribed. JLpropose . . . that instead of a
soiiJiammock lie shall be on a hard bed. . . . The
life of a prisoner should be punishment. ... I
propose that, lie shall be fed with the zero diet of the
gaol, water and coarse bread. ... I propose that he
shall wear a coarse parti-coloured prison dress, I
have no sympathy for the humanity that spares the
nice feelings of a criminal by rejecting a prison dress ;
it is necessary for security ; it is necessary for dis-
tinction ; and, in my judgment, it is one of the exi-
gencies of a sound system of prison discipline that
convicted prisoners should be all clothed in a prison
dress."
With this discipline Pearson sought to combine
pecuniary reparation for the offence committed
against society thereby actually fostering habits of
industry ; and to this end he proposed a drastic
alteration of the sentences of imprisonment. " I
contemplate," he urged before the committee, 1
" that the Secretary of State shall be entitled to
commute the sentence of years or months, which
shall have been passed by the Court, into a number of
hon >ur, reckoning each day as ten hours, so
that in case of a sentence of a year's imprisonment,
it would be a sentence for 3,000 hours of labour ;
taking 300 days in the year as the probable days of
health and labour, and taking ten hours as being the
mean quantity required. I propose that the prisoner
vliamcntary Papers, 1850, xvn. 511.
CENTRAL INSPECTION
shall be allowed to work out his liberation by his
industry at that rate ; and that an hour's work shall
entitle him to a halfpenny worth of food. ..."
To effect these reforms, the whole administration
had to be changed. The Secretary of State was to be
entrusted with the duty of translating the sentences
of the Court into terms applicable to the conditions
of life. Pearson proposed that "all prisoners sen-
tenced to reformatory punishment for any period
between three months and four years, ought to suffer
their sentence in district prisons, to be erected and
maintained out of the Consolidated Fund, under the
inspection of a Prison Board, responsible to Parlia-
ment, and acting under the authority of the Secretary
of State/'
" Such district prisons should be placed in suitable
situations adjoining, or near to, the great trunk
railways, and should be constructed in the most
economical form consistent with the health and
safe keeping of the criminals, with a sufficient
quantity of enclosed land for their labour and main-
tenance.
" One uniform system of penitentiary punishment
should be adopted in such district prisons, with a
view to the punishment and reformation of criminals,
under the supervision of the proposed Prison Board
... a considerable portion of time (say 28 hours per
week) should be devoted to public and private wor-
ship and mental and moral instruction, with seasons
of solitude for reflection and self-examination ; . . .
each prisoner^should rest in a separate cell and should
be allowed only a stinted number of hours (say
52 per week) for sleep on an iron or guardroom bed-
stead, with a mat, and as much bedding as is requisite
for needful warmth and health ; ... as well for
punishment as to prevent mutual contamination,
silence and non-intercourse between the prisoners
ought to be constantly enforced ; that they should
be required to perform continuous and hard work, to
defray the charges of the establishment, and that the
quantity and quality of their diet, and the duration
'FARMING' THE LABOUR 163
of their imprisonment, should be made dependent
upon their good conduct and amount of labour,
reckoning a given number of hours' work (say ten) as
cancelling one day of the sentence of the court.
" To teach prisoners to obtain dominion over their
own actions, and to acquire fixed habits of industry
and self-control, Mr. Pearson's plan . . . proposes
further to stimulate the exercise of these indispen-
sable requisites to a permanent reformation, by
awarding to the most industrious and best conducted
prisoners small gratuities, to be accumulated for
them on their discharge, or, at their own option,
to be applied in keeping alive domestic and social
sympathies, by supplying some relief, however small,
to their families, ofttimes suffering the extremities of
destitution and disgrace from the misconduct of those
to whom, by all the laws of God and man they had a
right to look for protection and support/' 1
A characteristic detail remains to be stated.
Pearson mistrusted the Government as manufacturer,
and advised that the prisoners' labour should be left
to contractors, 8 on the principle that, taking as an
example agriculture, the contractor should pay a
fixed rate for land, labour, and manure to the Govern-
ment, and supply the needs of the prison at a fixed
tariff, deriving his profit from the surplus. Assuming
the prison to house 1,000 prisoners, 500 would be
employed upon the land, the remainder working at
other trades to meet the needs of prison life, in ac-
lance with their former occupations. These also
would be employed by contract, the contractors
sending in their own officers to supervise the work,
subject merely to the approval of the Government.
This project was supported by the evidence of an
experienced agriculturist, who undertook to con-
trar iod of years, paying lod. a day for th<
daily labour of 500 prisoners. He professed him
ready to pay, at the expiration of two years, an addi-
sum of 500 a year for the land and rmnuiv.
1 r Mry Papers. 1850, xvii, p. xxi
1 Ibid., 1850, xvii, ,483.
CENTRAL INSPECTION-
upon a contract to supply officers and prisoners at
ordinary prices with all the food they might require.
Two architects estimated the cost of a penitentiary
on Pearson's lines, with all accessories, at less than
80,000.
me of prison reform, the outcome of
mucli study and practical experience, which had the
approval of some competent prison administrators, 1
ended with the Committee of 1850. . The Committee
referred to it in terms of vague appreciation, but
said that circumstances forbade its immediate reali-
>n.
What was destined to be the last generation of the
local administration of prisons was marked by many
small experiments, but these were only in the details
of gaol administration, and contemplated nothing
beyond minor improvements. The figure of Cap-
tain Alexander Maconochie, is therefore, unique as
one who was permitted to make actual trial of a
system which avowedly demanded, as an essential
condition of its fulfilment, a sweeping revision not
only of prison methods but of society's whole outlook
upon crime. 8 The system of punishment which he
1 Revelations of Prison Life, by G. L. Chesterton, 1856, Vol. II, pp.
6-10, 48-52. On the other side, see Substance of a Speech in reply to the
Objections against Separate Confinement by C. Pearson, Rev. S. Field, 1849 ;
and A Common-sense View of the Treatment of Criminals, with remarks on
C. Pearson's plan, by Rev. J. Kingsmill, 1850.
1 Seven years later, at the very end of his life, Pearson tried to set on
foot a public agitation. He wrote to the Lord Mayor of London, speaking
in bitter terms of the Committee's neglect of his work, and calling upon
the City to lead the way in a new campaign of prison reform. But he
was not heeded. (What is to be Done with Criminals ? by Charles Pearson,
1857-)
Alexander Maconochie (1787-1860), after service in the Royal Navy,
in which he attained the rank of captain, became secretary to the Governor
of Van Diemen's Land, and afterwards held appointments in the penal
establishments, where he published his Thoughts on Convict Management,
and other subjects connected with the Australian Penal Colonies, 1839. In
1846 he published Crime and Punishment, in many ways a remarkable
book, which gained him no little notoriety in the little world of prison
reformers. Appointed to be governor of the Birmingham Prison in 1849,
he sought to put in operation his " mark " system, but the experiment
was brought to an end in 1851 by his enforced retirement, as the Justices
disapproved of his leniency. His assistant, Lieutenant Austin, appointed
to succeed him, became infamous by the cruelties practised on the prisoners.
Maconochie published various pamphlets, including The Mark System
and Prison Discipline, 1845, 1846, and 1855 ; On National^ Education as
bearing on Crime, 1855 ; and Prison Discipline, 1856, making more than
CAPTAIN MACONOCHIE 165
had designed was much more deeply rooted in psycho-
logy than at first sight appears. Scientific penology
was then practically unknown in England ; and
Maconochie, an officer in the Royal Navy, did not
express his reasoning upon human nature in scientific
terms, or, indeed, in language that did justice to his
real, though necessarily imperfect, penetration. But
a single paragraph, the conclusion to his book,
entitled Crime and Punishment, published in 1846,
strikes a new note in dealing with the criminal as
something other than an object for pity and reproba-
tion, or as a " scare-crow for the community/'
' When men are smitten with adversity in ordinary
life, and thus punished for previous follies or mis-
conduct, they are not condemned to this adversity
for a certain time, but until they can retrieve their
position. They suffer under this task, they sorrow
over it (but without resentment), they struggle with
it, their characters improve under the various efforts
and emotions called out by it ... frequently they
rise even higher than before. . . . And so it might be
without punishments, if we would model them on the
same type. They are now for the most part barbarous
in every sense, in their want of skill and adaptation
to high purpose, and in the crime and misery they
thus gratuitously produce. We might make them
beneficent in every sense, merely by copying the
wisdom that is around us : and when this is fully
understood, it is not to be imagined but that every
a score in all bet wren 1838 and 1851. Maconochie's pioneer work in prison
administration has been extravagantly praised in some quarters. To
W. L. Clay he was "the noblc-hcartcd old man" who " passed from
mal.fi,, at neglect to beneficent death " (The Prison Chaplain, by W.
p. 254). M.itthcw navcnport Hill, thr K< <
!"d at a KI :i on his rnloii <.rnt iiom
1851, and praisrd him highly in Meliora
included him in a volume of British v.
Our Exemplars, 1860 (and n< 1880), de. ptain
M individual living, thr
nd hum." 'Inch, ih-
slowly, yrt sir ugh our land. His
"ii of them ... 1
:i upon public opinion, v. have been a nolestar to b
effort." On the otl n 1860, his efforts have
ft, and he is not luded in the Dictionary of No:
biography.
Q
i66 CENTRAL INSPECTION
lover of his kind will take even an eager interest in
bringing about the change. The real difficulty is to
influence the inquiry/' 1
Maconochie's judgment upon the existing prison
discipline and his project of the " Mark System/'
rested on this view.
" In the management oi our gaols," he writes, 2
" and other places of punishment, we at present at-
tach too much importance to mere submission and
obedience. We make the discipline in them military,
overlooking a distinction, specifically drawn in the
Mark System, and to which too much importance
cannot be attached, between the objects of military
and improved penal discipline. The ultimate pur-
pose of military discipline is, to train men to act
together ; but that of penal discipline is, to prepare
them advantageously to separate. The objects
being thus opposite, the processes should equally
differ : but we make them the same, and reap accord-
ingly. A good prisoner, it has been observed, is
usually a bad man, and in the circumstances this
result is sufficiently intelligible. Men kept for weeks,
months, years, under a severe external pressure,
and praised and encouraged in proportion as they
submit to it, are in a direct course of preparation to
yield to other forms of pressure as soon as they pre-
sent themselves. They go in weak, or they would
not probably be prisoners, and they come out still
more enfeebled/ 1
" The whole organization of the Mark System,
then, is directed to cure this defect in our present
p^nal arrangements. It offers wages (marks) to
stimulate to voluntary as opposed to compulsory
exertion ; it imposes fines in the same currency to
deter from, rather than otherwise prevent misconduct ;
it charges in them lor supplies issued, in order to
create an interest in voluntary moderation, and it
promises the recovery of liberty only to a definite
accumulation of them, over and above all that may
be thus expended, thereby affording the strongest
1 Crime and Punishment, p. 47. *Ibid, pp. 28, 29.
THE MARK SYSTEM 167
stimulus to systematic exertion, prudence and self-com-
mand, the virtues best suited to sustain men against
external temptation after discharge. The qualities
of immediate obedience and submission are thus
not sacrificed, for the absence of them may entail
corresponding fines : but they are obtained by means
of the exercise of the higher virtues, not by their
being placed in abeyance. They will become proofs
of strength, not weakness and will cultivate what
they thus exhibit."
Before the Committee of 1850, when he appeared
to give evidence as governor of Birmingham Gaol,
Maconochie explained his system in greater detail :
' I think/' fa sajfl. 1 "..that , timfi Sfintfinr.ftS ? r< "
root of very nearly all the demoralization which
^teLJP prisons. A man under a time sentence
thinks only how he is to cheat that time, and while it
away ; he evades labour, because he has no interest
in it whatever, and he has no desire to please the
officers under whom he is placed, because they cannot
serve him essentially"; they cannot in any way pro-
mote his liberation. Besides this, in the desire to
while away his time, he conjures up in his mind, and
indulges, when he has the opportunity, in every sort
of prurient and stimulative thought, and word, and
even, where he can, act. . . . N&wJ:he whole of these
evils would be remedied by introducing the system
of task sentences. . . . A man under a task sentence
would strip his coat to work, he would set a proper
value upon time, which under a time sentence is
hated, and he would exert himself in such a way that
he could not but improve, he must improve. The
difficulty in imposing task-sentences is the finding a
general expression for labour. I have proposed marks
to represent labour. ... If the Secretaryof State were
to say that ten marks a day, as a matter of coin
should be the expression for good fair aver
labour in a gaol, and were to give directions to gover-
nors and Visiting Justices to accommodate tl
lions of piece-work to that scale, I experience
1 Parliamentary Paperi. 1850, xvii, pp. 447-8.
i63 CENTRAL INSPECTION
-elf no difficulty whatever in so gaining a uni-
^al expression, and I think that no difficulty
itever would be found. The next thing which
I think extremely injurious at present is a fixed diet
^pective altogether of exertion to earn it. There-
when I gave a man ten marks a day I would
uire that he should keep himself, according to
ingement which could easily be made in the gaol,
v.ith the distinct understanding that only those
marks that he could save out of his ten marks a day
should count towards his liberation. . . . There
would be a constant stimulus to effort, on the one
hand, to gain marks, and to self-denial, on the other,
to retain them With all that, there still would
be no great gain unless an opportunity was afforded
the prisoner of working in his cell in his overtime
above the ten hours a day which he owes to the
Government.
" I derive in Birmingham extreme benefit from
that . . . the good effect of it is infinite ; it cannot
be expressed ; it would make every prisoner stand,
as it were, upon his own feet . . . adversity in
ordinary society is not imposed for a certain time,
but is imposed until a man can work out of it ...
and gaining the will to the requisite exertion in order
to get out of it is, I think, the whole secret between
that which is injuriously penal and beneficially
penal. . . ." Sentence would, accordingly, be passed
by creating against the prisoner a fictitious debt of
3,000 marks for example, and until he could earn
them "" he would show himself unfit to return to
society, by wanting that diligence and industry, and
rtion and prudence which are the only means by
which a poor man can keep out of gaol/'
The final point to be noted in Maconochie's plan is
the provision intended to stimulate the social instinct
in a prisoner, by means of the formation of groups
of six_ or eight prisoners, after the lapse of a cer-
tain period passed in separate confinement, and
' pooling " the marks of all the members in a
rommon stock, so that the responsibility of the
BIRMINGHAM GAOL 169
well-being of such a group rested upon each of its
meroSers.
Maconochie's system had the good fortune to be
giyen a certain amount of trial, only to b&~oyer-
whdmed in the greatest scandal of English pn
history of the nineteenth century. In 1849 the Visit-
ing Justices of Birmingham chose him as the first
governor of their newly constructed gaol, expressly
in order that he might give his theories a trial, so far
as the statutes permitted. Unfortunately, as we
infer, Maconochie spent too much time in promul-
gating his theories, and demonstrating them to com-
mittees and other inquirers, and too little to the
detailed administration of the prison committed to
his charge. Noticing some relaxation of discipline,
the Justices promptly placed a large part of the cur-
rent administration in the hands of a deputy gov-
ernor, Lieutenant Austin, with whom Maconochie
failed to agree. Austin introduced a regime of
great severity, from which Maconochie dissented,
but which he failed to prevent. He did, indeed,
complain to the Justices in 1851 of Austin's severity,
whereupon Austin tendered his resignation. This
the Justices refused to accept, suggesting rather that
Maconochie, with whose humanitarian views they
failed altogether to sympathize, should himself
relinquish his post. This enforced retirement in
October, 1851, brought Maconochie 's short-live d
experiment to an end.
The whole episode was destined to be darkened
by a terrible scandal. Early in 1853, eighteen
months lifter Maconochie had left the prison, rumours
became prevalent in Birmingham of terrible cruelties
perpetrated in the Borough Gaol. At the inqn
held upon a prisoner who had hanged himself, the
chaplain casually mentioned the use of illegal
methods of punishment, an allusion which attract < <l
the attention of the Home Office inspector (Pen
He tin n -upon investigated the facts for himself, and
reported to Lord Palmerston, the Home Secretary,
th;it ille-al punMinu'iits had been inflicted on an
i;o CENTRAL INSPECTION
extensive scale. A committee of the Visiting Jus-
tices had in the meantime examined the question
and reported on it to the Home Secretary. The
character of this examination was unsatisfactory,
as the Justices had refused to receive the evidence of
certain persons, discharged officers and others, who
wished to give evidence. The magistrates made a
" whitewashing ' J report, contradicting both the
prison inspector and a memorial presented by some
of the inhabitants. A Royal Commission was ap-
pointed to probe the matter thoroughly.
The Report of this Commission, in conjunction
with that of another Commission on cruelties in the
Leicester prison, made a deep and lasting impression
on public opinion ; and contributed not a little,
though at an interval of a quarter of a century, to
popular acquiescence in the measure of 1877. 1 The
report revealed the existence in the Birmingham
prison of a system of wanton and unmitigated
tyranny, inflicted by way of punishment for failure
to perform impossibly heavy tasks upon the crank.
The crank in use had been copied from the type
installed at Leicester, and, in the opinion of the Com-
missioners, called for much greater efforts than the
weights attached to them appeared to imply. The
daily task amounted to the performance of 10,000
revolutions by 6 o'clock. When this was not carried
out, the prisoner was kept in the crank cell until late
at night, and if the work was still not done, he was
deprived of his supper, receiving no food till eight
o'clock next morning, when he was given only bread
and water. To meet the numerous cases of failure to
comply with these demands, followed by outbursts of
hysterical violence, a special punishment jacket also
a Leicester invention was introduced. In the
hands of Captain Maconochie its use had been
strictly confined to prisoners who became dangerous.
1 The report was published in 1854, and will be found in Vol. XXXI
of the Parliamentary Papers of that year. The Times of September I5th,
1854, and the other newspapers of that month may also be consulted.
The revelations formed the basis of the well-known novel and play by
Charles Readc, It's Never too Laic to Mend (1856).
AUSTIN'S CRUELTY 171
But under Lieutenant Austin's rule, it was frequently
used as a punishment for all kinds of ofieaces, becom-
ing in the Commissioners' words an " engine of
positive torture." The case of suicide already alluded
to arose immediately out of the infliction of pro-
longed periods of solitary confinement during which
the punishment jacket was repeatedly applied. The
Commissioners decided that the suicide was a " de-
liberate act of self-destruction, committed by the
prisoner to relieve himself from bodily and mental
suffering. ..." They added the grave condemna-
tion, " We are of opinion, that by the order and with
the knowledge of the governor, he was punished
illegally and cruelly, and was driven thereby to the
commission of suicide."
The worst instances of cruelty were associated
with this instrument of restraint. But there were
other punishments involving illegality, not only on
the part of the governor, but also on the part of the
magistrates who sanctioned their use. A sentence of
whipping, imposed upon two boys who had been
guilty of repeated acts of disobedience, was carried
out continuously day by day, twelve lashes being
dealt on one day, and six more the next, and so on
until the boy became obedient. The Commissioners
recorded their " strong dissent from and disappro-
bation of such a scheme of punishment. The notion
of persevering in the infliction of bodily pain day
after day until by its repetition the ' obstinacy '
of a prisoner is subdued, and he is coerced into a de-
claration of submission, appears to us to be opposed
to every principle upon which punishment ought to
be administered." Another abuse was the disregard
of the distinction between separate and solitary con-
lineiiK'iit , >o that the majority of prisoners were left
utterly idle in isolated cells. Of the surgeon th
( "iinnissioners state : !
' We found th.it scarcely one of the more imi
rrpil;ilion> l;iid <l<>\vn lor the Ljuidance Of this
officer had been observed by him. Until a recent
2 9-
i;j CENTRAL INSPECTION
period, he had not kept any record of the health of
prisoners, on their admission into the prison, and
on their discharge from it ; and his examination of
prisoners on their admission, one object of which
ought certainly to have been the ascertaining whether
they were in a fit state to undergo the ordinary dis-
cipline, and to perform the ordinary labour, seems to
have been made in a most careless and superficial
manner, and without any reference to that question.
In regard to all these instances of the non-performance
of prescribed duties, however, it is to be observed,
that perhaps the prisoners really suffered but little
in consequence of them, since it was too evident,
from the admission of Mr. Blount himself as well as
from the statements of other witnesses, that his
inspections of prisoners, when performed, were of
such a character as to be generally quite useless as
means of detecting illness, and that although in-
stances of great suffering and injury to health from
excessive labour and want of food, must constantly
have come under his notice, he rarely interfered to
relieve the prisoners from the operations of a discip-
line and modes of punishment which few could have
been capable of supporting. . . . The treatment of
those really sick, or at least complaining of illness,
was characterized by the same contravention of rules,
and the same absence of all apparent sympathy with
the persons so afflicted. It is very doubtful whether
such as daily complained of illness, and desired medi-
cal aid, were regularly visited by Mr. Blount. It is
certain that he frequently refused them means of
relief when he did visit them. ... It is lamentable
enough that several prisoners have thus died in their
cells, some to the last lying in their hammocks,
although there was a part of the building purposely
fitted up as an infirmary for the reception of the sick ;
but that which especially marks the small amount of
care exercised by the governor and the surgeon, who
must here both be held in different degrees respon-
sible with regard to unfortunate fellowmen at the
point of death, whose sole guardians they were, is
ILLEGAL PUNISHMENTS i;j
the fact that on three occasions prisoners have died
in their cells with no fellow creatures present ; being
found dead by the warder entering some time after-
wards."
The Commissioners summarized their judgment of
the administration of the gaol in terms of the utmost
severity. 2
' ^Yith respect to Captain Maconochie, we are
fully satisfied that he is a gentleman of humanity
and benevolence whose sole object in undertaking the
government of the prison, was to promote the reform-
ation of the prisoners, and the well-being of society,
by means of the system of moral discipline which he
hoped to establish there. Nevertheless, as we have
seen, he was led in the pursuance of these objects
to sanction the infliction of punishments w r hich were
not warranted by the law and the employment of
which was the more to be regretted, inasmuch as
such a course is apt to lead to the use, in the hands of
persons not restrained by the same benevolent feel-
ings, of practices equally illegal, and more objection-
able from their greater frequency and their greater
severity.
" Again, we have no reason to doubt that Lieut.
Austin assumed the government of the prison with
the bona fide intention and desire of doing his duty.
. . . Unhappily, however, he appears almost from
the first to have adopted the notion, that the prin-
ciple of strict separation, combined with hard labour,
to be effectually maintained by no other means
than by the instant infliction of punishment for every
infraction of the discipline or failure in the labour ;
and we have already seen that, not content with the
administration of punishments authorized by the
, nor with the application of those of an unlawful
kind which had existed in the time of Captain Maco-
nochie, he introduced of his own authority another,
not only utterly illegal, but most objectionable fr< m
its painful, cruel, and exasperating character, win li
he ] ith a frequency distressing to hear
. too trivial to i all I". rity
I 74 NTRAL INSPECTION
of punishment at all, and upon offenders quite unfit
to be subjected to it, combining with it also other
inflictions and privations, and directing and witness-
ing their application with a lamentable indifference
to human suffering, until the penal system of the
gaol became almost a uniform system of the appli-
cation of pain and terror. . . . For the punishment
of the strait jacket, Lieut. Austin never obtained
or asked the sanction of the magistrates ; he never
made it known to the inspector of prisons ; and he
discouraged as much as he could all remonstrance
against or interference with it on the part of the
officers of the prison. Many of the severities
actually practised were probably unknown to him,
but he must be held to a great extent morally
responsible for them all. And, upon the whole,
we are constrained to declare our conviction that
his conduct in his office, as disclosed in evidence
before us, was deserving of the most severe cen-
sure/'
Of the Visiting Magistrates as a body, the Com-
missioners 1 were " compelled to say that they seem
from their absolute confidence in Lieut. Austin's ad-
ministrative capacity, to have suffered the perform-
ance of their duty almost to degenerate into a mere
routine form. In truth, no real supervision was exer-
cised by them. They met once a week at their board
room in the gaol ; they had read to them the formal
reports of the events and the statistics of the prison,
but they never examined either the journals of the
officers, or the books in which the discipline and its
effects were or ought to have been recorded, and from
which, imperfect as they were, they would have
learned, or at least must have suspected the existence
of much illegal punishment and much deplorable suf-
fering. . . . The governor and the surgeon habitually
neglected the rules of the prison without their inter-
ference, and to a great extent without their know-
ledge. The attempts at suicide, which occurred so
often in the gaol and which must have been reported
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1854, xxxi, p. 37.
THE LEICESTER GAOL 175
to them, appear hardly to have excited their serious
attention/'
A bla7.p. of public indignation followed the work of
the Commissioners. On the" enforced resignation of
the governor and the surgeon the citizens held a meet-
ing to protest against the Visiting Magistrates taking
it upon themselves to select the successors, and after
a declaration to the effect that the Justices had for-
feited all claim to the confidence of the people of
Birmingham, to demand the appointment of a stipen-
diary magistrate. Austin, the governor^ and
tfee-surgeon, were criminally proceeded against, and
the first named being sentenced to
three months imprisonment, which we fear, charac-
teristically enough he was allowed to serve as a
first-class misdemeanant. Blount, the surgeon, was
never even called up to receive sentence, and was
allowed to go unpunished. 1
The report of the Commission on the Leicester
prison revealed cruelties similar in character to those
at Birmingham the imposition of excessive tasks
at the crank, the frequent infliction of cruel punish-
ments for failure to perform these tasks, including
repeated floggings and reduction of food. It was
this last that led to exposure, through the emaciated
condition of one of the victims attracting the atten-
tion of the inspector. The revelations, however,
were less serious than in the Birmingham case, the
Commissioners expressing the opinion that " no
grave personal imputation rests upon any of the
persons concerned in the government of Leicester
County Gaol/' The governor and surgeon were both
acquitted of any charge of cruelty, and the blame
fell mainly upon the Visiting Magistrates. A lengthy
respondence took place between the Home Office
and the Justices, in the course of which the latter
showed themselves to be unaware of the illegality of
their action in failing t<> acquaint the inspector or tin*
1 of Austin and 1 855, nee Annual Register
^Hggtstionsfor the Repression o/Criww, by Mat
uport Hiii (\vh> was Record mtaghAm '857,
,2-S.
CENTRAL INSPECTION
Secretary of State with their intention of adopting
enti ely new punishment, the stoppage of
i Is. This expedient they referred to somewhat
disingenuously as a " postponement " of meals ; and
they proceeded to justify its enforcement by pointing
out that it was the only punishment left to them in a
prison in which " separate confinement " was inflicted
upon all prisoners as a general regimen and not
reserved as a punishment for acts of insubordination.
They ignored, that is to say, the distinction to
which the Home Office clung, between separate and
solitary confinement.
With the scandalous revelations of Birmingham
and Leicester we close the first period of the era of
Central Supervision and Control. In particular
details, the cruelties in those prisons were, we may
hope, exceptional. Yet enough is known enough
has perhaps been described in the foregoing pages
of what was happening in the other prisons of the
time to arouse the most disquieting suspicions. The
most uncomfortable reflection is that the worst-
administered prisons were not those in which the
evils were greatest. The misery of the prisoners,
and as we must now acknowledge, even the cruelty
with which they were unwittingly treated, may have
been at their worst where the prison regimen had
been most deliberately devised, and the system
most exactly applied. It should for ever make
for humility in prison administrators to reflect that
it is doubtful whether the sum of human suffer-
ing was not in this period, during long stretches
of years, greater at Millbank and Pentonville peni-
tentiaries, than at the worst of the prisons under
Local Government. And, as we shall see in the
ensuing chapter, it was not for many years that
the lesson was learnt if, indeed, it has yet been
learnt.
The very idea of cellular isolation by day as well
as by night, which dominates this period, came, in
the twentieth century, to be condemned by Enrico
Ferri as " one of the great aberrations of the nine-
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 177
teenth century." 1 We may recall the burning indig-
nation of Charles Dickens over what he saw of its
application in the United States, ' In its intention/'
he said, " I am well convinced that it is kind, humane,
and meant for reformation ; but I am persuaded that
those who devised this system of prison discipline,
and those benevolent gentlemen who carry it into
execution, do not know what it is they are doing. I
believe that very few men are capable of estimating
the immense amount of torture and agony which this
dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts
upon the sufferers. ... I hesitated once, debating
with myself whether if I had the power of saying 'yes, 1
or ' no,' I would allow it to be tried in certain cases,
where the terms of imprisonment were short ; but
now I solemnly declare that with no rewards or
honours could I walk a happy man beneath the open
sky by day or lay me down upon my bed at night with
the consciousness that one human creature for any
length of time, no matter what, lay suffering this
unknown punishment in his silent cell, and I the
cause or I consenting to it in the least degree." 3
The Home Office officials, as we have seen, and
their allies among prison reformers, always denied
that the Separate System which they advocated was
equivalent to solitary confinement. But, as has
been well said, " they were infatuated about isolation.
They would have the system, the whole system and
nothing but the system. They made the separation
so thorough that its depressing influence took all
the starch out of the prisoners' characters, and ren-
dered both their wits and their wills limp and flabby/' 3
What it is hard to forgive is the deluded self-
complacency which led them to ignore the way the
system actually worked. How could Colonel Jebb, 4
Vms of Crimht Hmialdo d<- Qni'
1 American i Notes, Chapter VII, " Philadelphia and its Solitary Prison,"
19-120, by 1842.
Convict Systems, by W. L. Clay, 1862, p. 19.
4 Colonel (afterwards Sir) Joshua Tebb (1793-1863), sec Dictionary of
iphy, was the distinguished officer of the Royal Engineers
in the con was formally appmntrd
178 CENTRAL INSPECTION
for instance, who knew how the prisons were admin-
istered, bring himself to assert " that scarcely an
hour in the day will pass without [the convict] seeing
one or other of the prison officers/' or that will not
be taken up with " constant employment or labour " P 1
It was a strange perversion of the facts for the
chaplain of Pentonville Prison to declare that, whilst
the convict "-is kept rigidly apart from other crimi-
nals, he is allowed as much intercourse with instructors
and officers as is compatible with judicious economy. " s
Right down to 1896 the Secretary of the Howard
Association, completely satisfied with the system
as enforced by the Prison Commissioners, could
assure the public that the convicts "have numer-
ous visits in their cells from the officers, chap-
lain, schoolmaster, and from suitable persons
from outside, together with industrial occupation,
books, instruction and daily exercise/' 3 On the
other hand, the advocates of " the Silent System/'
and work in association where " real isolation is
replaced by a fictitious, artificial and superficial
one " 4 were equally disingenuous. They ignored
the evil effect of the incitement to deceit and evasion,
the incessant breaches of the rule and the frequent
punishments, and they even denied that the enforce-
ment of silence was injurious. " The legitimate
opportunities/' said the governor of Coldbath Fields
Prison, "nay, the demands, for the use of speech are
to be Inspector-General of Military Prisons, and also to the new post of
Surveyor-General of Prisons, which he combined, in 1850, with the chair-
manship of the then established Board of Directors of Convict Prisons.
He was made K.C.B. in 1859. Right down to his death, in 1863,
he exercised a domi native influence in prison administration. His book,
Modern Prisons, their Construction and Ventilation, 1844, governed the
structure of subsequently erected places of imprisonment all over the
world. A posthumous volume containing many of his official reports and
memoranda, entitled Reports and Observations on the Discipline and
Management of Convict Prisons, was edited by his friend, the Earl of
Chichestrr.
1 Modern Prisons : Their Construction and Ventilation, by Colonel
(afterwards Sir Joshua) Jebb, 1844, p. 10.
2 Results of Separate Confinement at Pentonville, by Rev. J. T. Burt,
1852. See also Prisons and Prisoners, by Joseph Adshead, 1845.
3 Penological and Preventive Principles, by W. Tallack, edition of 1896,
p. 120.
4 Modern Systems of Criminality, by C. Bernaldo de Quiros, 1911, pp.
180-3.
"SAVING TROUBLE' 179
numerous. The daily responses in chapel, communi-
cations with the governor, the chaplain, the school-
master and various officers, all tend healthfully to
employ the tongue/' 1
It is to be feared that a potent influence in the
general adoption of the system of cellular isolation
was the fact, as stated in 1850, that " the officials
like it ; it gives them very little trouble, so, without
pretending to understand its complicated effects,
moral or mental, they almost all swear by it."*
1 Revelations of Prison Life, by G. L. Chesterton, 1856, Vol. II. p. 27.
On the other hand, we do not know that there is any evidence of silence
in gaol producing actual dumbness, as described in the novel, La Fille
Llisa. by Edmond de Goncourt.
* London Prisons, by W. Hepworth Dixon, 1850, p. 154. See, on the
whole subject, A System of Penal Discipline, with a Report on the Treat-
ment of Prisoners in Great Britain and Van Diemen's Land, by Henry P.
Fry, 1850 ; and Prisons and Reformatories, being the Transactions of the
International Penitentiary Congress, by Edwin Pears, 1872.
CHAPTER X
PENAL SERVITUDE
ONCE more we have to interpose a reference to the
establishment of prisons under the National Gov-
ernment. Just as transportation to North America
became impracticable after 1776, so transportation to
New South Wales had to be given up in I840. 1 Just
as the establishment of the hulks and the erection of
Millbank Prison followed from the first interruption
of transportation, so the construction of Penton-
ville Prison in 1842, as a model on the cellular plan
for the purpose of working out in practice a new system
of prison discipline, followed on the second interrup-
tion. After a decade of experiment the new system
was definitely established by the Penal Servitude Acts
of 1853 and 1857.
The system of prison administration introduced
by these Acts, and subsequently amended by statutes
of 1864, 1871 and 1891, was a combination of all that
was then deemed most enlightened. 2 Contrary to the
1 The Parliamentary inquiry of 1837 condemned the system absolutely.
" as being unequal, without terror to the criminal class, corrupting to
both convicts and colonists, and extravagant from the point of expense."
(The English Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. 24).
Transportation to New South Wales was abolished by Order in Council
in 1840. For Van Diemen's Land there was an attempt at a system of
" progressive stages," under which the convicts could gradually earn
th<:ir freedom and pardon ; but this proved a demoralizing failure, and
further transportation was stopped in 1846. Under a new system of
" Ticket of Leave " men continued to be sent thither until 1852, when
the colony (renamed Tasmania) refused to receive any more. Trans-
portation to the Swan River Settlement (now Western Australia) con-
tinu'-d until 1867, the last convicts remaining until 1872. For reference
to authorities as to the transportation system, see footnote on p. 44.
For the system of Penal Servitude, see the successive Reports of
the Commissioners appointed in 1842, and those of the subsequent Par-
liamentary Inquiries, notably the Royal Commissions of 1863 and 1878-9,
1 80
WHAT PENAL SERVITUDE IS 181
common impression, its essential feature was not,
and has never been, any specially rigorous enforce-
ment of penal labour. It would, indeed, have been
difficult to have devised any harder or more contin-
uous labour than that exacted in many of the prisons
under Local Government, 1 notably as revealed to a
horrified public opinion by the reports of the Royal
Commissions on the Birmingham and Leicester gaols.
The essential features of Penal Servitude in English
prison history (quite unlike that of travaux forces
in France, for which it has often been mistaken)
have been the combination of (a) the enforcement, for
a fixed period (originally eighteen months) of rigor-
ous cellular isolation and complete non-intercourse,
day and night, accompanied by the plank bed,
a restricted diet, a prescribed task of isolated
labour, and deprivation of all humanizing privileges ;
with (b) a subsequent period of associated labour
and the Departmental Committee of 1895 ; The Punishment and Preven-
tion of Crime, by Sir Edmund Du Cane, 1885, Ch. VI, " Penal Servitude" ;
An account of the manner in which sentences of Penal Servitude are carried
out, by the same, 1882 ; The Criminal Prisons of London, by H. Mayhew
and J. Binny, 1862 ; Scenes from a Silent World, by F. Scougall, 1888;
The Story of Dartmoor Prison, by Sir Basil Thomson, 1907 ; Secrets of
the Prison House, 2 vols, 1894, and Fifty Years of Public Service, by A.
Griffiths, 1904 ; The Treatment of Prisoners, 1904 ; Wards of the State :
an Official View of Prison and the Prisoner, by T. Hopkins, 1913 ; In an
Unknown Prison Land, by George Griffith ; Our Prison System, by A.
Cook, 1914, and Las Prisones de Londres y las nuestras, by F. Cabrerizo,
1911. On another plane, but affording some valuable suggestions and
criticisms are such books (some of them dealing only with local prisons)
as Si.r Years in the Prisons of England, by a merchant (Frank Henderson),
1868 ; A Month in Her Majesty's Prison, Leicester, by T. P. Barrow,
1882 ; Twelve Months in an English Prison, by S. W. Fletcher, 1884 ;
Eighteen Months' Imprisonment, by D. S., 1884 ; Leaves from a Prison
Diary, by Michael Davitt, 2 vols, 1885 ; Five Years' Penal Servitude
(Anon.), 1882 ; Life in English Prisons (Anon.), 1896 ; Pentonville Prison
from Within (Anon.), 1904 ; The Mark of the Broad Arrow, by a Convict,
I9<>3 I Penal Servitude, by Lord William Nevill, 1903 ; Twenty- five Years
in Seventeen Prisons, by No. 7, 1903, second edition, 1906 ; Mrs. Maybrick's
Own Story : My Fifteen Lost Years, 1905 ; My Prison Life, by 1
S. Balfour, 1907 ; A Burglar in Baulk, 1910, and A Holiday in Gaol,
1911 on, by D ! 1912 ;
and Prisons and Prisoners, by Lady Constance Lytton, 1914.
'Hsr. "in .ith hard labour" was first used in
1 tentative for transport,
rison discipline stii those sentenced to imprison-
. samr k
-on " imprisonment " and " imprisonment with hard labour " came
to lie in other aspects of prison regimen than in the kind or amoi
labour expected.
182 PENAL SERVITUDE
under the Silent System, originally upon public
rks in the open air ; at first (until 1864) with
increased diet, and, later, with opportunities for
" progressive stages " of improvement in conditions,
and for earning a partial remission of the original
sentence ; and (c) conditional discharge on a " Ticket
of Leave," originally to an overseas colony, and subse-
quently at home under police supervision for a pre-
scribed period. 1
In order that the new system might be worked
under the best conditions money was not spared for
the erection of new cellular prisons on the latest
model, first at Pentonville at a cost of 85,000 in
1842 ; then at the Isle of Portland in 1848 ; then at
Dartmoor, where the old place of confinement of the
French prisoners of war was practically rebuilt at
great expense in 1850 ; in 1853 Brixton Prison was
taken over from the Surrey Justices and expensively
adapted for the reception of all the women convicts ;
and in 1856 a large prison for men was opened at
Chatham. Presently more than five thousand men
or women were under this " most enlightened treat-
ment/' the number increasing by 1880 to more than
10,000 in thirteen different prisons.
As we are not writing the history of national
prison administration, we cannot here examine the
results of the system of Penal Servitude, upon which,
in the course of the latter half of the nineteenth cen-
1 The most novel feature in the system was that subsequently known
as the " Progressive Stages " ; essentially the principle of inducing docility
and diligence in the prisoners by the stimulus of rewards in the shape of
more comfortable conditions, and partial remission of sentence. This,
we are now told, was due chiefly to " the tireless efforts made at that
time by Sir Joshua Jebb and his colleagues " at the Home Office (The
English Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. 29). It
was applied experimentally in Ireland by Sir Joshua Jebb, and merely
continued by Captain (afterwards Sir Walter) Crofton, Chairman of
Irish Prisons Board, whose evidence on Progressive Stages and Police
Supervision before the House of Commons Committee of 1855 has led to
the system being ascribed to him. The " mark system," as we have
mentioned, had already been invented by Captain Maconochie. Reports
and Observations on the Discipline and Management of Convict Prisons,
by Sir Joshua Jebb, edited by the Earl of Chichester, is largely made up
of detailed criticisms of the differences between the English and Irish
systems. See also Reformatory Prison Discipline as Developed by Sir
\Valter Crofton, by Mary Carpenter, 1872.
THE STRAIN OF "SOLITARY' 183
tury, there was perpetual controversy. What is
important is that the prison regimen that it pre-
scribed inevitably became, as " the most enlightened "
of the time, the type towards which the regimen of the
prisons under Local Government was steadily made
to approximate. What is significant is that this
regimen, even where applied under the most advan-
tageous conditions, had to be successively modified,
in one feature after another, on the Home Office
itself becoming convinced of the very serious injury
that it was inflicting on the unfortunate prisoners.
We can give only a few examples. At Pentonville
Prison, 1 for instance, where what was euphemistically
called the separate system was applied in full vigour,
the convicts admitted were, from 1843 to 1849, most
carefully selected for their physical fitness to stand
the strain of hard labour under discipline. The effect
on them of " eighteen months solitary " was, to the
bewilderment of the Commissioners of Convict Pri-
sons, " a great number of cases of death and of insan-
ity " to wit in each year as many as 120 cases per
10,000 of mental disease, says the prison doctor,
being a ratio twenty times as great as in, not the
general population, but all the other English prisons
of the time. Accordingly the period of confinement
in Pentonville Prison was reduced, first to twelve
months and subsequently to nine months. Still
' there occurred an unusually large number of cases
of mental affection among the prisoners, and it was
therefore deemed necessary to increase the amount of
exercise in the open air, and to introduce the plan of
brisk walking, as pursued at Wakefield " a For half
may trace in the -official jfiports ihi-
'" System" on the mental
1 For the administration and regimen at Tent in paitu uln,
apart from the official reports, The Criminal Prisons of Lond
1862; London Prisons, \ pworth I>
karate Confinement at PentoniiU l>v I
1852 ; Pentonville Prison from Within (Anon.), 1904 ; I utic
German description, England' t MusUrgefaneniss in Pentonville, by Dr.
X. H. Julius, z8 4 6.
Commissioners of Convict Prisons, 1853 ; The Criminal
Prisons of London, by H. Mmyhew and J. ninny, 1862, p.
184 PENAL SERVITUDE
itli of the prisoners, notably in the continual
attempts of the Home Office to discover ways of
mitigation compatible with the retention of the sys-
tem itself. Unfortunately, the statistics of health,
insanity and suicide among prisoners, which appear
portentous, have been so manipulated and discredited
from one side or another, as to be inconclusive.
What is clear is that far more prisoners have con-
tracted tuberculosis, gone out of their minds or com-
mitted suicide than the prison authorities have
liked. 1
What is, we think, significant is the elaboration of
the precautions taken. For any consideration of the
effect of the regimen on those who were subjected
to it, whether as to the degree of their suffering or as
to the upsetting of their sanity, the number of sui-
cides in prison is not so eloquent as the extraordinary
physical precautions that the Prison Commissioners
have been successively driven to take in order to
prevent attempts at suicide. 2 The percentage of
cases of prisoners being driven actually mad, and
transferred to lunatic asylums, is nowadays not so
significant as the relaxations which had to be intro-
duced in order to stave off insanity. What we do
not find is any adequate study of the effect of the
whole regimen (including so near an approach to
solitary confinement) on the physical and mental
state of those prisoners whose sanity just survived
their ordeal. " In a medical point of view/' deposed,
very early in the controversy, a doctor of great ex-
1 Whatever there may be to be said against the regimen at Coldbath
Fields Prison, it is to its credit that it could be said that, whereas the wide
freedom of movement allowed made suicide possible, " twenty years
elapsed . . . without our having had to deplore a single suicide. For
many years, the daily average number of convicts exceeded one thousand "
(Revelations of Prison Life, by G. L. Chesterton, 1856, Vol. II, p. 80).
2 Thus various alterations were successively made in the internal fittings
of the cells so as to make suicide by hanging extremely difficult ; and when
it was found that prisoners got into such a state of mind that numbers of
them could not be restrained from jumping from the upper corridors, and
so being dashed to pieces, the action taken by the prison authorities was,
not to alter the regimen which produced that state of mind, but, without
change in the regimen, merely to cover in all upper corridors by strong
wire netting, so that jumping to destruction became physically impossible.
(See Annual Report of the Prison Commissioners, 1890, Appendix 18.)
This is typical of many similar precautions.
EFFECT ON PRISONERS 185
perience, " I think there can be no question but that
separate or solitary confinement acts injuriously, /row
first to last, on the health and constitution of anyone
subjected to it.-' 1 "As to convicts on discharge,"
testified an experienced Salvation Army officer in
1895, " I should like to say that we find a greater
number of them incapable of pursuing any ordinary
occupation. They are mentally weak and wasted,
requiring careful treatment for months." 1 Genera-
tion after generation, the English prison system, under
the most enlightened administ radon of the time,
seems to have continued to return its victims to the
world of competitive industry in a state of mind and
body in which most of them must necessarily have
had the greatest difficulty in earning a livelihood by
honest work. We cannot find that the Home Office
of this period had any scientific investigation made of
the results of penal servitude on the industrial capa-
city of the discharged convict, or even on his com-
parative efficiency on admission and discharge
respectively.
But this is not the place in which to estimate the
success or failure of the system of Penal Servitude
in the prisons under Home Office administration.
We must return to our account of prisons under
Local Government, bearing in mind the strong
and persistent " pull " on prison regimen which the
system of Penal Servitude henceforth exerted on
Justices of the Peace and Home Secretaries alike.
1 Dr. Attfield, Ion}? resident surgeon at Millbank Prison, and
al Superintendent of the West Australian Convict Establishment,
quoted in Criminal Correction, by C. P. Measor, 1864, p. 54.
Colonel Baker, of the Salvation Army, Evidence before the Depart-
mental Committee of 1895, p. 279.
CHAPTER XI
CENTRAL SUPERVISION AND CONTROL:
SECOND PERIOD, 1865-1877
WE come now to the assumption by the Home Office
of increased powers of control. After the revelations
of the Royal Commissions on the Birmingham and
Leicester prisons in^ 1854, we see the inspection of
the Home Office becoming steadily more minute,
vigilant and continuous ; and the criticism and in-
structions addressed to those responsible for the
administration of the prisons under Local Govern-
ment taking a more mandatory tone. Public opinion
was uneasy, but favoured no particular reform. The
Royal Commission of 1847 had definitely concluded
that the absolute separation of prisoners from each
other was the only sound basis upon which a reforma-
tory discipline could be established with any reason-
able hope of success. The Select Committee of the
House of Commons under Sir George Grey, initiated,
as we have described, by Charles Pearson, had
endorsed that opinion in 1850. Moreover a whole
generation of experience had convinced the Home
Office officials that a rigorous application of the
Separate System, whatever might be its effect on the
prisoners, was the only practicable alternative to the
obvious evils of promiscuous association which still
characterized the majority of the county, borough
and franchise prisons. Hence we see, after the
Crimean War, a steady approximation to this system
all over the country.
A further step had now to be taken. The Home
186
LORD CARNARVON'S COMMITTEE 187
Office, it must be remembered, could not, at that
date, peremptorily order the County Justices or the
Municipal Corporations to rebuild or alter their
prisons, or even amend their prison rules. The Act
of 1835 had required all rules framed by local prison
authorities to be submitted for the approval of the
Secretary of State, but did not enable him to require
new rules to be made. An Act of 1844 had empowered
him to appoint a Surveyor-General of Prisons, who
could exercise influence on plans for new buildings,
but could not require new prisons to be built. No
action was taken on the proposal for a Central
Prison Authority, which was made in 1850 by the
Select Committee, which Charles Pearson had got
appointed ; but its recommendations that the
Separate System, as carried out in Pentonville
Prison, should be generally applied to all prisons
(though for not more than twelve months for each
prisoner) gradually became increasingly influential.
Every reforming Justice of the Peace, who, in these
years, got effected any improvement in the county
L r aol, worked in the direction of cellular isolation ;
but there was still no power to make this or any other
system universal, and a couple of hundred separate
prison authorities could not possibly arrive at
uniformity.
The opportunity for a step forward came in the
openirip; "L,thft. ffixtP* A suddeaincrea.se in the
number uf robberies with violence in the streets 01
London led to a renewed outburst of the popular
demand for giv;:.tcr severity in the treatment of
is. The rapid passing, in the ses-
sion of of the so-called " Garotters' Act,"
: rting flogging on convicted garotters, did not
satiate the popular craving for vengeance, jn 1863
a Select Committee of the House of Lords on ;
and pri :ine, over which the Karl of Carnar-
d, led to a d up of the
administra: ,uder which not the "professional
criminal" ,ut all the unfortunate inmates of
the gaols, suffered for a whole generation. The
188 CENTRAL CONTROL
showed little trace of the humane con-
sideration for the well-being of the prisoners, which
had inspired Howard and Neild, Buxton and Macono-
chie. It had lost all patience with indolent or ob-
structive Justices of the Peace. It specifically con-
demned the lack of uniformity that prevailed in the
193 local prisons which were, in 1863, still maintained
in England and Wales alone, and which differed
widely, alike in the severity of the punishment and
in the treatment of the prisoners. The Committee
once more insisted on a general application of the
Separate System, in all its rigour, not because it was
reformatory, but expressly because it was terrible
to criminals. The full period of nine months rigid
cellular confinement, day and night, was to be hence-
forth insisted on for all convicts, expressly because
of the deterrent effect that it was believed to have.
' We think, too/' said the Committee, " that this
wholesome effect on their minds might be increased ' J
by even greater severity ! In Ireland, they found,
the prisoners were put on a specially low diet for
the first four months. Even more ingenious seemed
to their lordships the Irish plan of giving to the
convicts, thus rigidly confined to their cells, only the
simplest and most routine drudgery by way of work,
expressly because this enabled the governor to dis-
pense with the visits to the cells of the instructors,
which were thought to " mitigate the irksomeness
of separate confinement/' The Lords Committee
greatly favoured these ingenious devices, which they
hoped would " give a more deterrent character to
separate imprisonment in the English prisons/'
on every inmate of which, young and old, male and
female, first offender and hardened recidivist, the
Lords declared that " hard labour, hard fare, and a
hard bed/' should be inflicted.
No protest was made against Lord Carnarvon's
report, 1 and steps were at once taken to act upon its
1 There seems to have been a falling ofl in the output of books on prisons
in the eighteen-sixties. We may mention three volumes by F. W. Robinson,
Femile Life in Prison, 1862 ; Memoirs of Jane Cameron, female convict,
INCREASED SEVERITY 189
terrible recommendations. The fixed wooden bed
was installed in every cell and the hammock removed.
The cell doors, which had been opened in the day-
time after the first two months of each man's sen-
tence, were henceforth kept closed and bolted
during the whole nine months. The assemblage of
selected convicts in educational classes was discon-
tinued. [t Everything was done to render the
separation real and complete ; exercise was taken
in separate yards, and masks were worn to prevent
recognition/' 1 On the tread-wheel, and even in
attendance at divine service in the chapel, the most
elaborate structural arrangements were made to
prevent the prisoners from seeing each other. The
Directors of Convict Prisons avowed in their report
that their object was to make the universal term of
strict cellular isolation as deterrent as possible. The
.Home Office lost no time in getting new legislation,
which should enable the same regimen to be enforced
in all the local prisons. The Prisons Act of 1865
effected what the County Justices and Municipal
Corporations regarded as a revolution, by depriving
them, so far as their maintenance of prisons was con-
cerned, of their immemorial autonomy. 2 Every prison
; and Prison Characters, 1866, all three " by a Prison Matron " ; the
two volumcsbv .titled Our Convicts, 1864; also three books
by an ex-official, C. P. Measor, entitled The Convict Service, 1861. Criminal
.id The Utilization oj the Lnwmal. IMM. Mori- sugges-
tive is Archbishop \V. B. Ullathorne's essay On the Management oj Criminals,
1866, in which he explains why solitary confinement of criminals is unfavour-
able to repentance. We may mention also the two pamphlets by Sir
Walter Crofton, Convict Systems and Transportation, 1863 ; and The
Immunity of " Habitual " Criminals, 1861. We have already cited The
Criminal Prisons of London, by Henry Mayhew and John Binny, not pub-
lished until 1862, but compiled years previously ; and Six Years in the
Prisons of England, by a Merchant (Frank Henderson), 1868.
1 The English Prison System, by Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. 65. The
mask .as discontinued in English prisons at the end of the nine-
h century, was continued in Con' y dis-
;nue<d in Belgium in i D M Kimi \v;s Minister of
ice.
8 We may note, so far as concerned the town prisons, that although, in
mini a Council remained the " prison authority," the
Borough Justices were ^ j ower of appointing the prison officers,
y became, even in those towns v . had
y not been the case, the actual administrators of the prison.
:o un.ift'xud ; and in Bath, for instai Town
Council made the nppo;
I 9 o XTRAL CONTROL
authority was positively required by the Act to provide
Als for all the prisoners, duly certified by
the Inspector of Prisons as being structurally and in
all other respects in accordance with the statutory
requirements. The old distinction between the gaol
and the House of Correction was abolished. The
prisoners had all to be subjected to penal labour in
prescribed forms, either (first-class) on the tread-
wheel, the crank or the capstan, or at shot drill or
stone breaking, or (second-class) such other labour
that the Secretary of State might approve. All
prisoners over sixteen were required to be kept to these
prescribed forms of first-class labour for at least
three months, before they could even qualify for
second-class labour. The local authorities were
specifically required to frame new dietaries, which
had to be such as the Secretary of State might ap-
prove. The Secretary of State was given effective
means of enforcing compliance with all these statu-
tory requirements by being expressly authorized
to withhold, at his sole discretion, the Grant in Aid
of the prison expenditure. The governor of the
prison was authorized, without any safeguarding
conditions, of his own volition to punish any prisoner
by close confinement for three days and nights on
bread and water. In addition, the Visiting Justices
could order one whole month in a punishment cell,
or (for a prisoner sentenced to hard labour) a flogging.
The use of irons or other forms of mechanical
restraint (notwithstanding the terrible revelations
of what went on in the Birmingham Gaol) was ex-
pressly authorized, though under restrictions. The
code of rules for all prisons was, by what must now
seem an extraordinary blunder in Political Science,
enacted in minute detail in a schedule to the statute ;
and was thus made unalterable, even in the smallest
respect however much local circumstances might
be found to differ, whatever might be the conditions
of particular gaols or particular prisoners, and what-
ever unforeseen discoveries might be made except
by another Act of Parliament. It speaks volumes
THE 1865 ACT 191
as to the composition of the Parliament of 1865
that this draconic law should after all the
revelations of prison horrors in 1854 an d other-
wise have been passed with little protest or ob-
jection. 1
It was afterwards alleged, with some justification,
that it was the Act of 1865, not that of 1877, which
constituted the turning point of English prison ad-
ministration in the second half of the nineteenth
century. It was the 1865 statute- whidi definitely
decided upon the prison n'gime that lasted until the
very close of the century, whilst the statute of 1877
which we shall presently describe, only changed the
administrative machinery. In the Prisons Act of
1865 the prison administrators at the Home Office
had, at last, got what they wanted. A uniform
prison policy, exactly on the lines which they had
been laying down for a whole generation, had now
been specifically prescribed by the authority of
Parliament. What seemed full powers were given
to the Home Secretary to ensure that the Act should
be carried into effect. There was no lack of willing-
ness at Whitehall to put the new powers in force.
There was, immediately, a general stirring up of the
local prison authorities, a great issuing of circulars
and instructions, an increased vigour in the inspec-
tions and in the inspectors' criticisms and com-
plaints.
Under the Act of 1865 a great deal was accomplished.
In the first place, rather than face the expense of
putting their prisons in a proper state, many of the
smaller prison authorities in the boroughs and fran-
1 The statute contained some useful features. For the first time, the
local prison authority was empowered to make, from public funds, some
grant in aid of prisoners on their discharge. Every prison had to have not
only a gaoler or governor, but also a doctor and an Anglican chaplain ; and
prison for women had to have a matron. A coroner's inquest had to
Id on every prisoner who died in gaol, and no one connected with the
priso:. .vod to serve on the jury. :. .r the first time
enacted that no prisoner should be employed in the discipline of the prison
or in the service of any officer or ii other
prisoner. It had thus taken cars since Howard wrote
to get the abuse stopped of prisoners acling as wardsi. lactd
in positions in which th-_ My tempted to favour or tyiannizc
over other priso:
I 9 2 CENTRAL CONTROL
chises, were prevailed upon to give up their prisons
altogether, and leave the task to the County Justices.
In the course of fifteen years from 1862, no fewer
than eighty 1 out of the 193 prisons of that date all,
of course, the smaller ones which had sometimes no
prisoners at all, sometimes only a few dozen were
entirely discontinued ; and with them disappeared
the most extreme and the most picturesque of the
instances of " lack of uniformity/' with which the
inspectors' reports had been filled. Moreover, every-
where the discipline was tightened up, the penal
labour increased in severity, the separation of
prisoners from each other more strictly enforced.
Some slight approach towards uniformity was, on
the lines described in Chapter IX, made in prison
dietaries, though the dietetic problem had been found
too difficult for the Justices to solve.
In 1869, by the Act abolishing imprisonment for
debt, one of the chronic factors in prison disorder
was got rid of. Even if the local administrators Bad
all been as zealous and as competent as the best
among them, no place of confinement could, as we
now see, possibly have been maintained in a decent
state so long as the law required the admission of a
whole class of inmates to whom the common prison
discipline could not be applied. The mere presence,
in nearly all the local prisons, of persons detained
only for non-payment of debts, rendered nugatory
all attempts at a uniformity of regimen. " To their
introduction of improper articles/' it was said, " there
is hardly any restriction ; to their intercourse with
strangers there is scarcely any restraint. . . . Their
sympathy is always excited in behalf of the criminals,
and manifested by their supplying them, clandes-
tinely, with food, tobacco and other articles ; and
in occasionally affording them the means of communi-
cation. The Debtors' Ward, in a well-ordered prison,
is sure to be the exception to general cleanliness,
and the debtors themselves the disturbers of general
1 Fourteen of these (thirteen in boroughs and one in a franchise) had been
expressly closed by the Act of 1865 itself.
THE DEBTORS 193
quiet." 1 But the debtors were mainly responsible,
also, for the continuance of the discreditable little
prisons of the " liberties " and " franchises " up and
down the country. In 1837, f r instance, the " Deb-
tors' Gaol " for the " Hundred and Forest Courts "
of Macclesfield seems to have made practically no
advance since the visits of John Howard. " The
keeper/' we read, 2 " receives no salary, and it is a
matter of some difficulty to find anybody willing to
undertake the charge. The person now in that situ-
ation is collector of the Corporation market tolls,
for which he receives i i6s. a week, and is inspector
of weights and measures at a yearly salary of 10
besides fees. No allowance is made to the prisoners
in case of extreme distress, and they have been oc-
casionally relieved by the other prisoners, or the
keeper. No attempt to preserve order or discipline
among them ; they do as they please. Drunken-
ness is frequent, and upon the admission of a fresh
prisoner the gaol is described as being a scene of
uproarious hilarity. . . . Two debtors at present
confined here state that the . . . garnish of ten
shillings is lowered to five, which they paid, and it was
expended in liquor. The keeper makes each prison-
er pay 35. 6d. a week to him for bedding and coals,
the bedding not being his property. . . ." It was
in vain that the inspector urged the abolition of this
and similar debtors' prisons at Rothwell, Halifax,
Knaresborough and Richmond.
From the outset the inspectors had denounced
the whole class of debtors' prisons. 3 " The discredit-
le condition of the gaols for debtors, attached to
peculiar jurisdictions, and the condition of their
inmates, have long been the subject of animadversion
in these reports. ... In the hope that it may be
! ul, I proceed summarily to describe the imperfec-
tions of these gaols under peculiar jurisdictions,
1 Parliamentary Papers, 1836, xxxv, 164.
* Ibid., 1837, xxxii, 536. What the debtors' prisons were like may be
seen in Settles and Stories by a Clergyman in Debt (written in a debtors'
prison). 1835 ; also Prts nn Rrniinisefticr
* Ibid., 1844, xxix, 233.
VTRAL CONTROL
with the evils consequent upon imprisonment in
them, and showing how desirable is their suppression.
The absence of any legal provision for the
maintenance of prisoners in execution when not in
county gaols, and their consequent distress, being
often in want of food, the Poor Law Commissioners
having notified that the Poor Rate cannot be applied
for the relief of such prisoners while in gaol.
The accommodation in many of these prisons is
limited to the bare walls. No respect being paid to
religion by the performance of Divine service ; no
medical assistance in cases of sickness, no provision
of food, bedding, light nor fire. No authority exer-
cised by which the brutal or hardened are restrained
from practising on the weak or better disposed.
Idleness and corrupting influence prevails in all,
unchecked and unreproved. It is worthy of remark
that imprisonment in the gaols of the Courts of Re-
quest at Sheffield was found to make so little impres-
sion, that it was deemed necessary to heighten its
severity, by ordering that prisoners should not be
allowed to employ themselves in any kind or de-
scription of work. I may add that I never went into
these prisons without finding a party engaged at
cards, or some other idle game. . . .
"4. In the cases of collusive arrests these peculiar
jurisdictions are often selected by the fraudulent,
that they may be subjected to as little restraint as
possible whilst waiting in prison for the session of the
Insolvent Court ; and also that in case of a remand,
they may be free from the restrictions imposed on
debtors in a county gaol. . . .
" 5. In another jurisdiction for the recovery of small
debts, in an agricultural district, it was observed that
but few executions were ever taken out, but just
before the harvest months, when these prisons be-
came thronged, executions being put in force for the
purpose of compelling the debtor to an arrangement
or of depriving him of the advantage of his labour,
by keeping him in prison during the period. Under
such circumstances the labourer had no possible
THE REFUSAL TO BUILD 195
means of extrication 'from- debt, after a first involv-
ment, except by wearing out the amount by lying in
prison ; for by giving up to the creditor the wages
accruing from harvest labour, he must have again
got into debt during the winter months, when work
was short. . . ."*
After 1869, though unfortunate debtors still con-
tinued to be committed to prison, as they do to this
day, they were imprisoned as offenders,to be punished
for contempt of court. They could therefore, it was
with some callousness contended, be subjected to the
prison rcginien-applid-ta.ather offenders ; and their
presence ceased to afford an excuse for a lack oLthe
uniformity after which the Home Office strove.
Notwithstanding the statutory transformation of
mere debtors into offenders punishable for contempt
of court notwithstanding all the improvements set
in motion under the Act of 1865 it was presently
realized that the desired results had not been ob-
tained. It was all very well for Parliament to ordain
that every prisoner should be placed in cellular isola-
tion, and for the Home Secretary to insist that this
should be done. But in all but a few of the seven or
eight score prisons under Local Government and in
all but a part of the structure even of these few
the provision of separate cells for all the prisoners
involved an enormous building programme, which
neither County Justices nor Municipal Corporations
were willing to undertake at the ratepayers' expense.
1 How the admission of debtors undermined the administration of even
the county prisons is shown by the account given of Lan< lo in
1856. The inspector reports (Parliamentary Papers, 1856, xxxiii, 410):
nor's journal I observe four cases in which the friends of
debtors had been detected endeavouring to bring spirits into the prison.
A severe example was mark- in one case, the daughter of a debtor being
! ty of 10. or in default to be imprisoned for two months,
for an attempt to carry rum into the Debtors' Gaol ; and it is to be hoped
attempts."
I also observe the ' "urnnl :
" October 2jth. 'About half- past midnight the gate- warder on duty found
P.C., a bailiff t ity Court. ' .drunken
the castle gates. :\n<[ with h: take
'c of the said P.O. About 7 o'clock the next morning the name parties
presented themselves at the castle gates, when the companion of P.C.
turned out to be a debtor in his (P.C.'s) custody. I have reported C.'s
shameful conduct to the High Bailiff of the C
196 CENTRAL CONTROL
It was all very well for Parliament to enact, in minute
detail, a uniform code of rules for all prisons, and to
prescribe specified forms of penal labour. But the
application of prison rules, and the adoption of par-
ticular forms of labour necessarily depended on
considerations of structure and equipment in the
several prisons, which could not be changed merely
by the stroke of a pen, and could not be made even
to approximate to uniformity without great expense.
Moreover, the couple of thousand Justices of the
Peace and members of Municipal Corporations, who
were still the legal owners of the hundred or more
separate prisons, felt that they were themselves respon-
sible for the prison administration, whatever rules Par-
liament might enact, and whatever the Home Office
inspector might say. At least they thought that it
must be within their discretion how the rules should
be applied, how the required dietaries should be
framed, and how the specified penal labour should be
exacted ; and on all these points the freely exercised
discretion of a hundred or more separate authorities
seriously departed from the uniformity that the Home
Office had never ceased to desire. 1
One of the most striking differences among the
hundred or so local prisons 2 at this period was in
respect of their policy in the matter of the labour
imposed on the prisoners. The Home Office admin-
istrators had become convinced, as the controversies
of the past half-century had demonstrated, that all
efforts to make profit out of the prisoners' labour, by
manufacturing goods for sale in the open market,
inevitably led to gross inequalities in the treatment
of prisoners, to practically unrestrained association
among them, and what was becoming a matter of
troublesome political agitation to complaints from
employers and Trade Unions of the unfair competi-
tion of " Prison Labour. 1 ' In the convict prisons
1 The average number of prisoners in confinement, which had gone down
in the years of good trade and continuous employment, 1871-2, to some
17,000, had again risen by 1877 to over 20,000.
1 By 1877 the total number of local prisons in England and Wales had
been reduced to 113.
PRISONS AS FACTORIES 197
these difficulties had been largely overcome by the
employment of all the prisoners physically fitted for
such labour on tasks of excavation and constructional
work for the Government itself, on which the
convicts at Chatham, Portsmouth, Portland, Dart-
moor and other prisons were engaged. Those
not physically fit for such work were employed
mainly in the domestic services and rough tailoring
required for the prisons themselves. In the local
prisons, however, the utmost diversity prevailed.
Some of the County Justices and Municipal Corpora-
tions clung desperately to the idea of making the
prisons self-supporting ; and though the Act of
1865 had made obligatory the penal labour of the
tread-wheel or the crank for the first period of long
sentences, the Home Secretary had not been able to
exclude all other employment, and the prisoners
might still be put to other tasks that might be ap-
proved. The Home Office was not able, in fact, to
bring to an end, in some important gaols and Houses
of Correction, the most extraordinary developments
of profit-making enterprise. In the West Riding
gaol at Wakefield, for instance, right down to 1878,
the manufacture of mats of all kinds produced a
gross revenue of 40,000 a year. Elsewhere clothes
were made up for contractors : all sorts of brushes
e manufactured for home and foreign markets ;
there were extensive boot and shoe manufactures ;
and large sales were made of various other articles.
Steam-power was often employed, and extensive
machinery provided. " Trade managers, 1 ' as well as
instructors (who acted as foremen) were engaged at
substantial salaries, with additional bonuses depen-
dent on the profits of the undertaking. Governors
and warders were also encouraged to promote the
enterprise, to the inevitable detriment of prison dis-
by being themselves allowed to sh.uv in the
profits. In some cases commercial travellers were
>loyed to effect sales, and even agents in fon i
countries. The prisoners were naturally encouraged
to work by bonuses and gr.ituiti.s, and
I 9 8 CENTRAL CONTROL
sometimes actually paid at piece-work prices. The
iagers, as well as the governors, were en-
trusted with these awards ; and diligent prisoners
were also given additional food, even to the extent,
occasionally, of meals of hot mutton chops ! l
It will easily be realized how much the Home
Office administrators chafed, between 1865 and 1877,
under their practical inability to enforce, upon the
County Justices and Municipal Corporations, the
uniformity in prison regimen to which so much
importance was attached. It was, however, long
thought impossible to make any further inroads on
the autonomy of the local prison authorities.
Presently a new factor came into play. The General
Election of 1874 had brought into power a govern-
ment pledged not to increase, but actually to relieve
the burden of rates upon the rural districts, and
especially those which it fell to the County Justices
to levy upon their tenants and neighbours. The
Home Office officials found their hands stayed,
not only when they strove to put down profit-making
in prisons, but also when they sought to enforce the
Act of 1865 by compelling the County Justices to
incur the expense of building new gaols on the
cellular plan. It began to be realized that the main-
tenance of more than a hundred separate local prisons,
some of them containing only a few dozen or a few
score inmates, was, in itself, a great waste of public
money ; and that to insist upon every such prison
authority equipping itself, not only with a complete
1 Among the prisons with the greatest manufacturing and trading dc\ i-l-
opments were Wakefield (Annals of the Wakefield House of Correction,
by J. H. Turner, 1904), Preston (The Prison Chaplain, by W. L. Clay, 1861),
hester, Bedford, Chelmsford, Maidstonc, Bodmin, Lewes, Warwick,
and Coldbath Fields (Revelations of Prison Life, by G. L. Chesterton, 1856),
and Holloway (London). See, as to this prison labour, Report of House of
Lords Committee on Prison Discipline, 1863 ; Report of Home Office
Committee on Prisons, 1895; Report on Prison Labour in Foreign Coun-
tries, 1895 .' Report of Home Office Committee on the Importation of
Goods made in Foreign Prisons, 1895 ; Correspondence between the
Board of Trade and the Government of India on Prison-made Goods, 1 897 ;
Statement by the Prison Commissioners on the Action which has been
taken to carry out the Recommendations of the 1895 Report, 1898 ; The
English Prison System at the end of the Nineteenth Century, by Sir Evelyn
Ruggloa-Brise, 1921, " Labour in English Prisons," pp. 131-141.
WHY NOT NATIONALIZE? 199
staff, but also with a completely cellular building as
Parliament had, in effect, enacted, at the instance
of the Cabinet itself would be an inexcusable
extravagance. To compel the building of new
county gaols at the ratepayers' expense had become,
in fact, after 1874, politically almost impossible. The
new Cabinet was pledged actually to reduce the
County Rate.
At this point, it was inevitable that the recommen-
dation of Charles Pearson before the Select Commit-
tee of 1850 should be revived. If the burden on the
County Rate had to be reduced, what would be more
effective than altogether to relieve the county of the
expense of maintaining the prisons ? In this way, it
was urged, the rural ratepayer would save nearly
half a million pounds a year, besides cutting himself
loose, at a blow, from all the portentous new liabilities
now discovered to have been imposed, with a steadily
rising tide of prisoners to be maintained, by the Act
of 1865. Faced with the prospect of these liabilities,
and tempted by the reduction of the rates within
their grasp, the Justices of the Peace, it was sug-
gested, would no longer very strenuously resist the
transfer of the whole function of prison maintenance
from local to central government. Such a transfer,
it was argued, would not only enable the Home Office
to get over the dilemma in which it was placed by
the breakdown of the 1865 Act, and enable, at last,
an ideal prison administration to be everywhere
out, without the difficulties inevitably con-
nected with local control, but would also effect a net
economy of expense. To get rid of the unnecessary
multiplicity of local prisons would create such a
saving as would suffice to cover the entire cost of the
requisite new buildings, for which the Government
could not, in the political circumstances of the
moment, easily find the money in any other way.
We do not know how the motives were mixed, in the
Home Office officials who advised, or in the Cabi
which adopted the proposal for the transfer of the
from local to central government. But it is
CENTRAL CONTROL
clear that the consideration of how otherwise to avoid
i al increase in the County Rate, and how else to
get the money for the new cellular prisons to which
Parliament and the Government had been by the Act
of 1865 committed, played a substantial part. The
Bill which Mr. R. A. (afterwards Viscount) Cross
introduced in 1876 and passed into law in 1877
which involved, as was expressly claimed, no import-
ant departure from the prison regimen that was sup-
posed to be everywhere enforced was, in fact, made
politically possible, not so much by the state of the
prisons, as by the successful campaign for a reduction
of the local burdens on the rural landowner, farmer
and ratepayer, which had formed so large a part of
the General Election of I874. 1
1 The Prisons Act of 1877 (40 and 41 Victoria, c. 21), though encountering
even less opposition than had been expected, was not passed without a
struggle, lu 1876 the Second Reading was carried by over 200 majority,
but lack of time prevented the Bill becoming law. When it was reintrb-
duced in the subsequent session, with some verbal changes conciliatory to
the Justices, it was denounced as " a gigantic and almost unparalleled
centralization," as " a distinct slur on local government and management,"
and as " sapping the foundations of the constitutional system " of " inde-
pendent local administration." But the Radicals who joined with a few
discontented Conservatives in opposing the measure on the Second Reading
found (as stated by Mr. Peter Rylands) that " the bribe held out of the
relief to local burdens," coupled with the argument of increased administra-
tive efficiency, was irresistible to the county members whom the 1874
election had returned to Parliament. In the long-drawn-out Committee
stage, they even obtained a further financial concession. The Bill proj
that local prison authorities which had failed to provide sufficient prison
accommodation should be required to contribute to the Exchequer at the
rate of ^120 per cell of their deficiency. It was thereupon demanded, and
eventually conceded, that other local authorities, which had provided
cellular accommodation in excess of what was found to be the maximum
number of their own prisoners, should be reimbursed by the Exchequer for
their excess accommodation, whether or not this was likely to be required
lor the kingdom as a whole, in any prisons that the Home Office did not
discontinue within two years. Under this clause no less than ^127,478
was paid to the counties for 1,376 cells, which proved, eventually, to be of
very little use (Punishment and Prevention of Crime, by Sir Edmund Du
Cane, 1885, p. 69). The subsequent stages of the Bill were fiercely fought
by the Irish members, who struggled, with some slight success, to get amend-
ments adopted which would prevent (in the Local Prisons) some of the
worst inhumanities with which the Irish condemned to penal servitude for
treason-felony had become acquainted in the convict prisons (see Hansard
for 1877). The harsh treatment of the Irish prisoners, who ought, it was
said, to have been treated as political prisoners (see Political Prisoners at
Home and Abroad, by G. Sigerson, 1890) had been described in John
Mitchel's Jail Journal, editions of 1868, 1876 and 1913 ; in Irish Rebels
in English Prisons, by J. O'Donovan Rossa, 1882 ; and, with great restraint
and a noble freedom from bitterness, in Leaves from a Prison Diary, by
Michael Davitt, 1885.
CHAPTER XII
THE ACT OF 1877 AND THE " DU CANE
REGIME "
THE Prisons Act of 1877 (40 and 41, Victoria, c. 21)
effected a revolution almost unique in the history of
English Local Government. A great administrative
service, extending throughout the whole country,
which had been for centuries within the sphere of
Local Government, was transferred en bloc to a
department of the National Government. In no
other branch of public administration has such a
change been made in England. Whenever such a
transfer has been proposed as it has been at different
dates for police, for elementary schooling, for lunacy,
for main roads, and indeed, for other services the
racteristic English preference for local over
central administration has hitherto always proved
too strong to be overcome. In prison administration
ie has centralization prevailed. It does not fall
within the plan of this book to attempt any judgment
upon all the results of the administrative revolution
\vhirh thr then Home Secretary and the Conserva-
1 ive Cabinet of 1874-80 were responsible. But we may
conclude our account of English prisons under Local
Government by a final chapter describing thr nppli-
he Act of 1877, and the inauguration^! the
prisons, in substitution for thr rule of the County
tices and Municipal Corporations, of what ai-
ds became known as the " Du Cane regime."
By the Act of 1877 the ownership of all the local
prisons was vested in t he Secretary of State, and their
gen udence was committed as that of
201
THE DU CANE REGIME
tho national convict prisons had been by the Act of
- to a body of Commissioners, not exceeding
i nimber, to be appointed by the Home Secre-
; o assist him in the work ; to act under his
instructions and to be responsible to him for the whole
administration. 1 Of these Commissioners the first
chairman was Colonel (afterwards Sir Edmund)
Du Cane, a distinguished officer of the Royal Engin-
eers who had succeeded Sir Joshua Jebb as Surveyor-
General of Prisons under the Act of 1844, and had
been mainly responsible for the structural and other
arrangements of the modern convict prisons. He
was at that time, and continued to be, also Chairman
of the Board of Directors of Convict Prisons, so that,
although technically still divided into two parts, the
whole of the English prisons came, in fact, under a
single administration. 2
On April ist, J878, the entire population of the
local prisons of England and Wales the number of
prisoners being then absolutely at its maximum in
the whole history of the nation, namely 2i,o3O 3
was transferred from the care of ' the County and
Borough Justices and the Municipal Corporations to
that of the Secretary of State and his Prison Commis-
sioners. The Home Office went promptly and vigor-
ously to work. Out of the 113 local prisons transferred
to them, no fewer than thirty-eight were instantly
closed on the day of transfer ; and in the course of
the ensuing decade nineteen more were got rid of,
1 Thus there was not, and there has never since been, any k .ssening of the
power and authority of the Secretary of State, and no derogation of the full
ministerial responsibility of the Home Secretary for everything that happens
in the prisons. This was made quite clear by the wording of the Act and
'lefinitely stated by the chairman of the Prison Commissioners (The
s/j Prison System at the end nf the Ni.u, 'arv, by Sir Evelyn
Kuggles-Brise, a paper read at the 1900 International Prisons Congress
at Brussels). The Prison Commissioners are just as much the agents of the
Home Secretary as are the clerks in the Home Office.
,ic other Commissioners were \V. W. Hornby (1877-91), J. \V. Perry
a'^tou (1877-80), and W. J. Stopford (1877-98). In succession to J.
\V. I'crry \Vatlington, R. S. Mitford was appointed in 1882 ; in succession
to W. W. Hornby, E. (afterwards Sir Evelyn) Ruggles-Brisc was appointed
in 1892. But Sir Edmund Du Cane, who served until 1894, was, through-
out his whole chairmanship, the dominant influence.
a In addition to some 10,000 in the convict prisons.
UNIFORMITY 203
the total number of " local " (as distinguished from
" convict ") prisons being reduced by 1894 to no
more than fifty-six. The business of taking over the
institutions, situated all over the country, on a single
day, and consolidating them into two-thirds, and
eventually into no more than half of their number ;
" organizing the staff, every member of which had
statutory rights reserved to him ; rearranging the
buildings, and establishing uniformity " was, as Sir
Godfrey Lushington rightly claimed in 1895, a task of
" prodigious magnitude on which an immense amount
of thought, contrivance and skill " was expended. 1
The first object of the Commissioners seems to have
been administrative efficiency and economy, and of
this the first condition, as they conceived it, was uni-
formity. The accounts, for instance, of the various
prisons were found in what seemed to the adminis-
trators at Whitehall to be a terrible muddle, no two
institutions keeping their books on the same plan,
or classifying their innumerable items of receipts
and expenditures in the same way. A model system
of book-keeping, with a perfect classification of
items of account was at once devised, and set going
in every prison. But more important steps were
promptly taken towards uniformity of prison regi-
men. Committees of officials were appointed to
devise what seemed to them the most suitable
dietary, the most scientific schemes of penal labour,
most efficient administrative devices, and so
MI, the result of these deliberations, which were
carried on without publicity, upon exclusively
official information, and with the minimum of
outside criticism, being in each case prescribed
for uniform adoption from one end of the kingdom
to the other. A new and elaborate code of
prison rules was presently promulgated, made up
of the best of the rules embodied in the 1865
Act, with such modifications as experience had
dictated. The staff of every prison was organized
upon a strictly uniform scale, with exactly pre-
1 Report of Home Office Committee on Prisons, 07702, 1895, p. 3.
THE DU CANE REGIME
ibed arrangements for the services of the gover-
nors, the chaplains, the medical officers, the school-
masters, the warders, and what not. 1 It was expressly
in order to bring the treatment of the sick up to the
necessary uniformity of standard that a Medical In-
spector of Prisons was appointed.
The extent to which this fetish of uniformity was
pusKd seems to-day extraordinary. For not only
was the uniformity to extend to all parts of the king-
dom, to all features of the regimen, and to all depart-
ments of each prison, but it was even carried so far
10 ignore, almost entirely, all the differences among
prisoners themselves. The very smallest dis-
tinction was made between prisoners of different
ages, or of different sexes, or of different social ante-
cedents, or of different bodily physique, or of differ-
ent mental attainments. To Sir Edmund Du Cane
a prisoner was a prisoner, and practically nothing else.
We can now see how calamitously such a. blind unifor-
mity in the application of a regimen which was, to
say the least, dangerous in its possible effects,
reacted on three great classes of prisoners, for whom
very different arrangements needed to be made.
Thus, prior to 1895, practically no attention was paid
to the special and peculiar problem of the female
prisoners, who were being committed to prison to the
number of nearly a thousand every week of the year,
two-thirds of them for drunkenness or prostitution,
three-quarters of the whole having been previously
convicted, most of them repeatedly. In and out
of prison passed this mournful procession of unfortu-
nate victims, ; most of them committed for short
sentences which left no room for the beneficial
influences of the much-vaunted " System of Progres-
sive Stages." Under the "Du Cane regime/' their
treatment was as nearly as possible that meted out
to the men who made a lifelong profession of preying
1 In all the staffs of the 113 prisons taken over on April ist, 1878, there
were found to be only fifty schoolmasters! But even to-day the prison
" schoolmasters " are, for the most part, men of only slight technical
qualifications for teaching.
SEVKKin 205
on the public in the way of fraud, cheating or robbery
with violence. Right down to 1895, too, practically
no heed was paid to the " feeblemindedness/' which
characterizes a large proportion, variously estimated
at from 3 to 20 per cent., of all the inmates of our
ms. Unless a prisoner could be certified defin-
itely as insane in which case he was supposed to be
removed to an asylum all, whether sharp-witted
and cunning, or stupid to the extent ot actual mental
deficiency, had to undergo the uniform treatment.
Lastly, and in some ways most tragic of all, there \va>
-a-iotal neglect to consider how best to treat the
youthful criminal, bo3 T or girl, whether convicted for
tEe-first time or recidivist. For the children between
twelve and sixteen who were then being committed
to prison for every kind of petty offence, as for
what we have since learned to call the juvenile
adult, between sixteen and twenty-one the age at
which, as we now know, the great majority of our
life -long criminals are formed the Prison Commis-
sioners of 1878-94 had nothing but their uniform
regimen applicable alike to the ingenious forger,
the professional burglar, the hungry pilferer, the
drunkard and the prostitute.
Second only to the desire of the Commissioners for
an exact uniformity of administrative efficiency in
all the prisons, was their insistence on a rigorous
uniformity of severity. The Act of 1877 had not, it
rue, expressly prohibited the employment of the
oners on productive work ; and the susceptibili-
ties of Parliament had even been appealed to by a
imblc to the section relating to labour which was
certainly understood to imply that productive labour
of a skilled character would be retained. 1 But Sir
>uCane and his colleagues evidently thought
t productive employment, coupled with " instruc-
D II of 40;' thai " \\ i
at that t!
should i:
I also of t
should fo-
ot and ins :uaiiufactt.
THE DU CANE REGIME
tion in useful trades/' was not consistent with the
uniformity of deterrence at which they aimed. In
nearly all cases it involved labour in association,
which was incompatible with the rigorous cellular
isolation that the policy of deterrence was held to
require. The phrase of the House of Lords Com-
mittee of 1863 that the prisoners should all endure
" hard labour, hard fare and a hard bed " seems
to have been taken seriously as the Government
policy, and applied with a ruthless uniformity which
the noble lords had possibly not contemplated.
Along with the uniform dietary and the universal
plank bed came in spite of all the evidence existing
against it uniform " first class hard labour by means
of the tread-wheel, the task of which was regulated
by the most minute instructions as the task for hard
labour in prisons/' 1 And along with the universal
infliction of a uniform task upon the tread-wheel
or the crank (for the latter remained extensively in
use) came the insistence upon cellular confinement
and absolute non-intercourse among the prisoners for
the whole length of each man's sentence, which, in
the worst cases, extended to two years. ' The
governor/' laconically said the rule, " shall enforce
the observance of silence throughout the prison."
Opportunity was taken to bring to an end the various
profit-making enterprises of the local prisons. The
bonuses and allowances to officers and prisoners
were abolished, and the foreign agents, the commer-
cial travellers and most of the salaried trade instruc-
s ist< -nt with a due regard on the one hand to the maintenance of the penal
character of prison discipline, and on the other, to the avoidance of undue
ire on, or competition with, any particular trade or industry."
1 The English Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. 72.
An amendment by Mr. Serjeant Simon, forbidding the use of the tread-
wheel, had been rejected in the House of Commons by 229 votes to 72.
The official committee on penal labour, and notably Dr. Cover, the Medical
Inspector of Prisons who reported specially on the subject (Annual Report
of the Prison Commissioners, 1891, Appendix 15), deprecated the previous
practice of some prisons in allowing forms of labour which were not " penal
and deterrent in character," and insisted that every prisoner should, " for
at least a portion of his sentence, be employed upon this repugnant descrip-
tion of work." Shot-drill was, however, abolished, and the use of the
capstan abandoned, whilst stone-breaking was steadily diminished. There
remained only the tread- wheel, which the official reports now rehabilitated,
and the crank.
NON-INTERCOURSE 207
tors were dispensed with. Mat-making was, in
fact, almost entirely abandoned, in deference to the
agitation of the capitalist mat manufacturers, who
(in conjunction with the operatives whose agitation
they incited and subsidised) were able to demonstrate
that the extraordinary development of the prison
industry at Wakefield and elsewhere, in which no
.'e.r than 3,000 prisoners were continuously engaged,
had seriously encroached upon their profits. Such
other industries as were continued had more and more
to be confined to work that could be done by each
prisoner in his separate cell. One of the most exten-
of these occupations was oakum picking, in
which between 3,000 and 4,000 men were employed ;
and this was kept on even when (by the substitution
of iron ships for wooden ones) the demand for oakum
fell away, and the industry ceased to yield any profit
at all. The disagreeable and monotonous task of
picking old rope to pieces, which needed no instruc-
tion, which might be imposed upon prisoners of
any physical strength or mental capacity, which
could be performed in silence in absolute cellular iso-
lation, and which was rendered all the more " penal "
in character because of its very unprofitableness,
became, under the Du Cane regime, after the hated
tread-wheel and crank, the favourite form of prison
labour. 1
We should do the Prison Commissioners of 1878-94
an injustice if we inferred that in jprcscn
uniform application <>i cellular isolation, absolute
. niong the prisoners, the rule of
, oakum-picking, and the tread-wheel, they
ignoivd i he effects of this rigorous treatment upon
mental and physical condition of the vast popu-
lation committed to their charge. They were fam-
with tin- controversies of the past half-century,
y were aware of the proved results of solitary
confinement in Millbank Prison, of the tread-wheel
1 See, for all this, the Annual Reports of the Prison Commissioners,
1879-85 ; and The Punishment and Prevention of Crime, by Sir Edmund
uc, 1885, especially Chap. IV.
Mil; DU CAM- REGIME
in IVnionville Prison, of the incessant stimulus to
and the frightful frequency of punishments
which the strict enforcement of silence had every-
where produced. " Cellular labour/' wrote Sir
Edmund Du Cane himself, at the very time that he
- making it the basis of his prison regimen, " is
decidedly brutali/ing in its effects. To men of any
intelligence it is irritating, depressing and debasing
to the mental faculties ; to those already of a low
type of intelligence it is too conformable to the state
of mind out of which it is most desirable that they
should be raised/' 1 It is hard to understand how
the Prison Commissioners of that date justified their
action. But they believed that in no other way
could they achieve the object of uniformity in
the application of a deterrent system which they
understood the Home Secretary, in compliance with
the recommendations of the House of Lords Com-
mittee of 1863 (though without the express concur-
rence of the Parliament of 1877) to have definitely
decided upon. What the Prison Commissioners
seem to have believed was that it was possible, by
a uniform efficiency of administration upon " enlight-
ened " principles, in which governors, medical officers,
chaplains, schoolmasters and warders were given
precisely detailed rules with which they were re-
quired to conform, to prevent the evil consequences
that had admittedly happened in the diversely
administered prisons of 1821-77. No small part of
the thought and work of the Commissioners during
these years was devoted to the administrative im-
provements by which they aimed at preventing their
uniform regimen of deterrence from actually injuring
the health of the prisoners. Some slight improvement
was made in the bathing arrangements. All over-
crowding was stopped. The most elaborate precau-
tions were gradually taken to make the prison build-
ings absolutely sanitary, and to exclude all infectious
disease. The medical care of the sick was greatly
1 The Punishment and Prevention of Crime, by Sir Edmund Du Cane,
1885, p. 175.
THE PRISONER'- \LTH 209
improved, minute regulations were issued, and pro-
fessional inspection was introduced. The hospital
accommodation, nursing and medical treatment were
raised to a standard which, whilst it could bear no
comparison with that of voluntary hospitals, had
never before been known in prison. Prison statistics
are rightly regarded with some suspicion, and the
prison death-rate is much affected by the practice of
releasing prisoners who are expected to die, but it is
probable that the officially recorded reduction of
the death-rate among prisoners, from 10.8 per
1,000 in 1877 t 5-6 per 1,000 in 1898, fairly repre-
sents a vast improvement in the average physical
health of those in confinement. What was ig-
nored, and hardly ever publicly discussed, was
the significant fact that the great majority of
prisoners lost weight, and those committed for short
terms often to a serious extent. Nor can it have been
realized how exceptionally high was the death-rate
from tuberculosis in comparison with that of the
population at large, nor how much this susceptibility
to tubercular disease might depend upon specific
dietary insufficiencies, the exclusion of direct sunlight,
inevitable accumulation of dust, and the perpe-
tual desire to prevent draughts, which characterized
even the best ventilated prisons.
With regard to the mental condition of the pri-
soners the evidence is, perhaps, least satisfactory.
The prison schoolmaster was directed to give instruc-
tion in reading and writing to those who were found
to be illiterate ; but we do not gather that there v.
any real improvement, between 1878 and 1894, in
the education imparted to the prison population as
a whole. The prison libraries began, at any rate, to
contain some books apart from the theological homi-
lies which used to characterize them. Those pri-
soners who were Roman Catholics were no longer
deprived of access to a priest, or left without religious
ices. 1 The visits of the Anglican chaplains to
.
the
210 THE DU CANE REGIME
each prisoner's cell may have become somewhat more
frequent than the one or two a year which had in
some large prisons been the average. We may well
Ivlieve that the improved training of governors and
warders, the elaborate rules directing in minute
particulars their treatment of the prisoners, and the
greatly increased supervision and inspection must
have done much to prevent the worst of the arbitrary
tyranny which had, in the past, often driven pri-
soners to despair. The wearing of masks, for in-
stance, was abolished. The Commissioners may fairly
claim in their favour the^reduction of suicides among
prisoners from 17*6 per 1,000 in 1877 to 7 per 1,000
in 1896. But it is not clear how far this reduction
of achieved suicides corresponded with a genuine
diminution in the percentage of prisoners driven into
insanity or despair, and how far it was merely the
result of the extraordinary precautions introduced
into the prisons with the object of making it almost
impossible to commit suicide, to which we have
already referred. 1
To prevent the actual cruelties which had from
time to time occurred in the prisons, Parliament had
definitely limited the power of the governor to inflict
punishment. He was not allowed to place any prisoner
in the punishment cell and on punishment diet for
more than three days, though the Visiting Justices
might inflict as long a term as fourteen d?ys. His use
of irons was strictly limited to the restraint of prison-
ers actually guilty of physical violence in gaol. The
Home Office followed this up by stringent and precise
rules intended to ensure that any excess of punish-
appointment of Roman Catholic chaplains to prisons. This agitation, of
which Mr. Whalley, M.P., and Mr. Newdegate, M.P., made themselves the
spokesmen in the House of Commons, had prevented some County Justices
from providing religious ministrations for their Roman Catholic prisoners.
1 We cannot forget that the percentage of suicides may go down, coinci-
dentally with an actual increase in the percentage of insanity (History of
Penal Methods, by George Ives, 1914, p. 231). The statistics officially
given as to the percentage of suicides appear to vary in unexplained ways ;
and it does not seem that much reliance can be placed upon this item of
prison statistics. Sometimes we read of the percentage of deaths by
suicide to the total deaths in prison, and sometimes the percentage to the
average daily population.
'PROGRESSIVE STAGES" 211
ment or other cruelty should become automatically
known to the inspectors and to the Prison Com-
missioners. We may hope that the greatly increased
stringency of inspection, the elaborate keeping of
records, and the steady improvement in the prison
staffs effected some substantial improvement in this
respect, although the matter is not one on which
definite evidence is available. 1
What the Prison Commissioners of 1878-1894 most
prided themselves upon, and what they very largely
relied on to mitigate their deterrent regimen, was the
system of " Progressive^Sta^es/ 1 to which allusion
has already Deign madeT TThelot of the prisoner at
the beginning of his sentence was, admittedly and
intentionally, extremely hard so hard, as possibly
to be quite unendurable over a lengthy period. But
it was made possible for every prisoner, after a cer-
tain time, to procure for himself, by absolute obed-
ience and perfect docility, progressive stages of alle-
viation, to which, minute as they may appear, he
"could look: forward, and from which it was supposed
that he might derive so much encouragement as to
counteract all that was injurious in his cellular isola-
tion and silent toil on the crank or tread-wheel. The
difficulty was to find alleviations compatible with the
uniformity of which such a fetish had been made.
Improvement in diet had been abandoned, not only
as unnecessarily adding to expense, but also as illo-
gical, because anything beyond a sufficiency of food
amounted to luxury unjustifiable for prisoners.*
Reductions in the task of work were equally illogical,
because the task was, from the outset, fixed at the pre-
cise point between what would allow opportunity f<r
1 Unfort \\ inspection, mult:
Du Cane regime, was directed almost
s and
1 1 does not s .my account of
a On the other hand, it was m it found illo.u'u-iil in ; : by way of
>r to other low diets, was
mfli< > s in 11 i, in 40.000 cases annually a
mini 1 1 in the cours< irs to an annual average
of about half as mm tnd Prevention nm-1
' >5).
TT f CANE KtfGIME
indolence and wiutt would cause excessive fatigue.
The i Commissioners of 1878-94 were accord-
'y driven, as their successor admits, actually
' to add to the penalty prescribed by the Court
imposing, in the name of the Progressive Stages
System, certain penalties and incapacities as a
uliar feature of the early stages/' 1 It was
not merely that the cells were purposely made
as bare and repellent as could possibly be con-
trived, with opaque glass to the hermetically closed
windows so as to prevent even a glimpse of the sky.
Nothing was allowed in the way of personal posses-
sions not a picture or even a photograph of the
prisoner's wife or child to break the monotony of
the cell wall, or to keep alive any feeling of fam'ly
affection. The rule of silence was enforced merely
for the sake of enforcing a discipline which had been
found to be disagreeable. They were kept in
absolute ignorance of public affairs. These were
the conditions of all prisoners at all stages. But
during the First Stage they were not only kept
strictly to " hard labour of the first class " for ten
hours every day, six hours of which was to be on
the tread-wheel or crank, but were allowed no
mattress to. sleep on during the whole period, no
school instruction, no books of any sort, and no
chance of earning, by good marks, any gratuity or
remission of sentence. Those promoted to the Second
Stage were put, after one month, on hard labour of
the second class, which might mean industrial em-
ployment ; they were allowed to sleep on a mattress
five days a week ; they might, under certain cir-
cumstances, receive a small amount of school in-
struction, and have school-books in the cell ; they
were allowed Sunday exercise ; and they had the
opportunity of earning a gratuity not exceeding one
shilling. In the Third Stage, the hard labour was
the same, and also the chances of school instruction
and the use of school books ; but the mattress might
be enjoyed for six nights in every week, and as much
1 The English Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. 73.
AN AID TO DISCIPLINE 213
as eighteenpence might be earned as gratuity. For
those who attained to the Fourth Stage, the hard
labour might possibly be superseded by selection for
an office of trust about the prison ; the mattress
might be enjoyed every night in the week ; library
books as well as school books might be read ; the
gratuity to be earned rose to the giddy height of
two shillings, and the prisoner was allowed to write
and receive letters, and to receive visits, at certain
intervals, and under stringent restrictions. It will
be seen how small were the improvements to be
gained even by the best conduct. At a later date
the privilege was added of being allowed to earn, by
good marks, a slight diminution in the length of the
sentence. 1
Whatever may be said in criticism of the excep-
tional rigour of the preliminary period, the system of
progressive amelioration of the prisoner's condition,
dependent on his conduct in gaol at the elaboration
of which Maconochie and Crofton and Jebb had all
worked in their several ways seems to have had
some success, in the narrow sense of producing the
" good prisoner/ 1 in the convict prisons, where the
inmates were all serving long sentences. The Prison
Commissioners prided themselves on its " remark-
able and undeniable success " as "an aid to discipline,
industry and good order. 1 ' The risk or fear
of losing remission marks operates," it could be
said, " as a powerful deterrent against idleness or
misconduct, and it has been found, generally, that
1 It is hard to recognize in the above exact description of the " Pro-
gressive Stages," Sir Edmund Du Cane's optimistic account of the system
in 1885. " The principle on which this system is founded is that of sett im:
before prisoners the advantages of good conduct and industry by enabling
to gain certain privileges or modifications of the penal charai 1
the sentence by the exertion of tin sr qualities, ("ommrnring with I
1 labour, hard fare and hard i n gradually ;K: more
interesting employment, somewhat more material comfort, full use of
of communication and word \\-\\\\ his
Is. finally ntage of a moderate sum of money to start again
on his discharge, so that he may not have the temptations or the excuse
that want of means might afford for falling again into crime (Th* Pt<
ment and Prevention of Crime, by Sir Edmund Du Cane. 1885. p. 77).
Details of the system will be found in the Annual Report of the Prison
Commissioners, 1879, Appendix
Annual Report of the Prison Commissioners, 1885, par. 49.
214 THE DU CANE REGIME
under the influence of this salutary provision there
has been a marked improvement in the tone and
demeanour of the prisoners, while, at the same time,
an aid has been furnished for maintaining order and
discipline/' 1
Unfortunately, the Prison Commissioners of 1878-
94 failed to remember that the twenty thousand
prisoners committed to their charge in the local
prisons were, unlike the inmates of the convict
prisons, not serving long sentences. 2 The vast
majority of them were committed only for a few
weeks, and only 2 per cent, for six months or more,
whilst no sentence exceeded two years. Hence the
proportion who could derive much benefit from the
system of Progressive Stages was minute. 2 The
extra rigour imposed in order to be subsequently
removed, fell, however, upon all. 3 A similar criti-
cism may be made upon the educational arrange-
ments made by Sir Edmund Du Cane. It was not
worth while seeking to teach for the half an hour or
the one or two hours, per week, which could be set
aside from the demands of labour, men committed to
prison for only a few weeks ; or, indeed, as the Com-
missioners seem to have thought, for any period less
than four months. Hence the great mass of prisoners
got no benefit from the much vaunted system of
prison education, and the enlarged staff of prison
1 The English Prison System, by Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, p. 81 (with regard
to the subsequent application of a similar principle to the local pris-
ons).
a In 1903, 61 per cent, of the men and 66 per cent, of the women were
committed for fourteen days or less. If we take three months as the short-
est time in which any appreciable advantage could be got, either out of
any " System of Progressive Stages " or out of the ministrations of the
chaplain or schoolmaster as they were, in fact, made, we find that, in 1903
only 6 per cent, of the men and only 2 per cent, of the women were sentenced
for longer than that term. (Prison Commissioners' Report for 1903.)
3 " The only precedent for dealing with short sentences " that is to say,
the only one that the Prison Commissioners of 1877-98 chose to regard
" was that afforded by military prisons. It is well known that the Com-
mittee on Military Prisons of 1844, which was in favour of hard penal treat-
ment, shot-drill, cranks, etc. (in use in military prisons as a punishment for
recalcitrant soldiers) exercised a considerable" influence with local authori-
ties in administering civil prisons ; and the reproach, so often directed to
the Local Prison system " under Sir Edmund Du Cane " that it was
too military in its character, was probably due to this source." (The
English Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. 73.)
THE LOSS OF PUBLICITY 215
schoolmasters. When a prison chaplain had in his
charge, as was sometimes the case in the large new
gaols that were being erected, as many as 800 or
1,000 prisoners (which, if he spread his time evenly
over all, meant an average of less than ten minutes
per month for each inmate), he found it as much as
he could do to get round the cells of those serving
sentences of substantial length, and he could not
possibly visit all those committed only for a few
days or weeks. Nevertheless the system of cellular
isolation for everyone was maintained with inflexible
rigour, and the Prison Commissioners remained to
the end, absolutely complacent about it. " The
Separate System/' wrote Sir Edmund Du Cane
in 1886, " never was more uniformly and univer-
sally carried out than now, and never stood in
higher repute. All our (local) prisons are on the
Separate System ... a sign of the efficiency of the
system/' 1
One of the unforeseen results of the transfer of the
local prisons to the administration of a Government
Department was to put a stop to even the small
amount of publicity that had since 1835 prevailed.
The Home Office inspectors of the prisons under the
administration of the County Justices and Municipal
Corporations between 1835 and 1878 had, as we have
seen, never scrupled to report in the most outspoken
way as to the abuses that they discovered. Succes-
sive Home Secretaries had allowed the inspectors'
reports to be presented to Parliament and placed on
sale, without suppression or omission. The pub-
lication of a blue book is not the most effective way
of arousing public attention, but this, at least, made
it possible, from time to time, to give the world some
impression of what passed behind the prison bars.
The reports of the inspectors upon the administration
1 Sir Kdmuivl 'lack, 1886 ; printed in Penological and
M, by W. Tallack, 1896, p. 168. The first edition of thi
:. by the secretary of the Howard Association, appeared in 1889. For
llular system, see his Cellular System, 1872 ;
in the Criminal Administration and Humanitarianisix
special reference to the prison systems, etc., 1872.
216 THE DU CANE REGIME
of what had become their own Department were
quickly found to be different from those made upon
the administration of other authorities. Moreover,
when the inspectors expressed themselves freely
upon particular abuses, it was deemed inconvenient
to make their strictures known to the public. Any
reports of this character became confidential docu-
ments ; and the Prison Commissioners presented to
Parliament their own general reports, in which they
described their own administration. We need not
ascribe to Sir Edmund Du Cane any conscious or
deliberate intention of concealing from Parliament
and the public what was happening in the prisons.
But the inevitable bias of any official administration
is to avoid the trouble that is caused by scandals, and
even by the questions put in the House of Commons
by members who had got hold of the particular
abuses from which no administration can ever be
entirely free. Nothing was therefore published that
was likely to give rise to Parliamentary complaint,
or afford a handle to newspaper criticism. The visits
of non-official persons to the prisoners were severely
discouraged.
It is true that the local prisons were, under the
Act of 1877, eac h provided with a Visiting Committee
of Justices of the Peace appointed by Quarter
Sessions, the members of which were statutorily
empowered, under section 14 of the Prison Act of
1877, to visit every part of the prison, and to see,
privately if desired, every person in confinement.
We have seen that, even when the prisons were
nominally administered by the Justices themselves,
their inspection had been in the last degree perfunc-
tory ; and that it had served sometimes as a screen-
even in such bad cases as those of Birmingham and
Leicester to negligent or tyrannous prison officials.
When the gaols and Houses of Correction came to
form part of a centralized administration, outwardly
clean and sanitary, and regulated by a minute code
of rules which seemed, to the unpractised country
gentleman, to leave no room for abuses, the perfunc-
THE VISITING JUSTICES 217
tory inspection by the Visiting Committee of the
work of officials whom they had not appointed, and
over whom they could exercise no authority, became,
in nearly all cases, absolutely valueless. If a
criticisms were inserted in the volume provided for
that purpose, no publicity was given to them.
\Yhether or not they were ever communicated to the
Prison Commissioners, the zealous Justices of the
Peace usually heard no more of the matter. The
result was, it is reported, that it became extremely
rare for any useful criticism to be made. A great
darkness shrouded the whole prison system?*"""
The"" Du Cane regime " appeared, accordingly,
at first sight, to have achieved a great success. The
annual reports of the Prison Commissioners main-
tained a tone of complete self-complacency.* There
were no public scandals. No tales of prison horrors
comparable with those of a previous generation were
told, or at any rate, not in such a way as to be heard
by the newspapers or the governing class of the
period. The average number of criminals who were
at any one time maintained at the public expense a
number which had, down to 1877, continued to
increase now steadily fell.
1 It is, we think, characteristic that so long as Sir Edmund Du Cane was
in command, the Home Office and the Prison Commissioners refused to take
part in the International Prison Conference, which had been definitely
established after a conference in London in 1872, and in which t) e \
administrators of nearly every civilized country conferred \%ith scientific
investigators and philanthropists for the impi of systems of
punishment. Gn-at Rrit.in did not join this Inl< n iscn Ccn-
ference until 1895. British government delegates attended congresses of
1895, 1900, 1905 and 1910 with (as they declared) some intellectual profit ;
and the Conference was invited to hold its quinquennial congress of 1915
in London, this being prevented only by the war.
1 ->ir Edmund L)u C .in and ins colleagues could claim for their system
support of a majority of those who, on tlu. continent of Europe, took an
rest in pi :iistration. In an interesting article by
M. iv iv st li rtrand, governor of the Central Prison at Louvain (an \
pentant advocate of \ve are told - 1 n;tt n-
s " in Revue de Droit Penal et de Criminologie, March and April.
ss of 1900 at Brussels may b
to have set the crown uj > llular Syst< m : a mu.nimouB
fail was pronounced upon thissyst<
France, Prussia, Spain, Italy, and many oil us, had si
more or less completely, the same primipli-, whuh tl.i- I
States had revived from Ik-ntham and Pope i Kin. nt XI The credit of
tins principle had never ceased to grow, at least on this side of i
right down -f war
218 THE DU CANE REGIME
Nevertheless - public -opinion became gradually
once more uneasy about the state of the prisons. It
could not be concealed that " recidivism " the
repeated convictions for renewed crimes of those who
had passed through the prisons apparently unameli-
orated and undeterred did not diminish, and seemed,
injtact, in certain categories of criminals, even to
increase. Those who, like the Salvation Army offi-
cers and other philanthropists, had to do with dis-
charged prisoners, reported unfavourably upon their
mental condition. It began to be said that the
boasted improvement of the prisons was, after all,
merely in externals ; that the buildings only had
been made sanitary, and that although the prisoners
might be kept in what was called bodily health,
they left the prison physically weakened, and were
often so mentally broken down by their confine-
ment as to be incapable of earning an honest live-
lihood. "If we look/' it was said, a little later,
" for the really essential changes during a hundred
years, we find just these :
" i. A surface cleanliness of apparent perfection ;
"2. Conversation, prison visits and arrange-
ments tending towards a decent sociability
between prisoners and prisoners, and be-
tween prisoners and the public, reduced and
rendered difficult by multitudinous bye-
laws."
" On the one hand a cleanliness obtainable only
by irritating industry disproportionate to its proper
value : on the other hand a reduction of such facili-
ties as are most likely to prevent a prisoner from
degenerating to a social alien, an automatic machine
or a lunatic/' 1 What began to be said, in fact, in
less restrained language, was that the prisons were
" whited sepulchres/' less scandalously cruel in par-
ticular cases, but possibly more insidiously injurious
to the great mass of their unfortunate inmates than
1 Introduction by A. F. Murison, p. viii, to The Criminal and the Com-
munity, by James Devon, 1910.
THE NEED FOR INQUIRY 219
the unreformed gaols that they had replaced. 1
We are warranted in some such judgment upon
' the Du Cane regime " that followed the Act of
1877 by the careful and restrained conclusions of the
experienced administrator who, in 1895, succeeded
Sir Edmund Du Cane as Chairman of the Prison
Commission. " At a relatively small cost the prison
buildings soon after the Act were brought up
to a high standard, both in construction and in
sanitation. It may be that in some respects his
desire for economy led him too far in the direction
of retrenchment, both in buildings and in service.
. . . There had been, moreover, a decrease in the
yearly death rate, in the number of suicides " it will
be noted that no claim is made for any decrease in insan-
ity " and in corporal punishments, and in the yearly
average of dietary punishments." In short, Sir
Edmund Du Cane " had completely succeeded . . .
in promoting uniformity, economy and a generally
improved administration/' 2 Nothing is said, it will
be noted, as to the effect on the prisoners themselves,
and on the after-life of the hundred thousand or so
men and women who were annually subjected to the
regime. We must supply the omission by the grave
reflection, authoritatively made in 1895, that " the
moral condition in which a large number of prisoners
leave the prison, and the serious number of recom-
mittals, have led us to think that there is ample cause
l<>r a searching inquiry into the main features of
prison life. 1 ' 8
It was a long time before the gradually accumu-
lating public criticism took effect. At last, after the
General Election of i892,when Mr. Asquith was Home
Secretary, the Government was, in 1894, prevailed
upon* to allow <m inquiry into the whole prison sys-
,hat " oui
s were a hund more corrupting than the dungeons <.-:
Paroles d'un rivoM, 1885, p. 243).
The Knt(lish Pris !es-Brise, 1921, pp. 1-37.
8 Report of Home Office Committee on Prisons, 1895.
4 It -uour of t!
had had a .1 of service as prison chaplan
boon largely owing tohisrepiescntations that the Committee wasappci
220 THE DU CANE REGIME
tern, not, indeed, by any independent authority, but
by a Departmental Committee of carefully selected
members, presided over by the Under-Secretary of
State (Mr. Herbert, afterwards Lord Gladstone),
who was himself sharing with Mr. Asquith in the
responsibility for the prison administration. It is
not too much to say that this Committee, less by its
specific recommendations than by its very serious
reflections on the failure of the Du Cane regime and
by the new spirit which it put into the Home Office
administration, started, after unexplained delay,
what we may hope to have been the beginning of a
beneficent revolution. 1
The Committee of 1894-5 made a keen, and some-
what minute inquiry into the principles and practice
of the Prison Commissioners, although it was found
impossible for the members to visit many of the
prisons, or to gain much from the experience of the
subordinate prison officers let alone consult many
ex-prisoners, or the prisoners themselves! The
Committee paid a due meed of testimony to the
complete success which Sir Edmund Du Cane had
achieved in the direction of uniformity, discipline and
economy ; and to the attention given to organiza-
tion, finance, order, sanitation and statistics. But as
Sir Edmund Du Cane was fortunately on the point
of retiring from office on reaching the age of superan-
nuation, the Committee felt free, so far as the condi-
tion of the prisoners was concerned, to pass, in care-
fully restrained language, what was nothing short of
a condemnation of the Du Cane regime itself. The
An impressive article by him, entitled " Are our prisons a failure ? "
appeared In the Fortnightly Review in May, 1894. His books, Crime and
its Causes, 1891, and Juvenile Offenders, 1896, were influential and sug-
gestive. Other books of this period were Jottings from Jail, 1887, and
Prisons and Prisoners, both by the Rev. J. W. Horsley ; Experience of a
Medical Officer in the English Convict Service, by J. Campbell, 1884 ;
Scenes from a Silent World, by F. Scougal, 1889; In Base Durance:
Reminiscences of a Prison Chaplain, by Rev. F. Meredyth, 1891; Secrets
of the Prison House, by Arthur Griffiths, 1894; Kirkdale Gaol: Twelve
Months' Imprisonment of a Manchester Merchant, 1880 ; Twelve Months
in an English Prison, by S. W. Fletcher, 1884 ; Eighteen Months' Im-
prisonment, by D. S., 1881; and / was in Prison, by F. Brocklehurst,
1898.
1 Report of Home Office Committee on Prisons, 1895.
THE 1894 COMMITTEE 221
effect on the hundred thousand or so men and women
on whom it was annually imposed had not been kept
in mind. ' The great, and as we consider the
proved danger of this highly centralized system has
been and is that while much attention has been
given to organization, finance, order, health of the
prisoners and prison statistics, the prisoners have
been treated too much as a hopeless or worthless
element of the community, and the moral as well as
the legal responsibilities of the Prison Authorities
has been held to cease when they pass outside the
prison gates." That the system completely failed
to effect any reformation of character was ad-
mitted by the highest authority in the Home Office
itself. The Permanent Under-Secretary of State
described the nature of tie influence upon the prison
ulation in terms with which the Committee were
constrained to agree. " I regard as unfavourable to
reformation/' said Sir Godfrey Lushington, " the
status of a prisoner throughout his whole career ;
the crushing of self-respect; the starving of all moral
instinct he may possess ; the absence of all oppor-
tunity to do or receive a kindness ; the continual
association with none but criminals, and that only as
a separate item among other items also separate ;
the forced labour and the denial of all liberty. I
believe the true mode of reforming a man, or restoring
him to society, is exactly in the opposite direction
of all these." And this experienced official added,
in terms indicating how little the Home Office even
thought of any alteration, " But of course this is a
mere idea. It is quite impracticable in a prison. In
fact, the unfavourable features I have mentioned are
inseparable from prison life." The Committee took
a different view. " We do not agree," they unani-
mously declared/' that all these unfavourable features
are irremovable. . . . We think that the system
i ild be made more elastic, more capable of being
adapted to the special cases of individual prisoners ;
that prison disriplinr ; nd treatment should be more
effectually designed to maintain, stimulate or awaken
THE DU CANE REGIME
the higher susceptibilities of prisoners, to develop
their moral instincts, to train them in orderly and
industrial habits, and whenever possible to turn them
out of prison better men and women physically and
mentally than when they came in."
It became plain, moreover, that the " Du Cane
regime " had achieved no greater success in deterrence
than in reformation. The average population in
prison had fallen off, but the Committee found no
warrant for the self-complacency of the Prison Com-
missioners in imagining that their rigorous regimen
of deterrence was diminishing either the amount of
crime or the number of criminals. The diminution
in the average prison population which had been so
triumphantly adduced as a proof of the success of
the " Du Cane regime " was shown .to. be almost
entirely accounted for by a reduction in the average
length of sentence awarded by the judges and magis-
trates. The recidivism was as great as ever. ' The
broad deduction may be made," it was later remarked,
lt that so long as the classical conception of punish-
ment remained, i.e., the mechanical application of the
letter of the law to an abstract type of offender, no
great impression was being made either in the num-
ber or character of offences. Statistics varied from
year to year under the influence of special circum-
stances ; but the great stage army of offenders in all
the categories continued its unbroken array, with a
monotonous regularity ; and it seemed almost a
mockery to talk of social progress, when, in the back-
ground was the silent, ceaseless tramp of this multi-
tude of men, women and children, finding no rest
but behind prison walls, and only issuing thence to
re-enter again." 1
The Committee, accordingly, did something to get
the " Du Cane regime " upset, so far as its aim was to
deter by severity. It recommended the abolition of
the tread-wheel,the crank and, "as much as possible,"
of all similarly " penal " forms of labour. It insisted
on the adoption of productive labour, not, as formerly,
1 The English Prison System, by Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. xix.
CONDEMNATION OF ISOLATION 223
for the sake of the profit to be made by the State, but
because of its good effect on the minds of the prisoners.
The Committee evidently regarded with the gravest
suspicion the very foundation of prison discipline,
the system of cellular isolation itself, even with all
the mitigations on which the advocates of the " Se-
parate System " laid such stress. So carefully chosen
a Committee could not bring itself to recommend the
total abandonment of what had, for more than half
a century, been an official panacea. The Committee
declared it to be, as enforced in penal servitude, " a
terrible ordeal/' and recommended that the period
should be reconsidered some of the members pri-
vately conveying their opinion, it is said, to the
Home Secretary, in favour either of total abolition
or of the period being reduced to no more than a few
weeks. 1 It was made quite clear, as was indeed
officially recognized, that " the public inquiry of
1894 into prison administration was a practical
condemnation of the separate or cellular system
except for short periods. It swept aside the old-
fashioned idea that separate confinement was desir-
able on the ground that it enables the prisoner to
meditate on his misdeeds. It held that association
for industrial labour under proper conditions could
be productive of no harm."*
So long as any remnant of the system of cellular
illation was maintained by day, the confinement
was, at any rate, to be mitigated in certain directions.
There was to be a larger discretion allowed to Visiting
Justices to permit visits to and communications
with prisoners. ' The present practice of impos-
ing silence except for the purposes of labour and
during the visits of officials and authorized persons, for
a period it may be of fifteen or twenty years, seems to
1 >." - this recommendation attnl up. n In
1 1, it i- ! lomo Secretary, Mr. Winston Chun lull,
Galsworthy's tragrci
Justice the period as popularly known as solitary ci-:
was reduced to one month for all but recidivists, for whom it was made
months.
*Tke I -11 Kvdyu Kugglcs-Brise, i
1' '37-
224 THE DU CANE
us unnatural." At least, the privilege of talking (with-
drawn in 1877) should be restored to prisoners under
long sentences. Sunday exercise (which had been
suppressed in order, as it was alleged, to avoid an
increase in the prison staff sufficient to allow to the
warders one day's rest in seven) should be reinstituted,
and gymnastics should be organized. There should
be a larger and more varied supply of books. The
exhortations of the prison chaplain should be varied
by the invitation of selected outside preachers. The
prison medical officers should keep a continuous
watch for any signs of impairment of mind ; and for
this purpose they should be chosen from among
candidates showing some proficiency in the study of
mental disease and lunacy. And, what to social stud-
ents will seem most revolutionary of all, the large pro-
portion of prisoners deemed to be weak-minded should
not be subjected to the ordinary prison regimen,
but should be concentrated in a special prison, where
they could be detained under special medical super-
vision. It should, indeed, be considered, the Com-
mittee recommended, whether such persons should be
treated as criminals at all.
The Report of the Committee of 1894-5 was whole-
heartedly adopted by the Government ; and the
Home Secretary (Mr. Asquith), in appointing Mr.
(afterwards Sir) Evelyn Ruggles-Brise to be Chair-
man of the Prison Commissioners, expressly directed
that the recommendations of the Committee should
be put in operation throughout the whole prison
system. 1 We may, indeed, recognize, from that date,
a certain change of tone in the central prison adminis-
tration. Unfortunately, as the Prison Commissioners
seem to have thought, it was only very slowly, and
very incompletely that reforms could be effected. 2
It took three years before a new Act could be obtained
(the Prisons Act, 1898), which, by making every
1 The English Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 1921,
P- 77-
2 Statement by the Prison Commissioners on the action which has been
taken to carry out the recommendations of the Departmental Committee
of 1895 (1898).
THE 1898 ACT 225
Prison Commissioner ex-officio a Director of Con-
vict Prisons, practically (though not formally)
merged into one the two separate Boards of Commis-
sioners for convict and local prisons respectively, and
enabled the Home Secretary at any time to make
new rules and alterations applicable to all the prisons
and fortified by the sanction of Parliament. This
Act, carried through by Sir Matthew White Ridley,
set up, for the first time, an independent and un-
official Board of Visitors for each convict prison,
analogous to the Visiting Committees of the local
prisons. The Act also took it out of the power,
even of a Director of Convict Prisons, to order a
flogging ; corporal punishment was henceforth to
be ordered only by the Board of Visitors or Visiting
Committee, and then only- subject to confirmation
by the Home Secretary and in cases of gross per-
sonal violence to a prison official and acts of mutiny.
New rules made under this Act, which came into
force on May ist, 1899, embodied some of the
spirit and some of the specific recommendations
of the Committee of 1894-5. The tread-wheel and
the crank were finally banished from the prisons.
The privilege of gaining a remission of part of the
sentence by good marks was, after some delay, ex-
tended to all inmates sentenced to more than one
month's imprisonment. Work in association, after
the initial month of cellular isolation (which the
Prison Commissioners could not bring themselves to
abolish), was extended to all the inmates of the local
prisons. At the same time, upon the report of a special
departmental committee, the dietaries were made
more varied and somewhat more generous. 1 But it
was not until 1901 six years after the Committee
had reported that the feeble-minded inmates of the
local prisons even began to be segregated, and placed
uiu! ial treatment. 1 In the opening years of
of Committee on Prison Dietaries, 1809. The contrast, alike
in tone and in substance, between this report and that of 1878 on Prison
Dietaries, is most marked.
1897, when convicts deemed to be distinct minded began to be
22f> THE DU CANE REGIME
the twentieth century the dietaries were at last
reformed in such a way as somewhat to diminish the
prisoners' usual loss in weight, with the incidental
result, in conjunction with other new regulations, of
presently reducing the death rate from tuberculosis
by nearly one half! 1 The economic problem of
prison labour was eased by the frank acceptance
(after the prescribed initial period of cellular isola-
tion) of work in association under continuous and
rigorous supervision, either in the service of the
prison itself (including domestic work and the culti-
vation of land), or in production for all the various
government departments (including tailoring, shoe-
making, carpentry, printing, bookbinding and tin-
work, and the manufacture of mailbags and baskets
for the Post Office). However inadequate the trade
instruction may have been, however imperfect the
work, and however little use the occupation to the
prisoners themselves, it may at least be said that,
gradually, the prison productions disposed of by sale
to the public sank to a very small amount ; and prac-
tically the whole prison population became engaged in
the direct provision of what was required by the
Government itself. 2 Another recommendation of the
segregated at Parkhurst Prison (Isle of Wight). Such a segregation had
been recommended as long before as 1879, *by the Penal Servitude Com-
mittee of that year ; but under the Du Cane regime no opportunity had
been found to carry it out.
1 We may cite, among the books of this period, as to the condition of the
English prisons and the direction of reform besides the works of Rev.
W. D. Morrison and Rev. J. W. Horsley, and the books by prisoners them-
selves, already mentioned : Prisons, Police and Punishment, by Edward
Carpenter, 1905 ; Selected Papers, 1866-1901, of the Howard Association,
1901 ; Annals of Wakefield House of Correction, by J. H. Turner, 1904 ;
Young Gaol Birds, by C. E. B. Russell, 1910, and Young Delinquents, by
M. G. Barnett, 1913 (taking up the advocacy begun by Mary Carpenter's
Juvenile Delinquents, 1853) ; Our Prison System, by A. Cook, 1914 ; Wards
of the State : an official view of prison and the prisoner, by T. Hopkins,
1913 ; Our Prisons, by A. Paterson, 1911 ; Crime and Criminals, 1910, and
The Modern Prison Curriculum, 1912, both by R. F. Quinton ; The
Criminal and the Community, by Dr. James Devon, 1912 ; History of
Penal Methods, by George Ives, 1914 ; An English Prison from Within,
by Stephen Hobhouse, 1919; A Prison Chaplain on Dartmoor, by Rev.
Clifford Rickards, 1920 ; and The English Convict, by Charles Goring,
1913 ; together with publications of the Humanitarian League, the Penal
Reform League, the Howard Association and the Discharged Prisoners'
Aid Societies.
2 Already in 1898 the Prison Commissioners could say that " practically
speaking, all prison labour is for government departments " (Statement on
TARDY REFORMS 227
Committee of 1895 was very tardily carried out by the
systematization and slightly more liberal endowment
of the voluntary agencies providing for the employ-
ment and kindly care of discharged prisoners, to. the
advantages of which the men and women discharged
from the convict prisons were, for various technical
reasons, not admitted until 191 1. 1 An even more
hopeful though much retarded Outcome of the Com-
mittee of 1894-5 was the legislative action taken be-
tween 1907 and 1914 with the intention, as yet very
imperfectly carried out, of clearing the prisons alto-
the action taken with reference to the recommendations of the Committee of
1895). In our Industrial Democracy, 1897, pp. 787-8, we pointed out that the
economically injurious effect of " prison labour " was not that it " deprived
workmen of employment " or employers of profitable business, but that
sales of prison-made goods were apt to lead to a progressive lowering of
prices and wages. The evil lay, not in prison production, but in the actual
placing upon the market of the prison-made products. If these are sold at
competitive prices. " they must inevitably undercut the wares made by
self-supporting operatives, who will therefore find their employment ren-
dered less continuous than it would otherwise be, and who will accordingly be
unable to resist the reductions forced upon them by their employers. This is
not, as is often argued, because the institution labourers displace other
operatives, but because they lower the price of the product. The psycholo-
gical effect on the market is even more serious than the direct displacement
of custom. Every private manufacturer fears that he may be the one des-
tined to lose his customers to the institution which need not consider cost
of production at all ; and this fear supplies the buyers with an irresistible
lever for forcing down price. The harm lies in this lower ing of the Standard
of Life of other classes, not in any mere diversion from them of possible
additional custom. Hence there is no economic harm, and nothing but
gain, in the inmates of institutions producing for consumption or use inside
the institution. This has no tendency to lower prices or wages outside, any
more than the fact that sailors at sea or in harbour wash their own clothes
lowers the wages of laundresses on land." (Industrial Democracy, edition
of 1920, p. 788.) Thus, the policy now adopted by the Prison Commissioners
of confining prison production practically to the supply of the various
government departments, without offering anything for sale, is not open to
economic objection, and excites no Trade Union protest.
1 1 or the beneficent work of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Socit
!iich Acts of 1823, 1862 and 1865 authori/cd tin- grant of subven
by the Local Prison Authorities out of the rates, and the Act of 1877 a grant
from the Exchequer, see the admirable summary in Chapter xiv of Sir
Evelyn R :se's English Prison System, 1921 ; and the various re-
parate societies, notably those of London, Birmin.
Worcester, Gloucester and \\ akefield. It was one of the suggestions <
of 1894-5, that these societies should be made the subj<
official inquiry with a view to their bring r iadc abso!
co-extensive with the discharges and brought into a single organization,
l*rison Commissioners made their inquiry in 1896, and issued new
rules in 1897. In 1909 it was decided to foi : al associat
official suj 10 deal on discharge with all convicts whom the local
societies harl not previously dealt with. Not until 1918, however, was the
al Discharged Prisoner*' Aid Society formed to co-ordinate the whole
228 THE DU CANE REGIME
gather of a large class of offenders for whom the prison
regimen was plainly unsuited. Thus, in 1907, the Pro-
bation Act, making more effective a provision in the
Probation of First Offenders Act, 1887, which had re-
mained largely inoperative, enabled a Court, instead of
pronouncing sentence, to release the prisoner on pro-
bation, under the supervision of a Probation Officer,
if it was thought that the prisoner's age, health,
mental condition, antecedents or character, or the
triviality of the offence, or any extenuating cir-
cumstances, made such a course desirable. 1 With
the Prevention of Crime Act of 1908 came the insti-
tution of an entirely new system of reformatory
treatment for some of the more serious offenders
among the " juvenile adult " criminals, of whom
the common gaol ought to be altogether relieved ; and
the comparative success of this " Borstal " regimen
seems to open up a vista of further reforms. 2 The
Prevention of Crime Act of 1908 introduced, too, a
new variety into English prison administration. The
judge was empowered, in addition to any sentence
of penal servitude of not less than three years,
to impose a further term, not exceeding ten years,
of Preventive Detention. This gave effect to a
suggestion which had been discussed ever since
the Committee of 1894-5, for exceptional measures
against hardened " professional " criminals, whose
whole lives were spent in preying upon the public.
They had been shown to be deterred neither by
prolonged imprisonment nor by penal servitude.
What was desired was some system by which they
could be indefinitely segregated, without conditions
of excessive severity, to be released only if and when
1 For the very hopeful " Probation System " even now by no means
fully in operation see Memorandum on the Probation System in America,
Cd. 3401, 1907 ; the numerous American reports ; Origin and Progress of
the Probation System, by Thomas R. Bridgwater, 1909 ; Probation and
Probation Officers, by Miss N. Adler, 1908 ; The Probation System, by
Cecil Leeson, 1914 ; and Chapter ix, of Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise's The
English Prison System, 1921.
1 For the achievements and prospects of " the Borstal System," see the
successive reports of the Borstal Association, and the admirable summary
in The English Prison System, by Sir Evelyn Rnggles Brise, 1921, Chapter
viii, pp. 85-100.
PREVENTIVE DETENTION 229
they were believed to be willing to abandon their pre-
datory careers. Parliament " shied " at the idea of an
" Indeterminate Sentence," and a Bill of 1903 failed
to become law. Five years later, however, the princi-
ple of a comparatively mild Preventive Detention,
after completion of (but not, as some advocated, in
substitution for) a term of penal servitude, was em-
bodied in the Act of 1908. A special prison at Camp
Hill, in the Isle of Wight, has now been set apart, in
which this supplementary detention takes place under
pleasant surroundings, and with the minimum of
penal discipline. It is too soon to form any confident
opinion as to the results of this experiment, which is,
however, proving hopeful. Unfortunately, owing to
certain defects in the law, and the indisposition of the
Judges to follow the lead of the Legislature, the ad-
vantages of the Camp Hill Prison are but little
utilized. In another direction the Mental Deficiency
Act, 1913, will, it is hoped, gradually relieve the pri-
sons of " many persons of both sexes who hitherto
have spent their lives in and out of prison the des-
pair of the Courts, a source of perpetual trouble to the
police, and of nuisance to their neighbours, would, on
inquiry and mental observation, be found to be irre-
sponsibles, and proper subjects for medical care
rather than the grim severity of ceaseless and useless
imprisonment. The long and mournful roll of incur-
able recidivists would cease to haunt our prisons and
public places, and under institutional care would at
least be removed from evil-doing, if they did not
regain, under medical care, their opportunity for
reinstatement in normal industrious life." 8 Finally,
the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914, by its
.tence on time being allowed for the payment of
Commissioners have themselves virtually admitted that
illy defective criminals have < ontinu. d to be improperly confined in
to the lack of accommodation for tin in < -1 " The
absence o- provision for defectives, and particularly State
accommo s, exercises a paralysing influence on oper.
v] Act as regards the disposal of crii
dcfc* f ucrs of Prisons and the Directors of
,6, Cd. 8.{
1 / r.c Luglisls 1'i.son SysUi) D Rugglcs J ;o.
230 THE DU CANE REGIME
fines, and its permission to the Court to place offenders
between sixteen and twenty-one under supervision un-
til the sum is paid, is already enormously reducing the
number of persons committed to prison in default
of payment of a fine. Unfortunately, what with the
slowness of Justices and their clerks to get out of
their habit of instant commission to prison of every
kind of convicted offender, 1 and what with the mani-
fold interruptions caused by the Great War, none of
-e statutes has yet been put into operation either
fully or ubiquitously. It seems unfortunate that it
does not lie within the habits of the Home Office
or of the Lord Chancellor's Department to main-
tain a constant watch upon the practice of all
Courts of Justice (and, of course, particularly those
of Summary Jurisdiction), in order that any habitual
neglect to take advantage of these statutes, and even
every marked statistical deviation from the average*
in the extent to which they are applied, should be
made the subject of inquiry, and, where necessary, of
private expostulation. Such a continuous super-
vision of the practice of the Courts, with a view to a
more prompt and more complete compliance with
1 " Custom, routine and the fatal ease, and saving of trouble to all con-
cerned, has, in the past, induced the tendency to regard the warrant of
commitment to prison as the ordinary and only expedient for satisfying
the claims of justice." (Ibid., p. 13). Thus, it is perhaps in the direction
of the " individualization of punishment " really considering how best to
deal with each person convicted of an offence, according to his age, sex,
antecedents, attainments and character that least progress has so far
been made in England. It was here that the " fetish of uniformity " of the
" Du Cane regime " probably worked most harm. On the other hand, it
must in fairness be said that the English system assumed (down to the insti-
tution of " Preventive Detention " by the Act of 1908) that it was not for
the prison administrators to " individualize," or "fit the punishment to
the crime," but for the sentencing tribunal. Unfortunately, in spite of
successive statutes, judges, magistrates and justices' clerks are extremely
slow to appreciate that it is their duty to " individualize," even to the
extent of acting under the Probation Act (thus, the Chaplain of Wakefield
Prison said in 1916, " Unfortunately, there can be no doubt what-
ever that full advantage is not being taken of the powers conferred by
recent statutes. In some Courts the Probation Act is only applied in
case of felony " (Report of the Howard Association, 1916, p. 18) ; and
Parliament, except in the small degree involved in Preventive Detention,
lias so far refused to adopt the principle of the Indeterminate Sen-
tence (See The Individualization of Punishment, by K. Salcilles, 1911 ;
Proceedings of the Washington Congress of International Prison Con-
ference, 1910 ; The English Prison System, by Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, 1921,
ch. v).
A NEW INQUIRY 231
ameliorative statutes, has the support of high official
authority. 1
With these changes we are brought down to the
prison administration of the present, which is des-
cribed in the volume entitled English Prisons To-day,
being the Report of the Prison System Enquiry Com-
mittee, by Stephen Hobhouse and A. Fenner Brock-
way, 1922. To that authoritative description, which
incidentally reveals the extent to which the reforms
have been actually put in operation, and where they
are found to fall short, the present work should serve
only as an historical introduction. 2
>,
1 " I would not advise," says the Chairman of the Prison Commissioners,
" the imposition of any official system independently of the Courts, but
only that the political heads of the Judiciary should take steps to satisfy
themselves that Probation, as a system, t's working efficiently at every
"frf in the country before whom offenders of all apes liable to the
penalty of imprisonment are brought. (The English Prison System, by
Sir E. Ruggles-Brise, 1921, p. 13.)
ice supervision and inquiry might, with advantage, be exercised over
the commitments to prison of debtors deemed to be in contempt of court.
It cannot be satisfactory that the proportion of such commitments should
enormously from one County Court district to another, according to
the idiosyncrasies of County Court Judges and Registrars (tlio 1
generally remunerated by fees). The Lord Chancellor, speaking in the
House of Lords on February I5th, 1907, is reported as saying that " in
some County Courts though he did not impugn the good faith of the
Judges the administration of the Debtors' Act had led to great hardships."
1 For exhaustive lists of books and reports on criminology and penology,
the student will consult A Preliminary Bibliography of Modern Criminal
Law and Criminology, by John H. Wigmore (North Western University,
Chicago, 1909) ; Lehrbuch der Gefangnissftunde, by K. Krohne ; and A
Contribution towards a Bibliography dealing with Crime, by Sir J. G. Cum-
ming, K.C.S.I., 1914.
EPILOGUE
WE make no attempt to pass judgment upon the
English prison system at any stage of its develop-
ment. As regards the past, any deliberate assessment
of the character and effects of the prisons of any
particular period would not only be, perforce, wanting
in accuracy, but would, moreover, now serve no
useful purpose. As regards the prisons of to-day,
the student must be referred to the minutely detailed
and extremely comprehensive survey in the simul-
taneously published volume entitled English Prisons
To-day, being the Report of the Prison System Enquiry
Committee, by Stephen Hobhouse and A. Fenner
Brockway. But we permit ourselves certain observa-
tions upon the history that we have sought to relate.
II
Apart altogether from what is called penology, or
the general theory and practice of the punishment of
offenders against social laws and conventions, the
history of English prison administration should be
of first-rate interest to the student of Political
Science, from the light that it throws upon important
general problems of public administration. If we
inquire how the public services should be divided,
as between central and local government, the ad-
ministration of English prisons passing in 1877
from local to central is a leading case, from which
we may derive both instruction and warning. If we
seek to formulate the relations that ought to exist
between the actual administrators of local institu-
tions and services on the one hand, and the central
supervisory department and its inspectors on the
232
LOCAL VERSUS CENTRAL 233
other, the successive experiences of the English
prison service, in 1837-77 and 1878-1921 respectively,
are full of lessons. A third point of fundamental
importance is the effect of permitting the perform-
ance of public functions, or the discharge of the
duties of a public office, to be made apart from the
ipt of a determinate (though not necessarily an
unvarying) stipend a source of private profit. This
is by no means a past issue. It is true that no in-
structed person in this country would to-day propose
(as Jeremy Bentham did only a century ago, and
Charles Pearson did as late as the middle of the
nineteenth century) to " farm out " the prisoners to
their gaolers or to labour contractors a practice
still prevalent in various other countries. But it
has come to be a matter of very serious consideration
\'hat functions and to what offices the conception
of being of a public nature should be, in this respect,
applied.
Ill
Although the question of whether the administra-
tion of prisons should fall within the sphere of central
government, or within that of local government, as a
problem of Political Science, has scarcely been seri-
ously discussed in England, the case for the with-
drawal of the prisons from the local authorities of
1877 was, in our judgment, irresistible, though not
for the reasons usually adduced in support of that
measure. We are less impressed to-day than the
l>i ison officials of the Home Office of 1876-7 appeared
to be, with the necessity, in the interests of even-
1 landed justice, of securing an absolute uniformity of
-on regimen and prison discipline for all persons
5 sentences of equal duration, to whatever part
of the country they belonged. A crude identity of
this sort, win the very smallest relation to
.quality, can have but a limited value in Political
Science. Nor were the financial economies to be
ot tin- prison sen
so important or so indisputable as i ant, in
234 EPILOGUE
mselves, so great a revolution. The claim for a
reduction in the rates levied on the county areas,
\vhi rnay, without uncharitableness, assume
been the determining factor in the political
decision to centralize the prison administration,
might (as experience has since demonstrated) have
been more advantageously met, in so far as this was
just or expedient, by an extension of the system of
Grants in Aid. 1 In any case, it is not by the argument
of " high rates " that the transfer of any particular
service from Local to Central Government can be
justified. Apart from all these considerations, it was,
as we can now recognize, more than anything else,
the unsuitability of the areas administered by the
hundred or so local prison authorities, coupled with
the diversity of these authorities themselves not to
speak of their own manifold shortcomings that
would have anyhow made necessary their super-
session as autonomous prison authorities. Even
when the average daily population of the prisons for
England and Wales exceeded 30,000, none of the
local authorities (except perhaps those of the then
undivided counties of Middlesex and Lancashire)
acted for areas of sufficient census population to
warrant their separate administration of even one
gaol or penitentiary of the size that separate sleeping
accommodation for each prisoner, and useful work in
association practically involves. With a prison
population reduced to fewer than 10,000, not sixty
or seventy, but more like a dozen or a score of pro-
perly constructed prisons should be enough for the
whole country. What is even more important, no
one building as we can now see ought to suffice
for any area. If we are to have places of confinement
at all, and to make them such as the conscience of the
nation can approve, they must (though the Home
Office has so far only very imperfectly learned this
lesson) be specialized for prisoners of different sexes,
ages, sentences and conditions of physical and mental
1 Sec Grants in Aid : a Criticism and a Proposal, by Sidney Webb
(second edition, 1920).
"A SILENT WORLD" 235
health, and possibly also for prisoners of different
degrees of mental capacity, different antecedents and
different characters. The case is one in which, as
Chadwick used to say, we must " aggregate in order
to segregate/' No practicable readjustment of the
areas of counties and boroughs could, even after the
Local Government Act of 1888, have created units
of local government on a geographical basis suitable
for efficient prison administration according to
modern ideas. We suggest that the intellectual error
made in 1876-7, and one often but less excusably
repeated in our own day, was the assumption that,
because the administration of prisons by the County
and Borough Authorities had become inadmissible,
the administration of all the prisons by a Department
of the Central Government was necessarily the best,
or more correctly, the only alternative. One of the
lessons of Political Science is that the " opposite of
the wrong " is seldom, if ever, found to be " the
right/'
IV
It is worth while to consider some of the charac-
teristic features of centrali/.ed administration by a
Government Department, as exemplified, first by
the Directors of Convict Prisons, and then by the
Prison Commissioners, as branches of the Home
Office of 1844-1921.
We are struck, first, by the loss of publicity which
the transfer of the administration from local to
central government has involved. Since 1878 the
prison has become " a silent world/' shrouded, so
far as the public is concerned, in almost complete
darkness. This is due, in the first place, to the policy,
to which every well-ordered administration is ] rone,
of " No admittance except on business." The wide-
spread and repeated visitations and minute investiga-
s of John Howard and James Nield, of J. J.
Gurney and Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, or e\
S>pular descriptions of the London prisons \\i
enry Mayhuw was allowed to compile about 1860,
23 6 EPILOGUE
would not be permitted by the Home Office of to-
day, on the ground that they would constitute an
iecessary interference with the official administra-
tion. Although it would be incorrect to say that
special permission to inspect the interior of a
prison is invariably refused, such visits from out-
siders are, in this generation, so severely discouraged,
and are purposely made so unremunerative in the
way of discovery of how the machine actually works,
that they have been, since 1878, and still are very
infrequently made. Moreover, the conditions under
which such visits are allowed very effectively dis-
courage any wide promulgation of what is seen ;
and they practically never lead to the publication
of anything that would enable the public to realize
what is actually going on within the prison walls. 1
Along with the practice of exclusion of the out-
sider, for which a plausible argument may be
made, there goes an official policy of deliberate
reticence, in order not to give any opportunity
for troublesome questions to be raised in Parlia-
ment, and so as not to afford material for critical
articles in the public press. 2 The information
published to the world is reduced to a minimum.
From the passing of the Prisons Act of 1898 down to
the outbreak of war in 1914 only brief, uninforming
and obviously censored reports by governors, chap-
lains and doctors were published. Since 1914 no
reports whatever by the persons actually engaged
in the administration of the several prisons have
been permitted to appear. 8 No person engaged in
1 We ought to notice the work entitled Our Prisoners, by A. Paterson.
1911. The author seems to have been granted very special opportunities
for preparing this book, which gives, to say the least, a glowing impression
of the perfection of prison administration, with the minimum of criticism or
even of suggestion. This exception to the practice indicates, we venture
to think, an additional danger incidental to the policy of secretiveness.
In 1922 the author was appointed a Prison Commissioner.
2 We are informed that the " Standing Orders " and special instructions
for governors, chaplains, doctors and warders are not published, and are
not supplied to any inquirer.
8 A special exception was made in the case of Dr. Charles Goring's report
in 1913, on his investigation into the physical characteristics of the prison
population, from which, however, any description of the nature and effects
of the prison regimen was purposely omitted.
SECRETIVENESS 237
the administration is allowed to publish any book
or article on the subject of his work 1 without the
permission and imprimatur of the Commissioners,
which, as a rule, they appear to be reluctant to
give. The reports of the inspectors to the Prison
Commissioners are, since 1878, all treated as con-
fidential documents, and only such extracts as the
Commissioners think it expedient to embody in
their own report are presented to Parliament. It
is true that there is a small number of Visiting
Justices for each prison, and a carefully selected
body of Lady Visitors for the women's prisons.
But any criticisms, suggestions or reports that are
from time to time made by these authorised visitors
are not published, as they might easily be, if only
in an appendix to the annual report which the Prison
Commissioners make on their own administration.
Even when a special inquiry has to be made into
some alleged scandal, the inquiry is nowadays always
entrusted, not to some person unconnected with the
administration, 2 but to one or more officers of the
Prison Service ; it is held in private ; the evidence
is not published ; and the report is a confidential
document, which the Home Office keeps to itself,
sometimes without publishing even the decision
of the Prison Commissioners or the Home Secretary
on the subject. It is scarcely too much to say that,
since 1878 apart from the proceedings of the de-
partmental Committee of 1894-5 and a few official
committees on minor matters the Prison Commis-
sioners' deliberate policy has been to ensure that
the only source of authoritative information about
1 Il.-n-, atf.-iii: nit exceptions huvr IHVII sparingly made. The
ison Commissioners, together with one or two selected
<>f tlio stall, have, since 1900, read papers (naturally not of a
n.il Prison Congresses; and, in 1921,
i ins long service, allowed his book,
The i 'rison Syst, , had been ue Prison,
to be communicated to various newspapers for review, and it was prcs
published in regul.it
was, we believe, no independent Commission or Committee to
1 in England
1880 and ed, to have been practu since
lions into
Leicester prisons of 1854.
23 8 EPILOGUE
what is going on in our prisons should be the series
of annual reports by the Commissioners themselves,
which naturally tell the public only so much of the
facts as the Commissioners think to be, in the public
interest, expedient.
We do not adduce this example of official reticence
and secretiveness, with the consequent loss of
publicity, by way of animadversion on the Home
Office. A like policy may be seen in the War Office
and Admiralty, the Ministry of Labour and the
Office of Works. It is, in fact, characteristic of all
bureaucracies dealing with an extensive staff, and
directly carrying on administration over a wide
area. Nor does it prevail, as we shall presently
explain, in all the branches of public administration,
for which the Home Secretary is responsible. It
is worth while to seek to discover what exactly
is the cause and the argument for such a denial of
publicity.
It is often said by way of justification for this
policy of reticence and secretiveness, that any other
course, and notably the publication of criticisms
of the administration of particular institutions or
particular officers, would be seriously prejudicial
to the administration itself and especially to the
maintenance of " discipline/' It will be noted,
however, that no such consideration prevents public
criticism and the communication of the inspectors'
reports, special inquiries by disinterested outsiders,
and full publication of the proceedings in the news-
papers, when the administration concerned, as is
the case with regard to nine-tenths of the administra-
tion of this country, is that of some authority other
than that of the government department itself. The
maintenance of discipline, and the upholding of the
credit of the administration, dependent as it so
largely is on public confidence, is vital in all branches
of Local Government, in the railways, in the merchant
marine, in the mining industry, in the management
of lunatic asylums and reformatories, and indeed, in
every considerable service. But the various govern-
OFFICIAL RETICENCE 239
ment departments, including the Home Office itself,
when the administration concerned is not that of a
government department, rightly disregard the natural
yearnings of every administration for secrecy with
regard to its own weaknesses or failures ; and the
reports of inspectors and special investigators with
regard to the action or inaction of local governing
bodies, the nonfeasance or malfeasance of their
officials, the condition of schools and colleges, and
the causes of accidents at sea, on the railway or in
the mine, are given effective publicity. The Home
Office itself relies on publicity in the right quarters
for the efficacy of the supervision of the Board of
Control over lunatic asylums, and that of its own
inspectors over factories and workshops on the one
hand, and industrial and reformatory schools on the
other. It is, seemingly, only when the administra-
tion is its own that a government department finds
that inspection and public criticism by disinterested
outsiders are incompatible with discipline and the
best administration.
Nor can we attach weight to the argument that
there is something peculiar in the administration of
a prison that makes publicity specially undesirable.
find almost exactly the same policy of reticence
and secretiveness in all government departments
directly administering other institutions. And when
the prisons were administered by local authorities,
the Home Office, as we have seen, saw no reason
why its inspectors' reports should be treated as
confidential documents and withheld from publica-
i. However scathingly the inspectors criticized
the prison governor, or the prison administration
fly, the Home Office of 1835-77 did not find
t it was destructive of discipline or inimical to
good administration to issue these reports to the
world, any more than does the Home Office of 1921
with regard to its inspectors' reports on reformatory
schools. We are inevitably led to the conclusion
that it is not the character of the service or any pecu-
liarity of the Home Office, but the very nature of
240 EPILOGUE
direct administration by a central government de-
partment that leads to this systematic denial of
publicity.
A second feature of direct administration by a
government department exemplified in the Home
Office administration of prisons, but peculiar neither
to that office nor to that service, is the reluctance
and the difficulty with which such a directly adminis-
tering national department associates voluntary
agencies closely with its own administration. This,
indeed, is not a criticism that arises out of the trans-
fer of the prisons from local to central government,
as the former prison authorities made even less use
of voluntary agencies in connection with their work
than does the Home Office of to-day. Moreover,
some local governing bodies, notably the Poor Law
authorities, have nearly always shown themselves,
right down to the present time, unable to utilize
or even to appreciate the valuable services of volun-
tary agencies of any kind. But, speaking generally,
it may be said that the comparatively modern and
rapidly growing local administrations in the wide
fields of Health and Education have shown much
more appreciation of the value of a close association
of voluntary agencies with official work than has
any directly administering government department.
This close association, moreover, has already effected
great improvements in the services concerned, 1 and
promises increasingly to supply a necessary correc-
tive of an exclusive bureaucratic administration.
It is, accordingly, a drawback to direct administra-
tion by a government department that it exhibits
a special reluctance to, and finds, in fact, exceptional
difficulty in sharing its work with voluntary agencies,
1 We refer not only to the manifold work of School Managers, Children's
Care Committees, Country Holiday Fund Committees, etc., but also to such
educational institutions under voluntary administration as industrial and
reformatory schools, endowed schools and colleges, training colleges,
technical institutes and universities ; not merely to volunteer health
visitors and district nurses, infant welfare and maternity centres, hospital
visitors and after-care committees, but also all the varied non-governmental
medical institutions from " First Aid Centres " and voluntary hospitals
to convalescent homes, and institutions for the incurable.
VOLUNTARY AGENCIES 241
whether in using philanthropic institutions under
voluntary management or in organizing systematic
co-operation between officials and voluntary workers.
We have analysed elsewhere the advantages of
voluntary agencies, in comparison with public author-
ities, local or central. 1 We need only recall here that
enumerated three special advantages offered by
voluntary agencies, which public authorities found it
impracticable to provide. The voluntary agency
(which is seldom to be relied on for continuity, can
never cope with the whole need, and has various
economic and other drawbacks) can (a) much more
freely than any public authority try promising experi-
ments ; (b) lavish an altogether disproportionate
amount of time, labour, money and attention on
selected individual cases ; and (c) bring to bear reli-
gious influences of peculiar potency which are nowa-
days outside the scope of a public authority.
The centralized administration of the Prison Com-
missioners has not entirely neglected the help of
voluntary agencies, and to say nothing of the insti-
tution of Visiting Justices it has, during recent
years, steadily increased its co-operation with them.
ecially in the provision of " after care 1 ' by
Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies, in the super-
vision and assistance of " first offenders" and defen-
dants released on probation, in the development of
the " Borstal System/' and in the somewhat sparing
utilisation of the voluntary services of lady visitors
of female prisoners and those of outside clergymen
imcl lect'irers has the Home Office shown its apprecia-
tion of the value of voluntary agencies in co-operation
with its own administration.
We hesitate to include in this volume any proposal
for >nn. But merely as examples of the
scope for the further utilization of voluntary agen-
cies we venture on some suggestions. Assuming
t the idea of imposing solitary confinement as
a punishment is abandoned, and with it nil notio
) of Destitution, by S. and B. Webb, td 1920.
242 EPILOGUE
deliberately adding what we may call intellectual and
emotional starvation to the deprivation of liberty,
cannot help thinking that, without increasing
public expense, much more use might advantageously
be made of carefully chosen volunteers so as to
make their ministrations not occasional and excep-
tional, at the option of particular governors, but
regular daily or weekly incidents of prison life
(a) to conduct religious services, so as to free the
prison chaplain for more adequate personal inter-
course with the prisoners in his charge ; (b) to give
lectures to the prisoners in their hours of leisure ;
(c) to hold classes in literary education, and to teach
handicrafts ; (d) to provide musical services and
concerts, and (e) to visit individually in their cells,
for helpful conversation, such prisoners as are willing
to receive them. At Borstal there has already been
set a precedent for the co-operation of outsiders in
organized games. Unless there still lingers an inten-
tion to punish by intellectual and emotional starva-
tionwhich appears to us, to-day, as a relic of
barbarism it does not seem right that a prisoner
should be locked up in solitary confinement in his
cell without any opportunity for personal intercourse,
as early as 4.30 p.m. daily, to remain alone and
unprovided with occupation until 6.30 a.m. next
morning.
A more revolutionary suggestion may be added.
As a means of reformation of character, the official
prison administration admittedly has achieved only
the smallest success, whether for persons committed
for short terms for offences connected with drunken-
ness and prostitution, or at the other end of the scale,
for those sentenced to penal servitude for serious
crimes. Might there not be found, in this matter,
some assistance in a quite exceptional co-operation
with voluntary agencies ? Would it be quite out
of the question for the Home Office to try the experi-
ment, for a limited term of years, of entrusting the
entire administration of one of the prisons to (say)
the Salvation Army, the Society of Friends, the
RELIGION 243
Church of England, or the Roman Catholic Church,
if any of these volunteered for so onerous, and yet
so important a public service ? Naturally, no
prisoner would be sent to serve his sentence in the
prison under such a voluntary agency except at his
own request. The denomination volunteering to
undertake the experiment would necessarily be
required to retain all the present safeguards against
escape, to remain subject to official inspection, and
to incur no increased expense. But within pre-
scribed limits there seems no insuperable objection
to permitting, as a temporary experiment in a selec-
ted prison, any alteration of the prison regimen
that might be thought conducive to genuine reforma-
tion. After a period of (say) five, seven or ten years
the results could be tested in every possible way, in
comparison with those of the prisons under official
administration. The problem presented by incessant
recidivism is, in all its aspects, too serious, and the
progress that we are at present making towards its
solution is too discouraging, to warrant us in refusing
any reasonable experiment that voluntary agencies
might, out of public spirit and philanthropy, be
willing to undertake.
There is a characteristic difference between the
administration of English prisons under Local Govern-
ment prior to 1878 and that of the Directors of Con-
vict Prisons and the Prison Commissioners, in the
relation between (a) the actual administrators of the
several prisons ; (6) the official inspectors of that
local administration ; and (c) the official author!
in whom the decision as to policy has been vested.
\Ylien the power of and the responsibility for govern-
ment is in one authority, and the inspectors are offi-
of another authority, a greater degree of inii
tiaKty, m<>re frarless criticism, and a wider freedom
uggestion can be secured than is ever possible,
in practice, when all the officers concerned local
244 EPILOGUE
administrators, inspectors and the office staff of
the governing authority are members of one and
the same service, and to a large extent, parts of a
single official hierarchy. It is one of the incidental
advantages of Local Government that it makes easy
the institution of a system of independent and trust-
worthy inspection of the administration, directed by
and responsible only to the Central Government. We
see this exemplified in the experience of the inspec-
tion of educational institutions by the Ministry of
Education and, within the Home Office itself, in that
of lunatic asylums by the Board of Control. The
experience of the English prison administration in
1835-77 and 1878-1921 respectively indicates how
much was lost in this way, not only as regards pub-
licity but also as regards unrestrained and trust-
worthy inspection, when the local government of
prisons was merged in a centralized system. The
rights of inspection, criticism and suggestion con-
ferred by the Act of 1877 on the Visiting Justices
were intended, it may be, to make good this loss.
They have, it will be admitted, fallen very far short,,
alike in respect of obtaining publicity and in respect
of securing efficient inspection. This failure is due,
we think, not merely to the necessary shortcomings
of amateur and voluntary service, untrained and
spasmodic, as compared with the work of professional
officers continuously covering the whole field, but
also for another reason. Local inspection of central
government administration will always be less
effective than a centrally organized inspection of
local government administration. The dignity, the
authority, the very magnitude necessarily character-
istic of a national administration, in comparison with
the powers of any local body, must inevitably make
inspection and criticism of the greater by the lesser
far less influential and effective than when the lesser is
being looked after by the greater. Even if the offi-
cers of the national authority have not always a
larger outlook/ a wider experience and a greater
knowledge than those of a local body, they will
ENFEEBLED INSPECTION . 245
naturally believe themselves to be in these respects
superior, and, what is more important, they will be
normally so regarded. Whatever may be the short-
comings of the inspection and criticism which the
Ministry of Education maintains with regard to the
schools, or which the Board of Control exercises with
regard to the lunatic asylums, does anyone suppose
that the inspection and criticism would gain in
effectiveness or influence if the administration of all
the schools or asylums were to pass to a central
government department, whilst the rights of inspec-
tion and criticism of them were transferred, in ex-
change, to the local authorities ? When administra-
tion has to be centralized nationally, the most that
can be, in practice, obtained from local bodies or
local residents and this, although no substitute for
systematic inspection and professional criticism might
be made of great value is such indication of the
public wants or desires, and such expression of popu-
lar complaints as is afforded to the Post Office by
the Local Advisory Committees of Telephone Users,
and to the railway administration by such habitual
users of the service as the societies of commercial
travellers and the Chambers of Commerce. Local
advisory committees of this kind ought, in our judg-
ment, to be instituted and officially recognized in
connection with every government department. 1 But
they afford no substitute for systematic inspection
by professional officers, the possibility of which,
accordingly, counts as a point to the credit of Local
Government.
VI
To the stud. n; of Political Science, it must thus
be concluded, the centralization of prison adminis-
ter a department of the National Govern-
ment seems very far from being an unmixrd ^ain.
But we cann<v clear, go back to the state of
whole subject, see A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth
of Great Britain.
246 EPILOGUE
things in which every important local authority
I England and Wales maintained its own undifferen-
tiated common gaol. In so far as we continue to
have to put people in prison, we need a highly
differentiated series of institutions, according to the
ton or a dozen main classes into which the prisoners
should be divided ; and possibly not more, for the
whole kingdom, than one or two buildings of each
sort. Moreover, the aggregate cost must, in fairness
to all districts, continue to be pooled, at any rate,
so far as the bulk of the expenditure is concerned ;
and this consideration of itself negatives any com-
plete local autonomy. On the other hand there are
great advantages to be gained, as has been indicated
in the preceding paragraphs, by a more complete
separation of day-by-day administration from inspec-
tion and final control of policy than is practicable
when every officer from the humblest warder up to
the chairman of the Prison Commissioners or the
Secretary of State himself is a member of one and the
same official hierarchy.
It does not, however, seem impossible to devise a
constitution for the national prison system under
which the final control of policy and the inspection,
together with the provision of the cost, might remain
in a central government department, whilst the day-
by-day administration of each institution could be
entrusted to another body. Assuming that (apart
from the police station " lock-ups/' and the special
places of detention for persons under remand or
awaiting trial, which it would be a positive advantage
to dissociate from the prisons) ten or a dozen prisons,
each specialized to meet the needs of a particular class
of prisoners, were found to be adequate for the whole
of England and Wales, the improvement in the
means of locomotion nowadays makes it practicable
to commit each person sentenced to detention to
the institution adapted to his case. 1 The Prison
1 It should, of course, be part of the provision for the maintenance of the
prisoner's family, by whomsoever this is made, that the expenses of visits
to the prisoner by near relatives should be found.
POSSIBLE DELEGATION .247
Commissioners must remain responsible for the wel-
fare of every prisoner as the Board of Control is
for that of every certified lunatic. But we do not see
why it should not be practicable for the Prison
Commissioners to entrust the actual conduct of each
prison, either to a committee of the County or Coun-
ty Borough Council in the area of which it is situated ;
or to a joint committee of several such local authori-
ties ; or even, as we have suggested, to any religious
or philanthropic body willing to undertake with
proper safeguards an onerous, but socially valuable
experiment. If the Home Office could, in this way,
relieve itself from the detailed administration of a
number of institutions all over the country, which
can never be managed entirely satisfactorily from
Whitehall, the service would gain by the restoration
of publicity, by the greater freedom and vigour of the
inspection, by the increased ease with which a trial
could be given to promising experiments, and by the
valuable new assistance that could be afforded by vol-
untary agencies. Even the substitution of variety for
uniformity, in so far as it permitted a certain freedom
of local initiative and opportunity for experiment, we
should count as, on balance, a gain. The fact that,
in 1877, there seemed no other alternative to a disas-
trous anarchy of autonomous local administration
than a completely centralized system should not pre-
vent us after more than forty years of trial of an
unnecessarily simple " nationalization " in the crude
form in which it was conceived by Sir Edmund Dn
Cane from deliberately seeking to construct a
more highly organized administration.
VII
The reflection emerges that, when all is said and
done, it is probably quite impossible to make a good
job of the deliberate incarceration of a human being
in the most enlightened of dungeons. Even the
o sense of confinement, the mere depi Q of
liberty, the mere interference with self-initiative
EPILOGUE
if in ai -on the adverse regimen were,
in prar vr limited to these restrictions could
iselves, have a beneficial result
licet, emotions or character. We suspect that
it passes the wit of man to contrive a prison which
shall not be gravely injurious to the minds of the
I majority of the prisoners, if not also to their
bodies. So far as can be seen at present, the most
' -lical and the most hopeful of " prison reforms JJ
ep people out of prison altogether ! It is in
this direction that the present Prison Commissioners,
iment and the Home Office, have been,
during the last two decades, making most progress.
It has been discovered that we can keep people out
of prison by the simple expedient of not sending them
there. By refusing to commit to prison any child
under a certain age, or any prisoner certifiable as
of unsound mind ; by freely allowing bail on practic-
able terms to poor defendants as well as to those with
means ; by making the utmost possible use of the
Probation of Offenders Act ; by substituting, where-
ever practicable, sentences of binding over, or fine,
for short terms of imprisonment ; and by invariably
according time for payment of a fine, instead of
instantly committing in default of payment, some
magistrates, and even some assize judges, have de-
monstrated that notably in the case of "First
Offenders"; a large proportion of the former admis-
sions to prison were unnecessary. The total number
of persons committed to prison within the year has
fallen from 197,941 in 1904-5 to 43,267 in 1920-1. And
although this fall is not to be ascribed wholly to the
above-mentioned beneficent advances in law and
practice, the effect on the statistics of these mere
changes in the temper of the judicial authorities is
reported to have been most marked, and so far as
can be learned the results have been almost entirely
good. 1
1 Mr. Justice McCardie, at the Glamorganshire Assizes, asked Police-
inspector Rees Davies his experience as to the future of persons bound over
under the First Offenders Act. Inspector Davies replied that his experience
was that tli-y never went back to a life of crime. The Judge said he had
ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON 249
Unfortunately, not all Assizes and Quarter Sessions,
and especially not all Petty Sessions, have yet adopted
the new attitude of mind ; and they continue in
the case of the unpaid Justices, largely through the
routine minds of magistrates' clerks almost reck-
lessly to commit to prison offenders who would else-
where be spared this demoralizing and dangerous
experience. It seems a pity that there should be no
one in the Lord Chancellor's Department or in the
Home Office with a pretty taste in statistics, who
would set himself to compile, year by year, the per-
centages, for all the various Petty Sessions and all
the various Quarter Sessions and Assizes, of defend-
ants (i) respectively allowed and refused bail ; (ii)
discharged .as being under age ; (iii) dealt with as
persons of unsound mind ; (iv) discharged as " First
Offenders " ; (v) released on probation ; (vi) merely
bound over ; (vii) sentenced only to pay a fine ;
(viii) allowed time for payment ; (ix) sentenced to
imprisonment merely in default of payment of fine ;
(x) committed for " Borstal " treatment ; (xi) sen-
tenced to imprisonment without the option of a
fine or to penal servitude ; and (xii) sentenced to pre-
ventive detention after penal servitude. A similar
compilation might be made for the various County
Courts, of the percentages of debtors committed
(largely through the several Registrars) for contempt
of Court in failing to discharge their judgment debts,
and for the various Petty Sessions, of persons com-
mitted for non-payment of rates and taxes. It
is reported that such a statistical comparison would
reveal the fact that the modern expedient for " keep-
ing people out of prison," beneficent though they
have proved to be, are being adopted by different
ctor's statement with considerable iutrn-st. because
(1 asked himself the question many times, " What wa ilt of
;ig over first o: A ho previously bore good char act* I
>orted by the view of one of the most
rs (conti: m many cases first
!>ccn saved from a future criminal life by the exercise of a
; lercy on the part of the Judge. In my < words of Inspector
Recs Davies are of an important ( not only to every Judge but
magistrate who sits in a criminal Court of law. (Timts. November
i 6th, i
EPILOGUE
judicial authorities in different parts of the country, to
such very different degrees, as to be explicable, even
wlu-n full allowance is made for differing local cir-
5, only by failure to carry out, or even to
land, the new policy. With such comparative
before him especially when they came to
>nd OY cral years a Lord Chancellor or
ic Secretary who took himself seriously as a
Minister of Justice would know how, with all proper
discretion, to bring home to the minds of those judi-
cial authorities who were making the most extrava-
gant use of the device of imprisonment that they
re falling behind the more enlightened of their
colleagues. It is suggested that if none of the judges
and magistrates sent any higher percentage of recruits
to join the sad army of the prison population than the
present average for all the Courts, the aggregate total
of commitments might possibly be reduced by as
much as a quarter.
Another direction in which the number of persons
committed to prison needs to be reduced is that indi-
cated by Parliament by passing the Mental Defi-
ciency Act ot 1913. Whether the proportion of
prisoners who are mentally defective is only 2 or 3
per cent., as some say, or as high as 20 or 30 per cent,
as other persons report, it is now definitely recognized
that their committal to, or retention in the ordinary
prison is useless to society, injurious to themselves
and subtly demoralizing to the other prisoners.
Unfortunately, the narrowly restricted terms of the
Act, and even more, the indisposition of the various
authorities concerned to make use of it, have, so
far, prevented any application of it to more than an
infinitesimal proportion of the mentally defective
inmates of our prisons. Moreover, an extension of
the principle of specialized segregation seems re-
quired. The elaborate mental tests applied to all the
millions of recruits to the United States army during
1917-8 revealed the fact that an unexpectedly high
percentage of adult men seemed to have retained the
mentality of a child of ten or twelve. Apart alto-
INVESTIGATION REQUIRED 251
gether, from the question of congenital mental defi-
ciency, it seems desirable that there should be a
systematic scientific investigation (for which that of
Dr. Charles Goring affords a precedent) of the mental
capacity of the whole prison population, on the lines
so successfully planned in the American army.
Without attaching all the importance to these mental
tests that their inventors believe them to possess,
it seems probable that such an investigation would
reveal a large proportion of prisoners for whom the
regimen of a prison was inept, and who ought (as the
Home Office Departmental Committee of 1894-5,
suggested) to be in quite another kind of institution.
It would probably show also that much of the pre-
sent prison regimen needs specializing in order to be
adapted to the requirements of prisoners of widely
differing mental grades. 1
- ' l " Uninvestigated offenders," observes Dr. Hamblin Smith, the medical
officer of the Birmingham Local Prison, " are the most expensive luxury
that any community can indulge in " (British Medical Journal, 17 Decem-
ber, 1921, p. 1036). The interesting and valuable experiments conducted at
this prison, under the auspices of the Visiting Justices, with the tacit
consent of the Prison Commissioners, are suggestive as to the possible re-
sults of more systematic devolution.
INDEX
Abingdon County Bridewell, 105.
Account Keeping, Uniformity in, 203.
Acton, William, 26.
Act for consolidating ... the laws
relating to the building and regula-
tion of gaols . . . iu England and
Wales, 74-6.
Adams, Mr. Sergeant, 128.
AdU-r J28.
Admiralty, 238.
Adshead, Joseph, 118, 178.
" Aggregate in order to segregate," 235.
Aikin, Dr. John, 32.
Alcoholic drink in prison, 8, 21-2, 195.
Allen, William, 72.
America, North, Prisons of, 39, 43"4
94-5, 115, 119, 228 ; Silent system in,
129 ; Transportation to, 44, 50, 180.
United States of, 30, 115, 177,
250-1 ; Cellular system in, 217.
Anglican chaplain, 191.
Annapolis, Transportation of Convicts
to, 44-
Arundel, Lord, 4.
Asquith, Mr., 219, 220, 224.
Associated Labour advocated by
Howard, 37, 89 ; introduced by
Becher, 61 ; see also Classification,
Silent System.
Aston Common Gaol (Warwick), 4.
Attfield, Dr., 185.
Auburn, Prison at (New York), 118.
Auburn iari System, 118 ; see also
Silent System.
Austin, Lieutenant, 164, 169, 171, 173,
174, 175-
Australia, Convict Settlement in Wes-
tern, 185 ; Transportation to, 44,
46, 47.
Australasia, Convicts in, 45.
Bailey, J.B., 3 2, 37.
Baker, Colonel, 185.
Balfour, Jabez S., x8x.
Bambridge, , 21 ; Prosecution of, 26.
Barclays, The, 72.
Barnes, Prosecution of, 26.
Barnett, M. G., 226.
Bar ne well, 80.
Barns taple, Prison at, 105.
Barrow, T. P., 181.
Basingstoke, New Prison at, 105.
Basket making as prison employment,
226.
Bath and Wells, Bishop of, 38.
Bath City Gaol, 76 ; Appointment of
officers of, 189 ; Chaplain of, on crank
labour, 151 ; Number of inmates of,
105 ; Separate system at, 132 ;
Silent system at, 129.
Bathing in prison, 208.
Batley Gaol, 7.
Battersea Park, Site for prison at, 46.
Bayley, Thomas Butterworth, 55, 56.
Bazeley, W., 57.
Becher, Rev. J. T., 47, 48, 60-2, 66, 72,
84, 85, 87.
Bcckc, L., 45.
Bedford County Gaol, Diet at, n ;
Employment at, 198 ; Howard's
reforms at, 34-5 ; Use of treadwheel
at, 98.
Beevor, Sir Thomas, Bart., 55.
Begging by prisoners, 9.
Belgium ,115, 118; Cellular system in,
217 ; Use of " mask " in prisons of,
189.
Bellows, R. W., 32.
Bennet, Hon. Henry Grey, 64, 69, 70,
72, 101 ; and Bill to abolish gaolers'
fees, 70.
Bentham, Jeremy, 18, 40, 46-9, 67, 68,
97, no, 217, 233.
Berkshire County Gaol at Reading,
Health and overcrowding in, 51 ;
Treadwheel at, 99.
Quarter Sessions, Approval of
Graham dietary by, 137.
Bermuda, Hulks at, 45.
Bertrand, M. Ernest, 217.
Best, Chief Justice, 80.
Beverley; see Yorkshire.
Bideford, Prison at, 105.
Binny, J., 13, 45, 49, 73, 96, 99, 146,
181, 183, 189.
Birmingham, Pin-making at, 88-9.
Borough Gaol, 114, 128, 181, 216 ;
Cruelty in, 164, 169-176, 190 ;
Dietary in, 154 ; Employment at,
150 ; Governor of, 164-170 ; Health
at, 104 ; " Mark " system at, 164,
167-8 ; Royal Commission on, 170-5,
1 86.
Prisoners' Aid Society, 227.
Records of, 133.
Birt, Weston, 47.
Black Hole in Calcutta, Prisons like, 18.
Blackstone, Sir William, 38, 39, 40, 59,
66.
Bliss, T., 26.
Blizard, Sir William, 103.
Blount, Mr., 172, 175.
Board of Trade, 198.
Bodmin Gaol, Administration of, 74 ;
Employment at ; see also Cornwall.
Bookbinding as prison employment,
226.
Books by prisoners, 23, 26, 181, 183,
*93, J 98, 200, 220, 226.
Borough Compter, The (London), 65 ;
Maladministration of, 106.
Borstal Association, The, 228.
INDEX
253
Borstal System, 228, 241, 248.
Boston, 94.
Botany Bay, Penal Colony at, 44.
Bowen, Rev. Thomas, 12, 66.
Bradninch, New Prison at, 105.
Braithwaite, J. 1)
Bray, Dr. Thomas, 26.
Brecon Gaol, Administration of, 24.
Brent, John, 9.
Brews ter, Rev. John, 41, 66.
Bridewell; see Correction, House of.
Bridgwater, Thomas R., 228.
Briscoe, John Watt, 99.
Brise, Sir Evelyn Ruggles, 2, 180, 182,
189, 198, 202, 206, 212, 214, 219, 222,
223, 224, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 237.
Bristol Gaol, 76 ; Diet at n ; Fees at,
1 6 ; New prison at, 64 ; Number of
inmates of, 31.
British Association, Report on prison
dietaries to, 138.
Brixton House of Correction, 182 ;
Trcadwhecl at, 99.
Brougham's, Lord, Committee, 128,129.
Brown, James Baldwin, 32, 36.
Hnnvu (Lord Mayor), 30.
Browning, Dr., 45.
Brocklehurst, F., 220.
Brockway, A. Fenner, 231-2.
Buckingham, Marquis of, 10.
Buckinghamshire County Gaol, 56,
104-5 J Classification of prisoners at,
93 ; Diet at, n.
Bunbury, Sir Charles, 38.
Burdett, Sir Francis, 68, 69.
Burn, R., 3.
Burnet, Bishop, 158
Burt, Rev. J. T., 118, 178, 183.
Bury St. Edmunds, County Gaol of
Suffolk at, 3, 91, 97.
Butler, Bishop, 116.
Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, Bart., 2,
64-5, 72-3, 78, 158-9, 188, 235.
Byng, George, M.P., 95.
Cabinet, The, 107, 199, 201.
Cabrerizo, F., 181.
Calne, prisoners from, 105.
Cambridge Gaol, 63, 76, 105.
Camden Society, The, 26.
Cameron, Jane, 188.
Camp Hill Prison (I. of Wight), a
20.
n, B., 45-
i bury City Gaol, 4, 63, 76;
<-f of prisoners at, 9.
Dietary at, 137.
108, 109.
system at, 95 ;
see also Cumberland.
33-
>n at, 105.
Carpenter, Mary, 182, 189, 226.
ment, 226.
.
c-x prisons, i775-8i, 54J and
elsewhere, 55-9 ; Early advocates of,
90, 116; Extent of, in 1834, 106 ;
American experiments in, 94-5, 115-8;
insisted on by H.O. inspectorate,
119-130; enforced, 206-8 ; Foreign
approval of, 217.
Central Discharged Prisoners' Aid
Society, 227.
Centralization of prison administration
suggested by Pearson, 162 ; adopted
by the Cabinet and Parliament, 199-
200 ; drawbacks to, 232-251.
Central Supervision and Control, Lack
of, 106-7 ; Need of, no-i ; Introduc-
tion of, 111-3 ; Development of,
113-200; Drawbacks to, 235-47.
Chadwick, 110, 235.
Chaining prisoners together, 9, 57, 79.
Chambers of Commerce, 245.
Chaplain, prison, Work of, 95, 101, 215.
Charlestown, Transportation of con-
victs to, 44.
Chatham, Employment of convicts of,
107 J New prison at, 182.
Chelmsford Gaol, Administration of,
74 ; Employment at, 198 ; see also
Essex.
Cheshire Prisons, 4 ; Local Act for, 40.
Chester Gaol, 4, 54, 76; Dietary at, 136 ;
New prison at, 63 ; New regimen in,
103.
Earl of, 4.
Chesterton, George Laval, 95-96 ; 97,
99, 104, 122, 127, 164, 179, 184,
198 ; On treadwheel, 147-8.
Chichester, Earl of, 151, 178, 182.
Children's Care Committees, 240.
Cholmondely, Earl of, 4.
Christian Knowledge Society, 90.
Christianity, Evangelical, 67-8.
Church of England, 243.
Churchill, Mr. Winston, 223.
Clare, Suffolk County Bridewell at, 29.
Clarke, Marcus, 45.
Classification of prison inmates, 62,
89-94, 121-3.
Clay, Rev. John, 2, 95.
Clay, W. L., 2, 25-6, 45, 59, 60, 68, 75,
83, 95, 98, 99, "9, 127, 128, 165, 177,
198.
Clement XI, Pope, n('.
Clerkenwell Bridewell, Alehouse licence
for, 8 ; Gaolers' fees at, 5-6 ; Health
of, 19 ; Maladministration of, 22-3,
106 ; Number of inmates of, 31.
Coke, Lord, 3, 10, 14.
Coldbath Fields House of Correction,
184 ; Crank UM-,I at, 146-7 ; Dietary
at, 138; Employment at, 198;
Lunatics in 70 : Maladminist;
106 ; Officials of, 104 ; Shot
drill at, 155 ; Silent system at, 95-6,
122-6 ; Solitary system at, 178-9 ;
Treadwheel at, 99.
Cole, William, 27.
. James, 3.
Commissioners of Customs and Excise,
69.
on Birmingham and Leicester
Prisons, :
-'54
Commissioners on the State and
Management of the Fleet and Mar-
sha! ,75-
Compton, Bishop, 26.
Con> rty, 200, 201.
Consolidated Fund, The, 162.
i apt of Court, Use of national
pris rsons guilty of, i ;
Debtors imprisoned for, 195, 249.
Control, Board of, 239, 244-5, 247-
Convict Prisons, 243-9, 180-5, 227 ;
Directors of 178, 183, 189, 202, 225,
229, 235, 243-
Cook, A., 181, 226.
Cooper, L. O., 32.
Copeland, A. J., 12.
Corfield, 37.
Cornwall, County Bridewell at Bodmin,
56 ; Dietary at, 102 ; Fees at, 16.
Duke of, 4-
Corporation prisons; see Municipal
Prisons.
Correction, House of, 12-17 ; connec-
of with Poor Law, 13, 17 ;
United with gaol as Local Prison,
1 80.
Country Holiday Fund Committees,
240.
County Court Judges and Registrars,
231, 249-
County Sheriff, Functions of, 3.
Coventry Corporation Gaol, 76.
Coxe, William, 35.
Crank, Invention of, 146 ; Description
of, 146-7 ; Controversy as to, 151-6 ;
Cruel use of, 170-1 ; Continuance of,
207, 211 ; Abolition of, 222, 225.
Crawford, W., 115, 119.
Cresswell, R. E., 71, 80.
Crimean War, 186.
Criminal and Destitute Juveniles,
Committee on, 133.
Criminal Justice Administration Act,
229.
Crofton, Sir Walter, 182, 189, 213.
Cross, R. A. (afterwards Viscount),
Bill introduced by, 200.
Cubitt, Sir William, 97.
Cumberland County Gaol (Carlisle), 31,
95-
Dartmoor, 16, 40 ; Cellular system at,
182 ; Employment of convicts at,
197.
Davies, Police-Inspector Rees, 248-9.
Danvers, Sir Charles, 3.
Davitt, Michael, 181, 200.
De Beaumont, G., 115.
De Foe, Daniel, 6.
De Quiros, C. Bernaldo, 96, 177, 178.
De Tocqueville, Alexis, 115.
Death-rates in prison, 21, 209-10, 219.
Debt, Imprisonment for, abolished in
1869, 192-4 ; Still continuing, 249.
Debtors Act, Administration of, 231.
Debtors, Imprisonment of, n, 17, 24,
27, 28, 29, 31, 192-4,231, 249.
Debtors' prisons, i, 25, 27, 31, 43,
192-5.
INDEX
Denbighshire County Bridewell (Wrex-
ham), Poorhouse at, 17.
Denne, Rev. Samuel, 30, 90.
Deptford, Vestry MS., 2.
Derby, Lord, 4.
Town gaol, 56 ; Fees at, 25.
shire, Relief of prisoners in, 9 ;
Diet at county gaol of, n.
Devizes Prison, 105.
Devolution of administration, 247.
Devon, Dr. James, 218, 226.
Devon, County Gaol ; Diet at, n.
Woollen workers in, 20.
shire, Duke of, 63.
Local Acts re gaols of, 10, 56; see
also Exeter.
Dickens, Charles, i, 117.
Dietaries of prisons, Variations of, n,
102 ; Attempted regulation of,
1835-65, 133-143 ; Sir James Gra-
ham, 134-6 ; Uniformity of, 203, 209;
Improvement of, 225-6.
Dietary punishments, 211, 219.
Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies,
191, 226, 227, 241.
Dixon, W. Hepworth, i, 3, 6, 8, 12, 26,
28, 32, 36, 43, 45, 49, 179, 183.
Dogs as warders, 103.
Doncaster, New Prison at, 63.
Dorset County Gaol at Dorchester, 56,
108, 109 ; Diet at, n ; Employment
in, 147-
Powers of Magistrates in, 108.
See also Poole.
Domford, Josiah, 64.
Dover Gaol, 76, 105.
Drunkenness, Committals for, 204.
Du Cane, Sir Edmund, 45, 181, 200,
247-
Regime, The, 201-231.
Ducpetiaux, E., 115.
Dumbness, not proved to be produced
by silence, 179.
Dumont, 67.
Durham, Bishop of, 4.
County Gaol, 4, 6 ; Employment
at, 150-1.
Dutch, Trading against the, 44. ;
Eden, Sir William (Lord Auckland), 38,
39, 40, 59, 66, 69.
Education in prison, 62, 75, 84, 130,
204, 209, 214.
Education, Ministry of, 244-5.
Elliott, Sir Gilbert, 38.
Ely Gaol, 3, 105.
Employment, in Houses of Correction,
12-17 J pf untried prisoners, 80-2 ;
of convicted prisoners, 82-9 ; see
also Prison labour, Penal labour,
Crank, Oakum-picking, Stone-break-
ing, Treadwheel.
England, Archdeacon, 108.
Essex County Gaol (Chelmsford), n, 25.
Evangelicals, 115.
Exeter Gaol, Administration of, 4, 9,
74, 76 ; Health at, 20.
INDEX
255
Falinouth, Xe\v Prison at, :
Tanning, The practice of, 5-9, -
1 8 ; Advocated by Bentham, 6;.
recommended by Pearson, 163-233.
Farnborough, Lord, 47.
Feeble-mimledness among prisoners,
205, 224, 225, 229, 250-1.
Fees exacted in gaols, 5-8 ; in Houses
of Correction, 13-17; Abolition of.
proposed! !, 34 ; regulation
not enforced, 50, 52 ; Abolition
of, 70-1-
Fcrri, Enrico, 176.
; iaiu, Prison at, 105.
. 22, 26, 32, 36, 46, 50, 53,
130.
Fielding, llcury, 17, 31.
First Aid Centres, 240.
Fisherton Anger, Wiltshire County
Gaol at, 8-9, 54, 56, 103, 105, 109.
Fleet Prison, The, i, 6, 43, 75 ; Fees at,
71 ; House of Commons Committee
on, 21, 25-27, 64 ; Iniquities of, 25,
28-1; r of inmates of, 31 ;
Sale of intoxicants at, 8 ; Warden of,
Fletcher, S. W., 181, 220 ; see also
Silent System, Separate System.
Flogging in prison, 101 ; continuous,
at Birmingham, 171 ; at Leicester,
175-6.
Foster, Sir M., 30.
Fothergill, Dr., 46.
France, Prisons of, 94, 97, 115, 181 ;
CeUular system in, 217.
Franchise prisons, 3-4, 104-6.
Frost, John, 45.
Fry, Elizabeth, 71-2, 73, 83, 87, 99,
101 ; Reforms due to, 74-5.
Katherine, 71.
Galsworthy, John, 223.
Gaol Acts, 73-
Gaol fever, 19-20, 30 ; Absence of
abroad, 35 ; Renewed outbreaks of,
51 ; Dying away of, 53.
Gaols, always the King's, i, 3 ; Multi-
plicity of owners of, i, 4 ; Profit-
making enterprises, 5-9 ; Character
of premises used for, 4 ; Fees in,
5-8 : Alcoholic drinks in. 8 ; Food
--II.
! , 226.
sh, 25, 65, 193.
Act, 187.
' ..mullet, KuniMii- tli.-, 25.
Act, 1779, 90.
1835, 72.
\ 200 ; of
1892.
n at, 89, 118.
Eric, 45.
utoaviUe, 146.
32.
*5.
220.
Glamorganshire Assizes, 248.
Glass-bead blowing as prison employ-
ment, 86.
Gloucestershire, County Gaols of, 48,
74, 76; Diet in, n ; Employment
in, 86 ; Fees in, 50 ; Health and
overcrowding in, 51 ; L<>
40, 53, 58 ; Maladministration of,
57; Officials of, 103 ; Solitary system
at, 90-91 ; Use of treadwheel at, 97 ;
Prisons, 2, 92-3, 40, 103 ; Reform
of, 58-60 ; 68 ; Maladministration of,
Prisoners' Aid Society.
Ou.irter Sessions Bill,' 40, 69.
Godalphin, Earl of, 4.
t Goncourt, Edmond de, 179.
Good, Dr. J. M., 8, 66.
Gordon, Charles, 25, 64.
Goring, Charles, 226, 236, 251.
Gosport Prison, 140.
Cover, Dr., 206.
Graham, A., 45.
Graham, Sir James, 114, 134.
dietaries, 135-7, 140-1, 143.
Grants in Aid, 190, 234.
Grey, Earl, 45.
Grey, Sir George, 140, 144, 186 ; and
Committee on Prison Discipline, 129.
Griffiths, Arthur, 25, 45, 47, 49, 64,
71, 74, 86, 181, 220.
" Groats," 27.
Gurney, J. J., 63, 72-3, 83, 235.
Habeas Corpus Act, 6.
Hales, Dr. Stephen, 30.
Hal6vy, Elie, 49.
Halifax Prison, Fees at, 4, 193.
Hall, Bishop, 158.
Hall, Captain Basil, 95.
Hanway, Jonas, 12, 21, 32, 55, 90.
Hard labour, Meaning of, 143-4, !*!
Hase, William, 97.
Hay, William, M.P.. 26-7.
Haygarth, John, 35.
Hampshire Assizes, 20.
County Gaol, n, 56.
Hatcham, Prison at, 2,.
HiMdlam, John, u, 81.
Hereford Prison, n, 56, 102.
>n, Frank, 181, 189.
Hertfordshire County Gaol, Diet at, xx.
Hill, F. Davcnpor
Hill, Matthew Davenport, 54, 74,133,
165, 175-
Hippislej, Sir John Coxe, 99.
Hoare, Samuel, 72, 95-
Hobhouse, Stephen, 115, 118, 231-2.
Hogarth, 12.
Hofford, George Peter, M.P., 48
69,72,85,86,88,89 ; Billintn
by, 69 ; and committee on 'I
portation, 68 ; and
unti ! is, 81.
09.
llolli.l.iv. John, 54, 56.
198; see also City of
ion.
Horn-. 158.
256
INDEX
108-
108-9,
137-8,
Home
Home Office, 70, 89,. 104-6,
.<>, 127-8, 134, - , -,
141, 147, 56-7, 169, 175-6, 182-5,
189, 196-9, 200, 215, 233-5, 237-42,
~ Departmental Committee of
1894-5, 99, 219-28, .
and Local Authorities, 30.
Officials of, 177-
i . 2, 198, 203, 219, 220.
Secretary, 29, 70, 73-4, 96, 99, 107,
134, 137-8, 140, 142, 155-6, 159, 161-2
-o, 176, 187, 190-1, 195, 197,
201-2, 208, 215, 219, 221, 223-5,
238, 246, -
House of Commons, 27, 40, 5*-4, 66-8,
1 06, 216.
and Bill on relief of Poor Prisoners
7O.
Committee of 1697, 25 ; of 1729,
5, P. "f 1754, 27 ; of 1776,
40; of 1811, 47-8, 60, 62, 68; of
1814, 64-5, 69; of 1815, 64-5; of
1818, 64 ; of 1819, 60, 89 ; of 1822,
: of 1832, in ; of, 1895, 227-8.
Committee of, on King's Bench,
t and Marshalsea Prisons, 25.
Committee on Laws relating to
Penitentiary Houses, 45, 60-1, 64,
68, 80, 84, 97.
Committee on Prisons within City
of London and Borough of South-
wark, 1814-15, 8, 64-5.
Committee on State of the Gaols,
60,
Select Committee on Newgate and
other City Prisons, 1814, 69.
Sir George Grey's Select Commit-
tee of, 1 86-8.
Debate on Prisons Bill, 1865, 144.
Journals of, 5, 7.
House of Correction, see Correction,
House of.
House of Lords, 5, 231 ; Committees
jQ. Gaols and Houses of Correc-
tion, 88, 91 ; on Prisoners and Prison
Discipline (1863), 132, 138, 153-6,
187-8, 198, 206, 208 ; on State of
Gaols (1835), 103-6, in; on State of
Imprisoned Debtors (1729), 26 ;
Report of Medical Commissioners to,
140-1.
Hopkins, T., 226.
Hornby, W. W., 202.
Horsham Gaol, 54, 74, 90.
Horsley, Rev. J. W., 220, 226.
Horsemonger Lane Gaol, Keepers of, 48.
Howard, John, 2-12, 16-7, 20, 22, 25,
26, (Life of), 27-38, 40, 46, 50-1,
53-6, 59, 64, 65-7, 70, 74, 82, 89-90,
93, 106-7, H5, "8, 127, 160, 178,
188, 193, 235.
Association, The, 178, 215, 226,
230.
Howell, 26.
Huggins, Prosecution of, 26.
Hulks, The, 45-9.
Hull, 76.
Humanitarian League, 226.
"Hundred and Forest Courts"; see
Mjcclcsfield.
Hunts. County Gaol, n.
Hyctt, I". A., 57-
Ik-hcstcr Gaol, 108 ; Employment at,
92 ; Health at, 20 ; Lunatics at, 70.
Hive, Jacob, 23.
Indeterminate sentence, Germ of in
James Mill, 100 ; Partially adopted
iii 1908, a
India, Government of, 198.
Individualization of sentence, 230.
Inquests on prisoners, 169, 191.
Insanity in prisons, 116, 183-4, 210,
219.
Insolvent Debtors Acts, 27.
Insolvent Court, 194.
Inspector General of Military Prisons,
178.
Inspectors objected to by Sydney
Smith, 75 ; Reports of,' 119-127 ;
Publicity given to, 239 ; Now sup-
pressed, 236-240 ; Superiority of
national over local, 244-5.
Intercourse with prisoners forbidden,
103 ; among prisoners the great
evil, 89-95 ; 1 17-120.
International Prison Conference and
Congress, 32, 217, 230, 237.
Investigations into Mental condition
of prisoners, 185, 236, 251.
Ipswich, Suffolk goal at, 56, 63, 76, 105.
Irons, Use of, 7, 9, i, *9> 21, 29, 36,
65, 79, U5, 190.
Irish prisoners, 200.
Prisons Board, 182.
Isle of Wight Gaol, Maintenance of, 105.
Islington, Site for prison at, 46.
Italy, Cellular system in, 116, 217-
Ivelchester (see Ilchester).
Ives, George, 45, 210, 226.
Janssen, Alderman, 30.
Jeaffreson, Cordy, 44.
Jebb, Colonel (Sir Joshua), 94, 144,
154, i77-8,~i82, 202, 213.
febb, Dr. John, 56.
[ohnson, Dr., 20, 21.
[ohnson, Samuel, 31.
[osepbus, 158.
[ulius, Dr. N. H., 183.
[ustices, The County, allowance of,
bread by, 7 ; Power of, to build gaols,
10, 41 ; Duties of, 2-3, 10-11 ; Author-
ity of, over Houses of Correction,
12-17 ; Neglect of, 12, 29, 30-52,
ii ; Power to levy rates, 28 ; Res-
ponsibilities of, 107-9 ; Conversion
of, to centralization, 198-200.
Justice, Minister of, 250.
Kent's County Gaol ; see Maidstone.
Kidderminster, Prison at, 4.
King's Bench Prison, The, i, 6, 43 ;
Committee of inquiry on, 25, 64 ;
INDEX
257
Fees at, 71 ; Inmates at, 31 ; Relief
of prisoners at, 69 ; Sale of intoxi-
cants at, 8.
King's Bench, Court of, on mainten-
ance of prisoners, 80.
King's Courts at Westminster, Prisons
of, 43-
Kingsmill, Rev. Joseph, 94, 164.
Kingston-upon-Hull Bridewell, 16.
on-Thames Prison, 5.
Kirton-in-Lindsay House of Correc-
tion, 149.
Knaresborough Debtors' Prison, 4, 63,
79, '93-
Knutsford House of Correction, 98.
Kropotkin, Prince, 219.
:r, Ministry of, 238.
Ladbroke, Sir Robert, 30, 90.
Ladies' Prison Committees, 72.
Lancaster Castle Gaol, Health in, 107 ;
Maladministration of, 68, 195.
Lancashire, Prisons in, 51, 56.
Quarter Sessions, 51, 95.
Operatives, Dietary of, 140-1 ; see
also Preston and Manchester.
Lancaster County Gaol, 4, 31.
Land, John Dunmore, 45.
Laundry as prison employment, 83,
86, 87, c .
Laurie, Sir Peter, 80, 106.
Lavenham, Suffolk County Bridewell
at, 10.
Law. 158.
Le Breton, Thomas, 87.
Leasing of " power," 81 ; of prisoner's
labour, 163-4 ; see also Far,
Lecky, W. E. H., 25, 32, 44-
Leeds, Duke of, 4.
Gaol, 105 ; see also Yorkshire.
Lees< _-^8.
Leices; v Gaol, 63, 76, 181, 216,
ak labour .1 150-3,
170, 175-6; Fees at, 6; Sale of
intoxicants at, 8 ; Royal Commission
1 86.
: e, Grand Jury for, 9.
158.
Irinciple of, 88,
M. J. C., 64, 66.
to8.
Lewis,
--3-
>on at, 46.
re County Gaol, 4, 63, 76;
rr.
:. 76.
Con 195.
95.
64.
Local Acts, 189.
Local prisons; see Co; me of
Capel, 56.
Loftu , 43.
London, City of, Bridewell, 12 , 64, 93 ;
Fees at, f 6, 70 ; Maladministration
of, 78.
Conference in, 217.
Military District of, i.
Prison Discipline Society, 119.
Prisoners' Aid Society, "227.
Prisons, i, 6, 7, 13, 46, 64, 70-1,
75 J Fees at, 25, 71 ; Health in,
19-20, 31 ; Maladministration of, 65,
106 ; Reforms in 68, 72-3 ; Report
of H. of C. Committee on, 64 ; Privil-
ege of sanctuary at Whitefriars and
Savoy, 25 ; Separate system at
Holloway, 131.
Robberies in streets of, 187.
Lord Chancellor, 230-1, 249, 250 ;
Inspectors appointed by, 27.
1 Act," The, 27.
Lostwithiel Debtors' Prison, 4.
Loughborough, Lord; see Alexander
Wedderburn.
Lousiana Prisons, 95.
Louvain, Central Prison at, 217.
Lowder, S. M., 4.
Lowrie, D., x8x.
Lushington, Dr. M. P., 106.
Lushington, Sir Godfrey, 203, 221.
Luxuries in prison allowed, 102 ; such
as cocoa, 151.
Lynn, Prison at; 63.
Lytton, Lady Constance, 181.
Macaulay, I^ord, 25.
McCardie, Mr. justice, 248-9.
Macclesfield Prison, 4, 193.
Maconochie, Captain Alexander, 128,
150, 164-70, 173, 182, iSS, 213.
Mackenzie, Rodwick,
Maidstone, Kent County Gaol at, 86 ;
Contract with Kent, 105 ; Diet at,
17 ; Education at, 158 ; Employ-
ment in, 198, 237 ; Local Act re, 10 ;
Relief of prisoners at, 9.
Mailbag-making as pris- :i en
226.
>', 26.
Manchester Gaol, 55, 198.
t, 90.
Mansfield, Lord, 54, 56.
Mark System, The, 164-8, 182, 212-3.
Marl boron, ills.
.ilsea Priso. (>, 43, 75 ;
Iiu<] 28-9; Inspection of,
by S.P.C.K. Committee,-:"; Num-
ber <>f ir.i nates at, 31 ;
; Report of H.
Committee <m, 21, 25-6, 64.
. 181.
Masks, Use of, 189, 210.
74, 191.
181.
5, 49, 73.96,99,
181.
Meat, Cheapness of, in 1791, 39.
Mental Deli. i. -M. v A. t. 1*9, B50
Measor, C. r
Medwav hulks on the, 45.
INDEX
- 159,
t,25 ;
\ t for, 40 ;
Mai. 78, 106 ;
Ofiii : limit-
Relief of
pris ; andsepai
131 : I reat-
ment of u;
Count'. 15-16.
Grand Jur\ \\ gate,
:, 5.
Midi'.: . 63.
Mflitai
labour in. .
Mill, ! 100.
Millbank, i y, 45-8, 74, 89,
119,128,140, Dietary at,
102 : . 86, 151 ;
ernor of, 91 ; Separate system
at, 117 ; Solitary system at, 176, 207.
Mills, >
Mitford, R. S., 202.
Mittermaier, C. J. A. von, 115.
Molesworth, Sir William, 45.
Monmouth County Gaol, u, 74, 101.
Mont St. Michel (France), 97.
Montagu, Basil, 72.
Morrison, Rev. W. D., 219, 226.
Municipal Corporations Enquiry Com-
missioners, 94, 105, 127.
Municipal prisons, 3, 63-5, 104-6 ;
Inapplicability of areas for, 234-5.
Murison, A. F., 218. ,
Mynshal, Geoffrey, 25.
National Prisons, 43-9, 180-5 ; see also
Hulks, Millbank. Pentonville, Convict
1'risons.
", Robert, 26.
Nevill, Lord William, 181.
i'he," 56.
New Datchet Prisons, 93.
" New Gaol," The, 94.
a ; see Clerkenwell Bridewell.
South Wales, Transportation to,
45-6, 180.
Newcastle-on-Tyne Prison, 6, 63-4, 76.
gate, ., M.P., 129, 210.
''6, 90 ; Denunciation
111 Fry's visit to, 71 ;
- at, 25, 30, 65; Health eondi-
ss at, 30-1 ; Inspection of, by
S.P.C.K. ( ommitti
48 ; Lunatics in, 70 ; Malad-
istration of, 106, 119-121 ; Soli-
tary system at, 119-121.
Newport (I. of W.) ; see Isle of Wight.
NiHd, James, 2, 5, 28, 45, 52, 60, 63-4,
T 66-7, 69, 83, 101, 188, 235.
nformists, .
: see Cellular >
^nlilary Confinement, Separate Sys-
and Silt-nf Svatettt.
k County Gaol, u, 31, 56 ; Com-
mittee of inquiry on, 56.
Norfolk, New Bridewell at Wymoml"
ham, 55.
Duke of, 4-
Island, Penal Colony .it 14, 47.
Northallerton House of Correctio
80, 81.
Northampton, County Gaol of, 63, 70,
88-9 ; Local Act for, 40.
Northumberland County Gaol, n.
Norwich Bridewell, 76, 83, 101, 107.
Nottingham County Gaol of, 48, 70.
Prisons, 48, 64 ; Reform in, Go-::,
68 ;
a-picking as prison employ
88, 155, 207.
O'Brien, Captain, 151.
238.
Oglethorpe, General, 26, 27.
Old Bailey, The, 25, 30, 64 ; " Black
Sessions " at,
" Old Datchet " Prison, 93.
" Old Gaol " Prison (Bucks), 93.
Old Poor Law, no.
" Old Tower " Gaol; see Liverpool.
Oldfield, T. H. B., 63.
Order in Council ending Transportation,
1 80.
Owen, Robert, 72.
Oxford County Gaol, 56, 76, 105.
Black Assize, 20.
Paget, W., 26.
Paley, Archdeacon, 90, 116.
Palmerston, Lord, 169.
Panopticon, 18, 40, 46, 47, 67.
Parker, C. S., 96, in.
Parkes, Joseph, 37, 104.
Parkhurst Prison (1. of Wight), 226.
Parliamentary Gaol Reports, 94.
Paterson, A., 226, 236.
Paul, Sir George Onesiphorus, Bart.,
38, 40, 48, 50, 51, 53, 56-7, 58-9, 60,
66, 72, 74, 86, 89, 92, 97.
Pearson, Charles, 130, 150, 158, 160-1,
162-3, *64, 186-7, 199, 233.
Peel, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert, n, 73, 75,
81, 96, 109, in ; Reforms clue to,
76, 107.
Pelham, Henry, 44.
Pell, Sir Albert, 95.
Penal labour, General eiifoiv.-meilt of,
1835-65, 155-57, 207 ; Abolition of,
222, 225 ; see also Prison labour,
Trcadwhcel, Crank, Oakum-picking,
Shot-drill, Stonebreaking.
Penal Servitude, 180-5, 226,
Reform League, 226.
Pengelly, Lord Chief Baron, 20.
Penitentiary Act, The (1779), 39-40,
46-7, 58, 96.
Houses, Committee on Laws
relating to, 48.
Pennsylvania, 94, 115, 117; Quaker
reforms in, 68.
Penrhyn, Prison at, Income of, 4.
Penrice, William, 27.
Pentonville Prison, 46, 49, 119, 128,
146, 151 ; Cellular system at, 180-3 ;
INDEX
Separate system at, 117-8, 132,
187; Solitary system at 130, 176,
178; Treadwheel at, 207-8.
Penwith, 4.
Penzance, Prison at, 4, 63.
Percival, Dr. Thomas, 56.
Perry, Inspector, 169.
Perry, J. G., 129-30, 151, 154. 155-
rth Gaol, 54, 90-1.
Pevcrel, Gaol of, 63.
Philadelphia, Prison at, 94, us. 117.
Phillips, Dr. Marion, 45.
Phillips, Sir Richard, 64, 72.
Picton, Sir J. A., 63.
Pigot, John, 20.
Pin-making asp; meat, 88-9.
Pitman, Mrs. E. K.. 71."
Pitt, Morton, 56, ;.j.
Pitt, Moses, 27.
Pitt, William, 46.
Place, Francis, 30, 44.
Plymouth, New Prison at, 105.
Pocklington, , M.P., 25.
Police and Convict Establishments,
Report of Select Committee on,
46.
Poole Bridewell.
Poor Law Commissioners, 40, 102, 127.
Poor Law, Connection of House of
Correct ion with, 13-17 ; Relief under,
not available for prisoners, 194.
Popham's Acts, 35, 38, 50.
Porteous, 158.
Post Office, 245 ; Prison Labour for,
226.
Portland, Isle of, 182, 197.
Portsmouth Gaol, 63, 76, 197.
< onvict hulks at, 45.
Potomac River, Transportation of con-
ts to, 44.
'., 40.
Preston Gaol, 51, 74, 83-5, 128; Die-
tary at, 102 ; Employment at, 84-6,
88, 95, 198 ; Treadwheel at, 99.
Prevention of Crime Act of 1908, 228,
230.
::tivc Detention, germ of in
James Mill, 100 ; partial adoption of,
229.
Printing as prison employment, 226,
237-
Prisons AM 40-2; of 1823,
40, 73-5J of 1835, 111-2; of 1839,
127; of 1865, 189-192, 195, of 1877,
. 191, 200-2, 205, 208, 216 ; of
1898, 224-5.
posed in 1850, 162.
178,
184, 202-17, Jl -24-9, 231,
235-8, 21 ;')-8.
I on, 225.
Prison I Act. 1824, 108.
Goouni is. 52, 114, 129.
Society, 68, 72
41 Prison Palace " , 128.
Prison labour. 196-8, 205-7, 226-7; see
MS. Acts of.
Probation Act 1907, 228, 230.
259
Probation of First Offenders Act, 1887,
228, 248.
Probation System, 228, 230, 248.
Profit-making enterprise of gaoler, 5-9,
ft 1 8.
Profit-sharing in Prison, proposed in
Penitentiary Act, 39 ; applied in
Local Prisons, 197-8.
Progressive Stages, System of, 182,
211
Promiscuity of prisons, 19, 24, 119, 120.
Promotion of Christian Knowledge,
Society for the, formation of, 26.
Prostitution, committals for offences
connected with, 204.
Protestantism, 209.
Provost Marshal, prison for, i.
Prussia, 115 ; Cellular system in, 217.
Publicity, Stoppage of under the Du
Cane regime, 215-7 ; this stoppage
characteristic of centralized adminis-
tration, 235-240.
Quakers, Prison reforms by, 68, 71-2,
115; how far responsible for plan of
solitary confinement, 115; might have
a prison entrusted to them, 242-3.
eueen's Bench Prison, i.
uinton, R. F., 226.
Radicals, 67, 200.
Rappahanoe, Transportation of con-
victs to, 44.
Rates, Clamour for reduction of, 198-
200, 234.
Reade, Charles, 170.
Recidivism, 204, 222, 228-9, 242.
Reading, 4, 128 ; Discipline at, 161 ;
Education at, 158 ; Solitary system
at, 130.
Relief and Discharge of Persons im-
prisoned for Small Debts, Society for
the, 67.
Religion in prison, 71-2, 75, 101, 246-7.
Render, W. H., 32, 71.
Ricardo, David, 103.
Richmond, Duke of, 54, nit 103, 130.
Gaol (York . 25, 193.
Kidh-y, Sir Matttiew White, 225.
" Right of Escape," 28.
Ripon, Dean and Chapter of, 4-
Prisons at, 4.
Robinson, F. W., 188.
Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Due d
94-
Rochester, Prison at, 105.
Roman ' 44, 209-10, 243.
;7, 68, 69, 91, 158.
ROSOCM 1 01.
Rossa, J. O'Donovan, aoo.
Rosslyn, Earl of ; see WtAUrburn,
Alexander.
Rothwell, Feet at Debtors' prison at,
Royal Commissions, of 1863 and 1878-
9, 180-1.
260
INDEX
Royal Commissions on Birmingham
and Leicester,
Rug-making as prison employment, 86.
Russell 226.
Russell, Lord John, 114.
Russel M, 83, 119.
R viands, Peter, 200.
St. Augustine's House of Correction
:), 70.
irgarets; see Westminster.
St. Petersburg, Internationa] Peniten-
; y Congress at, 1889, 32.
Saleilles, R., 230.
Marquis of, 48.
Prisons, 105 ; see Wiltshire.
Salv . 185, 218, 242, 247.
San Michele (Rome), Prison of, 116.
Sanctuary, 25.
Prison at, 105.
i of, i, 4, 31, 43.
Sanctuary at, 25.
Scandals at Birmingham and Leices-
ter, 169-176.
Scougall, F., 181, 220.
Scullard, H. H., 32.
Secondary Punishments, Select com-
mittee on, 77, 104, in.
Secretan, Charles Frederick, 26.
Secretiveness, Policy of, 235-240.
Senior, Nassau, no.
Separate System, 117-8, 183-5 ; see
also Silent System, Cellular System.
Sheffield, Courts of Request at, 194.
Prison at, 4.
Sheffield, Sir James, 20.
ton Mallet ; see Somerset.
Sheriff, responsible for gaol, 6, 34,
108-9.
Shoemaking as prison employment, 86,
226.
Shot-drill as prison employment, 155,
156.
Shrewsbury; see also Shropshire.
Shropshire County Gaol (Shrewsbury),
6, 25, 40, 51, 132.
Sidmouth, Lord, 73, 88, 107.
Sigerson, G., 200.
Silent System, Th,, _ , ,
duced by Clay and Chesterton, 95-6 ;
Auburn, 118-9; at Coldbath
sat System. The. 04-5, 115-8 ; intro-
duced by Clay and Chesterton, 95-6 ;
: Adoption of, 127-
, 183-5. See also Cellular
'.cm. Separate System.
Simon, Mr. Sergeant, 206.
Skipton ; see also Yorks, W. Riding.
Smith, Dr. Edward, 137, 138-9; on the
Graham Dietary, 139, 140-1.
Smith .,Q Inspectors, 75 ; on
use of tread-wheel and employment,
81, 88, 96, 99.
Smith, William, M.D., 70, 78.
' tt, T., 26, 31.
Society of Friends, 115, 242.
Society for the Improvement of Prison
Discipline, 2, 68, 72, 75, 79, 83, 88,
97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105.
'. y Confinement, 177; see Separate
System, Silent System, Cellular Sys-
tem.
Somerset, County Bridewell at Taun-
tou, 16.
House of Correction (Shepton
Mallet), 102.
Woollen workers in, 20.
South Molton, New Prison at, 105.
Southwark Prison, 5 ; see also London
and A"t/i,''.s- Hench.
Southwell House of Correction, Classi-
fication at, 93-4 ; Employment at,
8p, 84-5 ; Maladministration at, 60-2;
Treatment of untried prisoners at,
80.
Spain, Cellnl.u sy>tein in, 217.
Stafford County Gaol, n, 31, 40, 56,
88-9.
Stamford Prison, 6.
Standing Orders not published, 237.
Steele, Richard, 23.
Stocking-making as prison employ-
ment, 83.
Stonebreaking as prison employment,
156.
Stopford, W. J., 202.
Stoughton, John, 32.
Strait- jacket, Improper use of, 170-4.
Stuart, James, 95.
Suffolk, Prisons in, 10, 29, 56, 97 ; Re-
port of Commissioner in, on dietary of
prisoners, 102; see also Bury St.
Edmunds.
Suicide, at Birmingham, 169 ; Precau-
tions against, 184 ; Amount of in
prison, 210, 219.
Surrey, Prisons in, n, 79, 99, 117, 131,
182.
Surveyor-General of Prisons, 114, 117,
146, 178, 187, 202.
Sussex County Gaol, 54, 56, 63, 90, 107 ;
Local Act for, 40.
Swaffham House of Correction, Educa-
tion at, 157-8.
Swan River, Convict settlement at,
44, 180.
Sweeting, R. D. R., 32, 37.
Swiss Prisons, Solitary sleeping cells in,
89.
Tailoring as prison employment, 83,
86, 226.
Tallack, W., 32, 178, 215.
Tasmania, Convict settlement in, 47.
Taunton Assize, 20.
Gaol, 20, 154 ; see also Somerset.
Taylor, T., 32.
Telephone Users, Local Advisory Com-
mittees of, 245.
Tewkesbury, New prison at, 105.
Thames, Convict hulks on "the, 45.
Thame Bridewell, 17.
Thirsk ; see also N. R. Yorkshire.
Thistlewood, i.
Thomson, Sir Basil, 181.
Thumbscrews for prisoners, 10.
Ticket of leave, 180, 182.
Timpson, Thomas, 71.
INDEX
261
Tin-ware making as prison employ-
ment, 86, 226.
Tiverton Prison, 20, 105.
Tothill Fields Bridewell, 8, 19, 128.
Tower of London, The, i, 43.
Transportation, 44.
Travaux forcts, not our hard labour or
penal servitude, 181.
Treadmill; see Treadwheel.
Treadwheel, 80-1, 92-3 ; Invention of,
96-7 ; Controversy as to, 97-8 ;
General adoption of, 147-157, 207.
Abolition of, 222, 225.
Treasury, Grant from, 131.
Tuberculosis in prison, 209, 226.
Turnbull, Capt. R. R, 94.
Turner, J. H., 198, 226.
Ullathorne, Archbishop, W. B., 44,
189.
Uniformity, The " fetish " of, 203-5,
220-1, 233, 330.
United States of America; see America,
North.
Untried prisoners, Treatment of, 77-82.
Vagrancy Act, 1744, 39-
Vagrants sent to House of Correction,
12-17.
Van Diemen's Land, Penal Colony at,
44-5, 164, 180.
Vandervelde, M. Emile, 189.
Vaux, J. H., 45-
Vice and Immorality, Society for
Giving Effect to H. M. Proclamation
against, 54.
Victoria, Queen, Number of convicts in
Australia on Accession of, 46.
Virginia, 94.
Visiting Justices, Under 1744 Act, 29 ;
Under 1877 Act, 210, 216-7, 244,
351 ; For convict prisons, 225 ;
inemcacy of, 237.
Voluntary agencies, desirability of use
of, 340-3.
Wages paid to prisons i
War Office, 238.
Ward, Ned, 12, 16.
Warden of the Fleet, 5, 21, 26.
Wardsmen, Use of prisoners as, fur-
bidden, :
Wakefield Prison, 55, 226, 230 ; Diet-
ary at, 138, 141 ; Employment at
197-8, 146-7, 307 ; Health at, 183,
solitary system at, 95, 130; sec also
Yorks.
Prisoners' Aid Society, 227.
Wales, State of Gaols in, 54
Walford, L. B., 71.
Walter,J. R, 4
Warrington Borough Bridewell at work-
house, 17.
Warwickshire, County Gaol ; Diet at,
ii ; Employment in, 88-9, 198;
Lunatic in 70 ; Number of inmates
of, 31 ; Treadwheel in, 98 ; see also
Aston.
Washington, Congress at, 230.
Wellington, J. W. Perry, 202.
Watson, Bishop, 158.
Weaving as prison employment, 83,
86, 87.
Wedderburn, Alexander (Lord Lough-
borough and Earl of Rosslyn), 4, 24,
41, 44, 53, 55, 56, 66, 70.
Wesley, John, 31.
West Haverford Gaol (Pembrokeshire),
70.
Western, Baron, (C. C.), 87.
Westminster, City of, Gaols, 7, 13, 75,
79, 124, 128.
Gatehouse Prison, 3, 28.
King's Courts at, 5.
Westmorland County Gaol, 70.
Whalley, ., M.P., 210.
Whatley, 46.
Whig iMinistry, no.
Whipping; see Flogging.
Whitbread, Samuel, 47, 53.
Whitby, House of Correction 13.
White, Charles, 45-
White Cross Street Gaol, 70.
Whitechapel Debtors' Prison, 25.
Whitefriars, Sanctuary at, 25.
Wilberforce, William, 32, 46-7.
Wilson, Bishop, 158.
Wiltshire Prisons, Reforms in, 56; see
also Fishfrton Anger.
Winchester Gaol, 20, 63, 103, 105.
Windsor Castle Prison, 3.
Windham, 101.
Wisbech Prison, 63, 147.
Witnesses, Confinement of persons
needed as, 24.
Wolverhampton, Prison at, 63.
Woolwich, Hulks at, 45.
Worcester County Gaol, n, 70, 74, 76,
105.
New Gaol in 51-2.
Prisoners' Aid Society, 227.
Wrexham; see Denbighshire.
Writing, objection to teaching, 157-8.
Wymondham ; see Norfolk.
York, ArchbishoD of, 4 : Castle Gaol,
70, 101 ; City Bridewell, 16 ; County
Gaol, 31 ; Other prisons in, 4, 63-4,
76.
Yorkshire, Prisons in North Riding,
13-16, 25, 8 1 ; Prisons in West Rid-
ing, 56, 79, 955 see also WakefieU ;
Otlii-r prison-; in, 73, 96.
/ouch, Thomas, 32.
H Bngljnd by Jfe Oardtn City Pr*$. Utchworth Hrit
OTHER WORKS BY
SIDNEY & BEATRICE WEBB
(Except where otherwise stated, joint authorship,
and published by LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.)
ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT HISTORY.
(a) The Structure.
I. The Parish and the County. i6s. net.
II and III. The Manor and the Borough. Two vols. 253.
net.
IV. Statutory Authorities for Special Purposes. (In the Press.)
(b) The Functions.
V. The Story of the King's Highway. 125. 6d. net.
VI. English Prisons under Local Government. 153. net.
The History of Liquor Licensing in England. 2s. 6d. net.
These works present a systematic analysis of the Local
Government of England and Wales from the seventeenth century.
Drawn largely from the unpublished manuscript records of the
Justices, the Vestries and Parish Officers, the Manorial Courts
and Municipal Corporations, the Courts of Sewers, Turnpike
Trusts and Improvement Commissions, they afford a new view
of English history from the seventeenth to the twentieth
centuries, with an inspiring vision of the gradual development
of social organization, out of which has grown the Local
Government of to-day.
SOME PRESS NOTICES
" Of the deepest, even of fascinating interest. Here, for the first time,
we have a real study of local life in England, in village and town and county.
. . . Everywhere we follow the gallant fights of humane and just men
. . . together with the sharp dealings of the astute. The authors . . .
have opened a new chapter in English history." Westminster Gazette.
" Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb's monumental work on our local institu-
tions must be a source at once of pride and of something a little like
shame. Here at last we have a book which is more than worthy to be
placed beside those of the great continental writers on the subject. . . .
If it is literature to present a singularly vivid picture of a past stage of
society, to render it real and lifelike by a careful selection and skilful
grouping of illustrative details, and to explain its meaning with clearness,
sound judgment and not infrequent touches of quiet humour, then assur-
edly is this volume literary as well as learned." Standard.
" Without exaggeration it may be said that this work will necessitate
the rewriting of English history. ... A history of the English people,
richer in local colours, more comprehensive in its survey of social affairs,
and more truly human in its sympathies than any treatise hitherto given
to the public." Daily News.
(c) Controversial and Constructive.
Grants in Aid : a Criticism and a Proposal. 75. 6d. net.
English Poor Law Policy (since 1834). 75. 6d. net.
The Break-Up of the Poor Law. 75. 6d. net.
The Prevention of Destitution : a comprehensive and practical
programme of how it can be done. ics. net.
The State and the Doctor. 55. net.
ON TRADE UNIONISM AND INDUSTRIAL
ORGANIZATION.
The History of Trade Unionism (revised and extended to 1920.)
2is. net.
" A masterly piece of work." 7 itnes.
" To the politician ... an invaluable guide." Observer.
' ' An admirably lucid precaution oi a great mas* of complicated Xacts."
Speaker.
" Undoubtedly marked by the qualities of true history fulness, accur-
acy and clear connection in the presentation of facts." Newcastle
Chronicle.
Industrial Democracy. A comprehensive and critical analysis of
: y phase of Trade Union theory and practice. 2is. net.
" A permanent and invaluable contribution to the sum of human
knowledge. \\V commend to the public a book which is a monument of
research and full of candour. . . . Indispensable to every publicist and
politician. ' ' Times.
The Public Organization of the Labour Market. A survey of the
whole problem of Unemployment, with a complete practical
scheme for dealing with it. 55. net.
Problems of Modern Industry. Eleven Essays, ys. 6d. net.
The Works Manager To-day. A series of Addresses to Works
Managers by SIDNEY WEBB on such problems as Reducing
Costs, Systems of Payment by Results, How to Prevent
" Ca' Canny/' Fatigue and Accidents, the Changing Status
of Employers and Wage-Earners, etc. 55. net.
The Story of the Durham Miners. By SIDNEY WEBB, published
by the Fabian Bookshop, 25, Tothill Street, Westminster,
and the Labour Publishing Company, Limited. 55. net.
Men's and Women's Wages : should they be equal ? By MRS.
SIDNEY WEBB, published by the Fabian Bookshop, 25,
Tothill Street, Westminster ; and George Allen and Unwin,
Ltd. is. net.
ON CO-OPERATION.
The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain.
By BEATRICE POTTER (Mrs. Sidney Webb), 1893 ; published
by George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.
The Consumers' Co-operative Movement. A systematic critical
analysis of the achievements and activities of the Movement,
as it stood at the end of 1921, with a forecast of the future.
i8s. net.
ON SOCIALISM, OR NATIONAL CO-ORDINATION.
Towards Social Democracy ? By SIDNEY WEBB, published by
the Fabian Bookshop, 25, Tothill Street, Westminster, and
George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. is. net.
A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain.
This volume affords not only a vision of the Socialist propo-
sals, with a critical analysis, but also a practical scheme
for the re-organization of British industry and government.
I2S. 6d. net.
WHAT THE PRISONS REALLY ARE
ENGLISH PRISONS
TO-DAY
Demy octavo ; uniform with " English
Prisons under Local Government" ; 750
pages. Price 255. net.
C. For three years a representative committee has been con-
ducting a detailed investigation of the working of the English
Prison System, and of its effects upon those who are subjected to
it. The Committee has been presided over by Sir Sydney
Olivier, and its members have included, Lord Henry Bentinck,
M.P., Mr. G. D. H. Cole, Miss S. Margery Fry, J.P. (Hon. Sec-
retary of the Howard League for Penal Reform), Mr. Laurence
Housman, the Rev. Dr. W. D. Morrison, Mr. Bernard Shaw, and
Mrs, Sidney Webb. The Report of the Committee has been
edited by Stephen Hobhouse, M.A., and A. Fenner Brockway,
and has been published under the title English Prisons To-day.
C. In the First Part of the Report a detailed description is
given of the English Prison System as it is operating to-day.
In the Second Part a description is given of the mental and
moral effects of imprisonment. The conclusions of the Com-
mittee are based upon evidence received from prison officials,
workers among discharged prisoners, and ex-prisoners of many
types, supplemented by a study of official and unofficial
literature.
G. Some specimens of the evidence received are given among
the Appendices to the Report, which also contain a long ac-
count of American experiments in prison methods.
C. English Prisons To-day is 750 pages in length and has six
illustrations. It is published as a companion volume to English
Prisons under Local Governtncnt, at 255. net.
LONGMANS, GREEN 6? CO.
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
JS Passfield, Sidney James Webb
3025 English local government
P3
v.6
cop. 2
