ill-behaved characters, and this produces a very salutary effect on all; for what is one man's case to-day, may be another's to

morrow.

I think I have stated generally, that prison labour is the groundwork of all improvement, of general tranquillity, and of hope of reformation in a prisoner's habits of life and disposition of mind: give a prisoner action by labour and employment, and it will give him a determined direction towards a better system of life; industrious habits must be created, be the expense what it may; the moral effects produced will compensate for all numerical loss that may be sustained; nothing can save a prisoner from the bitter reflection of a misspent life but employment; idleness and rest will not do it; those will throw him back upon the thoughts of his former life, extinguish all hope, harden his heart and drive him to despair.

Do you conceive the manufactures carried on in the gaol at Ilchester could be also carried on in other counties where there are no manufactures?-Perfectly so; I have no doubt of it; all that is requisite is, to get a person to instruct them, and no person will instruct them so well as a pri

soner.

You give your prisoners a proportion of their earnings at the time?-Yes; I consider it essential for this reason: our prison allowance is a pound and a half of bread and a penny per day; if a prisoner is to be kept at labour, he requires some additional sustenance; and we having no common kitchen in the gaol by which

we could prepare such articles of food, which in other prisons are supplied to prisoners, find it necessary to give him some means of adding to his sustenance, and we find that sixpence allowed in that way to find his own provision is better, and more acceptable to him, than if he was allowed any prepared articles of food to the value of one shilling found by the county; for prisoners are not satisfied that the best provisions are provided, of which they do not see the cooking.

Do they cook their own victuals?—Yes; in every ward there is a common kitchen, and two prisoners are left as cooks to boil the potatoes or meat, or any thing they choose to have; and when they go to work they leave their several prepared messes in their own pots, and the cooks see to the cooking.

The instances of pride among prisoners in executing work in a masterly and expeditious manner are very frequent with us.

Would you recommend a central building for the turnkeys to inspect them?—I do not think it practicable to put all the wards of a gaol under one officer; but I think a gaol may be effectually managed without it: if a prisoner is always exposed to open inspection, it makes him carry on his ill designs, if he forms any, in a secret manner; but I think a prisoner should always have it on his mind, that there is a power in the officer of the prison of his overlooking without his having a knowledge of it. In the gaol at Ilchester, which is a long and perhaps as aukward a building as

can

can be imagined, the governor or his officers can inspect all the wards by day, and from his bedchamber can go into all the cells on the one side of the gaol, and through all the debtors' apart ments, without ever its being known to a turnkey or a prisoner; and from the same floor of his house he can go through all the male criminal cells, and he can hear and attend to any operation that may be wrongfully going on, without being seen by prisoners or turnkeys; and I conceive that to be of the greatest possible advantage, because a turnkey should not know when the gaoler visits his prisoners, and a gaoler must have his eye as much on the turnkeys as on the prisoners, and must always consider himself in danger, and so must the turnkeys also. It is only by constant vigilance that a prison can be kept in a state of security and order; one turnkey has the power from his house of inspecting each of the debtors' courts, and the task-masters can overlook the work-yard and the female wards without being seen by the prisoners.

Would you not think it desirable, if your convenience would allow it, that each prisoner should sleep in a separate cell?-No, I do not think that is necessary; on the contrary, it very often produces the best security to have two or three or more prisoners in a room, because one in that case is a watch upon others, especially if they are classed, as I have before estated that prisoners ought to be. Do you not think it gives a facility for licentious and dissolute conversation?-Prisoners in general have the opportunities of it

in the day-time; and if they behave tolerably well, we must run the risk of their doing the same in the night. Should, however, any improper conduct be observed in any one, he would be classed with a lesser number, or made to sleep by himself.

Would you have labour in your gaol if it produced no profit?— Yes; I do not think prison labour ought to be stinted because it is not profitable.

Would you have labour in your gaol if it produced loss?—Yes; if it produced loss I should consider it a great gain in moral habits produced, because no persons can govern a gaol without labour.

Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, bt. examined.

Are you an acting magistrate in the county of Gloucester? I am.

Were the present gaol, penitentiary-house and houses of correction built, and the system adopted there carried into effect, under your particular recommendation?—Yes.

Have you had an opportunity of examining the effect of that. system, and up to what period? -I attended to the effect for seventeen years, up to the period of 1809. The principle of my system of imprisonment is, to make a discriminate and distinct use of the several species of prisons which are sanctioned by the common, or ordained by the statute law.

To what species of prisons do you allude?-The prisons to which I allude are, first, the gaol or sheriff's prison, which is the

sole

sole prison known and acknowledged by the common law. It is therefore the legal place of confinement for all offenders at common law. It is also the prison in which every person should be confined who is presumed by law to be committed to the custody of the sheriff, as well in execution as for deliverance at a gaol delivery. Secondly, the penitentiary-house, or prison of punishment for felons convicted, as originally ordained by an act of parliament passed in the 19th of the present king; and which act has its purposes explained and its regulations modified and suited to the application of a single county, by the act for the county of Gloucester, of the 25th of George 3rd, cap. 10. The enactments of this statute were afterwards made general by the 31st of the king,. cap. 46; these acts first created, by mode of confinement, by labour and modified seclusion, a system of penal imprisonment, as a substitute for the punishments by death and transportation. The third specics of prison is the house of correction; its purpose, when duly applied, is to check the early dawnings of vice and disobedience to legal ordinance; by wholesome restraint and by privations acting on the mind, to punish and discourage incipient offenders.These prisons are regulated by the statutes of the 22nd and 24th of the king, with reference to acts of the 7th James 1st, and the 17th George 2nd. By the Gloucestershire act it is directed, that the penitentiary-house shall be made use of for the reception and custody of such offenders as at

any assize or quarter sessions of the county shall be convicted of crimes for which they would be liable to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour within any other prison of the county, &c. It is required by the said act, and by the special by-laws authorized thereby, that in this prison the offenders, during night, shall be lodged in separate rooms or cells, and "that during the hours of labour (as far as the nature of their several employments will permit) they shall be kept separate and apart from each other.' "That they shall be employed at work every day in the year, except Sundays, Christmas-days and Good-Fridays, or when (in the judgment of the surgeon) ill health will not allow of their working." "And that their hours of work in each day shall be as many as the season of the year will permit, but not exceeding eight hours in the months of December and January, nine hours in the months of February and October, and ten hours during the rest of the year."—It is farther directed, that " every offender shall be clothed in a coarse and uniform apparel, with certain obvious marks or badges affixed to the same, as well to humiliate the wearer as to facilitate discovery in case of escape.""And that no offender shall, during the time of his confinement, be permitted to have any other food, drink, or clothing, than such as shall, from time to time, be appointed by the justices in their quarter-sessions, or than shall be adjudged necessary in especial cases by the visiting justices; and the like penalties are

imposed

imposed, as by the 19th George 3rd, c. 74, on all persons, as well officers of the prison as others, who shall supply or attempt to supply any offender confined in this prison with either food, clothing or money. The offenders, at their first rising, attend prayers in the chapel together, and in the evening, and before retiring to their night cells, are directed to walk for exercise and air in the airing-yards of the prison, in the presence of the governor or other officer, whose duty it is to see that they do not stand still and defeat the purpose of exercise by loitering in parties and caballing together in conversation." No person is permitted to enter the wards of the penitentiary-house, or to converse with any offender who is in health, except the sheriff and the justices of the peace for the county, the chaplain, surgeon and officers of the house, and except such other person as shall be authorized by a special order in writing of the justice who shall have signed the original commitment to gaol of any of fender, to see such offender; but in case an offender shall be seized with a dangerous sickness, and be in consequence removed to the infirmary ward, his friends are informed thereof, and are permitted to visit such offender. "The penalties of the 19 George 3rd, c. 74, attach on escape, or on any attempt to escape, as also on all persons aiding and abetting." But by the same act, if the visiting justices shall observe, or be satisfactorily informed of, any extraordinary diligence or merit in any of the offenders under their inspection, they are di

rected to report the same to the justices at the gaol delivery, in order that such justices may, if they think proper, recommend such offenders to royal mercy; and in the case of shortening the duration of an offender's confinement, he shall, together with necessary clothing, receive such sum of money for his or her immediate subsistence as the visiting justices shall think proper, so as such sums shall not exceed twenty shillings, or be less than five shillings, in case such offender shall have been confined for the space of one year, and so in pro portion for any shorter term of confinement; or the visiting justices may make application to his majesty's principal secretary of state, recommending that an offender may receive such mitigation of sentence as by his majesty may be deemed meet; or if any person who shall have been confined as an offender shall have been industrious and orderly during the time of his confinement, the chaplain and governor, or the chaplain and the visiting justice, shall on his dismission give him a certificate of such good behaviour; and when such person shall be discharged, decent clothing shall be delivered to such person, together with such sum of money as the visiting justices shall judge necessary for his subsistence to the place of his legal settlement, or to the limits of the county, if not settled within it. And in case a person so discharged shall procure any reputable master of a ship or tradesman, or any substantial housekeeper, to take him into service, or to provide him with proper and suitable employ

ment

Did that working in the wheel find employment for all the prisoners in the course of the day, who were in a fit state of health?

Was this prison, during the time you have referred to, conducted upon these principles? Strictly so.

How have the prisoners been employed? In a great variety of works of simple manufacture.

How have the prisoners been confined during the day ?-All of them have worked alone so long as there were separate cells for the purpose.

What laborious work have they had?-Since the gaol was finished, the only laborious work has been walking in a vertical wheel, for the purpose of raising water for the prison, which wheel is necessarily kept going the greater part of the day; in this wheel two prisoners make a joint effort, without being able to see or to converse with each other. The prisoners are taken from their cells in pairs and work about twenty minutes; after they come out of the wheel they are generally, more or less, in a state of perspiration, and as it would be improper to put them into their cells in that state, they therefore walk in the yard for other twenty minutes. These prisoners are then returned to their day cells, and others in succession pursue the same course.

Did you consider that as beneficial to the prisoners with regard to health ?-I have every reason to believe it greatly conduced to their health.

Did it operate as a punishment, or was it undertaken with chearfulness?-I never observed any disposition to murmur at these or any other orders which were given to the prisoners in this prison.

Was work of any other kind found for all the prisoners in the penitentiary?-Yes; some employment or other has been found for all, as necessary concomitants to seclusion.

Do you conceive constant employment to be essential for persons confined in solitude?—I believe that solitude, with occupation or employment, and with due attention to its effects, will reform the most hardened criminal; but without such occupation and such attention it ought never to be applied for such a length of time as prisoners in the penitentiaryhouse are generally confined.

Are you aware that the governor has been in the habit, for the last seventeen or eighteen years, of leaving persons who have been sent there for a month, in perfect solitude without any occupation?

I understand that the governor has suffered prisoners to remain in solitude, without employment, when confined for short terms,