Derby, Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, Glocester, Oxford, and Birmingham. After a rest of ten days, he again set off, and inspected those of Hertford, Berks, Wilts, Dorset, Hants, and Sussex; and on another tour, those of Rutland and York. On his way back, he went to Ipswich, and then on a western tour to Exeter, Salisbury, and Cornwall. The circumstances of distress, privation, and suffering, with which he became acquainted in these visits, it is impossible for us to detail; but they were of such a nature, and his kindness in relieving them by the payment of fees for the liberation of the innocent, and his wisdom in devising plans for the mitigation of the heart-chilling horrors attendant on the captivity of the guilty, became so conspicuous, that the House of Commons desired their Speaker to express their thanks to him for his zeal and benevolence, and for the interesting observations which, as the result of his experience, he had communicated to Parliament. One of the members, however, no doubt some right staunch enemy to "enthusiasm," after listening to his narrative of the dangers to which he had been exposed in visiting the filthy, damp, and infectious cells, rudely asked him at whose expense he travelled-a question which he could scarcely answer without some indignant emotions. The honourable and well-merited notice of his exertions, by the senate of his country, could not but be gratifying to the feelings of Howard; but it was chiefly so, as it afforded him a hope of the powerful interference of Parliament, to ameliorate those miseries which so much affect ed his own heart. Accordingly we find him pursuing his labours in investigating the condition of the prisons of the metropolis, the Marsbalsea, the Fleet, the King's Bench and Compter, and a multitude of other inferior places of confinement, the existence of which would scarcely have been known, except to the jailors and the prisoners themselves, but for his humane labours, and in completing his tour of the prisons in Wales, and the North and West of England. He was encouraged in his progress by finding that Parliament had passed two bills, the one for paying from the county rate the fees of discharged felons, the other for better providing for the health of prisoners. Both of these measures were highly important; for the cases were painfully numerous in which a verdict of acquittal having been given in favour of prisoners, they had been for many months detained in the wretchedness of a loathsome captivity, merely for want of means to pay the jailors' fees; and the ravages made by small-pox, the jail fever, and other diseases consequent on bad food, loss of exercise, confined air, and damp cells, were truly appalling. A visit paid by Mr. Howard to some of the county jails, where he discovered some poor creatures whose aspect was singularly deplorable, and who, on inquiry, he learnt had been cruelly brought from the Bridewells, opened to him immediately a new subject of inquiry; and, as no sooner was a project conceived by him than the execution of it was commenced, he travelled again into all the counties he had just returned from visiting, examining every where the houses of correction. We cannot avoid noticing some of the cases which presented themselves to his observation on this tour of inspection. "In the county bridewell at Shepton the jailor informed his visitor, that but a Mallet, there was no infirmary; thongh few years ago the prison had been so unhealthy, that he had buried three or four of its inmates in a week. In the county bridewell, a man was dying upon the floor, of the jail fever; a distemper of which another prisoner had died there just before; and a third soon after his discharge from it. Up stairs were some healthier paid for the use of them." rooms; but they were only for those who p. 142. The county bridewell of Hereford exhibited as wretched a picture of desola tion and distress as any he had met with in the course of his travels. It was so completely out of repair, as not only to be ruinous, but dangerous, a cross-wall having actually parted from that against which it abutted; whilst the day-room contained a large quantity of water, which had poured in through the roof. No fire-place; offensive sewers; no yard; no water; no stated allowance; no employment:-such is the short but melancholy catalogue of the defects of this miserable place. Six of the prisoners who had been sent here from the assizes, but a few days before this visit, to hard labour, as the sentence usually, but uselessly runs, for six months, already complained of being almost famished; for though the justices had ordered the keeper to supply each of them daily with a twopenny loaf, he had shamefully neglected to do so." pp. 142, 143. "In the borough jail at Carmarthen, the keeper of which, one of the town sheriffs, lived at a distance, the food, &c. of the prisons was put in at an aperture in the bottom of the door, through which a little girl, the daughter of the only felon or debtor the jail contained, could just contrive to creep to fetch water, or whatever else might be wanted, by its solitary occupant. At Cardiff, the jailor informed Mr. Howard, that an exchequer debtor confined in the old prison for ten years, for a debt of seven pounds, had died but a short time before his visit. Had he survived but a few weeks longer, there can be no doubt but that he would soon have been set at liberty by the generous commiserator of the prisoners' woes, who could now but look with a sigh upon the dungeon, in which he had so long been immured. In the bridewell for this county, at Cowbridge, the keeper told him that many had died of the jail fever; a man and a woman but a year before, when he himself and his daughter were ill of it; and this principally from the want of a proper circulation of air, of sewers, and of water to keep the prison clean." pp. 143, 144. "In the town jail at Plymouth, one of the rooms for felons, called the Clink, seventeen feet by eight, and about five feet and a half high, had neither light nor air, but what was admitted through a wicket in the door, seven inches by five in its dimensions, to which Mr. Howard was informed that three men, who were confined here near two months, under sen tence of transportation, came by turns for breath. At the period of his visit, the door had not been opened for five weeks, when he himself with difficulty entered, to see a pale inhabitant of this living grave of which for ten long weeks he had been the solitary and wretched inmate. He, too, was confined there under sentence of transportation; but he declared, to the benevolent being who ventured at such imminent hazard of his health to explore the misery of his drear abode, that he would rather have been hanged than confined in this loathsome cell: nor can we wonder at his choice. The jail had no yard, no water, no sewer, and its keepers, who were the three serjeants at mace, lived at a distance from their charge." pp. 145, 146. no straw; We cannot add to our quotations from these records of sorrow, in which the iron must indeed have entered into the soul of the solitary captive. It is our joy to know, that, through the interference of Parliament, many of these miseries no longer exist, and the rest are in many places considerably mitigated; but then, for these ameliorations and this interference, we must look as the prime mover to John Howard, who led the way in this new path of Christian charity in which however, we rejoice to add, he has been most usefully and gloriously followed by other Christians of both sexes, who are to this day prosecuting to perfection the plans of wisdom and mercy which originated from him. It was natural to expect that the esteem and veneration in which Mr. Howard was held in Cardington and its neighbourhood would be exceedingly augmented by his unwearied acts of benevolence. Accordingly we find the inhabitants of Bedford requesting him to become their Representative in Parliament. After some difficulty, he was prevailed upon to stand an election, and, as was distinctly proved afterwards before the House of Commons, he would most certainly have been returned, but for the gross partiality of the returning officers. It appears, however, from his journal, that he rather rejoiced in, than regretted, the issue of this event, as he says it left him more at liberty to pursue without interruption the plans he had so much at heart. No sooner did the bustle of the election begin to subside, than Mr. Howard set out again on his tours, and visited the principal prisons in Scotland and Ireland, and intended to have communicated his observations to the public by means of the press, but thought it more advisable first to go abroad, and inspect the condition of the jails and houses of confinement on the continent. He therefore immediately commenced a tour into France, Flanders, Holland, and Germany. In Paris, he made a bold but hazardous attempt to enter and explore the precincts of the Bastile. soners; and, by pleading this permission before the Commissary of Police, he inspected the Grand and Petit Chatelet and Fort l'Eveque. These contained abodes of misery, from the description of which every feeling of human nature revolts: and we cannot wonder that from every fresh discovery of the gloom of these subterranean abodes, where the light was darkness, and cheering "hope never came that comes to all," the mind of Howard should derive new vigour in the prosecution of his work. The prison at Ghent seemed to yield him some satisfaction: the regulations were excellent. The men and women were duly separated: each prisoner was allowed a bedstead and blanket, and had regular work, and wholesome food; and spirituous liquors and gaming, the pests of all the London jails, were entirely prohibited. The rules of the prison were, in short, such as made their inmates better men and women before they left its walls, and realized the legitimate purposes of confinement, correction and improvement. The magistrates regularly inspected this prison. No wonder Howard called it a noble institution." "Even to the gloomiest of those dungeons did he wish to penetrate; and, in the hope of being able to draw from these abodes of hopeless misery some information for the completion of his great design, he would not have hesitated to trust himself in the power of the keepers of a prison like this, in the strongest of these cages, surrounded by an insurmountable wall and an impassable ditch, which prevented the possibility of escape. With this view, and I am here adopting the unassuming account which he himself has given of so bold and so dangerous an enterprise, he knocked hard at the outer gate, and immediately went forward, through the guard, to the draw-bridge before the entrance of the castle; but while he was contemplating this gloomy mansion, an officer came out of the castle, much surprised, and he was forced to retreat through the mute guard, and thus regained that freedom which for one locked up within those walls it would be next to impossible to obtain.' In the space of four centuries, from the foundation to the destruction of the Bastile, perhaps,' observes one of his biographers upon this singular, but characteristic adventure, 'Mr. Howard was the only person that was ever compelled to quit it reluctantly.' It "He was credibly informed, that there was, however, in all probability, most had not been a single execution in the city fortunate for himself, and for the cause of during the ten years immediately precedhumanity, which he had so nobly espousing his visit; and that, for a hundred years ed at all personal risks, and through all personal privations, that he quitted it as he did; for, had he advanced but a few steps further, his laudable curiosity might have cost him dear." pp. 161, 162. 6 To the other prisons in Paris he was enabled to gain access by availing himself of an order which permitted the charitable to distribute their alms themselves to the pri Of Amsterdam, Mr.Howard speaks in terms of justly merited commendation. After describing its excellent prison-regulations, he shews the effect of them from the circumstance that there were but six delinquents and eighteen debtors in the whole city, the population of which was 250,000. past, there had not been communibus annis, more than one in each year. How striking, how disgraceful the contrast, when we consider that, in less than one-fourth of that period, namely from the year 1749 to 1771, the number of persons exeented within the city of London alone amountSurely, the time will at length arrive, ed to 678, averaging nearly thirty a year! though we see not as yet the dawn of its approach, [we trust that in this remark Dr. Brown is mistaken,] when our legislators will remove this stain from a code of laws which might otherwise be a model for the world; and learn, though late, that it is not by a prodigal waste of the blood of offenders that offences are to be check ed, but that it is only by the adoption In following the philanthropist through the Prussian, Austrian, and Hessian gaols, while we are admiring his indefatigable spirit, we now and then get a glimpse, in his letters, of the principles and supports which animated his course. Thus, he says, ed home, and, without resting a single day, set off on his journey to finish his second inspection of the English jails. We have not space to follow him in the detail of the discoveries which of he made at every stage of his progress, or of those abuses, corruptions, and painful sufferings, which would in all probability never have been brought to light but for his exertions. On completing this journey, he resolved to give the result of his observations to the public, which he did through the press of the celebrated Mr. Eyres of Warrington in Lancashire. In preparing his papers for the press, he had the advantage of the important assistance of Dr. Price and Dr. (then Mr.) Aikin. In this employment, as in every other, Mr.Howard affords a fine specimen of devotedness to his object, and of general decision of character. Indeed, whatever he had before him, he did it singly and thoroughly, and therefore well. He was one of those few characters who might receive the same admiration which was bestowed upon Lord Chatham for energy and success; and who, in reply to an inquiry respecting the practicability of his doing so much, replied, that it was by doing one thing at a time. Mr. Howard's undivided attention to his publication called "The State of Prisons" is thus described: "Though conscious of the utmost weakness, imperfection, and folly, I would hope my heart deceives me not, when I say to my friend, I trust that I intend well. The great Example,-the glorious and Divine Saviour; the first thought humbles, abases,yet, blessed be God, it exalts and rejoices in that infinite and boundless source of love and mercy." p. 179. Every allusion which he makes to this theme seems to revive his en feebled and exhausted powers; and, like the fabled giant, who, in his conflict with his foes, as often as he touched his mother earth, felt new vigour impressed into his frame, Howard, at every fresh view of Scripture truth, and Scripture promise and prospect, appeared to renew his strength, and to advance with augmented energies to the work which he had so nobly undertaken. In Switzerland, the correctional system seems to have been productive of all the effects ascribed to it in Holland. The chief employment assigned to the men was that of rasping logwood; and the industrious habits produced by this punishment were productive, in many cases, of a great improvement of character. Many, he says, came out of these prisons sober and honest. Their labour, besides, nearly supported the institutions themselves. Having completed his second journey on the continent, he returnCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 270. For the purpose of being near the scene of his labours, he took lodgings in a house close to his printer's shop; and so indefatigable was he in his attention to the business which had fixed his temporary abode there, that during a very severe winter, he was always called up by two in the morning, though he did not retire to rest night. His reason for this early rising was, until ten, and sometimes half past ten at that he found the morning the stillest part of the day, and that in which he was the least disturbed in his work of revising the sheets as they came from the press. At seven, he regularly dressed for the day, and had his breakfast; when punctually at eight he repaired to the printing-office, and remained there until the workmen went to dinner at one, when he returned to his lodgings, and putting some bread and raisins, or other dried fruit, in his pocket, generally took a walk in the out. 3 D skirts of the town, during the time of their absence, eating, as he walked along, his hermit fare, which, with a glass of water on his return, was the only dinner he took." "When he had returned to the printingoffice, he generally remained there until the men left work, and then, I am informed, repaired to Mr. Aikin's house, to go through with him any sheets which might have been composed during the day; or, if there were nothing upon which he wished to consult him, would spend an hour with some other friend, or return to his lodgings, where he took his tea or coffee, in lieu of supper; and at his usual hour retired to bed." pp. 208, 209. But this incessant labour did not trench upon his religious duties either private or social. The following passage should not be disjoined from the above. "He did not do this, however, without closing the day with family prayer; a duty which he never neglected, though there was but one, and that one his domestic, to join him in it; always declaring, that where he had a tent, God should have an altar. And this was the case, not only in England, but in every part of Europe which they visited together; it being his invariable practice, wherever and with whomsoever he might be, to tell Thomasson to come to him at a certain hour, at which, well knowing what the direction meant, he would be sure to find him in his room, the doors of which he would order him to fasten; when, let who would come, nobody was admitted until his devotional exercise was over." p. 209. In March 1777, the work, which consisted of 520 quarto pages, was printed, and dedicated to the House of Commons. Its price appears to have been fixed so low, that the sale of the whole impression could not have reimbursed its author the expenses of its publication. It contained, as might be expected, a comprehensive and luminous account of the state of the distress and discipline of prisons at home and abroad; and the brief but affecting apology which Mr. Howard offers for his calling the attention of the public to this new topic, is so marked by the spirit of genuine Christian benevolence and Christian humility, that we cannot withold it from our readers. "Those gentlemen, who, when they are told of the misery which our prisoners suffer, content themselves with saying, Let them take care to keep out,' prefaced, perhaps, with an angry prayer, seem not duly sensible of the favour of Providence which distinguishes them from the sufferers: they do not remember that we are required to imitate our gracious heavenly Parent, who is kind to the unthankful and the evil.' They also forget the vicissitudes of human affairs; the unexpected changes to which all men are liable; and that those whose circumstances are affluent, may in time be reduced to indigence, and become debtors and prisoners.' p. 211. For the more minute details of Mr. Howard's observations and the plans which he suggests for the improvement of " prison discipline "a phrase which, thanks to Mr. Howard and his successors in this work of mercy, has of late become familiar to the ear-we must refer to his own publication. As the result of his remarks, pressing upon Parliament the necessity of a judicial inquiry into the whole system, he concludes his work, by giving another proof of his decision, and a fresh pledge of his zeal, in offering to assist that inquiry, by undertaking, in reliance on the Divine protection and guidance which had hitherto supported him, another extensive foreign journey to the Prussian and Austrian territories, and the most considerable free cities of Germany. In the mean time, having distributed copies of his work with a liberality bordering upon profusion, to almost every person of conse quence, he returned to Cardington, and spent some time there with his son, his friends, and his poor tenants. His son was at this time about nine years of age, and he endeavoured to form his mind to religious principles and habits. About this time his sister died; in consequence of which event, he obtained an addition to his property of upwards of 15,0007. This he devoted entirely, considering it a "providential supply," to forward his plans of benevolence; and it enabled him to determine to leave his patrimonial estate unencumbered to his son. |