MikhailT/lj-speech huggingface dataset:
to which a total of upwards of one hundred thousand prisoners had been committed in the year, only twenty-three prisons were divided according to law;
fifty-nine had no division whatever to separate males and females; one hundred and thirty-six had only one division for the purpose;
sixty-eight had only two divisions, and so on.
In four hundred and forty-five prisons no work of any description had been introduced for the employment of prisoners;
in the balance some work was done, but with the most meager results.
The want of room was still a crying evil.
In one hundred jails,
capable of accommodating only eight thousand five hundred and forty-five persons, as many as thirteen thousand and fifty-seven were crowded.
Many of the jails were in the most deplorable condition:
incommodious, as has been stated, insecure, unhealthy, and unprovided with the printed or written regulations required by law.
the old evils of indiscriminate association still continued unchecked.
All prisoners passed their time in absolute idleness, or killed it by gambling and loose conversation.
The debtors were crowded almost inconceivably. In a space twenty feet long by six wide,
twenty men slept on eight straw beds, with sixteen rugs amongst them, and a piece of timber for a bolster.
Mr. Buxton, who found this, declared that it seemed physically impossible, but he was assured that it was true,
and that it was accomplished by "sleeping edgewise."
One poor wretch, who had slept next the wall, said he had been literally unable to move for the pressure.
"In the morning the stench and heat were so oppressive that he and every one else on waking rushed unclothed into the yard;"
and the turnkey told Mr. Buxton that the "smell on first opening the door was enough to knock down a horse.
The hospital was filled with infectious cases, and in one room, seven feet by nine, with closed windows,
where a lad lay ill with fever, three other prisoners, at first perfectly healthy, were lodged. Of course they were seized with the fever;
so that the culprit, in addition to his sentence,
had to endure by "the regulations of the city a disease very dangerous in its nature," and ran the risk of a lingering and painful death.
At Guildford prison, which Mr. Buxton also visited in 1818,
there was no infirmary, no chapel, no work, no classification.
The irons, which nearly every one wore, were remarkably heavy; those double ironed could not take off their small clothes.
No prison dress was allowed, and half the inmates were without shirts or shoes or stockings.
The diet was limited to dry bread, which was of the best certainly, and a pound and a half in weight.
Matters were on much the same footing at St. Albans.
They were far worse at Bristol,
although at Mr. Buxton's visit a new jail was in process of erection, the first step towards reform since Howard's visitation in 1774.
In 1818 the old jail was so densely packed that it was nearly impossible to pass through the yards for the throng.
One hundred and fifty were lodged in a prison just capable of holding fifty-two.
In the crowd, all of them persons who had "no other avocation or mode of livelihood but thieving," Mr. Buxton counted eleven children
children hardly old enough to be released from the nursery.
All charged with felony were in heavy irons, without distinction of age.
All were in ill health; almost all were in rags; almost all were filthy in the extreme.
The state of the prison, the desperation of the prisoners, broadly hinted in their conversation and plainly expressed in their conduct,
the uproar of oaths, complaints, and obscenity,
"the indescribable stench," presented together a concentration of the utmost misery and the utmost guilt.
It was "a scene of infernal passions and distresses," says Buxton, "which few have imagination sufficient to picture,
and of which fewer still would believe that the original is to be found in this enlightened and happy country."
There was still worse to come. Having explored the yards and adjacent day rooms, and sleeping cells, a door was unlocked,
the visitors were furnished with candles, and they descended eighteen long steps into a vault.
At the bottom was a circular space, through which ran a narrow passage, and the sides of which were fitted with barrack bedsteads.
The floor was on the level of the river, and very damp.
The smell at one o'clock of the day "was something more than can be expressed by the term disgusting."
On the dirty bedstead lay a wretched being in the throes of severe illness.
The only ventilation of this pit, this "dark, cheerless, damp, unwholesome cavern -- a dungeon in its worst sense"
was by a kind of chimney, which the prisoners kept hermetically sealed, and which had never been opened in the memory of the turnkey.
Untried persons were often lodged in this nauseous underground den,
and sometimes slept in "the pit," loaded with heavy irons for a whole year, waiting the jail delivery.
Confinement for twelve months in the Bristol jail was counted a punishment equivalent to seven years' transportation.
In this prison there was no female infirmary.
Sick women and their children remained in the ordinary wards, and propagated disease.
No prison dress was allowed; no reception-room was provided, no soap, towels, or baths.
The bedclothes consisted only of a single "very slight" rug.
The allowance of food daily to felons was a fourpenny loaf,
a price which in those days fluctuated enormously -- as much as a hundred percent in a couple of years;
but as no similar variation occurred in the prisoner's appetite, his ration was somewhat precarious.
As for the debtors, they had no allowance whatever, and were often in imminent danger of starvation.
With all this, the inmates were crowded together at night to such a degree as to excite surprise that they should escape suffocation.
There reigned through the whole edifice a chilly, damp, unwholesome atmosphere, and the effluvia from the prisoners was so nauseous
that the chaplain found it necessary to take his place before they entered chapel, as he could not otherwise have faced the smell.
It is consoling to know that there were a few brilliant exceptions to this cruel, callous neglect.
Already, as early as 1818, a prison existed at Bury St. Edmunds which was a model for imitation to others at that time,
and which even fulfilled many of the exacting requirements of modern days.
The great principles of classification, cleanliness, and employment were closely observed.
There were eighty-four separate sleeping-cells, and unless the jail was overcrowded, every inmate passed the night alone,
and in comparative comfort, with a bed and proper bedding.
The prison stood on a dry, airy situation outside the town.
Prisoners on reception were treated as they are now-a-days -- bathed, dressed in prison clothes, and inspected by the surgeon.
No irons were worn except as a punishment.
Personal cleanliness was insisted upon, and all parts of the prison were kept scrupulously clean.
There was an infirmary, properly found and duly looked after.
No idleness was permitted among the inmates. Trades were taught, or prisoners were allowed to follow their own if suitable.
There was, besides, a mill for grinding corn, somewhat similar to a turn-spit, which prisoners turned by walking in rows.
This made exertion compulsory, and imposed hard labor as a proper punishment.
Another jail, that of Ilchester, was also worthy of all commendation. It exhibited all the good points of that at Bury.
At Ilchester the rule of employment had been carried further.
A system not adopted generally till nearly half a century later had already prevailed at Ilchester.
The new jail had been in a great measure constructed by the prisoners themselves.
Masons, bricklayers, carpenters, painters had been employed upon the buildings, and the work was pronounced excellent by competent judges.
Industrial labor had also been introduced with satisfactory results.
Blanket weaving and cloth spinning was carried on prosperously,
and all the material for prisoners' apparel was manufactured in the jail.
There were work-rooms for wool-washing, dyeing, carding, and spinning.
The looms were constantly busy. Tailors were always at work, and every article of clothing and bedding was made up within the walls.
There was a prison laundry too, where all the prisoners' linen was regularly washed.
The moral welfare of the inmates was as closely looked after as the physical.
There was an attentive chaplain, a schoolmaster, and regular religious and other instruction.
Compared with those highly meritorious institutions Newgate still showed but badly.
Its evils were inherent and irremediable, but some ameliorating measures had been introduced,
mainly through the exertions of a new governor, Mr. Brown, who succeeded Mr. Newman at Newgate in 1817.
The most noticeable of the improvements introduced was a better regulation of dietaries within the prison.
The old haphazard system, by which meat was issued in bulk,
a week's allowance at a time, was abolished, and there was a regular scale of daily rations adopted.
The diet was now ample. It consisted of a pound and a half of bread per diem;
for breakfast a pint of gruel; for dinner half a pound of boiled meat, or a quart of soup with vegetables, on alternate days.
The food was properly prepared in the prison kitchen.
Meat was no longer issued raw, to be imperfectly cooked before a ward fire and bolted gluttonously, the whole two pounds at one sitting.
Mr. Brown confidently asserted that no jail in England now fed its inmates so well as did Newgate.
the practice was falling into abeyance, and the prisoners seldom required private assistance to eke out their meals.
It was also claimed for the more ample and more orderly distribution of victuals, that the general health of the prisoners had greatly improved.
Mr. Brown also, much to his own credit, brought about the abandonment of the practice of ironing all prisoners as a matter of course.
In 1818 prisoners awaiting trial in Newgate, were at length relieved from this illegal infliction.
Convicts were not even compelled to wear irons, providing they behaved well.
It was found that shackles might be safely dispensed with, even in the case of the most desperate characters.
This was effected by stopping the nearly indiscriminate admission of visitors, which had hitherto prevailed all over the jail.
Ironing it will be remembered, was a distinguishing badge, so that when the jail was cleared the free might be readily known from the captive, and escapes prevented.
Under the new rule visitors were not allowed to pass into the interior of the prison, but were detained between the grating.
This change led to some discontent, until it was found that the much greater boon of relief from irons accompanied it, and the reform was quietly accepted.
Indeed the best consequences followed from the removal of irons. The prisoners were much better disposed; there were no riots, and fewer disturbances.
But nothing short of radical reform and complete reconstruction could touch the deep-seated evils of association, overcrowding, and idleness.
The first still produced deplorable results -- results to be observable for many years to come.
Mr. Buxton mentions the case of a boy whose apparent innocence and artlessness had attracted his attention.
He had been committed for an offense for which he was acquitted.
He left Newgate utterly corrupted, and after lapsing into crime, soon returned with a very different character.
Other cases of moral deterioration have already been recorded.
Some attempt was made to reduce the overcrowding, on the recommendation of the House of Commons Committee of 1818, but this applied only a partial remedy.
The bulk of the prisoners were still left in idleness.
A few fortunate criminals, many of them kept back from transportation on purpose, who were skilled in trades, were employed at them.
Painters, plasterers, and carpenters were allowed to follow their handicrafts, with the reward of sixpence per diem and a double allowance of food.
They used their own tools, and this without any dangerous consequences as regards facilitating the escape of others,
thus disposing of the objection so long raised against the industrial employment of prisoners in Newgate.
But this boon of toil was denied to all but a very limited number.
As the Prison Discipline Society pertinently observed in a report dated 1820,
"It is obvious that reformation must be materially impeded, and in some cases utterly defeated, when the prisoners are defectively classed,
The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume 2. By Arthur Griffiths. Section 8: The beginnings of prison reform.
Newgate prisoners were the victims to another most objectionable practice which obtained all over London.
Persons committed to a metropolitan jail at that time were taken in gangs, men and women handcuffed together, or linked on to a long chain,
unless they could afford to pay for a vehicle out of their own funds.
Even then they were not certain of the favor, for I find a reference to a decent and respectable woman sent to Newgate
who handed a shilling to the escort warder to provide her with a hackney coach; but this functionary pocketed the cash, and obliged the woman to walk
chained to the rest. As the miserable crew filed through the public streets, exposed to the scornful gaze of every passenger,
they were followed by a crowd of reckless boys, who jeered at and insulted them.
Many thus led in procession were in a shocking condition of dirt and misery, frequently nearly naked, and often bearing upon them
the germs, more or less developed, of contagious disease. "Caravans," the forerunners of the prison vans,
were first made use of about 1827. That the need for prison reform was imperative may be gathered from the few out of many instances I have adduced,
yet there were those who, wedded to ancient ideas, were intolerant of change; they would not admit the existence of any evils.
One smug alderman, a member of the House of Commons, sneered at the ultra philanthropy of the champions of prison improvement.
Speaking on a debate on prison matters, he declared that
our prisoners have all that prisoners ought to have, without gentlemen think they ought to be indulged with Turkey carpets.
The Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline was taxed with a desire to introduce a system
tending to divest punishment of its just and salutary terrors;
an imputation which the Society indignantly and very justly repudiated, the statement being, as they said,
refuted by abundant evidence, and having no foundation whatever in truth.
Among those whom the Society found arrayed against it was Sydney Smith,
who, in a caustic article contributed to the 'Edinburgh Review,' protested against the pampering of criminals
While fully admitting the good intentions of the Society, he condemned their ultra humanitarianism as misplaced.
He took exception to various of the proposals of the Society. He thought they leant too much to a system of indulgence and education in jails.
He objected to the instruction of prisoners in reading and writing.
"A poor man who is lucky enough," he said, "to have his son committed for a felony
educates him under such a system for nothing, while the virtuous simpleton who is on the other side of the wall is paying by the quarter for these attainments."
He was altogether against too liberal a diet; he disapproved of industrial occupations in jails, as not calculated to render prisons terrible.
"There should be no tea and sugar, no assemblage of female felons around the washing-tub,
nothing but beating hemp and pulling oakum and pounding bricks -- no work but what was tedious, unusual."
"In prisons, which are really meant to keep the multitude in order, and to be a terror to evil-doers, there must be no sharings of profits,
no visiting of friends, no education but religious education, no freedom of diet,
no weavers' looms or carpenters' benches. There must be a great deal of solitude, coarse food, a dress of shame,
hard, incessant, irksome, eternal labor, a planned and regulated and unrelenting exclusion of happiness and comfort.
Undeterred by these sarcasms and misrepresentations,
the Society pursued its laudable undertaking with remarkable energy and great singleness of purpose.
The objects it had in view were set forth in one of its earliest meetings.
It sought to obtain and diffuse useful information
to suggest beneficial regulations, and circulate tracts demonstrating the advantages of classification,
constant inspection, regular employment, and humane treatment generally, with religious and moral instruction.
It earnestly advocated the appointment of female officers to take exclusive charge of female prisoners,
a much-needed and, according to our ideas, indispensable reform, already initiated by the Ladies' Committee at Newgate.
It made the subject of the newly-invented tread-wheels, or stepping-wheels, as they were at first called, its peculiar affair,
and obtained full details, from places where they had been adopted, of the nature of these new machines
the method by which they were worked, and the dietaries of the prisoners employed upon them.
Nor did it confine itself to mere verbal recommendations.
The good it tried to do took active shape in the establishment of temporary refuges -- at Hoxton for males, and in the Hackney Road for females
for the reception of deserving cases discharged from prison. The governor of Newgate and other metropolitan prisons had orders of admission to this refuge
which he could bestow on prisoners on release, and so save the better-disposed or the completely destitute from lapsing at once into crime.
The refuge, which had for its object the training of its inmates in habits of industry,
and in moral and religious duty, and which after a time sought to provide them with suitable situations, was supported entirely out of the funds of the Society.
At the time of its greatest prosperity, its annual income from donations and subscriptions was about one thousand six hundred pounds.
Another point to which the Society devoted infinite pains was the preparation of plans for the guidance of architects in the construction of prisons.
A very valuable volume published by the Society
traced the progress of prison architecture from the days when the jail was the mere annexe of the baronial or episcopal castle
or a dungeon above or below the gate of a town, to the first attempts at systematic reconstruction carried out under the advice and supervision of Howard.
It is interesting to observe that the plan of "radiation," by which the prison blocks radiated from a central hall, like spokes in a wheel
was introduced as early as 1790 by Mr. Blackburn
an architect of eminence who was very largely employed in the erection of prison buildings at the close of the last century.
With some important modifications this principle of radiation is still the rule.
The Society did not limit its remarks to the description of what had already been done
but it offered suggestions for future buildings, with numerous carefully-executed drawings and designs of the model it recommended for imitation.
Experience has since shown that in some respects these plans are defective, especially in the placing of the governor's residence in the center of the prison.
It was thought that this would guarantee constant supervision and inspection, but it did nothing of the kind, and only the presence of warders on duty
is found now-a-days to be really efficacious. The main recommendations, however, are based upon common sense
and none are more commendable than that which deprecates the excessive ornamentation of the external parts of the edifice.
"The new jails," as Howard says, "having pompous fronts, appear like palaces to the lower class of people, and many persons are against them on this account."
The Prison Society reproves the misdirected efforts of ambitious architects, who by a lavish and improvident expenditure of public money
sought to "rank the prisons they built among the most splendid buildings of the city or town."
Absence of embellishment is in perfect unison with the character of the establishment.
These are principles fully recognized now-a-days, and it may fairly be conceded that the Prison Discipline Society's ideal
differed little from that kept in view in the construction of the latest and best modern jails.
After a few years of active exertion the Society was rewarded by fresh legislation.
To its efforts, and their effect upon Parliament and the public mind, we must attribute the new Jail Acts of 4 George IV
cap. 64, and 5 George IV. cap. 85
which having gone through several sessions, at last became law in 1823 to 4
By the preamble of the first-named act it was declared
"expedient to introduce such measures and arrangements as shall not only provide for the safe custody,
but shall also tend more effectually to preserve the health
and improve the morals of the prisoners, and shall insure the proper measure of punishment to convicted offenders.
Accordingly due provision was made for the enforcement of hard labor on all prisoners sentenced to it, and for the employment of all others.
unless such ability (to work) should cease by reason of sickness, infirmity, the want of sufficient work, or from any other cause.
It was distinctly laid down that male and female prisoners should be confined in separate buildings or parts of the prison,
"so as to prevent them from seeing, conversing, or holding any intercourse with each other."
Classification was insisted upon, in the manner laid down by the 24 George III. cap. 54,
with such further separation as the justices should deem conducive to good order and discipline.
Female prisoners were in all cases to be under the charge of female officers.
Every prison containing female prisoners was to have a matron who was to reside constantly in the prison.
The religious and moral welfare of the prisoners were to be attended to,
the first by daily services, the latter by the appointment of schoolmasters and instruction in reading and writing.
Last, but not least, the use of irons was strictly forbidden, "except in cases of urgent and absolute necessity,"
and every prisoner was to be provided with a hammock or cot to himself, suitable bedding, and, if possible, a separate cell.
The second act, passed in the following year, enlarged and amended the first, and at the same time gave powers to the House
to call for information as to the observance of its provisions.
The promulgation of these two Jail Acts strengthened the hands of the Prison Discipline Society enormously.
It had now a legal and authoritative standard of efficiency to apply,
and could expose all the local authorities that still lagged behind, or neglected to comply with the provisions of the new laws.
The Society did not shrink from its self-imposed duty, but continued year after year, with unflagging energy and unflinching spirit, to watch closely
and report at length upon the condition of the prisons of the country.
For this purpose it kept up an extensive correspondence with all parts of the kingdom, and circulated queries to be answered in detail,
whence it deduced the practice and condition of every prison that replied.
Upon these and the private visitations made by various members the Society obtained the facts,
often highly damnatory, which were embodied in its annual reports.
The progress of improvement was certainly extremely slow.
It was long before the many jurisdictions imitated the few.
Jails, of which the old prison at Reading was a specimen, were still left intact.
In that prison, with its cells and yards arranged within the shell of an ancient abbey chapel,
the prisoners, without firing, bedding, or sufficient food, spent their days "in surveying their grotesque prison,
or contriving some means of escape by climbing the fluted columns which supported the Gothic arches of the aisles,
and so passing by the roof down into the garden and on to freedom.
In a county prison adjoining the metropolis, the separation between the male and female quarters was supposed to be accomplished by the erection of an iron railing;
in this same prison capital convicts were chained to the floor until execution.
In another jail not far off male and female felons still occupied the same room -- underground, and reached by a ladder of ten steps.