The Sun.
London, England, 1824-05-06 00:00:00

SUN.

.
and individually, than in those.of Surrey. The surgeon. eVt-
.
mined the prisoners twice a week; and lie hadthe discretionary
power, if the health 'of a. prisoner'were declining, to exempt
him from work 'altogether. lie was likewise authorised to or
der such rovisiOns as-the state of a'prisoner's health might re-
quire. -
lie (Mr. Denison) Was confident, that *hen 'the
ject was inquired into, it would be found that no'reasonable
argument could be urged• against this punishment; -aiul that
no gaols were better regulated than those in- which it was used.
On one point, however, hia'Opinion differed froth that of other
3lagistrates. He did not think that women should be em-
ployed at the wheel. •
The Petition was then brought up, anti read, as follows :
tc To the Honourable the Corm-none of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled.
The humble Petition of Sir John Cox ilippisley, Baronet,
an Acting Magistrate in and for the County Of Somerset,
and of other Counties; in which the subject of Prison Dis-
cipline has undergone much inquiry and practical in-
vestigation by the resident local Magistracy; also of John
I. Briscoe, lsq., an Acting Magistrate of the County of,
Surrey.
" Showeth, That a considerable degree of expectation has
been 'excited in the public mind, and which the petitioners, in.
their official characters, cannot but regard with the deepest in-
terest, in reference to the progress of a Bill now in your
honourable House, having for its object an amendment of the
General Gaol Act of the 4th of his present Majesty, chap. 64-
' " That the petitioners, in common with many other indivi-
duals with whom they have had communication, entertain a
serious apprehension that the introduction, for .the first time
by name, of a novel method and machine of punishment into
our Statute Book, may be construed into an implied recd(,7
intim of tread-wheel 'labour, as a legalized employment for all
prisoners who are not the legal subjects of particular exemption.
'And this apprehension is still more strongly awakened by a
practical adoption of the tread-wheel in many of the gaols and
prisons of the kingdom, as appears in the official communica-
tions siddresied to the Home department of his Majesty's Go-
vernment.

" That the petitioners humbly entreat the attention and con-
sideration of your Honourable House to the extraordinary and
important. circumstance, that the Punishment of the tread-
wheel is altogether unknown to 'the common law of the land,
and is neither named nor in any way designated in the Statute
Book—the only authorities throughput the realm that can
justify the use of any specific punishment or penal infliction ;
and that hence it never has, and, till some change take place
in the law, never can form a specific part of any sentence passed
by the judges at any assize upon a criminal ; yet that this se-
v,ere, and as they are ready to substantiate, painful and danger 7
Oils penalty, has been for several years past very generally in-
flicted on almoit every class and description of 'offenders by
local Justices of the Peace, who, in numerous instances have
sat in debate on the propriety and impropriety of employing
this new punishment, in some instances have decided in favour
of it, and in others against it, this assuming to themselves -a
power equally unprecedented and alarming, and one which
places Magistrates on a supposed leVel with Parliament, in
which alone is vested the Constitutional right of deciding and
establiihing the law of the realm, and elevates
.them above the
Judges of the land, whose inferiors'in office, agreeably to the
principles and proviiions of the constitution, they have always
been esteemed.

" That the petitioners, as magistrates and members of so-
ciety, regard it further to be their bounden duty, in the pre-
sent crisis, to lay before your Honourable House some of the
practical and weighty grounds of objection which existed against
this novel punishment, introduced by, many of his Majesty's
justices of the
'to
arid which, in the opinion of the peti-
tioners, seerfi call for an immediate interference of the Legis-
lature. In the first place, they cannot but submit to your I low.
llousethat the tread-wheel, as a mechanical engine, is an un-;'-
safe, and even on this account an unconstitutional
,mode of
punishment; from the complication of -its construction,. the
'frequent irregularity of its revolutions, the extent and forma- ,
tion of-its shafts, eipecially as appliedin the most considerable_
prisons in the kingdom, and the enormous weight
.which it
often has to sustain, in consequence of which it has actually •
broken, and that repeatedly in short periods of time, in various
houses of correction --in some instances (where precaution.ht as-,
signed to have been expressly taken) without accident, as stated
by a visiting .Magistrate of Shepton Mallet in the last official
returns to.the office of the-Home Department ; in others, occa-
siOningievere sprains and bruises to those,prisoners who had
been thereby throWn offthe *heels, and precipitated to a depth:
of some feet, as at Coldbath-tlelds, which fact, ,though not
appearing upon the face of the returns, the petitioners are
.pre-
pared to verify:- In one instance .the machinery has been
the cause of a fraictiired limb, and in others, of immediate loss
of lite, to such of the workers as have not been aware of its dan-
gers, or not sufficiently -on their guard against them. The
former instance Occurred at Northallerton, in the case of an on
tried prisoner, whose aril.' was shattered so as to 'render am-.
piitation necessary: anti the latter cases at Leicester,- where
two men were killed while engaged at the .'-heel, and at
Shaffham, where another priSoner was instantaneously crush-
ed to death. ' And the petitioners beg also to observe, that
from the evidenced engincersof the highestreputation, there ap-
pearii to be no possible midi of obtaining an adequate security
against many of these casualties, from the insuperable frangi-
bility or the iron, whether 'cast or malleable, that enters so
largely into the construction of the tread-wheels, whence such
calamities must be regarded as inherent in the discipline, and
consequently as likely to recur as long as it continues to be en-
j forced.
_ _ _

The petitioners submit next, that this instrument of Runish-
ment is-further objectionable froM its injurious effects on the
health of those who are sentenced to it. They are able' to .
prove on oath before your Honourable House, from a large
mass of evidence from medical practitioners of name and re-
putation, from prison attendants, and very extensively from
those who have suffered as prisoners, from its infliction;' but
who are now at liberty, that it can rarely be employed at the
usual rate of exertion for more than ten minutes or a quarter
of an hour without causing some or all of the attendant symp-
toms of a prejudicial excitement and . dangerous exhaustion
of the animal . powers, and particularly so violent and
morbid an acceleration of the pulse as to quicken its beat
to nearly double its natural range, raising it from the ,ordi-
nary rate of froin sixty to seventy strokes in a minute, to an
average of one hundred and twenty-threeln the male, and one
hundred and forty-four in the female prisoners, 'as has been
proved by. different medical practitioners of high respectabi-
lity, and as confirmed by a minute entered on the prison jour-
nal at Brixton, by those represented to be magistrates favour-
able to this species of labour, and who therein refer to. an ex-
periment made on their own persons; that, together wjth,so
baneful an excitement, it causespains and aches in different parts
and, organs of the body, according to the peculiarity of different
constitutions, or the circumstances under which the labour is
inflicted ; that women who, from the coMparative weakness of
their sex, suffer with additional severity, have in many in-
stances dropped off the wheel in a swoon, have had their na-
tural indispositions profusely and painfully aggravated, some-
times forced prematurely, and at others suddenly and totally
obstructed; and when in a state of pregnancy, which, in ,its
earliest and most dangerous Stages, is not unfrequently undo-
, tected, they are in imminent danger of abortion, of which an
instance occurs,in 'the official report frorri the prison in Cold-
bath-fields ; and that as nurses, they cannot, without,manifest
' injury and suffering to their:infants, as' well as themselves,
perform the office of suckling on descending from the tread-
Wheel, though they are generally called upon to do so by the
cries of their children exposed in the wheel-galleries to the
cold, and confided, while their, mothers are performing, their
turn upon it, to the care of` strangers ; on *all which accounts
female prisoners have in Many houses of correction been hu-
manely allowed a general exemption from the tread-wheel:
" The petitioners beg leave also to submit, that a familiarity
with thiii labour, instead of rendering it lighter and less mis-
chievous, augments its injurious consequences to the health 'and
strength in almost every instance, as well in men as in women;
such effects increasing with the increasingdebility.of, the frame.
That the petitioners are aware that 'a different account of this
penal infliction has been given in most of the nflicial,cornmu-
nications addressed, by order to the Home Department of his
Majesty's Government; 'but they hainbly beg leave to repro.
sent that they are unable, to , place the confidence they could
'wish in these communications, not only from the wide discre-
pancy oitheir own experience, but from the partial
,and irre-
gular nature of the reports themselves, which contain no account
of the average proportion of labour—of the intervali of its tes,
sation—of the rate of revolution of the wheels—of their dune '
sons
.or space between the treadles or steps, though all there
'circumstances materially influence the nature and effect of the
task-work, and which are likewhie returridd from Seieralapslaenc.i,
as Pembroke and Haverfordwest, with the signature _ of.
Magistrate, without any statement on the part of ti
su
'ieough ch
or notice of consultation wjth him on the subject
s..gieoxi

flii;.-10,-1 1-1 0.1 Hi

MICE StvtivrENCE.

consultation is expressly 'directed in .the official letter addressed
by the Secretary of State to the visiting .Magistrates of the se-
veral gaols and hcatses- of correction; while only twenty-one
returns are printed, as laid before your Honourable House :
though it is Capable of -prod, that at /east in fifty-three prisons
there are tread-wheels erected, et actually in operation, at the
period Of ofVcial inquiry.
" that the inability of the petitioners to confide in theabove
reports is not a little augmented by the utter and irreconcilable
conflict which eiisti between their several statements, some of
them admitting the labour obeof so severe .a nature-that the
infliction for women has either never been allowed, or is ac-
titany been abandoned or reduced, both in Owe and degree, to
so shOrt a period, as to leave the greatest part of the day .unem-
rloyed ; while it is elsewhere described, even when maintained
at its highest scale, as of so harmless and pleasant a nature,
that untriedvisoners have expressed a desire to go upon the
work—have_ volUnteered to do so, or would be glad to be se
employed if allowed. In addition. to which, it is contended,
that there is nothing in the employment repugnant to common
delicacy. All which assertions, your petitioners beg leave to
obserVe, are incompatible with that necessity of a greatly in-
creased diet of it:eat:zinc' beer, which, though accompanied with
an enormous augmentatibn of etpenee, is now found indispens-
able in every. establishment, where the tread-wheel is in use, in
consequence of:the exhausting nature of the labour as before
stated.

" The petitioners beg further to submit, that the only medi-
cal committee (as they understand) which has hitherto been
consulted by the Home Department of his ,'Majesty's Govern-
ment, has been limited in its inquiry to the effects of working
&Male prisoners on the wheel ; and that the report of such
committee, in the Opinien of the petitioners, recommends what
is equivalent to a virtual renunciation of the punishment, by
restricting its application, even for the young and robust, to
two hours and a half of actual labour daily, and allowing inter-
vals of entire rest to all for a whole week, once in every month,
(exemptions unknown to, and unnecessary for healthy females
in any of the usual species of hard labour performed by their
sex, and which indisputably decide in the affirmative the flues=
tion proposed by :lir. Secretary Peel to this committee—namely,
whether the effects on the female constitution are greeter than
result from the ordinary occupations of women in the lower
chisses of society); while the same committee still further re-
commends a total
.prohibition of the wheel to the very great
numbers who are in any respect infirm or diseased.
" The petitioners humbly represent, that the indiscriminate
employment of an ignominious and corporal punishment, de-
grading to thd mind and hurtful to the body of the prisoners,
which destroys all due classification, and implies the same kind
and measure of infliction to every degree of. crime and differ-
ence'of age, sex, and habit of life, appears to them equally
hostile to justice, humanity, and sound policy ; and that, to
. subject to the Tread-wheel Correction, as is done at present,
the felon, the misdemeanant, and the vagrant—the robust and
the weak—men ifilicted with ruptures, and ws in It with infants
at their breast, is c, ntrary to every principle of discriminate sub-
division and moral improvement, which the general provisions of
the statute now before your Hon. House for the purpose of
amendment are, principally desigcd to promote. That soldiers
who have hazarded their lives in defence of their country, and
whose feelingsof honour and sense of shame it seems peculiar-
ly important to cherish, form another description of prisoners
frequently consigned to the tread-wheel, in pursuance of the
orders of Courts.martial ; and that in the House of Correction,
some of this class of individuals have been actually fastened to
the wheel by chains attached to the anti, . and suspended from
the face-board above the wheel, being from such an extraordi-
nary exercise of severity exposed to the casualties restating
from a false step or a sudden paroxysm of disease, or exhaus-
tion, by which their limbs and even their lives are put in immi-
nent peril, while they are deprived of every possibility of extri-
eating themselves.

".'That
.
. the petitloners, after extensive and cautious inves-
tigation, have reason to fear that the great and important hope
at
.first indulged, that the discipline of the. tread-wheel would
Materially, diminish the aggregate. sif -offenders, has com-
pletely. failed; ,and that while it is full-. ascertained that it
promotes no habit of industry or means 'of earning a liveli-
hood when discharged. from gaol, they believe it both har-
dens the heart and demoralizes the mind, at the same time
that it injures and enfeebles the body ; and thus, by lesSen-
ing the means and opportunities of amendment, by preparing
the prisoner for crimes of greater magnitude, and rendering him
indifferent as to the future, has a natural tendency to fill•rither
than empty our. yrisons, and to render them schools of growing
crime and desperation, rather than of reformation andmoral
discipline. And in proof of this, the petitioners refer to the
greater nuMber of recommitments that seem almost uniformly
to take place where the tread-wheel is established, compared
With those in houses of correction where it is not 'yet introduced,
so as to give fearful and abundant evidence of the resistance
opposed in the former to the. influence .of that moral and reli-
gious instruction which is so wisely. and wholesomely attempted
to be introdured. into the economy of our prison-establisinnents.
"The petitioners.beg leave to submit on the-other hand, that
.111 i. Howard, whose considerations and recommendations of the
subject of prison-discipline were formerly matterof Parliament-
ary discussion and approbation, has enumerated no leasthan.sß
modes of prison employment, which are capable of being ren-
dered subserVient to the health and morals of a prison• popUla-
don, of engendering habits of industry,•and consequently of pro-
moting the means by which prisoners may be enabled to pro-
vide for themselves when liberated, and thus of carrying into
effect the important and salutary remarks advanced by Mr. Jus-
'tice. Bayley in his late impressive charge to the Grand Jury, at
t.DatilertualAtlystitsizeenst,oifnwrihsiocuhet
osauygsh,t'
to
oe
hheadasalfwarayass
pthoostuighhiet
sthi,rt.egOlated, . that they could afterwards' obtain a livelihood' by
' it.' Whilst at the same time it should be observed, that
Most of the methods of employment. alluded to by - Mr.
.iloward may be rendered contributory -to . the severest de-
gree of hard labour in the proper and: legitimate acceptation
of the term, and will be found sufficiently to weary the workers
without wasting their constitutional strength, has been amply
established in various houses of correction which have had re-
course to them loot; prior to the use of •the tread-wheel, and
Particularly (as stated in the reports of the Prison Discipline
Society) in those of Preston, Knutsford, and Maidstone, while
the Committee of this Society has, with 'great truth and tan=
dour remarked, in their publication ' On the Government of
Gaols,' that ' preference should be given to .thOse trades which
repine hard labour, the knowledge of which may enable the
prisoners to earn 4101: subsistence on their discharge from fri-
son'--an observation which is. followed by an enumeration of
corresponding employments little short of that by Mr. Howard.
" And here the petitioners hope they may be permitted-to re-
Mind joUr Honourable House, that both the spirit and letter
of the, laws of our country have, from its earliest times, pro-
vided that no infliction of punishment ought to endanger the
health of the body, or, expose it to casualties, beyond the strict
intent and bearing of a prisoner's sentence, insomuch that in
eo
petitioners-thus
without
p presume
oef theirt
es vviboo(wKrilide,. their
the statute of the, 51st of Henry 111., entitled 1 Judienfil
Pillorie ' it is expressly enact: d, that the penalty. should be
fulfilled,' 'without bodily 'peril of man or woman; while ano-
ther statute of a.date not long subsequent, provides that the
pillory should he of convenient strength, so that execution may
7thteh
huMble opinions and conscientious fears with reference to the
adoption. of•the novel discipline herein objected to, they cannot
is connected with ;t
e
ery
able state Of kurope. Whatever, indceoent
gmpob
:a
roske
idat-iiinveogtf.set without
uios t, iilextendstsociety,
er
tdeepyi
lt.ov
tui s
introduction
iltglrlryrstoet
dnrtneuobnetbctrroltettoiaruponingipo briessehoeiti
prnnteter:thilonotp;olitdeiraif,honent;St
oonihtsyoushould
, nstlntlioeffortsliktevtd6eiwhichilibe,tfsouconsider_dbeis, 1
ii- areeri
(iii
Ii:
tined within the bo,L,e
y
it has derived froM th.wheet:
ci:vrievieniitYy nder the a •
dariea of a single nation ; but
po
most reasonable dm:::
nit-thstiistited.—
aeqlitnaltialepisc)riombaetiloanudabbyleva:iti
oe,t done:%vhuilpoo
intentionedmwi
i iatittie
tdallel
bihte'
the
isle"l7ffii;:ssisjetitoisnte iyf,rlittrinu'l
permitted
is
beef nve-rrt'-
characters
to
ad ve r itn t
() theftth e skmiel;dsooml.
interesting,m • ahrtaey.s.
of every meof pursuit,
:, engaged
trions. foreigo.er
yes
in,France,•by M. Le Marquis d e -
availing
.tlicinbe sus inquiry afforded by
of our own
the institutions country. The petitioners, in
be
f3arb4 Alarbois, as the organ of a similar society-constituted bYan
ordinance of the. King of France, 'of the 9th of April, 1819, and
composed of 24 members, under the presidency of the illimister
• proof
fc!rterief, suLatye of prisons
of ,Interior, the majority of which are Peers of France, while
Cite rest are appropriately distinguished by their official station
in the Government. Speaking in-this report of the applicatiOw
of the tread-wheel, after a minute examination of this machine.
'by a deputation front the society •
in France,. directly charged
to observe its eff'ects in England, and to obtain all practical it--
formation from our own Prison Discipline Society, the- Noble
cli nf.
been our
i er'
hailed mostn et
r with i
i:an'lsd:

Marvis thus expresses 'himself-1 The introduction of a new
kind of torture in France appears to me an evil of greater mag-
nitude than even indiscipline itself, which demands other reme-
e.ies. The tread-Wheel is a real torment. This is evident from
the description given of it; from the acknowledged falls and
fractures mimed by this machine; and, lastly, from the dread
wish which it inspires the prisoners. If physicians hare been
found capable of asserting that this horrible exercise strengthens
arid preserves health, they have indulged in a cruel mockery.'
The distinguished writer of these remarks, who is a Minister
of State and First President of the Cour des Comptes " also
<keens with particular emphasis on the mischief of such pa-
niShments as stamp lasting disgrace, and he shows that a very
large proportion of crimes is committed by convicts returoed
from the genies.
", The degraded man,' observes the Noble Marquis, thinks
he has the right deed
become the enemy of society, because it dis-
wns him.'
" The appearance of .such a report at such a crisis as the pre-
sent, may be considered as offering in itself an excuse for in-
" troducing it before your Honourable House ; and to none is the
value of this Royal establishment in France better known or
more energetically acknowledged than by our own correspond.
ing institution, expressly organized as it is for the promotion of
similar objects, and which in successive reports of its own has
placed at the head of its foreign correspondence the proceedings
of this very society, with a detailed account of its institution,
and various references to the reports it has presented to the
'Duke de Rochefoucauld, together with an antecedent report of
the Marquis de Barb 4 Marbois.
" From the circumstances already adverted to by the peti-
tioners, and none are mentioned but what they consider they
have the most satisfactory means of proving at the bar, or in
-the committees of your Honourable House, together with other
weighty reasons which press upon their minds, they are them-
selves convinced of the inefficiency of any discipline founded
on a principle of unmixed terror and degradation. They also
-,eel great anxiety in respect to the intepretation of the clause
• respece.ng untried prisoners introduced in the Bill now before
your Honourable House, as• indirectly sanctioning a mode of
Punishment, against Which, as Magistrates and as Englishmen,
they humbly protest, from its inherent evils, mechanical, me-
dical, and moral; and the more so, as the same instrument of
terror has for some time past been introduced into a consider-
able woritouse in the country, containing an incorporated
aggregation of eighteen parishes; and unless restrained by the
interposition of Parliament, may be adopted in all such esta-
blishments, under the dotomination of hard labour.
" And your petitioner, Sir John Cox Hippisley, begs leave
to observe for himself, that he has individually undertaken,
from the obvious exigency of the occasion, and stands also in-
dividually engaged to the county in which is his principal resi-
dence, for the completion, by prison labour exclusively, of one
of the most considerable Houses of Correction in the kingdom,
situated in . the vicinity of considerable manufacturing towns
and villages which are but too often in a state of great insubor-
dination—and of a considerable colliery district, which has
more than once called for exertions beyond the ordinary means
of the civil magistrate ; and consequently that, should the
principle at present so much encouraged and promoted by the
majority of the magistracy charged with a visitation of pri-
sons, find any countenance by a concurrent enactment of the
. Legislature, every effort to persevere in the completion of
• the Provincial House of Correction at Shepton Mallet, by
prison labour, must unfortunately be abandoned; concerning
which prison, however, ,so far as it has advanced, the So-
ciety of Prison Discipline 'has been pleased to affirm, "Phat
it has afforded many instances of the reformation of indivi-
duals--that great benefits have arisen from the instruction there
supplied, particularly in respect of juvenile prisoners—that a
classification has long been adopted there to manifest adyan-
rage, and that many persons have been taught to work as masons,
carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers, who are now maintaining
themselves by the trades they have so learned.' fo this testi-
mony, and which is no other than the fact, the petitioner, who
has long been occupied in the superintendence of the said pri-
son, anti is yet respotesible for tile execution of the works un-
dertaken .in' its extension and completion in the terms of his
contract, can add, from long experience, that an adoption of
similar measures would be found to save, in the public dis-
bursements of counties, an amount of expense, which if
particularly cited could hardly be credited ; exclasive of all
the advantaged hereby derivable to the health and habits of
priaeners.
" To render such efforts still more advantageous, and trust.
ing that in the wisdom of Parliament, such resources will not be
abandoned, the petitioner ventures also to suggest the great ad-
vantages derivable front a re-enactment of the Act, chap. 56, of
the 24th year of his late Majesty, the practical operation of which
has expired, and by which one justice of assize, or two or more
. Justices of the county, might remove any prisoners under sen-
tences; and orders made by one or more Justice or Justices of
the Peace at their Sessions, or otherwise, upon conviction in a
summary way, without the intervention of a jury. If such a
pces'er were revived, and extended to convictions when capital
punishments did not attach, it is humbly conceived that great
public benefit might result, by the visiting Magistrates of
prisons being empowered to concert with each other for the ar-
rangement of removals for any of the purposes' of the Act,',
Massed in the Lust session, for the consolidating and amendment
• of the several laws relating to gaols anti houses of correction.
" The petitioner also having presumed early to solicit the at-
tention of sonic Members ofthe Committee of your Honourable
House to the restrictive clause, respecting the tread-mill as it
originally stood, ventures further to submit that some practical
inconvenience may arise, should the enactment take place even
as it now stands, on the amendments ordered to be printed on
the 15th of April ; as, from a cursory reference to the Bill, the
title will still be found not to correspond with the enactment,
,nor to have arty application whatever to the state of the largest
house of correction in this kingdom, namely, that of Cold-bath-
fields, where there are no tread-mills, as well as to Many other
. considerable prisons.
Under these circumstances, the petitioners beg leave to close
intrusion upon the patience of your Honourable House,
with humbly praying, that for the reasons already stated
.introurly, the titter inutility of the work as exercised in some
places, the pain, the peril, and inequality of the punishment,
ohs impropriety, indecency, and cruelty, in varitaia circumstances
and situations, its inefficiency in all to answer the intent and
_purposes of etntection and rethrmation, while it debilitates the
Italy mini demoralizes the mind, without inculcating any habit
of useful industry, together with its impolicy anti illegality, as
~at prement administered—that from the comparatively short
.period of its probation as a mode of discipline, the irregular,
~partial, and discordant cot:Jimmies-lions officially made upon its
• nature and etfects—the particular exceptions and limitations
arefully recommended by the medical committes, appointed to
,examiac into its action on one class of the inmates of a single
Loose of correction—and the increase of committals, and recom-
usitt-als, in most establishments where it is in use, the tread-
.wheel may not be sanctioned, adopted, or in any way desig-
nated or included in our statute-book as an instrument of pun-
ishment, or means of bard labour or employment of prisoners,
Without further investigation by your Honourable !louse; anti
that,Magistrates be restricted from enforcing its use till such
tinveatigation shall be made, and such sanction and adoption
an the part of the Legislature obtained.
" Aral the petitioners further, pray that the Bill as at present
before your Honourable House may not -pass into a law; and
that such other relief may be granted' in - the said matter as to
..your.wisdom shall seem expedient.
(igned)

" J. C. HIPPESLEY

" BRISCOE. •
" -The petitioner; SirJ, C. Ilippisley, begs leave further to.
,observe, that while the preceding observations were drawing,
.up, an incident occurred which seems to render the 'present
%application to your Honourable House a duty of themost im-
perative necessity; and the inure especially,as it •is now occu-
pied with a revision of the existing Gaol Act. Under the 17th
%section of this Act, it is provided,-'. that any Justice of the
Peace of any county, or otherdivision, whether a visitor or not,
shall,,at his own free will and pleasure, and as often as he shall
see fit, enter into and examine any prison of such county or
other division; and the Act requires of him, if he shall disco.
cer any abuse or abuses therein, that he sin 11 report the same
in writing, at tlAe.next General or Quarter Sessions ; and that,
the abuse or abuses so reported, shall be taken into imme-
diate consideration, and the most effectual means adopted for
inquiring into and certifying the same.' In which enactment
it is obvious, from the report being required to be set forth,
in writing, without any demand or personal attendance, that
Parliament designed
to provide for a speedy and effectual re-
dress of any known abuses, even in cases in which the Magi.
trate acquainted with them should not be able to be present
personally at such sessions from indisposition, or attendance in
Parliament, or any other cause".
c°Under the authority of this provision, the petitioner, Sir J.
C.,Hippisley, being at the time suffering under much_ inditpo.
idtion, reported, in writingi-to-the Magistrates assembled in the
late Genera! Quarter Sessions of the peace for the county of
•
surrey, of which county lie is an acting i%fagistrate, the
existence of certain abuses in houses of correction, under their
jurisdiction, which in his judgment demanded such a report
to be made. His report was delivered in due time to the clerk
of the peace; and from him he has received a letter, dated the
Ist of the present month, infbrming him as follows :
" Haul your statement, or report on the subject of the tread-
wheel, before the Court on the first day of the session, and was
proceeding t.o read it, but the Court declined hearing
it, on the
ground that it was contrary to the practice of the Court to re-
ceive written statements from Magistrates who did not attend
themselves. I have therefore returned your paper.
‘'
(Signed) C.. 1. LAWSON.'
so that while by the penalty of the tread-wheel the Magis-
trates are introducing into Our prisons, and even many poor-
Louses, a punishment unsanctioned by either common or statute
law, by the practice.of the above Court 91 Sessions they. are di.-