The Statesman.
London, England, 1818-08-25 00:00:00

alitsaea of accestomed comfoits presses upon it :
occupant of these Cells should herb access to deijr
tomtit capable of being comfortably *armed.
Tilit boys are plited two or more in a cell. Your
Committee suggest the propriety of a change in thie
practice • but they refrain from dwelling upon this '
part of the subject, referring only to the minutes of
evidence annexed to this report.
PEtiITENTIAO.PIIISONERII.—...Ther! are three gel. .
lends in the prison, each containing b 0 cells, 10 on
each side, for the purpose of confining penitentiary
prisoners : they are divided into three classes,' slid
your Committee are informed these classes are not
.suffered to bold any Converielion together; a *hart
period in the day is allowed to each class to *alk in
the yard below • the rest of their time is passed- in
;he respective tells, Ware they:ere employed in the
risicting of oaks., as ocospation that is Deities, Is--
boar to the body, nor employment to the mind.—
Religiose books and 'tracts are given to them, bat
your Committee fear, though penistfment may be suf-
fered, little reformation is effected by the treatment
which the prisoners receive in this part of the prison;
and that as a penitentiary establishment it has en-
tirely failed. Your Committee think' these cells
must be very cold during the winter ; and they ob-
serve that the Act ifith Geo. lii. c. 74, s. 33, which
directs the warming these cells, has not in this prison
been complied with.
Your Committee trust, that the attention of the
Magistrates will be directed to this subject, and that
the prison may be kept for the original purpose. of its
construction. As a house of correction, under pro.
per management, it may be the means of working
the reformation of the offenders lodged within its
walls; but the necessary Police of such a place of
confinement is unfitted for a prison to which persons
are committed before trial. Your Committee concur
with the Magistrates in their letter to the Duke of
Portland, in which they represent such intermitter,
of prisoners as a burthen to which the persons en.
I trusted with the management of a haste of correct

lion do not feel themselves equal; such establish-
ments being for the purposes of legal punishment,
tempered with humanity, and peaceful confine-
ment rendered subservient to the reformation d
criminals.

ADMISSION or Vistrons.--The regular hours of
visitiog the prisoners are -from twelve to tyro each
day. No convict prisoner can see his friends with-
out an order from a Magistrate; bet the practice is,
to admit all to the grating between the hours shove
named, and if they come from a distance, some ad-
ditional time is allowed : no one is, however, suf.
fered to enter within the walls or into the jars, hot
strangers are admitted on one side of the grating,
within the principal gate of the prison, and the pri.
soners are on the opposite, a turnkey, walking in
the space between. The male and female prisoners
are allowed to see their friends at the same time, a
practice which your Committee think highly objec.
amiable • and the evil can easily be removed by as-
signing different hours,, for the two seses, each day.
WcansmeN.—The wardsmen of the different wards
of the prison are almost all felons; they are selected
by the Governor, and appear to be chosen more in
reference to their good conduct within the walls of
the prison. than from any consideration,of their crime
or previous character. They are ezempt from labour
and bare an additional allowance of food ; until
lately, they levied a contribution from each prisoner
in the nature of a garnish ; but this has recently been
put an end to, and your Committee hope will not
again be revived.
Your Committee found two of the conspiratinal
Vaughan and Brock, filling this office of trust! And
they cannot avoid expressing their surprise at meet-
ing with two persons convicted of crimes of loch an
infamous nature and character, invested with any au•
thority, or advanced to any situation which entitles
them to superior privileges of exemptions over and
above those which other persons, committed to this
prison, enjoy. They tbiuk the system of wardsmen,
carried to its present event, very objectionable; ell
the offices entrusted to them, might be performed by
the turokeysosho now seem to do little more than the
opening and closing the doors. They trust the Ma.
gistrates will remedy this evil; and your Committee
can hardly believe that their attention could have
been directed to the subject; for if it had, they feel
assured, that two of the conspirators, one (if not
both) of whom owed his life to the nice- and scru-
pulous interpretation of our penal statutes, should be
invested with power, and be in the enjoyment of ad-
vantages over their fellow-prisoners, whose crimes,
though offences against the law, are in no degree of
that malignity of moral turpitude which stamps so
lad a character on the guilt of the criminals, above
alluded to.
Woac.--There is little or no work in this prison;
whatever common in-door repairs are wanting, are
performed by the Prisoners. The females wash the
linen and make the clothes which the county allows.
The principal employment of the male prisoners is
the picking of oakum; the value of that labour,
during the last year was 3471.; the number of pri-
soners 3,667. It is stated to your Committee that
about one-fifth of the prisoners 4o net work ; and
that there are besides between 12 and 1300 emigrants,
whose labour is very small, though not altogether to
be pet out of the account.
Your Committee consider the question of work, as
one of the greatest importance. The law sentences
the convict felons to hard labour, and the practice
under the law is to supply nothing that can'
be called labour; here no babies of industry
are formed, and the convict is discharged at
the end of his term of imprisonment, corrupted by
the prisoners with whom be has been associated, de-
based and hardened by penisbment, corrected of no
idle habit or wicked propensity, and less thin ever
•