Prison labour, &c. : correspondence and communications addressed to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, concerning the introduction of tread-mills into prisons : with other matters connected with the subject of prison discipline / by Sir John Cox Hippisley.

  • Hippisley, John Cox, 1748-1825.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prison labour, &c. : correspondence and communications addressed to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, concerning the introduction of tread-mills into prisons : with other matters connected with the subject of prison discipline / by Sir John Cox Hippisley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to a greater extent than ever (though certainly not to a greater extent than ought to be, when the object of the legislature is jairly understood) the use of hard labour; and human invention has been at work for contriving means by which the employment of hard labour, as authorised by the Statute, might be rendered most effec- tual and galling; so that Prisons may no longer lie under the stigma of being abodes of ease and comfort, resought for, without reluctance, after an unwilling banishment from their walls, but of such fatigue and tor- ment, as to be fled from, on the moment of escape, with the utmost consternation and horror. TIicTread-Wheel stands foremost among expedients of this character; and, in consequence of this reaction of feeling, has been hailed by the popular voice and eagerly laid hold of by the acting Magistrates of various parts of the kingdom : while even the Committee of the Prison Discipline Society, as though anxious to throw off the charge of dealing out their milk of human kindness too profusely,* and, unacquainted, from its recent existence, with the baneful effects of this novel mode of chastisement, have arranged themselves on the side of popular opinion in their eulogies of the result of the Tread-Wheel.-J- * “ The Committee beg to state that the objects and views of “its Members have been strangely mistaken and misrepresented. “ The efficacy of Prison discipline in reforming the offender ha* “not only been disputed but the measures recommended for this “ purpose have been objected to as having a tendency to render “Prisons habitations of comfort, and confinement an object “ rather of desire than of dread.” Illrd Report of the Committee of P. D, p. 14. + They admit however its liability to abuse,and apparently on this account, do not advocate it exclusively, “ As the benefit,”