comes forward to appeal against a departure from wholesome and established usages; and to deprecate a system which has an essential tendency to harden the heart, and to oppose many of the soundest principles of the morality as well as the policy of our forefathers. Quæ tanta insania, cives! Aut hæc in nostros fabricata est MACHINA muros, Aut aliquis latet error. THE cases annexed to this Letter, induce me thus publicly to address you on the nature and effects of the Tread-wheel. In taking this measure I am actuated solely by a sense of duty, and a desire to fulfil those obligations towards my Sovereign and my Country which I contracted on accepting my commission as a Magistrate. I candidly acknowledge that I was at first disposed to think favourably of this new mode of punishment, which is now in so many instances introduced into our Gaols and Houses of Correction, and has even made an entrance into the Workhouses of our Poor *. It was represented to me as a species of hard, yet salutary labour, from which the idle and the vicious were naturally averse, but precluding the possibility of evasion; whilst all were able to perform the task, without reference to age, or sex, or the necessity of previous instruction. Under these impressions, I was willing to hail the discovery as an important event in the history of our Prison Discipline, and to antici * Appendix, A. pate the best possible effects from the general use of this invention; convinced that no human means can be successfully employed towards the prevention of crime, and the reformation of offenders, without the co-operation of hard and constant labour. But with this conviction, I feel persuaded that I express the sense of the Government, the Magistracy, and the People of this kingdom, in asserting, that no labour should be adopted within a prison, (either for the purpose of employment or of punishment), which injures the health, and impairs the strength of the prisoner. It ought never to be forgotten that the inmates of a gaol are not always to continue within its walls-they are again to be restored to society; and their labour is the only fund whence they are to draw the means of future subsistence. If, therefore, by injudicious severity, by an insufficient supply of food*, or by painful and exhausting toil, the constitution is so enfeebled, as to incapacitate them from hard work on their release from confinement; they become doubly exposed to the temptation of procuring a dishonest livelihood; or, (in the existing state of the Poor Laws) they degenerate into an useless burthen to be supported at the expense of the community. In either of these cases the object is defeated, for which the sentence of the law required the offender to be visited with "Hard Labour." * Appendix, B. It is not, however, my intention to insist that these consequences, in their full extent, invariably and immediately follow from the punishment of the Tread-wheel; but I desire to state my firm and deliberate opinion that THE LABOUR IS OF A NATURE TENDING IN ALL CASES TO INJURE THE PRISONER IN A GREATER OR LESS DEGREE; ACCORDING TO THE DURATION OF HIS SENTENCE, AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL STRENGTH HE MAY POSSESS TO ENABLE HIM TO RESIST THE EFFECTS OF THE WHEEL. If in some instances this may not be so outwardly apparent, I doubt whether it will be hereafter less sensibly experienced. The subject, Sir, has received my most careful consideration. I have made much and patient inquiry of the governors and superintendants of Bridewells, as well as of those committed to their custody. I have examined the actual state and condition of prisoners when at work, and when, from inability to work longer, they have been removed into the Infirmaries, and convalescent wards of their prisons. I have visited them at the commencement and at the close of their daily toil; and I have frequently tried its nature and its tendencies in my own person. Thus, if I have formed an erroneous judgment upon this novel method of chastisement, I have at least done my endeavour to avoid it; and, as already observed, I commenced my inquiries with a prepossession in its favour. B I proceed to explain more minutely on what grounds my present objections have been formed. It cannot, I think, fail to strike every spectator who attentively contemplates a Tread-wheel in motion, that the prisoner upon it is placed in an unnatural*, and perilous position. The whole weight of his body rests on the fore-part of his foot-this alone coming into contact with the treadles; whilst his hands and arms, which were designed to be the active instruments of labour, hang, or press passively on a rail. The feet are thus made to usurp the customary office of the hands; and, whilst the joints and tendons of the legs are brought into a forced and tortuous action, and the muscles of the abdomen †, and the loins are unduly exerted and strained, those of the arms gradually become rigid, and lose their power. Hence ensues a liability to rupture, to complaints in the kidneys and loins, and to varicose veins in the legs; accompanied by an emaciation of flesh, loss of tone in the arms, and an increasing debility of the whole frame ‡. The labour is not only unnatural, but unvaried; and from this cause arises an additional degree of injury. The painful effect of a long-continued * Appendix, C.--Particular attention is requested to this note. Indeed, all the notes are important to those who are desirous of forming a careful and dispassionate opinion upon the question. ↑ Appendix, D. Ibid. E. |