JB/116/549/001

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Letter 3

12 Decr 1802

Note to p. 14

It is in the way of reformation, (reformation as contradistinguished from example) that these county penitentiary
Houses bid fairest for being serviceable. So far as On the ground
of mere separation indeed is concerned, I have already stated why
it is that but little seems would be to be expected from them: the good
which of itself it might be capable of doing, if steadily
persevered in, being in a manner obliterated by the
promiscuous asseverations with which it attracts. It is to by
the occupation afforded that the greatest share seems due
in the production of whatever degree of reformation may
have been the actual result. The Thoughts are Minds are by this means
more or less diverted from those mischievous topics of conversation which in a
state of idleness would be the sole resource. In the Philadelphia
penitentiary-house, even without the benefit of
the central inspection principle, and without any under a
plan of separation widely different from very far short of solitude, restraint
a very considerable and salutary restraint appears to have applied to
the exercise of the faculty of conversation speech, and by that means to the abuse of it.

It is in the article under the head of example that the effects of
the penitentiary discipline in these local penitentiary houses
appear most difficult to investigate and appretiate. Under
this head, appearances are likely to be more favourable than
realities. Upon the face of the accounts, judging from
the number of convictions as between period and period,
a very considerable decrease in the number of convictions
within that jurisdiction may have taken place, without any
a decrease defalcation to that same amount—with even a defalcation any decrease
to any amount at all, produced by that same cause in the aggregate
of crimes for the Kingdom at large, by that same cause. Why?—because
without

Identifier: | JB/116/549/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 116.
Date_1	1802-12-12	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	116	Main Headings	panopticon versus new south wales
Folio number	549	Info in main headings field	letter 3
Image	001	Titles	note to p. 14
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f14*
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	1800
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections	jeremy bentham	Paper Produced in Year	1800
Notes public	letter was never sent; see note 8 to letter 1747, vol. 7	ID Number	38082
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