JB/116/558/001

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Letter 3

20 Decr 1802

XVI. Improved Prisons

+[§. 24. Certifying the
National Penitentiary
Houses in question to be ready]

(a) Note to p. 21
§.26. "In the mean time, and until such Certificate shall be made
§.26. "In the mean time as aforesaid.+ it shall be lawful for the Court ...
"to order and adjudge such Offenders, not exceeding the Numbers
herein before respectively specified limited, [§.25] to be imprisoned
and kept to hard Labour, for the several terms aforesaid, in
the respective Houses of Correction or other proper Places, within
each respective County; while Houses of Correction, or other
proper Places shall, during such time, be deemed and esteemed
Penitentiary Houses, to all Intents and Purposes, within the
meaning of this Act, except only with
regard to the Appointment of Officers and Servants, and other
interior Regulations of such Houses directed by this Act: and when such
Certificate shall be made as aforesaid, the Offenders thus
imprisoned in such Houses of Correction, or other Places,
by virtue of this Act shall be transferred to such new
erected Penitentiary Houses, for the residence of the several
Terms during which they were ordered and adjudged to be
imprisoned". Thus far the Act. The terms during which
the Convicts may be kept to hard Labour in those local Jails
are succedaneous terms, shorter than the transportation terms. [§.24]:
the numbers of the Convicts which may be kept in them
are carefully limited [§.25] the person by whom authority by which they
may be thus ordered and adjudged to be kept is that "of the
"Court only—"the Court in which they shall be convicted or
"any other Court held for the same place" [§.26] Thus saith the law: and it is
under Colour of this law Act declaring himself to have examined
it and (though it was nothing to the purpose) and professing
to "understand" it, in spite of the Act Law keeps Convicts in these same
local Jails, for the terms equal to their transportation terms,
in numbers altogether unlimited, and in the declared view
of "crowding" those receptacles to the verge of "absolute necessity"
for the purpose of preventing them from being "neglected";
forcing "the respective Counties to defray the expences attending
"the custody of and these convicts obtruded illegally obtruded inmates for the express reason, because without if this
servant of the Crown this single Lord of Parliament
of his own authority, thus
not to impose thus tax upon
already overloaded part of his Majesty's subjects, those "Expences"
"must be borne by Government" (as he phrases it) be borne by
"Government": i:e: borne by the public his Majesty's subjects,
borne by the fund best able to bear them—borne by the fund
marked out assigned by Parliament.

Identifier: | JB/116/558/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 116.
Date_1	1802-12-20	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	116	Main Headings	panopticon versus new south wales
Folio number	558	Info in main headings field	letter 3
Image	001	Titles	note to p. 21
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f21
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections	jeremy bentham	Paper Produced in Year
Notes public	letter was never sent; see note 8 to letter 1747, vol. 7	ID Number	38091
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