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choice: but on what grounds? and to what purpose? I am sure I know not. Will
it be said that the neighbourhood was not on that occasion sufficiently considered? the
pleasureableness of the situation, and the tastes and feelings of its inhabitants? — That
can not be. A prior choice had actually been made: that prior choice rejected by this
very tribunal, and on this very ground of objection: and the choice of the present situation
confirmed in preference to that prior choice, as being unexceptionable on every
point but more particularly on this.
Nor would Administration itself be less exposed to obloquy by such a change. —
What is it that could have thus have turned them aside (it would be said) from the
line already marked out by impartial justice? — What but the overweening influence
of powerful individuals? After a three years search, the best possible situation had
been found out by the most competent authority: but an Archbishop and an Earl stood
in the way, and so a less fit one was to be looked out for. Ministers too have their
Villas that way: and they did not choose to have their road darkened by such objects.
Is the measure to be postponed till a situation can be found for it which is not within
the ride of a Minister or a Lord? Its execution then is not likely to be very speedy
— Would the new controuling body, wou'd the Judges, so much as listen to any such
instruction? If not, the change may be from the frying pan to the fire.
In proportion too as the new plan was generally approved, would the damp
thus cast upon it be condemned. When £200,000 and more of the public money was
to be spent before the smallest benefit was to be reaped the situation was not grudged.
An offer is accepted which begins with easing the nation of this load in the first
instance, to say nothing of what other advantages concurr in distinguishing the new
plan from the old, and now the situation is too good. The Supervisors who were
but to have taken a peep at the place now & then, chose to have a pleasant place to
look at, and it was but right they should, for they were Members of Parliament
& men of influence. The case is now altered; the man who saves the £200,000
which they were to have spent must expect no such place, though it be to set up his staff
there; for he is not in Parliament he has no influence. As to the exigencies of
the establishment, they remain the same: Vicinity to the Capital and to the River,
Elevation of the Ground are not of less importance now than then to the facility of
inspection or to the health of prisoners: it is the difference therefore between
individual & individual, between interest and no interest, between favour & no favour,
that has been the real cause of the change.
Such
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Identifier: | JB/119/133/003 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 119.
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