JB/121/063/003

'Click Here To Edit

§ 8 Establishment enlarged &c

a magnitude as would admit no more than the number allotted to the
Hulks, to the exclusion of another number, meant, in this supposed case, to be still allotted for the
County Jails, the effect of such a limitation would be, to fasten this make-shift
and illegal system, upon the Public, without remedy; and, so far as concerns the
number thus allotted, to it to render the fulfillment of the declared views
of Parliament physically impossible.

It is the creating of this physical impossibility – it is this absolute
prejudication – this sentence of proscription – it is this alone that I am contending
against: by withdrawing it, you would not make it necessary to consign
to the Penitentiary House, a single individual of those whom it may eventually
be wished to keep in the County Jails: all you would do would be – to render it
possible to consign to the Penitentiary House, at any time, such number of them
as might be thought fit. Suffer the necessary room to be provided in the
Penitentiary House, it may be filled or not filled, according to the degree of
satisfaction which the Penitentiary System may be found to afford: but, if the
necessary room be not provided – be not suffered to be provided – let the decision
of experience in favour of the Penitentiary system be ever so strong – let the
satisfaction afforded by it be ever so great – the number at first alloted to
the County Jails must continue, in spite of experience, to be alloted to the
County Jails: – to transfer them to the Penitentiary House will be impossible.

Now that economy is on the Carpet, it may not be amiss to state in half
a word, what the expence is that would be thus saved by condemning without
trial what Parliament has approved: instead of about £250 a head as under
the original Penitentiary System, or from £276 to £340 a head,
as in the case of the so much talked of Prison in Cold Bath Fields(c), it is but
£19 a head: about 1/13 of what it would have been in one case; from about 1/18th to
about 1/23d – (say for a medium one twentieth part – what it has been in the other. The assertion is no more than I am
ready to make good at any time, should it be thought worthwhile.

In 1798
436 or thereabouts was the number of transportable Convicts detained in the(d) Jails.
– Call the number concerning which it is under consideration whether or no they
shall be irrevocably witholden from the Penitentiary House, and reserved for
the Jails, 500: for this number, upon the Penitentiary Plan, what is the building
expence? not an affair of £225,000 as it would have been in the case of Blackburne's
Penitentiary House: – it is but £9,500 but one paid. If the number, thus to be
provided for at the expence of the whole nation, were to be swelled to the utmost
amount

Identifier: | JB/121/063/003 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 121.
Date_1	1799-09-21	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	121	Main Headings	Panopticon
Folio number	063	Info in main headings field	Establishment enlarged etc
Image	003	Titles	Mr Bentham to Mr Nepean / Convicts consignable to Panopticon should not be purposely kept in the Jails / Reasons
Category	Correspondence	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	"Recto" is not in the list (recto, verso) of allowed values for the "Rectoverso" property.	Page Numbering	F31 / F32 / F33 / F34
Penner		Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections	Jeremy Bentham	Paper Produced in Year
Notes public	See note to letter 1471, vol. 6	ID Number	003
Box Contents