JB/550/158/001

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Letter V. Essential points of the Plan.

It may not be of use that, among all these particulars you have seen, it
should be clearly understood, what circumstances are, and what are not, essential
to the plan. The essence of it consists, then, in the centrality of the Inspector's situation
combined with the well known and most effectual contrivances for seeing
without being seen. As to the general form of the building, the most commodious
for most purposes seems to be the circular: but this is not an absolutely essential
circumstance. Of all figures, however, this, you will observe, is the only one that
affords a perfect view, and the same view, of an indefinite number of apartments
of the same dimensions:—that affords a spot from which, without any change
of situation, a man may survey, in the same perfection, the whole number,
and without so much as a change of posture, the half of the whole same number, at
the same time:—that, within a boundary of a given extent, contains the greatest
quantity of room:—that places the center at the least distance from the light:—
that gives the Cells most width, at the part where, on account of the light, most
light may, for the purposes of work, be wanted:—and that reduces to the greatest
possible shortness the path taken by the Inspector, in passing from each
part of the field of inspection to every other.

You will please to observe, that, though, perhaps, it is the most
important point, that the persons to be inspected should always feel themselves
as if under inspection, at least as standing having a great chance of being so, yet it
is not by any means the only one. If it were, the same advantage might
be given to buildings of almost any form. What is also of importance is, that,
for

Identifier: | JB/550/158/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	550	Main Headings
Folio number	158	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
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