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perform or depart from their duty, but he must know the time and degree and manner
of their doing so. It presents an answer, and that a satisfactory one, to one of the most puzzling
of political qestions, Quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? and, as the fulfilling
of his, as well as their, duty would be rendered so much easier than it can ever have
been hitherto, so might, and so should, any departure from it be punnished with
the more inflexible severity. It is this circumstance, that renders the influence
of this plan not less benificial to what is called liberty than to necessary coercion
not less powerfull as a control upon subordinate power, than as a curb to delinqincy;
as a shield to innocence than as a scourge to guilt.
Another advantage, still operating to the same ends, is the great
load of trouble and disgust, which it takes off the shoulders of those occasional
Inspectors of a higher order, such as Judges, and other Magistrates, who,
called down to this irksome task from the superior ranks of life, cannot but
feel a proportionable repugnance to the discharge of it. Think how it is with
them upon the present plans, and how it still must be, upon the best plans
that have been hitherto devised! The Cells or apartments, however constructed,
must, if there be nine hundred of them, (as there were to have been upon the
Penitentiary-house plan) be opened to the visitors, one by one. To do their
business to any purpose, they must approach near to, and come almost in contact
with, each inhabitant: whose situation being watched over according to by no other
than the loose methods of inspection at the present practicable, will on that
account require the more minute and troublesome investigation on the part of
these occasional Supperintendants. By this new plan, the disgust is entirely removed
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