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2 Letter VII. Uses - Penitentiary - houses - Safe custody
exempt from interruption. But who would think of beginning a
work of hours and days, without any tolerable prospect of making
so much as the first motion towards it unobserved? Such attempts
have been seldom made without the assistance of implements introduced
by accomplices from without. But who would expose themselves
even to the slightest punishment, or even to the mortification
of the disappointment, without so much as a tolerable chance of escaping
instantaneous detection? who would thinking of bringing in before
spring sawthe Keeper's face, so much as a small file spring saw, or a phial of aqua fortis
to a person not prepared to receive any such thing, nor in a condition
to make use of it? (a) Upon all plans hitherto pursued, the thickest
walls have been been found occasionally unavailing: upon this
plan, the thinnest would be sufficient: a circumstance which must
operate, in a striking degree, towards a diminution of the expence.
In this, as in every other application of the plan, you will
find its lenient, not less conspicuous than its coercive, tendency: insomuch
that
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(a) Should such strictness be thought requisite, visitors, if admitted into the
intermediate area, might be precluded by a rail, from approaching
nearer than to a certain distance from the Cells: and, in some cases all conversation
between them and the prisoners might be be interdicted altogether. The propriety
of such a regulation may be thought to stand upon a different footing, according
the confinement were previous or subsequent to conviction, and according to the nature of the
offence and the intended severity of the punnishment.—
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