JB/550/164/001

Click Here To Edit

3
Letter VII. Uses Penitentiary - houses - Safe - custody.

that, if you were to be asked, who had most cause to wish for its adoption,
164 you might find yourself at some loss to determine, between the malefactors
themselves, and those for whose sake they are consigned to punnishment.—

In this view I am sure you cannot overlook the effect which
it would have in rendering unnecessary that inexhaustible fund of disproportionate,
too often needless, and always unpopular severity, not to say
extortion, the use of irons . Confined in one of these Cells, every motion
of the limbs and every muscle of his face exposed to view, what pretence
could/would there be for exposing to this hardship the most boisterous malefactor?

Indulged with perfect liberty within the space allotted to him, in
what worse way could he vent his rage than by beating his head against
the walls? and who but himself would be a sufferer by such Folly?
Noise, the only offence by which a man thus encaged could render himself
troublesome (an offence by the bye against which irons themselves
afford no security) might, if found otherwise incorrigible, be subdued
by gagging: a most natural and efficacious mode of prevention, as well
as punnishment, the prospect of which would probably be for ever sufficient,
to render the infliction of it unnecessary. Punnishment,
even in its most horrid hideous forms, loses its odious character, when bereft

of that uncertainty, without which the rashest desperado would not
expose himself to its stroke. <add>If an instance be wanted, think what
the means are, which the so much admired law of England makes use of</add>
that, in one of its most admired branches, to work, not upon criminals, butupon its favourite
class

Identifier: | JB/550/164/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	550	Main Headings
Folio number	164	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category		Number of Pages
Recto/Verso		Page Numbering
Penner		Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number
Box Contents