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5 Letter X. Choice of the Trades Should be free.
apprehend his liking the thought of having it to do there. Supposing
no sage regulations made by any body to nail them to this or that sort
of work, they the work they would naturally fall upon under the hands
of a Contractor would be not that, whatever it might be, by which
there was most money to be made: for the more the prisoner-workman got, the
more the master could get out of him: so that upon that point I should
have little fear of their not agreeing. Nor do I see why labour should
be the less reforming for being profitable. On the contrary, among working
men, especially among working men whom the discipline of the
house would so effectually keep from all kinds of mischief, I must
confess, I know of no test of reformation so plain or so sure as the improved
quantity and value of their work.
It looks, however, as if the authors of the above provision
had not quite so much faith in such an arrangement as I must
confess I have. For the choice of the trade was not to be left to the
Governor of the prison, much less to the prisoner-workman, but was given
to supperintending Committees of Justices of the Peace. In choosing
among the employments exemplified and other similar ones
(for if I mistake not this restriction of similarity was subjoined) it
was indeed recommended to those magistrates to take "such employments
as they should deem most conducive to profit." But the profit
here declared to be in view was, not the profit of the workman or
his master the Governor, but I know not what profit "of the district," the
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