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7*
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 the
greatest proportion of time possible, each man should actually be under inspection.
This is material in all cases, that the Inspector may have the satisfaction
of knowing, that the discipline actually has the effect, which it was
designed to have. And it is more particularly material, in such cases where
the Inspector, besides seeing that they conform to such standing rules as
are prescribed, has more of less frequent occasion to give them such transient
and incidental directions, as must be given and enforced, at the
commencement at least of every course of industry.+ And it is most certain that
the business of inspection will be performed to a great degree of perfection
the less trouble it requires to perform it.
+And I think it
needs not much
argument to prove that
the business of inspection,
like every other,
will be performed to a
greater degree of perfection,
the less trouble the
performance of it requires.
Not only so, but the greater there is of a given person's
being at a given time actually under inspection, the more strong will be the
persuasion, the more intense the feeling, If I may so say, he has of his being
so. How little turn soever the greater number of the persons so circumstanced
may be supposed to have for calculation, some rough sort of calculation
can scarcely, under such circumstances, avoid forcing itself upon
the rudest mind. Experiment, venturing first upon slight transgressions,
and so on, in proportion to success, upon more and more considerable ones,
will not fail to teach him the difference between a loose inspection and a
strict one.
It is for these reasons, that I can not help looking upon every form
as less and less elligible, in proportion as it deviates from the circular.
An essential A very material point is, that room be allotted to the Lodge, sufficient
to adapt it to the purposes of a compleat and constant habitation for the
principall Inspector, or Head-Keeper, and his family. The more numerous the
more numerous the family the better; since by this means there will be
in fact as many Inspectors as the family consists of persons, though only one
be paid for it. Neither the orders of the Inspector himself, nor any interest which
they may feel, or not feel, in the regular performance of his duty, would be
necessary to find them motives adequate to the purpose. Secluded often times
by their situation from every other object, they will naturally and in a manner
unavoidably, give their eyes a direction comformable to that purpose in
every momentary intervall of their ordinary occupations. x It will supply in th
their instance the place of that great and constant fund of entertainment to
the sedentary vacant in towns, the looking out of the window. The scene, though a
confined, would be a very various, and therefore perhaps not altogether an
unamusing one.
Letter VI
+ A most important advantage attending this plan* whatever purpose
may be applied to, and particularly when applied to the severest and
most coercive purpose, is, that the Under-Keepers or Inspectors, the servants
and subordinates of every kind, will be under the same irresistible controul
with regard to the Head-Keepers, or Inspectors, as the prisoners or other persons
to be governed are with respect to them. In the common Plane, what means
what possibility, has the prisoner of appealing to the humanity of the
Principal, for redress, against the neglect or oppression of subordinates in that
rigid sphere, but the few opportunities which in a crowded Prison the most conscientious
Keeper can afford but the none at all which many a
Keeper thinks fit, to give them? How different would their lot be upon
this plan? In no instance could his subordinate either perform or depart
from their duty, but he must know the time and the manner of their doing
Letter 6 VI.
*Hond. Sir
Thus far
as to the plan itself
and the particular
points on which the
advantages you will
see it hold out appear
to turn. Now let me
give you a slight
sketch of those
advantages themselves.
One very important
I flatter myself
there can now be
little doubt of the
plan's possessing the
fundamental advantages
I have been
attributing to it:
I mean the apparent
omnipresence
of the Inspector, (if
Divines
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