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27
been expended in the furniture of it: — The sum proposed to have been allowed
per man for the maintenance of the prisoners till the time when their labour
might be expected to yield a produce. These points, and a few others,
being ascertained, I should then be curious to know what degree of
productiveness, if any, would be looked upon upon as giving to the
measure of a Penitentiary-house, either of any construction or of this
extraordinary one, the preiminence upon the whole, over any of the other
modes of disposal now in practice or in contemplation. Many distinct
points for the eye to rest upon in such a scale will readily occurr.
1. The produce might be barely sufficient to pay the expence of
feeding. — 2. It might further pay the expence of guarding feeding
and cloathing. — 3. It might further pay the expence of guarding and
instructing: The salaries or other emoluments of the numerous tribe of
Visitors, Governors, Jailors, Taskmasters etc., in the one case, and of
the contractor and his assistants in the other. — 4. It might further
pay the wear and tear of the working stock laid in. — 5. It might
further pay the interest of the capital employed in the purchase of such
stock. 6. It might further pay the interest of the capital laid out in the
erecting and fitting up of the establishment in all its parts, at the common rate
of interest and money laid out in building. 7. It might further pay, at the
ordinary rate, the interest of the money, if any, laid out in the purchase of the
ground. Even at the first mentioned and lowest of these stages, that I should be
curious to compare the charge of such an institution, with that of the least
chargeable of those others that are as yet preffered to it. When it had risen
above the last, then, as you see, and not till then it could be said to
yield a profit, in the sense in which the same thing could be said of
any manufacturing establishment of a private nature.
But, long before that period, the objections of those whose sentiments
are the least favourable to such an establishment would, I take for
granted, have been perfectly removed. Yet, what should make it stop
anywhere short of the highest of those stages, or what should prevent it from going rising even
further considerably beyond above the highest of them, is more, I protest, than I can see. On what
points a manufacturer, setting up in such an establishment, would be
in a worse situation than an ordinary manufacturer, I really do not
see: but I see many points on which he is in a better. His hands, indeed are
all raw, perhaps, at least with regard relation to the particular species of work
he employs them upon, if not with regard relation to every other. But so are all
hands, every any where, at the first setting up of every manufacture. Look round,
and you will find instances enough of manufactures, where children down
down to four years old, learn something, and where children, a few years
older, earn a subsistence, and that a comfortable one. I must leave it to
you to mention names and places. You, who have been so much of an
English traveller, cannot but have met with instances in plenty, if you have
happened to note them down. Many are the instances you must have
found, in which the part taken by each workman is reduced to some
one single operation of such perfect simplicity, that one might defy
the awkwardest and most helpless idler that ever existed to avoid
succeeding in it. Among the eighteen or twenty operations in to which the
process of pin-making has been divided, I question whether there be
any one that is not reduced to such a state.+ What hold can a
+In this point, then,
he is upon as good
a footing as other
manufacturers: but
in all other points
he is upon a better.
manufacturer upon an ordinary footing have upon his workmen equal to
what my manufacturer would have upon his? What other master is
there, that can reduce his workmen, if idle, to a situation next to starving,
without suffering them to go elsewhere? What other master is there whose
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Identifier: | JB/550/222/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550.
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550 |
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222 |
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001 |
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