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32
I will not pester you with further niceties, applicable to the
differences between Houses of Correction, and Work-houses, and
Poor-houses, if any there should be, which are not Work-houses: between
the different modes of treatment that may be due, to what are looked
upon as the inferior degrees of dishonesty, to idleness, as yet untainted
with dishonesty, and to blameless indigence. The Law herself has scarcely
eyes for the microscopic differences: I bow down therefore, for the present
as least, to the counsel of so many sages, and shrink from the crime
of being wiser than the Law.
Letter 17th
A word or two respecting the condition of offenders before
conviction: or, if that expression should appear to include a solecism, of persons
accused, who, either for want of bail, or as charged with offenses not
bailable, have hitherto been made, through negligence or necessity, to share by
anticipation so much of the fate of convicts, as imprisonment, more
or less rigid, may amount to.
To persons thus circumstanced the Inspection principle
would apply, as far as safe custody was concerned, with as much
advantage as to convicts: but, as there can be no ground for punishing
them, any otherwise than in so far as the restraint necessary for safe
custody has the effect of punishment, there can be as little ground for
subjecting them to solitude; unless where that circumstance should also
appear necessary, either to safe custody, or to prevent that mental infection,
which novices in the arts of dishonesty are so much in danger of
contracting and debauchery the parent of dishonesty, are so much in
danger of contracting, from the masters of those arts. In this view therefore
the partitions might appear to some an unnecessary ingredient in the
composition of the building: though I confess, from consideration just
alledged, they would not appear in that light to me. Communication
must likewise be allowed to the prisoners with their friends and legal
assistants, for the purpose of settling their affairs, and concerting their
defence.
As forced labour is punishment, labour must not here be forced.
For the same reason, and because the privation, of such comforts of any
kind as a man's circumstances allow him, is also punishment, neither
should the free admission of such comforts, as far as is consistent with sobriety
be denied: nor, if the Keeper is permitted to concern himself in any part
of the trade, should he be permitted to make a greater profit than
would be made by other traders.
But among persons of such a description, and in such a multitude
there will always be a certain number, nor that probably an inconsiderable
one, who will possess no means of subsistence whatever of their own. These
then will, in so far, come under a predicament not very dissimilar to that of
Convicts in a Penitentiary-house. Whatever works they may be capable of, there
is no reason why subsistence should be given to them, any more than to persons
free from suspicion and at large, but as a the price for work, supposing them able to
perform it. But, as this ability is a fact the judging of which is a matter of
great nicety, too much, it may be thought, by far, to be intrusted to such hands, if to any; some allowance
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