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31
twelvemonth. In the mean time, the convicts must be somewhere: and
whether they are likely to be best qualified for colonization by lounging
in an ordinary Jail, or rotting on board a ballast hulk, or working in
an Inspection-house, may now, I think, be left for any one to Judge.
Letter 16th.
In considering my Brothers Inspection plan as applicable
to the purpose of establishments designed to force labour, my principal theme I have all along had
has hitherto been principally in view the national establishment of Penitentiary-houses. My
first design, however, was to help drive the nail I saw a going: I mean the House of
much of all that I have said on that head will be thought to apply app less
Correction which the advertisement informed me, was under consideration for your County. I
to the establishment your County has, I understand, under contemplation. I
had little notion, at the outset, of attempting any such uphill work as the heaving up again that huge stone
the Penitentiary-house
which the builders, at
last, had refused, and
which after the toiling
and straining of so
many years, had tumbled at last to
the bottom. But the
greater object grew
upon me as I wrote:
to say on that
subject I grudged the
less, as thinking it
might, most of it, be
more or less applicable
to your establishment.
How far, and
in what particular
respects it may prove
so, I have no means
of knowing:
really do not know. I trouble you with it at a venture. In my last I proposed,
if the nation were poor and fearfull, a Penitentiary-house upon a very
small scale: so small, if such caution were thought necessary, as not to
contain so many as a hundred prisoners. But however poor the nation may
be, the County of Middlesex surely is rich., and what is more to the purpose
a proposal for setting on foot an establishment not very dissimilar
I mean a House of correction is actually on the carpet or at least was so
late as the 17th of August last, if I may believe the advertisement which has
been the occasion of my giving you all this trouble. What then should hinder
your County from standing forth, and setting the nation an example? What
the number of persons, you may have to provide for in this way, is supposed
to be, I have no means of knowing: but I should think it strange, if it
did not considerably exceed the one just mentioned. what is it, if any
thing; you would risk by such an experiment, is more than I an see. As far
as the building is concerned, it is a question which Architects, and they
alone, can answer. In the mean time, we, who know nothing of the matter,
can find no reason, all things considered, why a building upon this plan
should cost more than upon another. But setting aside the building, every
other differance is on the profitable side.
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Identifier: | JB/550/224/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550. |
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