pose himself to the loss of liberty, property, character, game, which the love of gain does in the farmer to and license. The persons interested to put a stop to multiply poultry. Many gentlemen of small fortune such a practice, would not be the paid agents of go- will remember, that they cannot enjoy to any extent vernment, as in cases of smuggling; but all the gentle- this pleasure without this resource; that the legal men of the country, the customers of the tradesman sale of poultry will discountenance poaching; and for fish, poultry, or whatever else he dealt in, would they will open an account with the poulterer, not to have an interest in putting down the practice. In get richer, but to enjoy a great pleasure without an all probability, the practice would become disrepu- expense, in which, upon other terms, they could not table, like the purchase of stolen poultry; and this honourably and conscientiously indulge. If country would be a stronger barrier than the strongest laws. A gentlemen of moderate fortune will do this (and we few shabby people would, for the chance of gaining think after a little time they will do it), game may sixpence, incur the risk of ruin and disgrace; but it is be multiplied and legally supplied to any extent. probable that the general practice would be otherwise. Another keeper, and another bean-stack, will produce For the same reasons, the consumers of game would their proportionable supply of pheasants. The only rather give a little more for it to a licensed poulterer, reason why the great lord has more game per acre than expose themselves to severe penalties by purcha. than the little squire is, that he spends more money sing from a poacher. The great mass of London con- per acre to preserve it. sumers are supplied now, not from shabby people, in whom they can have no confidence-not from hawkers and porters, but from respectable tradesmen, in whose probity they have the most perfect confidence. Men will brave the law for pheasants, bnt not for sixpence or a shilling; and the law itself is much more difficult to be braved, when it allows pheasants to be bought at some price, than when it endeavours to render them utterly inaccessible to wealth. All the licensed salesmen, too, would have a direct interest in stopping the contraband trade of game. They would lose no cha racter in doing so; their informations would be reasonable and respectable. If all this is true, the poacher would have to compete with a great mass of game fairly and honestly poured into the market. He would be selling with a rope about his neck, to a person who bought with a rope about his neck; his description of customers would be much the same as the customers for stolen poultry, and his profits would be very materially abridged. At present, the poacher is in the same situation as the smuggler would be, if rum and brandy could not be purchased of any fair trader. The great check to the profits of the smuggler are, that, if you want his commodities, and will pay an higher price, you may have them elsewhere without risk or disgrace. But forbid the purchase of these luxuries at any price. Shut up the shop of the brandy merchant, and you render the trade of the smuggler of incalcuable value. The object of the intended bill is, to raise up precisely the same competition to the trade of the poacher, by giving the public an opportunity of buy. ing lawfully and honestly the tempting articles in which he now deals exclusively. Such an improvement would not, perhaps, altogether annihilate his trade; but it would, in all probability, act as a very material check upon it. For these reasons, we think the experiment of lega. lizing the sale of game ought to be tried. The game laws have been carried to a pitch of oppression which is a disgrace to the country. The prisons are half filled with peasants, shut up for the irregular slaughter of rabbits and birds-a sufficient reason for killing a weasel, but not for imprisoning a man. Something should be done; it is disgraceful to a government to stand by, and see such enormous evils without interference. It is true, they are not connected with the struggles of party; but still, the happiness of the common people, whatever gentlemen may say, ought every now and then to be considered. CRUEL TREATMENT OF UNTRIED PRISON. 1. 2. Letter to the Right Honourable Robert Peel, one of His Information and Observations, respecting the proposed Improvements at York Castle. Printed by Order of the IT has been the practice, all over England, for these last fifty years, not to compel prisoners to work before guilt was proved. Within these last three or four years, however, the magistrates of the North Riding of Yorkshire, considering it improper to support any idle person at the county expense, have resolved, that prisoners committed to the house of correction for trial, and requiring county support, should work for their livelihood; and no sooner was the treadmill brought into fashion, than that machine was adopted The predominant argument against all this is, that in the North Riding as the species of labour by which the existing prohibition against buying game, though such prisoners were to earn their maintenance. If partially violated, does deter many persons from com- these magistrates did not consider themselves empowing into the market; that if this prohibition were re-ered to burden the county rates for the support of primoved, the demand for game would be increased, the legal supply would be insufficient, and the residue would, and must be, supplied by the poacher, whose trade would, for these reasons, be as lucrative and flourishing as before. But it is only a few years since the purchase of game has been made illegal; and the market does not appear to have been at all narrowed by the prohibition; not one head of game the less has been sold by the poulterers; and scarcely one single conviction has taken place under that law. How, then, would the removal of the prohibition, and the alteration of the law, extend the market, and increase the demand, when the enactment of the prohibition has had no effect in narrowing it? But if the demand increases, why not the legal supply also? Game is increased upon an estate by feeding them in winter, by making some abatement to the tenants for guarding against depredations, by a large apparatus of gamekeepers and spies-in short, by expense. But if this pleasure of shooting, so natural to country gentlemen, is made to pay its own expenses, by sending superfluous game to market, more men, it is reasonable to suppose, will thus preserve and augment their name. The love of pleasure and amusement will produce in the owners of game that desire to multiply❘chievous and unjust. soners before trial, who would not contribute to support themselves, it does not appear, from the publication of the reverend chairman of the sessions, that any opinions of counsel were taken as to the legality of so putting prisoners to work, or of refusing them mainte nance if they choose to be idle; but the magistrates themselves decided that such was the law of the land. Thirty miles off, however, the law of the land was differently interpreted; and in the Castle of York large sums were annually expended in the maintenance of idle prisoners before trial, and paid by the different Ridings, without remonstrance or resistance.t Such was the state of affairs in the county of York before the enactment of the recent prison bill. After that period, enlargements and alterations were necessary in the county jail; and it was necessary also for these arrangements, that the magistrates should know whether or not they were authorized to maintain such *Headlam, p. 6. readers that the practice of condemning prisoners to work We mention the cases of the North Riding, to convince our before trial has existed in some parts of England; for in questions like this we have always found it more difficult to prove the existence of the facts, than to prove that they were mis prisoners at the expense of the county, as, being accounted able and unwilling to work, still claimed the county allowance To questions proposed upon these points to three barristers the following answers were returned: 2dly, I am of opinion, that the magistrates are empowered, and are compelled to maintain, at the expense of the county, such prisoners before trial as are able to work, unable to main tain themselves, and not willing to work; and that they have not the power of compelling such prisoners to work, either at the treadmill, or any other species of labour. 'Lincoln's Inn Fields, 2d September,1823.' J. GURNEY. I think the magistrates are empowered, under the tenth section (explained by the 37th and 38th), to maintain prisoners before trial, who are able to work, unable to maintain themselves by their own means, or by employment which they themselves can procure, and not willing to work; and I think also, that the words "shall be lawful," in that section, do not leave them a discretion on the subject, but are compulsory. Such prisoners can only be employed in prison labour with their own consent; and it cannot be intended that the justices may force such consent, by withholding from them the necessaries of life, if they do not give it. Even those who are convicted cannot be employed at the treadmill, which I consider as a species of severe labour. 'September 4th, 1823.' J. PARKE. compel an untried prisoner to a species of labour which would In consequence, we believe, of these opinions, the North Riding magistrates, on the 13th of October (the the following resolution:-That persons committed new bill commencing on the 1st of September), passed for trial, who are able to work, and have the means of employment offered them by the visiting magistrates, by which they may earn their support, but who obsti nately refuse to work, shall be allowed bread and water only.' By this resolution they admit, of course, that the counsel are right in their interpretation of the present law; and that magistrates are forced to maintain prisoners before trial who do not choose to work. The magistrates say, however, by their resolution, that the food shall be of the plainest and humblest kind,— bread and water; meaning, of course, that such pri soners should have a sufficient quantity of bread and water, or otherwise the evasion of the law would be in the highest degree mean and reprehensible. But it is impossible to suppose any such thing to be intended by gentlemen so highly respectable. Their inten tion is not that idle persons before trial shall starve,but that they shall have barely enough of the plainest food for the support of life and health. 2dly, As to the point of compelling prisoners confined on Mr. Headlam has written a pamphlet to show that criminal charges, and receiving relief from the magistrates, to reasonable labour; to that of the treadmill for instance, in the old law was very reasonable and proper; that it is which, when properly conducted, there is nothing severe or quite right that prisoners before trial, who are able to unreasonable; had the question arisen prior to the act, I should support themselves, but unwilling to work, should be with confidence have said, I thought the magistrates had a compelled to work, and at the treadmill, or that ail compulsory power in this respect. Those who cannot live support should be refused them. We are entirely of without relief in a jail, cannot live without labour out of it. an opposite opinion; and maintain that it is neither Labour then is their avocation. Nothing is so injurious to the legal nor expedient to compel prisoners before trial to morals and habits of the prisoner as the indolence prevalent in work at the treadmill, or at any species of labour,prisons, nothing so injurious to good order in the prison. The and that those who refuse to work should be support analogy between this and other cases of public support is exceedingly strong; one may almost consider it a general prin- ed upon a plain healthy diet. We impute no sort of ciple, that those who live at the charge of the community shall, blame to the magistrates of the North Riding, or to as far as they are able, give the community a compensation Mr. Headlam, their chairman. We have no doubt but through their labor. But the question does not depend on that they thought their measures the wisest and the mere abstract reasoning. The stat. 19 Ch. 2, c. 4, sec. 1, enti- best for correcting evil, and that they adopted them tled "An act for Relief of poor Prisoners, and setting them on in pursuance of what they thought to be their duty.work," speaks of persons committed for felony and other misdemeanours to the common jail, who many times perish before Nor do we enter into any discussion with Mr. Headtrial; and then proceeds as to setting poor prisoners on work. lam, as chairman of a Quarter Sessions, but as the Then stat. 31 G. 3, c. 46, sec. 13, orders money to be raised for writer of a pamphlet. It is only in his capacity of such prisoners of every description, as being confined within author that we have any thing to do with him. In the said jails, or other places of confinement, are not able to answering the arguments of Mr. Headlam, we shall work. A late stat. (52 G. 2, c. 160) orders parish relief to such notice, at the same time, a few other observations debtors on mesne process in jails not county jails, as are not commonly resorted to in defence of a system which able to support themselves; but says nothing of finding or compelling work. Could it be doubted, that if the justices with the worst consequences; and so thinking, we we believe to be extremely pernicious, and pregnant were to provide work, and the prisoner refused it, such debtors might, like any other parish paupers, be refused the contend against it, and in support of the law as it now relief mentioned by the statute? In all the above cases, the stands. authority to insist on the prisoner's labour, as the condition and consideration of relief granted him, is, I think, either expressed or necessarily implied; and thus, viewing the subject, I think it was in the power of magistrates, prior to the late statute, to compel prisoners, subsisting in all or in part on public relief, to work at the treadmill. The objection commonly made is, that prisoners, prior to trial, are to be accounted innocent, and to be detained, merely that they may be secured for trial; to this the answer is obvious, that the labour is neith meant as a punishment or a disgrace, but simply as a compensation for the relief, at their own request, afforded them. Under the present statute, I, however, have no doubt, that poor prisoners are entitled to public support, and that there can be no compulsory labour prior to trial. The two statutes adverted to (19 Ch. 2, c. 4, and 31 G. 3) are, as far as the subject is concerned, expressly repealed. The legislature then had in contemplation the existing power of magistrates to order labour before trial, and having it in contemplation, repeals it; substituting (sec. 38) a power of setting to labour, only sentenced persons. The 13th rule, too, (p. 177) speaks of labour as connected with convicted prisoners, and sec. 37 speaks in general terms of persons committed for trial, as labouring with their own consent. In opposition to these clauses, I think it impossible to speak of implied power, or power founded on general reasoning or analogy. So strong, however, are the arguments in favour of a more extended authority in justices of the peace, that it is scarcely to be doubted, that Parliament, on a calm revision of the subject, would be willing to restore, in a more distinct manner than it has hitherto been enacted, a general discretion on the subject. Were this done, there is one observation I will venture to make, which is, that should some unfortunate asso tiation of ideas render the treadmill a matter of ignominy to common feelings, an enlightened magistracy would scarcely It is con We will not dispute with Mr. Headlam, whether his exposition of the old law is right or wrong; because time cannot be more unprofitably employed than in hearing gentlemen who are not lawyers discuss points of law. We dare to say Mr. Headlam knows as much of the laws of his country as magistrates in general do; but he will pardon us for believing, that for the moderate sum of three guineas a much better opinion of what the law is now, or was then, can be purchased, than it is in the power of Mr. Headlam or of any county magistrate, to give for nothing-Cuilibet in arte sua credendum est. cerning the expediency of such laws, and upon that point alone, that we are at issue with Mr. Headlam; and do not let this gentleman suppose it to be any an swer to our remarks to state what is done in the prison in which he is concerned, now the law is altered. The question is, whether he is right or wrong in his reasoning upon what the law ought to be; we wish to hold out such reasoning to public notice, and think it important it should be refuted-doubly important, when it comes from an author, the leader of the quorum, who may say with the pious Æneas, Et -Quæque ipse miserrima vidi, quorum pars magna fui. If, in this discussion, we are forced to insist upon the plainest and most elementary truths, the fault is not with us, but with those who torget them; and who refuse to be any longer restrained by those prin- | for persons to whom you mean to make labour as irk riples which have hitherto been held to be as clear as some as possible; but for this very reason, it is the they are important to human happiness. labour to which an untried prisoner ought not to be put. To begin, then, with the nominative case and the verb-we must remind those advocates for the tread- It is extremely uncandid to say that a man is obsti. mill, a parte ante (for which the millers a parte post nately and incorrigibly idle, because he will not subwe have no quarrel), that it is one of the oldest max-mit to such tiresome and detestable labour as that of ims of common sense, common humanity, and common the treadmill. It is an old feeling among Englishmen law, to consider every man as innocent till he is proved that there is a difference between tried and untried to be guilty; and not only to consider him to be inno-persons, between accused and convicted persons.— cent, but to treat him as if he was so; to exercise upon These old opinions were in fashion before this new his case not merely a barren speculation, but one magistrate's plaything was invented; and we are con which produces practical effects, and which secures to vinced that many industrious persons, feeling that a prisoner the treatment of an honest, unpunished they have not had their trial, and disgusted with the man. Now, to compel prisoners before trial to work nature of the labour, would refuse to work at the at the treadmill, as the condition of their support, treadmill, who would not be averse to join in any must, in a great number of instances, operate as a common and fair occupation. Mr. Headlam says, that very severe punishment. A prisoner may be a tailor, labour may be a privilege as well as a punishment.a watchmaker, a bookbinder, a printer, totally unac- So may taking physic be a privilege, in cases where it customed to any such species of labour. Such a man is asked for as a charitable relief, but not if it is stuffed may be cast into jail at the end of August, and not down a man's throat whether he say yea or nay. Cer tried till the March following, is it no punishment tainly labour is not necessarily a punishment: nobody to such a man to walk up hill like a turnspit dog, in has said it is so; but Mr. Headlam's labour is a pun an infamous machine, for six months? and yet there ishment, because it is irksome, infamous, unasked for, are gentlemen who suppose that the common people and undeserved. This gentleman, however, observes, do not consider this as punishment!-that the gayest that committed persons have offended the laws; and and most joyous of human beings is a treader, untried the sentiment expressed in these words is the true key by a jury of his countrymen, in the fifth month of to his pamphlet and his system-a perpetual tendency lifting up the leg, and striving against the law of grav-to confound the convicted and the accused. ity, supported by the glorious iuformation which he receives from the turnkey, that he has all the time been grinding flour on the other side of the wall! If this sort of exercise, necessarily painful to sedentary persons, is agreeable to persons accustomed to labour, then make it voluntary-give the prisoners their choice -give more money and more diet to those who can and will labour at the treadmill, if the treadmill (now so dear to magistrates) is a proper punishment for antried prisoners. The position we are contending against is, that all poor prisoners who are able to work should be put to work upon the treadmill, the inevitable consequence of which practice is, a repetition of gross injustice by the infliction of undeserved punishment; for punishment, and severe punishment, to such persons as we have enumerated, we must consider it to be. 6 'With respect to those sentenced to labour as a punishment, that it is a great defect in any prison where such convicts are I apprehend there is no difference of opinion. All are agreed unemployed. But as to all other prisoners, whether debtors, persons committed for trial, or convicts not sentenced to hard labour, if they have no means of subsisting themselves, and must, if discharged, either labour for their livelihood or apply for parochial relief, it seems unfair to society at large, and especially to those who maintain themselves by honest indusselves to imprisonment, should be lodged, and clothed, and fed, try, that those who, by offending the laws, have subjected themwithout being called upon for the same exertions which others have to use to obtain such advantages.'-Headlam, pp. 23, 24. Now nothing can be more unfair than to say that such men have offended the laws. That is the very question to be tried, whether they have offended the laws or not? It is merely because this little circumstance is taken for granted that we have any quarrel at all with Mr. Headlam and his school. sequently, to be deprived of his liberty: but if he has been in the habit of labouring for his bread before his commitment, being called upon to work for his subsistence in prison.there does not appear to be any addition to his misfortune in Headlam, p. 24. But punishments are not merely to be estimated by pain to the limbs, but by the feelings of the mind. Gentlemen punishers are apt to forget that the com'I can make,' says Mr. Headlam, 'every delicate consideramon people have any mental feelings at all, and think, tion for the rare case of a person perfectly innocent being if body and belly are attended to, that persons under committed to jail on suspicion of crime. Such person is descr a certain ncome have no right to likes and dislikes. vedly an object of compassion, for having fallen under circun The labour of the treadmill is irksome, dull, monoto-stances which subject him to be charged with crime, and, connous, and disgusting to the last degree. A man does not see his work, does not know what he is doing, what progress he is making; there is no room for art, contrivance, ingenuity, and superior skill-all which are the cheering circumstances of human labour. The husbandman sees the field gradually subdued by And yet Mr. Headlam describes this very punishthe plough; the smith beats the rude mass of iron by ment, which does not add to the misfortunes of an indegrees into its meditated shape, and gives it a medi-nocent man, to be generally disagreeable, to be dull, irktated utility; the tailor accommodates his parallelo-some, to excite a strong dislike, to be a dull, monotonous gram of cloth to the lumps and bumps of the human labour, to be a contrivance which connects the idea of body, and, holding it up, exclaims, This will contain discomfort with a jail. (p. 36.) So that Mr. Headlam the lower moiety of an human being.' But the treader looks upon it to be no increase of an innocent man's does nothing but tread; he sees no change of objects. misfortunes, to be constantly employed upon a dull. admires no new relation of parts, imparts no new qual- irksome, monotonous labour, which excites a strong ities to matter, and gives to it no new arrangements dislike, and connects the idea of discomfort with a jail. and positions; or, if he does, he sees and knows it not, We cannot stop, or stoop to consider, whether beating but is turned at once from a rational being, by a justice hemp is more or less dignified than working in a mill. of peace, into a primum mobile, and put upon a level The simple rule is this,-whatever felons do, men not with a rush of water or a puff of steam. It is impos- yet proved to be felons should not be compelled to do. sible to get gentlemen to attend to the distinction be. It is of no use to look into laws become obsolete by tween raw and roasted prisoners, without which all alteration of manners. For these fifty years past, and discussion on prisoners is perfectly ridiculous. No- before the invention of treadmills, untried men were thing can be more excellent than this kind of labour not put upon felons' work; but with the mill came in the mischief. Mr. Headlam asks, How can men be employed upon the ancient trades in a prison ?-certainly they cannot; but are human occupations so few, and is the ingenuity of magistrates and jailers so limited, that no occupations can be found for innocent men, but those which are shameful and odious? Does Mr. Headlam really believe, that grown up and bap *Mr. Headlam, as we understand, would extend this labour to all poor prisoners before trial, in jails which are delivered twice a year at the assizes, as well as to houses of correction delivered four times a year at the Sessions; i.c. not to extend the labour, but to refuse all support to those who refuse the labour-a distinction, but not a difference. tised persons are to be satisfied with such arguments, or repelled by such difficulties.? It is some compensation to an acquitted person, that the labour he has gone through unjustly in jail has taught him some trade, given him an insight into some species of labour in which he may hereafter improve himself; but Mr. Headlam's prisoner, after a verdict of acquittal, has learnt no other art than of walking up hill; he has nothing to remember or recompense him but three months of undeserved and unprofitable torment. The verdict of the jury has pronounced him steady in his morals; the conduct of the justices has made him stiff in his joints. the reflection that his family are existing upon a precarious parish support, that his little trade and pro perty are wasting, that his character has become in famous, that he has incuried ruin by the malice of others, or by his own crimes, that in a few weeks he is to forfeit his life, or be banished from every thing he loves upon earth. This is the improved situation, and the redundant happiness which requires the penal circumvolutions of the justice's mill to cut off so unjust a balance of gratification, and bring him a little nearer to what he was before imprisonment and accusation. It would be just as reasonable to say, that an idle man in a fever is better off than a healthy man who is well and earns his bread. He may be better off if you look to the idleness alone, though that is doubtful; but is he better off if all the aclies, agonies disturbances, deliriums, and the nearness to death, are added to the lot? Mr. Headlam's panacea for all prisoners before trial, is the treadmill: we beg his pardon-for all poor pri soners; but a man who is about to be tried for his life, often wants all his leisure time to reflect upon his defence. The exertions of every man within the walls of a prison are necessarily crippled and impaired. What can a prisoner answer who is taken hot and reeking from the treadmill, and asked what he has to say in his defence; his answer naturally is- I have been grinding corn instead of thinking of my de. fence, and have never been allowed the proper leisure to think of protecting my character and my life.' This is a very strong feature of cruelty and tyranny in the mill. We ought to be sure that every man has had the fullest leisure to prepare for his defence, that his mind and body have not been harassed by vexatious and compulsory employment. The public purchase, at a great price, legal accuracy, and legal talent, to accuse a man who has not, perhaps, one shilling to spend upon his defence. It is atrocious cruelty not to leave him full leisure to write his scarcely legible letters to his witnesses and to use all the melancholy and feeble means which suspected poverty can employ for its defence against the long and heavy arm of power. But it is next contended by some persons, that the poor prisoner is not compelled to work, because he has the alternative of starving, if he refuses to work. You take up a poor man upon suspicion, deprive him of all his usual methods of getting his livelihood, and then giving him the first view of the treadmill, he of the quorum thus addresses him :- My amiable friend, we use no compulsion with untried prisoners. You are free as air till you are found guilty; only it is my duty to inform you, as you have no money of your own, that the disposition to eat and drink which you have allowed you sometimes feel, and upon which I do not mean to cast any degree of censure, cannot possibly be gratified but by constant grinding in this machine. It has its inconveniences, I admit; but balance them against the total want of meat and drink, and decide for yourself. You are perfectly at liberty to make your choice, and I by no means wish to influence your judgment.' But Mr. Nicoll has a curious remedy for all this miserable tyranny; he says it is not meant as a punishment. But if I am conscious that I never have committed the offence, certain that I have never been found guilty of it, and find myself tossed into the middle of an infernal machine, by the folly of those who do not know how to use the power entrusted to them, is it any consolation to me to be told, that it is not intended as a punishment, that it is a lucubration of justices, a new theory of prison discipline, a valuable county experiment going on at the expense of my arms, legs, back, feelings, character, and rights? We must tie those prægustant punishers A prisoner, upon the system recommended by Mr. down by one question. Do you mean to inflict any Headlam, is committed, perhaps at the end of August., degree of punishment upon persons merely for being and brought to trial the March following; and, after suspected? or at least any other degree of punish- all, the bill is either thrown out by the grand jury, or ment than that without which criminal justice cannot the prisoner is fully acquitted; and it has been found, exist, detention? If you do, why let any one out upon we believe, by actual returns, that, of committed pri bail? For the question between us is not, how suspec-soners, about a half are actually acquitted, or their ac ted persons are to be treated, and whether or not they are to be punished; but how suspected poor persons are to be treated, who want county support in prison. If to be suspected is deserving of punishment, then no man ought to be let out upon bail, but every one should be kept grinding from accusation to trial; and so ought all prisoners to be treated for offences not bailable, and who do not want the county allowance. And yet no grinding philosopher contends, that all suspec- | ted persons should be put in the mill-but only those who are too poor to find bail, or buy provisions. cusations dismissed by the grand jury. This may be very true, say the advocates of this system, but we know that many men who are acquitted are guilty. They escape through some mistaken lenity of the law, or some corruption of evidence; and as they have not had their deserved punishment after trial, we are not sorry they had it before. The English law says, better many guilty escape, than that one innocent man perish; but the humane notions of the mill are bottomed upon the principle, that all had better be punished lest any escape. They evince a total mistrust in the jurisprudence of the country, and say the results of trial are so uncertain, that it is better to punish all the prisoners before they come into court. Mr. Headlam forgets that general rules are not beneficial in each individual instance, but beneficial upon the whole; that they are preserved because they do much more good than harm, though in some particular instances they do more harm than good; yet no respectable man violates them on that account, but holds them sacred for the great balance of advantage they confer upon mankind. It is one of the greatest crimes, for instance, to take away the life of a man; yet there are many It is very untruly stated, that a prisoner, before men whose death would be a good to society, rather trial, not compelled to work, and kept upon a plain than an evil. Every good man respects the property diet, merely sufficient to maintain him in health, is of others; yet to take from a worthless miser, and to better off than he was previous to his accusation; and give it to a virtuous man in distress, would be an adit is asked, with a triumphant leer, whether the situa- vantage. Sensible men are never staggered when they tion of any man ought to be improved, merely because see the exception. They know the importance of the he has become an object of suspicion to his fellow-rule, and protect it most eagerly at the very moment creatures? This happy and fortunate man, however, when it is doing more harm than good. The plain rule is separated from his wife and family; his liberty is of justice is, that no man should be punished till he is taken away; he is confined within four walls; he has found guilty; but because Mr. Headlam occasionally If there are, according to the doctrines of the millers, to be two punishments, the first for being suspected of committing the offence, and the second for committing it, there should be two trials as well as two punishments. Is the man really suspected, or do his accusers only pretend to suspect him? Are the suspecting of better character than the suspected? Is it a light suspicion which may be atoned for by grinding a peck a day? Is it a bushel case? or is it one deeply criminal, which requires the flour to be ground fine enough for French rolls? But we must put an end to such absurdities. sees a bad man acquitted under this rule, and sent out unpunished upon the world, he forgets all the general good and safety of the principle are debauched by the exception, and applauds and advocates a system of prison discipline which renders injustice certain, in order to prevent it from being occasional. Prison discipline is an object of considerable im portance; but the common rights of mankind, and the common principles of justice, and humanity, and liberty, are of greater consequence even than prison disciplíne. Right and wrong, innocence and guilt, must not be confounded, that a prison-fancying justice The meaning of all preliminary imprisonment is, may bring his friend into the prison and say, 'Look that the accused person should be forthcoming at the what a spectacle of order, silence, and decorum we time of trial. It was never intended as a punishment. have established here! no idleness, all grinding!—we Bail is a far better invention than imprisonment, in produce a penny roll every second-our prison is supcases where the heavy punishment of the offence posed to be the best regulated prison in Englandwould not induce the accused person to run away from Cubitt is making us a new wheel of forty felon power any bail. Now, let us see the enormous difference-look how white the flour is, all done by untried prithis new style of punishment makes between two soners-as innocent as lambs! If prison discipline men, whose only difference is, that one is poor and is to supersede every other consideration, why are the other rich. A and B are accused of some bailable pennyless prisoners alone to be put into the mill be offence. A has no bail to offer, and no money to sup- fore trial? If idleness in jails is so pernicious, why port himself in prison, and takes, therefore, his four not put all prisoners in the treadmill, the rich as wel or five months in the treadmill. B gives bail, appears as those who are unable to support themselves? Why at his trial, and both are sentenced to two months' are the debtors left out? If fixed principles are to be imprisonment. In this case, the one suffers three given up, and prisons turned into a plaything for ma times as much as the other for the same offence: but gistrates, nothing can be more unpicturesque than to suppose A is acquitted and B found guilty-the inno- see one-half of the prisoners looking on, tak ng, cent man has then laboured in the treadmill five gaping, and idling, while their poorer brethren ale months because he was poor, and the guilty man grinding for dinners and suppers. labours two months because he was rich. We are aware that there must be, even without the treadmill, a great and an inevitable difference between men (in pari delicto,) some of whom can give bail, and some not; but that difference becomes infinitely more bitter and objectionable, in proportion as detention before trial assumes the character of severe and degrading punishment. It is a very weak argument to talk of the prisone:s earning their support, and the expense to a county of maintaining prisoners before trial-as if any rational man could ever expect to gain a farthing by an expensive mill, where felons are the moving power, and justices the superintendents, or as if such a trade must not necessarily be carried on at a great loss. If it were just and proper that prisoners, before trial, If motion in the treadmill was otherwise as fasci- should be condemned to the mill, it would be of no nating as millers describe it to be, still the mere de- consequence whether the county gained or lost by gradation of the punishment is enough to revolt every the trade. But the injustice of the practice can never feeling of an untried person. It is a punishment con- be defended by its economy; and the fact is, that it secrated to convicted felons—and it has every cha- increases expenditure, while it violates principle. We racter that such punishment ought to have. An un-are aware, that by leaving out repairs, alterations, tried person feels at once, in getting into the mill, and first costs, and a number of little particulars. a that he is put to the labour of the guilty; that a mode very neat account, signed by a jailer, may be made of employment has been selected for him, which ren- up, which shall make the mill a miraculous combinaders him infamous before a single fact or argument tion of mercantile speculation and moral improvehas been advanced to establish his guilt. If men are ment; but we are too old for all this. We accuse noput into the treadmill before trial, it is literally of no body of intentional misrepresentation. This is quite sort of consequence whether they are acquitted or out of the question with persons so highly respectable; not. Acquital does not shelter them from punish- but men are constantly misled by the spirit of system, ment, for they have already been punished. It does and egregiously deceive themselves-even very good not screen them from infamy, for they have already and sensible men been treated as if they were infamous; and the association of the treadmill and crimes is not to be got over. This machine flings all the power of juries into the hands of the magistrate, and makes every simple commitment more terrible than a conviction; for, in a conviction, the magistrate considers whether the offence has been committed or not; and does not send the prisoner to jail unless he thinks him guilty; but in a simple commitment, a man is not sent to jail because the magistrate is convinced of his guilt, but because he thinks a fair question may be made to a jury whether the accused person is guilty or not. Still, however, the convicted and the suspected both go to the same mill; and he who is there upon the doubt, grinds as much flour as the other whose guilt is established by a full examination of conflicting evidence. Where is the necessity for such a violation of common sense and common justice? Nobody asks for the idle prisoner before trial more than a very plain and moderate diet. Offer him, if you please, some labour which is less irksome, and less infamous than the treadmill-bribe him by improved diet, and a share of the earnings; there will not be three men out of an hundred who would refuse such an invitation, and spurn at such an improvement of their condition. A little humane attention and persuasion, among men who ought, upon every principle of justice, to be considered as innocent, we should have thought much more consonant to English justice, and to the feelings of English magistrates, than the rack and wheel of Cubitt. Mr. Headlam compares the case of a prisoner before trial, claiming support, to that of a pauper claiming relief from his parish. But it seems to us that no two cases can be more dissimilar. The prisoner was no pauper before you took him up, and deprived him of his customers, tools, and market. It is by your act and deed that he is fallen into a state of pauperism; and nothing can be more preposterous, than first to make a man a pauper, and then to punish him for being so. It is true, that the apprehension and deten tion of the prisoner were necessary for the purposes of criminal justice; but the consequences arising from this necessary act cannot yet be imputed to the pri soner. He has brought it upon himself, it will be urged; but that remains to be seen, and will not be known till he is tried; and till it is known you have no right to take it for granted, and to punish him as if it were proved. There seems to be in the minds of some gentlemen a notion, that when once a person is in prison, it is of little consequence how he is treated afterwards. The tyranny which prevailed, of putting a person in a par ticular dress before trial, now abolished by act of Parliament, was justified by this train of reasoning:The man has been rendered infamous by imprison ment. He cannot be rendered more so, dress him a you will. His character is not rendered worse by the treadmill, than it is by being sent to the place where the treadmill is at work. The substance of this way of thinking is, that when a fellow-creature is in the reviewing the pamphlet and system of a gentleman remarkable for the urbanity of his manners, and the mildness and hu * It is singular enough, that we use these observations in manity of his disposition. |