Prison labour, &c. : correspondence and communications addressed to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, concerning the introduction of tread-mills into prisons : with other matters connected with the subject of prison discipline / by Sir John Cox Hippisley.

  • Hippisley, John Cox, 1748-1825.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prison labour, &c. : correspondence and communications addressed to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, concerning the introduction of tread-mills into prisons : with other matters connected with the subject of prison discipline / by Sir John Cox Hippisley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    heard of, except from the contagious effects of concen- trated vice and moral ruin which they carried with them on their liberation. A few individuals occasionally interfered in former times, among whom it is impossible to forget the immortalized names of a Howard or of Hanway ;*—and an embodied assembly of characters of just renown for benevolence and comprehensive intelli- gence upon the subject have widely and most efficaciously taken it in hand in our own day ; and hence has arisen the Prison Discipline Society. This laudable association has, by its united exertions, and uplifted voice, and especially by the concurrent aid of Government, so far cleared and purified, and rendered tolerable the Augean Stable in which they have been at work, that the Public, who were completely with them in their first exertions, have, for some time, begun to apprehend that the act of benevolence has been carried somewhat too far; and that our hitherto foul and mise- rable prisons have been, at length, too much converted into abodes of comfortable ease, subsistence, and educa- tion : and, it cannot be denied that not a few of the more idle vagabonds that have been discharged from their walls have occasionally spoken of them in a very favourable light, and expressed no I'eluctance to return to them again. A considerable reaction in the public feeling has hence ensued ; the Legislature has been called upon to sanction * Though the efforts of the indefatigable and benevolent Han- way had been otherwise directed than in immediately exploring the pestilential recesses of the gaols and other prisons of his day> —yet, closely linked in congenial feeling and labours in the cause of suffering humanity, the memory of these inestimable men must be equally cherished, and is alike entitled to the gratitude of suc- ceeding generations.