Mr. Buxton is not deceived in this supposition; but if I am not in error, he is mistaken in supposing that to produce cheerful industry is the object of imprisonment in a penitentiary. Punishments are instituted not for the reformation of the offender, (although it is certainly desirable that they should be so administered, if possible, as to produce that effect) but for the protection of the public against offences, and to deter others from following the example of the individual who has drawn upon him the censure of the law.

The authors of the penitentiary system attempted to combine with this primary end of punishment, the creation of a better disposition in the criminal; but they contemplated for this purpose an establishment of a sterner aspect, and of a more severe character than a manufactory. The discipline by which their objects were to be accomplished, they have theinselves described in the 19th of the late King, as founded on " solitary imprisonment, accompanied by well regulated labor and religious instruction." Of solitary imprisonment, or that degree of seclusion which is calculated to produce a salutary effect on the mind of the prisoner, by separating him from his fellows, I suspect many of those who speak of penitentiaries make little account; religious instruction, I am persuaded, they would not intentionally undervalue, but they propose so to regulate their labor as very much to lessen the weight and importance of such instruction, and counteract its effect: it is indeed taking a low tone in morals, to measure the amendment of the heart by the amount or value of the work produced by the hands; it is confounding distinctions which ought to be kept far apart, to treat a good workman as a good man. assert, without fear of contradiction, that the prisoners whose labor is most productive in the penitentiary at Millbank, are not those whose behaviour entitles them to most consideration, or of whose eventual restoration, with credit, to society the chaplain entertains the most favorable expectation; yet these men are, according to the new doctrine of allowing offenders to have the immediate use of a portion of their earnings, to be a favored class of prisoners, to eat plenty of flesh meat, to purchase indulgences which others cannot command, to hold their heads high above their fellows, and acquire an undue consequence and influence in the prison by the favors they shall be enabled to bestow; while the prisoner, whose mind religious instruction has subdued to a proper sense of his situation, who has been brought by the chaplain to lay aside the angry feelings against his prosecutor, with which convicts too often come into confinement, to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, to take his own punishment patiently, and to do his endeavour to allay discontent and repress turbulence

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in others, provided he shall have no skill in manufacture, is to find, that in the penitentiary virtue is its own reward, is to be commended by the chaplain, and fed on low and spare diet.

In many cases this stimulus applied to labor would operate directly against religious instruction: our chaplain in the penitentiary is desired by our rules to make his arrangements with a view to the instruction of the prisoners in such manner as to interfere as little as possible with the hours of labor, but his discretion is not controlled by positive regulations on that head. He may order school during the hours of labor in any ward in which it shall appear to him to be necessary or proper, and whenever he directs any portion of the prisoners to be asssembled for examination in the chapel upon a week-day, during the winter season, it must be before the regular time of locking up for the night, since it would not be consistent with the safety of the prison, to conduct the prisoners to and from chapel after dark; at all events he must be in the constant habit of having such personal communication with prisoners in their cells in the day time, as will occasionally delay their work: but exactly in proportion to the degree of cheerful industry that shall have been excited by the prospect of the good dinner or supper which is to be the fruit of it, will be the dissatisfaction created by the interruption, by which that pleasing expectation is to be destroyed. If you stimulate men to activity by the hope of a better meal than the prison allowance, and then send the chaplain to deprive them of it by his conversation, can you believe that his admonition will be received with willing ears? I am afraid, that upon Mr. Buxton's own principles, the prisoner who shall see himself compelled by the entrance of the chaplain into his cell, to put down the unfinished shoe, or lay aside the half-made coat, on the speedy completion of which he depended for meat at his next meal, must be expected to be thinking more, while the chaplain shall stay with him, of the immediate loss of enjoyment occasioned by his visit, than of the benefit to be derived in future from his instruction or advice.

On the head of prisoner's earnings, it is moreover to be observed, that the amount of them in works of trade and manufacture, such as those of which we are now speaking, is a measure of the skill of the workman, rather than of his industry. Some prisoners will earn a good deal on their first coming into prison, while others, whose course of life has not led them to exercise any regular trade, or who have been used to different trades from those set up within the prison, with equal dispositions to be diligent, will find their labors very unproductive. I hope, that if ever the scheme of varying the food of offenders according to the produce of their exertions is to be adopted in the penitentiary at Millbank, some of the advocates for that measure will take care to furnish me with an answer to a convict who may have been a servant employed in a stable, or the driver of a hackney coach, or a glazier, or a locksmith, by whom I may be asked concerning the justice of letting. such of his fellow prisoners as were bred shoemakers and tailors, or weavers, eat their fill of meat before his eyes, and of debarring him and his companions above described from such food, because we have no horses to look after inthe prison, our windows happen to be unbroken, and we do not find it expedient to manufacture locks and keys. It is also among the inconveniences of making the food of the prisoner depend upon the quantum of his earnings, that when he has made sufficient progress in one branch of his trade, and should be taught another, that he may become master of the whole craft, the immediate effects of this change will be to lessen his food by diminishing his earnings; so that if he be very fond of the good meal, he will probably be slow in perfecting himself in the first operation of the trade or manufacture in which he is employed.

It is another objection against allowing offenders, confined by a judicial sentence within the walls of a prison, to spend a portion of their earnings while they remain there, that this practice introduces a degree of luxury, or at least of good living, among them, very inconsistent with the kind of imprisonment which the law intended them to undergo.' I cannot tell what it is intended to

It has been said, that the prisoners live too well already at the penitentiary at Millbank; and I have often been reproached with their being better fed than the laboring poor in some parts of the country: this fact, the truth of which I do not deny, being considered by many as a convincing proof that they are fed too well: I will therefore take this opportunity of offering an observation or two upon this head. There are, I fear, numbers of persons in this country, who wear clothes which are insufficient to protect them from the inclemency of the weather, or who are lodged in close and ill-ventilated apartments, or who inhabit damp and unwholesome situations, or are employed at noxious trades, or work at unseasonable hours, or are subject to other hardships or privations of the like nature; but I have never heard it contended, that these evils, from which it is not in our power to relieve other classes of the community, are on that account to be imposed upon prisoners. The food of persons confined for offences in a prison, as well as their clothing, lodging, and employment, must be regulated with a due regard to their health, (it not being intended to inflict sickness or disease as a part of their punishment,) and the dietary of a prison becomes therefore a medical question, connected with the circumstances of their particular situation, and not a question of comparison between them and persons in other places or conditions of life. Our dietary at Millbank was settled with the assistance of medical advice; if further experience or more knowledge of the subject should show that it is too good, there can be no reason why it should not be altered; but it ought not to be condemned upon reasoning which no person would think of applying to the treatment of prisoners in other respects. There is allow prisoners to purchase in addition to meat under the expressions "any other indulgences," in the sentence cited above, from Mr. Buxton's book, but I suspect the list of non-prohibited articles would not be a very short one. I know that fish is purchased in one of our best prisons; and in a house of correction, which has been considered as a model for those prisons in which a portion of earnings is to be delivered to the prisoner, tea and sugar are expressly included among the provisions in which his money may properly be expended. Where prisoners work by choice, it may be very right, and may constitute a proper distinction between them and prisoners of another description, to reward their industry by allowing them to dine at their own expense upon rump steaks, and solace themselves afterwards with tea, or with coffee, if they so please; but surely it is more fitting, that prisoners who perform work as a part of their punishment, should be sustained on the coarse parts of the beef and water gruel.

I do not think it necessary at present to consider the difficulties that would arise in the details of any plan for allowing prisoners to furnish themselves with meat, &c. in a penitentiary, because my objections go to the principle of such a measure; and I will therefore only observe upon that head here, that I do not see how it would be possible to give the prisoners the means of dressing their meat, or the other articles which they might so purchase,

more difficulty in fixing a dietary for a prison than may at first sight appear. We cannot ascertain the capacity of men's stomachs and appetites, as we can measure them for clothes; and if the same allowance is to be distributed to each, some will not have enough, unless more is given than what the wants of others may require. It should, moreover, be remembered, that a large proportion of the prisoners in the Millbank penitentiary are mechanics, or persons from great towns, who have been used to better fare than country laborers, and that the diet settled for them is to be continued during a long imprisonment, so that if it be too low, its influence must be severely felt. Of the two errors, however, of giving too much or too little, we were of course most on our guard against that which would have been most injurious in its consequences, and we are therefore not unlikely to have fallen into the mistake of being over liberal. But let the fixed dietary of a prison be ever so abundant, it cannot equal in indulgence the permission to a prisoner to purchase food for himself. I have heard it said by prisoners in the penitentiary, that they were not used to barley-broth, and did not like water-gruel. To this, those who would allow a prisoner to spend a portion of his earnings, would probably answer, (at least in the case of a skilful manufacturer, for how they would answer a bad workman I do not presume to conjecture,) "Make haste and finish the work you have in hand, and you may then cook what soup you please for yourself, instead of the barley-broth, (unless you prefer fish,) and may take your choice of tea or coffee in place of the water-gruel." In the penitentiary the prisoners were of course told, that they were not sent there to eat what they liked, but were to take what was provided for them, and should be thankful that it was wholesome in quality, and sufficient in quantity.

without abandoning the system of separate confinement, and giving up altogether the distinctive characteristic of a penitentiary.

It will, perhaps, be said, that with my views of this subject, I ought not to approve even of the setting aside a part of the offender's earnings, to be paid to him when he shall quit the prison; since the skilful workman will possess the same advantage in the amount of his gains, over the prisoner who shall only be industrious, whether they be carried to his account, or delivered to him for his immediate use. This is certainly the fact, but the advantage will not operate within the walls of the prison, it will not affect the treatment of the individual so long as he shall continue under punishment; and in case a very industrious prisoner shall appear to have but a small pittance to receive, when his account comes to be settled at the end of his confinement, those who manage the prison will have an opportunity of applying some remedy to this hardship (if it can be so considered), by giving him on his discharge a larger gratuity (keeping always within the limits laid down by Act of Parliament for the gratuities to discharged prisoners) than they would otherwise think it right to bestow; besides which, they may be induced, by his former diligence, to use great exertions to procure him a creditable situation. I do not, however, consider the appropriation of part of the prisoner's earnings to his future benefit, simply in the light of an encouragement to industry. It furnishes a fund to answer some expenses to which he may become liable during his imprisonment, such as the postage of letters, or any charge for damage done wilfully or by gross negligence, to any of the property of the prison; it is some security for his general good behaviour, being subject to be forfeited by misconduct, and it is useful to him on his discharge, by affording him the means of support till he can get into work. But its principal recommendation is, that it tends to form a very important moral habit, that of contemplating with satisfaction the gradual accumulation of petty earnings, a much better foundation for industry than the stimulus created by any sensual gratification.

Mr. Buxton very truly represents the offenders confined in the penitentiary as "creatures of present impulse, persons who have already sacrificed every thing to immediate gratification, and are imprisoned because they have so done;" as being "men of strong passions and little reflection;" but when he adds, "the present is uppermost with them, and to affect their minds you must hold out the temptation of speedy enjoyment," he is surely incorrect in his reasoning it should be our business rather to endeavour to weaken these passions, and to increase reflection, than to take this defective disposition as we find it, and even to strengthen its