[98]. It is to be feared that grand juries will discontinue their salutary custom of visiting the prisons, in consequence of a recent decision that they have no right to demand admission. As the propriety of their inspection is generally granted, we may venture to hint a wish that some enactment may pass on this subject, and that the temporary political objection, arising out of the seclusion of state prisoners, may not be permitted to operate as a general and permanent obstacle. It is to the zeal of individuals in tracing abuses, rather than to legislative enactment for their prevention, that we look for the still necessary improvements of our prison discipline; for no government, however vigilant, can guard against the secret misconduct of its obscurer agents; all it can do, is to encourage enquiry, whenever the first hint of delinquency or even of suspicion is communicated. The subject is now under legislative consideration, and we may therefore hope that a due system may be adopted, one which shall equally steer clear of the wasteful expenditure of the Millbank Penitentiary, and the enormities imputed to Ilchester: that prisons may be made places of confinement, coercion, and punishment; but not of torture, contagion, and despair.
The improvement in morals, order, and cleanliness introduced into some prisons by the exertions of a benevolent individual (Mrs. Fry) deserves our notice; her attention indeed has been mainly directed to the mental and religious instruction of female prisoners, but this mental improvement is not without its effect on their bodily health; order, temperance, and cleanliness, will always produce a physical as well as moral improvement on the minds and persons of the lower orders.
[99]. A similar calamity occurred in Dublin in 1776, when the sheriff, several counsellors, and others, fell victims to this disease. Gents. Mag. The death of the late Judge Osborne also is attributed to an ill-ventilated court.
[100]. The law does not appear to have made any sufficient provision for the (not improbable) contingency of a highly infectious disorder breaking out in any prison, yet it is evidently unjust that a prisoner for a debt of one shilling! or any other sum, should be exposed to the hazard of his life by remaining in contact with the infected, (see Buxton’s Inquiry.) Formerly the writ of Habeas Corpus was granted on such occasions, but abuses having arisen it was ultimately referred to the judges to consider the legality of this application of the writ, who decided against it; adding, however, that in case of great infection some house in some good town might be assigned for the warden of the Fleet, and the like for the marshal of the King’s Bench, where they might keep their prisoners sub arcta et salva custodia. Hutt. 129. But query, how far this course would be applicable to other prisons?
[101]. The learned Jacob Bryant lost his life from mortification in his leg, originating in the slight circumstance of a rasure against a chair, in the act of reaching a book from a shelf.
[102]. See “An account of a case of recovery, after an extraordinary accident, by which the shaft of a chaise had been forced through the thorax.” by William Maiden; London, 1812.
[103]. Memoires de l’Acad. Royale. 1705.
[104]. Med. Polit. P. 1. C. 1.
[105]. Hebenstreit observes that if a man is wounded by two different persons, one of whom stabs in the side, the other in the belly, it becomes necessary after death to ascertain of which wound the deceased died, in order that the actual murderer may be punished. By the law of England this question can never arise.
[106]. The bites of venomous animals will be considered under the head of Poisons.