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VOL. XIV. (2) WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 99 
and alteration ; and, as John Howard had lately published 
his book, the magistrates decided to carry out his recom- 
mendations, and~so they built this new portion on 
Howard’s plan ; that is, ours was the first prison in England 
to adopt his system. When the United States Commission 
returned, it reported that the Gloucester system was the 
best; and it accordingly became the model on which 
American prisons were established. But these alterations 
‘in Gloucester were not made without opposition. Thus, 
the only seat a prisoner had in his cell used to be a stone 
pillar four inches square at the top; and when we fixed a 
board on this a foot square, and warmed the cells in 
winter, there was an outcry that if we made prisons so 
comfortable as that, everybody would want to go into 
them, and crimes would increase as a result of the 
indulgence!” A merry smile lighted the old magistrate’s 
face as he recalled this pessimist prediction: and he then 
went on to say: “Many years after this the superiority 
of American prison management to that of most English 
jails was much talked of, and when Lord John Russell 
was Home Secretary—I think about 1836, (?) his Govern- 
ment sent a Commission to the United States to enquire 
into their systems. The result of this was that a circular 
was sent round to all the prisons in England, ordering us 
to carry out forty new rules. I was Chairman of the 
Magistrates here, and it devolved on me to acknowledge 
the receipt of this, which I did somewhat in this fashion: 
“My Lord—I have the honour—and so on. With respect 
to the forty new rules you order us to adopt, there will be 
no difficulty with thirty-six of them, inasmuch as they 
have always been the rules of Gloucester Prison. The 
thirty-seventh and thirty-eight are of no particular impor- 
tance; but we would respectfully state that we fear the 
last two are contrary to law; and we would suggest that 
before requiring us to enforce them, you would take the 
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