‘ 
1824. ] 
claims our attention. Being a national 
edifice, the architect, builder, and sub- 
ordinates, took care to render it well 
worthy of the country, by the most 
complete, munificent, and even elegant 
arrangements for the internal economy 
of the inmates : the cost of it has been 
estimated at from 700/. to 90‘Z. per 
head, supposing the prison to be oc- 
cupied with the full complement of the 
establishment ! 
This, it must be confessed, is truly 
characteristic of our national generosity. 
For the unfortunate culprits who are 
destined to “keep their terms” in one 
of the 7097. halls of this elegant col- 
lege-haye, in most cases, emerged from 
the half-crown_ attics of St. Giles or 
St. Lukes, previous to the probationary 
examination in a certain hall in the Old 
Bailey. There is however one draw- 
back on the enjoyments of the inmates 
of this mansion, a fatal one in some 
cases, and that ‘is the chance of not 
surviving the period of confinement. 
This fact was discovered before twelve 
months had elapsed from the first 
occupation of tke building; and from 
that time to the present, medical 
consultations have been held, and va- 
rious measures devised, to obtain a re- 
medy for that which is in its nature an 
irremediable evil—the constant exhala- 
tions of stagnant water, or marsh mi- 
asmata. In order to obviate, as far as 
possible, the insalubrity of the air, Mr. 
Faraday, the able chemical assistant at 
the Royal Institution, was deputed 
some months back to ‘superintend the 
ventilation, or rather the fumigation of 
the apartments with chlorine gas. That 
this gas possesses the property of de- 
‘stroying, or uniting with the \gaseous 
matter, which produces contagion, has 
been long known and successfully prac- 
tised by the French chemists. And as a 
temporary remedy for purifying the air 
of any apartments in hospitals, prisons, 
or ‘ships, if merits attention. But then 
its’ effect can only be transient: the 
carbonaceous, | alkaline, or whatever 
other substance exists in a depraved at- 
mosphere, may be supposed to be rea- 
dily condensible by so powerful an 
agent as chlorine gas; but after the fu- 
-migating process is over, and the at- 
mospheric : air re-admitted to such apart- 
‘ments, it is evident that any miasma 
‘held in suspension in such an atmos- 
phere will again prevail; and will most 
‘assuredly hot diminish in its deleterious 
agency, by remaining enclosed in the 
apartments of any building. 
Milbank Penitentiary. 
311 
The real nature of marsh miasmata, 
or a€rial poison is indeed but little un- 
derstood ;* its action is not susceptible 
either .of chemical examination, or pa- 
thological demonstration,,, And as this 
morbific matter. ot ma/-aria is uniformly 
most prevalent in low or marshy dis- 
tricts, where a large quantity of vege- 
table substances and stagnant water 
exist, in conjunction, it is quite natural 
to ascribe the origin of the evil to the 
locality of the surface, by disengaging a 
large portion of noxious gases. 
Yet it would be absurd to imagine 
that the purification of a mite of apart- 
ments. by chemical. means would have 
anything more than a temporary effect. 
It must be admitted that. many marshy 
districts are capable of having the at- 
mosphere somewhat ,ameliorated by 
draining ; or in other words, by dividing 
the surface between actual water-drains 
and _dry-land, instead _ of allowing it 
to remain in a state of quagmire, half 
wet, half dry ; but it is equally obvious, 
that nothing short of absolute folly, or 
something Tess excusable, could induce 
any individual or board of individuals, 
to select such a spot for the erection of 
a permanent building, which building 
should cost the country above half a 
million sterling, and be destined for the 
permanent residence of aboye a thou- 
sand human beings. The site of the 
House of Correction, Coldbath-fields, 
‘is far from being desirable, owing to the 
filthy rivulet adjacent, called the Fleet- 
brook, or ditch; but the site on which 
the Penitentiary is erected is infinitely 
worse. It is below the general level of 
the adjacent district, and consequently 
can never admit of draining effectually. 
It is probable that eventually it will be 
found advisable to abandon the building 
altogether, at least for its present pur- 
poses ; 
* The best observations the, writer has 
met with on this. interesting subject was in 
a work where it could have been least ex- 
pected, a late article, headed “ Mal-aria,” 
in the Quarterly, Review !—If the learned 
writer of that article, in referring to the 
Pontine marshes, the swamps of Holland, 
the’ marshes of ‘Essex! and Lincoln, &c., 
had ‘extended: his “views to the swamps of 
Milbank and its vicinity, he would: have 
“brought the subject more hometo the com- 
. prehension of many of his readers.’ The well 
_ known, principles,of that, work,,. however, 
_ not being, favourable to home, researches, may 
perhaps account, for, the, author, haying left 
us quite in the dark with regard to the mal- 
aria of the home department, 
