1826, ] Leiter on Affairs in general, 533 
bours:, I cannot conceive a more jolie petite job, or a, more-convenient, 
than the one in question. The erection of four new churches will: cost, 
at least, the:sum of £250,000: out of which about £80,000, will. fall in 
the shape of profit. to, some ten or a dozen traders who are employed’ in 
the affair. Here is a pretty little fortune for Monsieur, the, architects 
A xound £5,000 for the furnisher of the stone. A. pretty picking for an 
ironmonger. A little slice for a plumberand glazier. Something con- 
siderable for the carpenter, bricklayer, and. ornamental furnisher. A sti- 
pend for Monszeur le Curé—and the parish pays for all! This is a mode 
ofi making trade among the “‘monied classes” (now the Government has 
contracts to. give away no longer), which ought not to be submitted 
to. And for the Mary-le-bonne job, [hope the expense of opposing a 
* private bill” will not deter the inhabitants of that parish from resisting it. 
The patent theatres are both open, but they have done nothing, very 
miraculous yet. Drury Lane has brought out “ The White Lady” (an 
opera), which was damned; and Covent Garden, ‘‘ The Green-room” 
(a. comedy), which deserved to be. Mr. Price, the speculator at Drury 
Lane, has returned at last from America, and brought a whole cargo of 
new actors along with him. But the late levies at that house have 
seemed to me (thus far) more remarkable for paucity of shirt, I am 
sorry to say, than redundancy of talent. 
_. The minor theatres one seldom goes near; but I should think Sadler’s 
Wells was doing but ill, for they advertise the house “to be let” twice 
a week for ‘* amateur performances!” In fact, they have never done any 
thing material at this house since it ceased to be “« The Aquatic.” They 
lost their bread when they gave up their water. 
A gentleman, who calls himself Mr, Rough, and exercises the calling 
of a schoolmaster, bas been writing a long series. of letters in the Morning 
Post upon the management of debtors’ prisons. Mr. Rough, it appears, 
has suffered incarceration, himself; and “ Musere sucurrere,”. §c.. com- 
plains, in close columns, of the barbarities in which the stronger prisoners 
there indulge themselves towards the weaker; and especially of an 
operation known familiarly by the name of “ Gooseing.”, ‘This ceremony 
is of two kinds, “diurnal gooseing” and ‘nocturnal gooseing’”—the 
latter the more severe; and it consists in the vigorous application of a 
strip, of blanket well knotted, something in the style of what the negroes 
comprehend. by the designation of the ‘* cow-skin”, to the back of any in- 
mate who may be priggish or refractory. And to do Mr. Rough justice, he 
is a genuine writer upon the subject. No person who reads will charge him 
(as Romeo charges the Friar), that he speaks of that which he does not feel. 
There is not a line (about ‘ Gooseing”) imprinted upon his page, which 
does not seem first to have been-marked upon his shoulders... The truth is, 
prisoners of all kinds are very difficult people to deal with ; for the same 
reason which makes it difficult (without the power of corporal punish- 
ment) to discipline soldiers ;—the minor inconveniences which other men 
become. subjected to for their sins, they are in the situation of being 
subjected,to ‘already. There is no use in fining a debtor, whose: pre- 
sence in gaol is evidence that he already owes more than he can pay. 
And. you cannot do much by threatening a man with imprisonment, 
who is locked, wp.already. At the same time, there is no equity in 
allowing the stronger rascal to maltreat the weaker, in a prison any 
more than any where, else: and solitary confinement—which is a weapon 
that the goaler. may constitutionally use—applied. vigourously and 
Inflexibly, has its value and effect. The mistake is in not administering 
