HEREFORD JAIL. 53 



CHAPTER VIII. 



T1IE COUNTY JAIL. ENGLISH PRISON DISCIPLINE. THE PERFECTION OF THE 



PRESENT. EDUCATION AND TAXATION. WHAT NEXT ? CAPTAIN MACHONO 



CIIIE. THE MARK SYSTEM. THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF PUNISHMENT. 



A FTER breakfast, we visited the county prison. It is on 

 ** the plan of the celebrated Pentonville model prison, 

 near London, which is an improvement on what is called the 

 Philadelphia plan. Any of my readers who are much inter 

 ested in the great and most puzzling problem of prison disci 

 pline will be familiar with the elements of the last experiment 

 of the British Government upon the sad subject. 



This specimen of it at Hereford was all that could be 

 asked for in its way. Evidently, no skill in planning and no 

 expense in execution had been wanting to make it as perfect 

 as such a thing could be. 



We were first conducted through several long, light, and 

 airy corridors, upon which opened the well-ventilated sleeping- 

 cells of the prisoners each cell appearing the perfection of a, 

 cell, as if made to the order of some noble amateur rascal, 

 in the most complete and finished style which would be ap 

 propriate to an apartment with that designation : the walls of 

 plain hewn stone, but white as bishop s lawn ; the floor damp- 

 proof, of asphalte ; the bedstead of iron, the bed of sufficiently 

 appropriate coarseness, snugly and neatly made up as if by 

 the joint labour of a tasteful upholsterer and a skilful laundress ; 



