1810.]} Report on the Improvements of the City Prisons. es) 
female in the place calculated for one 
hundred and ten only; but we, your Sub 
committee, experience a considerable dif- 
ficulty in recommending an enlarge- 
ment of that part of the prison as it Is at 
present constituted, notwithstanding they 
feel that every accommodation consistent 
with the nature of a prison ovght to be 
afforded to that description of prisoners 
who, (as sir Richard Phillips has expressed 
in his publication) “ having broken no 
moral law, most of them victims of mis- 
fortunes, and many of them confined 
for exceedingly small debts, depressed 
by want and every privation, are thus 
thrown together without, regard to their 
difference of education, to their various 
habits of life, or to their degrees of reli- 
gious or moral fecling.” But impressed 
with this conviction, we are strongly in- 
duced to recommend a separate prison 
to be provided for the exclusive confine- 
ment of debtors, and the whole of New- 
gate being appropriated for the impri- 
sonment of criminals, by which we have 
every reason to’ hope those inconve- 
nieces and dangers which are to be apr 
prehended from a crowded goal would 
be removed; and, feeling the great im- 
propriety and injustice of placing per- 
sons committed to take their trial on 
Suspicion only of offences, with prisoners 
who have been convicted, and of allows 
ing that general and uninterrupted inter- 
course between them which may tend 
to the total corruption of the morals of 
the former, and to the annihilation of 
any good principles that may yet be 
Jeft within them, and cannot be attended 
with any beneficial purpose whatsoever, 
we conceive by this means, those priso- 
ners who are brought there previous to 
taking their trials might be kept separate 
from those felons who have been con- 
victed, and are suffering the sentence of 
the law. 
We also feel with extreme concern, 
the practice of putting irons indiscri- 
minately on all prisoners committed to 
the custody of the keeper of Newgate, 
previously to their taking their trial and 
being convicted, and which at times 
must fall on persons who are perfectly 
innocent of the offences with which they 
are charged, and must greatly distress 
their minds and aggravate the misery of 
a confinement in a goal; but we, your 
Committee, have to lament that from 
the representation of the keeper, and the 
most serious considera'ion we have been 
enabled to give the subject, they cannot 
altogether be dispensed with under the 
present regulations of the goal of New- 
gate. 
Whilst it appears on one hand that 
irons are deemed absolutely indispensable 
for the security of prisoners in Newgate, 
and on the other side it is evidently an 
excessive hardship to put prisoners in 
irons on their commitinent, who may, 
afterwards prove innocent of the offence 
charged against them, the only altera=: 
tions seen to be either to exclude visitors 
entirely from the prisoners, or to con- 
tinue the present system. of irons. ‘The: 
Committee conceive that the former 
would be inconsistent with every prin- 
ciple of humanity or justice, and might 
deprive the prisoners of the consolation. 
of seeing their dearest friends or rela- 
tions, or of taking such measures as may 
be necessary for their defence in the 
event of their trial; and as irons, they 
fear, must be resorted to, they ought im 
all cases of commitment to be of. the: 
lightest kind consistent with safe custody ; 
and that the keepers stall in no instance 
double-iron that description of prisoner, 
except in cases of outraye, or by the 
order of some one of the magistrates, or 
the sheriffs. 
That we beg leave further to report, 
that we observed several persons within 
the. prison, who were allowed by the 
sheriffs and the keeper to dispose of 
sundry articles, such as meat and green 
grocery, tothe prisoners; and having ins 
spected their several weights and scales, 
and tried them with those kept’ by the 
keeper, we found some of them not so 
correct as they ought to be; and do there- 
fore recommend that in future no scales 
be allowed to be used within the prison 
for the sale of necessaries to the prisoners, 
but ‘such as have been tried by the 
keeper, nor any weights without being 
regularly stampt, agreeably tolaw. That 
your Commnittee also fuund the prices of 
the necessaries were the same as without 
the prison, and no other advantage what- 
ever was obtained but a fair profit upon 
the articles disposed of; and that the 
beer, from which it was supposed a 
greater profit was made by the sale to 
the prisoners than ought to be, we found 
was sold at the gate at the same price 
as without the prison, and that the al- 
lowance to the person who superintended 
the sale of it, was made by the publican 
who supplied the beer under the direc 
tions of the sheriffs. 
That having taken into consideration 
the present fees received by the keeper 
of Newgate, and finding no alteration 
has 
