millions, of which, twenty thoufand is the threehundredth part. What fhall we say of the humanity or the wisdom of a nation, that voluntarily facrifices one in every three hundred to lingering deftruction!

The misfortunes of an individual do not extend their influence to many; yet if we confider the effects of confanguinity and friendship, and the general reciprocation of wants and benefits, which make one man dear or neceffary to another, it may reasonably be supposed, that every man languishing in prifon gives trouble of fome kind to two others who love or need him. By this multiplication of misery we see distress extended to the hundredth part of the whole fociety.

If we estimate at a fhilling a day what is loft by the inaction and confumed in the fupport of each man thus chained down to involuntary idleness, the publick lofs will rife in one year to three hundred thoufand pounds; in ten years to more than a fixth part of our circulating coin.

I am afraid that those who are best acquainted with the state of our prifons, will confefs that my conjecture is too near the truth, when I suppose that the corrosion of refentment, the heavinefs of forrow, the corruption of confined air, the want of exercise, and sometimes of food, the contagion of diseases, from which there is no retreat, and the feverity of tyrants, against whom there can be no refiftance, and all the complicated horrors of a prison, put an end every year to the life of one in four of thofe that are fhut up from the common comforts of human

Thus perish yearly five thousand men, overborne with forrow, confumed by famine, or putrified by filth; many of them in the moft vigorous and useful part of life; for the thoughtless and imprudent are commonly young, and the active and bufy are feldom old.

According to the rule generally received, which fuppofes that one in thirty dies yearly, the race of man may be faid to be renewed at the end of thirty Who would have believed till now, that of years. every English generation, an hundred and fifty thoufand perish in our gaols! that in every century, a nation eminent for fcience, ftudious of commerce, ambitious of empire, fhould willingly lofe, in noifome dungeons, five hundred thousand of its inhabitants; a number greater than has ever been destroyed in the fame time by the peftilence and sword!

A very late occurrence may fhew us the value of the number which we thus condemn to be useless; in the re-establishment of the trained bands, twenty thousand are confidered as a force fufficient against all exigences. While, therefore, we detain twenty thousand in prison, we fhut up in darkness and useleffnefs two-thirds of an army which ourfelves judge equal to the defence of our country.

The monaftick inftitutions have been often blamed, as tending to retard the increase of mankind. And perhaps retirement ought rarely to be permitted, except to those whofe employment is confiftent with abftraction, and who, though folitary, will not be idle; to those whom infirmity makes ufelefs to the commonwealth, or to those who have paid their due proportion to fociety, and who, having lived for

others,

others, may be honourably difmiffed to live for themfelves. But whatever be the evil or the folly of these retreats, thofe have no right to cenfure them whose prifons contain greater numbers than the monafteries of other countries. It is, furely, lefs foolish and lefs criminal to permit inaction than compel it; to comply with doubtful opinions of happiness, than condemn to certain and apparent mifery; to indulge the extravagances of erroneous piety, than to multiply and enforce temptations to wickedness.

The mifery of gaols is not half their evil: they are filled with every corruption which poverty and wickedness can generate between them; with all the fhameless and profligate enormities that can be produced by the impudence of ignominy, the rage of want, and the malignity of despair. In a prison the awe of the publick eye is loft, and the power of the law is fpent; there are few fears, there are no blushes. The lewd inflame the lewd, the audacious harden the audacious. Every one fortifies himself as he can against his own fenfibility, endeavours to practise on others the arts which are practised on himself; and gains the kindness of his affociates by fimilitude of manners.

Thus fome fink amidst their mifery, and others furvive only to propagate villany. It may be hoped, that our lawgivers will at length take away from us this power of ftarving and depraving one another; but, if there be any reason why this inveterate evil fhould not be removed in our age, which true policy has enlightened beyond any former time, let those, whose writings form the opinions and the practices of their contemporaries, endeavour to

transfer

transfer the reproach of fuch imprisonment from the debtor to the creditor, till univerfal infamy fhall pursue the wretch whose wantonnefs of power, or revenge of disappointment, condemns another to torture and to ruin; till he shall be hunted through the world as an enemy to man, and find in riches no fhelter from contempt.

Surely, he whofe debtor has perished in prifon, though he may acquit himself of deliberate murder, must at least have his mind clouded with difcontent, when he confiders how much another has fuffered from him; when he thinks on the wife bewailing her husband, or the children begging the bread which their father would have earned. If there are any made fo obdurate by avarice or cruelty, as to revolve, these consequences without dread or pity, I must leave them to be awakened by fome other power, for I write only to human beings.

NUMB. 39. SATURDAY, January 13, 1759,

SIR,

As

To the IDLER,

S none look more diligently about them than those who have nothing to do, or who do nothing, I fuppofe it has not escaped your obfervation, that the bracelet, or ornament of great antiquity, has been for fome years revived among the English ladies.

The genius of our nation is faid, I know not for what reason, to appear rather in improvement than invention. The bracelet was known in the earliest ages; but it was formerly only a hoop of gold, or a cluster of jewels, and fhewed nothing but the wealth or vanity of the wearer, till our ladies, by carrying pictures on their wrifts, made their ornaments works of fancy and exercises of judginent.

This addition of art to luxury is one of the innumerable proofs that might be given of the lage increase of female erudition; and I have often congra tulated myself that my life has happened at a time when those, on whom fo much of human felicity depends, have learned to think as well as speak, and when respect takes poffeffion of the ear, while love is entering at the eye.

I have obferved, that, even by the fuffrages of their own fex, thofe ladies are accounted wifeft, who do not yet disdain to be taught; and therefore I fhall

offer