the effects of its discipline have in every instance proved highly useful in decreasing the number of commitments; as many prisoners have been known to declare that they would sooner undergo any species of fatigue, or suffer any deprivation, than return to the house of correction, when once released.

The annexed engraving exhibits a party of prisoners in the act of working one of the tread wheels of the Discipline Mill, invented by Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, and recently erected at the House of Correction for the county of Surrey, situated at Brixton. The view is taken from a corner of one of the ten airing yards of the prison, all of which radiate from the Governor's house in the centre, so that from the window of his room, he commands a com

plete view into all the yards. A building behind the tread wheel shed is the mill house, containing the necessary machinery for grinding corn and dressing the flour, also rooms for storing it, &c. On the right side of this building a pipe passes up to the roof, on which is a large cast iron reservoir, capable of holding some thousand gallons of water, for the use of the prison. This reservoir is filled by means of forcing pump machinery below, connected with the principal axis which works the machinery of the mill: this axis or shaft passes under the pavement of the several yards, and working by means of universal joints, at every turn communicates with the tread wheel of each class.

The wheel, which is represented in the centre of the engraving, is exactly similar to a common water-wheel; the tread-boards upon its circumference are, however, of considerable length, so as to allow sufficient standing room for a row of from ten to twenty persons upon the wheel. Their weight, the first moving power of the machine, produces the greatest effect when applied upon the circumference of the wheel at or near the level of its axle: to secure, therefore, this mechanical advantage, a screen of boards is fixed up in an inclined position above the wheel, in order to prevent the prisoners from climbing or stepping up higher than the level required. A hand-rail is seen fixed upon this screen, by holding which they retain their upright position upon the revolving wheel; the nearest side of which is exposed to view in the plate, in order to represent its cylindrical form much more distinctly than could otherwise have been done. In the original, however, both sides are closely boarded up, so that the prisoners have no access to the interior of the wheel, and all risk of injury whatever is prevented.

By means of steps, the gang of prisoners ascend at one end, and when the requisite number range themselves upon the wheel, it commences its revolution. The effort, then, to every individual, is simply that of ascending an endless flight of steps, their combined weight acting upon every successive stepping board, precisely as a stream of water upon the float-boards of a water wheel.

During this operation, each prisoner gradually advances from the end at which he mounted towards the opposite end of the wheel, from the last man, taking his turn, descends for rest (see the plate) another prisoner immediately mounting as before to fill up the number required, without stopping the machine. The interval of rest may then be portioned to each man, by regulating the number

*The wheels erected at the House of Correction at Coldbath-fields, are each capable of containing forty or more prisoners, and the joint force of the prisoners is expended in giving motion to a regulating fly, which, by expanding itself in proportion to the power, will keep any number of men, from twenty to three hundred and twenty, at the same degree of

hard labour.

of those required to work the wheel with the whole number of the gang; thus if twenty out of twenty-four are obliged to be upon the wheel, it will give to each man intervals of rest amounting to twelve minutes in every hour of labour. Again, by varying the number of men upon the wheel, or the work inside the mill, so as to increase or diminish its velocity, the degree of hard labour or exercise to the prisoner may also be regulated. At Brixton, the diameter of the wheel being 5 feet, and revolving twice in a minute, the space stepped over by each man is 2193 feet, or 731 yards per hour.

As a

To provide regular and suitable employment for prisoners sentenced to hard labour, has been attended with considerable difficulty in many parts of the kingdom; the invention of the Discipline Mill has removed the difficulty, and it is confidently hoped, that as its advantages and effects become better known, the introduction of the mill will be universal in Houses of Correction. species of prison labour, it is remarkable for its simplicity. It requires no previous instruction; no taskmaster is necessary to watch over the work of the prisoners, neither are materials or instruments put into their hands that are liable to waste or misapplication, or subject to wear and tear; the internal machinery of the mill, being inaccessible to the prisoners, is placed under the management of skilful and proper persons, one or two at most being required to attend a process which keeps in steady and constant employment from ten to two hundred or more prisoners at one and the same time, which can be suspended and renewed as often as the regulations of the prison render it necessary, and which imposes equality of labour on every individual employed, no one upon the wheel being able, in the least degree, to avoid his proportion.

The arrangement of the wheels in the yards radiating from the Governor's central residence, places the prisoners thus employed under very good inspection, an object known to be of the utmost importance in prison management. At the Brixton House of Correction, with the exception of the very few confined by the casualties of sickness or debility, all the prisoners are steadily employed under the eye of the Governor during a considerable part of the day.

The classification, also, of the prisoners according to offences, &c. may be adhered to in the adoption of these discipline wheels; the same wheel or the same connected shafts can be easily made to pass into distinct compartments, in which the several classes may work in separate parties. In the prison from which the annexed drawing is taken, a tread-wheel is erected in each of the six yards, by which the inconvenience and risk of removing a set of prisoners from one part of the prison to another is obviated.

As the mechanism of these Tread Mills is not of a complicated nature, the regular employment they afford is not likely to be fre

quently suspended for want of repairs to the machinery: and should the supply of corn, &c. at any time fall off, it is not necessary that the labour of the prisoner should be suspended, nor can they be aware of the circumstance; the supply of hard labour may therefore be considered as almost unfailing.

With regard to the expense of these machines, it may be observed, that although their original cost may, in some instances appear heavy, the subsequent advantage from their adoption, in point of economy, is by no means inconsiderable, and it is derived in a manner which must be most satisfactory to those who have the important charge and responsible control of these public establishments, viz. from the diminution in the number of persons committed. Such have been the results already experienced at those prisons where this species of corrective discipline is enforced. The saving to the country (in consequence of the reduction in the number of criminals) in the public charges for their apprehension, committal, conviction and maintenance, cannot but be considerable.

It is unnecessary to occupy much time in proving the advantage which the invention of the Stepping Mill presents as a species of preventive punishment. Although but very recently introduced, and hitherto but sparingly brought into action, the effects of its discipline have in every instance proved eminently useful in decreasing the number of commitments. As a corrective punishment, the discipline of the Stepping Mill has had a most salutary effect upon the prisoners, and is not likely to be easily forgotton; while it is an occupation which by no means interferes with, nor is calculated to lessen the value of, those branches of prison regulation which provide for the moral and religious improvement of the criminal.

By a contrivance of machinery which we cannot here illustrate by a plate,

When the machinery of the mill has attained its proper speed, certain balls rise by their centrifugal force, so as to draw a box below the reach of a bell handle, which will then cease to ring a bell, placed in some convenient situation for the purpose. But should the men at the wheels cease to keep up the requisite speed in the mill work, the balls will descend, and a projecting pin on the box, striking the handle, placed in the propor situation for that purpose, will continue to ring the bell till they go on again properly; and, by this means, a certain check will be kept on the labourers, and the governor or task master apprized, even at a distance, that the full work is not performed.

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For the Port Folio.

ART. XI.—Memoirs of William Pinkney, Esq. (With a Portrait.) WILLIAM PINKNEY was born at Annapolis, in the state of Maryland, on the 17th March, in the year 1765. His extraordinary natural capacity was quickened and improved by a liberal education, in which his predilection for the classical writers of antiquity was conspicuous. At a suitable age, he was placed, as an apprentice, with a druggist in Baltimore. Here he was found by the late Judge Chase, who, discerning in some of his juvenile efforts, the promise of future excellence, proposed to him the study of that profession of which he was hereafter to become a brilliant ornament. His indentures were cancelled with great cheerfulness, by his employers, who found their gallipots neglected whenever a book presented its powerful attractions. To what extent the kindness of Mr. Chase was exercised, we are not able to state, but there is reason to believe that the obligations of Mr. Pinkney were of no ordinary description. With unwearied industry he cultivated the advantages of this invaluable patronage; and on his admission to the bar, in 1786, he was perhaps unrivalled in legal learning, and the more elegant embellishments of polite literature. In these luxuries he indulged to the latest period of his professional career; fascinating some by the richness of his diction, and delighting all by the variety and splendour of those illustrations, by which he enlivened the most elaborate arguments.

In our country, a seat in the legislature of the state, is one of the first steps, which is taken by a young man of ambition, in the career of fortune and fame. Accordingly, we soon find Mr. Pinkney adding to the business of expounding laws, the more important duty of framing them. He was one of the convention, which, on the part of his native state, adopted the present Constitution of the Union. He was a member of the legislature from the year 1789 until 1792, when he was promoted by that body, to a seat in the Executive council, Here he presided until the year 1795, when he was returned a delegate from Anne Arundel county.

In the year 1796, the British treaty was ratified by the president, notwithstanding the clamour which was excited against it,