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The following extacts and illustrations are taken from a a book on Edinburgh Published in 1829, written and with illustrations by Thomas H. Shepherd. Frontispiece:-
Modern Athens! ------- ...P. 58... .the present building was erected in the year 1791, under the name of Bridewell. It is of what may be denominated the Bastille style of architecture, and was designed by the late celebrated Robert Adam. The expense attending its erection was defrayed by a county and city assessment, aided by a government grant of £5000. The body of the building is of semicircular form and the walls are perforated by a kind of loophole window. It consists of five floors. Part of the highest is used as a hospital , and the remainder as store-rooms. The exterior of the curves of the under floors contain the sleeping-closets, 134 in number, with a bed and bible in each. The interior portions of the curves are divided into 52 working parlours, or cages, furnished with implements suited to the capabilities of the occupants for the time being. These apartments are separated from the sleeping ones, by the semicircular lobbies which give access t both. By a kind of Venetian screen-work, the tenants of each cage are prevented from seeing what is passing in the other-while all of them are overlooked, from the window of a dark apartment towards the centre of the curve, from which the governor or his deputy, without being themselves very visible, can see at a glance what is doing in all parts of the house. The tread-mill has been lately introduced, and the old and more hardened offenders are now very effectually compelled to, take steps, for supporting themselves in the establishment. For ever climbing, without advancing in altitude, the labours of Sisyphus, and of the daughters of Danaus, are very painfully realised in their movements. So far their occupation may be considered classical-"Volvitur Ixion, et se sequiturque fugitque." But the wheel of Ixion does not appear to have been of the tread-mill description. The quality of the house diet is as inversely as the degree of labour- the highest commanding always the lowest fare. Great attention is paid to the cleanliness of the prisoner. When an entrant has passed through the required extent of ablution and been thereby raised to the requisite degree of purity, an account is, in favourable cases, opened with him. Labour to a certain modified extent is required of him the value of any surplus exertion being entered to his credit, and given to him on his departure. The moral and intellectual improvements of the inmates is not lost sight of. The house includes a chapel, in which service is regularly performed. "The schoolmaster too is abroad" I the establishment,- and the vice of the shuttle and of the Pedagogue are frequently heard together. The plan of the house, unfortunately, does not admit of sufficent attention being paid to the proper classification of the prisoners. Visitors are admitted by orders from the magistrates,
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