No irons are in use: prayers are read, and a sermon is preached on Sundays; Bibles are allowed to the prisoners. Each prisoner is allowed two pounds of bread daily. FALMOUTH. Town Gaol. Jan. 1824. THIS prison has not undergone any alteration since the former Report. The number of prisoners committed during the last year was seventeen; the greatest number at one time in confinement has been nine. The prison consists of two rooms, each about 10 feet square. The prisoners are supplied with food from the poor-house. No clothing is allowed. The beds are of straw, with one or two blankets. No fetters have been used for several years. No chaplain attends. THIS prison consists of four rooms, two of which are each about 11 feet square, and 10 feet high, and the other two are 16 feet by 11 feet, and 10 feet high. Each room has a window with a shutter to it. A chain fastened to the ground, in one of the rooms, is very rarely employed to restrain refractory prisoners. Excepting on particular occasions, when the number of prisoners does not admit of it, they have the advantage of separate rooms for the day and night; and they are occasionally allowed the use of an airing yard. As many as fifty persons have been confined here, for three or four days at a time, during the sessions, which occur but once a year: the females are at all times separated from the males. The number of prisoners committed during the last year has been about two hundred, including those confined for a single day or night. Straw and blankets are provided, but no clothing. Bread, water, tea, and a little meat, are allowed, for which the parish contracts with the town-sergeant, at one shilling per day, for each prisoner. There is no attendance of a chaplain. PENZANCE. Town Gaol. Jan. 1824. THIS small prison adjoins the town-hall and corn-market. It consists of two rooms, each 9 feet square, and 6 feet high. These rooms have two windows, fortified with iron gratings, and furnished with shutters, which the prisoners may close more or less, as they please. There is also a screen outside, to prevent communication with people in the street. Prisoners remain in the same room night and day. The allowance of food is the same as at the poor-house. Beds of straw and three blankets are provided for each room. No clothing is furnished. There is no attendance of a chaplain; but criminals are provided with Bibles by the corporation, when thought likely to be useful. Irons have not been used for several years. The number of prisoners at one time has not exceeded four; and the whole number of committals, during the last year, has been about twenty, mostly but for very short periods of confinement. CUMBERLAND. CARLISLE. County Gaol and House of Correction. May 1824. THE County gaol now erecting here is proceeding with activity. The governor's house, which is placed in the centre, of an octagonal form, is covered in, and the interior part will soon be completed. Two of the ranges of cells are nearly finished, and considerable progress is making with the others. The buildings are on the radiating plan, and will afford an opportunity for complete inspection into each of the separate yards from the governor's residence. About thirteen separate classes of prisoners will be provided for. Preparations are also making for the erection of a tread-mill; and a considerable portion of the high wall, which is to surround the exterior of the new part of the yards, is finished. Until the new prison be ready for the reception of prisoners, not much improvement can be adopted in their classification or employment. Excepting that a part of the prisoners are employed to break stones, for the roads in the neighbourhood, and that a hand crank-mill, to grind corn, has lately been introduced as a temporary expedient for employment, the prisoners are nearly under the circumstances in which they have been heretofore. There is no classification, excepting that the debtors are separated from the felons, and the males from the female felons and misdemeanants. The present high sheriff has evinced great interest for the introduction of religious and moral instruction amongst the prisoners, and has frequently visited the prison, accompanied by a clergyman, for this purpose. WHITEHAVEN. County House of Correction. May 1824. THE prisoners are divided into four classes-two for males and females committed for felony, and two for males and females committed for minor offences. The construction of the buildings does not admit of inspection. A few of the prisoners are occasionally employed in picking oakum; but the quantity of labour that can be procured is small, and the full amount of the earnings is given to the prisoners. The average of recommitments for the last two years has been 3 per cent. chiefly for felonies and misdemeanors. The number of criminals committed from the 19th of January, 1822, to the 12th of May, 1824, has been 212. Irons are sometimes used for prisoners charged with felony, and for others when refractory. The female prisoners are under the care of the governor's wife. DERBYSHIRE. DERBY. County Gaol and House of Correction. May 1824. THE boundary walls round the new prison, which enclose three acres of ground, were completed in the last year, as well as the foundation of the internal structures within those walls. The whole is expected to be occupied in the course of the next year, and will probably form one of the most complete prisons in England. The design is to provide separate departments for about twenty classes of prisoners, who will be under inspection from the central residence of the governor. In the present prison, as far as circumstances will admit, the regulations prescribed by the Act of the last sessions, have been adopted. The prisoners are divided into four classes, males and females, felons and debtors. The old gaol and house of correction, which are parts of the same building, were erected in 1756, and since that time have been but little altered. The felons have but one day-room, one airing-yard, and seven night-cells. There are no separate cells for condemned felons, nor any means of keeping them apart from each other, or of excluding them from conversation with the debtors and house of correction prisoners. The debtors and house of correction prisoners have the same airing-yard, and have intercourse with each other throughout the day. Their sleeping rooms are apart; but there are only two sleeping rooms for the house of correction prisoners. Four small rooms, in the building in which the keeper and his family reside, are appropriated for the day and sleeping apartments of female prisoners of every description; and they have a very small airing-yard, taken out of the airing-yard of the debtors and house of correction prisoners. The rooms belonging to the felons, house of correction prisoners, and debtors, admit of no inspection; and each of these classes has the means of communication with the others. A school-master attends regularly, and instruction in reading and writing is given to prisoners of both sexes who require it. Bibles and proper books are also supplied. The chaplain reads prayers daily, and twice on Sundays, when he also preaches a sermon. The employments within the prison are, for the male prisoners, breaking stones for the roads, and working machines for breaking flax; for the females, washing, knitting, and sewing. Out of the prison, nine men are now employed at the new building. These prisoners conduct themselses with perfect regularity and good order: in all respects they are equal to any other labourers, and appear to be very grateful for being thus employed. Eighteen-pence per week is allowed to each prisoner out of his earnings, for the purchase of meat; and when the prisoners leave the gaol, a certain part of their earnings is given to them, at the discretion of the visiting magistrates; the re mainder is applied to the county stock. This residue, in the last year amounted to £70. 12s. 7d. for the males, and £12. 10s. 10d. for the females. There is at present no mill, but the new prison will be furnished with a tread-mill. Irons are only used when attempts are made to escape. Crime is considerably diminished; a fact which is supposed to be occasioned by employment being plentiful and provisions cheap. The inferior The females are superintended by a matron. male officers employed in the prison are two turnkeys. The daily allowance of food to each prisoner is twenty-four ounces of good wheaten bread, sixteen ounces of potatoes, four ounces of oatmeal, and a quarter of an ounce of salt. New regulations, agreeably to Act 4 Geo. 4, were printed by order of the court of quarter sessions, held in March 1823. Number of Prisoners committed to the County Gaol at Derby during Three Years. Number of Prisoners committed to the County House of |