Note 3 — Chapter XX · “TO PUT A MAN IN PRISON FOR A YEAR OR TWO DOES NOT KILL HIM.”

Take, as a specimen, the following proposal:—The Spilsby Poor Bill was a measure brought before Parliament, early in 1811, for the purpose of enabling the directors of the union to compel the poor, whether asking relief or not, to go into the workhouse. They were to be allowed to enter houses at their discretion to search for vagrants. They might commit to solitary imprisonment, without limit, the poor whom they collected, and administer moderate correction for misbehaviour! (Vide Parliamentary Debates, March 26, 1811.) This brutal idea was soon snuffed out, at the instance of Sir Samuel Romilly; but what a picture does it not present, of the combination of imbecility and cruelty which could rule the minds of some of the potential classes of society!