of preventive punishment. Although but very recently introduced into practice, 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 ir the act of working one of the tread wheels of the Disciplin Mill, invented by Mr. Cubitt, of Ipswich, and recently erect ed at the House of Correction for the county of Surrey, si uated at Brixton. The view is taken from the corner of on

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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 complete 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.

Their

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.* 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 suc

*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 labor.

sessive 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 mán, 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 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 labor. 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 labor 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.

To provide regular and suitable employment for prisoners sentenced to hard labor, 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. As a species of prison labor, 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 labor on every individual employed, no one upon the wheel being able, in the least degree, to avoid his proportion.

The arrangementof 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 constructed 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 treadwheel is erected in each of the six yards, by which the risk and inconvenience 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 frequently 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 labor of the prisoner should be suspended, nor can they be aware of the circumstance; the supply of hard labor 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.

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 proper 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 laborers, and the governor or taskmaster, apprized, even at a distance, that the full work is not performed.

17

Biography and History.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF

HON. JOSHUA BRACKETT, M. D. M. M. S.

The progress of Medical science in our country has been gradual. During the first hundred years after the settlement of New-Hampshire, the general state of medicine was limited and hypothetical, and no names of persons who acquired celebrity in the medical profession in this State, have been handed down to posterity. But during the first fifty years of the second century of the existence of our country, there arose, even in New-Hampshire, a number of men distinguished for their medical knowledge, and their zeal to advance its most important interests. By "a regular intercourse with the parent country, occasional immigration from European schools, and a progressive introduction of approved authors," these men were furnished with the best means of instruction which their situation admitted. Though they had not the advantages of the medical establishments now so common in our country, they had all the aid which could be derived from the labors of some of the most eminent physicians and physiologists in Europe. The medical works most generally known and in use at the close of that period,or at our political separation from the British empire, were those of Sydenham, the commentaries of Van Swieten, the practical writings of Whytt, Mead, Brooks and Huxham; the physiology of Haller; the anatomy of Cowper, Keil, Douglass, Cheselden, Munroe and Winslow; the surgery of Heister, Sharp, Le Dran and Pott; the midwifery of Smellie and Hunter; and the materia medica of Lewis.*

Among the most eminent physicians of New-Hampshire, who commenced their career within the period referred to, may be named the Hon. JOSHUA BRACKETT, M.D. of Portsmouth, of whom we intend to give a short sketch. He was born at Greenland, in this State, in May, 1733. In his pre

* See Dr. Bartlett's Sketch of the Progress of Medical Science in Massachusetts.

†This Memoir will be principally derived from an account of Dr. Brackett, written by Rev. T. Alden, now President of Alleghany College, and published in the 26th No. of the Medical Repository, and from a biographical notice, written by Lyman Spalding, M. D. and entered on the records of the New-Hampshire Medical Society.