3-077-822 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Centenary of John Howard, Prison Reformer: a committee of the House of Commons inquiring into the cruelties inflicted in the Fleet Prison, 1729, (1890). Prisoner wearing a torture device. After Hogarth. 'In 1770 Mr. Howard was appointed High Sheriff of Bedfordshire. He at once proceeded. with characteristic thoroughness, to fulfil the duties of his office. Responsible for carrying out the law, he found his way incumbered at every step with intolerable abuses. These he exposed to the magistrates, and told them that the cause was the custom of farming out the prisons to speculators, who were allowed to extract their profits from the unhappy wretches committed to their charge. The magistrates professed their willingness to give salaries to the jailers, if Howard could find a precedent for this system. To this end he commenced a series of visits to jails in neighbouring counties, an effort which revealed such revolting cruelties that he determined to visit every prison in England and Wales, and bring all their iniquities to the light of day. After some years devoted to these inquiries, he laid the result before the House of Commons, and received a vote of thanks. A Parliamentary inquiry was subsequently ordered, which made its report'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.