Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/45

 offenders at once taught to bid adieu to all remaining sense of shame by being mingled with villains of the deepest dye. One division of the interior part receives felons of the first class, or most atrocious description; another is appropriated to those of the second class, or the less hardened sons of enormity; a third confines the debtors; and a fourth is occupied by the penitentiaries, or those who are about to expiate their offences by death.

It was with pleasure we observed, that the unfortunate persons on the crown side were saved from the horrors of that gloomy vacuity of mind which complete inaction produces in the ignorant and unlettered, or prevented from that still more dangerous activity which too often pervades a community of rogues, by their all being occupied in some little manufactory or useful employment; thus making some amends to society for their former idleness or violences, and at the same time acquiring habits of industry that may protect them from temptations to plunder in future, should they be again turned loose among their fellow-citizens.

We could not, however, read the contents of the calendar without shuddering, which informed, us there were confined in the gaol no less than two hundred and six prisoners, one hundred and forty of whom were felons; a larger number than had