REVIEW OF BOOKS. Memoirs of John Howard, the Philanthropist, by James Baldwin Brown, Esq. LL.D. Pp. xxxii. and 657.--Underwood, 1823. It is somewhat singular, that no authentic memoir of the public and private life of Mr. Howard should have appeared until thirty years after his decease. Had he been as eminently distinguished in the destructive arts of war, as he was in ameliorating the condition of the prisoner and the captive, the record of his achievements would have been found in every library, and his praise resounded from almost every tongue. O when will that day come, when the sword of war shall no more be drawn, and when the proud destroyers of the human race shall give place to those who are seeking to promote the arts of peace? Few persons, indeed, of the present day, are at all aware of the claims of Mr. Howard to their esteem and veneration; and we therefore gladly embrace the opportunity afforded by this publication to give a brief outline of his history. John Howard, esq. was born at Clapton, about the year 1727. His parents were pious and respectable members of an independent congregation; and he was in consequence placed under the tuition of persons of similar sentiments, and educated with especial reference to a mercantile profession. We are not exactly informed of the extent of his literary attainments; but it appears, that in after life, though he entirely neglected the Greek language, he yet read Latin without difficulty, spoke French fluently, and was sufficiently versed in most of the modern languages to maintain a conversation in them. On the death of his father, Mr. H. relinquished his mercantile pursuits, partly through the state of his health, partly through a disinclination for business, but princi pally, we apprehend, in consequence of the competent provision left him by his father. When about the age of twenty-five, he married a lady considerably older than himself; and about three years after her decease, he was united, in 1758, to Miss Henrietta Leeds, who died a few days after the birth of their only son, in March 1765. Mr. Howard had not hitherto paid any particular attention to the state of prisons. He had, indeed, in the year 1756, been taken prisoner in the Lisbon packet, and carried into Brest; where, in common with the other passengers and sailors, he experienced great hardships; which induced him, on being set at liberty, to make such representations to Government as materially tended to the relief and exchange of other prisoners. But until some years after the death of his second wife, his time was chiefly employed in superintending and improving his property and the characters of his tenantry; and had he been removed from the world at this period, he would have only left behind him the reputation of a pious Christian and a respectable country gentleman, who, with some peculiarities in his views and dispositions, was yet a worthy landlord, a good neighbour, and a kind friend. In 1773, however, he was nominated High Sheriff of the county of Bedford, and immediately entered upon the active discharge of the duties of that important office. "The distress of prisoners," says Mr. H. "came more immediately under my notice when I was Sheriff of the county of Bedford; and the circumstance which excited me to activity in their behalf was, the seeing some, who by the verdict of juries were declared not guilty; some, on whom the grand jury did not find such an appearance of guilt as subjected them to trial; and some whose prosecutors did not appear against them; after having been confined for months, dragged back to jail, and locked up again till they should pay sundry fees to the jailor, the clerk of assize, &c. In order to redress this hardship, I applied to the justices of the county for a salary to the jailor in lieu of his fees. The bench were properly affected with the grievance, and willing to grant the relief desired; but they wanted a precedent for charging the county with the expense. I, therefore, rode into several neighbouring counties in search of a precedent; but I soon learned that the same injustice was practised in them and looking into the prisons, I beheld scenes of calamity, which I grew daily more and more anxious to aleviate."-P. 123. Such is Mr. Howard's own account of the circumstances which first led him to examine into the state of our own and of other prisons. The evils which he desired to obviate at Bedford, and which he so anxiously sought elsewhere for a precedent to remove, were found almost universally prevalent. He discovered, that in every part of the land, unhappy, unfortunate, and often innocent persons were crowded into narrow, confined, and pestilential prisons; that many, on entering their walls, were compelled to part with a portion of their wretched pittance for the entertainment of their fellow prisoners; that idleness, licentiousness, and intoxication, with all their attendant miseries, were fearfully prevalent; that there was almost a total want of medical advice and as sistance, and of moral and religious instruction; that in many cases little or no salary was allowed to the jailors, who depended very much for their own subsistence upon the paltry sums they could wring from their unhappy charge; and that in consequence it frequently happened, that prisoners who were acquitted, discharged on proclamation, &c. were kept in durance until the jailor's fees could, by some process or other, be exacted; and that the combined effect was to render every inmate of a prison more depraved and desperate in proportion to the period of his residence; while the gaol fever, and other pestilential diseases ge nerated in these abodes of misery, not unfrequently broke forth into the neighbourhood, and made fearful havoc through the surrounding country. It were easy to enlarge this awful catalogue of the distresses and miseries of our prisoners. The volume before us details at considerable length Mr. H.'s observations on particular prisons during several years. We feel, indeed, that Dr. Brown would have done well to have abridged these details, which are too long to prove generally intewould have been better placed in resting. Many of the instances an appendix than in the body of his work, though at the same time we are aware powerful arguments may be adduced for their present situation. To remedy these evils, Mr. H. instituted a regular system of visitation. He explored again and again these abysses of misery, and published the result of his observations to the world. He asserted nothing on conjecture. He entered into every prison with his note book in his hand to record the result; with his rule to measure the actual dimensions of its cells; with his steelyard to weigh the exact allowance of food; and never for one moment allowed himself to be deceived by any of those crafty devices with which lowbred cunning so often endeavours to conceal conscious guilt. The result was, that the House of Commons took up the subject; that Mr. Howard was examined at their bar, and received the unanimous thanks of the whole house for his services; and that many real and substantial improvements took place, though far fewer than his benevolent mind anxiously anticipated. How much, indeed, still remains to be effected, the Reports of the Society for the amelioration of Prison Discipline unhappily testify; but at the same time, the volume before us bears ample testimony to the actual benefit produced and affords a mass of most important instruction to benevolent individuals, who are led to compassionate the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners, and are desirous of attempting somewhat for their relief and improvement. But Mr. H.'s benevolent exertions were not confined to his own country. He visited again and again not only Scotland and Ireland, but also Holland, France, Prussia, Germany, and Russia. He travelled to Portugal, Spain, and Italy. He exposed himself to the danger of the pestilence at Constantinople, Smyrna, Malta, Naples, Leghorn, Venice, &c. and anxiously endeavoured in every place to promote the moral and temporal improvement of the prisoner, the captive, and the afflicted, and to publish and circulate information which might tend to moderate or extirpate existing evils. The following extracts exhibit the spirit with which on some occasions he acted. On reaching a convent of capuchin friars, he found the holy fathers at a table, which, though it was meagre day with them, was sumptuously furnished with all the delicacies the season could afford, of which he was very politely invited to partake. This, however, he not only declined to do, but accompanied his refusal by a pretty severe lecture to the elder monks; in which he told them, that he thought they had retired from the world to live a life of abstemiousness and prayer; but he found their monastery a house of revelling and drunkenness. He added, moreover, that he was going to Rome, and he would take care that the Pope should be made acquainted with the impropriety of their conduct. Alarmed at this threat, four or five of these holy friars found their way the next morning to the hotel at which their visitor had taken up his abode, to beg pardon for the offence they had given him by their unseemly mode of living, and to cntreat that he would not say any thing of what had passed at the papal see. To this request, our countryman replied, that he should make no promise upon the subject; but would merely say, that if he heard that the offence was not repeated, he might probably be silent on what was past. With this sort of half-assurance, the monks were compelled to be satisfied; but before they took leave of the heretical reprover of their vices, they gave him a solemni promise that no such violation of their rules should again be permitted, and that they would keep a constant watch over the younger members of their community, to guard them against similar excesses; and here the conference ended.-Pp. 249, 250. Dining one day at the table of Sir Robert Murray Keith, our ambassador at the Austrian court, the conversation turned upon the torture; when a German gentleman observed, that the glory of abolishing it, in his own dominions, belonged to his Imperial Majesty. "Pardon me," said Mr. Howard, "his Imperial Majesty has only abolished one species of torture, to establish in its place another more cruel; for the torture which he abolished lasted at the most a few hours; but that which he has appointed lasts many weeks, nay plunged into a noisome dungeon, as bad sometimes years. The poor wretches are as the black hole at Calcutta, from which they are taken only if they confess what is laid to their charge." "Hush!" said the ambassador, "your words will be reported to his Majesty." "What!" replied he, "shall my tongue be tied from speaking truth by any king or emperor in the world? I repeat what I asserted, and maintain its veracity." Deep silence ensued; "and every one present," says Dr. Brown, "to whom I am indebted for this interesting anecdote, admired the intrepid boldness of the man of humanity." -P. 252. So high, indeed, did they carry their admiration of a commiseration to which they were so little accustomed, and a liberality whose motives they could not understand, that his attendant very seriously expresses his persuasion that they would have sainted him had he not prevented it. But if his piety as well as his modesty was shocked at this idolatrous devotion of the inhabitants of the Florentine prisons, he was too liberal-minded and too just to withhold from the religious orders the praise they so richly merited, for their extraordinary attention to the sick in this city, and in other Catholic states of the continent, where nuns were the nurses, and monks the physicians, as well as the priests, of the hospitals and charitable institutions with which they abounded.-P. 254. Mr. Howard had heard it repeatedly asserted, that capital punishments had been abolished in the Russian dominions, and had even read that they were so in books of very high authority; but suspecting that this boast was not correct in all the latitude which had been ascribed to it, he determined to satisfy himself of the fact. He did not, however, look for exact information to the courtiers of the em press, or to the chief ministers of justice, because he judged that they would be disposed to exalt, by their representations, the glory of their sovereign; but, taking a hackney-coach, he drove directly to the abode of the executioner. The man was astonished and alarmed at seeing any person, having the appearance of a gentleman, enter his door, which was precisely the state of mind his visitor wished to find him in; and he endeavoured to increase his confusion by the tone, aspect, and manner which he assumed. Acting, therefore, as though he had authority to examine him, he told him, that if his answers to the questions he should propose were conformable to truth, he had nothing to fear. He accordingly promised that they should be so; when Mr. Howard asked, "Can you inflict the knout in such a manner as to occasion death in a short time?" "Yes, I can," was the reply. "In how short a time?" "In a day or two." "Have you ever so inflicted it?" "I have." "Have you lately?" "Yes; the last man who was punished with my hands by the knout died of the punishment." "In what manner do you thus render it mortal?" "By one or more strokes on the sides, which carry off large pieces of flesh." "Do you receive orders thus to inflict the punishment?" "I do." At the close of this curious dialogue, Mr. Howard left the executioner, fully satisfied that the honour of abolishing capital punishment had been ascribed to the infliction of a cruel, lingering, and private death, in lieu of one sudden and public."-Pp. 321, 322. At Toulon, Mr. H. met with a person who had been confined to the galleys there, and at Marseilles, for forty-two years. The original ground of his commitment was a charge of taking part with some boys in a quarrel with a gentleman, who lost his gold-headed cane in a private house in Paris. He was then but fourteen years of age, and lame of one arm; yet for this offence he was condemned to the galleys for life. After having been there for four or five years, he procured a Bible, and having learnt himself to read, through close attention to the Scriptures, became convinced that the religion in which he had been educated was Antichristian, and, therefore, publicly renounced it, and declared and defended his sentiments on all occasions. From that period this singularly interesting man had continued steady in his attachment to the Protestant faith, though humble and modest in his deportment, with a character irreproachable and exemplary, and was much esteemed by his officers and fellow-prisoners. He was now past work, and was therefore confined in the galley appropriated to the infirm and aged, who, besides their due share of bread, had from the king a daily allowance of nine sous each. Struck with admiration at his character, his sympathizing visitor left him some substantial token of his commiseration, besides bringing away with him, as a memorial of the mournful pleasure he had experienced in conversing with him, some musical pipes which he had turned and tuned, for the purpose of whiling away the hours of confinement, from which he could now expect to be released but by death.-Pp. 417, 418. It will gratify our readers to know, that in consequence of Mr. H.'s representations this poor man was eventually liberated. The following important remark must not be passed over. "I take this occasion," he observes, "of mentioning a secret source of contagious irreligion, that most of our ambassadors have no chaplains, nor any religious service in their houses.—With pain I have observed on Sundays, many of our young nobility and gentry, who are to fill eminent stations in life, instructed in their houses, by example at least (especially in Roman Catholic countries), to make the Lord's day a season of diversion and amusement. -How have I been mortified by the comparison, when, after calling at their hotels, I have seen, upon my return from thence, the chapels of the Spanish and French ambassadors crowded." P. 433. About a fortnight before Mr. Howard's arrival in Constantinople, the grand vizier sent for the grand chamberlain, who had the charge of supplying the city with bread. Yielding immediate obedience to the summons, this officer arrived at the palace of the minister in great state, and, being introduced into his presence, was asked why the bread was so bad? He answered, that the last harvest had been but a very indifferent one. "Why," continued the vizier, apparently satisfied with this excuse, "is the weight so short?" "That," replied the chamberlain, "might have happened by accident to two or three amongst such an immense number of loaves as are required for the supply of so large a city;' but he assured his highness that greater care should be taken for the future. Without further observation, the vizier ordered him to quit his presence; but no sooner had he left it, than he commanded an executioner to follow him, and to strike off his head in the street, where his body was publicly exposed for a day and a half, with three light loaves beside it, to denote his crime. When Mr. Howard was told that the body had lain there for three days, he expressed his surprise that it had not bred a contagion. He learnt, however, that in point of fact it had not been left so long, as they were not entire days; for it being the evening when the head was struck off, this was reckoned one; it remained the whole of the second, and was removed early in the succeeding morning, which was accounted the third. "Thus," as Dr. Brown very properly remarks on this circumstance," the manner of computation in use at the time of our Saviour's crucifixion and burial still subsists among the eastern nations."-Pp. 437, 438. That under so absolute a tyranny as the Turkish government, such summary punishments should be inflicted, will surprise few: some, however, of our readers will scarcely be prepared for the following instances, recorded as having taken place under the nominally free government of Venice. A German merchant happening to be at Venice on business, supped every night at a small inn, in company with a few other persons. An officer of the state inquisition came to him one evening, and ordered him to follow whither he led, and to deliver to him his trunk, after having put his seal upon it. The merchant asked why he must do this? but received no answer to his inquiry, except by the of ficer's putting his hand to his lips as a signal for silence. He then muffled his head in a cloak, and guided him, through different streets, to a low gate, which he was ordered to enter; and, stooping down, he was led through various passages under ground to a small dark apartment, where he continued all that night. The next day he was conducted into a larger room hung with black, with a single wax light and a crucifix on its mantle-piece. Having remained here in perfect solitude for a couple of days, he suddenly saw a curtain drawn, and heard a voice questioning him concerning his name, his business, the company he kept, and particularly whether he had not been, on a certain day, in the society of persons who were mentioned, and heard an abbé, who was also named, make use of expressions now accurately repeated. At last he was asked, if he should know the abbé if he saw him? and on his answering that he should, a long curtain was drawn aside, and he saw this very person hanging on a gibbet. He was then dismissed. The other circumstance, or rather combination of circumstances, happened, but a short time before Mr. How ard's visit, to a senator of this arbitrary republic. Called up from his bed one night by an officer of this same inquisition, and commanded to follow him; he obeyed the summons, and found a gondola waiting near his door, in which he was rowed out of the barbour to a spot where another gondola was fastened to a post. Into this he was ordered to step, and the cabin door being opened, he was conducted into it, and as a dead body with a rope about its neck was shown to him, he was asked if he knew it. He answered that he did, and shook through every limb as he spoke; but he was then conveyed back to his house, and nothing more was ever said to him upon the subject. The body he had seen was that of the tutor to his children, who had been carried out of his house that very night and strangled. The senator, delighted with this young man's conversation, used to treat him with great familiarity, and in those unguarded moments communicated to him some political matters of no great importance, but which he thoughtlessly mentioned again to others; an imprudence for which he paid dearly, with his life; whilst his generous patron was thus admonished of his indiscretion by the sight of his strangled body.-Pp. 457, 458. Hitherto, indeed, we have contemplated Mr. H. in his public character; but his exertions for the benefit of others were founded on Christian principles. We find him in early life entering into covenant with God; setting up the worship of God in his family; regularly attending on divine ordinances, and contributing liberally to the support and maintenance of pious and devoted ministers. By education and principle a dissenter, he appears to have had little acquaintance with either the ministers of the church of England, or their numerous and valuable writings. That intercourse, indeed, which now exists between the members of the established church and other denominations of Christians was unknown to our forefathers; and the orthodox dissenter of Mr. Howard's time was led to regard the Socinian or Arian teacher with more cordiality than the clergy of the establishment. Hence Mr. H. is found continually in company with Drs. Price, Aikin, &c. which |