Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

now preserved in the family as a curiosity. The same method I have used, with success, for fish and other kinde of sharp bones.

1783, Dec.

LXXI. On Salting Meat and purifying Water. THE usual

way of salting meat is to let it remain till it be cold before it is salted.

But in warm climates, or in warm weather, the reverse of this practice should be adopted, viz. to salt the meat as soon as it can be cut up into proper pieces, while it is yes warm, and the juices are flowing. This I have known practised with success on board a ship in a very warm climate, and in close muggy weather, when meat tends fast to putrefaction. It was practised for six or seven weeks successively, without once failing ; whilst another ship in company, that was in the same situation with respect to provisions, but followed the usual mode of salting, had seldom more than one or two meals from each hog they killed ; for the experiment was made on pork only, being the only fresh meat we then had, our poultry, &c. being all expended.

The utility of this practice, to those who sail to the East or West Indies, &c. or who live in any warin climate, or even in our own during the hot summer months, is obvious.

A simple easy method of purifying foul and fetid water must be useful too, not only to sea-faring people, but to those who live in such parts of the country as are without wells or rivers, where they are under the necessity of drinking pond water, which, in hot dry summers, becomes low and unwholesome. The method which I would recommend for that purpose is this :

Make a vessel or case twelve inches square, and two feet and a half deep, narrowing within about half a foot of the bottom, to four inches square. The top must be open, and the bottom pierced full of small holes. Place this vessel in a frame, with a receiver under it, and fill it with gravel, through which the water is to pass, as in the common filtering stone; which being repeated a few times, renders it clear and palatable.

The vessel which I used for the purpose was made of four boards, well fitted together, of the size and form that have been mentioned. But both size and form may be varied as pleasure. And, indeed, the deeper the vessel, the better, as the water will then pass through a greater quantity of gravel.

The advantage of this artificial filtering stone (as it may be called) above the common one, will be evident. It is not liable to be broken or cracked; it will purify a much greater quantity of water in the same space of time; the gravel, when foul from frequent use, may be taken out and exposed to the wind and sun, upon a piece of canvass on deck, when it will be again fit for use, with little trouble; besides, a few spare bushels of fresh water gravel may easily be put on board for change; whereas it is well known that the common filtering stone, when foul, is not cleansed without much trouble, and, being of a brittle nature, is very liable to be cracked or broken on board of ship.

On shore the vessel may be elevated many feet above the receiver, and the air will greatly assist in purifying the water in its fall. 1783, Oct.

J. NASEBY.

S.

LXXII. Cost of the Fifty new Churches built by Sir Christopher

Wren.
MR. URBAN
As

your Magazine is the common register of every thing memorable, the following account of the cost of the fifty new churches, and the monument, built by Sir Christopher Wren, may serve perhaps to fill a corner.

£.

d. ST. PAUL'S

736,752 2 31 Allhallows the Great

5641 9 9 Bread-street

3348 7 2 Lombard-street

8058 15 6 St. Alban's, Wood-street

3165 0 8 St. Anne and Agnes

2448 0 10 St. Andrew's, Wardrobe

7060 16 11 Holborn

9000 0 0 St. Antholin's

5685 St. Austin's

3145 3 10 St. Benet, Grasschurch

3583 9 5.1 Paul's Wharf

3328 18 10 Fink

4129 16 10 St. Bride's

11430

5 11 St. Bartholomew's

5077 1 1

5 101

1

ܐܐ 2

Christ Church

11778 9 6 St. Clement, Eastcheap

4365 3 41 Danes

8786 17 0 St. Dionis Back Church

5737 10 8 St. Edmund the King

5207 11 0 St. George, Botolph-lane

4509 4 10 St. James, Garlick-hill

5357 12 10 Westminster

8500 0 0 St. Lawrence, Jewry

11870 1 9 St. Michael, Basinghall

2822 17 ) Royal

7455 7 9 Queenhithe

4354 3 8 Wood-street

2,554 Crooked-lane

4541 5 il Cornhill

4686

5 11 St. Martin, Ludgate

5378 18 & St. Matthew, Friday-street

2301 8 2 St. Margaret Pattens

4986 10 4 Lothbury

5340 8 1 St. Mary, Abchurch

4922 24 Magdalen

4291 1291 Somerset

6579 18 1

3980 12 3 Aldermanbury

5237

3 6 le Bow

8071 18 1 le Steeple

7388 8 74. St. Magnus, London Bridge

9579 19 10 At. Mildred, Bread-street

370.5 13 61 Poultry

4654 9 7 St. Nicholas Cole Abbey

5042 6 il St. Olave, Jewry

5580 4 10

5647 St. Peter's, Cornhill

8 2

4687 4 St. Swithin, Canon-street

6

7652 13 8 St. Stephen, Walbrook Coleman-street

4020 16

1853 15 6 St. Vedast, Foster-lane The Monument

8856 8 1784, July.

at Hill

LXXIII. Strictures on the present State of our Convict Laws.

MR. URBAN, THE internal government of nations has been in a state of progressive improvement for several ages past; and, it is

a

perhaps, in the present, arrived as near to perfection, in most respects, as the nature of things will permit. There is, however, one circumstance in which great room still remains for improvement: the method of punishing heinous offenders against the laws, so as most effectually to answer the end of punishment, does not seem to have been yet discovered. The number of capital punishments which occur in our own nation in particular, is a circumstance that alarms the feelings of humanity; we enjoy the protection, which the laws afford us, with an imperfect satisfaction, when we reflect, that it is purchased with the violent and premature death of so many of our fellow-creatures. Did the cruelty of our laws give them additional force in deterring men from incurring the penalties of them, their cruelty might perhaps admit of defence; but this does not seem to be the case. In fact, their being in a legislative view too severe and indiscriminate, has occasioned a great relaxation in the execution of them; and this relaxation, though commendable with respect to the spirit it proceeds from, has been found to produce the most pernicious consequences. The threats of punishment, in order to have the full effect of which they are capable, must be rendered as little liable to evasion as possible.

The most profligate persons reason, in some degree, on the consequences of their actions; but they are ready to delude themselves with the slightest chance of impunity, and to act on it as on an absolute certainty. To the chance, therefore, of escaping altogether from the penalties of the law, let us not add the probability of their being mitigated after the conviction of the offender. In the present state of things, a man under the first temptation to commit a capital crime may reason thus :-"I am going to do an act, for which I know the law's will on conviction sentence me to die ; however, I have some chance of escaping the pursuit of justice, and if I should be taken and convicted, as this is my first offence, they will think it cruel to hang me; the judge, therefore, will most probably reprieve me, or if not, the king certainly will, and then I shall but be transported at worst; or perhaps, after a short imprisonment, I shall be discharged without further punishment.” Thus, in whatever mode our present laws are executed, they are attended with bad effects. A relaxation, by rendering the consequences of crimes indeterminate, encourages men to offend in the hope of impunity; and when to avoid this effect the threatened punishments are stricily

executed, we are shocked at the sacrifice of so many human victims, and lament that the peace of society must be main, tained at so dear a price.

It deserves, therefore, to be considered whether, by making fewer crimes to be capital, and at the same time rendering the punishments which may be appointed instead of death, more certain, these inconveniences might not, in some measure, be avoided. Let the penalties of the law be less severe, or, however, less sanguinary ; but let them, with a very few exceptions, be invariably inflicted on conviction, Few men are arrived at such a state as to be utterly incorrigible; to those, whom the nature of their crimes denotes to be such, death should still be the punishment: with re. spect to the rest, if their preservation can be made con. sistent with the public security, they should be corrected and not destroyed; they should be put under such a course of discipline as, while it convinces them of their errors, may shew them that happiness is still in some degree within their reach; and that the amendment of their conduct, as it is the only, so it is even yet a certain, method of restoring them to the enjoyments they have forfeited.

In pursuance of this idea, might not some such plan as the following be adopted? Let houses be erected in different parts of the kingdom, to the number of two or three in each circuit, for the purposes of labour and confinement, under the name of Felons' I'orkhouses. Let the first of these be put under a severer discipline than the second, and so on (if there be more than two to a circuit,) that the kind, as well as the duration, of punishment may be suited to the offence. To a residence in these workhouses for the space of one, two, three, four, &c. years, according to the malignity of their crimes, I propose that convicts be sentenced; and that this punishment be the express penalty of the laws, and not a mitigation of that which they have appointed, None but the officers set over them should have access to them; as they ought to have no communication, not even by letter, with persons out of the house, and as little as possible with each other. Perhaps it may be necessary to let them labour together; but, if they are kept in small parties, the presence of overseers may prevent irregularities. At night they should be confined in separate cells. It would be adviseable, if it could be managed, that their condition should be made to depend in some measure on their conduct, and to improve in proportion to the amendment of their behaviour. The degrees of punishment would by these means be greatly varied, and the mixture of solitude

« НазадПродовжити »