The following sentence of a court of justice, of which I was a member, on a convict detected in a garden stealing potatoes, will illustrate the subject.

He was ordered to receive three hundred lashes immediately, to be chained for six months to two other criminals, who were thus fettered for former offences, and to have his allowance of flour stopped for six months.

So that during the operation of the sentence, two pounds of pork, and two pounds of rice (or in lieu of the latter, a quart of pease) per week, constituted his whole subsistence.

Such was the melancholy length to which we were compelled to stretch our penal system.
[*Its preservation in some cases was found impracticable.

Three or four instances of persons who perished from want have been related to me.