THE TREADMILL IN AMERICA IT HAD NO EXISTENCE ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO In his History of the People of the United States, Professor McMaster depicts in dark colors the judicial and penal system existing among us one hundred years ago, as in strong contrast with the milder and humaner features of society at the present day. It is fortunate for him that he will close his fifth volume with 1860, or with the beginning of the late civil war, and will not have to tarnish his pages and falsify his deduction by a recital of the unparalleled cruelties of Andersonville, Belle Isle, and Libby Prison, or of the penitentiary convict system of Georgia, compared with which "Newgate in Connecticut" was a comfortable home or an "industrial school." As an extreme symbol of the times he says, with great emphasis, "the treadmill was always going (Vol. I., p. 100). To illustrate the nature of this machine in use, he says that "to turn the crank of a spinning-frame by hand was worse than a treadmill' -a frank admission in favor of the latter (Vol. II., p. 164). The unsophisticated reader may well inquire what this instrument is, and whether it was then or is now in use as a means of punishment and reformatory discipline. He has seen the inclined-plane machine for sawing wood, threshing grain, and moving ferry-boats by horse-power; and in the dairy regions a sheep or a dog on the wheel for hours, churning the milk for butter; but sees not where the moral element comes in. The dog, however, at every recurring period of work, is painfully and almost humanly conscious, and reluctant to begin his task. The principle was very early applied in this country and brought from Europe. The first patroon, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, in 1646, built a corn-mill, moved by two horses, for five hundred florins, with Peter Cornelisz, on equal terms, and others are mentioned at the same time.* "It is also shown in a clever woodcut of a cornmill worked in the same way, in the Theatrum Mach. Novum, by A. G. Boekler, Nuremberg, 1662, fol., and other cuts of mills worked by treading inside the periphery of a wheel, as a kitchen spit was formerly turned by a dog, as a squirrel in his cage." It seems to be an industrial machine only. The reader is left without note or comment, and, as in many other inNotes and Queries, Ap. 25, 1857, p. 336. *Munsell's Albany, Vol. I., p. 35. stances, with no reference; and he sets out to discover this nondescript emblem of the cruelty of the people of 1783. He examines the contemporaneous and succeeding authorities, as to the customs of society in this department. The name is not found in any vocabulary of the latter part of the last century, or the first part of this. He finds, under "Treadmill," in Webster's Unabridged, a figure of the machine, but the mechanism and the human power working it suggest the doubt if, with all the evidence to the contrary in the accompanying pages as to the state of the arts, the idea of using it as a punitive machine could have existed in this country a hundred years ago. He inquires among jurists, and an eminent chief-justice in this city relates that his father took him, a lad of eight years, in 1823, to see a treadmill in one of the city prisons, and he describes its operation. The writer recalls a description of the same by his father, a country merchant in the interior of this state, on returning from the city after seeing it in operation, and bringing a print of it. Dr. E. E. Wines says: "The treadmill has no place in the prisons of the United States." * Every one knows this was true when he wrote, and it was superfluous to mention it, as its memory has faded and its name nearly vanished for half a century. If Dr. Wines means that it was never in use here, there is no question that he is wrong. Mr. C. L. Brace incorrectly states that "as far back as in 1822, the punishment of the treadmill had been given up in New York state as barbarous." Mr. Michael Cassidy, warden of the penitentiary in Philadelphia, writes, May 3, 1884: "In reply to your inquiries I will state that there never was, in the history of this institution, a treadmill or anything that could be mistaken for one." Mr. Gideon Haynes, ex-warden of Old State Prison, Charlestown, Massachusetts, writes, May 2, 1884: "In 1822 an effort was made to introduce the treadmill into the prison. The warden was directed to obtain information from New York in regard to it. The power was applied to the grinding of corn, but it having been ascertained that the men upon an average could not grind over one bushel per day (per man), the project was deemed too expensive, and was dropped. It has never been used in this state." The New York Gazette, Wednesday, January 8, 1823, records that “In the Senate of Massachusetts, on Tuesday last, Mr. Rotch moved for a committee to obtain a model of the stepping or treading mill now in operation, as at present in use in the city of New York. Colonel Perkins was the committee." The idea was thus fully before the people of Massachusetts *State Prisons in the United States. The First Century of the Republic. 1876. Art. "Humanitarian Progress," p. 462. in 1822-23, and was discarded. Mr. J. E. Chamberlain, warden of the Connecticut State Prison, writes, March 26, 1886: "We have no record of there being a treadmill in the old prison in Simsbury, the Connecticut Newgate. The history of that prison makes no mention of such an instrument of torture." In Connecticut, however, the machine was adopted. At Newgate "a building for a treadmill was erected about the year 1824, for the purpose of grinding corn for the prisoners. Of all labor required of the prisoners, the treadmill was the worst." * An article on "Newgate Prison," in the Magazine of American History, Vol. XV., p. 334, says: "The old treadmill is silent!" though still remaining there. The use of this ceased, doubtless, on or before the removal to the new state prison at Wethersfield, in 1827, as we find no further mention of it. From the uniform trend of these notices to New York, search was made in several histories of the city, with no satisfactory result. On visiting Bellevue, to get information of Warden O'Rourke, he politely directed me, through an attendant, to a respectable inmate, "who, if any one, could serve me." His memory did not reach back to 1783, but only to 1822-'24, and his intelligence aided me greatly, as he informed me of a book called The History of the Treadmill, by James Hardie, the gate-keeper, New York, 1824. On inquiry at several libraries the book was found to be rare, and finally, in that invaluable repository of local history, The New York Historical Society Library, the treasure, a small, thin quarto, was produced. The history was quite complete as to the men who benevolently instituted it, hoping thereby to ameliorate the condition of a certain class of mild criminality and to recover them to virtue, as well as to the diminution of the cost of the corrective process, as to the temporary success of the scheme, through the fear of recommitment, and, finally, as to its abandonment from the conviction that the punishment was too severe, even cruel. Having located the treadmill and found it a modern machine for punishment, inquiry was made as to its origin. A writer in Notes and Queriesquoting from Chesterton's Revelations of Prison Life-gives the following narration: The inventor was an engineer, Mr. (and Sir) William Cubitt, of Ipswich, England. "All who may be acquainted with the county. jail of Suffolk at Bury St. Edmunds, or, rather, such as it was twenty years. and upwards ago, must be aware of the unsightly feature then exhibited (after passing through the main entrance) of mere open iron fences, separating yards occupied by prisoners from the passage trod by incoming visitors. The inmates were seen lounging idly about in surly groups. A * Phelps, R. H. A History of Newgate at Connecticut, p. 90. 6 magistrate, meeting Mr. Cubitt in this passage, said: 'I wish to God, Mr. Cubitt, you would suggest to us some mode of employing these fellows. Could not something like a wheel become available?' An instantaneous idea flashed through the mind of Mr. Cubitt, who whispered to himself, The wheel elongated;' and merely saying to his interrogator, Something has struck me which may prove worthy of further investigation, and perhaps you may hear from me on the subject,' took his leave. Afterreflection enabled Mr. Cubitt to fashion all the mechanical requirements into a practical form, and by such a casual incident did the treadmill start into existence in 1817 or 1818, and soon came into general adoption in the prisons of the country as a type of hard labor."* According to the "Fifth Report of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline" in Great Britain it was in use in forty-four places, and recommittals were reduced one-half. Something very like this was seen at Spandau, nine miles west of Berlin, Prussia, in a prison, April 11, 1828, by Dr. Charles Hodge of Princeton, New Jersey, who says: "Those condemned to hard labor turn the great wheel which sets the machinery in motion for the manufacture of cotton and wool."+ We next inquire when and how it was introduced into America. Those well-known philanthropic "Friends," Isaac Collins and Stephen Grellet, recommended its adoption to Mayor Stephen Allen of New York, who reported in favor of its adoption, February 11, 1822. The common council authorized its construction at Bellevue. Friend Thomas Eddy made the plans, and on the 5th of August the mayor reported that "one wheel was completed," and on the 28th of October, "that the building and machinery had been completed on the 7th of September; and on the 23d of September it was in full operation." The house was of stone, sixty by thirty feet, two stories and a garret. Each story was divided by a strong wall into two rooms. There were four wheels, two below, where the men were, and two above, for women, next the penitentiary. In the other side, below, were the bolting-machine and other conveniences for receiving the flour or meal; and above, over this, were the mill-stones, hopper, and screen, and the granary in the garret. The shaft and wheel were of iron; the steps of boards seven and one-half inches high and twenty-four feet long; the wheel of the same length and fifteen and one-half feet round. Eight to sixteen prisoners were on the machine at once, who passed on these endless stairs from left to right eight * N. & Q., III., pp. 236, 290, 439.-2d Series, S. N. 67. Apr. 11, 1857. Minutes Com. Council, Vol. XLVI. Forty to minutes on and four off, and twenty minutes rest in an hour. fifty bushels of corn and rye, for the almshouse, penitentiary, and bridewell, were ground daily. The advantages of the machine were: 1. No time was required to learn the working of it. 2. Prisoners cannot shirk their work, for all must work in proportion to their weight: 3. Instead of water, steam, or wind, animal power is used. 4. Punishment is constant and suffering severe; its monotonous steadiness constitutes its terror, and breaks down the obstinate crim. inal spirit. Before, there were fifteen or twenty vagrants every morning at the police; some sent to the penitentiary, and again and again recommitted; since, the magistrate says: "In the short time it has been in full operation and generally known, it has saved the annual committal of thousands of vagrants." The cost of grinding the grain previously averaged $1,900 annually-now free of cost. The cost of the mill was $3,050.09the appropriation $3,000. The previous cost of working the convicts, out of the prison, was $7,000 annually. Here, then, was a perfect machine, a triumph of the material over the spiritual, which promised great satisfaction to the promoters of the experiment. The same advantageous results had been observed in England, and it was heralded widely as a great advance in that most difficult problem of society, "prison discipline." Information was sought so earnestly that "the mayor, January 20, 1823, requests leave to print one hundred copies of the plan and discipline of the stepping-mill, for giving away, on numerous applications."* Time and experience developed some results that excited anxiety in some minds whether all was right. The benevolent Thomas Eddy studied carefully the operation of his device, and, in 1823, wrote to the mayor "about the present defects in the mode of employing convicts on the treadmill and the adequate remedy." As might be expected, uneasiness had also arisen in England, and serious objections to it are found in their prison reports of 1823. In 1824 J. M. Goff, in England, wrote a pamphlet "On the Mischiefs Incident to the Tread Wheel." All these were ominous. The novelty of the machine and the wide circulation of representations of it in full operation greatly stimulated the curiosity, of the public, and though the Bellevue + of that day was far away, the scene attracted many visitors. "Mr. A. Burtis, the superintendent of the treadmill, reported on the great number of visitors, which was referred to the police committee." This committee reported, August 30, "that no person be allowed to visit the treadmill without permission of the mayor, the Min. Com. Council, Vol. XLVII., p. 92. At the foot of East 26th Street, as now. |