Accounts relating to Prisons in Dublin

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PAPER RELATING TO THE PRISONS IN DUBLIN. 

Orr/tfrrr/, Z;_y The House of Commons, i!o 
Je 2^u«terZ, 30 Mmc^ 1819. 

Copy of a LETTER from Alderman George' Jf^trMer, to the Right Honourable C/irzrZes Gra??Z; 
dated Dublin, 4th January 1819:—With a Plan of the Newgate Prison in Dublin. 

College Green, 4th January 1S19. 
SIR, THE late Grand Jury of the County of the City of Dublin, (of which I was a 

member) have caused advertisements to be inserted in the public Newspapers, offering premiums for plans of a new gaol, which they purpose to have built for the use of this City •, but as such intended gaol cannot, by law, be undertaken, until approved of by his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, I beg leave, as a citizen of Dublin, and one not unacquainted with the state of its prisons, or with the general administration of justice in its criminal courts, to offer, through you, Sir, with the most profound respect, some observations for the consideration of his Excellency, in the humble hope that they may be worthy of his Excellency's consideration when-ever he shall be resorted to for the exercise of his judgment upon the propriety of erecting the intended gaol—a subject of considerable importance to the Citizens of Dublin. 
The just confidence which his Excellency's government has inspired in this country has induced me to take this liberty, and encourages me to hope, that what-ever opinion his Excellency in his wisdom may be pleased to entertain of the contents of my communication, he will graciously believe that it has originated in an honest and conscientious wish, not only to render service to my fellow citizens, but also to do what I conceive my duty to His Majesty's Government. 
I have taken much pains to inform myself of the state of the prisons in this City, and also to form an estimate of the probable number of prisoners for whom it may be necessary to provide gaols ; and after a diligent investigation of the subject I am. 
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perfectly convinced that there will be found in the City of Dublin means of con-fmement much more than sufficient for the number of prisoners that have been at any time confined in the city gaols, and that too, taking their number at the maxi-mum of the last two years, a period during which, from particular causes, the number of persons confined in our gaols have greatly exceeded the number confined at any former period. 
Should the facts upon which I have formed this opinion, and which I am about to state, be sufficient to warrant the conclusion I draw from them, I humbly trust .that 
you will not consider it an unpardonable intrusion upon your time, that a Citizen of Dublin should endeavour to save his native city from the imposition of a new burthen, which would probably far exceed the sum of one hundred thousand pounds. 
And in making this estimate of what a new gaol may probably cost, I teg leave to add, that the expense is by no means the only or the principal ground of my objection; fori freely admit, that if the proposed new gaol he wanted, the build-ing of it should not be negatived from any consideration of pecuniary inconvenience;. 
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