Pennsylvania in 1842 (16 Peters 539), that state authorities could not be forced to act in fugitive slave cases, but that national authorities must carry out the national law, was followed by legislation in Massachusetts (1843), Vermont (1843), Pennsylvania (1847) and Rhode Island (1848), forbidding state officials to help enforce the law and refusing the use of state gaols for fugitive slaves.
We hear 3 of " Brownists " in London about 1585, while the London petitioners of 1592 refer to their fellows in " other gaols throughout the land "; and the True Confession of 1596 specifies Norwich, Gloucester, Bury St Edmunds, as well as " many other places of the land."
The administration of gaols in India can be described more favourably.
The sulphate of quinine and the cinchona febrifuge thus produced are issued for the most part to medical officers in the various provinces, to gaols, and to the authorities of native states; but a large and increasing amount is disposed of in the form of 5-grain packets, costing a farthing each, through the medium of the post-offices.
Idleness, drunkenness, vicious intercourse, sickness, starvation, squalor, cruelty, chains, awful oppression and everywhere culpable neglect - in these words may be summed up the state of the gaols at the time of Howard's visitation.
