Pentonville Chapel
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"Not only did Pentonville fulfill the goals of the separate system but it also used the panopticon idea created by Jeremy Bentham. The panopticon design, in conjunction with the separate system, allows prison overseers to effectively separate prisoners while maintaining a careful watch upon each of them."
...and the bell had scarcely ceased pealing before the two oaken flaps let into the black asphalte pavement at the corners of the central hall, so that each stood between two of the four corridors, raised themselves as if by magic, and there ascended from below, through either flap, a tray laden with four large cans of cocoa, and two baskets of bread. These trays were raised by means of a "lifting machine," the bright iron rods of which stretched from the bottom to the top of the building, and served as guides for the friction-rollers of the trays. No sooner were the cans and bread-baskets brought up from below, than a couple of wanders and trade instructors, two to either of the adjoining corridors, seized each half the quantity, and placing it on the trucks that stood ready by the flaps, away the warder and instructor went, the one wheeling the barrow of cocoa along the side of the corridor, and the other hastening to open the small trap in each cell-door as he served the men with the bread.____________________
This is done almost as rapidly as walking, for no sooner does the trade-instructor apply his key to the cell-door than the little trap falls down and forms a kind of ledge, on which the officer may place the loaf, and the prisoner at the same time deposit his mug for the cocoa. This mug the warder who wheels the cocoa truck fills with the beverage, ladling it out as milkmen do the contents of their pails, and, when full, he thrusts the mug back through the aperture in the cell-door, and closes the trap with a slam.
[...}
Presently, however, the glass doors at the end of the passage are thrown open, and the governor enters with his keys in his hand. Then one of the warders who remains on duty hurries on before him, crying, "Governor-r-r! Governor-r-r! Governor-r-r!" as he opens each of the cell-doors. The chief prison authority walks past the several cells, saying, as he goes, "All right ! All right!" to each prisoner, who stands ready drawn up at the door, as stiff as a soldier in his sentry-box, with his hand raised, by way of salute, to the side of his cap; whilst no sooner have the words been spoken than the door is closed again, and the building echoes with the concussion.
This done, the governor proceeds to visit the refractory cells; but before accompanying him thither, let us prepare the reader with an idea of the nature of such places.
The refractory, or, as they are sometimes called, "dark cells, are situate in the basement of corridor C. It was mid-day when we first visited these apartments at Pentonville.
"Light a lantern, Wood," said the chief warder to one of the subordinate officers, "so that this gentleman may look at the dark cells."
The lamp lighted at noon gave us a notion of what we were to expect, and yet it was a poor conception of what we saw.
Descending a small flight of stairs, we came to a narrow passage, hardly as wide as the area before second-rate houses; and here was a line of black doors, not unlike the entrances to the front cellars of such houses. These were the refractory cells...
In 1917 Edmond Morel was sentenced to 6 months hard labor in Pentonville, a stay which contributed to his death. Morel exposed the dark heart of European exploitation in the Congo, and in South America. He was a Socialist, a founder of the British political party the UDC, whose three guiding principles were:
(1) that in future to prevent secret diplomacy there should be parliamentary control over foreign policy;He worked with Roger Casement in the Congo Reform Association.
(2) there should be negotiations after the war[WWI] with other democratic European countries in an attempt to form an organisation to help prevent future conflicts;
(3) that at the end of the war the peace terms should neither humiliate the defeated nation nor artificially rearrange frontiers as this might provide a cause for future wars
Casement was hanged at Pentonville, essentially for being a homosexual and advocating Irish independence, with a strong dash of his anti-war principles being spun into treason by Karl Rove's spiritual ancestors in early 20th century England.
There's a sulphurous stench at the edge of Casement's final months that appears to be emanating from Aleister Crowley, the basic template for today's "ronin" government agents. Crowley's idolized for his anti-Christ schtick but he wasn't much more than a psychedelic thug as near as I can tell, and he worked for forces that are more accurately described as economic/political than as metaphysical, though, as current events indicate, the lines do blur.
Morel had some odd views of black male virility and its "threat" to white women, and Casement, as mentioned, was a practicing, though closeted, homosexual, but they both worked valiantly and tirelessly on behalf of the almost unbelievably brutalized people of the Congo, at a time when the news was flat text only, and events in the primitive world were easily dismissed, if they were heard about at all. Joseph Conrad was a friend of both men, and his "Heart of Darkness" came directly from that association.
Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" was built entirely on the strong foundation of Conrad's story.
Which brings us to the presidential debates, tonight.
