ABSTRACT
John Howard was inspired by the same faith and belonged to the same set as the little knot of social reformers who were destined, to start the national movement for a Reformation of Manners that have elsewhere described. In the course of the ensuing twelve months John Howard travelled all over England, including in his inspection the bridewells, or Houses of Correction. By the end of that year he had, at the age of about forty-eight, at last found his special vocation, that of an investigator or unofficial inspector of places of detention. The instantaneous change of tone in the House of Commons which Howard’s examination brought about, was, think, largely due to the novelty both of the motive and of the method of his activity. Howard’s somewhat naive use of the method of statistical enumeration seems to have brought home to the matter-of-fact mind of the eighteenth century legislator both the truth and the importance of his allegations.
