{"id":5712,"date":"2015-03-20T13:28:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T18:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=5712"},"modified":"2023-12-12T20:36:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T02:36:56","slug":"morbid-fact-du-jour-for-march-20-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=5712","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour for March 20, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Pointless Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/h3>\n

The main problem facing authorities in English gaols during the nineteenth century was exactly what to do with a prisonful of idle convicts. With nothing to occupy their time, the more dangerous among them simply planned riots and fomented unrest, with sometimes disastrous results. It was then, in 1817, that the Science of Absolute Uselessness came to the aid of the perplexed officials, in the form of the Treadwheel.<\/p>\n

The contraption first appeared at Brixton Prison in 1817 and was quickly put to use. For the technically minded, the machine consisted of a huge wheel sixteen feet in circumference, similar to a paddle wheel but wide enough to accommodate twenty-four men standing almost shoulder to shoulder. The wheel incorporated twenty-four steps, eight inches apart, and was turned by the action of the convicts ‘climbing’ the steps, moving their legs as if they were slowly and laboriously ascending a flight of stairs, the steps moving down and sliding away beneath them. As they worked, or rather walked, they supported themselves by holding on to a handrail, their backs to the watchful warders, and to complete their isolation from their fellow hikers, the men were separated from each other by high wooden partitions resembling those in public urinals.<\/p>\n

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The wheel revolved twice a minute, with a mechanism incorporated to ring a bell at the end of each thirtieth revolution, signaling a change of shift. The men were then replaced by another batch of twenty-four convicts, each man having to complete fifteen quarter-of-an-hour sessions a day, with fifteen minutes’ rest between shifts.<\/p>\n

It was very hard work, and the hot and airless conditions made the task particularly grueling. The energy required to avoid sinking with the steps being equivalent to the man’s own weight meant that fifteen minutes “grinding the wind” was sufficient to exhaust the strongest of men, “climbing”, as they had to, 480 feet every session, 2400 yards a day, on meager prison rations.<\/p>\n

Culled from:\u00a0Rack, Rope & Red-Hot Pincers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Pointless Yet Truly Morbid Fact! The main problem facing authorities in English gaols during the nineteenth century was exactly what to do with a prisonful of idle convicts. With nothing to occupy their time, the more dangerous among them simply planned riots and fomented unrest, with sometimes disastrous results. It was then, in 1817, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5712"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11447,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5712\/revisions\/11447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}