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    VOL. VIII.     TERMS:--ONE DOLLAR A YEAR IN ADVANCE.     NO. II.

                                   THE

                          PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL

                                   OF

                            PRISON DISCIPLINE

                                   AND

                              PHILANTHROPY.

                           PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

  UNDER THE DIRECTION OF "THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE
              MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS," INSTITUTED 1787.

  "The separation of one prisoner from another is the only sound basis
 on which a reformatory (prison) discipline can be established with any
  reasonable hope of success."--_Fifth Report of Inspectors of English
                                Prisons._

                              APRIL, 1853.

                              PHILADELPHIA:
                          E. C. AND J. BIDDLE,
              SOUTHWEST CORNER OF FIFTH AND MINOR STREETS.

                         LONDON: CHARLES GILPIN.

                                  1853.

                         Isaac Ashmead, Printer.




CONTENTS OF NO. II.


 Art. I.--Moral and Religious Instruction of Convicts,              53

     II.--Report of the Discipline and Management of the            61
            Convict-Prisons, and Disposal of Convicts, (England,)

    III.--Sources and Checks of Juvenile Delinquency,               70

     IV.--Pennsylvania Penitentiaries,                              78

      V.--Should Convicts be Received into the State Lunatic        82
             Hospital at Harrisburg?

     VI.--Report of the Condition of the New Jersey State Prison,   89

    VII.--An Extraordinary Document,                                93

   VIII.--A Philanthropic Perplexity,                               96


MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES.

 Vagrant Children of New York,                                   98-99
 Street Begging in New York,                                        99
 New York Prison Association,                                      100
 New York State Prisons,                                           100
 Be beforehand with the Tempter,                                   101
 New Penitentiary in Massachusetts,                                101
 State Prison at Charlestown (Mass.,)                              101
 Illinois Penitentiary,                                            102
 New State Reform School,                                          102
 Juvenile Offenders,                                               102
 Singular Avocation and Mode of Life in London,                    103
 Death from Separation,                                            103
 Murders in Philadelphia,                                          104
 Missouri Insane Asylum,                                           104
 Missouri Penitentiary,                                            104
 Items of general Information,                                 105-107
 Acknowledgments,                                                  107
 Premium for an Essay on Juvenile Delinquency,                     108




NOTICE OF THIS JOURNAL.


"It embodies more information on the subject of prisons, arranged and
expressed in the spirit of literature and science, than any other
publication of our country and will compare with any Journal devoted
to this department of knowledge in Europe."--_Hon. Charles Sumner's
Speech, in debate on prison question in Boston, May, 1847._


RECENT NOTICES.

_From the North American and United States' Gazette._

We have received from Messrs. E. C. & J. Biddle the last number of
the Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline, which is published
quarterly, under the direction of the Philadelphia Society for
alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. A glance through its pages
shows what is well understood--that it is a highly valuable periodical,
communicating much and various important information upon the subject
of which it treats. It is the only publication of the kind in the
country, is certainly a very much needed one, and ought, therefore, to
be well sustained by the public.

  (See 3d page of Cover.)




                                  THE

                         PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL

                                  OF

                          PRISON DISCIPLINE.

                    VOL. VIII.--APRIL, 1853--No. 2.




ART. I.--MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF CONVICTS.


The readers of this Journal need not be told that we are not very
sanguine in our expectations of the permanent reformation of the mass
of convicts. There are doubtless instances enough of success in such
efforts to warrant and encourage them, and we are not to suppose that
they are ever wholly useless. The true position for us to take is this.
The earlier we address ourselves to the cultivation of right principles
and habits in a human being, the more hopeful is the prospect of
success; but there is a power in truth and love, which has not seldom
overcome the most sturdy depravity; and while we have the precept and
example of Him who "came not to call the righteous but sinners to
repentance," to prompt and stimulate our efforts in that direction, we
have His promise too, that whatever is done in His name, and out of
love to Him, shall in no wise lose its reward.

It is under the influence of these views that we have looked with
interest and anxiety to the religious and moral influences which enter
into the discipline of our penitentiaries. To no section of their
annual reports, do we turn with more eagerness than to that from the
chaplain or moral instructor; and though now and then a well-digested
and satisfactory account is furnished, we are often compelled to be
content with very vague generalities. A specimen of the religious
discourses addressed to these unhappy congregations; a true sketch of
a dialogue on some religious or moral topic held with one of them in
his cell; a synopsis of a month's labors, showing the various methods
employed, direct and incidental, to reach the sympathies, and awaken
better motives and desires of the heart, or a brief analysis of those
obstacles to moral and religious influences, which may be properly
regarded as peculiar to prison life,--all these, or any of them would
greatly relieve the monotony of the reports of chaplains and moral
instructors, and would add materially to our means of judging of the
fitness of their labors to the character and circumstances of those
on whom they are bestowed. We are often favored with such specimens
of the various methods in which instruction in secular knowledge is
conveyed to the ignorant, and enabled to choose between them according
to their apparent appropriateness. Why should not the like opportunity
be afforded in respect to the more difficult and perplexing task of
enlightening adult ignorance, counteracting deeply-depraved tendencies,
and up-rooting established habits of evil?

It was with the hope of bringing this important department of our
penitentiary discipline more distinctly to view, and of making its
principles more practical and definite, that the Prison Society
recently took the subject up, and referred it to a committee for
consideration and report.

At the meeting in January last a full report was submitted, from which
we make the following extracts:

It will be conceded on all hands, we presume, that moral instruction
is an important element of every system of Prison Discipline. We
are aware that in some of the largest prisons of Europe little, if
any, importance is attached to it; but whenever there is any hope of
reforming the character of a convict, or of establishing a permanent
restraining principle, it must be founded on some improvement in his
moral feelings and habits.

That peculiar difficulties and embarrassments should attend any
approach to this unhappy class of our fellow beings, with a view to
mould moral character, would seem very natural; but is it not possible
that we exaggerate the difference between them and the mass of the
world, in respect to their susceptibilities of good impressions? May
we not easily forget that between a score of men in our prison cells,
and twenty score of men that may be selected from society at large, the
only difference is that the former are detected rogues, and the latter
are (perhaps greater) rogues undetected? The _ins_ and the _outs_ are
equally open to moral influences, and yet we should be very likely to
think of the _ins_ as almost hopelessly beyond their reach, while the
_outs_ might be esteemed fair subjects of them.

It is moreover surprising how much farther a conviction of crime goes
to exclude men from the pale of sympathy and the offer of assistance,
than crime itself. The guilt of hundreds of men at large is as
fully established in the public mind, as that of any convict in our
penitentiary; yet we do not regard it as at all impracticable to reach
them with appropriate moral influences. We should not hesitate to
commend books to their attention, to invite and urge them to attend
some place of worship, nor to counsel them to abandon all evil courses.
Why should we have less faith in the like means when employed upon
no worse men, after their character has been defined by a judicial
sentence? For though true it is that the presumption of innocence is
only taken away by the proof of guilt, yet when looking at men as the
subjects of moral influences and sympathies, the fact that one is in
prison and another at large really makes much less difference than is
generally supposed.

Thus much it seemed needful to say, by way of answer to those who
distrust all efforts for the reformation of convicts, regarding them as
visionary, if not Quixotic. It is to be regretted that such incredulity
sometimes possesses the minds of those who have the chief oversight and
direction of the discipline of our penal institutions. The deception,
hypocrisy and treachery of convicts, which they so often witness,
naturally confirms their distrust and may very easily excite prejudices
against any attempt to improve their moral condition.

We are far from representing the moral and religious instruction of
convicts as an easy task. It requires much patience, simplicity, tact
and earnestness, a rare knowledge of human nature, and a combination
of adjunct influences which are not always at command. We only mean to
affirm that whatever force lies in the argument against efforts for
the moral reformation of convicts, may be used against such efforts for
any other class of men.

It would be a happy thing for our prisons, if the spirit of Christian
benevolence were sufficiently awakened and active to ensure the needful
measure of sympathy, instruction and moral culture from voluntary and
unpaid service. But necessity seems to be laid upon us to provide a
more permanent and reliable system of agencies and influences. One or
more officers appointed to this specific work of giving instruction to
the ignorant, and presenting motives and encouragements to a better
life to those who are accustomed to do evil, seems to be indispensable
to secure any thing like a proper attention to this important
department. Hence the call for a chaplain or moral instructor.

In looking at the condition of our two Philadelphia prisons in respect
to the provision for moral instruction, we are constrained to say, that
it is not such either in efficiency or success, as we think desirable,
attainable, and indeed absolutely necessary. Instead of bringing to
view, however, what some of us might regard as grave defects in the
present incumbents of the moral instructor's office, we will suggest
what we cannot but regard as indispensable requisites in such a
functionary, and leave those who have the appointing and removing power
to exercise it at their discretion.

I. _A moral instructor should exemplify in the minutest particulars
the moral principles he inculcates._--Any obvious neglect or evasion
of duty, any appearance of hypocrisy or inconsistency, any sallies
of ill-humour or fretfulness, any impatience of contradiction and
unteachableness in his pupils, the most trivial breach of promise,
or in a word, any departure from an upright, open and ingenuous
deportment, will detract sensibly from his power to do good.

II. _He should possess the faculty of adapting himself to the various
characters and temperaments of convicts._--We do not mean by this that
he should have any other faculty than such as shrewd men of common
sense ordinarily possess, and on which they depend for much of their
success in business. But it is by no means a rare thing to find a
prison chaplain, or moral instructor peculiarly deficient in this
point, and there is nothing which is likely to strike the class of
people with whom he has to deal more quickly or more unhappily than a
weakness of this kind, especially in one who is set to be their teacher
and guide.

III. _In such an office, the motive of benevolence and sympathy
should be seen to have the predominance over the motive of
self-interest._--The laborer in this department, as well as in all
others, is worthy of his hire, but if those he would influence discover
in the manner of doing his work, or in his general intercourse, that
he acts the part of a mere functionary, having his beat like a police
officer, and fulfilling an appointed task like a delver or ditcher, his
usefulness will be greatly circumscribed. And this suggests

IV. A fourth quality in a chaplain or moral instructor, viz.: _a warm,
glowing, personal, enthusiastic sympathy with the population of the
prison_.--He is a physician among a company of diseased and dying
patients. They are bidden to look to him for direction and to confide
in his prescriptions, (though not in his power or skill,) for a cure of
their maladies. If he has felt in his own person the presence of the
same disease, (though perhaps in a less offensive and aggravated form,)
and has known the value of a remedy, he will not look with indifference
on their symptoms, nor hear unmoved their sighs and groans. He will
have a tear of sympathy for the suffering; a helping hand for the weak
and trembling, and will deal honestly but gently with the impatient and
froward. They are guilty, and is he without sin? They are suffering
the penalty of a wholesome law, and what but an unseen hand has
restrained him from violating it? While therefore, he sets before them,
honestly and faithfully, the evil of their ways, he will give power and
persuasiveness to his words by the tender and sympathizing tones in
which they are uttered. While he points them to a merciful and faithful
high priest that has past into the heavens, and ever lives to make
intercession for guilty, penitent men, he shows that, like that same
high priest, he is touched with the feeling of their infirmities and
sympathizes in their bondage.

V. A chaplain or moral instructor _should have good judgment in the
selection of subjects of conversation and instruction, and in his
methods of illustration_.--It is not unfrequently the case, that
the most harsh and repulsive views of moral and religious truth are
presented to those whose minds are already filled with prejudice and
hostility, as if it were needful (as it is said to be in some bodily
diseases) to make them worse before attempting to make them better. A
man of ferocious temper is the last person to tame a wild beast; nor
will a severe and offensive presentation of the most precious truth be
likely to win an already alienated mind. To charge home their guilt on
convicts, and make them feel that they have as good as they deserve,
even if their situation were much worse than it is, will never pave the
way for moral influences.

It requires good judgment to select topics for the moral and religious
instruction of convicts, and much skill and tact to illustrate them.
A false position on a moral subject will be quite as likely to strike
a congregation of rogues as a congregation of honest men; and it is
wonderful how the faith of a disciple is weakened by a single material
error in a teacher. The moral instructor of prisoners, having nothing
to do with points of polemic theology or subtle casuistry, has a plain
and easy path if he is only willing to keep it. The elementary truths
of religion and morality, which lie within the comprehension alike of
a child and of an angel, and which are recognized by all sober-minded
men as the basis and stamina of all true moral reformation, are to be
explained and enforced, and their influence in promoting happiness,
respectability and prosperity in this life and in preparing us for the
future, is to be clearly exhibited.

In illustrating these truths, much depends on a seasonable reference
to those things within the knowledge or present consciousness of the
convicts. Incidents of daily observation--the familiar phenomena of
nature, their own history in its social and moral relations, (with
which the teacher is supposed to have made himself acquainted) will
furnish topics appropriate in character and abundant in variety.

VI. _It is very important that a moral instructor should possess
the faculty of casual teaching._--It is an easy thing to occupy ten
or fifteen minutes in talking with a convict, but if he would leave
something behind him for the man to ponder and reflect on when the
cell-door closes again, the visitor or instructor must weigh well what
he says, and seize the opportunity to drop a casual word of admonition,
or encouragement, or intimidation, as the condition and habits of each
individual may warrant.

These casual suggestions often have far more weight than a studied
sermon, or an elaborate and earnest exhortation. The methods of
exerting an influence over others, and especially over thoughtless and
perverse persons, would be much more appropriate and effective were
they governed less by the teacher's own state of mind, and more by
the state of the mind which he wishes to change. Moral instructors of
all grades are oftentimes in the dark respecting the mental condition
and habits of their catechumens; and prison chaplains or instructors
not unfrequently err in occupying so much of their interviews in
expostulation, reproof and entreaty, as to leave no proper opportunity
to hear, much less to draw out, an expression of the convict's own
feelings. In such a case their labors, however well meant, lose much of
their value, and are sometimes worse than wasted.

VII. _It is highly desirable that instruction in sound learning should
be combined with instruction in religious and moral duties._--He who
opens our minds to the apprehension of new and valuable ideas, gains
an important ascendancy over us. The labors of a faithful and skilful
teacher are always remembered with gratitude. Now there are a thousand
opportunities in the course of ordinary instruction, even in the simple
branches of reading and writing, to throw out suggestions of duty and
interest, which a watchful teacher will eagerly improve. In the setting
of a copy, in the reading of a paragraph, and even in the spelling of
a word, such an opportunity may present itself. Powerful and lasting
associations are often established in this way. The familiar sentence--

  "_Evil communications corrupt good manners_,"

which has for a century perhaps, been used as a copy in writing-schools
and classes, and which was originally selected, probably, because
there is so large a proportion of letters of the simplest formation,
has doubtless been fixed in the minds of thousands by the use of it in
such a connection. When it is remembered how transient, uncertain and
unfavorable is the opportunity to impress at all the minds of convicts,
we may well insist upon the strictest economy in the use of such as we
have.

VIII. As a library has become an almost indispensable appendage to
our prisons, _the moral instructor should be competent, not only to
select the most appropriate book for the use of the convicts, but
also to distribute them with judgment when under his care_.--The most
preposterous errors are often detected in some of our prisons on
both these points. Where books are kindly given for such a purpose,
reference is seldom had to the appropriateness of them. They are not
wanted by the donor, and are therefore given to the prison. The moral
instructor should be held responsible for every book that goes upon the
shelves of the prison library, and he should be so familiar with the
general character and design of each volume, as to determine as to its
appropriateness to the condition, capacity and present habit of each
prisoner's mind.

IX. _We are clear that the moral instructor should reside within the
prison walls_, and be expected to have the same constancy in duties and
responsibilities _as the warden_, or any other resident officer. There
is no hour of the day in which he may not find or make an opportunity
of doing good, and it is only by identifying himself with the daily
routine of prison-duties, and with the interests of all concerned in
their administration, that he can properly execute his work.

X. _The character and position of the moral instructor should be
such as to command the respect and confidence of the officers and
inspectors._--There is no such thing as hood-winking prisoners on such
a subject as this. They soon discover how much respect the executive
authorities feel for the man who is appointed to such an office, and
it is vain to suppose their estimation of him by those within the
cells will be any higher. The moral thermometer on the outside and the
inside of the partition wall, will indicate a similar temperature on
this, and on most other subjects. There are prison chaplains and moral
instructors in the world, whose characters and opinions challenge the
regard and respect not only of prison officers and visitors, but of
the public at large; and such have uniformly exerted a most sensible
and happy influence on the wretched congregations committed to their
charge. If the moral instructors in our State and County prisons are
of this stamp, we may well congratulate ourselves that so important
a post is adequately filled. If they are not possessed, in some good
degree, of the qualities which have been enumerated, the sooner they
are removed the better shall we regard it for the prison and for the
public, for we are clear that an incompetent incumbent of such an
office is an instrument of more evil than good.




ART. II.--REPORT OF THE DISCIPLINE AND MANAGEMENT OF THE CONVICT
    PRISONS AND DISPOSAL OF CONVICTS, 1851-2, with notes on the
    Construction of Prisons, Treatment and Disposal of Juvenile
    Offenders, &c. By Lieutenant Colonel Jebb, Surveyor General of
    prisons of England, &c., pp. 218, with numerous plates.


This document is dated in June last, and came to hand since our January
number was issued. In a cursory reading of it, we have noted several
points of general interest, and without attempting a classification of
the topics, we will imagine our readers to be looking over our shoulder
as we rapidly turn the leaves, making now and then a brief comment or
two.

In the ten prisons for separate confinement in England proper, there is
room for 2,459 convicts, and 2,193 were in prison, leaving unoccupied
accommodations for 266. In the three prisons for labor on the public
works there were 1,931 confined, and only 17 more could have been
received. In the hulks, there were 1,780 and only two vacancies; and
in the Juvenile Prison at Parkhurst, there were 577 tenants and 29
vacancies. The total convict population of the year was 9,033, and
there were 355 more on hand December 31, 1851, than at the same date
in the previous year. Of the whole number, 13 were removed to Lunatic
Asylums during the year, 147 were pardoned, (of whom 76 were on medical
grounds,) and 111 died.

In the report of the Millbank prison, we have an incidental testimony
from the chaplain to the moral advantages of separation, which we think
valuable.

    Of _moral improvement_, however, as regards the _many_, embracing
    change of principle and _real amendment of character_, he feels (he
    says) considerable diffidence. Bearing in mind the circumstances of
    the prison,--the period of separate confinement, rarely exceeding
    six months, being somewhat brief to be _permanently effective_
    for reformatory purposes--the danger of any good impressions
    made during that period (the seed-time of reformation) being
    effaced when prisoners are transferred to the _large rooms and
    general ward_, where the opportunity is withdrawn from those
    under incipient convictions of being ever _left alone with their
    conscience_, and the spiritual exercises of the more advanced in
    religion, both meditation and prayer, are subject to disturbance.

If this opinion is the result of intelligent and long continued
observation, (as we suppose it to be,) it is certainly very conclusive
as to the value and indispensableness of convict-separation as a means
of reform. The italic words are all found of the same character in the
original document. They form, when read by themselves, a memorable
sentence, and one which we respectfully commend to all those who stand
in doubt on the subject.

"Moral improvement or real amendment of character, to be permanently
effective among the many, is not to be expected in large rooms and
general wards. They require to be left alone with their conscience."

From _Pentonville_, we have a very favorable report, especially as it
regards the health, physical and mental. Only two cases of insanity
have occurred during the year among 561 prisoners, and of these one had
low intellectual development, which made him incapable of learning a
trade; and the other, though only 26 years of age, had been previously
convicted and imprisoned three times. He was suddenly seized with mania
three weeks only after commitment, and cerebral disease was presumed by
the physician to have been upon him when received. Concerning both of
the cases the physician remarks, that the "insanity was not traceable
to the operation of separation on the minds of the prisoners."--p. 11.

We venture to say that no prison on any plan or system can show cleaner
papers respecting the health of an equal number of convicts.

It seems that immediately succeeding this year of remarkable health,
in the course of the first half of the year 1852, "an unusually large
number of cases of mental affection" occurred, which led to the
substitution of brisk walking in concentric rings for exercise in
separate airing yards--the abolition of the mask or peak which was
found useless as a preventive of recognition, and the doing away of
the chapel stalls. It is well known that these three features of the
Pentonville system were designed to carry out the principle of strict
separation. If they were found ineffectual for this purpose, their
abandonment is a matter of no moment; and as the term of imprisonment
in this penitentiary is regarded as probationary, and is moreover
restricted to twelve months, we can scarcely suppose that such changes
were required by way of relaxing the discipline. Colonel Jebb gives
us to understand that the prejudices of the public against separate
confinement are gradually subsiding, and he thinks it "of greater
importance to the more general introduction of the system that every
effort should be made to secure its great advantages without again
raising the question of its safety." Is there no danger, however, that
its efficacy may be so far diminished by needless relaxation, as to
make it scarcely worth the trouble of introducing it?

We have not a shadow of evidence, nor even an intimation that the
supposed increase of insanity was in the slightest degree the result
of severe discipline; nor have we any report from the medical officer,
visiting or resident, as to the existence of such "an unusually large
number of cases of mental affection." But whether they existed or not,
"they were believed to exist," and the Board of Commissioners directed
the changes to which we have above adverted. In the progress of the
inquiries on the subject, it was suggested to the visiting director,
that he should obtain the joint opinion of the Governor, Chaplain and
Medical Officer on sundry points, among which were the following:

    1. Whether it appears necessary to reject any particular
    description of prisoners as being unfit subjects for separate
    confinement, such, for instance, as those of dull intellect, or
    others who do not speak the language, and are, therefore, less
    capable of instruction.

    2. Whether the arrangements at Wakefield and Leicester, with regard
    to assembling for public worship, school instruction, exercise in
    association, &c., are likely to be the cause of a more favorable
    effect of separate (?) confinement on apparently the same class of
    prisoners.

    3. Whether a greater stimulus or a greater degree of vigor cannot
    be imparted to the trades and occupations in the cells.

    4. Whether it will be necessary and desirable, after a certain
    period of confinement, to exercise all prisoners in association,
    and whether the removal of both the long ranges of exercising-yards
    will be sufficient for such purpose.

    5. Whether the garden at the back of the prison might not be
    advantageously cultivated by prisoners selected from those who may
    have been a certain period in confinement.

    6. Whether dispensing with the mask would be likely to be attended
    with a beneficial effect.

We should have been gratified to know the answers which were returned
to these pertinent and important inquiries. We think the second
question would puzzle the wisest commissioner that could be found,
whether association will be the cause of a more favorable effect of
separate confinement on apparently the same class of prisoners! Or to
vary the phraseology, what is likely to be the effect of association
upon separation! In the absence of any report from the medical officer,
and with the health report of the preceding twelvemonth before us, we
cannot doubt that some misapprehension has arisen from exaggerated and
possibly fictitious representations.

A new chapter of observations and conclusions is opened to us at
Millbank by Dr. Baly, the visiting physician. It will be remembered
that no little discrepancy of opinion occurred a short time since
between the resident and visiting physician of the penitentiary at
Pentonville,[A] and hence we should feel disposed to suspend full
confidence in the present statement, till we know what the other doctor
has to say. But one or two facts may be safely cited, which will serve
to show how entirely irreconcilable some theories on this subject
are with each other, and with the actual phenomena. Of eight insane
convicts transferred during the year 1851 from Millbank to the Lunatic
Hospital, five were decidedly insane when received into the prison. The
aggregate of eight years gives us sixty-five cases of insanity among
7,393 convicts, of whom thirty-five were insane when received, and nine
of the remainder were of very low intellect, and only twenty-one were
of sound mind; of these twenty-one, thirteen recovered in the prison,
leaving only eight all told, or about one in 1,000 as sufferers, in
this form, from their incarceration! What prison or what mode of
discipline can show a better result than this?

[A] See Journal of Prison Discipline for April, 1852.

Among the very remarkable things disclosed in this report of Dr. Baly,
we find that during the first four years of the period of time embraced
in it, when the average term of imprisonment was less than one hundred
days, the cases of insanity were 11 or 3.28 per 1,000 prisoners, and
that in the last four years, in which fifty-six days were added to the
average length of confinement, the cases of insanity rose to 19 or 4.70
per 1,000! So that, omitting those who recovered in prison, the ratio
in the first four years was 1.49 per 1,000, and, the last 2.72, or
nearly double! It has been generally conceded even by the most zealous
opponents of separation, that its tendencies are quite harmless and
even wholesome, when not extended much beyond twelve months; but Dr.
Baly's report presents an entirely new view of the case. He tells us
that the ratio of insanity is twice as high in the second three months
of confinement, and more than three times as high in the third, as it
is in the first. His table is as follows:

  -----------------------------+-------------+------------+---------------
                               |Approximative|   Number   |    Annual
                               |   Number    |of Cases of |ratio per 1,000
  Periods of Imprisonment.     |of Prisoners |  Insanity  |  of Cases of
                               | who passed  |occurring in| Insanity for
                               |  through    |each Period.| each Period.
                               |each Period. |            |
  -----------------------------+-------------+------------+---------------
  First Three Months           |   16,000    |     9      |     2.25
  Second Three Months          |    8,400    |     9      |     4.28
  Third Three Months           |    4,200    |     8      |     7.61
  Fourth Three Months, or later|    1,200    |     4      |      --
  -----------------------------+-------------+------------+---------------

But it unfortunately happens that the reasons assigned for these
results would go to disprove them. "The various feelings of remorse,
shame and despondency," and the "withdrawal of the external sources of
excitement," would be much more likely to work upon convicts' spirits
during the first three months, than during the third three months,
especially when the termination of the sentence is so near at hand. But
the whole statement is so extravagant, and so contrary to the received
opinions of even anti-separatists themselves, that we are disposed to
give it very little weight. Dr. Given, late resident physician of the
Eastern State Penitentiary, whom we must all regard as at least an
uncommitted party, expresses his conviction of the entire safety of
separation for the term of twelve months, even in the case of minors;
but beyond that, in their case, he would seldom extend it. See his
Report for 1852.

We have yet to be informed of the first case of the loss or serious
impairment of a convict's mental or bodily health from the judicious
and faithful administration of the separate system of discipline; but
whatever real or fancied dangers to body or mind attend it, one thing
is made clear by the report before us, viz., that it is wonderfully
efficacious.

We infer from several passages in this document, what we have not
seen more specifically stated elsewhere, that "the principle of the
discipline now established in the English prisons, contemplates a
confinement of the convict in strict separation twelve months, to
prepare him for a term of labor in association;" and this latter stage,
from its "exposing prisoners to many temptations, which they would have
to encounter on their final release from penal restrictions in England,
is to prepare them for that event." So that we have three grades or
stages in the process; separation follows conviction and introduces to
association, which is preparatory to transportation.

    The convict, having passed the appointed term in separate
    confinement, is removed to the establishment in Portland Island
    (or, it may be, when suitable arrangements are made, to one of our
    Dockyards), to labor in the formation of the harbor of refuge, or
    on some public work. There, although he is still under religious
    instruction and very judicious superintendence, his principles and
    the reality of his reformation are subjected to a severe test. He
    is associated with other convicts, and, as it cannot be supposed
    that all have been reclaimed, he meets with many temptations.

The officer in charge of the Portland Island establishment, says:

    The subdued, improved, and disciplined state in which the
    convicts generally arrive at Portland, from the stage of separate
    confinement, appears to be an admirable preparative for their
    transfer to the greater degree of freedom unavoidable on public
    works. Those convicts who have been for a considerable time at
    Portland, have not usually indicated any falling off in morals or
    conduct, but, on the contrary, several instances have occurred in
    which men, on whose conduct the comparative degree of liberty here
    alluded to, appeared to have at first an unfavorable effect, have
    afterwards become orderly and industrious, and content to work
    their way cheerfully to the prospective advantages held out to
    convicts of that character.

Such strong testimony to the efficiency and powerful reformatory
influence of separation, is of great value.

Some interesting items are furnished on the extent and expenses of
transportation. The number of convicts sent to the Australian colonies
from Great Britain in 1847, was 938, in 1851, 1568. The average number
transported annually from Great Britain, is given at 1750--1300 males,
and 450 females.

    The estimates for 1852-53 for services connected with the
    transportation of convicts amount to the gross sum of 101,041_l._,
    which provides for the removal of 3,100 males and 800 females from
    Great Britain and Ireland to Australia, and of 800 to Bermuda and
    Gibraltar.

    Deducting the probable expense devoted to the latter service, there
    might remain about 95,000_l._, as the amount required for the
    removal of 3,900 convicts, or 24_l._ per head.

From various movements in the present parliament, we are led to infer
that transportation will soon be abandoned. This event is more than
intimated in the report before us. It is inferred from the tenor of a
brief discussion of the scheme of the select committee of the House
of Commons, announced two years since, in the form of three specific
propositions, viz.:

    I. That after prisoners under long sentences have undergone a
    period of separate confinement, the remainder of their sentences
    ought to be passed under a system of combined labor, with effectual
    precautions against intercourse.

    II. That this object would be greatly facilitated by the erection
    of district prisons, at the national cost, for the reception of
    prisoners under long sentences after they have undergone such
    previous separate confinement.

    III. That such district prisons should be maintained at the
    national cost, and the government of such prisons, and all
    appointments and salaries of officers, ought to be under the
    control of Her Majesty's Government.

Col. Jebb regards these plans with unqualified favor. "If it were only
to avoid the inconvenience and expense of transportation," he says, "it
is well deserving of attention, especially in an economical point of
view."

It seems that lengthened "periods of imprisonment have not hitherto
been resorted to, partly from there being no existing prison where
sentences exceeding twelve months could be properly carried into
effect, and partly, from a sentence of transportation in former times
affording so easy a solution of all difficulty both as regarded expense
and final disposal." And Col. Jebb expresses the opinion, that "if
facilities existed for carrying into effect sentences of imprisonment
extending from eighteen months to three years without expense to the
counties and boroughs, a large proportion of the present sentences to
seven years' transportation would be changed to imprisonment." Allowing
the average sentences to be from two and a half to three years, nine
months would be past under the discipline of separation, and from
twenty-one to twenty-seven months in the district prison.

As a general conclusion of the whole matter, Col. Jebb copies and
adopts the opinion of the Parliamentary committee, that "if conducted
under proper regulations and control, separate confinement is more
efficient than any other system which has yet been tried, both in
deterring from crime and in promoting reformation."

It is quite evident that he is no convert to Dr. Baly's views, for he
does not propose to reduce the average term of separation below nine
months, within which all the mischiefs of it, (according to the Dr.'s
theory or statement,) are experienced. Indeed, if we are not under
great misapprehension, Col. Jebb has over and over again expressed his
confidence in the principle of separation, when applied to periods
varying from twelve to eighteen months.

So far from yielding to a suggestion of relaxation, the present
report urges _a uniform system of discipline_ in all prisons, and the
enforcing of separate confinement alike to the tried and the untried.
It endorses the declaration of a committee of the House of Commons,
that "the combination of hard labor with individual separation, has
been remarkable in its effect to decrease the number of committals."
The prison of Leicester is cited as an example.

In one section of the report, the subject of enforcing hard labor is
discussed; Lord Denman's remarks are cited, in which he speaks of "the
only legitimate end of punishment being to deter from crime; but I
think I perceive," he says, "in some of the theories of benevolent men,
such a mode of administering the criminal law as to encourage instead
of deterring. I greatly dread the effect of giving convicts benefits
and privileges which they never could have hoped for but from the
commission of crime."

In allusion to this subject Col. Jebb, in his report for the preceding
year, suggests whether among "the means of increasing the stringency
of the discipline, and bringing it to bear with greater effect on the
lowest class of prisoners, and on such as prove to be incorrigible,
also on prisoners re-committed to prison, giving them a less
comfortable bed for certain periods, or on alternate nights,--might
not be desirable. The physical comforts of a prison are of necessity
greater than the majority of prisoners enjoy when at liberty; and if,
without injury to health, these can be abridged, a more deterring
effect will be produced by the discipline, both on the individual
himself and the criminal population generally."

We have often and earnestly contended for a more liberal use of those
methods of discipline which apply to the sources or organs of criminal
indulgence. Moral diseases have corresponding remedies. No more
suitable remedy can be prescribed for idleness and indolence than hard
work. Nothing is more irksome to a man given to depraved appetite, than
short commons. The difference between a good dinner on corned beef and
potatoes, and a ration of bread and water, is felt at points which
reproof and the shower-bath, and even the cat-o'-nine-tails, will none
of them reach. The former, by itself, will subdue a spirit which the
three latter combined will only rouse to indomitable stubbornness.

On the whole, we regard this document as decidedly confirmatory of the
views which have been uniformly advocated by the Philadelphia Society
for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisons, and in the
pages of this Journal. It contains not a statement nor a tittle of
evidence that impairs in the slightest degree our confidence in the
safety, efficacy and humanity of convict-separation. That it has been,
and may be abused or ill-administered, and that it requires judgment
and discrimination to adapt its provisions to the various classes of
persons who are subjected to it, is not more true of this than it is
of the gregarious or any other system. The only substantial fault that
we have ever known to be found with it, is that it costs more than
association, and the only answer to be made to this is, that (admitting
the statement to be true) it is worth as much more as it costs.




ART. III.--SOURCES AND CHECKS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.


When the farmer finds his fruit trees exposed to the ravages of the
caterpillar, he makes but slow and unsatisfactory work, if he takes
the worms one by one as they are feasting on the leaf, or crawling
along the stem, or dangling in the air. There is a period of the day,
however, when they are all in their nest, and if he can apply a torch
to their curious fabric and consume it, or riddle it with shot, or wind
it and its wriggling population upon a brush or broom well besmeared
with pitch or tar, to be forthwith put into the fire or under the foot,
the work is thorough and the tree safe.

Not inaptly does this illustrate, or serve to point out the true
process for the diminution of crime. The arrest, conviction and
punishment of here and there a rogue, is scarcely felt. It is but a
unit subtracted from the appalling aggregate of crime. If we would
have the ratio of our criminal population palpably and permanently
lessened, we must lay hold of the young ones in the nest, and whatever
the trouble or cost, we may rest assured it is by all odds the cheapest
and only effectual way of dealing with the pest.

Among the prominent causes of, or excitements to a criminal life
which are operative upon childhood, especially in cities and populous
towns, have been reckoned 1, and chiefly drunkenness. 2. The
absence of education and industrial training. 3. The inadequacy of
home-accommodation to secure the ordinary decencies of life. 4. The
demoralizing influences of cheap theatres, and other low places of
amusement, association with fire companies, and the liberty to dispose
of the whole or a considerable portion of their own earnings. 5. The
example, instruction or orders of parents constraining them to vicious
acts, and 6, the connivance or co-operation of receivers of stolen
goods to prompt them. We might indefinitely enlarge this catalogue, but
these causes are adequate to account for the greater part of juvenile
crime.

The readers of our Journal cannot fail to be aware of the unusual
interest which has recently been awakened on this subject. Our present
number contains sundry evidences of it, and by referring to the cover,
a notice will be found, the design of which is to provoke inquiry and
discussion, with a view to reformatory measures. As human nature is
substantially the same all the world over, and as like causes produce
like effects, we have transferred to our pages several interesting and
important passages from the last report of the inspector general of
English prisons, bearing particularly on this subject.

In respect to the first cause of juvenile depravity, which we just
commented on, drunkenness--

    "Statistical returns show that the amount of money expended in
    intoxicating drinks of one kind or another in Great Britain, is
    between fifty and sixty millions of pounds sterling per annum,--a
    sum fully equal to the whole national revenue.

    "Now such an enormous expenditure on any one object must produce
    a noticeable effect upon our social condition. Were such a
    sum annually expended on the reclaiming of waste land and the
    improvement of what is but partially cultivated, and the erection
    of comfortable dwellings, in a few years our whole island would be
    a garden of beauty and fertility.

    "But what are the results produced?

    "The physicians of our lunatic asylums tell us that intemperance is
    the cause of a large proportion of the cases of insanity.

    "The medical officers of our infirmaries and dispensaries tell us
    that many diseases are caused, and more are made fatal, by habits
    of intemperance.

    "The masters of our poor houses tell us that they can trace the
    pauperism of most of their inmates to their own intemperance, or to
    that of their parents.

    "The governors and chaplains of our prisons tell us that most of
    the crime in our gaols is directly or indirectly caused by strong
    drink.

    "If the offences to which habitual drinking has ultimately led
    could be ascertained, I believe we should find that four-fifths of
    the recorded offences have sprung from it."

Although the remedy for this enormous evil is justly regarded as lying
to a considerable degree in the hands of educators, it is maintained
that "much may be done to abate the evil by reducing the number of
licensed public houses both in town and country, and by greatly raising
the expense of strong drink."

As an evidence of the effects of cheapening strong drink, it is stated
that in 1825, the duty on whiskey was greatly reduced in Scotland, and
that as a consequence, intemperance began to increase, so that "in the
twenty-seven years which have since elapsed, the consumption has become
nearly _five-fold_ greater; crime, disease, and death have increased in
similar proportion; and the sober, religious Scotland of other days is
now _proved_, by its consumption of spirits, to be, without exception,
the most drunken nation in Europe."

As to the connection between intemperance and the other causes of
juvenile depravity, "the records of the prison-house, if fully
analyzed, would show that the _first penny or the first pound_ taken
by a son from his parents, or abstracted by the young man from his
master's desk, is for the theatre, not for the public-house. But
youth, being corrupted by the pleasures of sin, drunkenness follows,
and becomes the associate or the substitute of licentiousness, and
completes the ruin. Money becomes indispensable, and it is gotten by
some desperate and wicked means, at the possibility of which a few
months before, the mind would have recoiled with indignation, like that
of Hazael, when reproached by the prophet: 'Is thy servant a dog, that
he should do this great thing?'"

In the great majority of instances, it is believed, the only means by
which the reformation of such can be rationally expected is by their
thorough and permanent severance from those scenes and associations in
which their evil habits were formed. Although suffering from hunger
and misery, it must not be supposed that the lives led by these
delinquent children are void of pleasurable sensations; "the very
alternation from one extreme to another keeps the mind in a state
of feverish excitement; the want of a penny to buy food on one day,
is more than compensated by the reckless profusion of the next; and
the despondency created by privation and long suffering is speedily
supplanted by exultation on the success of some criminal feat of daring
and dexterity."

None will deny another position of the report, viz.:

    "That it is impossible for children to be brought up as Christian
    children ought to be, when huddled together, male and female, old
    and young, like pigs in a stye; and yet this revolting expression
    is not too strong to designate the dwellings of tens of thousands
    in our land.

    "How many of our honest industrious artisans have only one
    apartment, or, at most, a room and a closet for father and mother,
    and grown up sons and daughters!

    "The physical condition of the poor cannot be viewed as separated
    from the moral. The want of a proper dwelling place for the
    working man is one of his greatest trials, and is as injurious
    to his spiritual as to his bodily health. The crowding together
    of a whole family in one room weakens domestic virtue, destroys
    all self-respect, modesty, and delicacy of feeling, and utterly
    removes all opportunities for self-improvement. A home which is
    miserable from physical or moral causes is the half-way house to
    the gin-palace or beer-shop."

The inquiry might be opportunely raised, whether the _habits_ of
life which constitute such a social state as is here described, are
not formed long before the state itself is entered. A girl or boy
accustomed to street-associations either in the pursuit of some trading
employment, as selling papers, matches, &c., &c., or from mere neglect
and idleness, will soon fall into habits which no degree of loathsome
infamy or social degradation will shock. The origin of the evil, in
such cases, lies far back of its present stage and locality. It dates
from the _childhood_ of those who now act as the head of this filthy
and brutalized little community.

Of the penny theatres, it is truly remarked, that "they present almost
irresistible attractions;" and the annals of juvenile delinquents are
full of cases of petty thefts committed in order to procure the penny
or twopence required for admission.

Even if the price of admission be honestly obtained, as one of the
reports says, the scenes to which the youthful spectator is there
introduced are understood to be of the most flagitious and depraving
nature, calculated only to inflame the passions, and deaden every
virtuous feeling.

Singing-rooms and dancing-rooms, too, are represented as training up
boys and girls to familiarity with vice in every shape. A magistrate
sent two of his officers to visit one of them. Their report describes
seven hundred boys and girls collected together to have their bodies
poisoned with smoke and drink, and their minds with ribaldry and
obscenity! Can any one have a doubt that the evil wrought in such a
singing-room in a single night, outweighs all the good that can be
effected by a dozen Sunday-schools in a whole year?

And finally the part played by the receivers of stolen goods is
described as a profession.

So much for causes, and now as to remedies. These are emphatically
_preventive_ in their nature, "lying at the very foundation of our
social arrangements, and until very recently, wholly disregarded and
uncared for, viz., 'organized and adequate means for EDUCATION and
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.'"

It is remarkable how many of the prominent features of some of our
modern schemes of juvenile reform here, have been long ago presented to
the public eye. More than half a century ago, (1796) the renowned Earl
of Chatham introduced to the British Parliament a bill, which had for
its object the establishment of a school for work in every parish or
incorporated district, for the purpose of instructing the children in
different trades and manufactures. The parishes were to be at liberty
to maintain their poor children in the working schools, or to lodge
them there or keep them only during the hours of labor, and then
feed them there or give them work to do at home. The overseers were
to be charged with the direction of these schools, and were required
to supply them with materials and utensils, &c. Parents burdened with
infant children, and in the receipt of out-door relief, were required
to send their children to the working school as soon as they were five
years old, to be instructed and maintained there. It was provided that
those fathers who might prefer to keep their children at home, should
bring them up and employ them, receiving some direction and assistance
from the local authorities until the children were in a condition to
gain their livelihood. Upon leaving the working school, those children
who could not return to their families were to have been apprenticed at
the expense of the parishes, or provided with some means of service.

It has long been our conviction, as the volumes of this Journal will
show, that no very radical reform of the vicious children and youth
of the land will be accomplished, so long as the government is so
reluctant to enforce parental obligations, or to take upon itself all
due attention to such obligations in those points where the welfare and
safety of society are put in jeopardy by the disregard of them. Though
our institutions are based on a principle of the utmost liberty, they
are, for that very reason, peculiarly dependent on the proper education
and training of children for their preservation. No country on the
face of the globe has so much staked on the intelligence, industry and
virtue of each succeeding generation as ours. We are fully satisfied
that the timidity which our government manifests in laying fast and
earnest hold of this great evil, PARENTAL NEGLECT, exposes us to the
loss of all that is worth preserving.

    "Society has surely the right to guard itself against the evil
    practices of those neglected children; and, having the right, it
    ought also to have the power; but if such power exist, it seems
    very difficult to tell in whose hands it is vested. The child
    convicted of theft is whipped or imprisoned, but if he stole to
    appease the cravings of hunger which his worthless parent failed
    to satisfy, it is clear that chastisement has not fallen upon the
    proper party, and that the really guilty has profited by the vices
    prompted by his culpable neglect, while the whole cost has been
    defrayed by the public."

    "Power must be given," says our report, "to send to school
    all _neglected_ children--all found loitering in streets and
    lanes--whose parents take no charge of them, but leave them to grow
    up as they may, untutored and untaught, save in the practice of
    crime. If the parents neglect to perform their bounden duty, then
    the State may properly step in, _loco parentis_, and do the needful
    work; and surely this is no unjustifiable interference with the
    parental authority--it is only saying to the parent, 'if you will
    not discharge the duty you owe to your child, both in the sight of
    God and of man, we, the public, will do it for you; we will not
    suffer your child to grow up a torment to himself and to all around
    him; we would much rather you did your duty yourself, but if you
    _will not_, then _we must_.'

    "By law, the burden of uncared-for pauper children falls at present
    on the workhouse, but the poor-law authorities are not entitled
    to expend their money, unless under their own immediate control;
    and power must be given to them to do so, through the medium of
    industrial school managers. This will be as advantageous as it is
    economical. Better for the public, who must eventually pay in one
    form or other, to maintain the child in an industrial school at
    4_l._ a year, than in a poor house at 10_l._ or 12_l._, especially
    as the smaller expenditure gives every prospect of making him a
    useful member of the community, and the larger gives little hope of
    ever raising him above the pauper class.

    "A good education," says one of the inspectors of the English
    National Schools, "so infallibly dispauperises, and raises its
    recipient above the necessity of ever again applying for relief,
    that except under gross mismanagement of the guardians in other
    points, we may be tolerably certain that vicious habits, easily
    eradicable by sound early training, have brought the great
    majority of those who burden the parochial rates to their state
    of dependence. Could this truth be more universally impressed on
    the managers of the poor, the difficulties in the way of forming
    industrial schools would vanish!

    "It was said by the late stipendiary magistrate at Liverpool, that
    he had ascertained that ten such children, under fourteen years
    of age had cost, in apprehension and imprisonment, upwards of six
    hundred pounds; and, with so little effect, that all of them were
    then in prison, and one, only about ten years of age, lay under
    sentence of transportation for seven years.

    "The remedy for these enormous evils appears simple and obvious.
    Let the committee or the magistrate be empowered to send all such
    mendicant children to the schools of industry at the expense of
    the parent or the parish, and let the worthless parent be punished
    if he neglects the sacred duty of maintaining his child, which at
    present he is allowed to do with impunity."

We think the friends of our Houses of Refuge could scarcely ask a more
sensible and cogent argument in support of such establishments, than is
furnished in these brief extracts; and yet cogent and sensible as it
may be, it fails to convince gainsayers, or at least, to constrain them
to prompt and liberal action. Within a twelvemonth a project for such
an establishment was lost in a neighboring State, (as it was alleged,)
in some political whirlpool; and the public prints tell us, that a like
wholesome measure was lately defeated in St. Louis by the jealousy
or arrogance of a religious party. We do not vouch for the truth of
either of these statements, but we hazard nothing in saying, that the
problem, how to restrain and suppress crime, will never be solved, till
politicians and religionists lose their selfishness and their bigotry
in an earnest and efficient effort to provide for vicious and neglected
children.

The following good old Saxon principle is adverted to in a report on
Parochial Union Schools for 1851.

    "Guardians are not always so open to considerations of ultimate
    as of immediate economy; and many a pauper who now, before his
    death, costs his parish one or two hundred pounds, might have lived
    without relief, had a different education, represented perhaps by
    the additional expense of a single pound, been bestowed upon him
    in his youth! This is strictly retributive justice; and I think it
    would be good policy to increase its effect, and it would give a
    prodigious stimulus to the diffusion of education, if the expense
    of every criminal, while in prison, were reimbursed to the country
    by the parish in which he had a settlement. What a stir would be
    created in any parish by the receipt of a demand from the Secretary
    of State for the Home Department for 80_l._ for the support of
    two criminals during the past year! I cannot but think that the
    locality where they had been brought up would be immediately
    investigated, perhaps some wretched hovels, before unregarded,
    made known, and means taken to educate and civilize families that
    had brought such grievous taxation on the parish. The expense of
    keeping criminals, as of paupers, must be borne somewhere; and it
    seems more just that it should fall on those parishes whose neglect
    has probably caused the crime than on the general purse."

We would gladly pursue the discussion of these interesting topics did
our limits allow, but we have indicated one important, and as it seems
to us indispensable preliminary inquiry, viz.: Can we effectually
carry out any general scheme of reform, except we withdraw neglected
and vicious children from the associations and habits of their
miserable and degraded homes, and put them upon a course of involuntary
moral and industrial training, before they become what are technically
called juvenile delinquents? Is not a compulsory process (much earlier
in its application than the discipline of a House of Refuge) essential
to the accomplishment of any general or comprehensive reform? Will such
a process be authorized by any popular legislature in our country? If
the question implies an answer, is the answer true?




ART. IV.--PENNSYLVANIA PENITENTIARIES.--

    Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Eastern State
    Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, dated January 1, 1853, pp. 36.

    Report of the Inspectors of the Western Penitentiary of
    Pennsylvania, dated January 10, 1853, pp. 24.


These two documents embrace the details of the convict-discipline of
the State of Pennsylvania for the year 1852. It is well known that both
the institutions are established on one and the same principle, and
are administered, so far as the discipline is concerned, under one and
the same law. It may not be uninteresting to review them briefly in
connection.

  -----------------------------+----------------------------------+
                               |      E. State Penitentiary.      |
                               +-------------+-------------+------+
                               |   Whites.   |   Blacks.   |      |
                               +-----+-------+-----+-------+      +
                               |     |       |     |       |      |
                               |Male.|Female.|Male.|Female.|Total.|
                               +-----+-------+-----+-------+------+
  On hand January 1, 1852,     |     |       |     |       |  310 |
  Received during the year,    | 109 |   4   |  12 |    1  |  126 |
  In custody at date of report,| 219 |  12   |  48 |    4  |  283 |
  Disch'd by exp. of sentence, |  56 |   5   |  28 |    8  |   92 |
     "    by pardon,           |  40 |   2   |   2 |    1  |   45 |
     "    by death,            |     |       |   2 |       |    2 |
  Removed,                     |  12 |       |   2 |       |   14 |
  -----------------------------+-----+-------+-----+-------+------+

  -----------------------------+----------------------------------+------+
                               |      W. State Penitentiary.      |      |
                               +-------------+-------------+------|      |
                               |   Whites.   |   Blacks.   |      |      |
                               +-----+-------+-----+-------+      |      |
                               |     |       |     |       |      | Grand|
                               |Male.|Female.|Male.|Female.|Total.|Total.|
                               +-----+-------+-----+-------+------+------+
  On hand January 1, 1852,     |     |       |     |       |  174 |  484 |
  Received during the year,    |  84 |    1  |  10 |     1 |   96 |  222 |
  In custody at date of report,| 165 |    3  |  18 |     1 |  181 |  470 |
  Disch'd by exp. of sentence, |     |       |     |       |   56 |  148 |
     "    by pardon,           |     |       |     |       |   24 |   69 |
     "    by death,            |     |       |     |       |    3 |    5 |
  Removed,                     |     |       |     |       |      |      |
  -----------------------------+-----+-------+-----+-------+------+------+

In the Eastern State Penitentiary, the labor of the prisoners has
nearly defrayed the expense of their subsistence; while in the Western
State Penitentiary, the labor of the convicts has not only earned their
support, but has paid four-fifths the salaries of the officers.

The number of commitments to the Western State Penitentiary has
increased so much, as to require the erection of a new range of
cells--for want of which in the crowded state of the prison, the
required separation has been in some cases impracticable. But no
departure from the strict observance of the discipline has been
allowed, except where a necessity which knows no law, required it.

If it should be supposed that the apparent increase of crime betokens
the inefficiency of the discipline, it would be an unwarranted
inference. The increased number of convictions might tend to show the
increase of crime, or of sagacity and thoroughness in detecting and
prosecuting it; but there is another and abundantly adequate cause
to account for the increase in the present case, and it is the one
assigned by the inspectors, viz.--the intemperate use of intoxicating
drinks. Of the ninety-six received during the year, eighty-nine
are regarded as having been brought to the felon's home by such
indulgence! Of one hundred and twenty-six received into the Eastern
State Penitentiary during the year, only thirty-two are registered as
temperate, leaving ninety-four on the list of drinkers, moderate or
immoderate.

Of the one hundred and twenty-six admissions to the Eastern State
Penitentiary, ninety-eight were never apprenticed to a trade; and
of one hundred and eighty-seven in custody at the Western State
Penitentiary at the date of the report, forty-one were never bound;
and of the one hundred and forty-six that were bound, ninety-seven (or
two-thirds) ran away from their masters!

Among the 126 admissions to the Eastern State Penitentiary, there were
fifty-six different trades or occupations, and of thirty-eight of these
only one representative. The largest of any class were laborers, 27;
the next, boatmen, 10; shoemakers, 7; and store-keepers, and farmers,
and butchers, 5 each. Of the 187 in custody at the Western State
Penitentiary at date of report, 67 were laborers, 18 shoemakers, 12
boatmen, of farmers and blacksmiths 6 each, cooks, 5.

The Warden of the Eastern State Penitentiary gives us, as the result
of another year's experience, an increased conviction of the unabated
confidence and regard to which the system of separate confinement is
entitled; and the Warden of the Western State Penitentiary speaks of
the success of the past year "as having proved the separate system to
be what its earliest friends desired."

In the report of the medical officer of the Eastern State Penitentiary
we have the following testimony:

    I think I may state without hesitation, that there has never been,
    during the history of the institution, so great an exemption from
    disease for so long a time, as during the period for which I now
    report. There are but four men in the Infirmary who are not at
    work. It is true, there are some others in delicate or infirm
    health, but the greater part of these were received in that state,
    of whom again the majority are greatly improved.

And from the medical officer of the Western State Penitentiary we
have a similar report of the uniform prevalence of good health. There
has been less indisposition within the prison during the year just
terminated, he says, "than during any similar period of time since my
professional connection with this institution, and yet the number of
prisoners has never been so great."

As to the mental health of the convicts in the Eastern State
Penitentiary, the physician reports it to be "no less satisfactory than
their physical condition;" and of the Western State Penitentiary the
medical report is, that "no case of insanity has originated within the
prison during the year."

Of the sentences of the one hundred and twenty-six admitted, ninety-one
were for three years or less. And of ninety-six received into the
Western State Penitentiary, seventy-five were sentenced for three years
or less.

Of the one hundred and twenty-six commitments to the Eastern State
Penitentiary, ninety-six were for offences against property, only seven
of which were accompanied with violence; twenty-five were for offences
against the person, and five for violation of marriage laws. While of
the ninety-six admissions to the Western State Penitentiary, eighty
were for offences against property with and without violence, and
sixteen were for offences against the person. The general summary of
the two Institutions is as follows:

                                             East.             West.
                                       State Peni.       State Peni.
                                         23 years.         26 years.
  Of the whole number received, there
    were disch'd by expira'n of sentence,    2005               1061
  Pardoned,                                   422                305
  Deaths,                                     230                 81
  Removed,                                     31                  4
  Escaped,                                      1                 10
  Remaining December 31,                      283                187
                                             ----               ----
              Total,                         2972               1648

A very slight examination of this statement reveals some singular
differences, especially in the items of pardons and deaths, which an
analysis of the annual returns would doubtless satisfactorily explain.

The moral instructor in the Eastern State Penitentiary adverts to the
circumstance that only nineteen of the one hundred and twenty-six
commitments were over thirty-five years of age, and that twenty-eight
were under twenty. He very justly regards the ignorant, vicious and
depraved YOUTH of the land as the reservoir of convicts. The moral
instructor of the Western State Penitentiary says, "there is a larger
proportion of mere youths in the prison than at any former time. More
than three-fourths of the prisoners confined within these walls have
confessed to me that their early youth was passed almost entirely
without moral teachings. The records of our Courts bear ample testimony
to the fearful and distressing increase of crime among our youth. There
are in this prison, received within the past year, nineteen convicts
not over twenty-one years of age!"

These considerations show the seasonableness and importance of a
proposition from the Managers of our House of Refuge, which will be
found on our last page.

A large section of the report of the inspectors of the Eastern State
Penitentiary is occupied by a discussion of the provisions of the Act
of Assembly of May 4, 1852, and the proceedings under it, to which we
shall make more particular reference in a separate article.




ART. V.--SHOULD CONVICTS BE RECEIVED INTO THE STATE LUNATIC HOSPITAL AT
    HARRISBURG?


The General Appropriation Act of 1852, provides $25,000 to complete
the unfinished range of cells of the Western State Penitentiary, and
for the payment of gratuities to convicts discharged from the two
penitentiaries, $1417, viz.: $667 to the Eastern, and the remainder
($750) to the Western. Then follows §42. "That the further sum of
ten thousand dollars be and the same is hereby appropriated to the
Eastern State Penitentiary, for the purpose of grading, curbing and
paving the street adjoining, preserving the buildings from decay, and
altering and repairing a part of them for the suitable accommodation of
prisoners whose mental or physical condition requires, in the opinion
of the inspectors, a temporary relaxation of the separate confinement
system. Provided, That whenever in the opinion of the inspectors of
the Eastern State Penitentiary, any of the prisoners therein confined
shall develope such marked insanity as to render their continued
confinement in said Penitentiary improper, and their removal to the
State Lunatic Hospital necessary to their restoration, it shall be
the duty of the said Inspectors to submit such cases to a Board,
composed of the District Attorney of the County of Philadelphia, the
principal physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane at
Philadelphia, and the principal physician of the Friends' Insane Asylum
at Frankford in Philadelphia County; and in case a majority of them
cannot, at any time when required, attend, a competent physician or
physicians, to be appointed by the Court of Quarter Sessions of the
County of Philadelphia, in the place of such as cannot attend, upon
whose certificate of insanity, or the certificate of any two of them
transmitted to the Governor, and if by him approved, he shall direct
that said insane prisoner shall be by said Inspectors removed to the
State Lunatic Hospital, there to be received, safely kept and properly
provided for, at the cost and charge of the county, from which they
were sent to the Penitentiary, and if at any time during the period
for which any such insane prisoners shall have been sentenced to
confinement in the Eastern Penitentiary, they shall, in the opinion
of the trustees of said Lunatic Hospital, be so far restored as to
render their return to said Penitentiary safe and proper, then the said
trustees shall cause the said prisoner to be returned to said Eastern
Penitentiary, due notice being given to the clerk of the Court of
Quarter Sessions of the County, from which such prisoners were sent to
the Penitentiary, of all such removals or transfers."

In pursuance of the authority enforced by this law, the commissioners
met at the Penitentiary on the 20th of October last, and at various
times thereafter, and examined eighteen cases presented for their
investigation--eight of whom they regard as proper subjects of
hospital treatment; two, they think, will be as well or better off
where they are; the sentence of one expired during the pendency of the
proceedings, and he was discharged, four are not suitable inmates of
an Insane Hospital, and three, who were committed for safe keeping,
are regarded on all hands as unfit to be placed in any hospital, or
elsewhere where the means of close custody are less efficient than in
the Eastern State Penitentiary.

In the course of their report to the executive, the Commissioners very
properly speak of it as a grave question, how far it is justifiable to
mingle convicted criminals (however afflicted) amongst the meanest whom
the hand of God has visited with mental derangement, or how many insane
criminals can be sent there without seriously jeopardizing the best
interests of that institution, and risking the safety and well being of
its inmates. They add, "that no wards can be specially appropriated to
the class particularly under notice, and as a consequence the insane
criminal must be in contact directly with the insane innocent."

In the absence of a hospital constructed with exclusive reference to
the custody and treatment of convicts deprived of their reason, and
considering "the great security afforded by the penitentiary and the
character of its arrangements," the Commissioners are of the opinion,
that "it will be quite possible, inside its enclosure, to make the
limited number of this class now confined there, more comfortable than
they could be in any ordinary hospital, for the reason, where a just
regard to the safety of others would require a much closer degree of
confinement," in which opinion we cordially coincide.

As this is the first proceeding under the provision of the law, it has
received particular attention in the report of the Inspectors, and may
claim a brief notice in our pages.

And we must in the first place take exception to the phraseology in a
clause of the Act of Assembly, which is open to misconstruction. "A
certain class of prisoners" is mentioned, "whose mental and physical
condition may require, in the opinion of the Inspectors, a temporary
relaxation of the separate confinement system." The framers of this
paragraph were probably unaware that all the provision which any body
ever considered necessary for the class of prisoners alluded to, may
be enjoyed without any "relaxation (temporary or permanent) of the
separate confinement system."

It is the _unbroken solitude_ which, by an existing law, should be
relieved two or three times a day, but in some past periods has
not been relieved for days together; it is the confinement to an
unwholesome or stultifying trade; it is the brooding over a seven
or ten years' sentence, a ruined and helpless family, and a blasted
reputation,--these are the causes, and not _separation_ from other
convicts that threaten to undermine the health and derange the reason
of convicts of a peculiar temperament. Now, if the money appropriated
could be expended in a few extra lodges, with ample exercising yards,
and perhaps one-tenth of it for an additional attendant or two, to have
charge of enfeebled prisoners (whether they were so when admitted, or
became so as a natural effect of prison-life) this provision of the
section would be very reasonable. The _separation_, however, may safely
and should certainly remain intact.

But there is another class of convicts whose case is embraced by a
_proviso_. It is those who "develope such marked insanity as to render
their continuance in the penitentiary improper, and their removal
to the State hospital necessary to their restoration." In order to
determine whether a convict answers to this description, a competent
Board is appointed to examine and report.

Now we will suppose a case is presented of a prisoner who was committed
for _safe keeping_ merely. This is certainly not a case within the
proviso. No matter how marked the insanity is, it was developed before
commitment, and his continued confinement is, therefore, in no sense
"improper." Competent authorities disposed of him with due reference to
all the circumstances of the case, and the Act of the Legislature is
not designed to disturb the acts judiciary.

Another case is presented to the Board, and they are satisfied that it
is a "manifest" development of insanity, but that with proper medical
treatment, and such out-of-door exercise as is quite compatible with
the discipline of the institution, the party may be restored. This
is clearly not within the proviso, for it is only such cases as make
"_a removal to the State Hospital necessary to their restoration_,"
that are to be transferred. It is evident, therefore, that the medical
Board are not to be restricted to the inquiry, whether there is or is
not a development of insanity, but whether the case presented is one
which the proviso meant to include. The medical Board are presumed to
know the provisions of the act from which they derive their authority,
and they cannot read it without perceiving that they are to decide
not only whether a prisoner is insane, but also whether his insanity
is of such a type or character as to render his continuance in the
prison _improper_, and a removal to the State hospital indispensable
to his recovery. Now, suppose they are satisfied of the insanity,
and also that his removal to the State hospital or elsewhere would
not be likely to restore him. This is the very point for which their
professional knowledge and experience is required--quite as much as
(if not more than) to determine the naked question of insanity. Surely
a wise Legislature could not have meant to ask a _medical Board_ to
determine the question of insanity, and leave it to the _Inspectors_ to
say whether the insanity might be safely and properly treated in the
prison, or whether a removal to the State Hospital would be likely to
issue in restoration!

On the whole therefore it must be obvious, we think, to any candid
mind, that the Legislature designed to give the Inspectors the benefit
of the _official judgment_ of a competent Board, as to the manner in
which they should treat or dispose of insane convicts.

Upon the general question of the removal of any insane convicts to the
State Asylum, we indicated an opinion in our number for July, 1852,
and farther inquiry and reflection confirms the doubt then expressed,
whether a general State Lunatic Hospital should receive convicts of any
class.

If an offender has been convicted and sentenced according to law, he
must be regarded and received into the cell as a suitable subject of
convict-discipline. A process of law so terminated, is tantamount to
incontrovertible evidence, that the party is in all respects amenable
to the penal sanctions of the law. Otherwise he is not a convict, but
an oppressed and abused sufferer. Having thus been committed, he must
abide the life of a convict. If his health fails, humane provision
should be made for him in a proper apartment, called an infirmary or
hospital, with proper attendance, medicine, nourishment, &c., but why
should he be pardoned, removed or discharged? Sickness in prison is
one of the risks he voluntarily takes in committing the offence. If
he breaks a limb or loses an eye, it is what happens to honest men as
well as convicts, and he can claim no exemption from such calamities,
and must be satisfied with prison fare when they overtake him as a
convict. Why should the failure or loss of mental soundness be a cause
of discharging a prisoner, any more than the weakness or maiming of the
body? Why should not provision be made within the prison-bounds for the
proper care and treatment of this class of ailments, as well as any
other? Certainly not because it is not practicable to do it, for the
medical records show that the recoveries among convict-lunatics here
and in England, bear quite as high a proportion to the cases, as in our
best Insane Asylums. If it should be maintained that the proper room
and attendance cannot be obtained, the same reason might be urged for
discharging the sick and lame, that there was no room for an infirmary,
nor for surgical operations, nor for nurses, &c. We do not see what
reasonable ground can be urged for the removal of the former, which
might not be quite as tenable in relation to the latter.

It seems to us that when the Commonwealth, whose peace and dignity
have been violated by a breach of the law, seizes on the offender,
and separates him from honest citizens, clearly proves his guilt, and
commits him for punishment to hard labor in the penitentiary for a term
of months or years, nothing should avail to discharge him from that
sentence, except the discovery of some evidence of its injustice. It
is assumed, of course, that he has been legally and fairly dealt with
in the whole process of the prosecution, and that the sentence is as
light as the law or the circumstances of the case will justify; and
this being conceded, we confidently maintain that the State takes him
into her custody as a convict, and that, as a convict she is bound to
provide for him whatever he needs, whether in health or sickness, in
strength or weakness, in life or death, until he has accomplished his
full term.

We venture to make these suggestions the more plainly, because we
perceive not a little confusion in the views which are gaining ground
on the subject.

In the recent report of the Inspectors of the Eastern State
Penitentiary, cases are mentioned of prisoners who were clearly insane
when first sentenced to the Penitentiary. How this fact was proved
in any case, does not appear. The question would be relieved of much
embarrassment if it did. But the report hazards another and much graver
remark, viz: that the "experience and observation" (of the Inspectors)
"have convinced them that the commission of crime is more frequently
connected with mental disease than courts or juries suspect." We had
supposed that the danger, if any, was in the opposite direction. It
must be very rare, we apprehend, that the plea of insanity is not
urged where there is the slightest pretence to sustain it. And courts
and juries, in our country at least, have been regarded as quite
sufficiently indulgent towards it whenever it is urged.

It is scarcely safe, as it seems to us, after conviction by due course
of law, to go behind the proceedings and attempt to avert their
legitimate consequences by alleging the existence of a fact which
should have stayed them entirely. That property is taken, mischief
committed, and violent deeds done by persons of insane mind and of
course irresponsible for their acts, we all know; but these acts are
not offences, nor are the perpetrators of them offenders, nor can they,
by any process of law, be turned into convicts. Yet the time to show
this (if it is not plainly apparent) is when they are arrested for such
acts, and their state of mind is relied on to exempt them from any
responsibility. If it is not shown then, it is our duty (in ordinary
circumstances) forever after to hold our peace.

It is not our province to vindicate the established tribunals of the
country from the charge of "presumption" or "inhumanity," when they
direct a maniac, who, in a paroxysm of his malady, has taken the
life of his wife or his friend, to be confined within the cells of a
penitentiary as one dangerous to society. But we suppose the community
has a claim to be protected against the violence of the lawless,
whether they are rendered so by the visitation of God or by the
indulgence of depraved and malevolent passions.

That this protection can be made sure by existing arrangements in our
State Hospital, or that adequate provision can be made therein without
injuriously affecting the interests of third parties, we are not
prepared to say. But we are well persuaded that proper provision for
all classes of convicts, whatever their physical or mental condition,
can be made in either of our State Penitentiaries; and we shall not
cease to consider those institutions very imperfectly constructed or
organized, so long as such provision is not made within their walls.

Before our readers pronounce judgment on these views, we trust they
will take sober thought and established facts into their counsels.

While these sheets were passing through the press, we were favored
with the report of the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica, for
the current year, in which the most emphatic remonstrance is made to
sending thither persons acquitted of crime, on the ground of insanity,
or convicts who become insane. The reasons are plainly stated:

    These unfortunate persons are discharged from punishment and
    committed to the asylum. The buildings not having been designed
    for the custody of this class of the insane, they cause much extra
    expense, watchfulness and care; and as experience shows, with but
    little prospect of benefit. The number is constantly increasing
    and encroaching upon space which might be more usefully devoted
    to patients who are likely to be improved, and for whom the
    institution was originally designed. Many of the class referred to
    are of the most depraved character, and quite unfit associates for
    the other inmates, who, for the most part, are persons of worth
    and respectability, and entitled to be protected against dangerous
    associations.

The mischiefs which are so clearly exposed by the Managers, are still
farther exhibited in the report of the principal physician, who regards
convict-lunatics as requiring more secure fixtures and stricter
surveillance than ordinary patients, and for these and the worst class
of drunkards, he recommends "the erection of a hospital for two hundred
and fifty patients of the male sex only, to be carefully constructed,
and fitted for the ultimate occupancy of lunatic criminals only; but
to be used, until needed exclusively for this purpose, by criminal and
homicidal lunatics and drunkards."

We think these views and suggestions must commend themselves to all
reflecting minds, and we hope to see them carried out.

We offer no apology for occupying so much of our limited space with
this subject, inasmuch as the interests of _philanthropy_ are involved
in protecting our State Lunatic Hospitals from being prejudiced by the
introduction of patients who do not properly fall under their care, and
the interests of _prison discipline_ require that the convict should
not be released from any measure of retribution for his offence, which
a lawful sentence imposes.




ART. VI.--REPORT OF THE CONDITION OF THE NEW JERSEY STATE
    PRISON.--Embracing the reports of the Joint Committee, Inspectors,
    Keeper, Moral Instructor and Physician. January 19, 1853. pp. 48.


We have been favored with the report of this institution for the year
1852-3. There were in confinement, at the beginning of the year, two
hundred and seven. Received during the year one hundred and twenty-one,
and in custody in the course of the year three hundred and twenty-nine
different individuals. Of these, sixty-eight were discharged by
expiration of sentence, and nearly the same number (viz. 63) by pardon!
One death occurred, leaving one hundred and ninety-seven prisoners
on hand at the close of the year. The average monthly population of
the prison was two hundred and ten, which is a large increase on the
previous year.

Of the one hundred and ninety-seven on hand, seventy-two are in on a
sentence of five years or upwards; thirty-four for three years and
upwards, forty-eight for between one and three years, and forty-three
for one year or less. Of the whole number thirty-eight were under
twenty; eighty-one between twenty and thirty, and forty-nine between
thirty and forty; showing that one hundred and sixty-eight out of the
one hundred and ninety-seven, or FOUR-FIFTHS, were under middle life.

The offences are divided about equally between those against property
and those against the person. Of the latter the extraordinary number
of fourteen are for rape, and five for an assault with intent to
commit that crime, and fourteen were counterfeiters. Eighty-nine, or
nearly half the convicts, are natives of New Jersey; sixty-three are
of foreign birth. Only eight females are in the prison, four white and
four colored; and of the one hundred and eighty-nine males, forty-nine
are colored. It is worthy of observation, that of one hundred and
twenty-two commitments last year, sixty, or about one half, had no
trade!

In respect to the physical health of the convicts, we are informed that
only one death occurred during the year, and this was by suicide. It
was a young German, who had been in prison only five days, and whose
sentence was only six months. We do not learn that any one at Trenton
ascribes this melancholy event to the effect of convict-separation, but
it would be in keeping with the spirit which has sometimes manifested
itself in discussions of this subject, to set it down as one of the
fruits of the separate system!

The State Prison of New Jersey is established on the principle of
individual separation. The law provides, that "every convict shall be
confined in one of the cells of the prison, separate and alone, except
in such cases of sickness as are by the act provided for." That is, if
the physician reports to the keeper that a prisoner requires a nurse,
the keeper, with the approbation of the acting Inspectors, may employ
one of the prisoners; and "whenever, in the opinion of the physician,
the enlargement of any prisoner shall be absolutely necessary to the
preservation of life," he may be removed from his cell, "but the
prisoner shall in every such case be kept from the society of other
prisoners, except such as may attend as nurses."

No language could more clearly express the will of the Legislature that
convict-separation should be the basis of the discipline. In addition
to these positive requirements, the Inspectors are to embrace, in
their annual report to the Legislature, "such remarks and statements
respecting the system of _separate confinement_ and the efficiency of
the same, as shall be the result of their own observation." The same
act authorizes them to make rules and regulations for the prison as
they may deem necessary and proper, "_consistent with the principle of
separate confinement_ and the laws of the State."

Now we might naturally suppose that a body of law-makers, receiving
such a report of the condition of a body of convicted law-breakers,
from those who are appointed to take care of them, would be slow to
countenance any direct and palpable breach of the law by themselves;
and yet it must have been known to the Legislature of New Jersey that
the provisions of the law establishing the State prison, are rendered
entirely nugatory by their neglect to provide means for executing them.
They are supposed to know that the prison contains but one hundred and
ninety-two cells, and that ten of these are occupied for workshops and
store-rooms. A brisk walk of five minutes would supply the honorable
the Legislature with demonstrative evidence that one hundred and
eighty-two cells would not suffice for the separate confinement of two
hundred and thirty-two prisoners, and hence they would see fifty cells
(7-1/2 by 16 feet) occupied by two tenants each, against the peace and
dignity of the Commonwealth (which has forbidden such association)
and of course "against the form of the statute in such case made and
provided."

In such an emergency, we might further suppose that measures would
be adopted at once to enlarge the accommodations and to obviate the
alleged necessity for thus openly violating the law, as early as
possible. With this impression, we are surprised that the Executive
of the State, whose particular function it is to see that the laws
are duly executed, does not urge prompt action in the premises. So
far from any intimation of this sort, he speaks of the administration
and management of the prison throughout, as eminently successful and
commendable; of the keeper and officers as having sustained their
reputation for ability and efficiency--of _five thousand dollars_ of
surplus earnings as having been paid into the State treasury during the
year--and of about _two thousand dollars_ paid to discharged convicts
for overwork, all which he thinks exhibits unexampled prosperity in the
affairs of the prison.

He even goes so far as to say, "_that the discipline has been well
maintained_," adding (rather paradoxically we think,) that the "large
number of prisoners renders it impracticable to observe the law in
relation to solitary" (separate) "confinement, and the necessity of
association impairs to some extent the corrective regulations of the
institution."

We humbly submit that it is not the "necessity of association," but the
association itself that does the mischief, and farther that Jerseymen
would better understand the case if it were said in plain English, that
until cells enough are built to give each convict a cell by himself,
the occupants will be more likely to become worse than better, at the
expense of the State, and in deliberate violation of its positive laws.

This view of the case becomes quite imposing, when it is considered
that of the one hundred and ninety-seven convicts, one hundred and
sixty-eight are, or about four-fifths, are in on a first conviction.
Of course, every precaution is essential to give the discipline of the
prison its most benign and efficient influence. It is passing strange
that an enlightened State should pocket five thousand dollars of the
surplus earnings of her convict-population, while the accommodations
for accomplishing the only legitimate objects of the prison are so
narrow as to require a constant violation of the law, and a constant
defeat of its wholesome ends. It may be, however, that to violate
laws has become the rule, and to obey them the exception. As an
illustration, it may suffice to say, in respect to this same New Jersey
State Prison, that the use of tobacco in any form is peremptorily
forbidden by law; yet we are informed, on indisputable authority, that
the prisoners both chew and smoke, and that some of them have taken
their first lessons in these arts after their admission to the prison!

We have made these suggestions with much freedom, and we hope without
offence. We have hearty, intelligent co-adjutors in Jersey, who are
aiming with us to establish the convict-discipline of the country on
a truly humane, efficient, philosophical and Christian basis. To this
end, we maintain that every prison or place of confinement for persons
charged with or convicted of crime, should furnish a suitable apartment
for each individual, separate from every other individual suspected
or convicted of crime. We have often cited the State prison at Trenton
as one of this class, and have uniformly espoused the views of the
Inspectors and principal officers, at times when they were opposed by
crotchety speculators within or without the prison; and we shall be
greatly disappointed, if means are not promptly used to conform the
discipline to the provisions of law.




ART. VII.--AN EXTRAORDINARY DOCUMENT.


We have before us a stitched pamphlet, entitled "Report on the Subject
of Prisons, by Rev. Alexander L. Hamilton, State Commissioner, to Hon.
Austin King, Governor of Missouri--Referred to the Committee on the
Penitentiary, and three thousand copies ordered to be printed, January
5, 1853," pp. 24.

The author of this report is, we doubt not, a very worthy and
intelligent gentleman, or he would not have been appointed by the
Executive of Missouri on so important an agency. That he has fulfilled
his mission to the best of his ability, we may also admit; but that
his report contains "such information as is necessary to present the
subject of Prison Discipline fully to the consideration of the next
general assembly of Missouri," we cannot believe. Indeed we do not
hesitate to say that it is entirely deficient in every point that a
report on such a subject, for such a purpose, should embrace.

Statements are made, which have been disproved over and over again,
until the repetition of them is loathsome to those who have been
familiar with the subject. Principles are set forth as of present
validity, which have been long ago abandoned even by those who once
advocated them. The most ultra partisan opinions and doctrines are
revived, with such an air of sincerity and confidence, as leads us
to believe that the Rev. Commissioner never saw or heard of the
oft-repeated refutation of them. He refers to those whose minds are
steeped in prejudice, as the most reliable and responsible sources of
information; and perhaps we cannot better describe the document, as
a whole, than by saying that it is a synopsis of the reports of the
Boston Prison Discipline Society and Mr. Gray's book, prepared and
printed at the expense of the State of Missouri.

We owe it to ourselves to cite a passage or two from the report, to
serve as an indication of the qualities we have mentioned.

As to its rhetoric and logic let the following suffice:

    The conviction forces itself upon my mind, that, if the numerous
    weighty objections already given be correct--this (the separate)
    system is not only wrong _per se_, but will soon be deserted by
    its remaining followers. For if it be true, when alluding to it in
    the least objectionable manner, that this system is only suited to
    short sentences, as many of its friends and advocates aver, then,
    "to all intents and purposes," it must soon be subject to one of
    two consequences; either the penal code of the laws of the land
    must be so altered as to suit the demand of the system, or the
    system must be so altered as to fully come within the demands of
    the law.

As to its facts let the following suffice:

    Upon the separate and solitary principle, the prisoner--good,
    bad, or indifferent as he may be, surrounded by his _Bible_, and
    such other good books as are given him from time to time, remains
    all alone in his cell, from the first of January to the last of
    December, until his term of imprisonment expires; and is thus
    left to his own reflections by day, and by night--unless paid an
    occasional visit by some kind officer of the prison, or by the
    chaplain. And hence it is, that in too many instances to justify
    the means employed, _insanity_ precedes the work of reformation.

Were we to cite but a single passage from the report to include the
logic, the rhetoric, the philosophy, the facts, and the reliability of
the statements in a single view, it would be the following:

    Upon my arrival in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, so soon as
    I had visited the State prison at Charlestown, and the Boston new
    jail, under the guidance of Hon. Louis Dwight, I was convinced
    in my own mind that said jail, for the purposes for which it was
    designed, was decidedly the _model prison of the age_.

The commissioner was so fortunate as not only to see "the model prison
of the age," but to obtain from the same source "a design of a model
prison for the State of Missouri;" and so comprehensive and clear
were the conceptions of the commissioner upon the view of these model
edifices and plans, that he made up his mind when he "first saw the
design," (and his views remained unchanged after his return,) "that it
has no superior either in the United States or in Europe."

Among the inexplicable mis-statements which we find scattered through
the report, we may cite the following:

    As has been proven, beyond all successful contradiction, this
    system (the congregate) is not only _more humane_, but it is also
    _far less expensive_ than the separate system.

Nothing is more obvious than that from the very nature of the
discipline, the administration of a prison on the separate plan must be
the least expensive. The first cost of the structure will probably be
greater; but we have supposed it to be conceded on all hands, that a
prison on this plan once erected, the expenses of maintaining it were
much less than those of a congregate prison with equal accommodations.

While we admit that the first cost of a prison for convict-separation
is greater than that of a congregate prison, we must demur to the Rev.
Commissioner's broad assertion on this point:

    "I speak not unadvisedly," he says, "when I assert, that the
    erection of a prison for associate purposes, is not half so
    expensive, as the erection of a prison for the separate and
    solitary confinement of its inmates--all things considered."

The most zealous opposers of the separate system have not pushed this
objection to any such extreme, and to any considerate mind it carries
its refutation with it.

As an inducement to proceed on the plan submitted by the commissioner,
he assures the executive that "the prison once completed and properly
officered, unless in case of some unforeseen accident, will demand of
the State treasury nothing more for at least fifty years! And more
than that," he says, "after paying for itself during the first few
years of its existence, it will thenceforth yield annually a handsome
revenue to the State."

The cost of the Missouri "Model Prison" is set down at $250,000, and
as a sort of guaranty against any new expense for improvement in after
times, the commissioner has the assurance of one gentleman, (which
another promptly endorses,) that "the principles of the main building
are such as will last for one hundred years!" This gives a chance for a
long nap to our Boston friends.

We are not without hope that some of the good citizens of Missouri will
get a glimpse of this report of the Rev. Alexander L. Hamilton, and
will insist upon a more intelligent and impartial inquiry, before they
commit themselves, or suffer the Legislature to commit itself to so
large an expenditure, for an institution so permanent, and involving so
many interests of humanity and public economy.




ART. VIII.--A PHILANTHROPIC PERPLEXITY.


Will the publishers of the _Prison Journal_, or some one who has access
to its columns enlighten an honest inquirer after the path of duty? It
is presumed that the combined wisdom and philanthropy of the Prison
Society can furnish all needed direction in the case I have at heart
and in hand.

Of the grave and multiplied evils that spring from _street begging_,
I have no doubt. Indeed I have done all I could in a private way to
discountenance it. I have never encouraged a second call by a liberal
donation, and perhaps have sometimes seemed harsh and unfeeling. But
I am so well satisfied that it is the most inhuman thing we can do
for the honest poor, and that it favors the arts and schemes of the
dishonest, that I feel constrained to avoid every thing that should
look like countenancing it. My neighbor's gate and door are daily
besieged by women and children with boys and baskets, and they seldom
leave without some token of approval.

But I must hasten to a statement of my case. I was going to my place
of business on Saturday afternoon, after dining heartily and happily
upon a rare sirloin of beef, and saw a man on the door-steps of a house
in Washington Square. He was perhaps forty years old, (more or less)
rather shabbily dressed, with a dirty bundle under his arm, and some
indications of hard drinking about his face. I noticed that he tried
the handle of the door before he rang the bell, and was thus led to
no very favorable impression of his design. Stepping behind a flight
of steps, I noticed his movements as he went from door to door under
successive rebuffs. As soon as he came up to my standing place, I said
to him,

"Friend, do you know you are liable to be taken up for begging in the
street?"

"I war'nt begging. I only asked for a bit of bread and cold meat."

"Well, you will have a constable after you in a few minutes if you
don't stop that business."

He turned on his heel and went from me, and as my eye followed him, and
I remembered the well-furnished table from which I had just risen with
no very grateful heart, I felt reproached; and quickening my steps, I
followed and overtook him.

"Do you say you are hungry, friend?"

"Yes, I am."

"Do you live in town?"

"No, I came in town last night."

"Where from?"

"From Emmettsburg."

"Is that your home?"

"Yes, I served my time there."

"What is your business?"

"Shoemaking."

"Why did you leave Emmettsburg?"

"To get work."

"Well, you had better go to the Mayor's, at the corner of Fifth and
Chestnut Streets, and tell him you have no food, no home and no work."

Off he went, and I followed by another route, and reached one door
of the office, just as he entered at the other. Unfortunately the
Mayor was at dinner, and I could only tell my story to the officer in
attendance.

What shall be done with such a man? I asked.

"We can only send him down to Moyamensing for thirty days, or to
Blockley," was the reply.

Is that the only alternative--the prison, or the poor house, the latter
with 2,700 inmates, and the former so overstocked as to make it a
positive nuisance? Is it really so? There is work for one hundred men
at this moment, in removing ice from the gutters, making the side walks
passable, and the streets decent, and yet this able bodied vagrant must
be imposed upon the tax-paying public as a prisoner or a pauper!

As we left the office, we saw the Emmettsburg shoemaker ignobly
introduced to the ward room. I hope it will not be said that this is a
case not likely to occur often, for in that event, I shall feel obliged
to relate half a dozen other instances which have occurred within my
own observation, and the details of which are any thing but agreeable.

I am clear in the opinion, that there must be some needless and sad
defect in our municipal legislation or administration, if the power and
capacity to work is found twenty-four hours in succession, associated
with vagrancy and mendicity. Am I wrong in this opinion? And whether I
am or not, pray tell me how to treat street-beggars.




Miscellaneous Notices.


VAGRANT CHILDREN OF NEW YORK.--An organization has recently been
effected in the city of New York, under the title of the "_Children's
Aid Society_," the object of which is "to bring humane and kindly
influences to bear on homeless boys--to preach in various modes the
Gospel of Christ to the vagrant children of New York."

As an evidence of the need of some such agency, it is stated that
in one Ward alone (the eleventh) there were in 1852, out of 12,000
children between the ages of five and sixteen, only 7,000 who attended
school, and only 2,500 who went to Sunday-school, leaving 5,000 without
the common privileges of education, and about 9,000 destitute of public
religious influence!

The views of the founders of this charity are summarily presented in a
circular as follows:

    A large multitude of children live in the city who cannot be
    placed in asylums, and yet who are uncared for and ignorant and
    vagrant. We propose to give to these work, and to bring them under
    religious influences. A central office has been taken, and an
    agent, (Charles L. Brace,) has been engaged to give his whole time
    to efforts for relieving the wants of this class. As means shall
    come in, it is designed to district the city, so that hereafter
    every Ward may have its agent, who shall be a friend to the
    vagrant child. "Boys' Sunday Meetings" have already been formed,
    which we hope to see extended until every quarter has its place
    of preaching to boys. With these we intend to connect "Industrial
    Schools," where the great temptations to this class, arising from
    want of work, may be removed, and where they can learn an honest
    trade. Arrangements have been made with manufacturers, by which,
    if we have the requisite funds to begin, _five hundred boys_, in
    different localities, can be supplied with paying work. We hope
    too, especially to be the means of draining the city of these
    children, by communicating with farmers, manufacturers or families
    in the country, who may have need of such for employment. When
    homeless boys are found by our agents, we mean to get them homes in
    the families of respectable, needy persons in the city, and to put
    them into the way of an honest living.

It has been stated, in the public prints, that of 16,000 commitments
for crime to the prisons of New York during the year, at least
one-fourth were minors, and it is estimated that not less than 10,000
children in the city are daily suffering all the evils of vagrancy.


STREET BEGGING IN NEW YORK.--We have had occasion more than once to
refer, in terms of high commendation, to the New York City organization
for the relief of the poor, corresponding in its main features to
our Union Benevolent Association. We regret to notice very loud and
frequent complaints of the continuance and increase of street-begging,
notwithstanding the laudable exertions of the Society. A leading city
newspaper has said within a week or two, that upwards of a _half
million_ of dollars is annually spent by the authorities and various
societies, in the way of charity, "yet our streets are thronged with
beggars of all descriptions, and particularly the avenues and streets
up town, in almost any of which, upon an average you can see from
thirty to fifty going from house to house, to the excessive annoyance
of families, who are often abused and insulted by them, because you do
not meet their demands. In fact it has become a nuisance of the worst
magnitude."

There is much reason to apprehend that such nuisances must work their
own abatement. If our authorities were strong enough and independent
enough, to lay hold of the BOYS AND GIRLS who constitute the materials
from which street-beggars are manufactured, and compel them (as a
matter of public safety) to submit to the discipline of an educational
and industrial school, it would make a bright opening in the prospect.
Or, if every man, woman and child who is found begging in the street,
were transferred at once to some charitable institution, (if they
have infirmities which prevent them from labor,) or to some working
institution, (if they are able-bodied,) and there put to some wholesome
labor in exchange for their sustenance and clothing, we should not be
without hope. But we see no way of suppressing the evil, if neither of
these methods is feasible.


NEW YORK PRISON ASSOCIATION.--We have seen only newspaper reports of
the proceedings at the eighth anniversary of this active and very
useful Association. We understand that their condemnation of the
yoke and the shower, as modes of punishment, is very emphatic and
unqualified, and among the interesting facts which are drawn from their
report, we select the following:--

    In the city of New York, since 1848, disorderly conduct (in almost
    every instance the result of strong drink) has steadily increased
    from 703 to 2,660, or 278 per cent.; intoxication has increased
    about 75 per cent., and the two together from 5,579 to 11,280. By
    a comparison of the prison statistics for the last five years, it
    appears that crimes against property have increased only about 50
    per cent.; but that crimes against the person have increased 129
    per cent., or from 1,300 in 1843 to 2,920 in 1852.

    The increase has been the greatest in the highest crimes. Thus we
    find assaults to kill were 25 in 1848, and 39, 59, 61 and 75 in
    1852, or three-fold. Manslaughter, in 1848, was 3, and then 4, 16,
    11 in 1852, almost four-fold. Murder in 1848 was 9, and 9, 15, 21
    and 56 in 1852, or more than six-fold.

    Ninety per cent. of the whole number committed to this prison
    during the past year, were intemperate! The returns of sixteen
    State Prisons, for the year 1851, give us a grand total of 4,507
    prisoners, 3,006 of whom were imprisoned for offences against
    property, and 784 against the person.

    It is stated that there is a greater number of cases of bigamy and
    perjury in the State of New York, than in all the other fifteen
    States; there being twenty-one cases of bigamy in New York, and
    only fifteen in the other States; and seventeen cases of perjury to
    three in all the other States.

    The average period of confinement in Connecticut is six years,
    seven months, twenty-nine days; and in the Eastern Penitentiary of
    Pennsylvania it is only two years, six months and three days.


NEW YORK STATE PRISONS.--The report of the State Penitentiaries of
New York bear date December 1, and show that 129 more convicts were
in custody at that time than in December, 1851. Of 1843, the whole
number in confinement, 924 were at Sing Sing, 752 at Auburn and 167 at
Clinton. One hundred and forty-three pardons were granted, or about
1 in every 12 convictions! The expenses of all the prisons exceeded
the earnings by several thousands of dollars, showing the fallacy of
the argument so potent with most Legislatures, that by associating
prisoners in labor they become a source of profit, while separating
them involves great expense. The Clinton prison is going largely into
the iron business and wants more hands. We would respectfully suggest,
whether there are not many persons at large in New York, and some quite
considerable in importance and respectable in appearance, too, who
would find appropriate employment there.

There has been some increase in the frequency of punishments by the
yoke, the shower bath, the ball and chain, and solitude.

Of 613 commitments, two-thirds confessed intemperate habits. How many
of the rest were moderate drinkers does not appear. The average degree
of education in the convicts received is less than in some former
reports.


    IDIOTS IN NEW YORK.--There are two thousand eight hundred idiots
    in the State of New York. The report of the superintendent of the
    Idiot Asylum, near Albany, contains the following interesting
    passage:--"We have taught a child to walk when we had first to
    awaken or cultivate a fear of falling, as an incentive to any
    efforts on her part. We have awakened perceptions of sounds in
    ears where the sense of hearing resided without the use of it. We
    have developed perceptions of sight through eyes that had never
    performed their appropriate office. We have been teaching children
    to speak in every stage of articulation. Cases that three years
    since only promised to be hopeless, helpless burdens to their
    friends all their lives, have been elevated to the rank of happy,
    useful members of society. In almost all cases, and with very few,
    if any exceptions, those usually called idiots, under the age of
    twelve or fifteen, may be so trained and instructed as to render
    them useful to themselves, and fitted to learn some of the ordinary
    trades, or to engage in agriculture. Their minds and souls can be
    developed, so that they may become responsible beings, acquainted
    with their relations to their Creator and a future state, and
    their obligations to obey the laws and respect the rights of their
    fellow-citizens. In all cases, we believe, for we have seen what
    has been accomplished in apparently desperate cases, they can be
    made cleanly and neat in their personal habits, and enabled to
    enjoy the bounties of Providence and the Comforts of life, and to
    cease being incumbrances and annoyances to the families in which
    they reside."


BE BEFOREHAND WITH THE TEMPTER!--A friend tells us of a case in which
a young girl of considerable personal attraction, was rescued from
impending danger. Her mother was a widow with very scanty means of
support. This girl had a taste for, and some skill in music. Had been
at the public schools, and could read and write with facility, and was
indeed respectably educated for one in her station. Her mother had
determined to take boarders, and to give an air of gentility to her
house, she had also made arrangements to hire a piano. The introduction
of the class of boarders which the mother expected, would have exposed
the child to great danger. A Christian friend saw this, and by timely
and judicious efforts succeeded in securing for her a situation where
she would be protected and prepared for usefulness, and for gaining a
respectable livelihood.

How much more hopeful such simple preventive measures are, than those
which (though equally well meant) come later, and are at best but
remedial in their character.


NEW PENITENTIARY IN MASSACHUSETTS.--We notice in the proceedings of
the Legislature of Massachusetts that it is proposed to build a new
State Prison. It is but a year or two since the Charlestown prison was
greatly enlarged, so as to meet what was supposed to be the demand
for convict-accommodation. It is earnestly to be hoped, that if a new
prison should be erected in that State, the principle of separation
will be adopted. If the two systems could be once fairly tried in
the actual presence of the people of that ancient and intelligent
Commonwealth, we should have strong confidence that the groundless
prejudices against convict-separation would disappear, and that her
example would be set as effectually for the furtherance of correct
views on the important subject of prison discipline, as it has
heretofore been cited for the furtherance of misapprehension and error.


    STATE PRISON AT CHARLESTOWN, MASS.--The earnings of the inmates
    of the Charlestown State Prison, for the year ending September
    30th, 1852, were $6,921.17 over expenses. Of the inmates, 313 are
    Americans, 170 foreigners, 35 negroes and 12 mulattoes.

We have known a succession of annual reports of State prisons to be
published, in which the earnings of the convicts, over and above the
expenditures were quite "showy," but by and by came a change in the
administration, and a balance appears against the concern, sufficient
to swallow up all the previously reported excess of earnings. Each
report of a favorable year made its impression on the public mind, and
hundreds of thousands who were misled by it, will never see a notice
of the detection of the error,--to use no harsher term. We do not mean
to intimate that there is any reason to distrust the foregoing item,
but simply to admonish the reader that such statements are always to be
taken with many grains of allowance.


ILLINOIS PENITENTIARY.--We understand that this institution is leased
for a term of years to a person, who allows the State a certain sum for
the labor of the convicts, &c. The report before us embraces the years
1851 and 1852. On the first of January, 1851, the prison contained 170
convicts. Since that time 38 have died, 41 have been pardoned, 1 has
escaped, and 168 have been discharged by expiration of sentence--making
the whole number discharged within the past two years, 248. During
the same period, 295 have been received, and the whole number now in
confinement is 207. Fourteen only were born in the State of Illinois!


NEW STATE REFORM SCHOOL.--The Legislature of New Hampshire at its last
June session, received a report from a Board of Commissioners for the
establishment of a State Reform School, to be located in the town of
Concord, the cost not to exceed $35,000, and to be planned for the
accommodation of 300 boys, but finished at present for 120. An eligible
site has been obtained, and we hope soon to hear that the institution
is conferring wide and lasting benefits upon the community.


    JUVENILE OFFENDERS.--At the Somersetshire Sessions, held lately at
    Wells, England, an interesting discussion took place on the subject
    of the punishment and reformation of juvenile offenders. The
    subject was brought before the Court by the reading of a circular,
    in which the magistrates were called upon to adopt a memorial to
    the Marquis of Lansdowne on this important subject. Mr. Lloyd Baker
    said he had had the subject under his consideration for the last
    fifteen years, and he laid before the Court statistics referring to
    the criminal career of a number of youths at that moment confined
    in the Gloucester County Prison, showing that they had been, most
    of them, previously convicted once or twice; that this kind of
    punishment, instead of having a moral effect upon them, appeared
    only to have hardened them in crime by their coming in contact with
    other bad adult characters, and that their trial and imprisonment
    had cost the county from $75 to $100 a-piece. His argument was in
    favor of an entirely new system of juvenile reformation. He was
    followed by other magistrates, who spoke of the course imposed
    upon them, to sentence mere children to confinement in a prison,
    as a most unsatisfactory one. There was no moral effect in such
    punishments, but, on the contrary, the effect was to break down
    the first barrier to crime, and it was found that the shame of
    imprisonment was overcome. One of them expressed an opinion that
    what was wanted was a public receptacle for offenders of this class
    who were not properly "prisoners," but unfortunate individuals
    who, by neglect of their parents, had been led into error. He did
    not see why it should not be made compulsory upon such parents
    who so neglected their offspring as to lead them to crime, to
    contribute towards their support in such an establishment, in the
    same manner as a runaway parent was called upon to contribute to
    the support of his family. The discussion ended in the adoption
    of a memorial, which was signed by all the magistrates present,
    expressing their conviction, that the present mode of treating
    and disposing of juvenile offenders was most inefficient and
    unsatisfactory.


    SINGULAR AVOCATION AND MODE OF LIFE IN LONDON.--In a case of
    assault brought before a police-court, a most extraordinary
    character appeared as a witness. The man is by profession a
    thorough subterranean rat-catcher, for the supply of those who
    keep sporting dogs. One-half of his life is spent in quest of prey
    from the whole range of the sewerage of London. Furnished with a
    bull's eye lantern, a good-sized folding trap, and a short rake,
    he enters the main sewer, at the foot of Blackfriar's Bridge, and
    pursues his dangerous avocation, waist-deep in mud and filth of
    every description. The sewers literally swarm with rats, which he
    catches by hand, and places them in his cage as easy as if they
    were young kittens. His underground journeys extend for miles. He
    has been under Newgate, and along Cheapside to the Mansion House.
    He has traversed from Holborn to Islington, closely inspecting all
    the passages that enter the grand sewer of the mighty metropolis.
    On one occasion, an obstruction occurred to a drain at the foot of
    Holborn Hill. Terms were speedily agreed upon, and our subterranean
    explorer started off to the foot of Blackfriar's Bridge, and in
    half an hour his voice was heard down the gully-hole; he speedily
    cleared away the obstruction, and received his reward, thus saving
    the expense of breaking up the roadway. It is not, however, to the
    rats alone that he pays his attention; he frequently falls in with
    a rich prize, particularly in the City sewers. On one occasion he
    found a silk purse, containing gold and silver; on another a gold
    watch and seals, numbers of silver spoons, rings and other articles
    of value. He has been three times attacked with the typhus fever,
    but rapidly recovered on each occasion.


    DEATH FROM SEPARATION!--A London paper tells us, that Mr. Bedford,
    the coroner for Westminster, held an inquest lately in Millbank
    Penitentiary, touching the death of Thomas Wilkinson, a convict,
    aged nineteen years, a clothdresser, who was found one Sunday
    morning lying dead and bleeding on the floor of his cell, having
    cut his throat with a razor which was given him to shave, _during
    the momentary absence of the warder in charge_. From the question
    of convict prison discipline having recently been slightly agitated
    in the public journals, the separate system was inquired into by
    the coroner, who asked Dr. Baily if he could throw any light on
    the case, to guide the jury as to the cause of the act. Dr. Baily
    thought that it was brooding over the length of his sentence, and
    stated further that, during eighteen years, in that prison, from
    1824 to 1842, with an average of 454 prisoners, only three had
    committed suicide, but then their sentences were only two, three or
    four years. Again, in the ten years as a convict prison, from 1843
    to 1853, there had been thirteen suicides. So that he thought it
    was more the length of the sentences than the separate confinement,
    although he must own that the latter would accelerate or aggravate
    any disease which might be on a prisoner, and also tend to suicide,
    by giving them an opportunity when they would be brooding over
    a long prospect of imprisonment. The jury returned a verdict to
    the effect that the deceased destroyed himself during a state of
    temporary insanity, _brought on by the separate system_!

We have put a few words in italics to mark the absurdity of such
a verdict. (1.) No evidence of insanity is stated, except that
which the fatal act furnishes. (2.) As favorable an opportunity is
offered, during half of every twenty-four hours in a congregate, as
in a separate prison. (3.) If it is brooding over an unusually long
sentence that produces suicidal insanity, the verdict should be, that
the deceased destroyed himself during a state of temporary insanity,
brought on by a mistake of the law or of its administrators!


MURDERS IN PHILADELPHIA.--It is our painful duty to record three
deliberate and atrocious murders committed within the bounds of the
city of Philadelphia since our last issue.

The first was committed in broad day, in one of the most frequented
parts of the city, upon a man in his own store, and was attended with
circumstances of ferocity rarely equalled. The perpetrator of the deed
has not been discovered.

The second was the wanton butchery of an unoffending man, apparently
without any motive, except the indulgence of a blood-thirsty
malevolence.

The third was committed upon two unprotected females, and with a
ferocity of which we should hope few human beings are susceptible, even
in their most savage state. The only apparent motive for the cruel and
dastardly deed was a pittance of money. How far the wretched monster on
whom the guilt of this double murder has been fixed by the law and the
testimony, may have been implicated in other deeds of blood ascribed to
him by popular rumor, it is not for us to say, but we suppose there is
no doubt that he was not long since a convict in the State Penitentiary
at Sing Sing, N. Y., and was pardoned by the Executive of that State!

How much of his term of punishment was abridged by this interposition
of extraordinary clemency, we are not informed; but if the full
execution of his sentence would have carried the period of his
confinement beyond the 10th of March, 1853, it is clear that the
abridgment of it opened the way for the terrible deed which we have
now recorded. And are we not justified in holding the pardoning power
responsible, _in foro conscientiæ_, at least, for the consequences of
taking a convict out of the hands of the ministers of justice, while
he is undergoing wholesome discipline by their order, and sending him
back into the community as one whose punishment was greater than he
deserved? Who knows but that an ill-judged interposition of Executive
power may sometimes breed a contempt for public authority, and
stimulate a reckless convict to more audacious violations of law!


MISSOURI INSANE ASYLUM.--This institution is located in Fulton. It was
opened a year since, and has received 70 patients. There are 460 acres
of land attached to it, 30 of which are under culture. Dr. T. R. H.
Smith is the principal physician.


MISSOURI PENITENTIARY.--On the 20th of December there were 232 convicts
in custody, of whom 146 were from the county of St. Louis. Of the
countries of their nativity, Ireland furnishes the largest number, and
Germany the next largest. Of the States of the Union, Pennsylvania
furnishes the largest number. We are happy to learn that the physician
is a decided advocate of convict-separation.


IT IS SAID,

(AND WE PRESUME ON GOOD AUTHORITY,)

1.--THAT, on the 12th of November last, notice was given in the British
House of Commons of a bill for the codification of the criminal laws.

2.--THAT, in the Massachusetts Legislature, the Committee on Prisons
have reported against allowing the families of convicts a portion of
their earnings.

3.--THAT, the London Society for improving the condition of the Insane,
have offered a premium of twenty guineas for the best essay that shall
be presented, showing the progressive changes since Pinel's time in
the moral management of the Insane, and the various contrivances to
dispense with mechanical restraints.

4.--THAT, the Emperor of France has decided, that out of ten millions
of francs appropriated to the improvement of the lodging-houses of the
laboring classes, three millions shall be put at the disposal of the
Minister of the Interior to procure plans!

5.--THAT, the inmates of the Cincinnati House of Refuge are 235, and
that the number of juvenile culprits at large is fearfully increasing.

6.--THAT, the three State prisons of New York, (containing 1783
convicts, of whom only 80 are females,) will require a considerable sum
beyond their earnings for their support, viz.: for the Auburn prison,
$14,000; for the Sing Sing Prison, $7,000; for the Clinton Prison,
$27,000. Yet the Clinton Prison is not regarded as an unsuccessful
experiment!

We hope this important fact will be known to the Missouri Legislature
before they determine to adopt the congregate system, on the ground of
its economy. "As a general thing," says the report of a commissioner of
Missouri on that subject, "the prisons employing this" (the associate
system) "support themselves." It is wise to look before we leap.

7.--THAT, very favorable commencement has been made in the
establishment of an institution in or near Philadelphia, for the
instruction of idiots and feeble-minded children.

8.--THAT, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Jacksonville, Ill., admitted
during its last term 100 pupils, 94 of whom were from within the State.
The whole number of mutes in the State is estimated at 500.

9.--THAT, the Illinois Asylum for the Blind has in it 25 pupils. The
whole number of the blind in the State is estimated at only 60. A
building is nearly ready for their accommodation.

10.--THAT, the Illinois State Lunatic Asylum admitted during the year
138 patients, of whom 38 were restored to sanity, 50 were discharged,
and 82 remain under treatment.

11.--THAT, the rite of confirmation, as observed in the Established
Church of England, was lately administered by the Bishop of Manchester
to 28 prisoners in the gaol in that town, varying in age from 14 to 55
years. The whole scene is represented as having been very impressive.

12.--THAT, the number of idiots in the State of New York is not less
than 2,800, of whom one-fourth are under 14 years of age. There are 42
pupils in the State institution for idiots, 30 of whom are supported
by the State. The trustees recommend the purchase of a building having
accommodations for 100 pupils, of whom 64, (eight from each judicial
district,) it is proposed to support at the expense of the State; and
the remaining 36, by friends. The estimated cost of a suitable building
is $20,000; and the annual appropriation necessary to maintain the
establishment will be $10,000.

13.--THAT, a new organization of the police of New York contemplates
the total release of the policemen from all political influence, as it
provides that they shall hold their offices during good behavior, and
shall only be removed for neglect of duty or the violation of police
regulations. That the Chief of Police shall be appointed by the Mayor,
with the approval of the Board of Aldermen, and not the Common Council,
as has been the law hitherto; that every policeman appointed must be
a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the ward for which
he has been nominated. He must also present to the Mayor, with his
certificate of nomination, another, signed by twenty-five reputable
citizens, two-thirds of whom must reside in the ward at the time of
signing the certificate, certifying that they have been personally
acquainted with him five years last past, and that during that time
he has borne a good character for honesty, morality and sobriety. He
must also present to the Mayor a certificate from the Chief of Police,
certifying that the said applicant can read with ease, and write
legibly the English language, that he well understands the first four
rules of arithmetic, and that he is a proper person to appoint to said
office.

These rules if faithfully observed, would probably exclude some of the
present incumbents in most of our cities.

14.--THAT, the whole number of convicts in the Illinois Penitentiary
is 227, and the whole expense of conveying convicts from the counties
in the State to the penitentiary, is $14,990.05! The Governor thinks
it unwise to have a very large number of convicts congregated in one
prison, and he submits to the consideration of the Legislature, whether
the public interest in regard to this subject would not be better
subserved by building another penitentiary, to be located at some
eligible point in the northern part of the State.

We hope one of them, at least, will be established on the Pennsylvania
system.

15.--THAT, a little ragged urchin, begging in the streets of Detroit,
was asked by the lady of the house (where his baskets had been well
replenished,) if his parents were living? "Only dad, marm," said the
boy. "Then you've enough in your basket now, to feed the family for
some time," said the lady. "Oh! no I haven't neither," said the lad,
"for dad and me keeps five boarders; he does the housework, and I does
the market'n."

16.--THAT, a new edifice for the New York Deaf and Dumb Institution is
to be built, the present location having been rendered ineligible for
such a purpose, by the opening of new thoroughfares. The site selected
is in the vicinity of Fort Washington, near the line of the Hudson
River Rail-road, and the cost of the site and building is estimated at
$120,000.

17.--THAT, on the 1st day of January the population of the New
York City Almshouse was 5557; out-of-door paupers, 1332; total,
6909--sufficient to stock a large village.

18.--THAT, the practice prevails among certain of the magistrates of
the county of Philadelphia, (names not given,) of committing to the
county prison persons known to be guiltless of any offence to justify
their commitments--that such persons are sometimes retained in prison
for weeks, and it is added, that this reprehensible system puts the
county to an increased expense, merely to place costs in the pockets of
the committing magistrates.

19.--THAT, instruction on the Phonetic plan has been given with much
success in several of the penal institutions abroad, among which are
the Preston House of Correction and the Glasgow Bridewell.

20.--THAT, not a single case has yet been known of a convict's losing
his reason as a necessary and natural consequence of being separated
from other convicts.


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

We have to express our thanks to various friends for their thoughtful
kindness in forwarding us copies of reports, and among them are the
following:

Annual reports of the Officers of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum
for 1852.

Twentieth Annual Report of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester,
Mass. for 1852.

Report of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane for the year 1852.

Tenth Annual Report of the State Lunatic Asylum of the State of New
York, 1852.

Annual Report of the State Lunatic Asylum at Harrisburg, Penn.

Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Eastern State
Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, 1852.

Report of the Inspectors of the Western State Penitentiary of
Pennsylvania for 1852.

Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania
Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, 1852.

Twentieth Annual Report of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Institution
for the Instruction of the Blind for 1852.

Report of the State Prison of New Jersey for 1852.

Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Reform School at
Westborough, Mass.

Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison
Discipline Society of Boston, 1851-2.

Act of Incorporation, By-Laws, &c., of New York Juvenile Asylum.

Twenty-Eighth Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the
Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents of New York, 1852.

Annual Report of Board of Managers of Philadelphia Charity Schools,
1852.

Report of Managers of the Magdalen Society for 1852.

Annual Report of the Managers of the Boston Asylum and Farm School for
1852.

Eight Report of the Baltimore Manual Labor School for Indigent Boys for
1852.

Report of Commissioners on the State Reform School of Pennsylvania.

       *       *       *       *       *


    PREMIUM FOR AN ESSAY ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.--At a meeting of
    the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge, Philadelphia, the
    following preamble and resolution were adopted, viz:

    _Whereas_, The increase of Juvenile Delinquency in all the
    large cities of our country, has claimed the attention of
    philanthropists; and _whereas_, the Board of Managers of the House
    of Refuge, Philadelphia, are desirous that errors in modes of
    training the young, and other causes co-operating to produce the
    evil referred to, may be presented in such a form as to claim the
    serious consideration of parents and guardians throughout the land;
    therefore,

    _Resolved_, That the Board of Managers do offer a premium of one
    hundred dollars for the best essay, and fifty dollars for that
    next in order of merit, to be awarded by a committee of literary
    gentlemen: _Provided_, that such essays shall not exceed fifty
    octavo pages in length, and shall be contributed before the
    first day of July, A. D. 1853; and whether successful or not in
    competition, shall be at the absolute disposal of the Board of
    Managers.

    In accordance with the above preamble and resolution, the premiums
    therein named are now offered, without restriction as to the
    residence of competitors.

    The Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, Frederick A. Packard, Esq., and Stephen
    Colwell, Esq., have consented to act as the Committee, to examine
    and adjudge as to the merits of the Essays offered in competition.

    Competitors for the above named premiums, will please address
    their manuscripts to "John Biddle, No. 6 South Fifth Street,
    Philadelphia;" and send therewith, their names and places of
    residence, under sealed envelopes.

    As the object of the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge in
    offering the above-named premiums, is mainly to call the attention
    of parents and guardians to errors in the prevalent modes of
    training the young--a subject which should claim the attention of
    every reader--the undersigned would call the attention of editors
    of newspapers generally, throughout the United States, to this
    advertisement, and ask the favor of an insertion of it, or of the
    more important parts of it, in the columns of their papers.

    By order of the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge.

  THOS. P. COPE, President of H. of R.
  JOHN BIDDLE, Secretary of H. of R.

  _Philadelphia, Feb. 17, 1853._




    { Third page of cover. }

    _From the Episcopal Recorder._

    This periodical gives a large amount of information on Prison
    Discipline, and cannot fail to interest such as grieve over the
    sufferings occasioned by crime, and regard the imprisoned criminal
    as still belonging to our common humanity, and needing the
    commiseration of the wise and good.


    _From the Public Ledger._

    We have received the October number of the Pennsylvania Journal of
    Prison Discipline and Philanthropy, published under the direction
    of the Philadelphia Society for alleviating the Miseries of Public
    Prisons. It is stored with interesting matter.


    _From the Presbyterian._

    We have been reading with great interest the Pennsylvania Journal
    of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy.




AN INQUIRY

INTO THE ALLEGED TENDENCY OF THE SEPARATION OF CONVICTS, ONE FROM THE
OTHER, TO PRODUCE DISEASE AND DERANGEMENT.

BY A CITIZEN OF PENNSYLVANIA. _Philadelphia_: E. C. & J. Biddle. 1849.


It is, as might possibly be anticipated from the residence of the
author, an elaborate and ardent defence of the separate system of
confinement. The charge of its peculiar tendency to induce disease and
insanity, is altogether denied, and the testimony of the successive
physicians to the Eastern State Penitentiary, during a term of nearly
twenty years, goes very satisfactorily to warrant the denial.

The author is not, however, inclined to rest at this, but carries the
war into the enemies' camp. The chapter entitled Medical Practice,
in a Congregate Prison, is calculated to attract attention, from the
positions laid down in it, and their startling illustrations, deduced
from the well known case of Abner Rogers. It is not the time or the
place for us to enter on this warmly controverted subject, and we
have noticed the work only on account of its bearing on the subject
of insanity, and as forming a part of its literature.--_Am. Journal
of Insanity, published by the Superintendent of the New York Lunatic
Asylum, July, 1850._

So far as the leading controversy, in regard to the rival systems of
prison discipline, is concerned, it seems to us to cover the entire
ground with singular ability.--_Princeton Review._

☞ A few copies of this pamphlet are still on hand, and may be had on
application to the publishers, corner of Fifth and Minor streets, or to
any member of the Acting Committee.




OFFICERS FOR 1852-3.


  PRESIDENT--James J. Barclay.
  VICE-PRESIDENTS--Townsend Sharpless, Charles B. Trego.
  TREASURER--Edward Yarnall.

  SECRETARIES AND COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE--
  William Parker Foulke,       Edward Townsend.

  COUNSELLORS.
  Job R. Tyson,       Garrick Mallery.


ACTING COMMITTEE.

James J. Barclay, Townsend Sharpless, Charles B. Trego, Edward Yarnall,
William Parker Foulke, Edward Townsend, Job R. Tyson, Garrick Mallery,
F. A. Packard, Jeremiah Hacker, William Shippen, Charles Ellis, A. T.
Chur, Morris Wickersham, M. W. Baldwin, Mark Balderston, Joshua L.
Baily, Thomas Latimer, Josh. T. Jeanes, John M. Wetherill, Horatio C.
Wood, John Lippincott, John J. Lytle, Henry M. Zollickoffer, William S.
Perot, Benjamin J. Crew, Isaac G. Turner, William U. Ditzler.

☞ Quarterly Meeting of the Society, 2nd second day (Monday) of January,
April, July and October.


INSPECTORS OF THE STATE PENITENTIARY FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF
PENNSYLVANIA.

John Bacon, Richard Vaux, Hugh Campbell, Singleton A. Mercer, Andrew
Miller.

  WARDEN--John S. Halloway.
  RESIDENT PHYSICIAN--D. W. Lassiter, M. D.
  MORAL INSTRUCTOR--Thomas Larcombe.
  CLERK--William Marriott.
  TEACHER--George Neff.


VISITING COMMITTEE OF THE EASTERN PENITENTIARY.

Townsend Sharpless, Edward Townsend, James J. Barclay, A. Theodore
Chur, Joshua J. Jeanes, Matthias W. Baldwin, Joshua L. Baily, John
Lippincott, John J. Lytle, Horatio C. Wood, Isaac G. Turner, Benjamin
J. Crew.


INSPECTORS AND OFFICERS OF THE PHILADELPHIA COUNTY PRISON.

  PRESIDENT.--Jesse R. Burden, M. D.,
  TREASURER.--T. C. Bunting. M. D.,
  SECRETARY.--E. A. Penniman,

Edward C. Dale, Samuel Palmer, Robert O'Neill, Hugh O'Donnell, Thomas
E. Crowell, Godfrey Metzger, Charles T. Jones, Joseph K. Howell, Joshua
S. Fletcher, William Elliott, Samuel McManemy, John T. Smith.

  SUPERINTENDENT.--Anthony Freed.
  DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENTS.--William B. Perkins, John Mirkil.
  CLERK.--Wm. J. Crans.
  MATRON.--E. McDaniel.
  PHYSICIAN.--Dr. J. C. Wall.
  MORAL INSTRUCTOR.--Rev. Wm. Alexander.

ASSISTANT KEEPERS--C. Stagers, William Sharp, H. C. Snyder, Alexander
Campbell, F. Laird, J. B. Haines, A. Morrison, Alexander Burden, J.
Watt, G. Kirkpatrick, William McGrath.


VISITING COMMITTEE ON THE COUNTY PRISON.

William S. Perot, Dr. William Shippen, Jeremiah Hacker, H. M.
Zollickoffer, Thomas Latimer, Paul T. Jones, Morris S. Wickersham, John
M. Wetherill, Charles Ellis, B. B. Comegys, William U. Ditzler.




Transcribers' Notes.


Italics are rendered between underscores; e.g. _Princeton Review._.

Small caps are rendered in ALL CAPS.

A paragraph, which was split between the second page of the cover and
the third page of the cover (inside front and inside back), was joined
together on the second page.

The beginning of the third page of the cover was marked with a notation
between curly brackets ({ Third page of cover. }).

The table in Article IV was split into two tables to better fit on the
page.

The following table shows changes made by the transcriber. Page# refers
to the ordinal number of the printed page for this issue. Page 2 is the
inside front cover. Page 8 is the eighth page in this issue (which was
numbered 58 for the year). Page 20 is the twentieth page in this issue
(which was numbered 70), and so on. Page 60 is the outside back cover.

  +--------------------------------------+
  |             Change table             |
  |-----+-----------------+--------------|
  |Page#|    original     |  changed to  |
  |-----+-----------------+--------------|
  |   2 |expresse         |expressed     |
  |   8 |there            |their         |
  |  20 |substracted      |subtracted    |
  |  24 |attractions;     |attractions;" |
  |  26 |mismangement     |mismanagement |
  |  26 |impunity.        |impunity."    |
  |  32 |viz              |viz.          |
  |  34 |seasonable       |reasonable    |
  |  39 |homocidal        |homicidal     |
  |  45 |considered.      |considered."  |
  |  45 |years!           |years!"       |
  |  46 |VIII             |VIII.         |
  |  47 |Unforfortunately |Unfortunately |
  |  55 |viz              |viz.          |
  |  56 |THAT             |—THAT         |
  |  57 |THAT             |—THAT         |
  |  60 |Matron           |Matron.       |
  |  60 |Wickersham       |Wickersham,   |
  +-----+-----------------+--------------+