Chapter II: Part 2

The various officers of the Penitentiary, by their general kindness and good temper in their care of and intercourse with the prisoners, evidence their fitness for their position, and as “like begets like,” similar deportment is reciprocated by the prisoners towards them. This is one of the excellent features of our System, which rarely, if ever, calls for the exercise of harshness by the keepers, and, consequently, instead of vindictive or bitter feelings being excited towards them, on the part of those under their control, a mutual feeling of sympathy is frequently brought into action. This was recently very pleasantly exemplified in the presence of a member of our Committee. A keeper, who had charge of about thirty prisoners in one of the corridors, received intelligence of the death of a son in the army, and having obtained leave of absence for a few days that he might go to Virginia to bring home the remains, before leaving, called at the cell of each of those under his care and bade them farewell. Both the words and deportment of the prisoners evidenced that they sympathized with their caretaker in his bereavement. It is also a general practice with the keepers in the evening, as they pass from cell to cell to hand in a light and lock the doors, to exchange a parting salutation with the inmates. We think it must be self-evident, that such a condition of things is much more favorable as a school of reform than that where the harshness of discipline prevails, which is said to be inseparable from the _Silent_ System. The former is like the mellow soil moistened by the gentle shower, which receiving the seed kindly, when deposited by the hand of the husbandman, it soon germinates, and in due season brings forth fruit, which abundantly rewards him for all his toil. Whilst the latter is like the arid, indurated clay, upon which equally good seed may have been scattered, but being dry and impenetrable, it either never springs up, or at best it has a stunted growth, and its yield never compensates for the labor bestowed upon it. The entire number of prisoners in the Penitentiary during the year 1862 was 586. The largest number at any one time was 451, on the first day of the year, and the smallest 353. The number in confinement there on the first day of this year (1863) was 369, to wit: white males 297, white females 18, black or colored males 51, and black females 3. There were 6 deaths and 18 pardons in the course of the year.

The Committee on the County Prison have attended faithfully to their duty as visitors during the year, but the reports from them are not so minute as those from the Committee on the Penitentiary, and, consequently, we are unable to analyze them so as to set forth the particulars of their services. One of the members so thoroughly devotes his time to the duty, as to visit the prison more than 500 times during the year, generally twice a day for more than 250 days. The other members report having among them paid 419 visits in the course of the year.

Under the care of the present judicious and efficient Board of Inspectors, the prison has been satisfactorily conducted; but the population is so unsettled (being largely composed of vagrants, the untried, and those committed for petty offences), that it cannot be considered to fairly illustrate the “Separate System,” and therefore we think it proper to make more especial and extended reference to the Penitentiary than to it.

The Prison “Association of Women Friends” (which is recognized by us as an auxiliary in the good work), have continued to be diligent visitors to the females confined in both prisons, and have entered on the service under a full sense of its serious importance, and with desires that their labors might be promotive of the temporal and eternal good of the visited. In the course of the year they paid 987 visits to the prisoners in the two institutions.

In addition to the moral and religious instruction communicated to those confined in each of the institutions, through the medium of our visitors and those of the association just referred to, the Eastern Penitentiary has, as one of its regular officers, a “Moral Instructor,” whose time is devoted to visiting the prisoners individually in their cells, and there instructing them in those things which most nearly concern their temporal and eternal interests. The present incumbent of the office is John Ruth, a worthy minister of the Methodist persuasion, who appears to be well fitted for the discharge of the duties of his station. Ministers of different denominations also frequently visit the Penitentiary, both for the purpose of having religious opportunities with individual prisoners, and for the more general and public discharge of the duties of their calling. In the County Prison, although there is no regular officer employed for the purpose as in the Penitentiary, yet the institution is pretty well supplied with volunteer religious instructors from different sources, and, on the first day of the week, the prison agent generally procures the attendance there of one or more ministers.

In our Report last year, we informed that the Quarterly Journal, which had been published by the Society for a number of years, was discontinued, and an Annual Report and Journal substituted for it. The principal reason then assigned for the change was, the large absorption of our funds which its publication occasioned, while our means for aiding discharged prisoners and sustaining other objects of practical benevolence in carrying out the original object of our organization, that of “Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” were entirely too limited. The result, we think, has already confirmed the propriety of the course then adopted. Our financial condition has considerably improved, and our appropriations in 1862, in aid of discharged prisoners, were upwards of fifty per cent. greater than in 1861.

EDWARD H. BONSALL, }
JOSEPH R. CHANDLER, } Committee on
TOWNSEND SHARPLESS, } Annual Report, &c.
CHARLES C. LATHROP, }
ALFRED H. LOVE. }

PHILADELPHIA, _1st Mo. (Jan.) 15, 1863_.

For the Prison Journal.

MAGISTRACY.

The Magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their authority.--BURKE.

Moses, in reply to the question of his father-in-law, “Why sittest thou thyself alone and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?” said, “Because the people, when they have a matter, come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” In him we have a model magistrate. But finding the labor “too heavy” for him, by the advice of Jethro, he confined his duties in this respect to those of an appellant judge, to be for the people “Godward,” to “bring the causes unto God,” and to hear “every great matter,” and he did “provide out of all the people, _able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness_, and placed such over them to be rulers,” or minor magistrates, “and made them heads over the people,” “and they judged the people at all seasons; the hard cases they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.” In this record of the first institution of the office of the magistrate, and the qualifications considered as requisite in the man to fill the position, we have a lesson that it becomes us diligently to consider at the present day. If there has been degeneracy of the world since the days of Moses, in no respect perhaps has it been more forcibly felt, than in the mode of administering justice, (or as it would be more properly termed _in_justice,) at the present day, by the police or committing magistrates. The evils resulting to the community, the cruelty done to the unfortunate being who falls into their hands, by the system prevailing and carried out by many of the magistrates, especially of this city, have become so aggravated as to demand a thorough reformation. “Moses chose _able_ men,” whose qualifications were known “out of all Israel.” Men who acted in the “fear of God,” and “who hated covetousness;” or would not take “_fees_” or levy severe contributions on their victims, or the victims of others’ wrongs, or commit them to prison on false or trivial charges, to exact the payment of “charges and costs.” He did not leave the _election_ of the magistrate to any body of the people whom they were to judge, much less to the worst or dissolute portion of them.

The very word “magistrate,” (from _magister_, master,) implying control, direction, suggests to the mind the idea of equity, safety, and purity. It excites reverence and a sense of exalted dignity, and imposes such a power and responsibility as never should be exercised by a bad or incompetent man.

In countries where the magistrate is _appointed_ by the head or ruling power for his qualifications, and is _independent_ of the people over whom he presides, this feeling or sentiment, as a general thing, has been justified. The people living under the administration of such, lay themselves down and sleep in peace, and arise and go to their avocations, feeling that their rights, their property, and their lives are secure, because the righteous magistrate dwells in the land!

Under our democratic ideas, that because “the people are sovereign,” we must therefore permit them, in carrying out these ideas, to exercise the power of electing all of our officials from the highest to the lowest, we run a great risk of placing the liberty and the welfare of the citizen, in the hands of bad and immoral men. However capable the people may be _as a whole_ to judge of the qualifications and fitness of any certain person for a magistrate, _if they would as a whole exercise their sovereignty_, no one, we presume, will claim that the portion of the “sovereigns” who congregate in “grog-shops,” and act under the inspiration of intoxicating beverages, in procuring nominations, are properly exercising the sovereign power, or that “the voice of _the people_,” thus expressed, is “the voice of God.” That _some_ good magistrates, as we truly have, are elected under the present system, but illustrates the truth _that it is possible_ to elect the right kind of men to office, if the better class of citizens will but exercise the privilege of the franchise, which under our theory of government it is the _bounden duty_ of every good man to do.

The evils arising from the magistracy, as at present administered, are the results of two causes, which ought to be removed:

1st. The mode of selecting or making magistrates.

2d. The mode of compensating them.

From the nature and duties of their office, they should be removed as far as possible from any dependence upon the favour, the votes, or the fees of the people over whom they judge or rule.

Being a part of the ruling power, having delegated to them the “mastery” over the people, they should receive their authority or appointment from, and be dependent upon, the supreme authority or head magistrate, or “Master” of the City or State, and his constituted advisers, the council or senate, and removable only for cause. Being thus appointed by him who represents the sovereignty of the people, and by his position and responsibility to the people for his acts, we might reasonably expect to find men appointed, capable of discharging the duties, and worthy of the sacred trust of a magistrate. Again, as to the second point, the magistrate should not in any way be dependent upon, profited by, or have any portion of the “_fees_” of his office, but should be appointed for a certain precinct, ward, or district, and receive a certain _fixed_ compensation or salary from the public treasury. All “fees” or charges, being the penalty for breaking or infringing the laws, should be collected and paid over to the public treasurer by the magistrate, leaving him free to act uninfluenced by them, as the impartial agent of the law, as between the ruling power or sovereignty of the people and the accused, and enable him to act as a peacemaker, or reconciler of difficulties. Under the influence of the “fees” to be derived from “committing” the person accused, is there not danger that self-interest may sometimes induce the magistrate to commit unnecessarily, or otherwise encourage bad feelings between the accuser and the accused, when a more independent position might lead the magistrate to secure a reconciliation and settlement of the difficulty?

All persons thus appointed and acting, should have power to act not only as committing magistrates of persons after examination, to be tried by a higher court or magistrate for heinous offences, but they should be authorized and required to try all trivial or minor cases, summarily, and to decide upon the same, and pronounce sentence accordingly, without appeal except in specified cases. A system similar to this prevails in other cities, or did at least in New Orleans before the rebellion, where Recorders or criminal magistrates acted or presided over certain defined districts; justices of the peace acting in civil cases only, one being entirely separated from the other, and the same person not allowed to act in both positions. The system was found to work to advantage there, though the incumbents of the position, contrary to what we deem wise, were elected by the people. As adjuncts to such a system, a Work-house for mature offenders and vagrants, and a House of Industry (or Refuge) for juvenile ones, to which the magistrate could sentence them, would be needed to relieve our County Prison of the _surfeit_ of cases now sent there, and to relieve the public, by the fruits of their labor, from their cost of maintenance; and so situated as to lead as far as possible to their reformation, and to the formation of habits of industry, regularity, and temperance. Such institutions could, as elsewhere, be made to pay a profit to the city, instead of as now maintaining the victims of the magistrate at heavy cost, in idleness and amidst evil associations. The workings of the present system prevailing in our city, are forcibly presented by the Reports of the Inspectors of the County Prison, and those of the prison agent of the same,[2] from the latter of which we select only the following, which are but a sample daily occurring:

1. One of these cases is that of a young soldier committed [May 15th], on the charge of homicide. The Agent went to Washington, visited the camps, and saw that witnesses therefrom were brought here. These were brought here under the charge of an officer, specially detailed by the Court for the purpose, to prove an alibi in his behalf. It was not, however, found necessary to present this evidence, as another witness was found who testified to seeing the murder committed by a different person. The prisoner, in consequence, was at once acquitted.

2. Another case was that of a United States marine, the victim of a conspiracy, whose object was to have him arrested and imprisoned as a deserter, in order to recover $30, which are usually allowed in such cases by Government. The chief actors here--as it appeared--were a sergeant and two tavern-keepers, who sued him before two different aldermen for an indebtedness, amounting to $17 for board and for money obtained--as they say--under false pretence, which consisted in his promising to pay after receiving his wages from Government. At the settlement the sergeant claimed $135 out of $140.80; exacting one-fourth of the sum loaned for its use, and leaving but $5.80 for the prisoner to cancel the $17 debt. This $135 was paid to the sergeant for the use of $101.25 advanced to the prisoner within 19 days subsequent to his being paid--all of which he had spent. A ten days’ furlough was granted to him, and then he was imprisoned, as above mentioned.

In investigating the case, the Agent learned from the prosecutors, that they intended to get paid by keeping him in prison till after his furlough expired, and then getting the major to arrest him, as a deserter, with a promise that he would see them paid out of money, which the prisoner would eventually have to pay, after being put in irons and confined, for three months, in the barracks--which is said to be the customary punishment in such cases.

3. Another case was that of a United States Army captain, who was imprisoned on the charge of _enticing_ soldiers out of a regiment in one State into a regiment of another State. It appears that, from patriotic motives, he had resigned the command of his company in Virginia and went to New York to raise a regiment of which he was to be major. While he was in Philadelphia the orderly-sergeant of his former company sent him a letter, inquiring how he progressed in forming his new regiment, and also informing him that, after pay-day, many of his old command would quit their company.

This portion of the letter came to the knowledge of one of our city aldermen, who construed it, as enticing soldiers from one company into another, and thereupon unjustly committed the captain to prison.

On the Agent stating the truth of the case to the alderman, and asking the prisoner’s immediate release, as his services were needed in our country’s defence; the magistrate refused to discharge him, unless he or his friends would pay the costs, and thus submit to the illegal extortion of money, as also to the imputation of having violated the laws. Whereupon the Agent, after consulting the United States Court officers, applied to the Court of Quarter Sessions for a writ of habeas corpus, had the case examined, and the prisoner was discharged by the authority of Judge Thompson.

4. Another extraordinary case was that of a woman charged with kidnapping and robbery. The alleged kidnapping--as was proved in Court--consisted in her taking possession of her own son, of 16 years old, a runaway, found by her in Schuylkill County, and the robbery in the taking of his clothes, which she had a right to take, as was shown by her acquittal in Court, at her hearing upon a writ of habeas corpus, procured by the Agent; when the fact of his being her son was established, not only by herself, his mother, but by his brother, of 19 years old, and by a respectable citizen and others, who had known him from infancy.

5. Another case, presenting, perhaps, still more striking features, was that of a woman committed, on a bail-piece issued by one of our city aldermen, November 20th, and discharged November 21st, by bail being entered for her appearance at Court. The original charge against her was for assault and battery on a neighbor woman.

According to the prisoner’s account, she got into difficulty with this neighbor about some children belonging to another party. They struck each other, and then the prisoner was sued by the other woman before an alderman, who granted a warrant gratis, as at the time she had no money. The prisoner was required to give bail, or go to prison. She then arranged with the alderman’s constable (at his suggestion) to pay him $2 for being her bail, on her receiving money, which she expected daily from her husband and son, who were in the United States Army. She also agreed to pay the alderman $1.80. On her receiving, soon after, a remittance from her son, she promptly paid the amount agreed upon.

She was then told, by the alderman and constable, that she must now enter freehold bail for her appearance at Court. She replied, that she thought that unnecessary, as she and her prosecutrix had settled their quarrel, and were now as friendly and intimate as sisters, visiting each other in their respective premises almost every hour in the day. But, notwithstanding all this, and although, being a simple case of assault and battery, it was fully within the magistrate’s power to settle it, he would not do it, but insisted on having freehold security.

She then consulted a distinguished lawyer on the case, who addressed a note to the alderman, requesting him to dismiss it. He would not comply with the request, but persisted in exacting freehold bail.

The alderman’s constable then proposed getting his brother-in-law for her bail, on condition that she would pay him $5 for the service. Becoming frightened, as she had three small children, with no one but herself to care for them, her husband and son being in the army, she assented to his terms and paid him the money--which (be it noted) was in addition to the $3.80 previously paid to the alderman and constable.

She was then allowed to depart for a few days, at the end of which the constable visited her, early one morning, and told her the bail was about to give her up unless she would pay some more money. She gave him all she had, a half-dollar, which she at the time actually needed to get food for her children. He took it, but said it was not enough, and he must, therefore, have her husband’s coat, which was hanging within view. She gave him this, and he then further insisted on having some breakfast, which she also gave him.

He left, but not long after returned, and declared she must go to prison, as her bail would incur no further risk unless he received more money. She replied that she had no more money to give; but, instead of this, she gave him her husband’s pantaloons and drawers, which he took, and thereupon insisted on having her husband’s razor and shaving apparatus, which she gave him. He concluded his call by demanding his dinner, which she also gave him, and he went away.

A few days subsequently, his brother-in-law (the bail) called, and told her he was going to surrender her to be sent to prison, unless she either gave him more money, or complied with certain infamous proposals of his. The latter she promptly refused, with the remark that she would not dishonor her husband and son, who were then enrolled for the defence of their country.

He then left, and went to the alderman and had her sent to prison, cruelly separating her from her sucking infant, who was left at home with her other two young children, and no one else.

The Agent, on learning these atrocious facts, at once saw that the prisoner was released on bail, and permitted to return home to her family.

6. Another case was that of a woman, the mother of a large family of little children, who was committed by one of our aldermen on the vague charge of misdemeanor. Her husband is a soldier in the United States Army. It seems that her landlord wished to remove her from the house she tenanted in a summary manner, and he appears to have formed a conspiracy with the prosecutor for this object. She refused to leave till she got a remittance from her husband. A quarrel ensued, and the prosecutor struck and beat her most shamefully. A proof of this was that her person, when she entered the prison, was black and blue with bruises. After the prosecutor had done this, he went to the alderman and sued her on the charge above named. This he did to secure himself from being prosecuted by her for assault and battery.

Let the community arise! Let our City Councils and our State Legislature act, and perfect such legislation as will remedy this crying evil, and rid our beautiful city, so distinguished for progress in arts, science, and benevolent institutions, of this polluted sore.

C. C. L.

For the Prison Journal.

IMPRISONMENT.

So far as we are acquainted with the actual condition of the various countries of the civilized world, we are compelled to the painful and humiliating conviction, that there are individuals amongst their inhabitants who are prone to, and actually will interfere with, and depredate upon the rights of others, unless they are subjected to moral or physical restraint. This fact has made it necessary that measures should be adopted to protect the general mass of society against the wrong-doing of these evil-disposed persons. It must be evident to all, that in originating and maturing these measures, or in framing and perfecting laws for this purpose, an intimate acquaintance with human nature, and a high order of wisdom, are essential pre-requisites to fit those upon whom the duty should devolve, to enter upon the highly important work. The instinct of self-protection would naturally, and even properly suggest, that the first object should be to secure the community against a repetition of the wrong-doing, by placing the individual who has committed a serious offence under such physical restraint as to make it impossible for him for a time to continue his evil course. This object may be secured by a close confinement of the culprit in a prison or penitentiary. But if we rest satisfied with having accomplished this, we are taking a very narrow view of a very broad subject. This same instinct, if its promptings are intelligently pursued, will convince us that the punitive character of this restraint or imprisonment should be such as to operate upon the fears of the evil-disposed who are at large, and thus deter them from yielding to temptations which may prompt them to commit offences against society or individuals. And, also, as this imprisonment cannot be permanent, the individual incarcerated should, through this source, as well as others, be made to feel that “the way of the transgressor is hard;” and from this experience (in the absence of any higher motive) be induced to so conduct himself, after his liberation, as not to render himself liable to be subjected to a repetition of these “pains and penalties.” At the same time, however, that the imprisonment and discipline provided, should embrace such elements as would subject the convict to a full sense of punishment, they should be carefully guarded from partaking of the character of vindictiveness or revenge. If this care is not exercised, the higher and more enlarged action of Christian philanthropy and duty, which should immediately follow that referred to as being prompted by the instinct of self-protection, which is, the temporal and eternal good of the offender, by his reformation, will be entirely defeated.

We are aware that in some countries, in framing their penal laws and discipline, the only object appears to be to prevent the continued perpetration of offences by the imprisonment of those convicted as offenders, and by the severity of their punishment to deter them from a repetition of their crimes after their discharge; the example of which punishment, it is desired, shall also operate to restrain others from entering upon and pursuing an equally criminal course. This object is effected, at the smallest possible cost to the community, by constructing their prison buildings, almost exclusively, with reference to the safe-keeping of the prisoners, making no arrangements for their separation, but congregating them together in large masses, with very little, if any, regard to difference in age or degrees of criminality. The consequence is, that instead of the prisoners being reformed or made better, by the discipline to which they are subjected, they are almost inevitably made worse; and many times, those who were committed on a charge of pocket-picking or some other minor offence, are fitted for burglars or the commission of the highest class of crimes on their discharge.

A valuable member of our Prison Society who has recently spent several years abroad, during which time he became very familiar with the penal system and the arrangement and manner of conducting the prisons of one of the countries of Continental Europe, having frequently visited and personally inspected the prisons, speaks of it as being generally admitted amongst the people there, that reformation was no part of their plan, and was never expected to result from the imprisonment of criminals. We are happy, however, in the belief, that this system is now viewed by nearly all countries as being a relic of the barbarism of the dark ages, which, besides partaking of the character of cruelty, evidences great short-sightedness and want of wisdom, if we consider how its results affect the best interests of the community. Instead of being a school of reform, through whose influence the number of those from whom outrages might be apprehended would be lessened, if it does not actually increase them, it at least makes life-long criminals of the most hardened character, of a large proportion of those subjected to its discipline, who, at the time of their first commitment, were by no means steeped in wickedness; many of them when quite young, having, in an unguarded moment, yielded to strong temptation to commit some minor offence, of which having been convicted, they have been thrust amongst the most abandoned outcasts of society, and soon lost to all hope of restoration, when by a really humane and Christian course of treatment they might have been led back from the by-paths into which they had, without due consideration, stepped, and have been brought to experience the happiness of a virtuous life, and to be a blessing instead of a curse to society.

We believe that all reflecting men must be convinced that the _reformation_ of criminals, besides being a question of _expediency_, in which the community has a deep stake on the score of self-protection, is one, the promotion of which, so far as is in our power, is of the highest Christian obligation, in reference to both the temporal and eternal good of those who, having by their criminal conduct, forfeited the liberty enjoyed by the common mass of their fellow men, have, for the security of society, been committed to prison. In most Christian countries _reformation_, on the ground of _expediency_ at least, and we trust, under some sense of Christian duty, is now acknowledged to be properly _one_ of the elements of their penal systems; and, consequently, some provisions, either theoretical or practical, are adopted for the promotion of this object. It is much to be regretted, however, that most of the existing prison systems are such as greatly to interfere with, and many of them almost wholly to defeat the accomplishment of this vitally important purpose. This state of things exists to a great extent, not only in Europe, but throughout most of the Commonwealths of the United States.

The systems are generally “_congregate_,” either with little, if any, restraint from free social intercourse between the inmates, whatever may be their different degrees of depravity, or with the imposition of silence while together, and separation at night and at their meals only. The former of these, in our judgment, wholly excludes reformatory influences, unless it be through the immediate operation of Divine grace and mercy, which, we freely admit, can overrule obstacles however great; but this fact will not excuse us from doing our best to facilitate this operation. At the same time, also, that it excludes reformation, its attendant circumstances rapidly school the young offender in the ways of depravity and crime, and harden the more practiced in wickedness, and prepare them for the commission of still darker deeds than any they had previously been guilty of. Whilst the latter system, where _silence_ is imposed, though certainly a step in advance of the former, as it cannot so extensively _propagate_ criminality, yet from the fact that the prisoners cannot be approached separately, and that this system of silence and non-intercourse amongst them, under the strong temptation to the indulgence of their social propensities when placed in the presence of each other, is only maintained by harsh and severe discipline; reformatory agencies can hardly be brought to bear upon them, and efforts in this direction, very rarely, indeed, produce the desired effect.

It seems to us that what is generally known as the “Pennsylvania System,” which is that of entire cellular separation of the prisoners, by which they are precluded from either seeing each other, or holding any kind of intercourse by word or sign, is far in advance of any other system of imprisonment yet introduced. We do not propose at this time to go into a general explanation of its peculiar features, but may merely advert to a few prominent points in support of this position.

First, as regards the effectual restraint of those found guilty of crime from continuing their outrages upon the community; its security against escape, is fully equal to, if not greater, than that under any other existing prison system, and its punitive character, though really humane and mild, is looked upon with much dread by the evil-disposed, on account of their being subjected to separation from their fellow convicts, and therefore it is potent in deterring from a criminal course.

These primary objects of imprisonment being thus effectually secured, we are next to consider what are its effects, evil or good, upon the moral condition of those subjected to its discipline. And here the results of our inquiries are pre-eminently satisfactory. From the thorough isolation maintained, we think it must be evident, that no prison under it can ever become a moral pest-house, where the depravity and wickedness of one prisoner may be communicated to another, or, as it were, prove contagious, and thus spread moral corruption around him. As neither the words, countenance, nor gestures of one can be heard or seen by another, it is clear, that those committed are not subjected to such influences whilst in confinement, as will make them morally worse on leaving, than when they entered.

Having thus demonstrated, as we trust, that our system, without doing a moral wrong to the offender, thoroughly effects the purpose for which society claims the _right_ to imprison--that of self-protection, by placing him under secure restraint--we have next to consider what is its adaptation to the higher and less selfish purpose, which immediately follows as a Christian obligation, that of promoting his reformation. In the first place, then, as there is nothing in the working of the system which calls for harshness of treatment; it is administered on principles of kindness, and consequently, instead of the prisoners being hardened, and their vindictive and other evil passions being called into action, they are softened, and the better feelings of their nature (which with many had so long slept, that the degraded beings were hardly aware that they possessed them) are awakened. Under these favorable circumstances, those who are desirous of communicating moral or religious instruction can visit each prisoner in private in his separate cell, and when the service is accomplished, leave him to his reflections, without being disturbed by the presence, or deterred from a serious consideration of his condition by the scoffs of depraved companions.

The purpose of this essay has not been to suggest the details of any particular system of imprisonment, but to call attention to the general principles which should control the subject. And especially have we desired to impress upon the reader the vital truth, that if we would hope to reform the prisoner, we must treat him with comparative kindness. We must do nothing, which either is or seems to be, by way of revenge or retaliation. Under the present dispensation we must not exact “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” If we do this, the prisoner feels that he is persecuted, and that as society is doing its worst by him now, he will repay it upon his discharge. In effect, that as every man’s hand is against him, his hand shall be against every man.

E. H. B.

The following are the introductory remarks of a writer in the “North British Review” for February, 1863, to “Observations on the Treatment of Convicts in Ireland” and the Subject of Transportation, to wit:--

The public mind of England awakes periodically, and with a start, to a sense of the danger it incurs by the presence of a large criminal population in the very heart of the community, which is dealt with on no rational or consistent system, watched by no adequate police, and disposed of in no conclusive manner. We rave against the evil, we abuse our rulers, we insist upon a remedy being found, we listen eagerly to every quack and every philosopher, we discuss the subject passionately, illogically, and superficially; and we end by adopting some fresh plan which touches only a small fragment of the mischief, and darns only a small rent in the tattered garment, and which is usually some ill-digested and unworkable compromise between old habits and new fancies. We then grow sick of the subject, ashamed of our panic, and stupidly satisfied with our mild aperient and our emollient plaster, and go quietly to sleep again for another term of five or seven years. Meanwhile, however, there are two classes of men who never sleep: the criminals, who are always at work to invent new modes of preying on society and new dodges for evading justice; and the officials, who are always, after the fashion of their kind, and by a sort of ineradicable instinct, wriggling back into the old channels, and falling away into their normal inertness. There was such an awakening as we have described in 1853; there was another in 1857; there is another now. Let us see whether this last cannot be made to yield some better and more lasting fruit than its predecessors.

That the evil is a very great one no one can doubt. It amounts to a positive insecurity of life and property which is disgraceful in the richest, most civilized, most complicated society on earth. At this moment, the number living by depredation and outrage, and known to belong to the criminal class, is estimated to reach in the United Kingdom to 130,000. In this year, 1863, a considerable portion of the respectable inhabitants of London are reduced to carry concealed weapons for their own defence; and this from no groundless apprehensions, but because they _may_ any day be called upon to use them, and often _are_. We annually commit to, and liberate from, our county jails in England and Wales, at least 130,000 offenders, a very large proportion, if not the majority, of whom are habitual pilferers, burglars, or in other ways violators of the law, and recognized preyers upon the industrious and peaceful part of the community. Besides these, we turn loose every year, at the expiration of their sentence of penal servitude, or shortly before its expiration, 3000 convicts, nearly all of whom are professional, finished, hardened offenders, and all of whom, with scarcely any exceptions worth naming, have been confined for crimes in which ruffianism and dishonesty were combined. Of these 3000, at least 2500 on an average are liberated in this country, and almost invariably go back to their evil courses, more vicious, more skillful, more irreclaimable than ever. Many of them have been convicted several times, never dream of adopting an honest mode of life, and could not do so if they wished. In a word, we have among us an army--very active, very well trained, tolerably organized, very resolute, and in part very desperate--of internecine enemies and spoliators, as numerous as the troops of most European kingdoms, and more numerous than the military and police forces in our own country combined. This is the evil we have to deal with. It is an evil, in some degree and in some form, incidental to every large and populous community; but the form and degree depend entirely on our own management. We may reduce it to the minimum which human temptation to wrong and the imperfection of human powers of repression must always leave, a minimum which would be seldom heard of and little felt, and which should be always tending to decrease. Or we may suffer it, as we are in a fair way to do now, to augment and intensify year by year till it reaches the maximum compatible with a comfortable existence and a secure civilization. Now what we affirm is, that, for the height to which it has reached at the present moment, we have only ourselves to thank. For a long time back, in spite of ceaseless warning, and ignoring all the lessons of experience, physiology, and common sense, we have done little to repress crime and much to encourage it. Our plans of dealing with it have been based upon no clear understanding and no settled principle; the changes we have introduced from time to time, have been either inconsistent _nibblings_ or mutually destructive fluctuations; we have neither aimed at felling the tree, nor at cutting off the nourishment from its roots; we have simply pruned the branches, and contented ourselves with wondering that it should flourish still. We believe that all this is remediable still, though the mischief has assumed such vast dimensions; but that which is imperatively needed before we can hope to remedy it is, that we should boldly face all patent facts; that we should courageously accept all undeniable conclusions from those facts; that we should at once and for ever place sentiment under the control and supremacy of sense; that no inconvenience should drive us to do injustice to others; and that no expense should make us shrink from doing justice to ourselves.

Criminals, the moment we look at them closely and analytically, divide themselves into two distinct categories--the casual and the habitual. Many of the more trifling, and some of the most heinous offenders, belong to the former class. Temptation there will always be; and this will be liable to increase with the progress and complexity of civilization, as long as some are poor and some are rich, and as long as the appliances of wealth are spread out in the sight of the struggling and needy. Defective moral natures there will always be--natures weak to resist and prone to fall; but these, it is to be hoped, will diminish as comfort and instruction penetrate among the masses. Passions will always exist among all ranks, and passions will occasionally burst through the restraints of morality and law. Boys will thieve who are no worse than idle, neglected, and ill-trained. Poor men, who are habitually respectable, will steal under circumstances of sudden and desperate necessity. Clerks will occasionally forge or rob to avert exposure, to meet debt, or to purchase vicious pleasures. Any man, in any rank, of violent or malignant temper and ill-disciplined mind, may, in a moment of provocation or of fury, be guilty of manslaughter; or, if he be thoroughly bad and licentious, may outrage a defenceless woman, or murder one whom he hates, or whose possession he desires. Crimes and criminals of this sort, however, are not those that embarrass our police, and perplex our rulers and philosophers; they do not constitute the social problem we have to solve. They are the casual outbreaks of human vice and passion, incidental to all stages and forms of civilization, and incurable by any. But besides and independent of these cases, we have among us a large population, numbered by thousands and tens of thousands, who _live by_ outrage and depredation; to whom crime is an employment and _profession_; who are brought up to it; who have no other teaching, no other vocation, no other resource; to whom the respectable and industrious portion of society is the oyster they have to open; who prey upon the community, and sometimes hate it also. They are simply the enemies of society; and the protection of society against them constitutes precisely the difficulty which at this moment our thinkers have to master, and the duty which our rulers have to discharge.

Now we do not say that the obstacles and embarrassments with which the solution of the problem is surrounded are not actually great, because they are. But the problem itself is neither difficult nor obscure, as soon as we take pains to place before ourselves distinctly its precise nature and conditions. The thing to be done is simple enough; the impediments in the way of doing it are nearly all of our own creation, arising partly out of ignorance or thoughtlessness, and partly out of willfulness; partly because we have not fully understood what we had to do, and partly because we have been unwilling to accept the consequences and incur the annoyance and expense of doing it. Divested of all complications, our task is to _defend ourselves_ against the criminal population,--the professional criminals; to guard society against their outrages and depredations in the most prompt, effectual, and enduring fashion we can devise. That is all: we have NOT to _punish_ them; and we shall only confuse our minds and perplex our action if we try to do so. It is the almost universal neglect of this vital distinction, more than any other error, which has led us into such grotesque and inconceivable blunders. _Individuals_ may regard these offenders in any light which harmonizes with their several idiosyncracies. Some may look at them as objects of vengeance; some as objects of compassion; some as subjects of conversion; some as patients to be cured; some as unfortunate lunatics to be carefully and comfortably confined; and there may be much truth in all these different views, and they may be allowed to influence some of the _details_ of the practical treatment of criminals in prison and on their discharge from prison. But _the State_, as we said, has only got to protect the community against them--to regard them as domestic foes, against whom self-defence is legitimate and necessary. The reason why it should not seek to _punish_ them, in the strict and proper meaning of that word, is, that it has not the knowledge requisite for the just discharge of that function. It cannot possibly apportion the penalty it inflicts to the _guilt_ of the offender, which apportionment constitutes the very essence of _punishment_. Neither the wisest judge, nor the most patient and enlightened jury, nor the most omniscient police officer, can do more than form a plausible conjecture as to the _moral criminality_ of any convict; since this, it is obvious, must depend on the organization which he inherited, on the antecedents which have surrounded him from the cradle, on the degree of instruction he has received, on the special nature and _adaptation_ of the temptation, on a multitude of circumstances which we neither can know, nor could estimate if we did. The State, too, is just as incompetent to estimate the severity of the infliction as the guilt of the offence. How is the legislator who awards, or the judge who pronounces, to ascertain the weight and bearing of any given sentence upon any individual culprit? The same penalty which to one man would be almost too lenient for a theft, may, to a differently organized and differently trained offender, be too severe almost for a murder. The educated convict, whose ungoverned passion led him to a heinous but a single crime, would be driven mad by the association and the _entourage_ which the habitual and hardened ruffian would find congenial and even pleasant. Punishment which _retributes_, like vengeance which _repays_, can, by its very term, belong only to that higher intelligence which can estimate aright both the debt to be repaid, and the intrinsic value of the coin in which repayment is awarded.

The thing to be done, then, being ascertained, the next point for consideration is how to do it. Now, society may protect itself against habitual criminals in three ways, separately or in combination. It may deal with him so as to _deter_ him, to _reform_ him, or to _get rid_ of him. It may so arrange and contrive its penalties as to frighten him from bad courses, or to incapacitate him from recurring to them, or to persuade him to amend them. And, putting out of view the very few whom it will or can hang, it has to effect these objects by such secondary punishments as lie within its reach, as the public purse will pay for, and public conscience and feeling will allow the State to inflict.

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