Chapter I: Part 1

The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy

CONSTITUTION

OF THE

Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.

When we consider that the obligations of benevolence which are founded on the precepts and examples of the Author of Christianity, are not cancelled by the follies or crimes of our fellow-creatures; and when we reflect upon the miseries which penury, hunger, cold, unnecessary severity, unwholesome apartments, and guilt, (the usual attendants of prisons,) involve with them, it becomes us to extend our compassion to that part of mankind who are the subjects of those miseries. By the aid of humanity, their undue and illegal sufferings may be prevented; the links which should bind the whole family of mankind together, under all circumstances, be preserved unbroken; and such degrees and modes of punishment may be discovered and suggested, as may, instead of continuing habits of vice, become the means of restoring our fellow-creatures to virtue and happiness. From a conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles, the subscribers have associated themselves under the title of “THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS.”

For effecting these purposes, they have adopted the following CONSTITUTION.

ARTICLE I.

The officers of the Society shall consist of a President, two Vice-Presidents, two Secretaries, a Treasurer, two Counsellors, and an Acting Committee; all of whom shall be chosen at the stated meeting to be held in the first month (January) of each year, and shall continue in office until their successors are elected; but in case an election, from any cause, shall not be then held, it shall be the duty of the President to call a special meeting of the Society within thirty days, for the purpose of holding such election, of which at least three days’ notice shall be given.

ARTICLE II.

The President shall preside in all meetings, and subscribe all public acts of the Society. He may call special meetings whenever he may deem it expedient; and shall do so when requested in writing by five members. In his absence, one of the Vice-Presidents may act in his place.

ARTICLE III.

The Secretaries shall keep fair records of the proceedings of the Society, and shall conduct its correspondence.

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NEW SERIES. NO. III.

THE JOURNAL

OF

PRISON DISCIPLINE

AND

PHILANTHROPY.

PUBLISHED ANNUALLY

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

JANUARY, 1864.

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PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. CHANDLER, PRINTER, 806 & 808 CHESTNUT STREET.
1864.

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Rooms of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public
Prisons. }

At a meeting of the Acting Committee of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, held on the evening of the First Month, (January) 21, 1864, the Editorial Board, (appointed to take charge of the Journal and papers, and the Annual Report,) consisting of Joseph R. Chandler, James J. Barclay, Edward H. Bonsall, and James M. Corse, M. D.,[1] presented the Annual Report, which, having been considered and approved, was ordered to be transmitted to the Society.

Footnote 1:

It may be proper to state that Townsend Sharpless, one of the
Vice-Presidents of the Society, was appointed on this Board, but was
prevented by sickness from taking part in its labors, and he died
before the Report was made to the Acting Committee.

At the Annual Meeting of the Society, held First Month, (January) 28, 1864, the Report of the “Acting Committee.” was presented, and after consideration, was referred back to the Acting Committee, with instructions to cause the whole (or such parts thereof as might be deemed best) to be printed in the usual form, with any other matter that should be thought advisable.

At a meeting of the Acting Committee, Second Month (February) 11, 1864, it was ordered that the Annual Report, signed by the President and Secretary, be referred to the members by whom it was proposed, with instructions to them to cause a suitable number of copies thereof to be printed.

JOHN J. LYTLE, Secretary.

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REPORT.

In presenting the Report of the Seventy-Eighth Year of the labors of “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” we are struck with what in this country may be regarded as a remarkable instance of longevity. Few benevolent societies in the United States survive their founders. Some effect a certain object and are allowed to fall into uselessness and disorganization. Others arise, with kindred purposes and similar means, and produce other good with an advantage of new zeal and fresh machinery. In Europe numerous philanthropic associations have outlived their usefulness, not so much from a diminution of the numbers that need aid, as from changes in their circumstances. The funds do not fail, but the right to apply them, in the changed condition of society, has ceased. The continued existence of the association is secured by the capital upon which it was founded, and the lumbering machinery is annually reviewed by those charged with its custody, and it is then consigned to another year’s seclusion and repose. The dust of antiquity settles upon it, to give it an interest with some, but the idea of usefulness is no longer entertained.

In many of the cases of defunct associations in _this_ country, the wrongs or sufferings that suggested their organization were only temporary, and with the accomplishment of their objects they ceased to exist, or they have given place to others better adapted to the good ends proposed. Most of the still remaining inoperative associations of the old world were called into existence by permanent evils, but their usefulness was made temporary by certain fixed requirements that were soon to render them inapplicable to the changes in the political, religious and social condition of the people. But “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” has before it a work, which though it may vary with time, is not likely to lessen. While society exists we shall have vice and crime; while vice and crime abound we must have prisons to restrain the violators of the laws; and while prisons have inmates, the duty of reforming their morals and ameliorating their condition, will devolve upon some of those who seek the good of society by the improvement of individuals. That duty in its broadest sense has been assumed by this Association. Not merely to lessen the sufferings of the condemned, not alone to assist the innocent, not merely to teach sound morals to those who are suffering from a violation of the laws of God and man, not merely to prevent a too rigid enforcement of special enactments, not alone to prescribe and ensure a separate confinement to the condemned, but so to use that confinement that vice or crime, so communicable in its character, shall not propagate itself through the cells of the prison, and thus make a penitentiary a nursery for misconduct rather than a school for mental and moral discipline; not alone to deal justly and faithfully with a convict while he occupies his cell, but to secure to him, when he shall have completed his penal term, some position in which he may carry into effect his good resolves, without incurring risk from those associates that led him into crime, and especially to secure him from recognition in the world by those who have passed months or years of separate confinement in the same prison with him. We repeat it, it is no one of these measures that is the single or even the great object of the Society. It is every one of them, separate, or all of them combined, with whatever else may present itself for alleviation or correction in the affairs of prisons or the condition of prisoners. Nor is this all; while this Society has in view the whole of these and other benefits, it is no less its intention to continue its labor of benevolence as much upon the fruit of its own existence as upon the evils which it was organized to ameliorate. The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, will accommodate its labors to the new state which its exertions may have produced, and, thus, what has been improved to-day may be perfected to-morrow. Nor does it escape the notice of the Society that new work is presented or new forms of labor are suggested as the system which it produces becomes more and more operative. The vicious are to be reclaimed by gentle exhortations and encouraging sympathy. The young criminal is, by kind monitions and encouraging confidence, to be lured from the path into which he has been seduced, and the felon is to be made to understand that there is a hope of regaining the respect of society by that repentance which consists as much in reparation for the wrong and resolves for the future, as in regret for the past; or, failing to acquire for himself the forfeited regard of his fellow men, he may secure a hope of a better rest. True philanthropy seems but the embodiment of religion, and never do the consolations of the Divine promises operate with greater efficacy than when they are poured upon the heart of the convict in the solitude of his cell.

In claiming for the Association such an extensive field and such a variety of labors, we do not overrate its plans nor over-estimate its means and devotion. It may safely be said that as no circumstances of the prisoner are beyond the aim of the Society, so no class of prisoners are excluded from its benevolent intentions. The visitor of the Society when he presents himself at the cell of the prisoner, is not to be deterred by the rank, grade, condition or color of the prisoner. Nor are his efforts to be lessened by any circumstances of his case. We must say with the Roman,

“_Homo sum; et humani a me nil alienum puto._”

I am a man, and nothing which relates to man can be foreign to my bosom.

And it is a part of the qualification of the visitor of the Society, that he can accommodate himself and his ministrations to the varied circumstances of the occupants of the cell, becoming all things to all classes, that he may gain access to their confidence. Failing in all this, as almost any one must come short of some of the objects of his charitable effort, it is a part of the wisdom and prudence of the representatives of the Society to discern their own want of adaptation to the peculiar circumstance of the prisoner, and call in the aid of those who by different gifts, by other attainments, or higher functions may be better qualified to meet the wants of a particular case.

The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the miseries of Public Prisons, is known by its works. It desires to be judged according to those works. Some of the Society’s efforts have obtained for it European fame, while a part of its labors are of so humble a class as to be little known beyond the cell of the vagrant, or in the small circle of which such a beneficiary may form a part. The great system that seems to concern all mankind, that of separate confinement, is discussed, understood, and partially practised in Europe, and if it is not general, the cause is not so much a want of confidence in the system as a want of the deep, practical interest in the unfortunate victims, which should lead governments and legislators to incur the expense of erecting buildings, especially for penal purposes, adapted to the idea of separate confinement and special discipline, as substitutes for those prisons which are only modifications of antiquated palaces, abandoned convents, or delapidated baronial castles. Even the houses that were constructed for prisons owe their erection in many cases to a time when confinement and cruelty were the means of public or private vengeance, and when the convicted felon became an outcast for life, or rather when the conviction of felony was the Cain mark for perpetual infamy.

The Society is represented in its labors at the prisons in Philadelphia by two Committees. The duties of one of which are confined to the Eastern Penitentiary, in Coates street; the other committee is appointed to labor at the County Prison, in Moyamensing. These two committees are really practical operatives. They have little to do with theories or plans. Their work is in the cells of the prisoners or at the doors of the cells, and their dealings are directly with the individual.

In the experience of the visitors of the Society to the two prisons, there is necessarily great difference arising out of the different circumstances of the inmates of the County Prison and those of the Eastern Penitentiary. In the latter the length of incarceration and the closeness of the application of the rule of separate confinement, seems to break up so entirely the relations of the prisoner with the world from which he is banished, that many seem willing to listen to the admonition of visiting friends, and to accept the invitation to review their lives and to form resolves of future amendment. Not merely do the monitions and invitations, of the visitors to the cells, lead prisoners to promises of good, but the isolation of their condition and a want of outward objects to strike their senses and occupy their minds induce them to thought, to meditation, and lead them to the commencement of that reformation, or, at least those solemn resolves of reformation which are the object of their imprisonment. It can scarcely be doubted, that almost every prisoner in the Penitentiary who has been frequently visited by those who evince an anxiety for his temporal and spiritual good, has been led to resolve to refrain from the crimes which placed him in prison, and to seek a maintenance in the world by means which that world sanctions and which God approves; but it is certain that a large portion of those who thus resolve, find it easier on their return to the world to resume their associations and habits and to become three fold more offenders against the laws than they had been. In vice and crime there is no halting, they are progressive; he who has yielded to their influence must be carried forward with their advancement, or he must renounce entirely their influence. The _arts_ of crime are like all other arts by which a man undertakes to acquire position or a living; they demand advancement. Pride in success leads to undertakings of difficulty, and he who enters a jail a “sneaking thief,” may be stimulated by professional emulation to advance in crime till he attains the dignity of a penitentiary cell for some boldly executed robbery, or some brilliant act of extensive forgery. The released half converted criminal feels all this, but he feels the difficulty of relinquishing plans of life which seem to have been devested of a part of their chances of defeat by the very imprisonment into which they led him; and, as a resolution to reform does not always include the means by which virtuous living may be obtained, the outgoing prisoner finds in his circumstances an excuse for violating the resolutions of good, or postponing their fulfilment till at length he becomes involved in the same labyrinth of difficulties and crimes that caused his former incarceration. Is he then to be neglected? Is he then to be cast off? Is he then to be marked as one who has forfeited, with the esteem of the good, the right to the cares of the good? The Great Master of benevolence gave no such advice, nor did He sanction such conduct by example. He to whom all hearts are open, and who, aware of the evils and hostility of vice and ambition, at once their object and their pardoner, He never but once refused time and attention to the profitless; and His only positive direct malediction was upon the unfruitful fig-tree that had outlived its time of usefulness, and which, under His frown, withered into a leafless and lifeless condition, that could experience no resuscitation.

If we confess, as we must, that much of the evils which we deplore in the prisoner, is the result of adverse circumstances, then we must also admit that he may owe a future reform or repentance to some favorable circumstance, to that circumstance which the thoughtless and the infidel deem the providence of man’s fate, but which reason and religion declare to be the instrument of God’s care of his creatures. It is the duty of the philanthropist to provide for such a contingency, to have in the mind of the offender an appreciation of wrong and right, so that when unexpectedly the _circumstance_ occurs, there may be a knowledge of its capabilities and a readiness to improve it.

In preparing this Report, reference was had to the fact, that some of the great objects of the Society have already been discussed in every light, and with masterly effect. Essays given in the publications of the Society, from men of distinguished talent, have been productive of great good in strengthening the confidence of active members, and in removing prejudices from the minds of those who lacked experience to correct false impressions.

The great system of separate confinement has been presented to the public in a most convincing paper, by an able writer of this city, so that, for the present, it seems only necessary, in our Annual Report, to make a short reference to the system, and then to allow a statement of the proceedings of the Society to illustrate its effect.

It is the object, then, in the _present_ Report, rather to make known the details of proceedings, than to announce the abstract views upon which action is founded; to give up this Annual Report to a presentation of the mode of procedure; to a detail of the daily duties of the active members and agents; to a consideration of some of the antagonistic circumstances that hinder our progress, and to the means upon which reliance must be placed in efforts to alleviate the miseries of prisons.

In attempting to present the report under various heads, it was found difficult to avoid a repetition of argument and explanation, or rather, having made the repetition, it was found difficult to correct the text without impairing the fulness of that part of the subject. Indeed, when it is considered that with the exception of enlightening the public mind, to procure co-operation, and soliciting legislative enactments to enable the Society to act more beneficially upon prisons, and through them on the prisoner, the great work of alleviating the miseries of public prisons, is to be upon the minds of individuals, we shall comprehend how all the divisions of the actions of the Society centre upon the single prisoner. Not for sympathy alone, but for amendment, must we “take a single captive,” and so, in reporting upon the action of the Agent; upon the doings of the various Committees; in setting forth the success, or want of success, at the Penitentiary or the County Prison; in referring to the movements on behalf of males or females; in the plans for future action, as on the records of the past, it is the incarcerated individual, it is the single mind whose experience we are to record, or whose susceptibilities we are to note. Hence it has seemed almost natural, at least it is hoped that it will be regarded as excusable, that what is the great means of all our hopes of alleviating the miseries of prisons, viz., separate confinement, and consequently individual dealing, should pervade every division of the report of our proceedings.

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SEPARATE CONFINEMENT.

The distinguishing feature of the discipline which this Society has advocated for Penitentiaries, is that which the world misrepresents by denominating it _solitary_ confinement, and which it discredits by arguments founded not on past experience, but resting upon the probable effects upon the minds of the prisoners of total solitude and utter separation from association, sight and converse with man. We do not pretend to say what would be the effect of such a condition. Our object is not the condemnation of an untried system, but the exposition of the benefits of that which has been well tested. The amelioration not the augmentation of prison discipline is the object of our Association. The permanent benefit of society through the improvement of individuals, or the eternal benefit of individuals, by making the prison a school of reform rather than a place of torture. Separate confinement is the object that has been proposed—and wherever obtained, it has produced, if not all the good which had been hoped for, at least more than any other system that has been adopted, and has satisfied those who are engaged officially or voluntarily in its administration, that its benefits are progressive. By the separation of the convict from his fellow criminals, he is taken from the concerted plans and practices of crime, and placed where none may approach him but officers charged with the care of his person, or those who visit his cell with messages of kindness. People who, sensible of his guilt, but hopeful of his reformation, approach him in a spirit of kindness, and, satisfying him that they seek his good, and not their own benefit, gain admittance to his heart, win his confidence, and produce, perhaps, solemn resolutions to amend. He sees, in the narrow confines of his cell, and he feels, in the strictness of the discipline to which he is subjected, the terrors of the violated law. But he comprehends, in the oft-repeated lessons of love that are given to him by the Society’s visitors, that, prone as he is to crime, he is the object of human solicitude and the subject of divine mercy. And in time he understands also, that, had he been released with the first resolution to repent, he would have missed of reform. He comprehends that time and retirement were necessary to the germination of the seeds which had been planted in his heart, and a long season of abstraction from society could alone have matured the fruits of repentance. Solitude—entire solitude—might have embittered his heart against the social compact by which he was suffering. He may have had learning, but he probably lacked that moral education, that culture of the heart, by which he could easily discern the rightful dependence of punishment on crime, or his responsibility to society for the talents he possessed, and the uses to which he applied them. In utter loneliness, he would have brooded over his privations, and, recalling the hundreds whom he knew equally guilty, but wholly unpunished, he would have regarded his condition as of special, unequalled, and gross injustice, and might have sought liberty and life to revenge himself on man; or, wearying of existence, and despairing of relief, he would have “cursed God and died.” Utter solitude to the ignorant and the bad is rarely productive of benefit. Solitude may be the occasion and the means of beneficial progress to the good. It may enable the repentant to avoid the errors which have injured him and by which he has injured others, and it may enable him to work out his own benefit, doing good to himself, but not communicating it to others. The whirlwind of passion disturbs the solitude, but God and good are not in the disturber. The small still voice of reason and revelation calls him to repentance, but he cannot understand. Like the child Samuel, he hears the call, but until there be some one to instruct him how to respond, he remains in his darkness, unimproved.

But solitary confinement we have said is not recommended by the Society. That species of penalty might be as cruel to the convict as the associated imprisonment is unjust to society. We would have all penalties so tempered with mercy, that they should lead naturally and certainly to improvement. We condemn any sentence to utter solitude, as heartily as we do that to a social imprisonment, whereby pecuniary compensation to the State takes the place of moral improvement in the prisoner, and where day by day former associates in vice become schemers for future depredations and teachers of the means of crime to the neophyte in wrong doing.

The separate confinement which constitutes the peculiar character of prison discipline advocated by the Society and practised in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, has reference to the separation of one convict from another, and of separation of the criminal from that intercourse with people from without that might keep up his relation with criminals and his taste and his resolutions for crime. Day by day the lesson of moral instruction is heard. Day by day the visitors from the city present themselves at his cell, and invite him to reformation; and at any stated period, or in case of special emergency, the inmate of the cell may have the attendance of a clergyman of his own choice, and the consolations of religious instruction such as he may have cherished in better times. His solitude is disturbed by the regular visitation of the officers of the prison, and the silence of his cell broken by the prayers and teaching of his visitors. Nor is it a violation of the plan, that he should repeat and amplify what he has heard, and loudly express what he has been brought to feel. This, with all the privations which imprisonment and conviction for extensive crime necessarily include, is not “solitary confinement.” The justice which, for the sake of society, restrains the freedom of the offender, yields entirely to the mercy that turns to that offender’s temporal and eternal good. This infliction, that separates him from his associates in felony, frees society from apprehension of his crimes.

We speak here of the infliction of the Penitentiary. The case of a convict in the County prison has in it much less of severity, and is proportionately therewith of less benefit to him and less advantageous to society.

We do not intend to argue upon the advantages of separate confinement and labor, over the associated condition of prisoners. That subject has been often presented in our annual reports, and in essays published by the Society, and ably and satisfactorily handled. We shall present some of what may be regarded as the minor objects and labors of the Society, from which, however, great good has already resulted, and to which we must look for many of the direct, personal, and permanent benefits which are to result from our efforts.

It will be seen, in the course of this report, that close observation warrants the conclusion that little hope of improving the moral condition of the prisoner can be indulged until he is placed within the reach of separate instruction, and beyond the evils of companionship with the vicious. This is the experience in this State; this is the growing opinion in Great Britain and Ireland.

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COUNTY PRISON.

The County Prison presents a vast field for contemplation and labor. It is the receptacle of the vagrant, the drunkard, the disorderly, the suspected, and the convicted. All the elements of crime are found in its cells, and sometimes the unfortunate, the oppressed, and the innocent are made more miserable by a forced association with the vicious and the guilty. Sometimes an accidental association with the bad has procured for the careless, well-meaning innocent, a companion that has indoctrinated him with vice, and made him a proficient in crime. All degrees of servitude are experienced in this prison, from that which terminates with the twenty-four hours for intoxication, to that which is extended to years for some flagrant violation of the law. Nay, there are those who, in the midst of years, have no hope of escaping from the prison cells till they shall “be carried forth of men,” to be buried under the rules of the prison, or by the charity of those who knew them in better days. These last are men convicted of willful murder, by a jury, and sentenced to death, by the Court, but in whose behalf some circumstance suggests a withholding of the death-warrant, and their cases remain from one term of gubernatorial office to another, transmitted by the ruling chief magistrate to his successor, among the matters unfinished, but which seem not to impose upon the new governor the necessity of discharging the painful office which was avoided by his predecessor.

The occupants of the County Prison cells are of the following kind:—

_The First Class._—Those committed for vagrancy, breach of the peace, drunkenness, and disorderly conduct.

_Second Class._—Persons charged with violation of the laws, whose cases are to be decided by the Criminal Court.

_Third Class._—Persons sentenced to short imprisonment, and the payment of fines and costs.

_Fourth Class._—Those convicted of crimes of a high character, and sentenced to confinement and labor. And we may add a

_Fifth Class._—Formed of those already mentioned, who, having been sentenced to death by the Court, are yet detained in prison by the withholding of the death-warrant for their Execution, or of the pardon which would ensure their release.

With all these the Society has relations by means of the Committee on the County Prison, and to prevent interference in labors, and to secure attendance at all the cells, the Committee is divided into classes, to each of which is assigned a particular division of the prison, though a member of the Committee is permitted to visit the inmates of any of the cells, in addition to those specially assigned him. But it can scarcely be doubted that where one visitor is punctual and faithful in his labors, the interference of others may rather tend to disturb the mind of prisoners than to aid them in the new path of duty upon which they have hesitatingly entered. Such matters are, of course, left to the judgment of visitors, who can easily discern when the ground is fully occupied by a successful laborer. Too much culture is said to be almost as fatal to vegetation as entire neglect. Frequency of interference by persons of varied habits and different modes of approaching the prisoner, can scarcely be productive of good, although each one separately operating, might, with God’s blessing, work out an incalculable amount of improvement.

The laborers at the County Prison are not so numerous as at the Penitentiary, in proportion to the number and character of the inmates. The County Prison is a less desirable field of labor. At the Penitentiary the inmates have a fixed and protracted residence, and may be approached by the same teacher so long as hopes are entertained that “the continual dropping” of moral truths “will wear the stone” of his heart. And his separation from those whose language or presence might encourage his resoluteness in wrong intention, leaves him almost entirely within the influence of those whose duty and pleasure it is to make his banishment from bad society the means of his reformation.

At the County Prison, one large class of prisoners, by far the largest, is always changing. Day by day the _vans_ arrive, crowded with wretches who have entered upon the path of vice, and are hastening down that terrible declivity. Incarceration for all crimes, commences here, even though the criminal should be consigned to the Penitentiary when convicted. The vicious, the drunkard, the disorderly, the peace-breaker, and the vagrant, are committed to the prison, and must abide their monthly incarceration, unless “sooner released by course of law.”

We have already mentioned the various classes of offenders that occupy the cells of this prison. With one class, viz., convicts for various terms, the mode of dealing by the visitors from the city, is changed from that in the Penitentiary only so far as to suit the different character of the confinement, and the occupation of the inmates. The visitor is regular in his calls at the cell of the convict, and follows his own plan of moral and religious instruction, usually successful in proportion to the assiduity of the instructor, and the time in which he exercises his office of benevolence towards the inmates of the cell. Pamphlets, tracts, books of devotion, the Holy Scriptures, are supplied to the prisoner, and his attention to the prescribed lesson is urged by his teacher, and tested by his recitation and comment. And when the unhappy occupant of the cell is unable to read, additional attention is bestowed in imparting the instruction, so as to supply as far as possible the deficiency of primary education.

With the third class, viz., those sentenced to short terms, and the payment of a fine, it may be supposed not so much good can be expected. Yet there are not wanting instances of thorough reform consequent upon the gentle zealousness of the visitor, and the yet lingering sense of right in the mind of the prisoner. Indeed, as some of those suffering short sentences are obtaining the first fruits of wrong doing, it happens often that their consciences and their affections are more easily touched, and thus a hopeful reformation is more readily commenced. This occurs especially when the person arrested is admitted to bail, or, as can rarely happen, placed in a separate cell before conviction, so that a direct and necessary intercourse, by constant association with others in a similar situation may be avoided. The fact that many of these third class prisoners never return, may be regarded as evidence that the discipline of the prison, and the care of the visitors, have done the good work of reformation.

EVIL SOCIETIES.

The experience of visitors with some of this class is of a very interesting character. Occasionally are heard, in the out-break of passion, resolves of the avenging upon the world, the wrong inflicted by the first incarceration. It cannot be denied that these resolves are frequently carried out, and a life is consecrated to crime, in revenge for punishment—and the cell of the prisoner is the first degree in that education which terminates in a full graduation in the State Prison, or on the gallows. Of course, far back of this first imprisonment lies the evil; neglected education; want of parental direction, or the evil influence of pernicious parental example; evil associations at the corners of the street; and especially, and to be particularly noticed, COMPANIONSHIP IN SOCIETIES formed for mischief before the initiates understood the nature and tendencies of their confederacy. The prison and the penitentiary of our city have been made populous by members of these societies, whose object and origin are often emphatically set forth in their abhorrent names. Thousands of lads have thought they were honored in their position by being admitted to fellowship with those who had become a sort of terror in their neighborhood; and others have gratified a pugnacious inclination, by associating with vulgar heroes, who were bound to protect them from assault, and assist in gratifying their malevolence. It is no argument against the evils of these societies that there are in them very few persons of mature age. Alas! the ranks are crowded with those who have the vigor of nascent manhood, without the restraints of a sense of responsibility. Plans of evil, which if proposed to men, even young men, would have been voted down from the danger which the actors would incur, are adopted with acclamation by grown-up boys; and the quiet of neighborhoods is disturbed, property destroyed, personal safety jeoparded, personal injury inflicted, and sometimes human life wantonly taken.

In this class of prisoners, however, as we have already remarked, are often found the proper objects of the visitors’ most hopeful attentions. The young man or young woman, who by the error, we will not say the accident, of bad associates, is arrested for an offence of which he or she is only partly guilty of the act, and innocent of intention, after a few weeks’ confinement begins to hear with interest the voice of friendship “breathed through the lattice,” and though shocked at a new contact with the innocent, yields soon, not merely attention but confidence, opens up the heart to the friend at the cell door, receives the proffered book, accepts the offer of frequent visitations, and in time, not at once, shows that deep sense of degradation which is the beginning of true repentance. The visitor finds himself depended on, the confidence begets protection, and the punishment for the first offense or for the first detection becomes the means under Providence of permanent amendment.

In this department of the prison the separate system is practised as far as can be done consistent with the plans of employment, and, with regard to the effect of the system, even with the limited advantage which it has in this place, favorable reports are made. One instance is mentioned by a visitor, who is most faithful to the duties he assumes and whose regular labors are almost entirely limited to convicts, and to those of a particular gallery, so that he may not by diversity of labors, or a multitude of objects, lessen the good effects of his visits or diminish the means of a close intimacy with the minds of those whose good he seeks. He has within a short time received letters from two soldiers in the Army of the Potomac, both of whom had been under his moral dealings in the County Prison at one time, and both were members of the ——th regiment, both returned thanks for the valuable instructions and kindness of the visitor, both professed to have derived the most important benefits from his care, yet neither of them knew that they had occupied adjoining cells in the County Prison, and neither of them was acquainted with the fact that the other was addressing their common benefactor. Instances of this kind, if not frequent, do at least occur sufficiently often to strengthen the hopes of the Society that the labors which its visitors perform in the name of benevolence and under the direction of the Association, are fruitful, in individual and social benefit. Fruitful in that good which was contemplated in the formation of the Society.

One other instance of the effect of zealous, affectionate kindness and watchful care in this department may be mentioned. A visitor who has for twenty years been constant in the discharge of his voluntarily assumed duties, found in a cell a lad who had by bad association and repeated crimes deserved and received a sentence for many years imprisonment. He was one of those impressible persons who yield to circumstances and follow out fully the course into which they may have been conducted. Notwithstanding the effect which several years’ bad conduct had produced on the perceptions of the youth, separate confinement had afforded him a means of preparing himself for that species of mental hostility to the world which the young convict is likely to entertain, and when the visitor entered his cell and asked for a statement of the circumstances of his short but miserable career, the voice of affection and the tone of deep, almost of parental interest with which the prisoner was addressed, secured his confidence, and his tale of wrong doing was readily told. In time the unfailing attention of the visitor became almost necessary to the existence of the prisoner, and the prescribed devotion was performed. The Scripture lessons were well studied, and all that could be required of the inmate of the criminal cell seemed to be so well done that the “visitor” felt authorized to second the wishes of the prisoner for Executive clemency. A full pardon was obtained, and in a short time afterwards, the released convict was seen occupying a place of peculiar trust, where his own word was all that could be demanded as a statement of cash received. The many failures and disappointments which pain and mortify the visitors in their labor of love, are not recorded. But such an instance as we have noticed above, will serve as a reward for many years of toil, as compensation for many hundred disappointments, and as encouragement to future exertions, and especially to careful studies as to the best mode of improving the means of usefulness. We are not to forget that the labors of the visitors are low down. In other callings it is a comfort to know that the good have been made better by well sustained efforts. The mission of the Society’s Visitors is to those whom the world deems already lost. To snatch even a few from the many, very many, of those who constitute the class of depraved and criminal, publicly exposed, is a work in which the laborers must find much of their reward in the sense of suffering mitigated, and the feeling of kindness gratified. Their highest boast must be that God has accepted the services for the permanent benefit of even a few.

In making an annual report of the doings of the Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisons, we might be justified in multiplying our statements of favorable results of the labors of the members of the two great Committees. For these are the fruits of all our plans, the result of all our labors. If the great object to many is to secure the adoption of the separate confinement of prisoners, this separate confinement is only to ensure the moral improvement of the individual prisoner. If the Society puts forth its efforts to create and multiply auxiliary institutions, it is only that there may be a greater concurrence of zeal and talents to make our State Penitentiaries and our County Prisons the schools of reform of individual prisoners; and the Society for Ameliorating the condition of Prisons, while it rejoices in the adoption of its views by institutions in other States of the nation, and by governments abroad, rejoices not as having triumphed merely in extending a knowledge of itself, and as having secured an adoption by others of what it deems its peculiar plans, but as having conciliated the prejudice of other benevolent associations, and secured their co-operation in the work of promoting the good of society, by multiplying the means of improvement of individuals.

We shall have occasion to speak more extensively of the nature of the labors of the Prison Committee, each one of whom is a “Visitor,” when we come to consider the labor in the female department of the County Prison. And that, too, will afford opportunity to notice the operation of the primary judiciary system of the city, and its effects on prisoners and on society.

PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY.

Before closing this part of the Report, it is deemed proper, if not indeed a duty, to refer again, and with stronger emphasis, to the evil “associations” of young persons of our city, their immoral combinations, and the evils to which these societies give rise. Lads whose parents are laboring hard all day to procure a scanty support, find themselves without the restraint of domestic authority, and they use their freedom to procure the gratification of wishes which have been formed without domestic discipline or moral restraints. In many of these cases the parents are little better than the children, and the example of intemperance and ill temper at home is easily followed abroad. In some cases the parents, though virtuous, lack the mental ability to correct the evils of bad association in their children, and the foolish son, without any criminal intent or neglect on the part of the parents, becomes a grief to his father and bitterness to her that bore him. There is scarcely to be found a more effective school for vice at first and crime in succession, than is furnished by one of the clubs of lads with which parts of our city are infested,—infested as much now, though not as obtrusively, as when “nights were made hideous” by the uproar of their juvenile members, and the “day deformed” by the inscription of their titles and deeds upon the fences and house-fronts in the vicinity of their operations. He who would alleviate the miseries of prisons by lessening the number of prisoners, may find object of labor among these most injurious societies.

He who would stay the progress of vice and crime in that direction, must deal first with those parents whose vices or whose negligence of parental duties supply members for the clubs, and candidates for the penitentiary. Parental indifference, total disregard to all the obligations of domestic life, is the cause of such a deterioration in the young of the city,—the young we mean of both sexes; for neglect at home operates as injuriously upon girls as upon boys; and the evidence of the equality of the evil is as conspicuous in the bad associations of the young female as in her miserable brother, and the result may perhaps be far more lamentable to the former, because of the almost impossibility of reclaiming her. If the clubs and associations absorb the boys and prepare them for a guilty manhood, public “parties,” coarse exhibitions, and service at the drinking saloon, at dancing halls and casinos, qualify the girl for the lowest grade of vice. The two sexes have different paths downward to destruction, but in this world those pathways usually terminate in the prison; and the cells at Moyamensing have more than once, and at one time, contained father, and mother, with their sons and daughters,—terrible illustration of the evils of home vices, and the neglect of parental duties, the forbearance of domestic restraints.

It is not intended to assert that all the vice and errors of children are referable to parental example: that would be a gross injustice to those sorrowing ones who see the stray one from their domestic circle, disgracing in his vicious career the lessons and examples of piety in which he was reared, and forming a marked exception to the character and condition of his relatives. But we have a right to speak plainly where the evidences of neglect and even of bad example in the parents are manifest in the error of the child. We have a right; nay, in the position which this association is now occupying, we have a duty to society, to urge attention to the evils which our community is made to suffer from a neglect of domestic discipline, which crowds the cells of our prison with guilty parents, and fills the House of Refuge with their erring children.

We repeat it, that we distinguish between those cases of parental sorrow which flow from some exceptional cause, and those domestic miseries which are consequent upon vice or criminal neglect; but care must be taken not to weaken a sense of parental responsibility by referring to misfortune, too much that may be referable to vicious error. In this matter, as in others of a different character, perhaps the language of the poet may be painfully applicable:

“Look into those you call unfortunate,
And, closer viewed, you’ll find they are unwise.”

STATISTIC.

While on the subject of the County Prison, it may not be amiss to present a few statistics regarding the number of those who have been its inmates during the year 1863. The whole number of commitments was 17,219. The philanthropist who looks at the effect of vice or misfortune on individuals, will be startled at such a statement, when he considers how much private misery and domestic grief there were involved in all these incarcerations; not only in the separation of so many persons from their social and domestic associations, but more than that, often the long career of annoyance to family and friend, from the regular advance in crime and vice which led to the incarceration. One other fact is noticeable, the increase in imprisonment in 1863 over those in 1862 was 2,573. That, it is evident to those who visit the prison and examine into the cause of such painful effects, is, in part, one of the bitter fruits of the present war. And the mortifying fact, that 794 of the increase of committed were females, is evidently referable to the same cause. In 1861 and a part of 1862, the number of commitments of males was greatly decreased, as the army was absorbing with better elements, many of those who were almost monthly successful candidates for the prison, while at the same time, the number of females increased, owing to the absence of those to whom they were responsible, and to the periodical reception of money in larger amounts than they had been accustomed to receive. The return of whole regiments to our city, serves, by supplying only a few vicious from each, to bring up the number of males without diminishing those of females committed. Yet we must not overlook the fact, that a large portion of those extra commitments are of persons who contrive to make their appearance at the prison in about ten days after having served thirty days in the cells. They are new commitments, but they are old offenders; and they furnish one strong argument, or rather, perhaps, show the necessity for a House of Correction.

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FEMALE DEPARTMENT.

The Philadelphia County Prison is composed of four different departments, one of which is called the “Debtor’s Department,” so denominated because it was destined to receive and retain those who were to be incarcerated for not paying their debts. The merciful laws of Pennsylvania have abolished imprisonment for debts by contract, and now the building is used for the detention of some United States prisoners, for some who are adjudged to be in contempt of court, some who are detained on mesne process, &c., or who are sentenced to pay fines or costs. With these and others under the charge of the sheriff, the committee have had little intercourse; their circumstances, or the temporary character of their almost nominal confinement, not rendering it probable that visits would be acceptable or profitable.

The south wing of the prison is devoted entirely to male vagrants, drunkards, breakers of the peace, those who await a trial, and some who are sentenced to short imprisonment and fines. The middle building contains male convicts, sentenced to separate confinement and labor, and also those who have been sentenced to capital punishment. Among the inmates of these two buildings the visitors of the Society are constant and assiduous in their labors, and we have already referred to some of the results of their visitations.

The north building is entirely separate from the other, having two lots of ground and a high wall between that and the male convict department. The northern building is exclusively devoted to females. The vagrant, the drunkard, the accused, and the female criminal of every class, are here kept, under the care of a male keeper, and a matron and assistant matron. And as this department presents a peculiar field for the action of our Society, we shall make special reference to the character of the inmates, the nature of their offences, the circumstances of their committal, and the character and results of labors for their moral and physical improvement; not because these labors are greater or more effective, but because the pursuits, the misfortunes, the errors, and the crimes of the prisoners differ from those of the males, according to the circumstances of their condition and sex, and require some additional means to secure an amelioration of the state of their lives.

In dealing with female offenders, we have to encounter the same incentives, the same passions that influence the males; and most of the same crimes that are punished in the male convict department are here expiated by the females. But the mode of dealing must vary with the varying circumstances of the prisoner; and those circumstances must greatly depend upon the character of the individual, resulting from her sex and the condition of her earlier life.