Chapter II: Part 2

It is calculated that more than one thousand females divide their time between the cells of the county prison and the practice of those vices or the committal of those crimes which send them there. For a large number of these, no more than thirty days imprisonment can be given at one time; and many of those thus committed are discharged much sooner: so that there is little time for any moral dealings with them, and even were it practicable to deal with them in exhortation and advice,—were the time of their imprisonment sufficiently long to warrant a hope that they could be persuaded to form good resolves, still the fact that more than one, and often four or five, are found in the same cell, renders almost hopeless any attempt to induce the drunkard to forsake her resort to the bottle, or the impure to avoid the haunts of vice which she has frequented. The evidence of contrition which kindness and faithful dealing on the part of the visitor may call forth from the prisoner, are inducements to her companions in the cell to ridicule the moral teacher, and to laugh the repenting one out of her half-formed resolves. The experienced visitor learns to fix a just estimate upon the tears and promises of those expectants of favors; but the good female visitors who occasionally seek to bring “glad tidings” to the miserable offenders of their own sex, usually suffer deep mortification at the disappointment of pleasant hopes, and are compelled to seek their consolation in the consciousness of good intention and perfect fidelity to the object which they profess to serve. The great, almost the only mode of serving the inmates of this part of the prison, is to induce them to enter some of the asylums in the city, and yield themselves to the gentle discipline of institutions founded for the good of those who have lost their self-respect and forfeited the good will of society. And the records of the “House of the Good Shepherd,” of “The Magdalen Asylum,” “The Rosine” institution, and some other associations for the meliorating the condition of the frail, the vicious, and the guilty, will show what valuable auxiliaries these institutions have been to the Society for Meliorating the Condition of Prisons.

While on this branch, we may as well say that, by an Act of Assembly, the Inspectors of the County Prison may, at their discretion, discharge at once any person committed for vagrancy, drunkenness, and disorderly conduct, or a breach of the peace. Of course, a sound discretion is to be used; and it is within the knowledge of all who are conversant with the administration of the County Prison, that great good has resulted from the exercise of this power by the Inspectors, and incalculable evils have been prevented. Without any effort on the part of this Society, it has happened that more than one of its appointed visitors to the County Prison have been Inspectors; and in the exercise of the power conferred on the latter, the duties of the former have been most valuably discharged. The condition of many prisoners has been meliorated by a timely inquiry into the cause of their incarceration and the duties that awaited them at home. If it should appear that accidental association had brought a poor innocent girl to the cells, it is a beautiful and profitable exercise of power to send her home before she should make acquaintance with the habituées of the prison, or before a knowledge of her misfortune should become general among her acquaintances, by a notice of her absence from the scene of her ordinary duties. Take one example as illustration of the idea.

A girl about seventeen years of age, well dressed, was seen emerging from the van, that at the prison

“Each morning vomits forth its sneaking crowd”

of police committals. Her neat appearance and unusual sadness arrested the attention of one of the visitors of this Society, who was there on duty as an Inspector. He learned that the girl, going home on a summer evening from work, by which she maintained herself and mother, was annoyed by the appearance and bad language of a drunken woman. The disturbance drew to the place a police officer, who did not see the real offender escape, and finding only the poor girl there, he arrested her, and she was sent down for “disorderly conduct.” Close examination into the case might have shown the mistake, but there were many more cases, and so the poor girl took her place among a crowd of miserable wretches of her own sex. Her story was found to be true, and she was at once dismissed.

It is not worth while to dwell on the importance to that girl, and her mother dependent upon her labor, of the prompt release. Since that time, the arrival of the van has been watched, and the appearance of its inmates carefully noticed, and other cases have presented themselves for the prompt and valuable exercise of the power entrusted to the Inspectors.

But it is not alone the entirely innocent that receive the attention of the Inspectors. Inquiries are made into the circumstances of the poor inebriate, of the temptations that beset her, of the chance of finding some employment abroad; and the promise of amendment is rather taken than depended on, and a discharge is granted. It often happens that the promise is kept much longer than was supposed probable, and thus so much time is redeemed from the waste of vice and crime. The repetition made the actor, at least, no worse than a continuance in idleness would have made her. If she had been detained for thirty days, she would probably have found no employment, and a return to vice would have been almost the certain result.

And on that point it may not be improper to make a remark. A large part of the poor females who are habituées of the prison, depend less on regular engagements in the houses of their employers, than on demands upon their time and labor in seasons of emergency,—such as house cleaning in the city, or garden work in the country. It often happens that in the midst of the demand for these women, they are in the cells of the prison for “vagrancy,” “disorderly conduct,” or “breach of the peace.” If they can be released, they may earn something, in the spring, summer and autumn, to support them in the winter; or at worst, they are supported while they are at work. If they are detained during the demand, they lose the present and the future employment and its remuneration, and leave the prison, when their thirty days shall have expired, with no expectation of immediate engagement; and they return to the prison by the way of the haunts of vice, from which labor would have saved them, temporarily at least.

It is in such cases that the exercise of the power to release on the part of the Inspector becomes greatly useful to the community and to the prisoner; and certainly it is eminently in furtherance of the plans and wishes of this Society. It may be added, that numerous instances might be cited of the entire reformation of females by their timely discharge from prison when there existed a demand for their labor.

In this department of the prison is found the best illustration of the vast difference of the influences upon the minds and character of the prisoners wrought by the separate and the social system of incarceration. It is true that all convicts are or ought to be separately confined; but a very large proportion of the female prisoners here are awaiting trial, or held for some offence below felony, in such numbers as to render it quite impossible, even with all the discharges granted by the Inspectors and procured by the Agent, to limit the number of that class of prisoners to less than from two to four in many of the cells. Here, then, side by side, or in close vicinity, is found an example of the social and the separate systems, and to some extent a judgment is easily formed of the effect of the two modes. In the cell where are more than one female, (we speak of females, because, accidentally, our means of information, as it regards the condition of that sex, in prison, are more ample than they are concerning the males, though the circumstances being the same, the effect of similar treatment would be different only in proportion to the constitutional difference of the sexes—the female being much more social, and much more ductile and impressible, and thus more easily influenced by her associates,)—in these cells monitions and advice are offered by the visitors, and for a moment there seems, beneath the respectful attention of one or two, a kind of resolve to try to do better,—books and tracts are accepted, and perhaps read, and there is a promise, which to the unexperienced visitor seems well founded, that the miserable object of his or her care will seek to amend a course that leads so directly to disgrace and misery. But scarcely does the visitor leave the door of the cell, when the deluge of ridicule poured out by the companions of the “promising” offender, obliterates all sense of compunction, and all resolve of amendment, if any were formed, and virtue and decency are coarsely ridiculed, and their humble advocate laughed at as an easy dupe. But the visitor to the cell of the convict, or the prisoner separately confined, has easy access to the feelings of the inmate, and the lesson given is allowed time to have some favorable effect. The resolution for good which the unhappy woman forms upon the evidence of unwonted interest in her fate, may not be permanent,—the feelings may have acted rather than the judgment,—but the repetition of the visit and of the lesson scarcely fail to beget that sense of wrong doing which is the parent of repentance; and especially, if the visitor makes evident a deep feeling of affection, and gentle sympathy in the character and condition of the prisoner as a human being, may there be hope that good will follow. There must be heat applied, before the iron can be wrought into useful shape.

It is not to be supposed that all who seem to maintain to the last day of their imprisonment their resolve to amend their lives, do indeed carry into effect that resolve beyond the prison wall. That would be too great a harvest to hope for. When the resolution is taken, the pain of punishment is felt, the sense of confinement is keen, and the view of personal degradation in presence of a virtuous teacher is mortifying; and the force of former habits forgotten, and the attractions of vice underrated, and especially the sense of shame among those who knew them, not calculated on, they go forth in the resolution of amendment—they meet the suspicions of the good and the imitation of the bad—and they allow passion to triumph over virtue.

“The bow well bent and sharp the spring,
Vice seems already slain;
When passion rudely snaps the string,
And it revives again.”

But discouraging as such cases are, and especially in their frequency, there are many cases where the convict, after having promised, in the crowded cells of the vicious and accused, to mend her life, and then returned to vice and crime at the suggestions of her vicious companions, has been led by the gentle invitation of the faithful visitor to resolve on good, and where the solitude of her confinement has led to that reflection which gives permanency to her resolution. And, it may be added, that it is probable that of the many failures of success which are to be deplored, some are due to the want of entire separation of the convict, consequent upon the form and location of the cells, that forbid entire seclusion, at least render unfruitful all attempts to prevent the occupants of neighboring cells from holding conversation with each other by message, viva voce, or some conventional signal or sounds. Marvelously ingenious are the contrivances and the resorts of the human mind when an exclusion from outward objects assists in the concentration of faculties upon some desired end. It may be added here, that almost all the success that attends the efforts of the philanthropist to reform females in the County Prison, is due to separate confinement; and even when the inmate is “sent down” only for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, judgment, founded on her appearance and manner, has been well exercised in placing her either in a separate cell, or if that be not possible, then in selecting her a companion, and thus bringing her within the genial action of visitors of her own sex, without the danger from subsequent ridicule of her cell-mates. In this relation, too, has proved highly beneficial, the habit noted elsewhere, of meeting the van as it reached the prison, and selecting at once those who are new to the place, and, after inquiry, if not dismissing them to their family, at least placing them apart from the more abandoned of their sex.

Before closing this division of the Report, it may not be amiss, even though it be a partial repetition, to notice that the visitors to the two prisons in this city agree, as it is elsewhere stated in this Report, that all other things being equal, the hopes of successful dealing with a prisoner rest much upon the length of his sentence, and the completeness of his separation from all intercourse with other prisoners. Hence the little hopes expressed of favorable results from advice and persuasive dealing with the inmates of the vagrant and drunkard’s cell, whose imprisonment does not extend beyond thirty-one days. We may remark that usually the convict is less a victim of vice than of crime; and he generally has more mind upon which to operate by argument, though, perhaps, he may have less conscience to be affected; and this applies especially to men, who, as convicts, seem by a strange law of society, to be exempted from censure for their vices, while the female convict is made responsible, not only for the crime for which she suffers, but for all the vices that are incident to an erring female. But it seems almost certain that if the vicious female should be made the inmate of a separate cell, and be the object of the gentle attention, and persuasive argument of moral visitors for as long a time as is the criminal female, she would be as likely to yield to those moral allurements as is the convict. To produce the means of alleviating misery, we must have a change in prison economy; we can, perhaps, scarcely hope for success till the House of Correction supplies the means.

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MORAL INSTRUCTION.

Every effort made by the Society, in its attempt to alleviate the miseries of public prisons, is intended to be in a moral direction; and whether the person in whose behalf the agent or representative of the Society labors, is to be the tenant of a cell for years, or to be immediately released, it is to the moral perceptions that addresses are made, and it is the moral condition that is the object of public and private labor; it is for the moral improvement that the physical condition is regarded, and what may appear to the careless or indifferent observer as merely an exercise of philanthropic feeling, or of a humane sentiment, has for its great end such a disposition of the offender, or the accused, as will secure to him the means and condition of moral improvement, making the cell endurable to the felon by a growing appreciation of the justice that placed him there, and a sense of the benefit of reflection upon the past, and the comprehension of the advantage of resolves for good, which, by kind monition and gentle persuasion he is induced to adopt. The moral image defaced by vice, or buried beneath the accumulation of crime, begins to assume its earlier charms, begins to move under its superincumbent mass, and, with a recognition of its proprieties and value, vice and crime not only lose attraction, but become hideous and repulsive; the spirit of hostility to the world is gradually weakened, and a lively sensibility to all the duties of social life takes the place of that wretched resolve to misapply power by felonious appropriation, and indulge passion in the violation of the laws of decency and morals.

Or, if the prisoner is to leave his cell, the efforts are to fix in his heart the great principle of moral excellence, and to strengthen the resolutions which he formed while in prison. To follow, indeed, the liberated man to his home, if he have any, or failing that, to provide him with temporary shelter and employment, and to watch over his conduct, and guide and guard him amid the temptations upon which he has entered with delicate susceptibilities and wounded self-respect. Resolves formed in the solitude of cells, are like roots that vegetate in darkness, they are certain not to be very fruitful in their secluded condition, and are exceedingly liable to perish unproductive when exposed to the light.

Care, watchfulness, kindness, and condescension on the part of those who would perfect their work of good, are absolutely necessary to that reformation in the prisoner, which is to make him a useful citizen, and restore him to the confidence and respect of associates. It is not permitted here to give instances of the beneficial exercise of this species of practical, long-enduring kindness, lest the sensibilities of the benefactor should be wounded, and the beneficiary find his condition and circumstances injured by unnecessary publicity. But instances are not wanting of the recent criminal occupant of a felon’s cell, returning to his moral teacher to give thanks, to present the fruits of his amendment, and, while asking additional advice, to solicit continued interest in the future.

The cheerful, kind reception of the young penitent by his friend and guide, seemed to seal the work of reformation; and if he who had been justly charged with, and severely punished for, repeated felonies, felt the healing influence of Christian forbearance, and the long exercise of reforming efforts on the part of the moral instructor, who shall tell the effect upon the repentant’s future interests, upon his associates, and upon the business men of the world, with whom he must mingle, of the freedom of his access to the house of his benefactor, the cordiality of his reception and entertainment, and kindness and good wishes with which he publicly takes leave of him at the open door.

This kind of conduct is that “_coup d’epaule_” which denotes true dignity and greatness in the bestower, and which confers upon the recipient the freedom of virtuous society, and the power to become a useful member in a good community.

Though the publication of many striking instances of reformation that illustrate the effect of direct personal dealing with the prisoner has been forborne, lest the peculiarity of the cases should too directly point to the individual, and injure his prospects of success, yet one or two are given, that all, and especially prisoners, may comprehend the “possibility of reform,” even to the very vicious and guilty. It is believed that the offender, much more frequently than is supposed, contemplates in his cell the duties and work of reformation, while the discharge of that duty, and the commencement of that work are postponed, from the inability to see how the censure or suspicions of society are to be surmounted, or how, amid those censures and suspicions, so repulsive in their operation, he is to avoid the snares of former associates, and the temptations of former pursuits. The possibility of amendment, the practicability of virtuous resolves must be made apparent by judicious counsel and imitable example.

The effect of the moral improvement on the repentant prisoner, is soon manifested in the improvement of his physical, social, and fiscal condition. The confidence and favor of those who have promoted the change is communicated to others, and amendment of life is productive at once of an amendment of the means of living. The man of business pursuits is as anxious to procure the service of the honest and the able, as the honest and able are to obtain the patronage of active men.

With these great means of moral improvement, and, doubtless, with an eye to the temporal as well as the eternal consequences, the Society has always had in view the means of making prisoners better as well as more comfortable, of ameliorating the miseries of prisoners as well as prisons; and hence it has required action on the part of its visitors, and a regular report of what they have done, and generally how they have labored.

In dealing with the question of reformation among those who occupy the cells of the County Prison, it will be readily conceived that there are not only a variety of minds to deal with, but a great difference in the elements of character. Something must be attempted for those whose degradation is so great, that they hardly discover in their condition more cause for shame than does the unfortunate speculator who has failed in his plan of wealth. These miserable wretches seem to have no taste beyond the lowest dens of infamy, and no ambition but to gratify that taste in its utmost depravity. And there is a demand, too, for services among a few who seem to have few tastes for what are called low vices, and to have based their calculations of success on efforts that involve the higher degree of felony. The higher offences are in many instances rather the result of vicious habits than the resort of those who aim at the property of the industrious and the wealthy. Every one of these offenders against the law is within the scope of this Society, and his moral condition is in some degree provided for.

It has already been mentioned that the Society sends to both the Penitentiary and the County Prison, a Committee, whose business it is not only to note whatever in the administration of the institutions may have a bearing on the moral and physical condition of the prisoner, but also to be themselves missionaries to the inmates of the cell, moral and religious teachers of those who have failed in both. In addition to the labor of these committeemen, there is at the Penitentiary a regular moral teacher, (occupying what in some other institutions is called the chaplaincy,) but fulfilling other requirements, and making acceptable his more formal and general teaching by his frequent special and personal communication with individuals.

At the County Prison, the Agent of the Society, who is also the Agent of the Board of Inspectors, procures the services of a clergyman for religious general instruction, by preaching and prayer on the first day of the week. It may be added, also, that not unfrequently ladies and gentlemen, who belong to the choirs of some of the city churches, lend their musical aid, and give additional attraction to the religious services.

But it will be readily comprehended that as the prisoners remain in their cells during the whole of the religious exercises, they are not so likely to be influenced by the teaching and exhortation, as if they were assembled in chapel for social worship, and sat within sight, as well as within sound, of the preacher. The difficulty in this matter with a large portion of the occupants of the cells, especially when low vices rather than considerable crime have placed them there, is to get them to give attention to the speaker, whom they cannot see.

They, too generally, use the occasion of religious exercise for sleep or conversation; and the administering of discipline is, perhaps, more frequently called for, in consequence of mal-conduct during “Divine service,” than at any other time. As bringing the preachers face to face with his audience is impossible under the arrangement of the prison, and would be a departure from the plan of separate confinement, it follows, of course, that it cannot be resorted to as a remedy for the indifference to, and neglect of, the public teachings of the officiating clergyman.

In the Parliamentary Reports, partial abstracts of which are given under the head of “Correspondence,” in this report it is mentioned that the prisoners are brought into chapel without being able to recognize each other in their ingress or egress, and placed in separate stalls, so arranged, that while they can see and be seen by the clergymen, they cannot see each other. The prisoners while conducted to and from their respective cells, have their faces covered with a species of mask, which, being perforated, enables each to see and breathe, but not to recognize any other masked person. Whether this is a better system than is practised in our County Prison and Penitentiary, we are unable to say, but it supposes a chapel or chapels for several denominations, with a large number of stalls. The plan could be practised only with much inconvenience to the officers of the prison, and the object of the non-recognition among the prisoners must at least be endangered. Separate confinement and separate instruction, seem the safest.

The Society has received the aid of members of a female association, whose wish to be useful have taken them to the cells of prisons, and whose devotion have placed them in immediate conference with the erring and miserable of their own sex; and great good has resulted from their labors. It is a beautiful testimony to the devotion of these females, that while generally connected with some religious denomination, and, of course, attached to their own creed and practices, they have limited their labors to the inculcation of great moral precepts that rest on revelation, and secured much success from a gentle and affectionate enforcement of their teaching, leaving the object of their efforts more in love with the theory of virtue, if not fully resolved to enter upon its practice.

This is undoubtedly the true course for those who resolve to be useful to all who will listen to them. But those who know the well-springs of affection in the human heart, know how often they are called into exercise by some incident that seems aside from the general or the ordinary mode of procedure; nor should those who look for improvement in the prison cells, overlook a great element of success found in the early attachment to the creed in which the prisoner was reared, and for which he possesses that kind of affection which is offended by the least impeachment of its efficacy, though his own life and present condition show how utterly inoperative for good it has been on him. Those persons are not Atheists or Deists in theory, only in practice. They recognize their obligation to their creed and their early instruction, and they mean at some future time to do better; but now they sin against their own knowledge.

They know the right, and they approve it, too;
They know the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.

As to these persons, and especially in the female department, nothing could startle them more than an imputation upon their _belief_, nothing offend them more than an attack upon their creed; and suspecting that their delinquencies in practice will be imputed to the deficiency of the doctrine in which they have been reared, they stand often on the defensive; occasionally, indeed, they seem ready to take the offensive against those whom they believe to be of another form of worship. This all may be wrong; it may be ridiculous, but nevertheless it _is_; and with those who seek to do them a good, and reclaim them from vice to virtue, it must be respected, so far as not to offend it by any evidence of hostility to aught but sin and vice. The confidence of the prisoner must first be secured, and this not always by the same means, that his improvement is to be effected; and few circumstances so soon open up the heart as a similarity of creed, and an evidence of belief that that creed is not answerable for the vices or crimes of those who rather hold it in abeyance than in practice. And in that view of the case, and of the wants of the prisoner, some of the Committee having been specially assigned to the female department of the County Prison, have solicited or accepted the offered services of educated and pious females of diverse religious denominations, and opened to them, by authority from the proper officers, the doors of all the cells, so that each may have access to every inmate, and deal with her mind and conscience in the way which shall seem best adapted to the peculiar case.

It is not expected, as certainly it is not desired, that these devoted women should attempt to proselyte the prisoners, looking rather to a change of creed than a change of conduct; or rather, to speak more charitably, seeking a reformation of conduct only through a change of creed; but it is, of course, supposed, that each will deal with the object of her care in the way in which her conscience shall sanction, and that advantage will be taken of a similarity of creed to enforce a renewed recognition of doctrine in which the offender was reared, and a resort to the means which, having been enforced and adopted in childhood, are easily comprehended and readily practised, and bring with them the reminiscence of the better days of home and early piety, while they give a stronger hope of future prosperity and happiness.

The stranger visiting the County Prison, has been gratified with the free ingress of these female missionaries, and has been forcibly struck with the harmonious, though not associated, action of women whose peculiarity of dress shows them to be of religious connection variant in creed and ceremony, but whose concurrent _general_ instruction shows them to be trying to serve one Master in the way which their consciences suggested and approved, and which is warranted by the example of that Master, who “went about doing good,” and who showed the duty of that conduct when he said, “I was in prison and ye came unto me.”

However beneficial may be the regular service of the clergy on the Sabbath, it will, it is believed, be admitted by all, that those who have the ear of the separated prisoner, who know the peculiarities of his case, and the proclivity of his inclinations, have a great opportunity of touching his affections, of making an impression on his mind, and rousing him to good resolves, when the dealing is separate and special, and the poor wanderer feels that every word that is uttered is directed to his own conscience, and every hope that is offered is founded on amendments that are peculiar to his own condition. This separate dealing is, in almost all cases of sin, of vice and crime, that which a friend would desire to exercise; it is that which the sinner, the vicious, or the criminal, would acknowledge the most efficacious, because less offensive to his self-love, and because it can be so specially adapted, as to meet every point of his own case, so as to leave no avenue for mental escape, and satisfy him that nothing less than entire reformation of resolves and conduct will save him from the augmentation of that punishment which he is now suffering, and which will cut him off from the sympathies as well as the intercourse of his fellow-beings.

It is scarcely possible to say too much of this mode of separate instruction and exhortation,—this mode of softening the heart and moulding it to good,—the simple means of acquiring the confidence of the prisoner, and then leading him out of his miserable condition, to the commencement of that course which in a long run is to lead to the establishment of virtuous principles; but it is desirable that more could be justly said of the number of those who give themselves to this holy service. The number is small,—quite too small for the number of those who need those aids to virtue of which we have spoken; and especially is there a deficiency in the variety of religious views of the visitors. Not that it is desirable that distinctive doctrines should be enforced; but it is desirable, as has been stated above, that the attachment to creed,—almost as strong in the vicious as in the good,—should be respected as a means of confidence at least. Few virtuous, few pious persons of enlarged christian philanthropy consider the attachment or hostility of certain persons to certain creeds in which they have been reared, or which they have been taught to hold. Zealous attachment to creed survives all practices of virtue, all ground of self-respect, and is apparently, and perhaps naturally, more rampant in those who have no sense of the virtue which the creed enforces, than in those who understand the character of the creed, and the rights of others who do not profess it. And it is worthy of remark, that some of the most violent personal contests of which the Vagrant cells of the County Prison have been the arena, have been caused by the opposite _religious_ creeds in which the miserable occupants had been born, and in which they had been reared; and thus the broken forms of christian doctrine would be avenged in the receptacle of vice, and by the vicious, with all kinds of blasphemy and personal violence, and the religion of peace and purity be enforced with broken heads and broken commandments.

This strong case (entirely real) is presented to illustrate the idea that almost all hope of doing good to the class of persons to whom reference is made, must rest upon efforts that are put forth in some regard to the prejudices which are manifested by those whose benefit is sought.

To produce the ends proposed by the means which we recommend,—namely, an arousing of the conscience by gentle appeals to the hidden affections, by those whose circumstances qualify them to gain access to the confidence of the moral patients,—we must have many devoted visitors, willing to labor beyond the sight and without the applause of the world; and they, when properly vouched for in all requisite qualifications, must have free access to those whom they would aid. It is known that this Society has, by the laws of the Commonwealth, a sort of special privilege to visit in prison, by its members, the miserable, the wretched, the vicious and the criminal, to breathe through the gratings of the cell words of admonition, comfort and hope, or to open the door and participate in the confinement of the prisoner, and address him in accents that may, in the silence of all around him, awaken him to holy resolves. But even this privilege, greatly used, and, as we believe, never abused, is imperfect without a concurrent action on the part of those who directly administer the affairs of the prison. If they oppose obstacles to free access to the incarcerated, no assertion or proof of right will make the path easy, or often trod by those who represent us, especially the females; it will be found to add the disgust of contention with keepers, to the inconvenience of visits to the guarded. And still less effective will be any efforts by christian philanthropists to alleviate the misery of the cells, and improve the minds of the occupants, if their visits of mercy are followed by the coarse jeers of the unrefined and unsympathizing, ridiculing the efforts of the self-sacrificing visitor, and shaming the half-resolved prisoner; nor would it be better, if the regular official should, from bigotry or bad design, denounce the teaching of the voluntary visitor, because it might tend to other creeds than his own, or because it proceeded from other sources and in other channels than that by which his creed was formed, or those in which his conscience directed. It will be readily understood how potent such disturbing causes would be in producing injurious effects,—in marring, indeed, the good work of the moral teachers in our prisons. It seems therefore meet to say here, that while it is supposed that those who are entrusted with the care of the prisoner, in both Penitentiary and County Prison, have some well-established views of doctrine, and are connected with some religious denomination, it is not known that any of them have attempted to interrupt the work of the committee and agents of the Society, by hindering the access to prisoners, or by disturbing with contrary teaching the effect produced. On the contrary, it seems a duty at this time and in this place to bear testimony to the unfailing urbanity with which our visitors are received and treated at the prisons, and the aid always rendered to give them ready access to the cells and to the minds of the incarcerated. In the County Prison, where such a variety is presented, and so much care is required, and so much time demanded by the frequent changes, no occupation of the employees, male or female, ever poses an obstacle to the visit of those who come to help the helpless and improve the bad. No variety of creed induces a diminution of that courtesy which is the true exponent of benevolence; and in this respect the superintendent, keeper, clerk and matrons may be regarded as official assistants in the work of alleviating the miseries of the prisons which they are bound to regulate.

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AGENT.

The Society continues to have the benefit of the labors of WILLIAM J. MULLIN, who for so many years has filled the place of “Agent” at the County Prison. His services are important to the Society, in the amelioration of the condition of a vast number of men, women, and even children, whom he finds in the cells of the prison, victims of the errors of public officers, of their own follies, of the vindictive feelings of unkind neighbors, of their own inordinate love of litigation, or their own or their parents’ crimes. He is not called to look to the cases of those who may be released by the Inspectors. His labors are with the prosecutors, the aldermen, the district attorney, and the court; and those labors resulted in the release of one thousand four hundred and ninety-one persons during the year 1863. These releases, of course, were all effected with the consent of some established authority. And it may be added, that of the whole number released, _forty-three_ were children.

The amount of domestic misery consequent upon the arrest and incarceration of the 1491 persons is almost inappreciable. The injustice corrected by the successful interference must have been immense, and the pleasure brought to a suffering family by the restoration of parent or child to approved innocence, and the duties and comforts of home, must have been truly great.

But we are not to consider all these 1491 persons entirely innocent of the charges brought against them. The magistrate had the commitment supported by the oath of some complainant, and the complainant himself was undoubtedly often justified by the conduct of the prisoner. The blow for which assault and battery was charged, was probably given, and the fruit or toy whose loss led to the imprisonment for larceny, was taken by the accused. The pane of glass in the tavern window was probably broken by the intoxicated creature who was charged with “malicious mischief.” Nor, under these and similar circumstances, are we always to censure the magistrate for taking the oath of a citizen. He commits to prison, or holds to bail for trial, those who stand accused of the violation of private rights. The offender knew, before he entered upon his offensive conduct, that he was about to do wrong. But probably he did not understand the extent of that wrong, and especially was he ignorant of the extent of the penalty which he was about to incur.

We all know the axiom of criminal law, that “ignorance of the law excuseth no man;” but we all know, also, that the axiom is not of equal force in moral law; and the administration of criminal law itself has practical exceptions to the rule. We have already said that a large number of cases sent to court might easily be settled by the parties, but especially by the interference of the magistrate; and we may add, that more than two-thirds of the cases in which the magistrate holds, or commits the prisoners for trial, could, before reaching the prosecuting attorney, be settled, with benefit to the community and the offender. The requirements of the law are seen and felt by the accused before he finds himself committed. The vengeance of the law would do little towards reforming one who already sees his fault, and is ready, as far as possible, to make reparation. In such cases the interference of the Agent has been found most beneficial, not merely in procuring the discharge of the innocent, separating him from the association of untried vagabonds and thieves, and sending him back to his family and business, to work out and work off the stain which even _false_ imprisonment has set upon his character. But greatly advantageous has been that interference in behalf of the guilty, of him who had actually committed the act charged, but who felt the danger of his position as well as the error or turpitude of his conduct, and who needed only to be saved from the actual verdict of the jury and the sentence of the court, to become a candidate again for public confidence and general respect. To all visitors of prisons it is known that hundreds, who commit a violation of the criminal law, never feel the degradation of their act, or submit their minds to its disgraceful consequences, till they are made companions of culprits in the prison cells,—that to be known to the good as having done a notable wrong, is a mortifying means for repentance and amendment; while to be in companionship with the admitted bad, is to be almost certainly sealed to future infamy. This strong but correct view of the cases of new offenders, is that upon which the Agent has based his action; and it is not only due to him, but to the plans and labors of the Society, to say, that while it is probable that some of those whom he, with much labor, has released from prison, have shown that they did not improve by his beneficent efforts, it is most true that by far the largest portion have shown by their subsequent conduct that they appreciate the benevolence that interposed in their behalf, and were ready to make the only compensation which is acceptable to their benefactor, viz., an amended life.

It is dangerous—it is at least wrong—to make a low estimate of the labors that take a human being from the cells of a prison, when his character is such as to lead to a belief that he will do no wrong, by example, to society, nor sink in the scale of morals. It is wrong to say that the verdict of a jury fully acquits a man, restores him at once and entirely to society, and wipes away the stain which a prison cell has imparted. Thousands hear of the charge who never know of the acquittal,—thousands recollect the man as the inmate of a prison, who have no remembrance of the full cause of his release. The adverse statement of the press, as it regards the act, or the adverse testimony on the trial, lives in the minds of many who do not know, or scarcely would care, about all that was said in behalf of the accused to induce a complete acquittal.

We know the power of conscious innocence; but we know also the effect of conscious disgrace. A man who has been imprisoned long, on a criminal charge, may, in his chamber, or in his family, feel the peace of a “conscience void of offence;” but, abroad in the world, he will feel himself continually on the defensive,—always anxious to show that he is still worthy of the confidence he seeks,—always fearful that some act or word of his, unnoticeable in others, may be construed as consistent with charges which he has publicly disproved; and he feels that the months or weeks of imprisonment which he has suffered, are not to be redeemed by a whole life of liberty and honorable conduct.

There is something in the atmosphere of a criminal prison which seems never to forsake the liberated prisoner: he feels its influence, and suspects all to be guarding against its infection. In his imagination, the deadly mephitic air is always about him. A reflection of innocence, or a sense of repentance and full reparation, may appease the conscience, but they will not take away the remembrance of the incarceration; and it is to be feared that such painful reflections have, when acting upon a morbid sensibility, led to suicide, or to a return to crime. To diminish the evil, to lessen the effect of guilt, to save self-respect, and restore man to the duties and enjoyments of society, are the objects of the labors of the Agent, when he interferes to save even the offender from such a punishment as shall operate upon him beyond the demands of the law, and, reaching even over the culprit, shall bring misery and disgrace and ruin upon his dependent family.

It is in this light the services of the Agent are to be regarded. He releases hundreds of innocent persons, every year. He restores to family and friends those who have been detained for insignificant offences. He calls from the cells of the prison such as may have done acts that would have lead to a criminal life, and he gives them their freedom before association with the bad has weakened their moral perception,—before they can have formed resolutions to revenge upon society the offence of their incarceration. He assists to save the convict from a return to the haunts of vice, and the associations that led to his crime and his protracted imprisonment, and, supplying trifling sums, and aiding in the application of funds furnished to him, he has seen the prisoner leave the cell which he had occupied for more than a year, and return to a distant family, to commence a life of improvement, and become a useful member of the community in which he was reared; and it may be added that, in one instance, at least, while the care of the Agent, in connection with an Inspector, saved the released female from fulfilling an engagement of crime which she had rashly formed, it placed her in the bosom of a family that received her as a child, and made her feel all the comforts and confidence of home which can be felt by the repentant and the forgiven.

The immense saving to the city and county, resulting from the efficient labors of the Agent, by which is saved the cost of maintenance in prison, and of trial and acquittal in court, is worthy the consideration of the tax-payer, and is appreciated by the Inspectors of the prison, who administer the moneys appropriated to the maintenance of the imprisoned. This Society is specially concerned in the moral and physical results of the labors of the Agent, and feel that the objects proposed in the formation of the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Prisons, have been greatly promoted by the successful labors which they authorize and which they approve.

The Agent of the Society for the County Prison makes a monthly report of his labors, and his small expenditures for clothing furnished to the outgoing prisoner, and for his fare to some other place. These reports show the constancy and the value of his labors in the right direction. We have already mentioned the number of the releases secured by his efforts. We may, perhaps, appropriately repeat here a remark elsewhere made, that the services of the Agent are not required with prisoners whom the Inspectors are by law competent to discharge,—such as are committed for drunkenness, disorderly conduct, vagrancy, breach of the peace, and such offences; but to cases that require the intervention of the magistrates or the courts to release the accused, the interference of the Agent is directed. Among the many cases which he has reported to the Society, we select a few which serve to illustrate the character of his labors, and their influence in alleviating the miseries of prisons, and serving the cause of the unfortunate innocent, whose errors may have led them into questionable situations, or whose poverty may have placed them in bad company or adverse circumstances.

_Case First._—A woman was incarcerated upon the charge of the
larceny of two fifty dollar notes, of which she was innocent. Her
imprisonment was very unjust. She was taken from her home, with her
little infant in her arms, and committed to the prison, and
separated from her three other children. The Agent ascertained on
inquiry that the prosecutor had accused three other persons at
different times for taking the money that the prisoner was accused
of taking. When the Agent informed the “Court and District Attorney”
of these facts, her case was ignored, and she was released from
prison, there not being a particle of evidence against her aside
from the mis-representation made by the prosecutor.

It is scarcely necessary to comment on this case, for though the justice of the movement is sustained by the judicial officers of the court, we have few of the facts which gave poignancy to the innocent sufferer.

_Case Second._—Was that of a husband and his wife, imprisoned for
the larceny of an old three-prong table fork, of little or no value,
which he found in a pile of ashes in the street. He took, cleaned
and repaired it, and put a particular mark upon it, such as he had
upon all his tools in his workshop, he being said to be a
respectable mechanic. He then gave it to his wife for the use of his
family, and for _this they_ were both arrested and imprisoned, on
the oath of a quarrelsome neighbor, who testified that it was her
fork, and she knew it by the mark upon it; which the prisoner said
could not be the case, as it was he that put _this_ the only mark
upon it. It was certain that they both could not have stolen the
fork, although each of them was committed to prison for the same
offence. They were respectable looking people, who had never been in
prison before. The woman was in great distress of mind, and on the
eve of her confinement. They resided in “Columbia Avenue,” the
extreme northern part of the city, and were sued before a magistrate
in the extreme southern part of the city. This circumstance
indicated a malicious feeling on the part of the prosecutor, and
particularly so in causing the mother to be separated from her
infant child that had been left at home uncared for, as the officer
would not allow her to return home and take her child to prison with
her. And this was mainly the cause of her mental suffering that was
so apparent to all who saw her. The Agent deeply sympathized with
them in their unfortunate condition, and went to the magistrate and
immediately procured their unconditional discharge, all of which had
been done within an hour after the Agent’s attention was called to
the case. They were then released and permitted to return to their
home, as it did not appear that they were in any way guilty of the
charge brought against them.