Chapter III: Part 3

By the kindness of Mr. Tukey, City Marshal at Boston, we are furnished with an interesting report, which he prepared at the instance of the late efficient Mayor, (Mr. Quincy,) respecting the number, character, social circumstances, &c. of the street-children, in habits of vagrancy, wandering about and contracting idle and vicious habits. We draw largely from this interesting document, and earnestly wish the like investigation might be made into the condition of other cities in this respect.

The whole number of the class of children designated between six and sixteen years of age, is 1066; arranged as follows:

Male children, 882
Females, 184
Children of American parents, 103
Children of Foreign parents, 963
Children who belong to some school, but are truants, 106
Boys regularly employed in Bowling saloons, 139
Children who do not attend any school nor have any lawful calling, 821
Children who do not attend school for want of clothing, books, &c. 129
Children of widows, 238
Children with fathers but no mothers, 29
Children, orphans, 54
Their ages are as follows:
Six years of age, 39
Seven “ “ 53
Eight “ “ 79
Nine “ “ 77
Ten “ “ 121
Eleven “ “ 111
Twelve “ “ 176
Thirteen “ 141
Fourteen “ 143
Fifteen “ “ 80
Sixteen “ “ 56

“My opinion is, that of the whole number, from eight to nine
hundred (from neglect and their bad habits) are not fit to enter
any of our present schools.

“From the best information which I can obtain, I am satisfied that
the whole number in the City at the present time, (including the
above number,) is not less than fifteen hundred of the same class
as those described.

“And I earnestly call your attention to them, and the necessity of
providing some means to have these children properly brought up,
either at public or private expense; for I am satisfied that it
will cost the State and City more for Police, Courts and Prisons,
if they are suffered to go at large, than it would, to take them
now, maintain them and make them useful citizens.

“The State Reform School at Westborough, will be a great benefit.
Out of fifty-eight boys that have been sent there, thirty-four
have gone from this City. But I am of opinion that the law is
defective that waits until the child ‘_shall be convicted of any
offence known to the Laws of this Commonwealth and punishable by
imprisonment_’ before he can be sent there.

“Very few parents are willing to complain of and testify to the bad
conduct of their children, knowing that such testimony will deprive
them of their services.

“I am satisfied that the system heretofore pursued by the City
Government of licensing minors to sell papers, and other small
articles, is an injury to them.

“During the year 1846, out of 112 minors arrested for larceny, and
carried before the Courts, 46 were news-boys. During the year 1847,
out of 112 minors, 58 were news-boys.

“During the year 1847, out of 30 licensed, six were brought in for
larceny during one week.

“There is evidently a great increase of crime among minors. The
Police books show that the number arrested and brought in, is more
than one hundred each quarter.

“The following extract is from the City School Report for the year
1847.

“‘Does the instruction provided by the City reach all those persons
for whom it is intended? This question suggests itself to every one
who observes the apparently great number of children, at large, in
school hours, in almost every part of the City.

“‘It is not difficult to find out what are the occupations of
many of these children. They are hawkers of papers, or sellers of
matches,--most of the time occupied in quarreling and gambling.
They are beggars, male and female, strolling from street to street,
through lanes, by-ways and alleys, practicing the elementary
lessons of pilfering, lying, deception and theft. They may be
seen wherever wooden structures are in the process of building,
repairing, or tearing down;--seeking for fragments of wood to which
they evidently feel they have a very questionable right. They are
the loafers on wharves and in all the modes of juvenile vice. Are
these children in the way to become useful citizens or happy and
respectable men? Are they not growing up to be the occupants of
jails and almshouses? Are they not in a course of education for
worthlessness and crime?

“‘Let us see what answer the records of the courts of justice make
to these questions.

“‘There are, on an average, 74 inmates of the House of Reformation;
nearly the same number in the school on Thompson’s Island; and, for
the year ending in November last, 456, under age, had been inmates
of the jails.

“‘In reference to providing instruction for this great mass of
uneducated children, our _system_ is not defective. Sufficient
provision is now made for the instruction of those children who
have passed the age at which they are admissible into the primary
schools, and who are not qualified for the grammar schools. The
number of this class is rapidly increasing, and is likely to
increase still more. Our system was contrived and adapted to a
small city, peopled by persons born in New England, and always
enjoying and disposed to avail themselves of the advantages of the
free-school system of these States. But some (no?) provision has
been made for the vast accessions to our population by immigration
from foreign countries of persons of every age, and of every
condition of ignorance. Our system of government supposes educated
citizens; and will not be safe unless our citizens are more or
less educated. Now there are great masses coming in upon us who
are not educated, except to vice and crime; the creatures or the
victims of the justice or the oppression, or the over-population
of the old world. For the education of these, adult and juvenile,
not only must provision be made, but means must be used to render
the provision effective. It is not enough to say that provision
is made for their education, if they will avail themselves of it
at a proper time. Unless they are made inmates of our schools,
many of them will become inmates of our prisons; and it is vastly
more economical to educate them in the former than to support
them in the latter. The annual cost of educating an individual at
the public schools is from six to twenty dollars. The annual cost
of the support of an individual in the House of Reformation, the
cheapest of all such institutions, is forty-four dollars, and in
the House of Correction probably not less than one hundred dollars;
and in this estimate is not included the great expense of the
administration of criminal law, much of which might be prevented by
the proper education of these children.

“‘It is a defect in the organization of this (School) Board, that
there is now no person connected with and acting under direction
of the Board, to ascertain what children of the legal age are not
in the schools, and to use measures to bring them there. This
Board is the only one which has, officially, a knowledge of the
numbers of children in the schools and of those who ought to be
there. It is the one whose duty it is to provide means for the
education of all the children. It would be well if it could have
authority not only to use means to bring wandering children into
the schools, but to provide for the instruction of those portions
of the adult population who are without, and who desire elementary
instruction,--that is, instruction in reading, writing and
accounts.’

“I know of no one thing,” says the City Marshal, “that is so much
needed as a proper home for idle and vagrant _female_ children, the
ascertained number of which class is 184. There are, undoubtedly,
300 of the same character now in the City, they may be seen at the
entrance of every public building and every great thoroughfare,
peddling small articles or begging, and insulting every person who
refuses to buy, or give when asked. Many of them have been so long
neglected, that they are familiar with crime in its worst forms,
but against whom it is difficult to procure evidence, and when
procured, the only place they can be sent to, is to the House of
Correction or House of Industry for short terms, and then they are
suffered to go at large without a proper home or friends to care
for them.

“In regard to habitual truants from the schools, I am satisfied
that the powers of the Courts, and the City authorities, are
entirely _inadequate_ to meet the evil. The late Mayor directed
me to detail some officer whose whole duty it should be to look
after the truants that were reported to him, by the masters of the
several schools.

“From the report of the officer detailed for this purpose, I make
the following extract:

“‘During the year that I have had the charge of Truants, I have
been called upon by the teachers of the Grammar and other Schools,
to nearly 300 truant and idle children; and for want of some system
by which to be governed, my practice has been as far as possible
adapted to the circumstances of the case. I first call upon the
parents, find out their condition and the character of the boy
complained of, in order to know how to proceed with him; admonish
him, and always in the first instance take him back to the school
to which he belongs. In many cases this course has been sufficient.
If called again to the same boy, by the consent of the parents, I
have locked him up for a few hours, and given him to understand
that a complaint against him would remain on file to be proceeded
with if he again offends. This, sometimes, has been enough, but
not often. After taking a boy to School two or three times, and
he finds that nothing further is done, the Police-man’s badge and
staff have no terrors for him. The reason, I think, is this. The
law does not reach his case--the Courts say he is not a vagrant,
because he has a home--and he is not a stubborn and disobedient
child within the meaning of the statute. He is disobedient only so
far as he is a truant; and there is no law against truancy. I have
been into Court with a number of such cases and did not succeed in
sustaining the complaint. The decision was almost fatal to the boy,
and a great injury to the School to which he belonged. The only
course left for us after this, was to watch the boy until we could
arrest him for some trifling offence _known to the law_, and have
him punished, which seemed to be necessary for the good of the boy,
as well as the School.’

“The above statistics have been obtained in the following manner.
During _school hours_ the officer has visited the wharves,
public thoroughfares, and all other places where these children
congregate, and by kind treatment and persuasion, learned their
names and residence, then gone with them to their homes and
ascertained their condition, and that of their parents, a record of
which is now in this office, and to which additions are daily made.”

This brief history of juvenile vagrancy in the city of Boston, whose school system has been so long and justly regarded as her chief glory, will not surprise those who are familiar with scenes at the wharves, railway-stations and steamboat landings of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Innumerable specimens of the same class of young renegades may be seen also at the doors or in the vestibules of public houses in the large inland towns; and unless some mild compulsory process is devised to form them to better habits, it is certain that a severe one will be demanded to protect the community against their violence and depredations.

No. 4.--_The London Christian Observer’s notice of Rev. Mr. Field’s
work on the advantages of the separate system of imprisonment._

In our last number we inserted, entire, an article on Mr. Field’s work, from the “London Medical and Chirurgical Review.” The February (1849) number of the _London Christian Observer_ devotes ten or fifteen pages to it, and inclines “to agree to a considerable extent in the author’s opinion, that the separate system is superior, not only to every other system that has hitherto been tried, but also to any that shall be, or can be hereafter devised.” This is rather more than we should be willing to say of any human device, but we are glad to see an English periodical of so much influence and reputation committing itself so heartily to the right side.

The “Observer” has strangely fallen into the notion, that absolute solitude without labor or instruction, was ever adopted _as a system of discipline in the United States_. He speaks of “our good friends in the United States,” as having run into the extreme of “entire solitude for six or ten months together in prisons of the most wretched description,” but when the effects were seen, “the system was abandoned at once.” He expresses thankfulness, that this dreadful system was never tried in England, but that they have been permitted to learn better by the experience of their neighbors. There is no doubt, that studious efforts have been made by the opponents of separation in our country to confound it with solitude, and to give the impression, that whatever evils are imagined or proved to result from the latter, are necessarily incident to the former. But we should have looked for a little more discrimination in the Observer, and for evidence of more thorough knowledge on a subject of so much interest. Indeed, we might almost suppose, that the needful supply of knowledge and discrimination is at hand, when the inquiry affects the good repute of the “sea girt isle,” and only fails when the institutions of “young America” are presented for review.

“We come now,” says the Observer, “to the separate system as we
have it _amongst ourselves_, and we must request our readers to
bear in mind, that this system is essentially different from the
_Solitary_, properly so called--different in its objects, in its
working, in its effects. The separate cell is but the sick room, in
which the morally diseased is put under treatment for such time as
his case requires. The solitary cell is (or rather was, for it no
longer exists among civilized nations) the grave; where the patient
is left as being past treatment and without hope of recovery. Yet
the two methods have been, and are confounded, and the failure of
the one, with all its attendant circumstances of horror, is used
blindly or unscrupulously as an argument against the other.”--p.
129-30.

It is this “blind or unscrupulous” confounding of solitude and its effects, with separation and its fruits, that constitutes one of the crying sins against humanity, for which we think the anti-separatists will be called to account.

“We are sorry that we cannot follow Mr. Field through his
description of the system of instruction, and its effects on the
prisoners in general. His work abounds in examples of the ignorant
instructed, the profligate reclaimed, the hardened convict
subdued, the weak-minded set firm in good principles; and almost
all thankful for the discipline they have undergone, and setting
out afresh in this world of trials, with, at all events, new
strength and better principles. Mrs. Fry, indeed, regarding man
as adapted for a state of trial, argued against the system[7] as
one that takes the convict away from trial altogether; but surely,
there are stages and states in the moral life, when the discipline
of solitude and reflexion is absolutely required; just as the body,
though its intended sphere of action may be the air and the light,
may absolutely require total seclusion from both, must be placed
in bed, and take sharp medicines, instead of taking exercise and
facing the weather. To say nothing of the fact, that a crowded
prison-yard can scarcely be regarded as a _fair_ field of probation
for any man.

“Altogether, we regard the present state of things with respect to
this whole subject as affording a ground of great encouragement
and thankfulness to God; and as opening prospects of large social
improvement both at home and in the Colonies; for the wretched
system of transportation, the plan of peopling new lands with the
outcasts of the old, seems to have received its deathblow from the
introduction of wholesome discipline at home. There are a few minor
differences to be adjusted regarding the treatment of convicts, the
length of their separate confinement, and the mode of disposing
of them for the rest of their sentence; but the principle is now
fairly admitted, that the prison is to be a place of severe moral
and religious discipline. The office of a gaol chaplain, instead of
being the most loathsome and repulsive that a clergyman could hold,
is now a work full of interest and promise and hope, bringing often
a speedy return for labor. Sarah Martin, the pious needlewoman of
Yarmouth, who passed her life among the wretched inhabitants of the
gaol, would indeed have rejoiced, if she could have accompanied as
we have done, the zealous Chaplain of one of these new gaols along
the clean, light, well-aired corridor, and entered with him into
one cell after another, where the prisoner welcomed him cheerfully
and respectfully, repeating his few verses of psalm or hymn--a
voluntary task--and listened thankfully for the kind admonition
or encouragement of perhaps the first friend he ever knew. It
seems as if God had raised up men on purpose for the work. We are
personally acquainted with some Gaol Chaplains, and have read the
Reports of many, and believe, in most cases they are men of energy,
discernment and piety. If we have a fault to find with them, it
is, that from their experience of visible effects speedily and
uniformly produced on those who are under their charge, they come
to speak and write as if the reformation of a sinner were a matter
of certainty, provided only a sufficient time is allowed. We are
aware, that this is only an apparent error, for no man would be
more ready than Mr. Field to acknowledge the absolute necessity of
the power of the Holy Spirit in any work of genuine reformation.”

No. 5.--_Kentucky State Penitentiary._

A friend has kindly forwarded to us a copy of the annual report of the keeper, clerk, &c., of the Kentucky Penitentiary, for the year 1848. It is located at Frankfort, and as the reports indicate, is administered with much success. We have noted a few items of general interest.

It was formerly the custom to _shave the head_ of every convict _once a week_. This humiliating process was required by law, but, at the suggestion of the present keeper, it was so modified, as to leave it to the discretion of the keeper to shave or not to shave. The good effects of the measure were at once manifest. We are not told to what extent the practice now prevails, but are left to infer that it is only adopted as a mode of punishment. There can be no doubt, we think, that all methods of humbling or subduing a convict which savour of vindictiveness, or occasion a needless violation of a natural and proper self-respect, are to be deprecated. External badges of infamy and degradation may be needful sometimes as a precaution against escapes, or for the recapture of convicts, but it is a great advantage to be able to dispense with them.

The average number of convicts in confinement at the date of the report, was 161, and the clear profits upon their earnings during the year, were eight or nine thousand dollars. The bagging business has been found dull, and very extensive preparations are now made for coopering.

The number of convicts received during the year ending December 1, 1848, was _sixty-nine_, and the number discharged by pardon during the same time was THIRTY-THREE, or nearly half as many pardons as commitments. This number is exclusive of five who were pardoned the day before the expiration of their sentence, to restore them to citizenship. All the convicts are males, and only 16 of the 161, are colored; and 128 were convictions of crime against property, and only twenty-five of the sentences exceed seven years. Nine of the convicts are from Ireland, and nine from other foreign countries, leaving 143 native Americans; 97 are under 30 years of age; 114 habitually or occasionally intemperate; 47 utterly destitute of any degree of education; and 80 were never married. From a review of the prison history for a period of 13 years, it appears that the largest number received in any one year, was 81, (1842,) and the smallest, 49, (1837;) the number of convicts received during the 13 years from the 88 counties of the State, was 877, of whom 383 were from the county of Jefferson alone, of which Louisville is the shire-town. Of the 877 convictions, 551 were for crimes against property, or against the person for property. Of the 877, only eleven were females. The number of cases of disease occurring during the year, was 244, of which 128 were cured. Days lost by sickness during the year, 1664.

No. 6.--_An Inquiry into the Alleged Tendency of the Separation of
Convicts, one from the other, to Produce Disease and Derangement._
BY A CITIZEN OF PENNSYLVANIA. Philadelphia, E. C. & J. Biddle, 1849.

The questions involved in this inquiry and the elaborate manner in which they are handled in it, forbid a short or superficial notice of its contents; and hence we must ask for farther time to enable us to study, compare and collate, before we attempt to analyze the work for the use of our readers. If, however, in the mean time, they should choose to read and think for themselves in the premises, by a careful perusal of this “Inquiry,” we are safe in saying that the time will be well spent and the labor fully rewarded.

No. 7.--_New York Eye and Ear Infirmary._

The report of this humane institution for 1848, (the 28th of its existence,) states that there were received during the year, 1,945 new patients being 565 more than were received in 1846. There remained under treatment, January 1, 1849, 129; and of 2,074 prescribed for during the year, 1,370 were cured, 147 were relieved, 33 declined treatment, 11 were discharged as incurable, the result of 34 were not ascertained, and 220 remained under treatment. Diseases of the ear, 130.

Of the patients, there were born in the United States 827; in foreign countries 1,118!

A free institution for the blind, is about to be opened in Jacksonville, Illinois. The State supports it by a special tax.

No. 8.--_Shelter for Colored Orphans._

For thirteen years, a quiet and useful charity, known as the “Shelter,” has been provided for a portion of the colored orphan children of Philadelphia. At the date of the twelfth report there were 56 children under care, and twelve were received during the year; while 9 were apprenticed and 3 died. There were in the house, January 1849, 53 children. Dr. Casper Wistar attended and administered to the institution gratuitously, during a season of severe sickness from the measles, in the progress of which thirty-six were under medical care!

No. 9.--_Paupers and Prisoners in Cincinnati._

It is stated in the public prints, that the admissions to the Cincinnati city hospital in the year 1848, were over 3000; and two-thirds of them foreigners. In the number were 152 lunatics.

“Admissions to the Jail, during the year, 776, of whom 742 were
intemperate, 17 under 18 years of age, and 66 females. Of these
776, 35 were sent to the Penitentiary, and 741, ‘turned loose,
without friends or employment, to prey upon society again--a
portion of them serving awhile in the Chain-gang first.’”

_No. 10._--_Insane Asylum in North Carolina._

We understand that the act establishing a hospital for the insane at Raleigh, provides for a tax of one and three-fourths of a cent on every hundred dollars valuation of land, and five and a quarter cents on the poll, to be levied for the space of four years, to raise the money to construct and furnish the building--the County Courts during the said time to have power to make a proportionate reduction of the poor tax in their respective counties.

No. 11.--_Corrupt Police._

In a charge lately given by one of the Judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions for the city and county of Philadelphia, some passages occur, the implication of which is very far from being creditable to the police-gentry, and is, moreover, rather startling to the lovers of peace and security.

“So long as there is collision between police officers and
criminals, crime will continue, and it will be difficult to
suppress it. If police officers will suppress evidence against the
perpetrators of offences; if they will associate and correspond
with criminals, and participate in the fruits of robbery, crime
will continue to increase, because the chances for escape are
great. In some of the _Incorporated_ Districts it is believed, the
police force is efficient and useful.”

This makes the whole matter so vague as to aggravate, rather than alleviate apprehensions.

In the same charge, the magistrate is represented as saying, that “if there were no pardons there would be but few convictions.” Is it possible that the indulgence of executive clemency is so frequent as to make juries careless or forward to convict from the impression that their verdict will be reviewed under an application for pardon?

We confess we had no idea that the exercise of the pardoning power had been such, either in character or extent, as to warrant a statement like the following from the same source:

“If any one will look at the records of conviction throughout the
State for the last fifteen years, and then at the list of pardons,
and the history and convictions of the convicts, it will be found,
that rarely has a criminal served out the period of his sentence,
if he were a person of _wealth_ or previous influence, or who had
wealthy connections, or friends and relations of great political
influence. While no one can doubt that every Executive has been
honest and sincere in the exercise of this power, yet the unseen
effect of money and political relations enables the convict to
surround the governor with influences which he does not resist.”

Can the yielding to such influences be regarded as consistent with “honesty and sincerity” in the exercise of the Executive prerogative?

“The principles on which pardons are often obtained, are, in my
opinion, incorrect. The Executive generally hears but one side of
the case--the one presented by the criminal--while the Court and
Jury hear both sides. The case of the prisoner is always strongly
stated in his favor, and that backed by the influence of friends
or _hired agents_, and the incautious signing by citizens of a
petition for pardon, usually produces the result of a liberation
from that sentence.

“Nothing tends more to the suppression of crime than the certainty
of punishment, no matter how short. Let people once be convinced
that criminals will be punished as the law provides, and we should
find the number of crimes rapidly diminishing.

We think much of the principle here asserted, but it is perhaps made to carry too much weight for its bottom.

ARTICLE II.--The President, and in his absence one of the Vice-Presidents, shall preside in all meetings, and shall subscribe all public acts of the Society. The President, or in his absence either of the Vice-Presidents, shall moreover have the power of calling a special meeting of the Society whenever he shall judge proper. A special meeting shall likewise be called at any time when six members of the Society shall concur in requesting it.

ARTICLE III.--The Secretaries shall keep fair records of the proceedings of the Society, and shall correspond with such persons and societies as may be judged necessary to promote the views and objects of the institution.

ARTICLE IV.--The Treasurer shall keep all moneys and securities belonging to the Society, and shall pay all orders of the Society or Acting Committee, signed by the President or one of the Vice-Presidents, which orders shall be his vouchers for his expenditures. He shall, before he enters upon his office, give a bond of not less than two hundred pounds for the faithful discharge of the duties of it.

ARTICLE V.--The Acting Committee shall consist of the President, two Vice-Presidents, two Secretaries, two Counsellors, Treasurer, and six [now ten] other members, three of whom to go off at the meetings in the months called January and July. They shall visit the prisons at least once a month, inquire into the circumstances of the prisoners, and report such abuses as they shall discover to the proper officers appointed to remedy them. They shall examine the influence of confinement or punishment upon the morals of the prisoners. They may draw upon the Treasurer for such sums of money as may be necessary. They shall keep regular minutes of their proceedings, to be read at every quarterly meeting of the Society. This committee shall have the sole power of electing new members, but no member shall be admitted who has not been proposed at a previous meeting of the Society, nor shall an election for a member take place in less than one month after the time of his being proposed.

ARTICLE VI.--Every member who on his admission shall subscribe the constitution, and pay ten dollars, shall be a member for life, and every member who on his admission shall subscribe the constitution, and annually pay the sum of seven shillings and sixpence, shall be a member while he continues to contribute.[8]

ARTICLE VII.--Corresponding members may be elected, not resident in the city of Philadelphia, nor within ten miles thereof, who shall not be required to make pecuniary contributions to the funds of the Society, nor sign the constitution.

ARTICLE VIII.--The Society shall meet on the second Second-day, called Monday, in the months called January, April, July, and October, at such place as shall be agreed to by a majority of the Society.

ARTICLE IX.--No law or regulation shall contradict any part of the Constitution of the Society, nor shall any law or alteration of the Constitution be made without it be proposed at a previous meeting. All questions shall be decided, where there is a division, by a majority of votes; in those where the Society is equally divided, the presiding officer shall have a casting vote.

OFFICERS FOR 1849.

PRESIDENT--James J. Barclay.
VICE-PRESIDENTS--Townsend Sharpless, Charles B. Trego.
TREASURER--Edward Yarnall.
SECRETARIES AND COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE--
William Parker Foulke, Charles D. Cleveland.
COUNSELLORS--Job R. Tyson, William A. Porter.

ACTING COMMITTEE.

James J. Barclay, Townsend Sharpless, Charles B. Trego, Edward Yarnall, William Parker Foulke, Charles Dexter Cleveland, Job R. Tyson, William A. Porter, Frederick A. Packard, Jeremiah Hacker, William Shippen, John M. Whitall, Marmaduke Cooper Cope, Rene Guillou, Charles Ellis, Edward Townsend.

👉 QUARTERLY MEETING of the Society on the ninth day of April, inst.

NOTICE.

👉 Communications and orders for this work may be addressed
“_Editors of the Journal of Prison Discipline_,” care of the
publishers, No. 6, South Fifth Street, Philadelphia.

👉 “Officers of State, Inspectors, or Wardens of Penitentiaries,
Keepers of Common Gaols, Houses of Correction, &c., Superintendents
or Physicians of Insane Asylums, (whether public or private, and
whether for paupers or pay-patients,) officers of Houses of Refuge,
Police Magistrates, and others who may be in possession of, or have
access to reports or other documents bearing on prison discipline,
insanity, juvenile delinquency, police regulations, pauperism,
&c., &c., will confer a particular favour by forwarding to the
above office copies of such publications for use or notice in this
Journal. All such attentions will be gratefully acknowledged, and
cheerfully reciprocated.

“JOURNAL OF PRISON DISCIPLINE AND PHILANTHROPY,”

_Published by the “Philadelphia Society for alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons_.”

DESIGN AND PLAN OF THE WORK.

The members of this venerable Institution, which has been mainly
instrumental, in introducing the great reform in Prison Discipline
that has distinguished the last half century, have long felt the
need of such a medium of communication with the public as is now
proposed. Their attention has of late been more especially aroused
to the importance of the measure, from the deep interest which has
been awakened in such reform; and from the misapprehension which
prevails, as to the true principles and results of what is termed
the “Pennsylvanian,” or “Separate System.”

Of the intrinsic usefulness of a Journal of this nature, it is
believed but one opinion can prevail among the intelligent and
humane. One of the most active and well-informed of those engaged
in the reform of Prisons, has justly remarked, that “judgment
is but the result of comparison.” All reasonable men, before
deciding on a measure, will acknowledge the importance of becoming
acquainted with the history and results of similar efforts. Hence
the necessity felt by all civilized nations, of publishing and
preserving public documents, reports, discussions, criticisms, &c.
In America there is no adequate provision for the preservation
of these, so far as they relate to prison reform; they are
scattered among an accumulation of pamphlets on other subjects, are
frequently destroyed, and are always difficult of access; and the
labour which ought to furnish instruction for our future progress,
and for posterity, becomes too often merely temporary in its
utility.

At the present time a greatly enhanced importance is attached to a
publication of this kind, as a medium of communication with foreign
countries. Several of the governments of Europe are endeavouring
to ascertain the best system of Prison Discipline, with a view to
its adoption; and although the Society have no doubt which of the
methods now in existence is the best, some Philanthropists of the
Old World are yet undecided.

It is from a knowledge of these facts and from a belief that it is
due to themselves and the cause of humanity, that the Society have
been induced to undertake this publication.

The Journal will be devoted to the exposition and promulgation of
correct views on Prison Discipline, Police systems, Asylums for
the insane poor, Societies for the aid of discharged prisoners,
and other reforms immediately connected with these subjects.
It will also be rendered more interesting and instructive
by the introduction of biographical sketches of celebrated
Philanthropists, accompanied with portraits; and by plans and
descriptions of the best methods of Prison construction. Such being
the object, the Society cannot doubt that it will meet with cordial
support from the friends of humanity, throughout the Old and New
World.

TERMS.

This periodical is published quarterly; each number to contain
at least 48 pages octavo. It will be delivered without charge to
members of the Society; but to those who are not members, the price
is $1 per aum, always in advance, or 25 cents a number.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Rev. Dr. Alexander’s letter to the Howard Society of New Jersey, July 1833.

[2] This subject has lately engrossed the earnest consideration of the Managers of the Philadelphia Refuge, and there is an evident determination to effect important improvements in this respect.

[3] “CASE I.--The family whose total earnings consist of £2 2_s_ per week, consist of the father and mother, who sleep in one bed; a married son and his wife who sleep in the second bed; a grown up daughter who, with two boys of twelve and fourteen years of age, sleep together on a bed on the floor; the whole family being in the same room.

“CASE II.--H. H. earns two shillings a day as a laborer--was brought up as a farmer, and had property to the amount of 2000 pounds, which he has dissipated--has a wife and five children--the eldest of whom is 13 years, the youngest 5 years; they have only one bed, upon which the parents sleep; the children sleeping on the floor as they best may.

“CASE III.--D. M., with his family, makes 30 shillings per week; his daughter, with a bastard child about two years old, a son about 16, another of 13, and a daughter of 10 years of age, making, with his wife, seven in all, sleep in the same room, with two beds.

“CASE IV.--J. G. has a father and mother who live with him; he and his wife sleep in one bed; his father and mother in another; his two grown up sisters in a third; his brother, a lad of 19, and a young man lodger, ‘who is courting one of his sisters,’ in a fourth: all in the same room. J. G. does not know, or will not tell, how much they all make, but thinks it ‘a good bit,’ as his wife and sisters and brother are at farming, himself on a fruit ground, and his father a laborer.”

Dr. Holland furnished Dr. Playfair with the following, in the case of one of his dispensary patients: “D. E. is a widower, with one sleeping apartment, in which sleeps his adult son and daughter. The latter has a bastard child which she affiliates on the father, he upon his son, and the neighbors upon both.”

[4] Boston Correspondence of the New York Recorder, January 1849.

[5] Opened May 15, 1848.

[6] 39 of dysentery in August and September.

[7] Mrs. Fry’s views, when fairly presented and properly understood, were altogether in favor of separation, and can never be justly cited against it.

[8] [Article VI. has been altered so as to make it require twenty dollars for a life contribution, and two dollars for an annual contribution.]

[Transcriber’s Note:

Table on page 71, headers: Males., Females., and Totals., were shortened to read M., Fem., and Tot.

Obvious printer errors corrected silently.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]