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Title: The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy - (New Series, No. 3)
Author: Various
Language: English
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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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
------------------
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. CHANDLER, PRINTER, 806 & 808 CHESTNUT STREET.
1864.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
------------------
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.
------------------
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.
------------------
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.
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.
------------------
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.
_Case Third._—Two young soldiers that were from the State of Maine.
One of them was of a family of the highest respectability; they were
accused of stealing a silver watch valued at $18, for which offence
they were committed to prison. When the parents of one heard of the
imprisonment of their son, they addressed a note to the Warden of
our Prison expressing their surprise at his imprisonment. They
stated that they had never known him to do anything wrong, but to
the contrary he had always conducted himself in such a way as to
command the respect of all who knew him. They wished to know whether
it was necessary to send on money to employ counsel to defend him.
This letter was handed to the Agent, who made himself thoroughly
acquainted with their case, and who believed they were innocent. The
letter was answered, and the parents were informed by the Agent that
he believed their son was innocent of the charge that he was accused
of, and the case would be attended to free of charge, and that it
was not necessary to send any money. It was not long after this that
the Agent succeeded in ascertaining that these young men were
entirely innocent of the charge they were accused of, and so far
from having stolen anything, they had been robbed by their
prosecutor. After having been induced to drink _liquor_ that was
drugged, they became intoxicated, and were taken out under the cover
of night and laid at the door of the adjoining house. The very party
that robbed them, went to a magistrate and made oath that they had
stolen a silver watch of the value of $18 from him; for which
offence they were committed. They had been engaged in one of the
late battles, and both of them were wounded and sent to the Chestnut
Hill Hospital, where they had _partially recovered_ from their
wounds, and as they were _convalescent_, permission was granted them
to visit the city, where they got into the difficulty. The Agent
succeeded in ascertaining from one of the _inmates_ of the tavern
where the occurrence took place, that the young men were entirely
_innocent_ of stealing the watch, and that the prosecutor had
actually _offered to sell_ the watch the next day after they were
imprisoned. Soon as this fact was discovered, the Agent got a
_return_ of the case from the magistrate, took it into Court, and
informed the _District Attorney_ of all the facts in the case; the
prosecutor was sent for, but was nowhere to be found, as he had
_suddenly disappeared_ and left for New York, he having become
_alarmed_ at the Agent’s interference in the case. Their case was
laid before the Grand Jury and ignored, and they were released from
prison and permitted to return to their hospital where they could
have their wounds properly attended to. The Agent then addressed a
letter to the anxious parents of the one that their son’s innocence
was fully established, and that he was _honorably discharged_ by the
Court. This intelligence was no doubt gratifying to them.
If this third case is well considered, it will present an instance of
the value of the services of the Agent, and consequently of the value of
the Society, which must be gratifying to every friend of humanity. It
seems almost impossible to free our large cities from the haunts of the
vicious into which these young men had been enticed, and while they
exist it seems certain that crime will not only abound, but progress,
not merely in amount but in impunity. The feelings of those interested
in the welfare and character of these young men, may be imagined when
they learn of their release from prison and their full acquittal of the
charge of felony. The course of vice had indeed been entered, and idle
curiosity (at least) had been partially gratified in the dangerous
exploration by these young men, and now perhaps they may understand the
significance of monitions, against entering the path that leads down to
destruction and associating with those “whose feet take hold on hell.”
------------------
MAGISTRACY.
Persons visiting the County Prison, are struck with the evidence that
abounds of some great defect in the system of primary justice in this
city; and the evils so justly and so greatly to be deplored, are often
unhesitatingly referred to the incompetency or malfeasance of a portion
of the magistrates by whom the vagrants, the drunkards, and the
violators of the public peace are committed. Without offering an opinion
at present on the question, whether we owe the results of which we
speak, to the ministers of justice, or to the system upon which they
receive their office, and discharge its duties, we are certainly right
in saying that any attempt to alleviate the miseries of public jails,
must first grapple with the administration of primary justice; must
begin with creating a respect for the officers of the law, and must
satisfy the accused that the object of arrest is not so much the profit
of the magistrate as the benefit of society; and that while the balance
is held with a clean and steady hand, the costs are imposed less for the
benefit of the magistrate than for the punishment for a violation of the
law and the improvement of the offender.
But before we can hope for any amendment of the system, we must enable
the public to comprehend the reality and the extent of the evil which is
deplored, and which it is the object of the friends of sound justice to
correct.
The “Station-House” and the County Prison are crowded with persons who
do not feel that they have done an injury to others, or at most, they
think their offence is of a most venial kind. The offence of “vagrancy”
is so undefined, that it is easy to commit almost any idle person upon
such a charge, and equally easy to let him go. “Disorderly conduct,”
which appends to the offence of drunkenness, the punishment of a month
confinement instead of a day is so uncertain in its character, that the
jubilant politician is in danger of imprisonment if his huzzas are
strengthened and multiplied by even moderate potations. And “disorderly
house” is made to cover all kinds of disturbances between singing loud
to a crying child, and the repeated orgies of drunkenness and
prostitution, just as “misdemeanor” includes all indictable offences
below actual felony. And “abuse and threats,” that formerly expressed
something definite, now fill the commitment with most undefinable
charges, and the cells with most astonished and astonishing inmates.
The whole system of magisterial justice has, in this city, fallen into
disrepute; and those who are the objects of its penalties, seem to lose
respect for its ministers and their ministration, and to regard arrest
and imprisonment as a misfortune which is as likely to fall upon one as
another, if poor, and which therefore justifies any effort to evade the
penalty.
This was not always so; we speak of the estimate of aldermanic justice.
There never was a time when vice and crime did not abound in a great
city, and, consequently, if respect for public rights exists, and a
necessity for order is admitted there is likely always to be business
for the police, and cases for the magistrates. But there is a mode of
conducting both arrests and “hearings,” that makes the difference in the
proceedings and their effects. And when we shall have looked a little
more into the details of the matter as they are presented, we shall not
only see the cause of the evils which we deplore, but shall rapidly and
easily arrive at a conclusion with regard to some of the means which are
to be employed to alleviate the miseries of public prisons, and thus see
that the subject of which we now treat, is one that directly connects
itself with the aims of the Society, and that it demands from us an
opinion of the evil which it involves, and a consideration of the plans
which may be suggested as a remedy.
The small income from the office of Alderman in this city is augmented
by a salary allowed to six of them, who may happen to be of the right
kind of politics to ensure their claims upon Councils to be elected
Police Magistrates. The changes which the Charter of the City has
undergone by amendments and substitution, have left Philadelphia in an
anomalous situation with regard to offices. Every ward in the city has
one or more Aldermen, who possess now little else than the functions of
a justice of the peace. And the roll of officials bears also the name of
a “Recorder,” yet that functionary has few if any other relations with
the city government than has the humblest of the Aldermen; or if he has,
it is some remnant of ancient obligation to do service never required,
or to demand fees seldom paid to him. No one can deny that the present
Recorder discharges well the duties of a justice of the peace, so far as
his power extends; but no one will say that the office is essential to
any branch of justice in the city if all others are well executed.
We speak now rather in abstract, but it may not be out of the way to
say, that the citizen who occupies at present the place of Recorder,
seems to illustrate the idea of an efficient magistrate, as, without any
particular call upon him, he has been a terror and a scourge to evil
doers, and thus he magnifies his office, and makes it honorable.
The report of our Prison Agent, extracts from which have been given,
shows to what an extent the evil to which we allude has already
extended. His labors procured the release of more than a hundred persons
every month. Now, though in many instances the prisoner thus released
may have violated some law, and thus have rendered himself obnoxious to
the penalties of the statute, yet in a greater part of the committals,
investigation shows that the idea of just convictions did not enter into
the complaint, and that the magistrate might have caused a settlement of
the matter, without recourse to incarceration, in the infliction of
fine; or at least it would be easy so to amend the laws of the State as
to empower the magistrate to deal thus with the accused. Much the
largest part of the commitments, however, are of a kind that do not
often come to the knowledge of the Agent, but are referred to the
“Visiting Inspectors” of the Prison. These are for drunkenness,
disorder, breach of the peace, and vagrancy; and as an Act of Assembly
gives to the Inspectors of the Prison the power to discharge persons
committed for such offences, it follows that many committed for thirty
days are released before the expiration of their term. Intoxication is
charged, and the miserable offender is sent to the prison; perhaps a
family is dependent upon his or her labor, or an infant needs the
nourishment, which only a mother can afford; and the miserable mother is
suffering from an excess of that from which only an infant can
ordinarily relieve her.
An innocent woman has often been taken up in a grand swoop which a
spasmodic effort of the police has made, and she is included in the long
list of commitments as drunk, or a vagrant. Many of those who were
guilty of the lower offences charged against them receive no good from
their incarceration, and society is not benefited by their removal from
the labor which maintains them and a family, and the imprisonment
devolves upon the city the expenses of the support, often both of the
offenders and their families.
A considerable portion of the community that have acquaintance with the
prison by commitment, are of a class that think all personal redress,
and all protection from wrong, and all safety from the consequences of
their own misconduct lie in an appeal to the magistrate, and a trifling
quarrel in a neighborhood frequently leads to the arrest and
incarceration of the principal members of several families, and the
offending and the offended parties are often seen withdrawing from the
contests of hands and clubs, and contending in a foot race to see which
shall first enter complaint before a magistrate. Often in these matters
both succeed; each contrives to get his antagonist into prison, and
mulct him in costs. Occasionally it happens, that “the race is not to
the swift;” success is found to depend on the possession of the means to
pay the first cost of the action. Perhaps the most painful, because the
most unrighteous, of this kind of suits, are those in which a
quarrelsome drunkard, having beaten his wife, proceeds at once to the
magistrate and charges her, on oath, with assault and battery, or with
assault and threats, and the poor woman comes down to the prison with
her head bruised, her eyes blackened, and her whole frame bearing marks
of the outrageous injury inflicted by her cowardly, drunken husband,
who, after a few days, finding his household matters in some derangement
for want of a female head, obligingly releases his wife from prison,
till his time for another debauch has arrived. Nor is it to be denied
that the drunken wife often, very often, brings the husband into similar
difficulties. In some of these cases a magistrate might, by
interference, mitigate a portion of the misery which is inflicted, and
by his friendly advice prevent much that usually follows.
This constant resort to litigation in those who have no “cause” but what
they create of themselves, is one of the crying evils of the times. The
facility of a warrant, and the knowledge that the facility results from
its price, cause a large portion of the cases which reach our courts of
justice, or are settled, “with costs,” between the Alderman’s office and
the jury-room.
Another class of cases is found in the prison—that of disorderly houses.
Now it is well understood that the term “disorderly house,” has a
specific signification when connected with a charge before an Alderman;
yet, on enquiry as to the character of the “disorder,” it frequently
happens that the offenders were in the exercise of customary rights in
their own apartment. Singing, perhaps, or talking loudly; or, it may
happen, that not even such disturbances are mentioned. But the
proprietor of the house, usually an under-letter, can do better with his
contracted premises by a larger rent, or more ready collection, he
therefore incurs the cost of magisterial interference, the tenants, he
knows, cannot find freehold bail, they will sell a part of their goods
to pay back rent and cost, and for the sake of exemption, or release
from confinement, will agree to leave the rooms, and thus the prosecutor
secures the first object of his unjust movement, and is saved also the
cost of a defeat in court.
The number of persons committed on the charge of “disorderly houses,” is
astonishing; especially when it is considered how many “disorderly
houses” remain unvisited, and the occupants not arrested. But we must
not forget the fact, that the movement of the magistrate in these cases
is sanctioned, perhaps required, by the solemn oath of the complainant.
With these remarks we are led to the consideration of the subject with
which we commenced this part of our Report, namely, THE MAGISTRACY, and
their alleged complicity in the evil which we deplore, and which we
would diminish for the sake of the miserable victims of temporary power,
and for the sake of the credit of our community.
On all sides we hear the complaint of the character and conduct of the
Aldermen of the city; many of them, it is stated, use their office to
extort from the unfortunate poor, a portion of their hard earnings, and
thus deprive the homes of the laborer of the little comforts of which
they are susceptible. They entertain complaints, it is said, of acts
which need not be construed into offence against the law, and thus
encourage litigation, and perpetuate feuds among those whom it would
seem to be their duty, as magistrates, to “keep at peace with all men.”
We have already enumerated and repeated the classes of cases which most
encumber the dockets of the Aldermen, and which are made of more
importance than they deserve by the effects on the income of the
magistrates which these causes produce. But the enumeration and
repetition alone of these would not be a part of the duties of this
Society, or form a portion of this Report, if they did not suggest a
call for remedy. It is not the evils of prisons that constitute the
object of this Society, but the melioration of those evils.
Taking, then, the existence of the evils, as we have only hinted at
them, and admitting (as we are free to do, and as we do with pleasure,
because it is just) that while the cry against the magistracy is
universal, the fault is really found in only a part of them, the inquiry
is, “how shall all this be remedied?”
“_Elect better Aldermen_,” say those who wish for a better state of
things. “Elect suitable men, and the evil is at once remedied.”
Undoubtedly the plan is good; but is it practicable? For many years the
Aldermen of Philadelphia have been elected by the people, and in many
instances the choice has been judicious, but in others either the
official conduct of the magistrate has deteriorated into the grossest
kind of improprieties, or he has been compelled to give place to some
greater favorite of the voters of his ward, who would begin his
descending march some grades below that at which his predecessor closed
his career. So large a portion of the duties of the Alderman who has
most to do as a police magistrate, are beyond the knowledge and sympathy
of the respectable portion of the community, that little interest is
taken in his election by those who feel a sense of shame at the
improprieties of a functionary connected with the administration of
justice; and in many parts of the city the knowledge and sympathy of
that class would avail nothing towards the election of another person.
The Grand Jury recently inquiring for the city and county of
Philadelphia, made the following severe strictures upon Aldermen:
“It has been a matter of exceeding regret that the law has not
clothed this body with discretionary power to tax the magistrates,
before whom the cases were heard, with the costs, as a proper rebuke
to that avarice which seeks to convert litigation and contention
into a source of gain,—which offers a premium for crimes, by making
the ministers of the law the transgressors, and prostituting the
province of peace-makers to that of a common barrator.”
As the Grand jury did not, of course, desire to be directly personal
when they were not about to find a bill, they let their censure take a
general course. They set forth an evil, and that, perhaps, was enough,
till some special case of wrong should be laid before them.
But the alleviation of the evil—the remedy. It is evident the remedy is
not in the ballot-box—the root of the evil lies far back of that; nor is
it in the statutes of the Commonwealth. The Constitution of the State is
in fault; and until that is modified, or till some act of the Assembly
can be passed superseding the Aldermen in their special police duties,
we cannot hope for any diminution of the evil. The Aldermen of the city
are elected by the voters of their own wards, and he who can command the
most votes, can, if he desire it, be chosen Alderman. No man of wealth
seeks the place,—no man of business habits asks for a nomination. The
rewards of the office are, at best, below that of ordinary business; and
the distinction which the place confers is not that which gratifies the
wishes of the ambitious. But the place is coveted and obtained, its
emoluments spring from the fees paid by those who come or are brought
before the magistrate. If his business is multiplied, his profits, of
course, are increased; and as he sought the place for the means of a
living, he must avail himself of the capabilities of the place to
augment those means. If people will “sue and be sued,” if people will
fight and go to law, if neighbors will quarrel, and then drag each other
before the magistrate, it may seem, to the functionary, rather a
thankless exercise of his ability, to recommend such an adjustment of
the case as will deprive him of the fees of office, by which he lives.
And while most philanthropists would applaud the magistrate who sat to
reconcile rather than to punish,—who dispensed with his fees while he
dispensed kindness and affection rather than justice,—it is probable
that the family for which he was bound to provide would have to look to
some other means of support than those supplied by the man who looked to
the peace of the neighborhood rather than the augmentation of fees. And
it may as well be added, that the magistrate who should thus employ his
functions, would soon fail of objects, provided another alderman could
be found who would grant to passion its first demand. For it is evident
that most of the complaints that come before our aldermen are brought by
those who seek to gratify personal animosity and a sudden desire of
vengeance rather than any wish to punish the wrong-doer for the sake of
right. We must take men as they are, not as we could wish them to be. We
must recognize in the office of an alderman the means of support for the
incumbent and his family; and while all around us, men are exercising
their talents and taxing their ingenuity, to gain wealth by the
advantages which the law allows, we must not suppose that the alderman
is to sit in magisterial quiet, and suffer the vails of office to escape
his grasp, when they are the fruits of a labor sanctioned by law or
warranted by official custom.
If we would remedy the evils about which so much has been justly said,
and concerning which the Grand Jury has spoken so plainly, we must do
something more than talk and complain.
We have already said the evil finds its source and sanction in the
Constitution of our State. The change of the whole mode of supplying the
magistrates and judicial officers, that was wrought by the present
Constitution, may have corrected some evils: the general question is one
which we are now not called upon to discuss; but we may say, that
experience shows that nothing has been gained with regard to the
administration of justice in the magistrates offices of our city.
Twenty-five years experience shows that none of the evils complained of
in this department have been diminished, while most of them have been
augmented, and new ones added to the list. This seems almost a necessary
result of the system, and thus calls for prompt, effective remedy.
What is required in Philadelphia, is a class of Police Magistrates, with
a salary that shall secure and compensate the services of competent men,
who shall have no pecuniary temptation to commit any person brought
before them, and whose character and condition shall give weight, no
less to their decisions than their recommendations. Placed by the tenor
and fixed reward of their office above dependence upon those who shall
demand justice in others, or receive it in themselves, they shall not
shrink from their duty to condemn, more than from their sense of
propriety to discharge.
Of legal qualifications we have little to say. The layman, fitted by
character and ordinary education for the place of police magistrate,
might soon become sufficiently learned in the law and requirements of
his place, to discharge with fidelity and success the duties thereof. A
considerable number of those now holding the office of Alderman, and as
such elected occasionally as Police Magistrates, show themselves
competent to all the duties of their office, and worthy of the position
which would be opened to them, should the reformation that we suggest
ever be made. It is not always the man,—it is the circumstances in which
he is placed; it is the necessities of nomination, the demands of the
election, and the condition into which the office has been brought, that
hinder some in their attempts at good, and deprive the city of benefits
from the services of those who, under other circumstances, would promote
public order, and acquire honor by their administration of justice and
their exercise of humane powers.
And while so much freedom has been exercised in censuring the official
conduct of some of the Aldermen of our city,—a freedom that is suggested
and can be sustained by facts,—it is due to the cause of truth and
justice to repeat emphatically what is readily admitted above, that many
of the magistrates are eminently deserving of commendation, as well for
the abilities they possess, as for the use to which those abilities are
applied in the discharge of their vexatious duties. And it may be added,
that some of those who have been most censured, have shown themselves
possessed of good feelings, and amenable to the requirements of courtesy
and humanity. The system is in fault; and till that is changed for the
better,—reformed altogether,—we cannot look for any considerable
improvement in the administration of justice in police offices. For it
is a lamentable fact, that such is the want of confidence in some of the
magistrates, that the decisions of the able and the good are treated
with a distrust most dangerous to public order.
Our judiciary, from the lowest offices to the highest, was derived from
England. The names of the officials, the cause of their proceedings, the
rules of their action, are all from the parent country. If we have not
derived from these all the benefits which might be expected, and all we
see England enjoy, it is worth while for those interested to inquire
what has disturbed public opinion, what has weakened public respect,
what has augmented the law’s delay, or what has strengthened the general
opinion of its uncertainty. So far as such feelings, if any such exist,
may connect themselves with the “courts of record” of our State, it is
not the object of the present Report to discuss the cause, to point to
their extent, or suggest a remedy. But we have legitimately before us
the evils of a bad system of minor justice, and we are therefore right
in suggesting a remedy.
The progress of society abroad suggests remedies for evils which it is
the duty of the people of this country to consider. And the mode of
administering justice in police courts in London, eminently deserves the
attention of those who deplore the deficiency and seek for a substitute
in Philadelphia. It is simple, easy, practical. Magistrates of
established character are appointed, to hold office during good
behavior. They have a salary ample to maintain themselves and a family.
Their office has with it something of the character of the Court of
Sessions, and thus there attaches to their persons an idea of judicial
dignity, which is to be respected on the police bench, and which
respects itself when in the world. These officers are not tempted, by
inadequacy of income, to augment the business of their office, that they
may profit by costs or compromise. Those who are compelled by business
or misfortune to appear before them, feel that respect is due to the
administration of justice in its incipient stages, and a large portion
of those who are charged with the violation of law, appeal with
confidence to those magistrates for summary proceedings, (which the law
there allows,) in preference to the delay which would attend a reference
of their case to a jury. Such a power on the part of the police
magistrate is found most advantageous to justice in London, resulting in
great saving to the city and county, without lessening the terrors of
the law,—rather augmenting them by the promptness of punishment.
Should the Legislature of the State be disposed to remedy the existing
evils in this city, by providing for an alteration in the Constitution,
by which the mode of acquiring, and the terms of holding, office by the
Aldermen shall be changed, it is possible that an enlargement of power,
such as we have noticed in the London magistracy, would be granted, so
that justice would be promptly as well as carefully administered.
We have, in this chapter, touched upon one disturbing element, and we
have done it with no view to cast indiscriminate odium upon any citizen.
The evil to which we have adverted, exists. The great cause, however, of
the evil, we have shown to arise out of the Constitution of the State,
or from a deficiency of legislation. We lack no talent in this city for
judicial or magisterial place; but we have failed in attempts to call
those talents into the best exercise, and to insure to them the highest
public respect.
There is, however, another disturbing cause, which we must look at
steadily, if we would understand its bearing on society, its influence
on morals, and especially its connection with the subject of prison
occupation and prison discipline. And especially ought we to present the
subject in immediate connection with a consideration of the Magistracy.
It is _Intoxication_ that crowds the police office and the alderman’s
tribunal. Hourly is the magistrate called to commit or fine the violator
of the law of temperance. The miserable wretches come into his presence
without power to discriminate between right and wrong, with no command
of their own movements, and no sense of propriety with regard to conduct
or conversation; and complaints are sometimes made that these creatures
are not treated with suitable consideration. Let us, when we consider
the duties and conduct of magistrates, not overlook the disgusting
materials to which they are to administer justice, nor blame them if
they sometimes suffer the prisoner to hold the rank which he assigns to
himself.
------------------
INTEMPERANCE.
Of any two hundred persons committed to the County Prison, probably one
hundred and fifty owe their incarceration to drunkenness. Assault and
battery, breach of the peace, misdemeanor, vagrancy, abuse and threats,
disorderly conduct, and other charges which figure upon the commitments
sent by the magistrate with the prisoner, are often only other terms for
drunkenness and only varieties in the _charge_ or slight additions to
the offence; and even the higher offences against the law are frequently
referable to, or connected with, intemperance in the use of intoxicating
liquors; and it generally happens that when the prisoner is questioned
with regard to the temptation to steal, to fight, or commit some other
misdemeanor with which he stands charged, he replies that he knows
nothing about such acts, he only took a drop too much, or was a “little
tight;” he remembers a mass of things, yet nothing distinctly, and
professes to feel greatly injured in being committed for a misdemeanor,
when he had done nothing but get drunk; or that he should have been
charged with assault and battery when he had only beaten his wife or
struck the officer that arrested him; nor does he find it reconcilable
with justice that he should be charged with abuse and threats for merely
cursing the magistrate and offering to break his head at a moment of
greater soberness. This vice of excessive drinking is then so intimately
connected with the administration of justice, either as a motive or a
stimulant for offences against the law, that it is deemed proper to
consider it more closely in connection with prison discipline, in order
that we may understand what are the duties of society in regard to its
means and subjects, and thus we may also comprehend how entirely its
suppression becomes a means of ameliorating the condition of public
prisons. If we would lesson the evils of prisons, perhaps the most
important step would be to diminish the number of prisoners. To strike
from the list of offences that offence which is the parent, the
assistant, and the offspring of so many more—would seem to be a great
advance in the work of those who seek to denounce vice as well as to
correct the vicious and criminal.
How drunkenness is to be diminished in our community, is a problem
difficult of solution. Attempts have been made of various kinds, with
various degrees of temporary success; but the appetites of one class and
the cupidity of another, seem to baffle the efforts of the benevolent
and counteract the enactments of legislatures. It may however tend
towards an amendment, that something of the extent of the evil should be
made public.
The means of intemperance are indeed public and its fruits abound, but
very few stop to notice the extent of any habit that grows up gradually
in a community and is consistent with general customs and taste, and
only to be condemned for its excess, or only to be entirely condemned
when its excess shows that the evils of abuse outweigh all advantages of
moderate indulgence. Not many who read this report have thought to note
the multiplied number of shops, saloons, taverns, hotels, casinos and
cellars, whose maintenance is the profit on the sale of intoxicating
liquors; yet these places present themselves all around us, and in
certain parts of the city they are in such abundance as would lead one,
a stranger to our domestic life, to suppose that the chief employment of
the people was vending liquors, and the principle food was whiskey.
Fifty grog shops and liquor stores are found for one bakery, so that
Falstaff’s “penny for bread and a shilling for sack,” seems no longer an
extravagant partiality for liquids over solids; and, if it should be
said that many families bake their loaves instead of depending on the
bakers for their daily bread, it may with equal truth be replied that
thousands of those who reach Moyamensing Prison for drunkenness,
maintain a household altar to intemperance, at which their neighbors
also sacrifice (themselves and their character) in devotion to the
social jug, from which drunkenness can be imbibed without the expense of
a license or the payments of profits to the retailer.
Can such things be, and drunkenness not abound? Can so many places for
the sale of liquor be maintained with gain to the proprietors merely
upon the profit of getting people drunk without a terrible deterioration
of public morals? It is proved by the revelations of our courts of
justice, by the confession of prisoners and the statements of sufferers,
that many of the keepers of these drinking places augment their profits
by other crimes than that of intoxicating their fellow-men, by making
indeed intoxication only a step towards almost every other species of
criminality; and while the prison cells are crowded with the offenders
and sufferers from these haunts of vice and crime, thousands leave
unrevealed their sufferings and their losses rather than expose their
weakness and vice in frequenting such resorts and yielding to the
temptations of the place.
In presenting these remarks on the means and extent of intemperance, it
is not to be inferred that the Philadelphia Society for alleviating the
miseries of prisoners, is about to resolve itself into a temperance
society, or create a committee to lessen the evil of intoxication. This
society has its specific duties, which it endeavors to discharge fully
and profitably; but if vices and woes cluster, virtue and peace also
associate,—and if we would lessen any considerable evil we must seek to
diminish its cause. This society has incidental association with almost
all the benevolent and humane institutions of the city. The repentant,
impure female is recommended to the Magdalen, the Rosine, or the Good
Shepherd. The female vagrant or the thief, is conducted to the Howard
Home or some other refuge with which the Committee or the Agent is in
correspondence. The young are transferred from the cell of the prison to
the care of the House of Refuge. Is it then less consistent with the
objects of this society that it should put itself in harmonious action
with those who would lessen the overwhelming vice of drunkenness by
which the cells of our prison are crowded, not only by drunkenness, but
by those who having by drunkenness forfeited the esteem of society and
lost their own respect, sink into lower debasement and lose all
distinction between vice and crime, and practice theft as the means and
intoxication as the end of living.
No one unacquainted with the life of a drunkard, but especially of an
habitual female drunkard, can form a correct idea of the irrepressible
thirst which the constant use of intoxicating liquors imposes. In a man
it is usually a love of the _taste_ of drink and the habit of social
drinking; and the habit is often broken and the male drunkard restored.
In woman the desire is for the _effect_ of liquor, the feelings to which
it gives rise; and the indulgence is more frequently solitary than
social: and however strong the sense of wrong, however deep may be the
regret for the folly when the evil moment of intoxication is over and
the secondary results succeed, still it rarely happens that the
repentance is deep or the amendment permanent. We do not know how many
women have triumphed over a strong appetite for intoxicating liquors;
thousands, of course, have solemnly but terribly wrestled with the
deadly enemy and conquered; many thousands maintain “the irrepressible
conflict” with various degrees of success; but the prison and the
almshouse records show that with another class, mighty in number and
important in interest, resistance is relinquished, shame forgotten, and
the daughter, the wife and the mother confess themselves the captives of
that one vice which sacrifices every female virtue to the gratification
of rapacious appetite. This subject commends itself to the regard of the
philanthropist, it calls for the attention of the magistrate, and it
asks for some new legislation; what that legislation should be in
detail, we do not pretend to say; our duty in the capacity in which we
now act is done when we thus expose the evils whose existence and a part
of whose terrible effects we discern in our prison visitations. We do
not exaggerate the means nor the devotion to drunkenness in what we here
state. The inducements to intoxication are double those which we have
mentioned, and all vices and passions are made subservient to the work
of selling liquor, while the effect of the poison sold is promotive of
other vices. The accursed bottle is not confined to the house, the
cellar, the dram shop, nor the saloon, it follows the miserable devotee
to the police station, and the very van in which the drunkard is
conveyed to the prison has its illicit bottle, so that if a single one
of the inebriates should have failed of the necessary quantity for
entire intoxication, or one should have recovered a gleam of reason,
there should not be wanting the means of completing or restoring the
work; and, it may be added, that it is with the utmost vigilance that
the officers of the prison are enabled to keep intoxicating liquors from
the cells. It is a melancholy fact that the husband endeavors to smuggle
a contraband bottle into the cell where his wife is confined for
drunkenness; and mothers while lamenting the hereditary misconduct of
their daughters, seek to convey comfort to the young offender in the
form of coffee strongly “laced” with whiskey. The right hand of
fellowship extended through the aperture of the cell door, is the means
of conveying a phial of brandy carefully deposited in the ample sleeve,
and the affectionate friend that comes to sympathize with her
incarcerated companion, exposes as she reaches forward to reciprocate a
kiss, the forbidden bottle hidden in the bosom of her dress. It is then
not only the appetite for whiskey against which opposition is to be made
at our prison, but the deep sympathy which is manifested for those who
suffer for a want of means and place to gratify that appetite.
Undoubtedly an immense saving in city expenditures would be made, to the
relief of the tax-payer, if such an abuse of humanity could be
corrected. And while we know that society would recognize at once any
successful effort to suppress drunkenness, we feel that a moral
desolation would be removed, could we cut down root and branch, the
terrible Bahan Upas of our country, whose pestiferous branches destroy
all vegetation beneath their ample shade, and spread misery and ruin
throughout the circle of influences.
We dare not say however that, because almost all who are brought to the
County Prison are habitual drunkards, that the entire _abolition_ of
intoxicating drinks would depopulate our prisons. The experience of the
world is different. In Great Britain, Ireland and Germany, the
frequenter of the prison is usually a drunkard. In Italy, especially in
the South of Italy, drunkenness is almost unknown among the natives.
Three years’ residence in the city of Naples failed to present to the
narrator a single instance of a drunken Neapolitan, high or low, rich or
poor; while frequent visitations to the prisons showed them amply
populous. Perhaps there is in Italy some prevailing vice as productive
of evil as drunkenness—perhaps drunkenness is in other countries the
resort of the bad—of men and women who seek the gratification of a
diseased appetite, not as a consequence or means of crime, but only to
enjoy such gratifications as are consistent with and are punished by
crime. The destruction of the Bahan Upas then may not restore herbage to
the field; nay, to find a comparison nearer home, the stately pine is
often cut down that culture and care may ensure a profitable crop for
the soil which it has overshadowed, but a single season’s neglect shows
that in the same earth there lies concealed the germ of other trees and
shrubbery, and instead of the single overshadowing object, fifty smaller
ones spring up to occupy the ground and prevent the growth of herbage.
So the avoidance of a great leading vice does not without watchful care
insure with certainty a growth of gentle virtues, some lesser passions,
some yet uncultivated appetites that lie latent in the heart, spring
into active growth, and become as dominant by their multitude as the
ruling one did by its single power.
Yet however appalling may be the vice that is adopted by those who do
not fall into the habit of drunkenness, there is always more hope of
reclaiming the unfortunate male offender, whatever may be his vice, than
there is of inducing the female inebriate to forsake the bottle. Larceny
is committed to supply some want, not to gratify an imperious appetite;
it leads to solitary confinement for a length of time, and the thief is
easily persuaded to reflect, and often induced to amend. He understands,
indeed, that his offence is directly against others, and that it
provokes the injured to visit upon him the penalty of the violated law,
and the anger of an offended society, that arms itself against him. The
poor drunkard awakens from his debauchery, and finds a craving thirst
for that which prostrated him, and feels that as he has done little or
no direct wrong to others beyond his family, his offence is against
himself, and the offended one in such a case easily pardons. If it is a
female, it is not merely the love of liquor, in the use of which
“increase of appetite grows by what it feeds on,” but it is that desire
for the forgetfulness of sorrow, that love for the excitement of the
nerves, that oblivion of the unhappy past, and that elevation above the
miserable future which distinguishes her delirium of drunkenness from
the effects of intoxication in man.
The impure female, in her rapid descent, is rarely unmindful of her
degradation; and thousands are redeemed from vice by the kind
interference of the humane; but when once she has found in the use of
intoxicating liquor that paradise of the drunkard, she is rarely ever
led by persuasion to return to reason and sobriety; nothing but forceful
restraint will keep the wretched victim from the use of the means, and
that restraint will not quench the thirst, nor diminish the desire, for
the deceptive dreams of happiness.
_Prevention! Prevention!_ domestic discipline, social care, and social
censure, can alone diminish this evil, and free our community from that
awful scourge—a drunken woman—and alleviate the miseries which are found
in the cell of the inebriate prisoner.
It is not to be denied that there has been a great increase in the habit
of using intoxicating liquors within a few years. It is a growing evil
of terrible dimensions and appalling effects; and the worst part of the
curse is its continued augmentation. How is this evil to be lessened?
How is society to be saved from the terrible maelstrom, which seems to
draw all to its eddying circle, and involves in ruin all that it
embraces. It is not the business of this Society, perhaps, to resolve
itself into a “temperance association;” but there are precedents in its
proceedings for direct action in the matter, at least so far as concerns
the prisons. We have asked, by solemn resolve, that the use of tobacco
may be restrained in the cells; not, perhaps, merely because tobacco is
in itself so injurious, but principally because the use of that narcotic
creates a thirst, which seems to have no appeasement but in strong
drink. To use a salutary and direct influence, then, in diminishing
drunkenness, must _a fortiori_ be within the plan of our Society.
But it may be said that while the use of tobacco has generally been
among the admissible indulgence of prisoners, strong liquors have not
been allowed. It is by no means certain that in other times the laboring
prisoners were not allowed a regular, limited, supply of strong drink,
but certainly not lately; yet as it is admitted that most of the
criminal and vicious that are sent to our prisons owe their confinement
to drunkenness, or at least make their condition worse by intoxication;
and especially, as it is evident, that efforts to redeem from crime the
released, are defeated by the facility with which intoxication may be
had, it can scarcely be doubted that the Society is in the exercise of
its legitimate powers, and in the discharge of its assumed duties, when
it encourages all good efforts to lessen the prevailing sin and disgrace
of the age, and lends its sanction to efforts directed to the diminution
of the habit and the means of drunkenness.
How shall that be done? Shall this Society initiate a plan for promoting
temperance, or shall it lend its hearty co-operation to some association
that shall have for its principal object that which could only be a
branch, a true, living branch, indeed, but only a branch of the duties
of the Society for alleviating the miseries of prisons?
This Society can at least, and by the adoption of this Report, does,
bear solemn testimony against the prevalence, the multiplication, and
the existence of the magazines of mischief, where drunkenness is secured
by the cost of the honor of the inebriate, and the disgrace of Society.
Citizens who watch with most painful vigilance the action of the City
Councils that enhance or diminish by a _single per cent._ the tax upon
property, would consult their own interest more if they would look into
this one cause of the increase of rates. But our business with the
subject is in the interest of humanity. That is cheapest, at whatever
cost, which produces the greatest good of the greatest number; and the
good of the greatest number must depend on the promotion of sound
morals.
With such a view of the prevalence of intemperance, and with such an
avowal of the motives of humanity with which this Society regards all
vices or crimes that go to make up the sum of the miseries of our public
prisons, it may not be improper to state that among the institutions
which humanity has yet to establish in Philadelphia, (it has already
suggested it,) is a hospital or place of reception and treatment of
inebriates. The prison punishes them, it does not cure; and few,
excepting those who have seen the drunkard in the agonies of _delirium
tremens_, or the terrors of _mania a potu_, can comprehend all the evils
which the drunkard accumulates upon his own head, (the domestic misery
which he insures, and the general scandal which he causes, may be
otherwise considered,) but the personal suffering of the drunkard, after
his committal for protracted debauch, is beyond description. It is not
without some reason that the cells of the prison which are especially
devoted to cases of _delirium_ and _mania_ are denominated “Purgatory,”
though it would seem from the unutterable agonies and indescribable
apprehension of the inmates that even if they should “go farther,” they
would scarcely “fare worse.”
It is hoped, that when the national troubles that now occupy public
attention, and draw upon the fiscal means of our citizens shall have
ceased, there will be some effort in the direction of a “Hospital for
Inebriates,” where proper moral and physical treatment may restore to
families and society, those whose intemperate habits have alienated them
from the affections of friends, or failing to restore them to reason and
propriety, a home may be provided where they cannot by habitual
indulgence, degrade themselves further, and by which families and
friends may be spared the disgrace of a drunken inmate.
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HOUSE OF CORRECTION.
In the preceding divisions of this Report, it has been shown that the
County Prison is peopled and re-peopled by persons who pass regularly
from vice to vice, or from one degree of vice to another, marking their
progress with a short residence in the cells of the prison, remaining at
the longest only thirty days, and associating with those who may be
their teachers or pupils in misdemeanors. It is not pretended by those
who send these offenders to the prison, that the incarceration will
amend their habits,—it is only the means of punishment; nor is it more
than desired,—scarcely to be hoped,—by those who seek to alleviate the
miseries of the prison, that the confinement of thirty days will tend to
repentance and amendment of the vicious offender.
It is evident that more is required,—more in the way of wholesome
discipline, more in time, more in direct appeals and instruction, more
in the enforcement of industry. The prison cannot do much more than it
is doing for the vicious. The solemn pledges of the intemperate to avoid
intoxicating drink are slightly regarded when the means of violation are
enticingly offered, and all the vices which have procured imprisonment
lose their terrors, or double their attractions, when the temporary
punishment is accomplished.
It is evident then that we need a resort for the vicious that will offer
to society some hope that even if the vice is not avoided, the vicious
shall be kept where they will cease to degrade society by their
misconduct and lead others to destruction by their example.
We need a “House of Correction,” a place to receive those men and women
who will not be reclaimed by monitions, or short confinement. We need a
place where time for thinking can be found, and where the food for
reflection may be supplied.
But in this case we cannot throw the censure for deficiency on the
Legislature of the State. The wants of the community are admitted, and
the right to supply those wants granted: the means are withheld by the
city authority. Resolutions for building a Municipal Hospital for the
reception, care and cure of those attacked with the small-pox, are
adopted, and the means for carrying into effect those resolutions are
supplied by the Councils of the city. That is well, and denotes a
paternal care, on their part, of the interest and health of their
constituents. But why—when authority is given, why not provide a
Hospital for those struck with the pestilence of drunkenness and the
accumulated miseries that come in its train? Is there a disease in the
whole catalogue of human suffering that is more epidemic, if not
contagious, than intoxication? or is there one that multiplies itself
more by social contact? And why then should the vagrant, the breaker of
the peace, the drunkard, multiply his or her disease more than the
sufferer by the small-pox or cholera? If the hospital for the small-pox
is a retreat for the sufferer, and his family and neighborhood need to
be relieved from the danger of his condition, the House of Correction
would be no less an asylum for the vicious, in which they could grow
better by care, and escape the evil of communicating their mental
disease to their neighbors.
In whatever light the House of Correction is regarded, it presents the
highest claims on society for its establishment. Is it to be a place
into which the vicious are to be driven by the law, that they may be
punished for their offence, and society saved the disgrace and danger of
their presence? Society has a right to demand such a forceful withdrawal
of the elements of crime from its midst. Is it to be a place of enforced
refuge for the willing or unwilling victim of vice, where habits of
disorder may be broken and new habits of industry and propriety
established, where good counsel shall make reasonable and acceptable the
moderate discipline of the place, where good example shall illustrate
the lessons of good morals, and the exhibition of orderly propriety of
the place be made to contrast with the squallor and misery of the
resorts of vice from which the inmates have been gathered, and thus
virtue enforced and resolutions of good formed, and their exercise for
some time at least insured? Then it is solemnly urged that the House of
Correction is called for by all that humanity can contrive and sound
policy can suggest.
In this matter the Society has done its part, and is ready, when
empowered, to continue its labor in the direction of amending the
vicious. But whether the Society have or have not any direct relations
with the House of Correction, it must feel that the interests of this
great community, of humanity and of virtue, suffer by the delay in
providing for its erection. If there be truth in the statements
submitted with regard to the number and character of those who are
habituées of the County Prison, we need no argument in favor of the
House of Correction.
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AUXILIARY SOCIETIES.
“To do good and to communicate” should be the object of every
philanthropist, as it certainly is the aim of this Society; and it is
with pleasure that we now announce that a correspondence between the
President of the Society and several distinguished gentlemen in
different parts of this State, warrant a hope that before long,
Societies, auxiliaries to this, will be established in various counties
of the Commonwealth, and the philanthropy of the good of both sexes will
be called into new action and concentrated upon the great object of
lessening the miseries of public prisons in their neighborhood, by
suggesting improvements in the police and general administration of the
establishments, and by dealing directly and affectionately with the
miserable inmates of the cells or the crowded rooms.
The correspondence with those to whom the measure has been opened, shows
a readiness on the part of some to begin the work; but prudential
considerations have suggested a postponement of the undertaking, in some
counties, till a strong and steady co-operation can be secured from
those who are now absent in the service of the country, or till the
state of the country will allow men of public spirit and of
philanthropic principles to withdraw their attention from national
matters. Certainly a postponement upon such grounds is to be preferred
to a failure of efforts from a want of thorough co-operation.
It is desirable that auxiliary societies should be established, in order
to call into exercise, and direct into proper channels, the spirit of
philanthropy that abounds in our State, and to give object and
employment to that self-denying devotion which marks the character of
woman, and is found in a class of men that rarely are named with public
benefactors, though they are found, when opportunities present, where
humanity has its most repulsive duties and earns its highest rewards.
A correspondence between the parent Society and its auxiliaries in the
interior of the State, or with independent associations laboring to the
same end and with similar means, would diffuse information that would
stimulate exertion and promote the great object of alleviating the
miseries of prisoners. Especially would such auxiliaries often assist
the agents and committees of the parent Society, by information as to
the character of prisoners, and aid in procuring employment for the
repentant vicious and criminal, who would strengthen their good
resolution by seeking occupation where the chance of meeting old
associates would be greatly diminished, and where temptations to a
recurrence to former faults would not abound. It is now believed that
the hopes of forming these auxiliaries will soon be realized. But there
has always been found some difficulty in the first steps towards an
organization. The willingness of many needs information to strengthen
resolve; and especially is it found that where there is to be a
concurrent action, there is great need of some representative of the
views and sentiments of the parent Society, to concentrate and direct
the efforts of those who, with the best motives and most earnest wishes
for success, pause upon the initiatory step, from distrust as to their
ability to organize and direct a society, or an apprehension that they
may lack the hearty co-operation of others no less philanthropic or
energetic than themselves.
We, perhaps, then shall need, at a proper time, some representative of
the parent Society specially deputed to stir up the public mind in the
direction of humanity in prisons, and to take advantage of the effects
of his labors to unite the exertions of the good in the form of
auxiliaries, that shall have their committees in every place of
imprisonment, doing the work of philanthropy by alleviating the miseries
of prisons and improving the moral condition of the prisoners. These
auxiliaries will aid the parent Society in influencing legislation
favorable to the cause of humanity, and, in proportion to their number
and to the character of their members, they will be felt and their power
acknowledged by the Representatives of the people, not in any attempt at
dictation, but in the mild, steady presentation and advocacy of measures
of amelioration that shall triumph by their inherent beauty and mercy,
influencing public sentiment and purifying legislative enactments.
In a subsequent part of this Report, under the head of “Correspondence,”
will be found large supplemental abstracts of British Parliamentary
Reports; and it is thought that a few words explanatory of the British
and Irish system might, in this part of our Report, be made useful in
aid of the plan for auxiliaries. England has learned much from us in the
work of Prison Discipline: we might learn something of her, (more,
indeed, than we _shall_ acquire,) were our institutions more
assimilated, and especially were we as geographically circumscribed as
she is.
The “Prison Reports,” physical and moral, in Great Britain, are all to
the Government of the nation; and every part of every city jail seems to
work with as distinct a reference to the whole system of prison
regulation as the lower clerkships of a State Department do to the
administration of the whole. This, it must be admitted, is easy in that
country, where there is but one legislature to direct, and one
government to administer and execute. It would be impossible in this
country, for the National Congress to issue ordinances for the
administration of _State_, county, and city prisons. To say nothing of
State rights and State sovereignty, there would be insurmountable
difficulties in prescribing and carrying out rules for prison discipline
and dietaries for all the jails from Oregon to Maine. So that, when we
read of the happy and harmonious working of the prison laws in Ireland
and Great Britain, we must call to mind the proximity of each
establishment to the other, and of the whole to the Government, to whose
chief officers they are bound to make report, and with whose agents they
are bound to co-operate. In England and Ireland the difference of
longitude is so small, that, by the Sovereign’s command, it is made
mid-day at the same moment in both kingdoms. In the United States,
something more than human power would be required to work out that
wonder, and something more than constitutional prerogative would be
necessary to enforce it. We must take things as they are, and work with
the means and in the space which are allowed. If we cannot expect
national interference in behalf of prison discipline, we certainly may
appeal to the State in which we live to exercise and dignify its
sovereignty by legislation that will adapt prisons and their discipline
to the use of society, and while the House is one of penal discipline,
it shall be a place of moral improvement. We scarcely expect the
Legislature of the State to initiate the good work. It is the duty of
those who feel most anxious for its establishment, to prepare the means
and present the arguments; and it is believed that no means of inducing
a systematic arrangement of prison discipline throughout the State
exists outside this Society. Persons abound who see and deplore the
evils of the present want of system, but they lack the full information,
and especially do they lack concurrent action; and it is believed that
the establishment of auxiliary societies throughout the State would
produce the ends proposed, viz., properly constructed prisons, the
establishment and maintenance of proper discipline; and the whole
co-operative and correspondent, each with the other, till the system
work, with regard to the government, as perfectly in Pennsylvania as it
does in Great Britain, and much more effective in the interest of
humanity and virtue. We have little to change, excepting the structures
of our prisons, and the consequent classification and treatment of
prisoners; little to unlearn in their management; we are not wedded to
any past theory. It is generally admitted, that much of what this
Society condemns is wrong; the only doubt, or supposed difficulty, is
how it can be remedied. That doubt and that difficulty will be removed
when auxiliary Societies shall be established to correct and embody
public sentiment, and when the parent Society, through its branches,
shall be allowed to bring its moral action into co-operation with the
physical efforts of the Commonwealth, to alleviate the miseries of
public prisons.
------------------
COMPENSATION TO PRISONERS FOR OVER-WORK.
Among the inquiries instituted by the Society this year, was one that
related to the earnings of convicts in the Eastern Penitentiary, which
arose out of a complaint made by a United States prisoner, who had
received, as he thought, less for over-work than was in reality due to
him. The character of the prisoner, or the title of the court by which
he was sentenced, had nothing to do with the character of the claim, or
the interest which the Society felt and would manifest in his behalf. He
was a prisoner, and as such, whether in the County Jail or the State
Penitentiary; whether sentenced by a Police Magistrate, or by a Judge of
the Court of the United States, there could be nothing in his case to
alienate him from our sympathies, or deprive him of the benefit of our
interference in his behalf.
A committee was instructed to present the case of the complainant to the
proper authorities of the Penitentiary, and to ascertain, in the first
place, on what principle the over-work of prisoners was estimated, and
to make especial reference to the case of the United States prisoner,
which had suggested the investigation. It need scarcely be said that
these inquiries were to be made with that friendly feeling and high
respect which have marked the intercourse of the Society with the
authorities of the Eastern Penitentiary, and that the questions were
answered with the freedom and feeling of those who have an established,
well devised plan of action, and are conscious of an adherence to that
plan in all its execution; and the friendly spirit of the Committee of
this Society was reciprocated by those to whom the appeal was made.
As settling a question about which some doubt existed, and especially as
giving information that must be valuable to many, and interesting to
all, the report of the Chairman of the Committee on the Penitentiary is
subjoined.
TO THE ACTING COMMITTEE, &C.
As Chairman of the Visiting Committee of the Eastern State
Penitentiary, I have been requested to make some inquiry into the
manner of determining the value of the work done by the prisoners,
and the allowance to be made to them for “over-work.” The inquiry
has been made accordingly, and the following may be given as the
result:—
In the first place, it is an important fact, that the law of the
State only directs that convicts shall be sentenced to “hard labor,”
leaving the _manner_ of executing the sentence to the Inspectors and
Wardens, or those having the immediate control of the Jails and
Penitentiaries. There is no provision for any compensation to the
prisoners for this labor; the primary, and probably the sole
purposes for which it was made a part of the sentences, being to
enforce it as a salutary part of the prison discipline, and also as
a means of compelling the prisoners to contribute something towards
the expense of their maintenance; consequently, any allowance made
to them for over-work is altogether a gratuity, which they have no
right to claim.
In the exercise of the discretion vested in the Inspectors and
Warden of the Penitentiary, they judged that the introduction of
rewards to the prisoners for industry would have a salutary tendency
in several directions, and they therefore allotted to each of them,
a certain quantity of such kind of work as should be given him, to
be performed in a day, or a month, to pay for his keep. This is
sometimes called “the task,” and is so moderate, that with ordinary
skill and application, it can be accomplished with ease. Such a
money valuation is affixed to this work, as will admit of the
Institution obtaining from their outside customers a small advance,
to provide tools, working materials, &c. The prisoner is expected,
at the price affixed, to earn for the Institution from twenty to
twenty-five cents per day. No penalty, however, is visited on him
for a failure, unless it is the result of culpable sloathfulness or
insubordination. Every thing done beyond this allotted task, is
credited to the prisoner as “over-work,” at the same rate affixed to
the “task,” half of it for the use of the County, and the other half
for his own use, to be paid to him at the expiration of his term; or
portions of it, during his imprisonment, are applied, at his
request, to the purchase of books, or, perhaps, a carpet for the
floor of his cell, or some other little comforts beyond the prison
allowance which the authorities may permit him to be supplied with,
or remitted to his family.
Under this system, many of the convicts, on the well known and
generally acknowledged principle, that “the hope of reward sweetens
labor,” are stimulated to so apply themselves, that they not only
fully do what is claimed of them by the Penitentiary, (and which,
without this encouragement, would often fail to be performed,) but
they sometimes accumulate the very handsome sum of several hundred
dollars against their discharge. One of them recently earned $14.31
_for his own use_ in one month—equal to $171.72 per annum—and
remarked that with a full supply of materials, he would have been
able to have doubled his earnings. The system, indeed, works
admirably, and its influences are salutary in several respects. The
interests of the Institution are advanced by it, and the present
comfort of those in confinement is promoted, and the susceptibility
of their minds to the favorable action of reformatory influences is
increased by having their time occupied by what they feel to be
profitable employment. Also, without having the character of
compulsory labor, it trains them to habits of industry, and
practically convinces them of the important truth, that labor is a
thing of real value. These habits, and this conviction, will be of
great value to them when they again enter into the world, and the
money they take with them will be an important aid in starting them
afresh in the business of life.
In allotting the tasks, if any of the prisoners appear to be
disheartened under an apprehension that they are greater than they
can accomplish, and therefore think it useless to attempt it, the
Warden reduces them, and thus leads them on gradually, and the
result fully proves that a greater amount of work is actually
obtained from them under this system, than would be by the more
exacting plan.
The law and rules in these respects, as applied to United States
prisoners, having also been under discussion in our Society, special
information has been desired on that branch of the subject. It being
understood that the General Government pays for their board, doubts
have been expressed whether they are bound to labor at all; and if
they do, it has been suggested that they should receive a credit for
the _whole_ value of their work. The first branch of the question is
answered and settled by the fact, that they are sentenced to under
go imprisonment for a certain term, _in conformity with our State
Laws_—that is, “at hard labor.” Next, as to compensation, their
board being paid. It is true the United States pays for each of its
prisoners $2.50 per week, which is for board, clothing, fuel,
medical attendance, and, indeed, all his ordinary wants, and is
hardly half of the cost to the Commonwealth, of each of those in
confinement. The Penitentiary was erected by the State of
Pennsylvania, at a cost of about $600,000, _for its own use_. The
interest of this sum, and an annual appropriation made, to meet
current expenses, such as salaries of officers, &c., amount together
to about $50,000 per annum, which, as the average number in
confinement does not exceed 400, makes a yearly cost to each of, say
$125, _in addition to their board and incidentals_. It is fairly
said, that, although we may be willing to submit to the loss on our
own prisoners, it is but reasonable that we should be protected from
it, when accommodating the General Government. The result is, that
United States prisoners, as regards labor and compensation, are
treated throughout in the same manner as our own.
The same principle, as to compensation for labor, though differing
somewhat in its practical details, has been introduced into our
County Prison, with very satisfactory results. Whether it has been
adopted in our Western State Penitentiary at Pittsburgh, or not, we
are not clearly informed; and we are not aware that it is to be
found in any Jail or Penitentiary beyond the limits of our State. It
is one of the advantages of the Pennsylvania Separate System of
imprisonment that it better admits of such an arrangement, than
where the prisoners are congregated together in the workshops.
E. H. BONSALL.
_Philadelphia_, 11_th_ _Mo._ 19, 1863.
While on this subject, it is deemed advisable to present a statement of
the plan for labor and extra work which is in operation at the County
Prison at Moyamensing; premising, however, that the penal servitude in
the County Prison is generally so much less than that in the
Penitentiary, that it is found necessary in many particulars to
accommodate the assignment of work to the _time_ of the prisoner
sentenced, as few who come into the prisons have regular occupations,
and a six months’ sentence does not allow time enough to acquire any
trade sufficiently to earn money thereby.
And it may be remarked here, that the civil war which has disturbed our
country for more than two years, has cut off one of the most important
branches of prison labor, viz., that of cotton weaving, by which
hundreds of prisoners could pay all the expense resulting from their
incarceration, and often take with them, at the termination of their
sentence, more money than they would have _saved_ from their earnings,
had they been at large, indulging in the evil habits of occasional
excessive drinking, and suffering the consequent misery of that delirium
which only the inebriate can know.
Cotton weaving, and the preparation of the yarn for the loom, which was
once so important a branch of employment, has, as we have already
stated, almost ceased to be carried on in this prison. The sound of the
shuttle is now scarcely heard where, a few years ago, the continued
rattle, in almost every cell, gave notice of profitable industry. It was
the custom of the prison, at the time to which we refer, to assign to
prisoners a certain fixed task, and to allow them a fair compensation
for over-work, so that a good and industrious weaver generally earned
for himself about twelve dollars a month. Of course, he made more for
the prison. The return of peace, and the introduction of raw cotton,
will, undoubtedly, revive the manufacturing in the prison, and enable
many, who now have but small employment, to make their time and their
punishment profitable.
The Cordwaining Department has been more active; and in that a different
system of labor and compensation prevails.
Here the prisoner is charged two dollars and fifty cents ($2.50) a week
for his board, to be deducted from the compensation for work actually
performed.
The prices allowed for good work are as follows:
For sewed boots, 45 cents per pair.
For pegged boots, 30 cents per pair.
For rogans sewed, 35 cents per pair.
For rogans pegged, 28 cents per pair.
To those who purchase these articles, the price seems low; yet the
average clear profit to each prisoner is about ten dollars a month,—a
sum which, under ordinary circumstances, he would scarcely exceed, if at
full liberty, with some of those habits that attend the man who is the
candidate for, or the graduate of, a prison. Some prisoners considerably
exceed ten dollars a month: they are usually not only faster but better
workmen.
But, as many of the prisoners are without any trade, (and perhaps they
owe their imprisonment in part to a neglect of some one to give to them
a means of acquiring an honest living,) it follows that some time is
necessarily consumed in acquiring such a skill in shoemaking as may be
turned to their profit in prison, especially when the sentence is not
for a long time. But many, it is believed, have made such advance in the
art, under personal instructions, as to place them in a position to do
some part of the work of their trade, and thus by practice to perfect
themselves in a respectable occupation. Too much importance can scarcely
be attached to this result, even of a short imprisonment.
Attempts have been made to introduce some kinds of labor for the benefit
of prisoners who had short terms of incarceration, or who seemed
destitute of abilities to acquire a trade; but these efforts have not
been so successful, and, in the present absence of cotton weaving, some
of the convicts remain wholly or nearly unemployed.
In the Female Department there is no regular employment by which labor
is compensated in money. The tedium of the cell is relieved by ordinary
female work, such as making and mending the clothes of other convicts,
and providing clothes for those who seem to require some addition to
their clothing, when they leave at certain seasons. There is a
considerable demand upon the peculiar talents of these prisoners, and it
would seem that if only half the industry (with economy and temperance)
were practised out of the prison which they manifest willingly in the
cell, they would have no temptation to steal, or to covet their
neighbor’s goods, “nor anything that is their neighbor’s.” These females
are, however, not dismissed from the prison without some consideration
for their industry. They usually come in with very few clothes. They are
dismissed with at least comfortable garments; and if their home is at a
distance, means are supplied to reach it. In this matter, also, this
Society assigns special duty to its Agent; and in many cases the poor
creature who having tasted the pleasures of sound resolutions for the
future, begins to feel the terrors of inability, on her departure from
the prison, to escape the associations that led her there, is suddenly
surprised with the gratifying information that she will be aided by the
Society to leave the city, when she leaves the prison, and may abide in
the cell, or in some institution or family, till she can be safely “sent
_home_” at the Society’s expense.
------------------
CORRESPONDENCE.
UNITED STATES.
We have received reports of various philanthropic societies in the
States of Connecticut and Massachusetts. They have mostly in view
objects similar to those of this Society: that is, the alleviation of
public evils, by direct action upon the minds and consciences of those
by whom those evils come.
Among these are the schools in Massachusetts for alleviating the
condition of girls and of boys,—separate institutions, but working
admirably in the fulfillment of the designs of the founders.
The Report of the Board of Trustees of the “State Reform Schools of
Connecticut” is exceedingly interesting. These last seem, in design, to
correspond very much with the “House of Refuge” in this city; and it is
gratifying to notice that all of them appear to be in a flourishing
condition.
There is one “Report” that specially arrested our attention,—that of the
“Massachusetts State Agency for Aiding Discharged Convicts.” Here seems
to be a true charity, not dependent, alone, on individual efforts and
contributions. It appears, by the Report, that the amount expended by
the “Agency,” on account of “the government of the State,” was $1,656
32. That, of course, as the Agent says, “will meet the discharged
convicts’ wants for a brief period.” If we had not extended our Report
this year much beyond usual limits, we should feel disposed to copy most
of the Report of this Charity into our own Annual Statement. The
following, however, is too well put to be omitted:
“Society has a vital interest in a mission that induces the
night-burglar to abandon his trade and allow men to sleep in safety,
and that converts the felon’s tools into proper implements, and
brings his mind and heart into a _willing_ frame for
house-_building_ instead of _shop-lifting_ and house-_breaking_. We
approach an employer, and for _his safety_ confide to him our
knowledge of the past life and present state of the applicant, now
penitent and resolved on reform. By awaking sympathy, we open a door
to honest industry, which he enters, and is surrounded by shop
mates, ignorant of his crime, ready to fellowship him without
prejudice; so that, feeling safe from those taunts that would
otherwise assail him, and which, surely, have no healing or
strengthening power, he becomes inspired with hope, and courage to
make self-reliant effort, trusting that, with the added blessing of
Heaven, he will henceforward be an honest man.”
Many of the Reports which we have received are from State Prisons,
Penitentiaries, &c. They, of course, are interesting for the statistics
they contain, and will be acceptable to those who are directly
interested in, and responsible for, the condition of penal institutions.
But we feel naturally more interest in the progress of improvement in
the care of the prisoner, than in the cost of his maintenance. It is
gratifying to find that, in all these prisons, the voice of instruction
is heard, and that, in addition to stated religious exercises, there is
personal visitation, and this seems to be followed up by the established
preacher or “moral instructor.”
The State “Schools” in Massachusetts for rearing, instructing, and
reforming girls and boys, not only in separate buildings, but in
separate parts of the State, appear to be doing immense good. The
reports upon the conduct of many who have graduated from the Schools,
show success; and some remarks intimate also, that the failure to reform
all, has excited unwelcome criticism. We do not copy the reply: it is
exactly what every “visitor” of this Society feels,—it is what the
managers of the House of Refuge in this city would say. The largest
anticipations of the self-sacrificing philanthropist are not to be
realized. The true philosopher will appreciate the benefit to the
individual and to society, resulting from a single reformation.
We have received the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Executive Committee
of the Prison Association of New York. It is a clear, explicit statement
of the doings of the Agent and Committees of the Association, and will
be read with deep interest by those who have a sympathy with the
unfortunate and a desire to assist into goodness those that have done
wrong. The details of proceedings by the Agent are quite similar to
those set forth by Mr. MULLIN, the Agent of our Society, and show a low
condition of primary justice in New York, and a wretched state of the
lower stratum of society in that city. Tyranny in the small landlords,
utter debasement of the moral faculties in the multiplied liquor
dealers, and a determination on all hands to do the worst by others and
the best (according to their own estimate of good) to themselves,
distinguish the condition and conduct of those who in New York live by
fleecing the shorn and miserable, and making vice of every kind
subservient to their plans of personal profit.
The Report to which we now refer, contains much that is usually
presented in the Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Prison. The
statements, however, are interesting as showing the condition in New
York of those affairs which occupy the attention of our own Society.
We notice one circumstance in the Report of the New York Society worthy
of attention, viz., that the agents of that Society have used their
influence with the courts to increase the severity of the sentence
intended to be pronounced upon a convict. This was justified by a
knowledge of the antecedents of the offender, and of the character of
his mind. We are not aware that any interference exactly of that
character is to be recorded of those who represent our Society; but we
have occasion to believe that in one or two instances an opinion was
given _against_ a re-consideration of a sentence with a view of
lessening its severity; and that opinion was accepted. There was more
mercy in such a course than in shortening the term of imprisonment. In
one instance, at least, the beneficial results are obvious.
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
After this Annual Report was prepared and accepted by the “Acting
Committee” of the Society, there were received from London several
volumes of Parliamentary Reports on the condition of the various prisons
in England and Ireland in 1862, and also a large folio volume containing
“a Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Present
State of Discipline in Gaols and Houses of Correction;” together with
the proceedings of the Committees, Minutes of Evidence, and an Appendix
for 1863. The “Reports” to which allusion is first made, are from the
Inspector General of Prisons, and they refer to the condition and
operation of all the prisons in each kingdom, and are followed by
special Reports from each prison, separately made by the proper officers
to the Inspector General. The minuteness of these Reports is truly
wonderful. Every authorized movement in each prison is set forth, the
discipline and dietetics explained in all their particulars, the
accommodations of the inmates, the number of beds and blankets, and all
the minutiæ of their management. The exact cost of each branch of
supplies is given, and the character and changes of food for each class.
We note too that in Ireland every prison is supplied with moral and
religious teachers, of various denominations. Generally there are one
clergyman of the Episcopal Church, one of the Presbyterian Church, and
one of the Roman Catholic Church. These seem to devote their services to
the moral and religious instruction of those who may, by denominational
distinction, belong to their ministry, and each makes an annual report
of the moral condition of his charge, and such remarks upon the
condition of affairs in the prison as may be the result of his
observation. He also gives the number of his visits during the year.
They are all salaried officers; each receives from $150 to $200 per
annum.
The details of the exact condition and number of every article supplied
to the prison, show the care that is bestowed upon the stores of the
prison; and the tables of the number, condition and offences of the
prisoners are instructive to those who would be familiar with prison
management, with its cost, and other requirements.
In every part of these Reports is found the reiterated opinion of the
visiting officer, (whose experience of many years entitles his views to
the greatest respect,) that no good moral results are to be expected
from social confinement; nothing but the separate system can be relied
on to give moral efficacy to imprisonment for crime.
It is noticed too, that in Great Britain and Ireland, as in this city,
and, we suppose, in most of the large cities of the Union, there is a
class of men and women, and especially of the latter, that seem to
divide their time between the prison cells, and places of debauchery and
preparation for imprisonment. In the Report for the prison in the county
of the town of Drogheda, (the district containing eighteen thousand
inhabitants,) there are females who are constant “recurrents;” and it is
said that, out of those committed during the year 1862, one had been
previously in custody ninety-two times, and the rest from twenty-eight
to forty-nine times.
Separate Reports are made upon the condition of convict prisons, both in
Great Britain and Ireland.
In the Report for common prisons of Great Britain, there is rather less
perspicacity, and there seems less attention paid to the details of the
institutions. The moral and religious instruction is ordinarily
committed to a clergyman of the Established Church; but in most of the
Reports it is stated that Dissenting and Catholic prisoners may have the
services of clergymen of their own denomination, if they desire it. In
Cardiganshire, (Wales,) it is stated, “every facility is given to
protestant dissenters for seeing ministers of their several persuasions,
but Roman Catholics are unknown in the prison.” Whether Catholics are
not admitted, or none are sentenced to its cells, or whether the
existence of such a denomination is ignored, or whether none are found
in that district, it is not stated.
The county and borough jails throughout England seem not to be in the
best condition to produce moral improvement.
We may remark here, that the Episcopal Church, being the established
denomination in England and Wales, we find all the prisons supplied with
a clergyman of that church. So far as that goes, it is laudable, and it
may be added, as an additional ground for commendation, that Dissenting
and Roman Catholic Clergymen are admitted, when their service is
required by prisoners of their denomination. We are not willing to
criticise closely, but it would seem that, as visiting clergymen are
paid by the public money, and as their office is to awaken as well as to
satisfy an appetite for moral and religious instruction, it is scarcely
within the limits of Christian charity to make no provision to call
dissenters and other prisoners to a sense of duty. And this is the more
evident, from the fact that, in Ireland, where only a very small
minority are of the Established Church, prisoners of that denomination
are supplied with a special religious teacher, as well as those of the
other two great divisions. There is, however, in some of the English
prisons, a “lecturer, who instructs his hearers not only in moral, but
in physical sciences.”
It is much however to know that the great truths of religion are taught
in the public prisons of England, and it is more to know that there are
many willing learners, who, without this means of improvement, would
remain in ignorance, if not of religious truths, at least of the
necessity and advantage of receiving and practising them.
The Report of the Directors of the Convict Prisons of Ireland, is
interesting to those who feel desirous, in this country, to do all the
good possible to convicts. The very great proportion of inhabitants of
Ireland who are not of the “Established Church,” makes it necessary to
give officially, religious and moral instruction by clergymen of
different denominations, and hence we find that the development of the
true state of the prisons, includes the Annual Reports of the Clergy of
the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic Churches, and of that denomination
of Dissenters which has probably the largest number in the prison, or
which can most easily supply from the neighborhood, a clergyman to lead
religious service. And we learn from the Reports of the different
clergy, that religious service, according to the requirements of the
several denominations represented by the clergymen, are held twice on
every Sunday and recognized religious holiday, and that the usual
instruction in doctrine and morals is also given to classes; all, of
course, without interference with each other.
In many respects these Parliamentary Reports may be regarded as of more
consequence to Boards of Prison Inspectors, than to the “Society for
Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” as they set forth the
economy of the institutions, the discipline, the means of comfort, and
the character of employment, as well as the results of all these, and
the exact cost; and thus they may become useful as indicative of what
Boards of Inspectors should carefully shun or promptly adopt, with such
modifications and adaptations as difference of circumstances renders
necessary.
But, in Great Britain and Ireland, much of the labor assumed by the
Philadelphia “Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,”
is undertaken by the Government; and the closeness of the investigation
of their affairs, and the fulness of the Reports, are consequent upon
the interest which philanthropic individuals have awakened throughout
the country, and the action which has been secured by both Houses of
Parliament. The great volume of Reports of the action of “a committee of
the House of Lords” is of deep interest, even in this country, as
showing not merely the condition of certain great prisons, but as
illustrating, especially, the effect of different systems of treatment
and labor. The elevated rank of the persons who composed the commission
of inquiry, shows the importance which the House of Lords attached to
the subject; and the constancy of attendance, and the searching
character of questions put to those under examination, show the fidelity
of the distinguished noblemen to the interests submitted to their
care.[2]
Footnote 2:
The select committee consisted of the Duke of Marlborough, Marquis of
Salisbury, Lord Steward, Earl of Carnarvon, (who was elected Lord
President,) Earl of Malmsebury, Earl of Romney, Earl Cathcart, Earl of
Ducie, Earl of Dudley, Viscount Eversley, Lord Wodehouse, Lord
Lyvedon, Duke of Richmond, Lord Wensleydale.
Of the five hundred and twelve folio pages of these Reports, there is
not one that is without interest to every active member of this Society.
There are 5,337 questions propounded by the various members of the
commission, and answers rendered by those who have been in the
administration of the prisons, or who had been exercising the duties of
visitors, inspectors, physicians, &c., of the several prisons; and those
answers present a most minute exhibit of the exact state of the prisons,
and all that relates to their administration.
In some of the prisons, we find that there is a physician employed at
_seventy-five_ dollars a year, and that he visits twice a week.
So far as we have examined the Dietary of the different prisons in Great
Britain and Ireland, we find some meals enriched with meat, in England,
but none, as far as we discover, in Ireland. Prisoners are weighed, and
their provisions augmented or improved, or diminished in quantity and
quality, according as their weight increases or decreases. And the kind
of labor is changed to suit their health and weight. They must require
much personal supervision. Ale, wine and brandy are used in the prisons,
when the prisoner is under medical treatment; and it would seem, from
some Reports, that medical treatment was more frequently called for in
the prisons where such indulgences are prescribed. It may be remarked
here, also, that consideration is given to the previous _habits_, and
pursuits of prisoners, when they enter, and the diet, with regard to
meat and ale, somewhat modified by the amount which had been used before
conviction.
The Committee are decided in their views of the necessity of uniformity
in discipline, dress and food, in the prisons of Great Britain; and as,
geographically considered, the kingdom is small, with little variety of
climate or produce, such a desideratum may be easily supplied. We cannot
hope for anything like an attempt at uniformity in our Federal
Government; but there appears no immovable obstacle to a uniform system
of prison discipline and practice in this State. But that cannot be
hoped for, till there is a general knowledge of its wants. This will
probably be the result of the establishment generally in this State of
County Societies, auxiliary to the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating
the Miseries of Public Prisons.
One spirit pervades all the Reports of the Noble Committee, and it is
aroused and sustained by the answers to questions propounded by them to
the Inspectors and other officers appointed to look after the economy
and discipline of the prisons of all kinds throughout the kingdom, and
that is _the entire necessity of the separate confinement of the
convicts_, and the full belief that the same kind of treatment would be
beneficial, so far as time would permit, for every class of prisoners.
They distinguish between solitary and separate confinement. The former
is recommended as a prison punishment,—the latter as a system of regular
treatment. On this subject the Committee say, as a result of the
testimony taken before them: “Where separate confinement exists, it
exercises both a reformatory and deterrent effect. The committee are of
opinion that the principle of separation should be made to pervade the
entire system of the prison.” And while they do not admit that the
adoption of the system need cause any relaxation of the rule in school
or chapel, and at exercise, they intimate that the “_cellular_
instruction” (as they denominate what we have in our Report spoken of as
religious and moral instruction in and at the door of the cells) should
not be relaxed.
It will be understood that the attempts at separate confinement in
England have, in some places, been made by an effort to accommodate the
old borough and county prisons to the new system. Poor as the chance of
success might appear, it is worthy of remark, that the results satisfy
both the Inspectors and the Noble Committee, that it is the true system
of penal and reformatory imprisonment. On that subject the Committee say
they “consider that the system generally known as the separate system
must now be accepted as the foundation of prison discipline, and that
its rigid maintenance is a vital principle in the efficiency of county
and borough jails.”
This sentiment pervades the whole Report, and is suggested and sustained
by the testimony of all those who were under examination before the
Committee.
It is a subject of regret that we cannot copy at length the testimony of
some of the witnesses called before the Committee of the House of Lords:
we however find one question, with an answer thereto, that is too direct
to be omitted.
1757. Question by the _Earl of Carnarvon_.
You have given the Committee one instance, and we have heard from
another witness that the reputation of Leicester Gaol has a
deterring effect; can you give the Committee any reason why you
think it is more deterring than some other prisons?
Answer by _William Musson, Esq._, Governor of Leicester Gaol.
I think that our system of discipline is very strict; we never allow
the separate system to be broken through on any consideration; the
prisoners are in separate cells; they are exercised in separate
yards, and they have separate stalls at Chapel; and I may say that
when they are taken out to be tried in Court, they go in separate
partitions in the wagon, and are arraigned separately.
1758. _By Earl of Dudley._ Is not the separation relaxed when they
are with the schoolmaster in class?
No; they are separated then.
1759. Do they not sit at the same table?
No: they are in the Chapel in separate stalls; we use the Chapel as
a school-room.
1785. _Earl of Carnarvon._ In your opinion, the advantage of
separation outweighs any inconveniences which may result from it?
Yes; I think so.
1786. _Lord Wodehouse._ Do you ever find that prisoners when
confined for long periods in separate cells, suffer at all mentally
from the separation?
There is a great variety of minds, and it does not influence all
alike.
In another part of our Report for this year, it has been stated that
much good, it is believed, has been done to individuals, by meeting the
prisoners on their arrival in the van, and releasing those committed for
the first time, provided that it is apparent that they have not been
frequent offenders, and have not chosen the path of vice; and it is
stated that by this course the self-respect of many young persons has
been saved, and they have been snatched from a vicious course, which
would scarcely have been avoided had they been confined with old
offenders. And when the power to release did not rest with the
Inspectors, the Agent was at once despatched to procure the release of
the committed person; and that failing, care has been used to place the
novices in separate cells, and provide them with advice, books, and some
little work. On this subject we have the opinions of the Inspectors of
Prisons for the North and Middle districts of England.
2156. By the _Duke of Marlborough_. You stated that you did not
think short sentences of much avail in effecting reformation upon a
prisoner; but do you not think that short punishments may be a
deterrent?
No; I think that a man who is sent to prison for seven days or
twenty days or a month, becomes marked, and he is not in prison long
enough to enable him to exercise an influence for good over him.
2157. Take the case of a man who has not been accustomed to vice or
crime, and who finds himself in prison for a month for an offence
into which he has been hurried, and finds the prison to be a very
unpleasant thing, and the discipline to be very severe, and that he
is subjected to a great many things which he did not expect before
he entered the prison, do you not think that the recollection of
that month’s confinement may have a deterring effect upon that man
in future?
I think that to a man of the character which your Grace has
described, a month’s imprisonment would do more harm than good. If
that man escaped the taint of a prison, and was bound over under
certain securities, he would be more likely to turn out well than if
he had been subject to the discipline of the prison for months; it
is too short a period in itself to have any deterring effect on him.
In another part of the Report of this Committee of the House of Lords we
have a statement of what is understood by separate confinement.
2662. Separate from what?
Man from man; they never see each other to know each other or to
speak to each other.
2663. By the separate system you only mean separation of prisoner
from prisoner?
Just so.
2664. Not the secluded system in which a man is shut up entirely?
No; quite the contrary.
2665. I ask the question in order that your answer may be recorded
here, for this simple reason, that a great many people have an idea
that the separate system is simply a secluding of the prisoners
entirely; whereas, the separate system is only, as you have stated
in your answer, the separation of prisoner from prisoner?
Yes; from all evil communications.
In reply to a remark by the _Earl of Dudley_, that the prisoners daily
saw several officers of the prison, and occasionally others, it is said,
“Just so. The _solitary_ system does not exist in England.”
We are struck with the statement of general health in some of the
prisons in England; for example the Bristol Gaol. T. A. Garden,
Esq., Governor of that prison, in his testimony before the Committee
of the House of Lords, says: “During the time that I have been
Governor—twenty-six years—we have never lost a female prisoner; and
we do not lose more than one male prisoner in twelve months. Those
that we have lost came to us, perhaps, in the last stage of
consumption. I do not know one single case that has been taken ill
on the premises and died. The average number of prisoners is one
hundred and sixty.”
The whole of the Parliamentary Reports, as has already been stated, came
to hand after the preparation of this Annual Report, and its submission
to, and acceptance by, the Acting Committee of the Society; so that it
was inconvenient to swell the publication by extracts from the British
Report, even where matters of interest were explained at length; and to
supply as far as possible the want of those extracts, digests of some of
the Report and statements have been made, which, with all deference to
the economy of space, must have swelled the division of the report in
which they should appear much beyond what may be regarded as a fair
proportion. It will be well to recollect when we read the strong
testimony which the Governors and Inspectors of gaols in Great Britain
bear to the superior efficacy of the system of separate confinement;
that as yet in many of these gaols they are working with old edifices
only partially adapted to the new system, and they are in a state of
transition from the old system of physical to that of moral discipline.
They see and feel the means of good which are almost within their reach,
but they have to approach them slowly, respecting the established
opinions of a portion of the community, while they follow as far as
possible, the suggestions of the better informed. They will soon make
the public sentiment by which they will be sustained in their work of
tempering justice with mercy, and rendering punishment for offences the
means of reforming the offender.
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NOTICE OF DECEASED ACTIVE MEMBERS.
In treating of what this Society has done, we are compelled to pause and
record a part of what it has been called to suffer in the loss of its
active members in the past year.
REV. C. R. DEMMÉ.
We have to deplore the death of the Rev. C. R. Demmé, D. D., Pastor of
the German Church in north Fourth Street, who for many years made the
Eastern Penitentiary the scene of his most welcome and profitable
labors. His great desire was to do good to his fellow man; and
Providence that lighted up that wish in his heart, blessed him with a
sound judgment, as to the choice of objects on which his gifts and
acquirements would be best exercised, and the selection of time and
means for his ministration. He knew how repulsive usually is the
convict’s cell to those of his vocation; and he felt also how important
to those who would be useful there, is a knowledge of modern languages;
and especially did he resolve to devote himself to those of his own
country, (Germany,) whom he could approach by many avenues which love of
the “Father land” opens to the heart. And many who heard his kind
monitions, lived to bless his benevolence. He was a man of steady and
well regulated zeal, devoid of ostentation; practical in all his plans,
and eminently useful in his labor in concurrence with this Society.
JACOB T. BUNTING.
In the month of December, Jacob T. Bunting, an old and active member of
this Society, died. He was known to his acquaintances as one that had at
heart the good of his fellow men; and in this Society he was recognized
as a hearty co-operator in the good work of alleviating the miseries of
prisons. Earnest in his efforts to discharge his duties at the cells of
the prisoners; he sat in council with us, awaiting rather the judgment
of others, than attempting to enforce his own opinions, yet influencing
by his experience, and conciliating by his courteous deference. The
Society feels and mourns the loss of such a member. Mr. Bunting was in
his seventy-first year.
TOWNSEND SHARPLESS.
On Wednesday, the 30th of December, died Townsend Sharpless, one of the
Vice-Presidents of this Society.
There are men who seem formed to discharge a certain class of duties,
beyond which they lack zeal and fail of efficiency. But Townsend
Sharpless seemed to fulfil the injunction of Scripture, “Whatsoever thy
hand findeth to do, do with thy might.” In business or rational
recreation, in works of general benevolence, in the councils and labor
of this Society, he was constant, zealous and successful. No half-way
measures satisfied his plans, or gratified his wishes. He satisfied
himself first that the work was one of benevolence, and then he made it
a duty, and discharged it. In the walks of business there was no man who
seemed better to understand the whole routine of trade, and few were
ever more devoted, or more successful. As a philanthropist the same
zeal, the same method secured equal success to his labors. And
warm-hearted in his friendship, his social relations were of the most
pleasing and gratifying kind.
The Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, then, in
referring to the death of such a member, feel that they have lost in the
demise of Townsend Sharpless, a valued member, a respected
Vice-President, an exemplary merchant, a useful citizen, and a practical
philanthropist.
As the Scriptures inform us that it is “well with the righteous,” we
have only to mourn in the death of our several valued colleagues, our
personal deprivations, and the loss which the cause of humanity sustains
in the withdrawal from its labors of men whose experience gave weight to
their counsel, and efficiency to their labors. The starred names of our
muster-roll show how much of purity, piety, zeal and judgment have been
vouchsafed to this Society. The cause in which they labored is
transmitted to our hands. In addition to their motive to stimulate us,
we have their bright examples by which to direct our course and regulate
our conduct.
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CONCLUSION.
The Society looks back with much gratification upon its labors. The
existing active members feel how much they owe to the philanthropic
efforts of the founders of the Association, and to those, who, having
exerted themselves with corresponding zeal in the good cause, have
bequeathed to men of this day the _improved_ work, and the augmented
duties. Every point gained developes the resources of humanity, while it
presents new objects for its exercise. How prisons are conducted, and
how prisoners are treated, where there is no voluntary organization to
alleviate their suffering, history and the report of travelers tell.
Undoubtedly religion meliorates the condition of the incarcerated,
whether his offence be vice or crime; but religion supplies itself with
means and instruments for its holy work, and we look for good results
only where there have been corresponding means. To find the effects of
unalleviated punishment upon tried offenders, is not necessary to look
far back into ages which the world calls “dark,” because light was less
diffused than at present; it is only to seek the nation or community
where arbitrary power not only inflicts the wrong of too severe
punishment, but, by its terrors, prevents the suggestion and adoption of
means by the humane which may lessen the effect of the severity, by
keeping between the sufferer and the world a connection of feeling and
sympathy that will lead him to resolve some good when the punishment for
the bad shall have been all inflicted, which shall make him feel,
indeed, that this will be a use to him of virtue, and that he may
hereafter have a reward in the recognition of its existence in him by
the society to which he may be spared. Seek the government that
understands by criminal law only the punishment of the guilty, and we
shall see that authority seizes the violator of its enactments or
decrees, and treats him as if all of humanity had perished in him with
the conception of his crime, and, dragging him from the decencies, the
enjoyments and the hopes of society, it
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.
The difference between that mode of dealing with the convict and the
lesser evil, that of allowing him to perish in inactivity, and acquire
strength in bad resolves, and instruction for future crimes, is what
policy and unaided humanity have wrought out of the condition of the
offender. The difference between the latter condition and that of the
inmates of the Philadelphia County Prison, and especially the Eastern
Penitentiary, is what results from the labor of the Philadelphia Society
for Alleviating the Miseries of Prisons. It is something, in the first
contrast, that the convict has a prison; it is more, in the latter, that
the prison is made a school of physical and moral reform.
To have been instrumental in working out such a difference is an
occasion for felicitation and thankfulness, even though there be felt a
consciousness that with such objects so well defined, and means so
complete, much less has been done to alleviate the miseries of prisons,
and arouse the attention of society to the good work, than might have
been hoped for. But a work of this kind once begun, must, of course, go
on. The hands that are now stretched forth may lose their power, but
others will be employed; and year by year, as we have seen, so shall we
see, volunteers dedicating themselves to a duty which, though painful
and often repulsive, has with it the promise of reward from Him who by
precept and example devolved it upon us.
The important work of convincing society that it has a greater interest
in the reformation of a public offender, than in his punishment, or that
it is its true interest to make his punishment a means of his
reformation, must not be allowed to fail for want of efforts or
advocacy. The great work of demonstrating the truth that crimes are
multiplied by the companionship of the culpable, must be forwarded. The
construction of prisons, and the administration of their affairs, must
still be carefully considered as one of the great objects, a leading
object of this Society, and a means of alleviating existing miseries.
The discipline, the labor, the compensation of prisoners, must have
constant attention; and the results of investigations and experiments be
made public, for the promotion of the great object of this Society.
The great work of establishing auxiliaries to the Society must be
carried forward with prudent zeal, so that, by co-operation, the labors
of all who unite with us in objects and views, may be more effective;
and, indeed, that we may by argument and illustration, increase the
number of those who unite with us in object and views.
We must augment our correspondence also, that we may fully understand
the plans and labours of philanthropists in other States and other
nations, and make them comprehend our own views, and the means by which
we seek to accomplish our object.
All these considerations, and others that seem to regard the physical
condition of prisoners, must continue to occupy the attention of our
members, and chiefly because, through those physical aids, we are to
reach his moral life. But with all these efforts towards the instruments
of good, we must continue, with unwavering, with augmented exertion, our
endeavors to reach _directly_ the hearts and consciences of those whom
we would benefit. To do this effectively, we must have patience, as well
as good will,—we must _endure_, as well as _do_: we must _learn_ the
great lesson of _teachers_, before we undertake the business of
instruction; we must feel it the great duty to ourselves, and our
mission, to “bear and forbear.” We must learn to labor and to wait,—to
bestow our toil this day and every day, but to look at a distance for
the reward of our efforts, in the fixed reformation of its objects, and
to be “instant in season and out of season,” to admonish, advise, induce
and encourage. The experience of those who have spent years at the doors
of the prison cells, is not that of multiplied fruits. The value of a
single soul must be fully appreciated, that the one redeemed from vice
may be regarded as a consolation for the hundreds that make no
improvement from efforts in their behalf. In short, we must find our
pleasure in the discharge of a duty, and leave to Him, whose commands we
obey, to give the increase for which we labor.
We may spend days and weeks, as indeed many have spent months, in
seeking to awaken the conscience of the hardened offender to the evils
of his course, and arousing him to the danger of their tendencies; and
when the object of this solicitude shall have passed from our care, and
ceased to hear our lessons, we may hear of him in the midst of
debauchery and villainies, apparently ten-fold more a child of the devil
than when we sought to soften his heart, and succeeded in raising his
tears in the criminal cell. This is the experience of all who undertake
to reclaim those who are hardened in crime or steeped in vice. But are
we, on that account, to relinquish our labors or to forego hope? Are we
to say that this backsliding is the last of the seventy times seven, and
therefore we may stand excused from further effort? That very
backsliding ought to be expected. The return of the offender to his
offence is in the course of the timid, half-repentant wrong-doer, we
know. We see it in regard to amendments of life that have relation to
private interests and individual character. We must look for it in those
who have for a long time cast off respect for social proprieties and
wholesome regard to statute laws. The probability that few to whom we
address ourselves in the cells of the incarcerated will give much heed
to our exhortations, and their liability to return to their ways of sin
and shame, notwithstanding their apparent desire to accept our
ministration and profit by the means of improvement which we present,
are known to us all before we enter upon the service. We accept the
appointment with a knowledge of the difficulties it presents. We receive
the mission to those whom the schoolmaster and the preacher have failed
to influence to good; and we are to thank God for even the small returns
from our laborious gleanings, rather than to arraign his providence or
dishonor our pursuit by complaining of small returns.
Charities have their grades, and they are entitled to commendation not
always for the amount of benefit they have conferred, or the number that
they have assisted, but rather from a consideration of the difficulties
they encounter, and the spirit in which they are conducted.
Colleges and schools have received and instructed the sound minded at
all times, and the asylums for the insane and the orphan have been
working wonderful good among the mentally afflicted and the fatherless
children; but it was left for the present age to see men of character
and science stooping to the wants of the idiot, and by painful,
protracted labor and unheard of patience, irritate into some kind of
life, the low faculties of the mentally infirm, and call into usefulness
and love, those who had been condemned, by universal judgment, to
helpless idiocy. And if this is going on in our midst,—if the wretched,
drivelling child, whose mind and body seems to be given over to utter
helplessness, can be and is called into profitable exercise and lofty
accountability, shall we hesitate to dedicate some portion of our time
to the reformation and right direction of those whose physical powers
are all that vice has left them, or whose sense of responsibility to God
and man is only clouded by the indulgence of vicious appetites, or
deadened by a repetition of those enormities which make a sense of
responsibility a curse? It is most true, as is often asserted by those
who have some experience of the faithlessness of a prisoner’s promises,
that few who seem to listen with respect to moral instruction at the
doors of their cells, ever carry into execution their solemn promises.
The state which made them contemplate and promise reformation is
changed, and they seem to feel released from their pledges. They have
before them a sense of the degradation to which their vices have reduced
them, and they shrink from a contemplation of a perpetuation of that
degradation. They feel that they stand in the presence of those whose
superior moral or social position is only the result of superior virtue,
and they think it easy to check the appetites whose indulgence is vice,
when the reward is near. They promise, and they go forth into a world
that remembers only their follies or their crimes. The means of
gratifying their appetites are available, virtue is difficult, because
the rewards are postponed; and while they are in probation with their
best friends, and under condemnation among the many, they have fewer
present inducements to virtue than they had thought, and so they fall
back into the very faults which had made them prisoners before, and
which send them again to the cells with drunkards and vagrants, who
harden them into shamelessness.
But are we to forbear to seek to reform because they have failed to keep
their promise? Are we to cease to advise kindly, and warn earnestly
because they have again yielded to their degraded and vitiated taste?
Shall we say that this man or that woman has shown himself or herself
irreclaimable, and therefore we will spend no more time, no more
kindness, on such an one? Who shall say that all is lost while life
remains? Who shall say that the seeds of moral truth are dead in his
heart because they have not yet germinated? How long vitality remains in
vegetable seeds we all know. Shall there be less vitality in the seeds
of moral truth? The wild grass grows, the useless weed, or the poisonous
plant springs up into life, and seems to invoke and warrant entire
condemnation of the soil; but let these be cut down, and how often come
forth the sweet herb and the profitable grass, whose seeds have lain
dormant while those profitless or poisonous productions were covering
the surface. At some later day, in some season of great emergency, some
hour of bitter trial, truths that seemed to have fallen profitless on
the heart of the miserable prisoner, may come forth and bless with
usefulness and peace the few closing days of a life that has been
heretofore dedicated to folly and vice. Let us, then, sow the seeds by
all waters; let us not withhold, morning or evening, our hands; and,
when we have reason to believe that these seeds have found a place in
the consenting mind of the listener, let us water them with the
refreshing influences of our experience, and warm them into growth by
that affection which is the basis of true philanthropy. It is thus we
may alleviate the miseries of prisons, and make the criminal’s cell the
vestibule to the temple of virtue and piety.
In conclusion, let it be repeated with emphasis, that we are not to be
driven from our efforts at personal reformation, by any failure of the
prisoner to justify, in liberty, the hopes which he had warranted while
in confinement. As often as he returns to his cell, he should return to
our care,—our instruction. The last resolve may be permanent. The last
“repentance may be unto life, never to be repented of.” And we shall
have occasion, perhaps, in our observations upon life, to conclude that
the best of mankind will find the fruition of their highest hopes less
in the amount of their innocency than in the frequency of their
repentance.
JAMES J. BARCLAY,
_President_.
JOHN J. LYTLE, _Secretary_.
PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY 1864.
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LIFE MEMBERS.
ON PAYMENT OF TWENTY DOLLARS AND UPWARDS.
Ashmead, H. B.
Barclay, James J.
Bache, Franklin, M. D.
Bonsall, Edward H.
Besson, Charles A.
Cope, Caleb
Ellis, Charles
Fotteral, Stephen G.
Foulke, William P.
Hacker, Jeremiah
Horton, John
Hollingsworth, Thomas G.
Knight, Reeve L.
Leaming, J. Fisher
Love, Alfred H.
Longstreth, William W.
Marshall, Richard M.
Ogden, John M.
Perot, Joseph
Perkins, Samuel H.
Parrish, Dillwyn
Powers, Thomas H.
Potter, Thomas
Pennock, George
Sharpless, Charles L.
Sharpless, Samuel J.
Steedman, Miss Rosa
Turnpenny, Joseph C.
Townsend, Samuel
Whelen, E. S.
Willits, A. A.
Weightman, William
Williams, Henry J.
Waln, S. Morris
Yarnall, Charles
Yarnall, Benjamin H.
------------------
MEMBERS.
Armstrong, William, M. D.
Anderson, V. William
Atmore, Frederick B.
Ash, Joshua P.
Brown, John A.
Brown, Moses
Brown, Thomas Wistar
Brown, Abraham C.
Brown, N. B.
Brown, David S.
Brown, Joseph D.
Brown, Mary D.
Bell, John, M. D.
Biddle, William
Biddle, John
Barton, Isaac
Burgin, George H., M. D.
Bohlen, John
Binney, Horace, Jr.
Bayard, James
Beesley, T. E., M. D.
Beesley, B. Wistar
Bowen, William E.
Bettle, Samuel
Bettle, William
Baldwin, Matthias W.
Barcroft, Stacy B.
Baily, Joel J.
Burr, William H.
Boardman, H. A.
Bacon, Richard W.
Bacon, Josiah
Brock, Jonathan
Barclay, Andrew C.
Brooke, Stephen H.
Baines, Edward
Bispham, Samuel
Broadbent, S.
Brant, Josiah
Brooks, Henry
Beckwith, J. H., Rev.
Corse, J. M., M. D.
Cope, Alfred
Cope, M. C.
Cope, Henry
Cope, Francis R.
Cope, Thomas P.
Colwell, Stephen
Caldwell, James E.
Caldwell, William Warner
Cresson, John C.
Claghorn, John W.
Chandler, Joseph R.
Carter, John
Carter, John E.
Campbell, James R.
Comegys, B. B.
Childs, George W.
Child, H. T., M. D.
Chance, Jeremiah C.
Coates, Benjamin
Chamberlain, Lloyd
Conrad, James M.
Cooke, Jay
Collier, Daniel L.
Comly, Franklin A.
Cope, Herman
Collins, Jos. H.
Corlies, Samuel Fisher
Campbell, Edward S.
Crenshaw, Edmund A.
Ducachet, Henry W., D. D.
Dawson, Mordecai L.
Dorsey, William
Dutilh, E. G.
Ditzler, William U.
Dreer, Ferdinand J.
Dickinson, Mahlon H.
Davis, R. C.
Derbyshire, Alexander J.
Derbyshire, John
Duane, William
Earp, Thomas
Evans, Charles, M. D.
Evans, William, Jr.
Evans, Robert E.
Evans, J. Wistar
Erringer, J. L.
Edwards, William L.
Elkinton, Joseph
Elkinton, George M.
Ellison, John B.
Emlen, Samuel
Eyre, William
Erety, George
Farnum, John
Fraley, Frederick
Fullerton, Alex.
Farr, John C.
Frazier, John F.
Ford, William
Ford, John M.
Furness, William H.
Field, Charles J.
Fox, Henry C.
Franciscus, Albert H.
Funk, Charles W.
Garrett, Thomas C.
Griffin, E., M. D.
Greeves, James R.
Gilpin, John F.
Grigg, John
Gummere, Charles J.
Hunt, Uriah
Hockley, John
Holloway, John S.
Husband, Thomas J.
Hughes, Joseph B.
Homer, Henry
Homer, Benjamin
Hand, James C.
Hazeltine, John
Hastings, Matthew
Huston, Samuel
Hacker, Morris
Hacker, William
Hunt, William, M. D.
Hurley, Aaron A.
Harbert, Charles
Hunn, Ezekiel
Hunneker, John
Henderson, Robert
Ingersoll, Joseph R.
Ingram, William
Iungerich, Lewis
Jackson, Charles C.
Janney, Benjamin S., Jr.
Jeanes, Joshua T.
Jenks, William P.
Jones, Isaac C.
Jones, Jacob P.
Jones, Isaac T.
Jones, William D.
Jones, Justice P.
Jones, William Pennel
Johnson, Israel H.
Johnson, Ellwood
Johnston, Robert S.
Justice, Philip S.
Kaighn, James E.
Kane, Thomas L.
Kelley, William D.
Kelly, Henry H.
Ketcham, John
Kiderlen, William L. J.
Kimber, Thomas
Kingsbury, Charles A., M. D.
Kinsey, William
Kirkpatrick, James A.
Kintzing, William F.
Kitchen, James, M. D.
Kneedler, J. S.
Knight, Edward C.
Knorr, G. Frederick
Klapp, Joseph, M. D.
Klein, John
Laing, Henry M.
Lambert, John
Latimer, Thomas
Leeds, Josiah W.
Lewis, Henry
Lewis, Edward
Lippincott, John
Lippincott, Joshua
Longstreth, J. Cooke
Lovering, Joseph S.
Lovering, Joseph S., Jr.
Ludwig, William C.
Lynch, William
Lytle, John J.
McCall, Peter
Meredith, William M.
Milliken, George
Myers, John B.
Morris, Isaac P.
Maris, John M.
Morris, Charles M.
Morris, Wistar
Morris, Caspar, M. D.
Morris, Anthony P.
Morris, Elliston P.
Montgomery, Richard R.
Mercer, Singleton A.
Mullen, William J.
Megarge, Charles
Martin, Abraham
McAllister, John, Jr.
McAllister, John A.
McAllister, William Y.
MacAdam, William R.
McAllister, T. H.
Marsh, Benjamin V.
Morton, Samuel C.
Merrill, William O. B.
Morrell, R. B.
Mellor, Thomas
Mitcheson, M. J.
Mead, John O.
Norris, Samuel
Neall, Daniel
Needles, William N.
Nesmith, Alfred
Nicholson, William
Neuman, L. C., Rev.
Ormsby, Henry
Orne, Benjamin
Purves, William
Parrish, Joseph, M. D.
Poulson, Charles A.
Perot, William S.
Perot, Francis
Perot, Charles P.
Perot, T. Morris
Patterson, Joseph
Patterson, Morris
Patterson, William C.
Potter, Alonzo, D. D., Rt. Rev.
Price, Eli K.
Price, Richard
Pearsall, Robert
Pitfield, Benjamin H.
Peters, James
Potts, Joseph
Parry, Samuel
Palmer, Charles
Perkins, Henry
Potts, Thomas P.
Quinn, John A.
Richardson, Richard
Richardson, William H.
Robins, Thomas
Robins, John, Jr.
Ritter, Abraham, Jr.
Rasin, Warner M.
Robb, Charles
Rehn, William L.
Rutter, Clement S.
Ruth, John
Roberts, Algernon S.
Ridgway, Thomas
Robinson, Thomas A.
Randolph, Philip P.
Rowland, A. G.
Richards, George K.
Smedley, Nathan
Shippen, William, M. D.
Scull, David
Schaffer, William L.
Scattergood, Joseph
Shannon, Ellwood
Sharpless, William P.
Simons, George W.
Smith, Nathan
Stokes, Samuel E.
Shoemaker, Benjamin H.
Speakman, Thomas H.
Starr, F. Ratchford
Saunders, McPherson
Stokes, Edward D.
Sloan, Samuel
Smith, Joseph P.
Stuart, George H.
Stewart, William S.
Stewart, James
Townsend, Edward
Taylor, Franklin
Taylor, John D.
Taylor, George W.
Trewendt, Theodore
Tredick, B. T.
Thomas, John
Taber, George
Troutman, George M.
Thornley, Joseph H.
Thissel, H. N.
Van Pelt, Peter, D. D.
Vaux, George
Wharton, Thomas F.
Wood, Horatio C.
Welsh, William
Welsh, Samuel
Welsh, John
Wetherill, John M.
Williamson, Passmore
White, John J.
Wainwright, William
Wright, Samuel
Wright, Isaac K.
Willets, Jeremiah
Wiegand, John
Wilstach, William P.
Williamson, Peter
Warner, Redwood F.
Walton, Coates
Williams, Jacob T.
Wilson, Ellwood, M. D.
Woodward, Charles W.
Whilldin, Alexander
Watt, John H.
Wickersham, Morris S.
Wetherill, John, Jr.
Way, J. Tunis
------------------
CORRESPONDING MEMBERS.
Senor Soldan, Peru, South America.
John S. Richards, Reading, Berks Co., Pennsylvania.
Hon. Townsend Haines, West Chester, Chester Co., Pennsylvania.
Hon. Andrew G. Curtin, Harrisburg, Dauphin Co., Pennsylvania.
Hon. Charles W. Higgins, Pottsville, Schuylkill Co., Pennsylvania.
Charles Lott, Lottsville, Warren Co., Pennsylvania.
Morris C. Jones, Bethlehem, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania.
Henry Eckroid, Muncy, Lycoming Co., Pennsylvania.
George Willits, Catawissa, Columbia Co., Pennsylvania.
Wm. A. Thomas, Bellefonte, Centre Co., Pennsylvania.
Dr. David, Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe.
Robert Smeal, Glasgow, Scotland.
Rev. E. C. Winis, New York.
Hon. John Princkle Jones, Reading, Berks Co., Pennsylvania.
Hon. John Nesbit Cunningham, Wilksbarre, Luzerne Co., Penna.
Hon. Warren J. Woodward, Reading, Berks Co., Pennsylvania.
Hon. Henry G. Long, Lancaster, Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania.
Hon. A. L. Hays, Lancaster, Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania.
Hon. John Peirson, Harrisburg, Dauphin Co., Pennsylvania.
Dr. John Atlee, Lancaster, Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania.
William J. Allinson, Burlington, New Jersey.
------------------
ARTICLE IV.
The Treasurer shall keep the moneys and securities, and pay all orders
of the Society or of the Acting Committee, signed by the presiding
officer and Secretary; and shall present a statement of the condition of
the finances of the Society at each stated meeting thereof.
All bequests, donations, and life-subscriptions shall be safely
invested; only the income thereof to be applied to the current expenses
of the Society.
ARTICLE V.
The Acting Committee shall consist of the officers of the Society,
ex-officio, and fifty other members. They shall visit the prison at
least twice 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 on the morals of the prisoners. They shall keep regular
minutes of their proceedings, which shall be submitted at every stated
meeting of the Society; and shall be authorized to fill vacancies
occurring in their own body, whether arising from death, or removal from
the city, or from inability or neglect to visit the prisons in
accordance with their regulations. They shall also have the sole power
of electing new members.
ARTICLE VI.
Candidates for membership may be proposed at any meeting of the Society
or of the Acting Committee; but no election shall take place within ten
days after such nomination. Each member shall pay an annual contribution
of two dollars; but the payment of twenty dollars at any one time shall
constitute a life membership.
ARTICLE VII.
Honorary members may be elected at such times as the Society may deem
expedient.
ARTICLE VIII.
The Society shall hold stated meetings on the _fourth_ fifth day
(Thursday) in the months called January, April, July, and October, of
whom seven shall constitute a quorum.
ARTICLE IX.
No alterations of the Constitution shall be made, unless the same shall
have been proposed at a stated meeting of the Society, held not less
than a month previous to the adoption of such alterations. 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 the casting vote.
------------------
OFFICERS OE THE SOCIETY.
1864.
PRESIDENT, JAMES J. BARCLAY.
VICE-PRESIDENTS, WILLIAM SHIPPEN, M. D.
JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.
TREASURER, EDWARD H. BONSALL.
SECRETARIES, JOHN J. LYTLE,
EDWARD TOWNSEND.
COUNSELLORS, HENRY J. WILLIAMS,
CHARLES GIBBONS.
_Members of the Acting Committee._
Charles Ellis,
William S. Perot,
Thomas Latimer,
John M. Wetherill,
Abram C. Brown,
Benjamin H. Pitfield,
James E. Kaighn,
Alfred H. Love,
Jeremiah Willits,
William H. Burr,
George Taber,
William L. J. Kiderlen,
Mahlon H. Dickinson,
William Ingram,
James Peters,
Robert E. Evans,
Charles Palmer,
Charles P. Perot,
Abram Martin,
Wm. Armstrong, M. D.,
William Nicholson,
Charles W. Funk,
Philip P. Randolph,
Samuel Townsend,
Albert G. Roland,
Benj. H. Shoemaker,
Lewis C. Neuman,
Wm. Warner Caldwell,
Henry Perkins,
George M. Elkinton,
William R. MacAdam,
J. M. Corse, M. D.,
E. Griffin, M. D.,
William Hacker,
Isaac Barton,
J. H. Beckwith,
Thomas A. Robinson,
John H. Watt,
George Milliken,
John Klein,
Theodore Trewendt.
_Visiting Committee on the Eastern Penitentiary._
Edward H. Bonsall,
John J. Lytle,
Edward Townsend,
Abram C. Brown,
James E. Kaighn,
Alfred H. Love,
Jeremiah Willits,
William H. Burr,
George Taber,
William L. J. Kiderlen,
Mahlon H. Dickinson,
James Peters,
Robert E. Evans,
William R. MacAdam,
Charles Palmer,
William Nicholson,
Charles W. Funk,
Samuel Townsend,
Albert G. Roland,
Benj. H. Shoemaker,
William Hacker,
J. M. Corse, M. D.,
E. Griffin, M. D.,
Isaac Barton,
George Milliken,
J. H. Beckwith,
Theodore Trewendt.
_Visiting Committee on the County Prison._
William Shippen, M. D.,
Charles Ellis,
William S. Perot,
Thomas Latimer,
John M. Wetherill,
Benjamin H. Pitfield,
William Ingram,
Charles P. Perot,
Abram Martin,
Wm. Armstrong, M. D.,
Philip P. Randolph,
Joseph R. Chandler,
L. C. Neuman,
Henry Perkins,
George M. Elkinton,
Wm. Warner Caldwell,
Thomas A. Robinson,
John Klein.
☞ WILLIAM J. MULLEN is Agent of the County Prison, appointed by the
Inspectors, and acting under their direction, and also appointed by the
Prison Society.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ The tables on pages 111 and 146 were changed to remove ditto
marks.
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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