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ART. V.-The Sixth Report of the Committee of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, and for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders. London. 1824. pp. 365. First Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, in the City of New York. New York. 1825. pp. 52.

WE deem it a solemn duty, and well worthy the character of a religious publication, to call the attention of our readers to the execution of the criminal laws in this country. No subject connected with practical morality is in our estimation more important. Our gaols and penitentiaries are fountainheads of iniquity. Malefactors, of both sexes, of every age, of all degrees of moral turpitude, are there collected, associated, and sunk still deeper in depravity. Our just causes of exultation as citizens of a happy, improving, and respected nation, as partakers of the benefits, which are derived from the vast improvements of this great era, must suffer no inconsiderable abatement from the circumstance, that such tardy advances have been made in the science of prison discipline. Human ingenuity, enterprise, and benevolence have exerted their strongest energies, on almost every other subject. The earth, air, and ocean bear witness to the never resting genius of invention, discovery, and improvement. Most visible things show marks of innovation; and sober truth must acknowledge, that the revolutions, which have taken place during the first quarter of the passing century, have been beneficial and wonderful. A host of illustrious names share the honor of improving the condition of man in other ways, while in that to which we have referred, a few individuals monopolize the admiration, with which selfdevotion in the cause of humanity is viewed, even by those whom it does not excite to imitation. What shall we say, then? that men will exert their faculties only for their own emolument? that selfishness is the chief motive of action? that all the bustle we witness proceeds from a desire of gain, or to attract the gaze of the world? We cannot so regard it. We believe that amidst all the jostling and competition society exhibits, a generous, disinterested, christian energy moves on the face of things; that the hearts of thousands feel deeply the condition of the ignorant and criminal; that the minds of thou

sands are intently busy in devising schemes of benevolence, mainly anxious for the glory of God and the good of mankind.

If then it is asked by one whose views of society are darker than ours, why the spirit of improvement has not been more active in prisons, it may be answered, the evils are invisible. Prison walls shut out their wretched inmates from observation. The passing, busy throng, do not think of the multitudes who are excluded from the walks of life, or think of them only with breathings of vengeance. The philanthropic, with few exceptions, are engrossed by the obtrusive objects of ignorance and vice. But we are not the apologists of that great and deplorable neglect, with which the abodes of convicts have been treated. Society has overlooked an allimportant duty, and has been visited with heavy judgments in consequence. If crime has not kept pace with the rapid increase of population, it is owing more to various other powerful counteracting causes, than to those improvements in criminal jurisprudence and prison discipline, which might have been expected in this age. It is our object in the present article, to aid in directing the attention of the public to the enormous evils existing, to arouse men to a due sense of their culpable neglect of the victims of the laws, to point out a field of benevolent exertion to such as wish to benefit the age in which Providence has cast their lot.

Two experiments have been tried, in relation to criminal jurisprudence and prison discipline, the Sanguinary and Penitentiary Systems. In former days, a cruel and bloody spirit prevailed, characteristic of the military spirit, and severe policy of the times, and, as we fear, of the vindictive character ascribed by many portions of the christian world to the Supreme Being. But in the progress of society, and owing to the prevalence of juster and more scriptural views of the Divine nature, the wrath of man against his erring fellow man has been abated. Though in some European nations and in parts of this country, the sanguinary code still exists in form, it serves only to tempt the ill disposed to violate laws, which the increased humanity of the age will not suffer to be faithfully executed., It deforms the statute book, but has ceased to brutalize society. As a system, it has completely failed.

The Penitentiary System had its origin in the United States, and trial has been made of it by the principal members of the

Union. Its object is to create habits of industry and order, to excite contrition, to effect amendment. In order to recommend it to the favor of the people, the low principle of avarice has been appealed to, and extraordinary efforts have been employed, and successfully in a few instances, to make the prisoners support themselves. Although cases of reformation have occurred, imputable, probably, to the fact that the characters of the convicts were better at first than their offences indicated; yet throughout the United States there has been a very general feeling of disappointment, and the experiment is considered as abortive. The vengeance of the laws, and the arbitrary deportment of prison keepers, have not broken the obdurate hearts of criminals; nor have the indulgences of wholesome food, moderate labor, and companionship with fellow culprits, softened their breasts with penitence. The first system represented society, and arrayed the ministers of justice, as the avengers of crime, carrying on an unfeeling warfare with the defenceless, and inspired the offender's mind with a deadly hate, a belief that he might act on the defensive, a determination to revenge, when a fit opportunity should occur. Branded as a villain, the mark of Cain set upon him, freed from chains and a dungeon, his hand, like Ishmael's, was against every man, as he expected every man's hand would be against him. Let no one, filled with honest disgust at the abuses of the Penitentiary System, defend a return to the barbarous practices of former times. Sanguinary laws neither terrify nor reform, but only harden the heart. The history of the English criminal code, which made upwards of two hundred crimes capital, demonstrates the inutility of legal severity. Mild laws, and the certain infliction of punishment, are much more effectual. Vindictive justice is not an attribute of the christian religion. Civilization has effected much, independently of christianity, to render criminal law less severe; but this divine system alone is entitled to the praise of inculcating the sentiment, that punishment should aim at reforming the character.

The lenient, by a remarkable misnomer, styled the Penitentiary System, exempts the prisoner from corporal punishment, scanty food, fetters, the horrors of solitude and inaction. On the contrary, it has cheered him in his seclusion from the world, by society more congenial to his taste; it has placed him in a

school of mutual instruction; it has given savoury fare to strengthen and animate him, and opportunities to make himself, and those around him, twofold more the children of hell than before. Neither system has regarded much the differences in delinquents, either of sex or of age. Punishment has been graduated to the offence, rather than to the degree of guilt. The distinctions in character, the variety of temptation, the estimates of crimes in the minds of offenders and in the communities in which they were educated, have been overlooked. Indeed, an almost universal belief now exists, that the vast machinery of Penitentiaries, is worse than useless; that they are the seminaries of vice and crime, their hardened inmates setting the community at defiance, adding a proselyte to worse iniquity in almost every new associate, and looking forward to the day of deliverance as to the day of revenge, or as giving an opportunity to repeat their crimes.

That there is truth in this picture, cannot be denied. Still we are not of the number of those who would altogether abandon the system of Penitentiaries, conceiving that with suitable improvement, it will be found adequate to effect all that may be reasonably expected. Bad as it is, we are satisfied that the other system was infinitely worse. It has been stated, that it has proved three times as efficacious in preventing crimes as the Sanguinary practice. This assertion appears to be corroborated by the fact, that the number of criminals has not increased in an equal ratio with the population, either in Europe or this country. This is particularly the case with respect to those guilty of the more atrocious crimes. If thus much has been done by a system fraught with so many evils, what anticipations of good may not reasonably be indulged, when prison discipline shall be administered according to the enlightened policy, which is beginning to dawn upon society.

It is now an established truth, that in prisons conducted on bad principles, crime and misery are produced and multiplied; and that in prisons, in which there is inspection, instruction, and employment, crime and misery will certainly be lessened, and the reformation of criminals be effected.*

* See 'Notes on a Visit made to some of the Prisons in Scotland and England in Company with Elizabeth Fry, by Joseph John Gurney,' a small work of much interest and merit.

Let us glance at the system, which prevailed within the recollection of most men now on the stage of active life. Prisons were considered only as receptacles of malefactors. Their seclusion and punishment were the only objects contemplated by the laws. Absolute idleness, or trifling and vicious employments, filled up the measure of their days. When driven to labor, it was for punishment, or to lessen the expenses of the establishment. The moral, intellectual, or physical improvement of the culprits was not thought of, or was disregarded. Suffering, in every form of cruelty and loathsomeness, was the lot of the incarcerated. We are informed, on undoubted authority, that not many years since, the prisoners in the great prison in Philadelphia, placed in the centre of the population of that refined and elegant city, were kept by day and by night, in one common herd, without distinction of age, color, or sex; that the prison keeper freely sold spirituous liquors to the inmates, at a bar within the prison, and with the knowledge of the public authorities; that to obtain money to purchase liquors, great outrages were customarily committed by stripping fellow prisoners on their first admission to gaol, which was 'a custom of long standing, under the name of garnish,' say the minutes of the Supreme Executive Council of the year 1788; that children were permitted to remain in prison with their parents; that female convicts were allowed to associate with girls and young women confined by their masters or mistresses for sale or temporary punishment; that debtors and persons committed for criminal offences were indiscriminately confined together; that prison keepers were suspected of unlawful partnerships with the culprits; that the pitiable objects of punishment were hardly screened from the public eye; that passengers were assailed by obscene and profane expressions from the windows; and that the prisoners, in garbs that compelled them to shun the light of day, were, at the expiration of their terms of confinement, turned out into the midst of a populous city, ignorant, pennyless, and reckless of every thing useful, moral or religious. When the first attempt was made to preach to the convicts, the keeper reluctantly admitted the clergyman, though in the discharge of official duty, through the iron gate to a platform

* See Vaux'' Notices of the original and successive Efforts to improve the Discipline of the Prison at Philadelphia,' &c. 1826.