The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-21 00:00:00

Mr. TALLACK'S letter on American prisons fairly
describes the good and bad, and contrasts them
with those of England. In America, as he says,
there are the best and perhaps the worst of any in
Christendom, and they may be sought where they
may be expected to be found, the good, in old Puri-
; tan Massachusetts, and the bail in the Empire State,
surcharged with the dregs of European emigration.
Recently there has been a discussion at Albany
bAween the Prison Association and the authorities
of the State prisons. Mr. TALLACK alludes to the
shower bath, buck, and yoke as punishments still
in force in the State prisons of New York, but this
is a mistake, as they were abolished by an Act
passed last winter, to which the Inspectors ascribe
the disorders now attracting general notice, more
especially to Sing Sing. The practice of applying
to the source of the evil for information may not
be without its advantages when sagaciously acted
on, but no source could be worse for eliciting the
real truth, unless the evidence is weighed by skilful
hands, and both sides fully beard. A legislative
committee was directed to take evidence regarding
a late serious revolt in Sing Sing, and the investi-
gation showed that more than 100 convicts were
" shower-bathed" last year, which, instead of sup-
pressing outbreaks, the committee considered to
have been their principal cause, together with other
barbarous punishments. Sing Sing has undeniably
been in a deplorable state since the passage of the
Act; but so it was before these punishments had
been abolished, and the committee as a remedial
measure proposed to the Legislature their abo-
lition. Yet the Inspectors at the meeting in Al-
bany ascribe the recent outbreaks to the passage of
this law, and therefore strongly recommend its re-
peal, which is backed as we are given to understand
by Governor HOFFMAN himself. The editor of the
Naples and Florence Observer, in a long article in a
late number on the prisons of Naples, informs his
readers that from 1860 up to 1868 he was one of
the regular visitors, and he describes the improve-

ments in what were formerly supposed to be the
worst prisons in the world. The torture inflicted
has never equalled the proceedings in Sing Sing.
The punishments in the Naples prisons, according
to regulations, are six, the cells with bread and
water, and the strait-waistcoat in cases of great vio-
lence, but no other torture is allowed, nor are these
considered to be tortures, nor could any officer hope
tointroduce any barbarity without detection. In the
cells a decided improvement has taken place, as in
1860 they were so loathsome that a few days could
scarcely fail to injure health. The strait-waistcoat
is a kind of coffin, wherein is laid a straw mattress
fitted across with two leather straps to tie down the
victim. There were three of these; but they were
evidently more designed for the treatment of the
insane than for refractory persons. The prisons of
Naples are condemned more from the unfitness of
the buildings, which were intended for forts or ma-
gazines, than from any other cause. The criminals
are intermixed and overcr3wded in edifices incap-
able of adaptation to the purpose. in S. Lazzaro
there were 94 persons last February, where the fit-
tings were for 60 ; at the same time, in the Carmine,
600 were crammed into a space where only 400
should have been ; and the guardiano observed there
was room for more ! In the Castel Capuano, dur-
ing the preceding month 864 convicts were packed
like herrings, in rooms pronounced to be capable of
holding only 500, confusion and uproar extending to
the gates, and utterlyannihilating the means of clean-
liness.
.The regulations prescribed changes of linen and
baths, which the crowd rendered impossible, though
light was freely admitted, while the food was good
and sufficient. A commission had just reported on
the prisons, and it observes that abuses exist which
cannot easily be corrected, reform being expected
only from the increased morality of the gaolers and
diminished agglomeration of the prisoners. This
is similar to the conclusion at which the Secretary
of the Howard Association arrives, who evidently
attributes, in no small degree, the condition of the
New York State prisons to the immorality of the
..t,O gaolers. The Prison Law of 1847 imposes on Inspec-
ts the duty of erecting iu each of the New Y9ll,-
State prisons, cells of not less than 996 cubic feet, for
the imprisonment of each convict found incorrigibly
disobedient; but though passed 22 years ago, it has
never been acted on, although the late conference
insisted on its urgent necessity. The great object
of the regulation is to get out of the way the most
vicious, which has always the effect of making the
rest more tractable, and indulgences can be per-
mitted after those who would abuse them have been
removed. Dr. GRISCOM proposed at this conference
to lengthen the sentence for bad conduct, a plan
Mr. HAYNES, of the Massachusetts State Prison,
has all along advised. On one hand good conduct
should shorten the sentence; on the other, bad con-

duct should lengthen it. Mr. HAYNES, on public
holidays, gives the whole body of the prisoners un-
.. . .

der his charge the broadest liberty for conversation
and amusement in the prison yards ; and this, after

years of trial, unsanctioned by law, was so approved
by the Legislature that it received legal sanction,
permission being extended to the prison authorities
to increase these indulgences. Charleston prison esta-

Wished four years ago winter courses of popular and
- - -

scientific lectures, and this has been done with the
happiest effects ; indeed Mr. lIAyNEs asserts that
his prisoners, to whom these indulgences are ex-
tended, work as well as ordinary men—a fact which

Mr. TALLACK'S statement in our last issue of the
profits of the prison fully bears out. There is an-

other point established by the Charleston prison.
The cld parti-coloured dress was discarded four
years ago with the best results, Rhode Island and

Wisconsin, as well as the Albany Penitentiary,

following the example of Massachusetts.

It is

argued that on entering his prison the convict
should be taught that he has a character to redeem,
a future of usefulness to create, as well as to be made

to be feel the disgrace of his crime and sentence.

The National' Labour Congress objects to prison
work, but on a principle as false as it is sel-

fish.

It seems impossible to instil into the

minds of the delegates that the greater the
useful production, the more is society benefited,
themselves, in common with others, though there
always must be exceptional cases of loss and
suffering. If prisons could be made self-supporting,
so much the better for the community as well as for
the prisoners. The discipline in force in the military
prisons of England, which makes the prisoners each
carry a cannon ball a certain distance to be de-

posited on the ground, then taken up and carried
on by the man following, in an eternal round of

useless labour, is radically unsound, breaking the
heart of the men in work that can be of no possible
good. The very essence of reform lies in instructing
the convicts to be useful members of the community,
and this sound principle is fundamentally violated
by such discipline.

NAVAL ITEMS.—The story circulated by a Havre
paper of the mutiny on board the United States frigate
Sabine was telegraphed to America, where it met little
credence. The officers of the Navy considered it to be in
the highest degree improbable that Captain Walker would
exercise the arbitrary power of hanging seven of his sea-
men, considering that he had a full complement of officers,
and probably a sufficient number of men not connected with
the conspiracy to carry the prisoners to the United States.
The Sabine has on board about GO midshipmen of the class
which graduated last June and sailed from Boston early
in July. Her officers are Commander John G. Walker,
commanding; Lieutenant-Commander G. C. Ramey, Geo.
P. Ryan, Wm. It. Bridgman, John H Bartlett, Philip H.
Cooper, Theodore F. Jewell, and Charles J. Train; Sur-
genn George Peck, Passed Assistant-Surgeon Daniel
Dl'Murtrie, Assistant-Surgeon Henry Stewart, Passed
Assistant-Paymaster E. W. Whitehouse, Captain of
Marines 11. B. Lowry. It is the intention of the Naval
Department at Washington to reduce the number of vessels
in the squadrons now in commission. The following
their present strength : European Squadron, six vessels ;
North Pacific, seven; North Atlantic, eight; Asiatic, nine;
South Pacific, five ; South Atlantic, five ; special service,
three—total, 43. One vessel from the South Pacific is now
on her way home. The total force last year was 51 vessels,
with four on special service. Admiral Porter and Com-
modore Alden, in consequence of Secretary Robeson's
decision to abandon the completeness of his tour, were to
return to Washington.

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