The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-06
THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1859.
PRISON DISCIPLINE.

daily discussion, the copious extracts from the
annual report of the Inspectors of the Eastern
Pepitentary which we printed yesterday are
deserying of the most careful consideration.
The arguments of the Inspectors all tend to the
support of one potnt-the superiority of the
separate over the congregate system of prison
discipline as means of reformation; and it
must be acknowledged, even by the most Jealous
advocate of the congregate system, that the
Inspectors make out very strong case. There
is in this and every other community class of
people, the very quintessence OF respectaOility,
who have no faith whatever in humanity outside
of their own circle. The old rhyme of our school
days
s0Theres no repentance in the grave,
Nor pardon offered to the dead
they seek to apply to the living as well, and
stoutly maintain that creature who has once
gone seriously astray, who has openly and re-
peatedIy defed nearly every command in the
Decalogue, is lost beyond all hope and that he
shall therefore be shut in forever from the world.
There may at best be but limited chance for
reformation but the congregate system sur
rounds the convict with thousand temptations
and thousand incentives to the continuance of
q criminal career, after liberty is regained from
which he is happily relieved by the separate sys-
TEN. The records prove that out of given num-
Der of discharged convicts nearly twice as many
have been recommitted in Massachusetts, where
the congregate system has prevailed as in Penn
sylyanis, and this result is perfectly natural.
The convict sent to the Eastern Penetentiary
forms no new criminal associations, and when
he leaves its walls, if he chooses to seek new
home and to begin new life, he has nothing to
fear from the exposure and denuncation of
his old fellow-crminals. There are a considera-
n &c ,von IN xxyhip oh
thorough reformation has thus been effected,
and there are living now in various portions of
the United States honest, Industrious, and use
full men who paid the penalty of youthful
crime within the walls of Cherry Hill, but who
have none of the difficulties to contend with
which Victor Hugo has SO graphically portrayed
in his sketch of Jean Vatican. Congregate
prisons are inevitably schools of crime. They
afford ample opportunities for villains of every
grade to disseminate their criminal knowledge;
and az every man discharged must feel that he
may at any moment be recognized and exposed
by one of his associates the difficulties involved
in the commencement and continuance of an
honest career are immeasurably increased.
These advantages are so obvious that they are
almost universally conceded, and the opponents
of the separate system antagOnize it mainly on
two grounds first Ethat:it is inhuman to deprive
a man of society; and second that separate con-
Vict labor is less profitable than congreSate con-
vict labor.
The logical answer to the first objection is,
that the Pennsylvania system contemplates
separate but not solitary coniinemcnt and that
while the prisoner is deprived of all bad assOcia-
tions he is brought into direct contact with
good influences
1t was formerly alleged that the Pennsylvania
L. 1.l
but this theory is not sustained by the statistics;
for while the percentage of deaths in the East
en Penitentiary was not much larger than the
percentage in the Massachusetts State Prison,
the percentage sent to lunatic asylum was
much greater under the cOngregate than the
separate system of confinement
The fallacy of expecting to realize substantial
profits from congregate convict labor is demon
strated by the experience of New York, where
the excess of expenditure over earnings in the
Sing Sing and Auburn Prisons during the last
three years, has amounted to nearly six hundred
thousand dollars; and, so far as economical con-
siderations are concerned, the Pennsylvania sys-
TEN needs no better vindication than the fact
that the whole cost of maintaining the prisoners,
exclusive of the appropriation by the Common
wealth, was but thirty-six cents per capita per
diem.
What Pennsylvania most needs now is the
erection of new penitentiary, or the enlarge
ment of the old ones, and the improvement OF
the county jails, or the establishment of such q
system as will ensure the proper confinement OF
all prisoners.
The report Of the Inspectors also gives an in
structye lesson as to the primary cause OF
crime. OF the 253 prisoners committed during
the last year, only al were illiterate, while 18t
could read and write; SO their crimes cannot be
charged to ignorance. Intemperance no doub
had an influence, but 40 of the convicts were
abstaiuers 134 moderate drinkers Severe some
times intoxicated, and only 20 often intoxi
Gated. But under the head of industrial rela
tions" we are informed that of the 253 con
victs, only II had served full terms of appren
tceship 81 had been 'apprenticed and left
while 2O5, or more than eighty per cent of tn
whole number, had been unapprenticed
The Penitentiary, therefore, evidently gather
its recruits mainly from the large and CROWN
class who are too indolent or too ignorant t
work effectively too proud to beg, and VIII
resort to dishonest practices for livelihood
OF all the prisoners confined within its wall
three-fourths were sentenced Tor la
ceny, robbery, counterieiting, or torger
The true field for reformatory effort
10 teach the rising generation now
work. Let us have more industrial schools,
improved apprenticeship system, and mo
general recognition among all classes OF o
truth old as the hills but as unchangng th
an idle brain is the Devils workshop, and th
a youth souandered in inefficient folly natural
leads to criminal manhood.