Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1870-11-29
Solitary Confinement.

We remember few years ago DR..
Phelps of Windsor made report to the
legislature upon the case of one or two
men confined in our state prison under
sentence of death. They had been kept
there several years and the Governor did
not issue his warrant, at the end OF the
first twelve months of their incarceration,
for execution, as the law required. DIR.
Phelps gave the most melancholy picture
of the effect of their Imprisonment upon
the minds and bodies of these men, and
concluded with the Inference that the ex-
ecution of the sentence of death by hang
ing was far more reasonable, mercltul
and Christian penalty than solitary con-
finement. We do not know that in either
of these instances there was any remark
able severity, anything more than the
wear upon the spirit of a protracted con-
inement, shut out from the blessings of
earth, and all the joys of human society.
In fact this is the chief torture of such
penalty The murderer who is SEN
fenced to Imprisonment for life, under our
present system, bids farewell to hope
when he enters within the sepulchre of
stone which is to be his tomb, long even
before his death. Thenceforth he is not
at liberty to raise his eyes to the light Of
heaven. His tongue is TO keep perpetual
silence His mind is to work upon itself
and its wheels are to revolve, not about
any useful work and business of life, but
about its own reflections, sorrows, fears
and hopeless agonies. The spirit is to
work upon itself, without restor diversion; !;
consuming, fretting, wearing and tearing
its own structure. He who enters there
leaves all hope behind him forever.
What can be the effect upon a sensitive
organization but madness, the widest lu-
macy; and upon stupid and brutal or
ganization but idiocy? To such, a slow,
consuming process, in which mind, heart
and body are devoted to perpetual, unin-
terrupted torture, the scafoId is a mercy,
and the guillotine very angel of God.
But, besides great criminals, others are
subject to similar discipline in our
state prisons. 1t may not be the same in
kind. The man who goes there is subject
in greater or less degree to the influence
which weakens and demoralizes the moral
and intellectual nature. We do not know
that the extreme rigidlty of our prison
systom has been relaxed in the last few
years We do not know that the convicts
are more likely to come forth from their
incarceration reformed and better men
We do not know that the legislature has
made any better or adequate provision for
their religious, moral aud intellectual in
struction, for correcting their vicious pro-
pensities aud bringing them under health
ful influences. If the system has been
modified and made more corrective and
refonnatory and produced a more salutary
effect upon the hearts and consciences of
the prisoners, and given them in any de-
gree more selt-respect and self-control,
and qualified them any better for the So
cial responsibilities they have violated,
we have not yet learned it On the other
hand, We think our prison system remains
unimproved, and that our state prison and
iails still maintain their anomalous and
stationary position in the midst of the
ameliorating influences of our Christianity
and civilization. The moral and religious
instruction of the convicts is matter of
routine and formality. No chaplain is
employed for the full time and with ample
remuneration.
The church of the state prison Is in the
corridors of the cells The message OF
Gods grace reaches the eaIs of the prison
ers through the doors of their cells, or in
the presence of all the signs of their hu.
inflated condition. No chapel, separated
from the ordinary scenes of prison life
| with its sweet instrument of music and
its hallowed associations, peculiar to the
presence of God, and to the higher and
nobler life, where for time crime may
escape from the sight of its penalty, and
seek pity aud pardon at the feet of the
Son of Man, has ever yet been provid
ed by our Christian state tor its disobedi
ent and refractory sons. The Sunday
comes to US, and lures us from our busi
ness into the presence of God but nc
Sunday with its needful songs and wor
ship aud bright associations, and celestial
impulses ever dawns upon the occupant.
of these stone walls, or offers them it;
hopes of reformation and immortality
The prison ought to have an earnest pas
tor within it, and not to have a mere per
functory four o'clock service, divested o
all holy associations. But we do no
hear that it has And it is obvious tina
something remains to be done in the be
half of these outcasts OF society, who hav,
exposed themselves to the dread penaltie
OF our prison system. What that is WI
shall soon discuss. Meanwhile we are in
clined to believe that the model prison il
A. d. 1900 will be more like the Re
form scpool at Waterbury, than like th'
the institution which now more nearly re
sembles the Inferno of Dante, than it doe
the ideal prison of Christian common
wealth.