The Portland daily press., 1870-10-08
[E PRESS.
aturdav Morning, October 8, 1870.
Hospitals for Criminals.

Messrs. Benson, Smith and Harrow Inc
Maine Jail Commissioners have gone 10 a'-
tend the National Congress 10 cohsidef Inc
subject of penitentary and reiormalory DIS
cipl;ne, to be held at Cincinnati, on the 1lth
inst and the nine succeeding days. Speaker |
b aine is TO preside. 1t is a great and unex-
pacted pleasure to find that in suggesting |
forty-ous principles of prison discipline to be |
considered by the Convention, the committee |
OF arrangements have recognized the truth of |
tie following propositions:
That crime is a moral disease for which |
punishment is an alleged remedy, and that |
the ef1cacy Of the remedy and the measure |
i'll which it is to be administered are open |
questions.
That the legitimate purposes of punish
ment are, first, the; protection of society, and
second, the reformation of the criminal, and
that these are the only legitimate purposes,
the idea of vindietive punishment being re-
jected as gross barbarisu,.
That reform can be effected by imparting
mental and moral instruction and by the jul
dlclous use of rewards for good conduct, bet
Ter than by the employment of puntory meas
llres solely.
neutrality-suspicious. which Christianity has
been teaching for nineteen hundred years, are
recognized practically, all attempts to get more
satisfactory results from our prison discipline
by changing its details, by shifting from the
silent and solitary system TO the industrial, by
making the term for which prisoners are SEN
fenced intermediate, and by other empirical
will ho in
of the prevailing system which initiates be-
ginners in crime into higher and higher de-
grees of vice, confirms hardened offenders in
their evil courses and furnishes establish
ments for finishing off criminals, eliminating
the last vestige of a moral nature and render
ing them hopeless and incurable, are these:
1. The criminal is punished because of
his i'll DESERT without reference to his own
reformation or the protection of society.
2. The idea Of reforming criminals by edu-
eating them and offering them the allurements
OF hope as well as the terrors of punishment
as an inducement to an observance of the
laws is piece of "sickly sentimentalism."
The criminal of the future is sure to be re-
garded as a sick man to be cured and not as a
demon to be tortured. The prisons and the
Jas OF the future are sure to be hospitals, as it
were, where moral diseases, either congenital
or the result of ignorance, poverty or misfor-
tune, may be alleviated Or cured. OF course
society has the right of self defence, but be-
yond restraining the criminal SO as to prevent
his doing mischief, it is. clear that il has no
further rights over him, unfortunate man that
ne is, except to do him good. If spare diet,
comfortless surroundings, harsh treatment,
deprivation of amusement, instruction and
moral cutdre, except the inadequate supply
that can be furnished by the chaplain in the
cold performance of his official duty,-if these
with solitary confinement are the best thera-
peutic agents for the patient and will the
soonest restore him to moral health,
let them by all means be employed. But if
to suggest the opposite extreme, generous
diet, comfort, instruction and amusement are
the best moral stimuants for the man who is
temporarily deprived Of his liberty on account
OF his malady, then let the milder course be
pursued. "Feed criminals with sugar-plums.
eh9 why not clothe them in broadcoth, silk
hats and patent leather boots?" We are not
sure of the durable efficacy of sugar-plums,
broadcoth and patent leather, but certainly if
that were established the State could better
afford to SO feed and clothe its Thomaston pa
tients-yes, and to give every man of them
university education besides-than to make
their maadies chronic, incurable and infec-
tioas as it does.
Ihe"sugar plum plan pure and simple, is not
OF course to be seriously thought Of yet there is
nodoubtbut it would be an improvement, beth
as respects The utility of it's results and its in
trlnsic justice, upon the present system. For
we must remember that these criminals differ
from the rest of mankind chiefly in this-that
they are more unfortunate. Jean Vatican is
to be commiseratel infinitely more than he
who suffers from some physical disease-for
society must, as matter of self protection.
administer some correction. Who but an idiot
supposes that the clumsy methods of judicial
investigation can ever discriminate so nicely
as to find the line-if indeed it exists-which
divides responsibility for wrong doing from
responsibility growing out of unavoidable
mental defect, 6uress or ignorance? In fact
We know as well as we know the course of the
sun that those who DEFY the laws are almost
always those who have some just complaint
top prefer against the society that made those
laws. They have been left uninstructed,
overburdened with toll, exasperated by exclu-
sion from participating in the fruits Of their
labor. The injustice Of the State is indef-
nitely increased by every Unnecessary blow it
in1licts upon IFS unfortunate children, even if
10 A.
them when other methods of retraint prove
unavailing.
Political Eotes,