Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-11-03

| T.eoisla.ure upon the case OF one or two
IN confined in our State Prison under
Sentence Of death. They had been kept
,here several wears and the Governor did
not ;ssne his warrant, at the end of the
frat twelve months of their incarceration,
for execution, as the law required. DR..
Phelps gave the most melancholy picture
! If 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 hanging
was far more reasonable, merciful and
christian penalty than solitary confine-
ment. We do not know that in either of
these instances there was any remarkable
severity, anything more than the wear
upon the spirit of a protraoted confine-
ment, shut out from the blessings of earth
and all the joys of human society. In
fact this is the chief torture of such PEN
atty. The murderer, who is sentenced 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 use
full work and business of life, but about
its own reflections, sorrows, fears, and
hopeless agonies. The spirit is to work
upon itself, without rest or diversion, con-
Stunning, fretting, wearing and tearing its
own structure. He who enters there
leaves hope behind him forever. What
can be the effect upon sensitive organ
ization but madness, the widest lunaoy
and upon a stupid and brutal organization
but idiocy ? To such slow, consuming
process, in which mind, heart, and body
are devoted to perpetual uninterrupted
torture, the scaffold is a mercy and the
guillotine a very angel OF God.
| But, besides great criminals, others are
subject to similar discipline in our State
prisons. 1t may not be the same III degree
but it is the same in kind. The man who
goes there is subject in a greater or less
degree to the Influence which weakens
and demorslizes the moral and intellect
ual nature. We do not know that the ex-
treme rigidity of our prison system has
| been relaxed in the last few years We
do not know that the conviots are more
likely to come forth from their incArcera-
! IIOu TcIDFHtu anu UStLcI lncAs :" q oO
not know that the Legislature has made
any better or adequate provision for their
religious, moral and intellectual instruc-
tion, for correcting their vicious propen-
| sites and bringing tham nnder healthful
| influences. Ii the system has been modI-
fled and made more corrective and reform
atory and prod more salutary effect
upon the hearts and consciences of the
prisoners and given them, in any degree,
more self-respect and self-cOntrol and
qualified them any better for the social
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 jails 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 u matter of
routine and formality. No chaplain is
employed for the full time and with am-
pie remuneration.
The church of the State Prison is il
the corridors of the cells. The message
of Gods grace reaches the ears Of the
prisoners through the doors of their cells,
or III the presence of all the signs of their
Inundated condition. No chapel, sep
| arated from the ordinary scenes of prison
lite, with its sweet instrument of music
| and its hallowed associations, peculiar to
the presence OF God aud to a higher and
nobler life, where for y time crime may
escape from the sight of its penalty, and
seek pity and pardon at the feet of the
Son of Man, has ever yet been provided
by our Christian State for its disobedient
and refractory sons. The Sunday comes
to us and lures US from our business into
the presence of God, but no Sunday, with
its needful songs and worship and bright
| associations and celestial impulses, ever
dawns upon the occupants of those stone
walls or offers them or cffers them its
cheerful hopes of reformation and immor-
taHty. The prison ought 10 have an euI
neat pastor within it, and not to have a
mere perfunotory four o'clock service, di
vested of all holy associations. But We
do not hear that it has. Aud it is obYi-
GUS that something remains to be done in
the behalf of those outcasts of society
who have exposed themselves to the dread
penalties of our prison system. What
that is we shall soon discuss. Meanwhile
we are inclined to believe that the model
prison at Windsor in A. d. 1900 will be
far more like the Reform School at Wa
terbury than like the institution which
now more nearly resembles Dante's In
ferno than it does the ideal prison of
Christian commonwealth.