American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-11-15
MRS. j. f. BOSWORTH, Publisher.

underground, sometimes mere caverns in
| the solid rock, in which human beings
were immured for years. No place, how
ever obscure or remote, escaped his in
| spection; his official position, his munifi-
| cent charity and his rcsolute will every
where procuring him admission.
Sadder than the widest horrors of
fiction were the awful realities of En-
glands dungeons-the worst in Europe
| save those of the Inquisition. The con-
dition of the prison world-a world dis
tinct by itself, with its own peculiar laws
and usages, and with densely crowded
population-was simply execrable. 1t
! was, in the words of one who has made
| the subject special study, "a fostering
mass of moral and physical corruption"
The prisons were very pandemonia-
chambers of horrors-whose misery and
wickedness recall the dreadful pictures of
the regions of eternal gloom in the pages
of the Italian poet. They were world
| without the pale of the constitution, and
| their inmates beyond the protection or
control of the law. Religion and its
rites were banished from a region cut off
| from civilization, apparently precinct of
| hell and already made over to the gov
eminent of fiends. The cruelty, and lust,
| and cursed greed for gold of brutal
jailer, who frequently united the humane
profession of hangman to his normal duty
of warden, were INDUCED without re-
straint Men had to crouch at a narrow
wicket in the door and gasp for breath
| The stencil was intolerable. There was
| frequently no straw*, and prisoners had
| to lay their rheumatic limbs on the damp
and cold stone floor. Yet to those who
had money the utmost license was allow
ed. The keepers pandered to the worst
vices of those who could bride their aid.
The inhumanity practIced seems in
In no Enic rif of lx-
writes Howard, 1.-The prison was rickety
and ruinous, but instead of Strengthening
the walls and doors, the cheaper plan was
adopted of claiming the prisoners on their
backs to the floor, passing over them sew
eral bars of iron, and fastening an iron
collar studded with spikes around their
| necks to prevent their escape"
Howard found comparatively few felons
in the prisons. The frequent Jail deliv-
cries, when the unfortunate wretches were
dragged on hurdles to the place of execu-
ton, and, amid every indignity, put to
death, etfectually emptied the cells of the
more fragrant criminals. 1t was found
cheaper to hang them than to keep them
in prison; and this inhuman policy was
publicly advocated by eminent jurists.
The poor debtors, who could not be
to rot in dungeons. Howard, when he
met such, generally paid their debts and
set them free. Occasionally, to his great
grief, his charity was too late. AT Car
diff, a debtor to the exchequer to the
amount of 81, languished in prison for
ten years, and died just before the liberia
tor came.
The fame of Towards inquiries spread
rapidly. He was summoned before Par
liamentary Committee to give evidence
on the state of prisons. His revelations
| overwhelmed the Legislature and the
country with surprise. He was called to
the bar of the House to receive its formal
thanks. As result of his importantly, an
act was passed for the inspection and re-
form of prisons. Knowing the inertness
of the official mind, Howard resolved to
see personally that the Act was put in
force. His presence carried light and air.
food and raiment, sympathy and consola-
| ton to hundreds of dungeons and life and
liberty to many who were unjustly de-
tanned.
About this time Howard became a can
didate for the parliamentary representa-
ton of Bedford. He lost the election,
however by narrow majority. He was
no expert in the electiOneering tactics of
a hundred years ago. Nevertheless, he
was exceedingly chagrined, for he thought
that the political rights of nonconformity
were compromised in his person; but he
thus devou!ly records his submission to
the DEGREES of Providence: 81 would say,
1T is the Lord let Him do what seemeth
Him good. He maketh light to arise out
of Darkness" Howard lived to see that
light, and to know that God had reserved
him for something nobler than the repre-
sentation of the petty borough of Bedford.
His privilege it was to give voice whose
echo should ring around the world, to the
great dumb, weltering mass of human
wretchedness languishing and dying in a
Thousand dungeons.
Howard had hitherto confined his phil
anthropic labOrs to Great Britain; but this
was too limited range for his sympa-
thies. They could not be confined within
the narrow seas, but, like the waters of
the ocean, encompassed the earth. A
wider horizon of suffering was before
him, which he was eager to explore. So
he overleaped the barriers of national dis
tnction and claimed the world as the
field of his labors. He started upon
grand tour of the old historic lands of
Europe, mot" to use the language of
Burke-"nOt to survey the sumptuous-
ness of palaces or the stateliness of tenn
pies; not to make accurate measurement
of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor
to form a scale of the curiosities of mod
ern art; not to collect medals nor to col
late manuscripts; but to dive into the
depths of dungeons, to plunge into the
infection of hospitals, to survey the man.
sions of sorrow and pain; to take the
guage and dimensions of misery, depres-
sion, and contempt; to remember the for
gotten, to attend to the neglected, TO visit
the forsaken, AMI to compare and collate
the distresscs of all men, in all coun-
tries"
In 1777 Howard published his great
work on the Estate of Prisons gallery
of horrors almost as terrific as Dante's
vision of the realms of gloom. In the ex
conscientious, that, while reading the
proof, he would sometimes start off on a
journey of hundreds of miles, to verify
some doubtful fact, or to obtain some
fresh information. This mdgnum opus, on
toll and money, was at length literally
giDen to the public; for besides presenting
copies to the press and to every promi-
dered the remainder to be sold below the
| cost of printing and paper
In 1871, the indefatigable philanthropist
started on Il new continental tour through
Denmark, Norway, Russia, Poland, Sicily,
Spain and Portugal While on the voy-
age from Civita Vecchia TO Leghorn, an
incident occurred which gave new di-
rection and fresh impulse to his labors.
A storm arose, and their shattered bark
was successfully driven upon the Tuscan
and the African coasts. But everywhere
the inhabitants, both Christian and Mos
lem, refused them permission to land
their fears of the infection of the terrible
plague conquering every instinct of hui
mainly in their breasts. This incident
do, a.