Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1881-04-08

is done by individual and organized effort
for their relief. The criminal classes are
also always with us, and, sad to say, but lit
tie outside of State reformatOrics is done III
the way of direct effort for their reclamation.
When discovered TO be criminals, the men,
bers of this class are shut away from public
view and the general public knows little
and thinks less of what is going on inside OF
their places of confinement. The men and
women who Systematically and from princi
pie visit the homes of the poor TO see what
can be done TO improve their physical and
moral condition, are comparatively few, in
any community. Those who care for the
criminals are far fewer. Occasionally, in
some report of a legislative committee, or
prison association, the veil which hides
from view the life within the jails is lifted,
and the public see for a moment, commonly
10 forget it in the next, that the county jail
is a school of vice, supported at the public
expense. Such revelation is made in the
last report of the New York Prison Associa-
ton This shows that In forty-iive of tho
sixty-four county jais in the Empire State,
the unconvicted and convicted are not kci'
separate In thirty-iivc OF them the men
and women are impcrtoclly separated. In
fifty the children are not kept apart from the
adults, and in five only is there any attempt
to furnish wholesome employment TO the in
mates Forty mine of the iails are described as
either clad" very bad, faulty or in
secure" The number of cells bears a curl
Gus relation TO the number of prisoners con
fined. In Albany county, for example, there
were, when the jail was examined, one hun
dred and slxty-sevcn criminals in dnrancr,
but the jail contains only foriy-eight cells.
In Saratoga county, forty-thrce were con
fined in eight cells. At Ncwbursh, thirty
were confined in five cells. In Kings county,
two hundred and fifty were confined in
nincty-four cells. In Rensselaer, county, one
hundred and twenty were confined in nine
teen cells.
These conditionsprcscnta sad picture. Men,
WOntll anu lllI Aah IN
cent are thus huddlcd together in idlcncssand
in vicious talk and degrading practices. The
Onondaga county penileniiary is described
as rs well directed as any i'll the state Bul,
pleading on behalf of the female prisoners
there confined, Bishop Huntington says
.sIIitherto men and women have been put
into this prison together, within sound OF each
others voices, exposed TO one anothcrs Jeer-
ing and hooting and corruption, and often
TO the sight of one anothcrs' faces and ges-
lures. This has been and is still unavold
able in the existing condition, even with the
best care 1t has been and ii is disgrace to
the county. | need not say how fragrant, IN
excusable and wanton a violation ii is of the
first principles of social morality.
Whether we regard the object of imprlson-
ment as punitive purely, or as reformatory,
also, there can be no question that to brutalze
a prisoner, male or female, is an outrage"
Commenting upon the position taken by a
committee of citizens in this case, the Prison
Association report has the following: Con
corning two other pcnitcntiaries, the criil-
cisms and protests would justly I've more
severe than these by Bishop Huntington
In tract published by Josephine Shaw
Lowell, it is stated that into nineteen OF the
iails and two of the peniteniiaries, during the
year 1880, two hundred and eighty-iiye wo-
men, between the ages of fifteen and thirty
wears, were sent in due legal form. Sixty Of
these females were under twenty years of
age. Some of them, after serving their
terms, declared that they learned more de-
pravity in the days and nights of week in
the peuitentiary than they had ever seen be
fore they went there.
The county poor houses are as bad as or
worse than the iails, in some Of theserespects.
The statistics of ilegitimate births, follow
ing the commitment of women TO the county
poor houses in New York are shocking. As
a single instance, mentioned in the report
from which we quote, in the Orange county
poor house a girl eighteen years old lately
gave birth to her third illegitimate child. In
Fulton county, 4 recent examination dlsclos-
Ell the startling fact that the local poor house
contained four generations of paupers, with
every prospect that the line would be album
dainty multiplied. Investigations in half
dozen other counties in New York, largely
multiplied such instances.
The State of New York is not worse than
some other States in this matter. In this
State we have no county poor houses, and
the town poor-houses in Vermont are prob
ably as a general thing, more closely watched
and are perhaps less open 20 such objections
than the county poor-houses of our neighbor
ing State. But thorough examination Of
our County jals would undoubtedly show
a disgraceful record of faulty construction,
insufficient provisions for the segregation of
criminals and separation of the SEXES, bad
ventilation, unClcanlincss and absence of re
claiming influences. The jalS are such as
they are, because il would cost money To
make them better. We need Prison Asso-
ton in this State, to call attention to this
subject, and TO compel the public TO know
what sort of institutions they are sustaining,
in the iails and poor houses. Such knowledge
is the first step towards the needed improve
mcnt Of them.