Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1885-10-26

have genuine civil service reform, and not
before"
TaE subject Of prison reform is now re-
ceivipg great attention throughout the
country. Yesterday quite q number Of
New York ministers discussed the question,
and the prison congresses that have been
holding their sessions Of late have been
throwing out valuable thoughts for the peo-
pie TO ponder over. 0fcourse much of the
discussion has been theoretical and not .
little Of it By men who have never act foot
inside ola jail yet among al there is
much that win bear good results in the fu-
ture.
In the past much good has been done,
srousing public sentiment by those discus
sions. The eyes of the people were opened
to the monstrous evils that existed in pris-
on management, and they have been to
great extent reformed. Jails and prisons
used to be considered as only houses OF
torment, and the unfortunate victims thar
were cast therein, whatever faith they had
in humanity before their imprisonment
was nearly always tortured out Of them BY
the time they served out their sentences
and emerged again into the world. II has
not been fifty years since people ridiculed
and seoEned the proposition made
by some philsnthropists to preach
to the unfortunate inmates Of the principal
prison in Philadelphia. Il was thought
that the prisoners would be rendered I'M
manageable and also that justice would not
fully be melted out if little sunshine were
let in upon the convicts. Vengeance seem
ed to be the chief end of punishment. But
happily, the ideas of people have under.
gone 8 great change since that time. 1t
has been found that prisoners are not rem
dered uncomfortable by having little
glimpse of sunshine let into their darken-
ed lives. now and then, bat that it has an
eleysting influence.
The question now is, how to render q
Just punishment and also reform the pris
oner. In some places rather sad state
Of affairs still exists. There are sometimes
herded in jails criminals Of
all grades. In the same place
may be confined the horse thief and he
who simply drives a horse across bridge
faster than walk; the burglar and mail
robber, the diminutive bootblack or news
boy and the drunken sot Those who are
young and have not yet become vicious
are slmost certain to De degraded BY such
imprisonment, and in course Of time follow
in the footsteps Of the vicious and hardened
criminals with whom they were once i'm
prisoned. Such punishment defeats the
end for which it is int nded and increases
rather than diminishes crime. How can
prisoners be reformed and crime dimin'
ished2 Some one has lately said, if you
would reform the prisoners you must re-
form the prison officials. There is
much truth in this, but the
reform should extend q little further
back-ths people must frat reform them
selves. Prison officials generally act as
public sentiment directs. Public senti,
ment must then be educated. People
should everywhere be brought to remem-
Der that the prisoner, though he may be
degraded, is still q man and brother,
and also that the manhood yet existing in
many g person who is convicted Of crime
may still be made to assert itself if so
many people did not seem TO be spurniDg
him, grinding the very soul out of him and
every inherent desire he may
have to elevate himself.
In doing this it is not proposed that
prison life shall be made a picnic. 1t is
not proposed to reduce The amount oil
labor below a prisoners natural capacity.
A man who has committed crime should
abor for the State without reward. He
has forfeited ell natural and legal rights,
except life. But for the good Of the COM
nuni:y his nature should be changed, if
possible, while he is in prison. The
prison should, in one respect, be school,
md the line should be drawn between re-
ormatory work and the necessity of max.
ng our prisons at all times very undesira.
,le places of residence. Though it will
lot do to make prisons attractive, yet |
here is no need of making them places in
which the naturally depraved become more
leprsyed and dangerous.