The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1885-01-15
CHARITY TO CONVICTs.

The Marshall Herald hopes the
period when the state penitentiaries
will have six thousand convicts in
them is far off. The Dallas Herald
wants the state to go to work and
prepare quarters for that many con-
victs. Like our Marshall cotemno-
rary, THE STATESMAN hopes such
contamination will never be reached.
We agree that the penitentiaTy has
never been carried cut i'll the manner
designed by its founders. 1t was in
tended as a reformat5ry school. In
stead Of that it has fbeen rendered a
graduating college Of vice and crime,
where the baser pas ions of men are
intensified and rendered more malig-
nant. Instead of charity and mercy
hatred and cruelty has been exer-
c1sed. A gentleman was only yes
terday telling US what cruelties were
even now being practiced on convicts
The system we adopt is wrong in
principle and revolving in practice.
As the more charitable Herald says,
our jails and our penitentiaries, and
the manner in which convicts are
worked and abused, punished and
murdered, are simply relics of barbar-
ISM" Certainly, as our contemporary
says, when man has last character
and cast, and has to bear confinement
and lg ominy for years, his punish
meDt is great, but when, in addition
to these trials, he is treated worse
than a brute, under the domination OF
a cruel master, no wonder that all
the instincts and feelings Of his bitter
nature are hardened and his-E!lar
traits MAIDS prominent. The Herald
continues in this style:
ave have now nearly twenty-four
hundred conVictS in our Texas peni-
tentiaries. TO confne them within
the walls is almost impossible. Moth
ing would be gained by 1t if it could
be done, while the expense Of support
ing them would be too great :" Re
borne by the honest, industrious cIti
Zens. But why could the state not
open farms, and establish a hundred
minor industries that would render
them self-supporting, without inter-
fering with the labor of citiZsns?
Why, in this way, could not the orig
inal design of the penitentiary system
be carried out and fairly tested? If
societies like the Shakers and Monks
can coDgregate in this way, and in
large bodies, and not only live well
but grow rich, why cannot peniten-
t1ary system be devised that will be
rendered profitable and move III
accordance with the benignant
spirit of the age One thing is GER
tain, what TO do with criminals and
what measures and policy shall be
adopted t. eXtripate crimes has be-
come a seTious problem that ought 30
occupy the profound consideration of
philanthrcpists and statesmen. Cruelty
never accomplished good at any time
or in any country, and the sooner iG is
obliterated from our penal administTa-
| ton the better. The sentiment of en-,
lightened legislation should be to raise
men up and not crush them down, to
promote virtue by extending that
mercy to even to the most vicious that
is claimed 10y all. ut has been writ
ten,' said the Master, san eye for an
eye and tooth for tooth, but L give
unto you new law, Love one
another" When our laws conform
to this STANFORD, there will be less use
for jails and fewer penitentiaries."
THE STATESMAN has adopted for
years a similar line of argument. 1t
was upon the point of more enlight-
ened treatment of convicts that it
made a desperate fight in favor of the
state resuming control of the peniten-
tiaries, and it proposes to follow the
same line of humanitarianism until
the state does give us such convict
system as is creditable to this age. It
does not hold that in giving this.
convicts must necessarially be con-
fined within penitentiary walls, for it
is believed that outside the walls, in
many instances, there cannot only be
the best and kindest treatment, but
that in such outside employment
there may be found more profitable
labor.