The Sunday globe., 1901-06-16

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of his family was killed. Pardoned after eight
years imprisonment, he proposes IN lhe
columns Of the Globe to tell "a plalnunNar
nshed tale Of life in modern penitentiary
-EDITOR)
What are the proper environments
which should surround the prisoner?
And in what manner shall the State
exact of him penance while in custody
with a view to his reformation and re- |
storation to society? The State owes
the prisoner healthy habitation, suf- |
ficient food suitable clothing and med |
ical attendance. These comprise but
the physical obligations. There are
moral ones as obligatory and of super
lative importance, both to the prisoner
and society, whose interests the State,
in this sense, serves. Idleness, the
fruitful parent of all the vices should
be provided against The prisoner,
physically and mentally, should be
fully occupied during his waking
hours. Industry should be the un-
varying rule, but toll should be soft
ened by encouragement. Moral in
struction, by practice and precept, in
the chapel, at the guard stand, in the
schoolroom. and in the administra-
ton offices, should never be neglected,
and the prisoner should he made to
feel that the servants of the State,
from the chaplain to the warden, and
from the schoolmaster to the guard,
are morally worthy of their trusts. He
should also be impressed with the fact
that the State, in Furnishing him. eX-
ercises charity, and is not eXacting
vengeance. That the preservation of
society, and obedience to law, are para
mount necessities of civilization That
God. nature and civilized governments,
alike, exact penalties for violations Of
both the moral and the physical laws,
and that legal penance is not the sat
isfaction for crime so much as 1t is an
effort on the part of the State to re-
claim the fallen citizen and restore him
TO society The States duty to the
prisoner demands custOdians clean in
thought and clean in act; and the
State. in it's collective capacity, claim
ing the right to preserve itself from
the assaults of the criminal, is bound,
by its assumptions of sinless legality
to safeguard the prisoners corporal
and spiritual welfare, 1t has neither
the moral nor the legal right, in its
own defense, to brutalize the moral
nature nor to impair the physical man
hood of the prisoner. On the contrary
it is obligatory, on the part of the
State, to develop and to properly di-
rect the moral faculties of the prisoner
that he may the better realize the enor-
nifty of his offending not alone against
the State, but against himself and his
God. And it is, in the material sense,
a most solemn and imperative duty, on
the part of the State, to qualify the
Rot frNlt
useful industry, to earn an honest liv-
ing on his final discharge from prison.
The State. failing in any of these
essential duties, is Indifferent to its own
interests and unjust to the prisoner.
1t is morally culpable in restoring to
freedom a malefactor whom it has fail
ed to qualify morally and mentally for
the duties and responsibilities of citi-
zenship. If we have habitual Grim
inals and prisoners repeatedly SEN
fenced to confinement, we must place
a large share Of the responsibility on
the State, when it fails in the moral
requirements and duties of a Christian
government
The Church and prison aid societies
owe it to themselves their country and
TO God the Christian duty of directing
the attention of the public and the
press, and of importuning the State,
through the law-making power, to such
reforms in prison, reformatory and
correctional institution management
and conduct as will insure to the pris-
oner the full eXaction of the States
moral duty and legal obligations, to
the end that the fallen may be reclaim
ed and humanity triumph in the regen-
Grafton of the erring and in the Chris
tian betterment and preservation Of
society itself.
The industry required should not be
for the benefit of men whose sins are
probably as scarlet compared to the
prisoner they sweat and, on the other
hand, it should not be of punitive
character The food should be all that
the State pays for and not the residue
left after the contractors and stewards
"divy up" A prison board, of men of
unimpeachable integrity, should have
supervision in this as in the other de-
tails forming the whole life within the
walls of the prison, and young, healthy
men should not be immured behind
these walls until, through the viola
tions of the natural law, they become
fearful in thought and indescribable in
act There is a remedy which is not
yet incorporated in our modern hu-
name system for this and kindred
evils.
The most absurd feature of criminal
treatment and reform comes from the
expert scientist and criminOlOgist, or
who pretends, like LombrossO the Ital-
ian idiot, to trace criminal tendencies
and characteristics through the ances.
tors of the convict back through sew
eral generations According to this
widely quoted mOuntebank, Chief JUS
tice Taney ought to have been a Grim
inal instead of the most distinguished
iurist who ever graced the supreme
bench of the Republic. Chief Justice
Taney's father was a murderer, He
killed a guest at his breakfast table,
and was a fugitive from justice until
his death. But the most eXasperating
criminal scientists are the owlish in
diViduals who are able to tell Grim
inal when they see one-in stripes
These dampfoOls read the outward
physical marks and signs of the Grim
inals person and know to a certainty
that the unfortunate wretch COULDN'T
help being criminal because his brow
BEETLES, his nose turns up or his ear
stands out The current issue Of the
Ohio Penitentiary News, edited by
William, Lord Howard, the English
swindler thus sarcastically hits of
this latter class Of criminologists:
"A correspondent says; I have read
your too brief articles on criminology
with the deepest interest Your de-
scription OF the way in which degen
crate criminals eat and sleep should be
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