Sunday Washington globe., 1902-03-09

along the lines of Natures demands the
more guidance and control can we exercise
over the prisoner from the moral point Of
view. This has been illustrated in the con-
vict colonists of Australia, who speedily be
came reformed aud responsible members Of
society on their probationary release and
domestic settlement with wives and fami-
lies.
If any argument we're required to point
out the advantages Of the natural treatment
of prisoners we can find It in this congre-
gate and colonial system which made Aus
tralia a mighty empire. AS the colonial
system is not now practicable or possible
with us, we are confined to walled IN
closures Within these Enclosures we must
work out the best system for the exDiation
Of the offense and the reformation and the
humanizing of the offender
If the prisoner on his admission is sepa-
rated from all human association except his
guards and the visits of the chaplain he is
given opportunity to think unrestrainedly
and without interruption. The thinking OF
the vicious will be but the suppressed male
dictions of the iend. The thinking OF the
hitherto respectable but fallen citizen will
be that brooding tempered by remorse,
which ends in moral numbness, or mental
paralysis which soon makes impossible
continuity of healthy thought and leads to
melancholy and despair.
The cellular system prevents the asso
citation of the hardened criminal with the
novices in crime or first and youthful Of
Tenders. 1t does indeed, and also prevents
association or contact with others, as well
as with the profe ssional and hardened
criminal 1t is, uncharitably, and know
by my own experience, unwarrantably
assumed that the older and hardened
criminals, as they are designated, make
a practice in prison of corrupting the
youthful and new beginner in crime. The
professional criminal, the veteran so to
speak, who has made war all, or the greater
part of his life, on society who is impaired
in physique, of friendess condition and
hopeless future, is an instructive object
lesson for the youthful offender and would
be professional thief II is the rule, for the
old, broken down and so-called, hardened
criminal to warn the beginner of the Dead
Sea fruits which turn to ashes on the lips of
those who make crime a profession. In
American prisons there is a class too, of ac-
cdental criminals who are neither thieves,
as the term is understood, nor criminals at
heart whose association with these youthful,
or first time offenders, is both reformatory
and elevating. The youthful student in
crime in this country, finding his way into
the penitentiary, is not the unsophisticated
individual il Is the fashion to represent him.
He is not the malleable material which
an old, broken down and friendless thief can
mould into an admirer of a criminal career.
In fact, as l have stated, the youthful Of
fender Is more apt to be reformed or dis
gusted with criminal career by the con-
temptation of these hardened old thieves
than he is by the exhortations of the prison
chaplain. | have been observant on this
phase particularly of the congregate system
and have noted that the law of selection
is as naturally followed out among criminals
as it is on the outside world, The youthful
aud the accidental criminals gravitate to-
ward each others society, and our sO.called
hardened old criminals flock by themselves.
In an institution where all have their
tasks or labor to perform, where idleness is
the most serious prison misfortune, the pro-
fessional and hardened criminal is too
broken of spirit, too tanned by adversely,
too hopeless of the future, and too strictly
observed to corrupt by act or example the
youthful criminal or degrade him further
in the scale of humanity. In fact III the
congregate system lies the key OF solution
of the problem. How can we warn and
save the erring and the foolish youthful
offender and restore him to society reformed
and cured Of his mental maladyF" The
daily association in shop, in school, in
church, and in other meetings of the youth
full criminal with his more hardened and
older fellow prisoner confirms the naturally
bright among the youthful offenders in the
good resolutions, always made when in
trouble to avoid the fate and abandon the
career which made such hopeless and friend
less wrecks as the old and hapless wretches
they see and touch elbows with.
Touching the suggestion Of consulting
the prisoners feelings on the mode of ex-
piation for his crime, and the system which
| holds out the more alluring enticements for
/ his reform and rehabilitation, of course,
mean this consultation" in the modified
manner we cater to a child to gain its conf
/ dence that we may mould its character. A
/ prisoners experience is worth something as
a guide to the sensations and revolution
worked in him by cellular, separate or con
gregate imprisonment. 1 have read the
descriptions Of personal experience by Eng
lish convicts male and female, who had
undergone the nine months probationary
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enforced in English convict prisons. These
nine months are spent locked up in small
cell where thesconvict performs the task OF
/ picking oakum or other such employment.
In the twenty-four hours of the day he is
now, / believe, given an hours exercise.
These descriptions of the feelings of what
we term the professional criminal class
enumerate in darker and more sombre col
oring the objections to the separate system
of the resentful and desperate nature it
develops, enlarges and emphasizes in those
who have been subjected to separate con6ne-
ment II is but a few years ago that a
Philadelphia paper, ! believe it was the
Item, gave a list of ex-prison officials who
had met violent deaths or been murder
ously assaulted by prisoners who had been
subjected to solitary and cellular imprison-
i ment
The paper 1 refer to. think it was, which
also noted the small per cent of second and
third termers under the separate system,
but it's solution Of the cause Of this small
per cent was sinister and significant II
stated that men once subjected to the sep
| arate aud solitary system of imprisOnmeut