sions. It has received the approving sanction of the community at large; its penalties are felt by those who are subject to its discipline, and it operates to deter from the commission of crime. 'I will never come here again,' is the language of the prisoner on quitting confinement.' p. 48.

Our forefathers, as early as 1662, authorized magistrates to convict rogues and vagabonds,' and confine them in the House of Correction. In 1699 a provincial act was passed for the punishment of the vicious, and also for setting the poor to work. In the years 1735 and 1744, the General Court authorized the erection and government of Houses of Correction, in different sections of the Colony. All these enactments appear to have been merely recommendatory provisions. But in the year 1788, the subject having been neglected, an imperative statute was passed that each county should be provided with a House of Correction. In 1818, by a resolution of our Legislature, three eminent civilians were appointed to revise the criminal laws of this commonwealth, and to consolidate them into one act. On their report a law was passed, admirable in its provisions, ordering that the prisons should be well ventilated, and that measures should be adopted for the reformation, solitary confinement, and hard labor of the prisoners. Penalties were to be inflicted upon counties that failed to provide adequate accommodations for delinquents. But, we say it with regret, this law, in its most essential part, was repealed within four months after its enactment.

Recently, only one county, Worcester, had complied with the requisition of the law, passed thirty eight years ago, and Suffolk has but just completed its House of Correction. With these exceptions, the law has been utterly neglected, and is a dead letter on the statute book. Let then the community understand,' says an energetic magistrate,† that in all these

* Judges Parker and Jackson, and Solicitor General Davis. A similar commission was executed in England, by Lord Auckland, Judge Blackstone, and the philanthropist Howard. The statute framed by them was said to be distinguished by their peculiar characteristics-knowledge, discrimination, and philanthropy.

See Remarks on the Pauper and Criminal Laws of Massachusetts, by Judge Quincy, 1822. This gentleman has followed the forcible representations here made with a course of efficient acts, as the Mayor of Boston, and to him is the community chiefly indebted for the compliance of the county with the law requiring Houses of Correction.

cases, when the court is obliged by law to condemn to solitary imprisonment and hard labor, it is deceptive. The sentence is never executed. The real sentence is confinement in the County Gaol, amid idleness, often without air, without exercise, exposed to the worst society, and under circumstances the least calculated to support the mind under temptation, and the best to corrupt and debase it.'

It was not our intention to have gone into the subject of Gaols and Penetentiaries at so great length; but the enormous abuses, and the present deplorable condition of many of these dismal abodes, seemed to require a full exposition. In order to convince men of the necessity of important alterations, it is necessary to show them the extent of existing evils. In June, 1825, the Prison Discipline Society' was formed in Boston. Their Secretary and Agent is Mr Louis Dwight, to whom we have already referred. This gentleman has visited various prisons in the United States, and possessed himself of a mass of important facts relating to the abuses of the Penitentiary System. He has awakened public attention to the subject, and we wish abundant success to his indefatigable exertions. We should have been more gratified at the formation of this society, if more liberal principles had governed the institutors of it. The officers are exclusively of one religious faith, as if the cause of prison discipline were not equally dear to all christians. It augurs badly for a benevolent cause, when narrow or sectarian principles are adopted for its management. Still we rejoice in all these incipient measures, and hope the promoters of them will proceed with judicious despatch. It is the cause of humanity and of religion.

We are not of those who utterly despair of producing an essential change in the characters of adult criminals; nor do we believe that great changes can be effected in an instant. To rush forward in schemes of benevolence inconsiderately, almost insures a failure, and exposes even reasonable plans of reform to distrust or ridicule. Though the hearts of convicts will be steeled against harsh and cruel measures, we believe a generous and humane policy may operate to reclaim them. Firmness and kindness may be united. Instances have occurred of remarkable conversions from guilt to virtue, from vagrant idleness to honest industry. The almost incredible. success of Mrs Fry in Newgate, shows what the law of kind

ness, with wise regulations, will effect. There was never a more disheartening field of exertion, and no where have good results been more abundant. That distinguished female has succeeded against the predictions of experienced magistrates, superintendents, and prisonkeepers. She has met with as marked success, in her attempts to reform the morals of prisoners, as did the persevering Howard in his exertions for promoting their health and alleviating their distress. Burke, in his justly celebrated eulogy on Howard, asserted that he had so forestalled this branch of charity, that there would be little room to merit by such acts of benevolence in future. That eminent man knew, it would seem, as little of the extent of the evil, as have succeeding statesmen. Howard accomplished, during his active career, about as much in the cause of criminal jurisprudence and of prison discipline, as did Luther for the reformation of religion. Both pointed out the grosser abuses and directed the attention of mankind to them, leaving to others in succeeding times the completion of a work too vast for the age or powers of an individual. But a new era has arrived in the history of English prisons. The name of Fry has been made illustrious, and posterity will pronounce it with gratitude and veneration.

But however unpromising may be any attempt to reform the adult criminal, we cannot but believe, that enlightened efforts in behalf of juvenile delinquents, will be of incalculable benefit to this interesting description of persons, and to society at large. What anticipations may not be indulged of the diminution of crimes in the succeeding age, should universal christian education prevail, and a wise system of prevention and reform be adopted in this? And in this view, what deep interest must be felt by the philanthropist, in all judicious measures for the prevention of pauperism, and for the prosperity of infant, Sunday, and primary schools? With special favor must he look upon all efforts, single or combined, to investigate the condition, and prevent or reform the vices and crimes of the young, and particularly of the young in the humbler walks of life. A glance at what has been done to accomplish these ends at home and abroad, will present objects far more agreeable, than those we have hitherto contemplated.

In England a Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, and for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders,'

has existed many years. Its first object was to investigate the state of gaols. The British Parliament directed an examination of the metropolitan prisons. Eminent individuals* turned their attention to the subject, not only in England, but upon the continent. The result of their inquiries was a decided conviction, that crimes arise more from the want of instruction, classification, employment, and inspection, in gaols, than from any other cause. The old system of prison discipline was pronounced essentially defective, and ruinous as it regarded young culprits. They listened with delight to the adventures and escapes of the experienced criminals, were initiated into all the mysteries of crime, and, when discharged, bore recommendations from the inmates of the prisons to their former companions and accomplices.' In illustration of these statements, we copy from the Sixth Report of the society we have named, an affecting address made by a man condemned to death for murder, at Douay, in France.

6

"This individual requested to speak in private with M. Appert, when he thus addressed him; "I await," said he, "the hour of execution, and since you are the first person, who has visited me, I will address you with confidence, and conceal from you nothing. I am guilty of the dreadful crime, for which I am to suffer; but from my infancy my parents neglected me. I had neither a moral example, nor a religious education. I was abandoned to the violence of my passions. I fell when young, into bad company, by whom I was corrupted; but it was a prison that completed my ruin Among the persons now in this apartment are several boys who with pain I observe, are preparing themselves for the farther commission of offences, when the term of their confinement shall expire. I entreat you to obtain their removal into a separate ward, and snatch them from the contagion of such associates. Believe me, Sir,--and I speak from bitter experience-you can confer on those boys no greater favor!" P. 77.

We shall adduce an instance of the corruption of an innocent boy, who was imprisoned on an accusation of crime, in order to impress upon our readers the conviction, that youth cannot escape the contaminating influence of their seniors in

*See An Inquiry whether Crime and Misery are produced or prevented, by our present System of Prison Discipline, by Thomas Fowell Buxton, Esq. M. P-a work containing the result of this gentleman's personal investigations of the principal Gaols in England, and full of important intelligence.

wickedness, when exposed, day and night, to their infernal seductions.

Many and very grievous are the instances,' says Mr Buxton, 'which have come to my knowledge, of persons corrupted by prisons. When I first went to Newgate, my attention was directed, by my companion, to a boy whose apparent innocence and artlessness had attracted my notice. The schoolmaster said he was an example to all the rest, so quiet, so reserved, and so unwilling to have any intercourse with his dissolute companions. At his trial, he was acquitted upon evidence, which did not leave a shadow of suspicion upon him; but lately I recognized him again in Newgate, but with a very different character. He confessed to me, that, on his release, he had associated with the acquaintances he had formed in prison. Of his ruin I can feel but little doubt, and as little of the cause of it. He came to Newgate innocent, he left it corrupted.'

Is not a single case like this enough to teach us, that persons arrested on suspicion of crime, ought not to be put into prisons appropriated to convicts. Even convicted youth ought not to associate with adult felons. I make no scruple to affirm,' said Howard, that if it were the aim and wish of magistrates to effect the destruction, present and future, of young delinquents, they could not desire a more effectual method than to confine them in our prisons.' In New York in the year 1822, there were more than four hundred and fifty persons, male and female, none of them over twentyfive years of age, convicted by the Police Court. Some of them were so young as to be presumed incapable of crime. These persons were sentenced to prisons, to associate with the most depraved of their species.*

*

In the year 1823, a report was published by a committee of the New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, on the expediency of an institution for the reformation of Juvenile Delinquents. The project was favorably received by the inhabitants of that city, and a new society was established, called the 'Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents,' whose first annual Report stands at the head of this article. It appears that the Managers made a prompt and successful appeal to the citizens, which resulted in subscriptions and donations to the amount of about 15,000 dollars, and a

*See Report of the Committee appointed by the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the city of New York, on the Expediency of erecting an Institution for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents.'