PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON
THE journey from New York to Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and two
ferries; and usually occupies between five and six hours. It was a fine
evening when we were passengers in the train: and watching the bright
sunset from a little window near the door by which we sat, my attention
was attracted to a remarkable appearance issuing from the windows of the
gentleman’s car immediately in front of us, which I supposed for some
time was occasioned by a number of industrious persons inside, ripping
open feather-beds, and giving the feathers to the wind. At length it
occurred to me that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case;
though how any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to
contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant shower of
expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand: notwithstanding the
experience in all salivatory phenomena which I afterwards acquired.
I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young
quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave whisper,
that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor oil. I
mention the circumstance here, thinking it probable that this is the
first occasion on which the valuable medicine in question was ever used
as a conversational aperient.
We reached the city, late that night. Looking out of my chamber-window,
before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side of the way, a handsome
building of white marble, which had a mournful ghost-like aspect, dreary
to behold. I attributed this to the sombre influence of the night, and
on rising in the morning looked out again, expecting to see its steps and
portico thronged with groups of people passing in and out. The door was
still tight shut, however; the same cold cheerless air prevailed: and the
building looked as if the marble statue of Don Guzman could alone have
any business to transact within its gloomy walls. I hastened to inquire
its name and purpose, and then my surprise vanished. It was the Tomb of
many fortunes; the Great Catacomb of investment; the memorable United
States Bank.
The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences, had cast
(as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, under the
depressing effect of which it yet laboured. It certainly did seem rather
dull and out of spirits.
It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular. After walking about it
for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the world for a
crooked street. The collar of my coat appeared to stiffen, and the brim
of my hat to expand, beneath its quakery influence. My hair shrunk into
a sleek short crop, my hands folded themselves upon my breast of their
own calm accord, and thoughts of taking lodgings in Mark Lane over
against the Market Place, and of making a large fortune by speculations
in corn, came over me involuntarily.
Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water, which is
showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off, everywhere.
The Waterworks, which are on a height near the city, are no less
ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden, and
kept in the best and neatest order. The river is dammed at this point,
and forced by its own power into certain high tanks or reservoirs, whence
the whole city, to the top stories of the houses, is supplied at a very
trifling expense.
There are various public institutions. Among them a most excellent
Hospital—a quaker establishment, but not sectarian in the great benefits
it confers; a quiet, quaint old Library, named after Franklin; a handsome
Exchange and Post Office; and so forth. In connection with the quaker
Hospital, there is a picture by West, which is exhibited for the benefit
of the funds of the institution. The subject is, our Saviour healing the
sick, and it is, perhaps, as favourable a specimen of the master as can
be seen anywhere. Whether this be high or low praise, depends upon the
reader’s taste.
In the same room, there is a very characteristic and life-like portrait
by Mr. Sully, a distinguished American artist.
My stay in Philadelphia was very short, but what I saw of its society, I
greatly liked. Treating of its general characteristics, I should be
disposed to say that it is more provincial than Boston or New York, and
that there is afloat in the fair city, an assumption of taste and
criticism, savouring rather of those genteel discussions upon the same
themes, in connection with Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which
we read in the Vicar of Wakefield. Near the city, is a most splendid
unfinished marble structure for the Girard College, founded by a deceased
gentleman of that name and of enormous wealth, which, if completed
according to the original design, will be perhaps the richest edifice of
modern times. But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and pending
them the work has stopped; so that like many other great undertakings in
America, even this is rather going to be done one of these days, than
doing now.
In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern Penitentiary:
conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of Pennsylvania. The system
here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it,
in its effects, to be cruel and wrong.
In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant
for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised this system of
Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen who carry it into
execution, do not know what it is that they are doing. I believe that
very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and
agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon
the sufferers; and in guessing at it myself, and in reasoning from what I
have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they
feel within, I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of
terrible endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can
fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature.
I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to
be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its
ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of
touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the
surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I
the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is
not roused up to stay. I hesitated once, debating with myself, whether,
if I had the power of saying ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ I would allow it to be tried
in certain cases, where the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I
solemnly declare, that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy
man beneath the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night,
with the consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time,
no matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent cell,
and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree.
I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially connected
with its management, and passed the day in going from cell to cell, and
talking with the inmates. Every facility was afforded me, that the
utmost courtesy could suggest. Nothing was concealed or hidden from my
view, and every piece of information that I sought, was openly and
frankly given. The perfect order of the building cannot be praised too
highly, and of the excellent motives of all who are immediately concerned
in the administration of the system, there can be no kind of question.
Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a spacious
garden. Entering it, by a wicket in the massive gate, we pursued the
path before us to its other termination, and passed into a large chamber,
from which seven long passages radiate. On either side of each, is a
long, long row of low cell doors, with a certain number over every one.
Above, a gallery of cells like those below, except that they have no
narrow yard attached (as those in the ground tier have), and are somewhat
smaller. The possession of two of these, is supposed to compensate for
the absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip
attached to each of the others, in an hour’s time every day; and
therefore every prisoner in this upper story has two cells, adjoining and
communicating with, each other.
Standing at the central point, and looking down these dreary passages,
the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful. Occasionally, there
is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver’s shuttle, or shoemaker’s last,
but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only
serves to make the general stillness more profound. Over the head and
face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood
is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped
between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he
never again comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has
expired. He never hears of wife and children; home or friends; the life
or death of any single creature. He sees the prison-officers, but with
that exception he never looks upon a human countenance, or hears a human
voice. He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in the slow round of
years; and in the mean time dead to everything but torturing anxieties
and horrible despair.
His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even to the
officer who delivers him his daily food. There is a number over his
cell-door, and in a book of which the governor of the prison has one
copy, and the moral instructor another: this is the index of his history.
Beyond these pages the prison has no record of his existence: and though
he live to be in the same cell ten weary years, he has no means of
knowing, down to the very last hour, in which part of the building it is
situated; what kind of men there are about him; whether in the long
winter nights there are living people near, or he is in some lonely
corner of the great jail, with walls, and passages, and iron doors
between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary horrors.
Every cell has double doors: the outer one of sturdy oak, the other of
grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his food is handed.
He has a Bible, and a slate and pencil, and, under certain restrictions,
has sometimes other books, provided for the purpose, and pen and ink and
paper. His razor, plate, and can, and basin, hang upon the wall, or
shine upon the little shelf. Fresh water is laid on in every cell, and
he can draw it at his pleasure. During the day, his bedstead turns up
against the wall, and leaves more space for him to work in. His loom, or
bench, or wheel, is there; and there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and
counts the seasons as they change, and grows old.
The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work. He had been there
six years, and was to remain, I think, three more. He had been convicted
as a receiver of stolen goods, but even after his long imprisonment,
denied his guilt, and said he had been hardly dealt by. It was his
second offence.
He stopped his work when we went in, took off his spectacles, and
answered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with a
strange kind of pause first, and in a low, thoughtful voice. He wore a
paper hat of his own making, and was pleased to have it noticed and
commanded. He had very ingeniously manufactured a sort of Dutch clock
from some disregarded odds and ends; and his vinegar-bottle served for
the pendulum. Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he looked up at
it with a great deal of pride, and said that he had been thinking of
improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken
glass beside it ‘would play music before long.’ He had extracted some
colours from the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor
figures on the wall. One, of a female, over the door, he called ‘The
Lady of the Lake.’
He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the time; but
when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled, and could
have counted the beating of his heart. I forget how it came about, but
some allusion was made to his having a wife. He shook his head at the
word, turned aside, and covered his face with his hands.
‘But you are resigned now!’ said one of the gentlemen after a short
pause, during which he had resumed his former manner. He answered with a
sigh that seemed quite reckless in its hopelessness, ‘Oh yes, oh yes! I
am resigned to it.’ ‘And are a better man, you think?’ ‘Well, I hope
so: I’m sure I hope I may be.’ ‘And time goes pretty quickly?’ ‘Time is
very long gentlemen, within these four walls!’
He gazed about him—Heaven only knows how wearily!—as he said these words;
and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare as if he had
forgotten something. A moment afterwards he sighed heavily, put on his
spectacles, and went about his work again.
In another cell, there was a German, sentenced to five years’
imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired. With colours
procured in the same manner, he had painted every inch of the walls and
ceiling quite beautifully. He had laid out the few feet of ground,
behind, with exquisite neatness, and had made a little bed in the centre,
that looked, by-the-bye, like a grave. The taste and ingenuity he had
displayed in everything were most extraordinary; and yet a more dejected,
heart-broken, wretched creature, it would be difficult to imagine. I
never saw such a picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind. My
heart bled for him; and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took
one of the visitors aside, to ask, with his trembling hands nervously
clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of his
dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too painful to
witness. I never saw or heard of any kind of misery that impressed me
more than the wretchedness of this man.
In a third cell, was a tall, strong black, a burglar, working at his
proper trade of making screws and the like. His time was nearly out. He
was not only a very dexterous thief, but was notorious for his boldness
and hardihood, and for the number of his previous convictions. He
entertained us with a long account of his achievements, which he narrated
with such infinite relish, that he actually seemed to lick his lips as he
told us racy anecdotes of stolen plate, and of old ladies whom he had
watched as they sat at windows in silver spectacles (he had plainly had
an eye to their metal even from the other side of the street) and had
afterwards robbed. This fellow, upon the slightest encouragement, would
have mingled with his professional recollections the most detestable
cant; but I am very much mistaken if he could have surpassed the
unmitigated hypocrisy with which he declared that he blessed the day on
which he came into that prison, and that he never would commit another
robbery as long as he lived.
There was one man who was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep rabbits.
His room having rather a close smell in consequence, they called to him
at the door to come out into the passage. He complied of course, and
stood shading his haggard face in the unwonted sunlight of the great
window, looking as wan and unearthly as if he had been summoned from the
grave. He had a white rabbit in his breast; and when the little
creature, getting down upon the ground, stole back into the cell, and he,
being dismissed, crept timidly after it, I thought it would have been
very hard to say in what respect the man was the nobler animal of the
two.
There was an English thief, who had been there but a few days out of
seven years: a villainous, low-browed, thin-lipped fellow, with a white
face; who had as yet no relish for visitors, and who, but for the
additional penalty, would have gladly stabbed me with his shoemaker’s
knife. There was another German who had entered the jail but yesterday,
and who started from his bed when we looked in, and pleaded, in his
broken English, very hard for work. There was a poet, who after doing
two days’ work in every four-and-twenty hours, one for himself and one
for the prison, wrote verses about ships (he was by trade a mariner), and
‘the maddening wine-cup,’ and his friends at home. There were very many
of them. Some reddened at the sight of visitors, and some turned very
pale. Some two or three had prisoner nurses with them, for they were
very sick; and one, a fat old negro whose leg had been taken off within
the jail, had for his attendant a classical scholar and an accomplished
surgeon, himself a prisoner likewise. Sitting upon the stairs, engaged
in some slight work, was a pretty coloured boy. ‘Is there no refuge for
young criminals in Philadelphia, then?’ said I. ‘Yes, but only for white
children.’ Noble aristocracy in crime!
There was a sailor who had been there upwards of eleven years, and who in
a few months’ time would be free. Eleven years of solitary confinement!
‘I am very glad to hear your time is nearly out.’ What does he say?
Nothing. Why does he stare at his hands, and pick the flesh upon his
fingers, and raise his eyes for an instant, every now and then, to those
bare walls which have seen his head turn grey? It is a way he has
sometimes.
Does he never look men in the face, and does he always pluck at those
hands of his, as though he were bent on parting skin and bone? It is his
humour: nothing more.
It is his humour too, to say that he does not look forward to going out;
that he is not glad the time is drawing near; that he did look forward to
it once, but that was very long ago; that he has lost all care for
everything. It is his humour to be a helpless, crushed, and broken man.
And, Heaven be his witness that he has his humour thoroughly gratified!
There were three young women in adjoining cells, all convicted at the
same time of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor. In the silence and
solitude of their lives they had grown to be quite beautiful. Their
looks were very sad, and might have moved the sternest visitor to tears,
but not to that kind of sorrow which the contemplation of the men
awakens. One was a young girl; not twenty, as I recollect; whose
snow-white room was hung with the work of some former prisoner, and upon
whose downcast face the sun in all its splendour shone down through the
high chink in the wall, where one narrow strip of bright blue sky was
visible. She was very penitent and quiet; had come to be resigned, she
said (and I believe her); and had a mind at peace. ‘In a word, you are
happy here?’ said one of my companions. She struggled—she did struggle
very hard—to answer, Yes; but raising her eyes, and meeting that glimpse
of freedom overhead, she burst into tears, and said, ‘She tried to be;
she uttered no complaint; but it was natural that she should sometimes
long to go out of that one cell: she could not help _that_,’ she sobbed,
poor thing!
I went from cell to cell that day; and every face I saw, or word I heard,
or incident I noted, is present to my mind in all its painfulness. But
let me pass them by, for one, more pleasant, glance of a prison on the
same plan which I afterwards saw at Pittsburg.
When I had gone over that, in the same manner, I asked the governor if he
had any person in his charge who was shortly going out. He had one, he
said, whose time was up next day; but he had only been a prisoner two
years.
Two years! I looked back through two years of my own life—out of jail,
prosperous, happy, surrounded by blessings, comforts, good fortune—and
thought how wide a gap it was, and how long those two years passed in
solitary captivity would have been. I have the face of this man, who was
going to be released next day, before me now. It is almost more
memorable in its happiness than the other faces in their misery. How
easy and how natural it was for him to say that the system was a good
one; and that the time went ‘pretty quick—considering;’ and that when a
man once felt that he had offended the law, and must satisfy it, ‘he got
along, somehow:’ and so forth!
‘What did he call you back to say to you, in that strange flutter?’ I
asked of my conductor, when he had locked the door and joined me in the
passage.
‘Oh! That he was afraid the soles of his boots were not fit for walking,
as they were a good deal worn when he came in; and that he would thank me
very much to have them mended, ready.’
Those boots had been taken off his feet, and put away with the rest of
his clothes, two years before!
I took that opportunity of inquiring how they conducted themselves
immediately before going out; adding that I presumed they trembled very
much.
‘Well, it’s not so much a trembling,’ was the answer—‘though they do
quiver—as a complete derangement of the nervous system. They can’t sign
their names to the book; sometimes can’t even hold the pen; look about
’em without appearing to know why, or where they are; and sometimes get
up and sit down again, twenty times in a minute. This is when they’re in
the office, where they are taken with the hood on, as they were brought
in. When they get outside the gate, they stop, and look first one way
and then the other; not knowing which to take. Sometimes they stagger as
if they were drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence,
they’re so bad:—but they clear off in course of time.’
As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of the
men within them, I tried to picture to myself the thoughts and feelings
natural to their condition. I imagined the hood just taken off, and the
scene of their captivity disclosed to them in all its dismal monotony.
At first, the man is stunned. His confinement is a hideous vision; and
his old life a reality. He throws himself upon his bed, and lies there
abandoned to despair. By degrees the insupportable solitude and
barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor, and when the trap in
his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and prays for work. ‘Give me
some work to do, or I shall go raving mad!’
He has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour; but every
now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the years that must
be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so piercing in the
recollection of those who are hidden from his view and knowledge, that he
starts from his seat, and striding up and down the narrow room with both
hands clasped on his uplifted head, hears spirits tempting him to beat
his brains out on the wall.
Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning. Suddenly he starts
up, wondering whether any other man is near; whether there is another
cell like that on either side of him: and listens keenly.
There is no sound, but other prisoners may be near for all that. He
remembers to have heard once, when he little thought of coming here
himself, that the cells were so constructed that the prisoners could not
hear each other, though the officers could hear them. Where is the
nearest man—upon the right, or on the left? or is there one in both
directions? Where is he sitting now—with his face to the light? or is he
walking to and fro? How is he dressed? Has he been here long? Is he
much worn away? Is he very white and spectre-like? Does _he_ think of
his neighbour too?
Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks, he conjures
up a figure with his back towards him, and imagines it moving about in
this next cell. He has no idea of the face, but he is certain of the
dark form of a stooping man. In the cell upon the other side, he puts
another figure, whose face is hidden from him also. Day after day, and
often when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he thinks of these two
men until he is almost distracted. He never changes them. There they
are always as he first imagined them—an old man on the right; a younger
man upon the left—whose hidden features torture him to death, and have a
mystery that makes him tremble.
The weary days pass on with solemn pace, like mourners at a funeral; and
slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of the cell have something
dreadful in them: that their colour is horrible: that their smooth
surface chills his blood: that there is one hateful corner which torments
him. Every morning when he wakes, he hides his head beneath the
coverlet, and shudders to see the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him.
The blessed light of day itself peeps in, an ugly phantom face, through
the unchangeable crevice which is his prison window.
By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner swell until
they beset him at all times; invade his rest, make his dreams hideous,
and his nights dreadful. At first, he took a strange dislike to it;
feeling as though it gave birth in his brain to something of
corresponding shape, which ought not to be there, and racked his head
with pains. Then he began to fear it, then to dream of it, and of men
whispering its name and pointing to it. Then he could not bear to look
at it, nor yet to turn his back upon it. Now, it is every night the
lurking-place of a ghost: a shadow:—a silent something, horrible to see,
but whether bird, or beast, or muffled human shape, he cannot tell.
[Picture: The Solitary Prisoner]
When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard without. When he
is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell. When night comes, there
stands the phantom in the corner. If he have the courage to stand in its
place, and drive it out (he had once: being desperate), it broods upon
his bed. In the twilight, and always at the same hour, a voice calls to
him by name; as the darkness thickens, his Loom begins to live; and even
that, his comfort, is a hideous figure, watching him till daybreak.
Again, by slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him one by
one: returning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at longer intervals, and in
less alarming shapes. He has talked upon religious matters with the
gentleman who visits him, and has read his Bible, and has written a
prayer upon his slate, and hung it up as a kind of protection, and an
assurance of Heavenly companionship. He dreams now, sometimes, of his
children or his wife, but is sure that they are dead, or have deserted
him. He is easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive, and
broken-spirited. Occasionally, the old agony comes back: a very little
thing will revive it; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer
flowers in the air; but it does not last long, now: for the world
without, has come to be the vision, and this solitary life, the sad
reality.
If his term of imprisonment be short—I mean comparatively, for short it
cannot be—the last half year is almost worse than all; for then he thinks
the prison will take fire and he be burnt in the ruins, or that he is
doomed to die within the walls, or that he will be detained on some false
charge and sentenced for another term: or that something, no matter what,
must happen to prevent his going at large. And this is natural, and
impossible to be reasoned against, because, after his long separation
from human life, and his great suffering, any event will appear to him
more probable in the contemplation, than the being restored to liberty
and his fellow-creatures.
If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of release
bewilders and confuses him. His broken heart may flutter for a moment,
when he thinks of the world outside, and what it might have been to him
in all those lonely years, but that is all. The cell-door has been
closed too long on all its hopes and cares. Better to have hanged him in
the beginning than bring him to this pass, and send him forth to mingle
with his kind, who are his kind no more.
On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners, the same
expression sat. I know not what to liken it to. It had something of
that strained attention which we see upon the faces of the blind and
deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as though they had all been secretly
terrified. In every little chamber that I entered, and at every grate
through which I looked, I seemed to see the same appalling countenance.
It lives in my memory, with the fascination of a remarkable picture.
Parade before my eyes, a hundred men, with one among them newly released
from this solitary suffering, and I would point him out.
The faces of the women, as I have said, it humanises and refines.
Whether this be because of their better nature, which is elicited in
solitude, or because of their being gentler creatures, of greater
patience and longer suffering, I do not know; but so it is. That the
punishment is nevertheless, to my thinking, fully as cruel and as wrong
in their case, as in that of the men, I need scarcely add.
My firm conviction is that, independent of the mental anguish it
occasions—an anguish so acute and so tremendous, that all imagination of
it must fall far short of the reality—it wears the mind into a morbid
state, which renders it unfit for the rough contact and busy action of
the world. It is my fixed opinion that those who have undergone this
punishment, MUST pass into society again morally unhealthy and diseased.
There are many instances on record, of men who have chosen, or have been
condemned, to lives of perfect solitude, but I scarcely remember one,
even among sages of strong and vigorous intellect, where its effect has
not become apparent, in some disordered train of thought, or some gloomy
hallucination. What monstrous phantoms, bred of despondency and doubt,
and born and reared in solitude, have stalked upon the earth, making
creation ugly, and darkening the face of Heaven!
Suicides are rare among these prisoners: are almost, indeed, unknown.
But no argument in favour of the system, can reasonably be deduced from
this circumstance, although it is very often urged. All men who have
made diseases of the mind their study, know perfectly well that such
extreme depression and despair as will change the whole character, and
beat down all its powers of elasticity and self-resistance, may be at
work within a man, and yet stop short of self-destruction. This is a
common case.
That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily
faculties, I am quite sure. I remarked to those who were with me in this
very establishment at Philadelphia, that the criminals who had been there
long, were deaf. They, who were in the habit of seeing these men
constantly, were perfectly amazed at the idea, which they regarded as
groundless and fanciful. And yet the very first prisoner to whom they
appealed—one of their own selection confirmed my impression (which was
unknown to him) instantly, and said, with a genuine air it was impossible
to doubt, that he couldn’t think how it happened, but he _was_ growing
very dull of hearing.
That it is a singularly unequal punishment, and affects the worst man
least, there is no doubt. In its superior efficiency as a means of
reformation, compared with that other code of regulations which allows
the prisoners to work in company without communicating together, I have
not the smallest faith. All the instances of reformation that were
mentioned to me, were of a kind that might have been—and I have no doubt
whatever, in my own mind, would have been—equally well brought about by
the Silent System. With regard to such men as the negro burglar and the
English thief, even the most enthusiastic have scarcely any hope of their
conversion.
It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or good has ever
had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that even a dog or any of
the more intelligent among beasts, would pine, and mope, and rust away,
beneath its influence, would be in itself a sufficient argument against
this system. But when we recollect, in addition, how very cruel and
severe it is, and that a solitary life is always liable to peculiar and
distinct objections of a most deplorable nature, which have arisen here,
and call to mind, moreover, that the choice is not between this system,
and a bad or ill-considered one, but between it and another which has
worked well, and is, in its whole design and practice, excellent; there
is surely more than sufficient reason for abandoning a mode of punishment
attended by so little hope or promise, and fraught, beyond dispute, with
such a host of evils.
As a relief to its contemplation, I will close this chapter with a
curious story arising out of the same theme, which was related to me, on
the occasion of this visit, by some of the gentlemen concerned.
At one of the periodical meetings of the inspectors of this prison, a
working man of Philadelphia presented himself before the Board, and
earnestly requested to be placed in solitary confinement. On being asked
what motive could possibly prompt him to make this strange demand, he
answered that he had an irresistible propensity to get drunk; that he was
constantly indulging it, to his great misery and ruin; that he had no
power of resistance; that he wished to be put beyond the reach of
temptation; and that he could think of no better way than this. It was
pointed out to him, in reply, that the prison was for criminals who had
been tried and sentenced by the law, and could not be made available for
any such fanciful purposes; he was exhorted to abstain from intoxicating
drinks, as he surely might if he would; and received other very good
advice, with which he retired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the result
of his application.
He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and
importunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, ‘He will
certainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any more. Let
us shut him up. He will soon be glad to go away, and then we shall get
rid of him.’ So they made him sign a statement which would prevent his
ever sustaining an action for false imprisonment, to the effect that his
incarceration was voluntary, and of his own seeking; they requested him
to take notice that the officer in attendance had orders to release him
at any hour of the day or night, when he might knock upon his door for
that purpose; but desired him to understand, that once going out, he
would not be admitted any more. These conditions agreed upon, and he
still remaining in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and
shut up in one of the cells.
In this cell, the man, who had not the firmness to leave a glass of
liquor standing untasted on a table before him—in this cell, in solitary
confinement, and working every day at his trade of shoemaking, this man
remained nearly two years. His health beginning to fail at the
expiration of that time, the surgeon recommended that he should work
occasionally in the garden; and as he liked the notion very much, he went
about this new occupation with great cheerfulness.
He was digging here, one summer day, very industriously, when the wicket
in the outer gate chanced to be left open: showing, beyond, the
well-remembered dusty road and sunburnt fields. The way was as free to
him as to any man living, but he no sooner raised his head and caught
sight of it, all shining in the light, than, with the involuntary
instinct of a prisoner, he cast away his spade, scampered off as fast as
his legs would carry him, and never once looked back.