Charles Langheimer, a white-haired old German, of seventy years of age,
presented himself, a few weeks ago, at the door of the Eastern
Penitentiary, in Pennsylvania, and asked to be given a cell in charity,
and allowed to end his days there.
This Langheimer has a singular history. He was a convict in this prison
when Charles Dickens visited it during his first visit to this country.
The rule of the institution is solitary confinement. The genial
novelist's heart was so wrung with pity for the poor creatures he saw
there condemned to years of absolute silence and loneliness, that he
protested vehemently against the system in his "American Notes." He took
the case of this wretched German as his text. Probably thousands of kind
eyes, all over the world, have filled with tears at the story of
Langheimer.
The authorities of the prison and the defenders of the system, however,
tell with great gusto the sequel of the story. It seems that
Langheimer, as soon as he was released for one offence, committed
another, and has been brought back again and again, until forty years of
his life have been passed within these walls. Finally, not being under
any charge, he voluntarily came back and begged for admission.
An impartial observer would be apt to think that Dickens was right, and
that the system cannot be the best one that fits a man to commit more
crimes, or which made poor Langheimer unable to find a home in society
outside of a jail.
The American people are only beginning to learn that the use of prisons
is to reform wicked men as well as to punish them.
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