barely endurable. The governor saw my disgust, and explained that he
utterly disapproved of strangers being allowed to be present at all
this; but that the free Americans would not be debarred from beholding
the operation of anything which they have decreed. This is right enough;
the evil is in there being any such spectacle to behold. The prisoners
are ranged in companies for the march from their workshops into the
prison. Each fills his pail and carries it, and takes up the can with
his supper as he passes the kitchen; and, when I was there, this was
done in the presence of staring and amused strangers, who looked down
smiling from the portico. Some of the prisoners turned their heads every
possible way to avoid meeting our eyes, and were in an agony of shame;
while the blacks, who, from their social degradation, have little idea
of shame, and who are remarkable for exaggeration in all they do,
figured away ridiculously in the march, stamping and gesticulating as if
they were engaged in a game at romps. I do not know which extreme was
the most painful to behold. It is clear that no occasion should be
afforded for either; that men should not be ignominiously paraded
because they are guilty.
The arrangements for the women were extremely bad at that time; but the
governor needed no convincing of this, and hoped for a speedy
rectification. The women were all in one large room, sewing. The attempt
to enforce silence was soon given up as hopeless; and the gabble of
tongues among the few who were there was enough to paralyze any matron.
Some rather hopeful-looking girls were side by side with old offenders
of their own colour, and with some most brutish-looking black women.
There was an engine in sight which made me doubt the evidence of my own
eyes; stocks of a terrible construction; a chair, with a fastening for
the head and for all the limbs. Any lunatic asylum ought to be ashamed
of such an instrument. The governor liked it no better than we; but he
pleaded that it was his only means of keeping his refractory female
prisoners quiet while he was allowed only one room to put them all into.
I hope these stocks have been used for firewood before this.
The first principle in the management of the guilty seems to me to be to
treat them as men and women; which they were before they were guilty,
and will be when they are no longer so; and which they are in the midst
of it all. Their humanity is the principal thing about them; their guilt
is a temporary state. The insane are first men, and secondarily diseased
men; and in a due consideration of this order of things lies the main
secret of the successful treatment of such. The drunkard is first a man,
and secondarily a man with a peculiar weakness. The convict is, in like
manner, first a man, and then a sinner. Now, there is something in the
isolation of the convict which tends to keep this order of
considerations right in the mind of his guardians. The warden and his
prisoner converse like two men when they are face to face; but when the
keeper watches a hundred men herded together in virtue of the one common
characteristic of their being criminals, the guilt becomes the prominent
circumstance, and there is an end of the brotherly faith in each, to
which each must mainly owe his cure. This, in our human weakness, is the
great evil attendant upon the good of collecting together sufferers
under any particular physical or moral evil. Visiters are shy of the
blind, the deaf and dumb, and insane, when they see them all together,
while they would feel little or nothing of this shyness if they met each
sufferer in the bosom of his own family. In the one case, the infirmity,
defying sympathy, is the prominent circumstance; in the other, not. It
follows from this, that such an association of prisoners as that at
Auburn must be more difficult to reform, more difficult to do the
state's duty by, than any number or kind of criminals who are classed by
some other characteristic, or not classed at all.
The wonderfully successful friend of criminals, Captain Pillsbury, of
the Weathersfield prison, has worked on this principle, and owes his
success to it. His moral power over the guilty is so remarkable, that
prison-breakers who can be confined nowhere else are sent to him to be
charmed into staying their term out. I was told of his treatment of two
such. One was a gigantic personage, the terror of the country, who had
plunged deeper and deeper in crime for seventeen years. Captain
Pillsbury told him when he came that he hoped he would not repeat the
attempts to escape which he had made elsewhere. "It will be best," said
he, "that you and I should treat each other as well as we can. I will
make you as comfortable as I possibly can, and shall be anxious to be
your friend; and I hope you will not get me into any difficulty on your
account. There is a cell intended for solitary confinement, but we have
never used it, and I should be sorry ever to have to turn the key upon
anybody in it. You may range the place as freely as I do if you will
trust me as I shall trust you." The man was sulky, and for weeks showed
only very gradual symptoms of softening under the operation of Captain
Pillsbury's cheerful confidence. At length information was given to the
captain of this man's intention to break prison. The captain called him,
and taxed him with it; the man preserved a gloomy silence. He was told
that it was now necessary for him to be locked in the solitary cell, and
desired to follow the captain, who went first, carrying a lamp in one
hand and the key in the other. In the narrowest part of the passage the
captain (who is a small, slight man) turned round and looked in the face
of the stout criminal. "Now," said he, "I ask you whether you have
treated me as I deserve? I have done everything I could think of to make
you comfortable; I have trusted you, and you have never given me the
least confidence in return, and have even planned to get me into
difficulty. Is this kind? And yet I cannot bear to lock you up. If I had
the least sign that you cared for me...." The man burst into tears.
"Sir," said he, "I have been a very devil these seventeen years; but you
treat me like a man." "Come, let us go back," said the captain. The
convict had the free range of the prison as before. From this hour he
began to open his heart to the captain, and cheerfully fulfilled his
whole term of imprisonment, confiding to his friend, as they arose, all
impulses to violate his trust, and all facilities for doing so which he
imagined he saw.
The other case was of a criminal of the same character, who went so far
as to make the actual attempt to escape. He fell, and hurt his ankle
very much. The captain had him brought in and laid on his bed, and the
ankle attended to, every one being forbidden to speak a word of reproach
to the sufferer. The man was sullen, and would not say whether the
bandaging of his ankle gave him pain or not. This was in the night, and
every one returned to bed when this was done. But the captain could not
sleep. He was distressed at the attempt, and thought he could not have
fully done his duty by any man who would make it. He was afraid the man
was in great pain. He rose, threw on his gown, and went with a lamp to
the cell. The prisoner's face was turned to the wall, and his eyes were
closed, but the traces of suffering were not to be mistaken. The captain
loosened and replaced the bandage, and went for his own pillow to rest
the limb upon, the man neither speaking nor moving all the time. Just
when he was shutting the door the prisoner started up and called him
back. "Stop, sir. Was it all to see after my ankle that you have got
up?"
"Yes, it was. I could not sleep for thinking of you."
"And you have never said a word of the way I have used you!"
"I do feel hurt with you, but I don't want to call you unkind while you
are suffering as you are now."
The man was in an agony of shame and grief. All he asked was to be
trusted again when he should have recovered. He was freely trusted, and
gave his generous friend no more anxiety on his behalf.
Captain Pillsbury is the gentleman who, on being told that a desperate
prisoner had sworn to murder him speedily, sent for him to shave him,
allowing no one to be present. He eyed the man, pointed to the razor,
and desired him to shave him. The prisoner's hand trembled, but he went
through it very well. When he had done the captain said, "I have been
told you meant to murder me, but I thought I might trust you." "God
bless you, sir! you may," replied the regenerated man. Such is the power
of faith in man!
The greatest advantage of solitary confinement is that it presents the
best part of a prisoner's mind to be acted upon by his guardians; and
the next is, that the prisoner is preserved from the evil influences of
vicious companionship, of shame within the prison walls, and of
degradation when he comes out. I am persuaded that no system of
secondary punishment has yet been devised that can be compared with
this. I need not, at this time of day, explain that I mean solitary
imprisonment with labour, and with frequent visits from the guardians of
the prisoner. Without labour, the punishment is too horrible and unjust
to be thought of. The reflective man would go mad, and the clown would
sleep away his term, and none of the purposes of human existence could
be answered. Work is, in prison as out of it, the grand equaliser,
stimulus, composer, and rectifier; the prime obligation and the prime
privilege. It is delightful to see how soon its character is recognised
there. In the Philadelphia penitentiary work is forbidden to the
criminal for two days subsequent to his entrance; he petitions for it
before the two days are out, however doggedly he may have declared that
he will never work. Small incidents show what a resource it is. A
convict shoemaker mentioned to a visiter a very early hour of the winter
day as that at which he began to work. "But how can you see at that time
of a winter's morning? it must be nearly dark." "I hammer my leather.
That requires very little light. I get up and hammer my leather."
On his entrance the convict is taken to the bathroom, where he is well
cleansed, and his state of health examined into and recorded by the
physician and warden. A hood is then put over his head, and he is led to
his apartment. I never met with one who could in the least tell what the
form of the central part of the prison was, or which of the radii his
cell was placed in, though they make very accurate observations of the
times at which the sun shines in. At the end of two days, during which
the convict has neither book nor work, the warden visits him, and has a
conversation with him about the mode of life in the institution. If he
asks for work, he is offered a choice of three or four kinds, of which
weaving and shoemaking are the chief. He is told that if he does a
certain amount of work, he will have the full diet provided for hard
labourers; if less, he will have what is sufficient for a moderate
worker; if more, the price of it will be laid by to accumulate, and paid
over to him on his leaving the prison. He is furnished with a Bible; and
other books, provided by the friends to the institution, circulate among
the convicts. Some who have books at home are allowed to have them
brought. A convict gentleman whom I visited had a fine library at home,
and was plentifully supplied from thence. It was difficult to find
occupation for this unhappy man, who had never been used to labour. He
was filling bobbins when I saw him, and he wrote a great deal in various
languages. His story was a dreadful one, too horrible to be related. His
crime was murder, but committed under such intense provocation, real or
imaginary, that he had the compassion of every one who knew his history.
He had been justice of the peace for twenty years; and his interest was
so strong that he had little doubt of being able to obtain a pardon, and
for some years was daily racked with expectation. He told me that it was
opposed by political enemies only; and this belief did not, of course,
tend to calm his mind. Pardon came at last, when nine years of the
twelve for which he was sentenced had expired. He was released a year
and a half after I saw him.
In his case there were peculiar disturbing influences, and his seclusion
was doubtless more painful and less profitable than that of most
prisoners. His case was public; his station and the singularity of the
circumstances made it necessarily so; and the knowledge of this
publicity is a great drawback upon reformation and upon repose of mind.
The most hopeful cases I met with were those of men who came from a
distance, who were tried under a feigned name, or whose old connexions
were, from other circumstances, unaware of their present condition. Of
course I cannot publicly relate facts concerning any of these. They
disclosed their stories to me in confidence. I can give nothing but
general impressions, except in a few cases which are already notorious,
or where death has removed the obligation to secrecy, by rendering it
impossible for the penitent to be injured, while his reputation may be
benefited by its being known what were the feelings of his latter days.
After a general survey of the establishment, which furnished me with all
that the managers had to bring forward, I entered, by the kind
permission of the board, upon the yet more interesting inquiry of what
the convicts had to say for themselves. I supposed that, from their long
seclusion from all society but that of their guardians, they would be
ready to communicate very freely; and also, judging from my own
feelings, that they could not do this in the presence of any third
person. I therefore requested, and was allowed to go entirely alone,
the turnkey coming at the end of a specified time to let me out. No one
of them, except the gentleman above mentioned, had any notice whatever
of my coming. Their door was unlocked at an unusual hour, and I stepped
in. My reception was in every case the same. Every man of them looked
up, transfixed with amazement, one with his shuttle, another with his
awl suspended. I said that if my visit was not agreeable, I would call
the turnkey before he was out of hearing, and go away. If the contrary,
perhaps I might be favoured with a seat. In an instant the workman
sprang up, wiped his stool with his apron for me, and sat down himself
on his workbench. In a few cases I had to make a further explanation
that I did not come for prayer and religious discourse. The conversation
invariably took that turn before I left, as it naturally does with the
anxious and suffering; but two or three rushed at once into such
shocking cant, that I lost no time in telling them the real object of my
visit; to learn what were the causes of crime in the United States. I
also told them all that I could not give them news from the city,
because this was against the rules of the prison. They were glad to
converse with me on my own conditions, and I am confident that they
presented me faithfully with their state of mind as it appeared to
themselves. I have never received confidence more full and simple than
theirs, and much of it was very extraordinary. All, except two or three,
voluntarily acknowledged their guilt; the last point, of course, on
which I should have chosen to press them. It seemed a relief to them to
dwell on the minutest particulars relating to their temptation to their
crime, and the time and mode of its commission. One man began protesting
his innocence early in our conversation; following the practice common
among felons, of declaring himself a guilty fellow enough, but innocent
of this particular crime. I stopped him, saying that I asked him no
questions, and had no business with his innocence or guilt, and that I
did not like such protestations as he was making: we would talk of
something else. He looked abashed, and within half an hour he had
communicated his first act of dishonesty in life; the festering wound
which I have reason to believe he never before laid open to human eye.
Several incidents of this nature which occurred persuade me that almost
anything may be done with these sufferers by occasional intercourse and
free sympathy. Each time that I went I was amazed at the effect of words
that had passed, lightly enough, days or weeks before. I found them all
expecting a pardon; and the most painful part of my duty to them was
undeceiving them about this. It was dreadful to see the emotion of some;
but I knew they would have no repose of mind, so necessary in their
case, while racked with this hope; I therefore took pains to explain
what punishment was for, and how rarely pardon could be justified. On my
subsequent visits it was cheering to see how completely they had
understood me, and how they had followed out the subject to their own
entire conviction.
"Well, J.," said I to a young man who had been rather languid about his
work, making only three shoes a week while expecting a pardon, "how have
you been since I saw you?"
"Very fairly indeed, madam. I make seven shoes a week now."
"Ah! then you have left off fretting yourself about a pardon. You have
made up your mind to your term, like a man."
"Yes, I have been thinking about that, and something more. I have been
thinking that perhaps it is well that I am here now; for, madam, I got
that that I took so easily, that I believe, if I had not been caught, I
should have gone back to the same place and taken more, and so have come
in for ten years instead of five."
Twenty months afterward I heard of this man from the warden. He was in
health, cheerful, and industrious. I have no doubt of his doing well
when he comes out.
A negro, in for a very serious offence, which he acknowledged, told me
of another committed long before, which, since his imprisonment, had
weighed much more heavily on his mind, perhaps because no one knew it or
suspected him; it was a theft of sixteen dollars, committed with some
treachery. This subject had been entirely dismissed, and had even gone
out of my mind when we talked over the expiration of his term and his
prospects in life. "Where do you mean to go first?" said I. "Stay in
Philadelphia till I have worked for those sixteen dollars, and paid
them," said he. This was without the slightest leading on my part.
Several told me more about their mothers than about anything else in
their former lives; and those who were tried under false names seemed
more afraid of their mothers knowing where they were than of any other
consequence. In every case some heartsore was at the bottom of the
guilt. Many were as ignorant as Americans ever are, and had sought to
get rid of their griefs, as ignorant people do, by physical excitement.
First passion, then drink, then crime: this is the descent. Most
declared that the privation of tobacco was the first tremendous
suffering within the prison; then the solitude; then the vain hope of
pardon. The middle part of their term is the easiest. Near the end they
grow restless and nervous. Every one that I asked could promptly tell me
the day of the month.
"May I ask," said I to one for whom I had much regard, "may I ask what
all these black marks on your wall are for?" I was not without a
conjecture, remembering that he was to go out on the 17th of the next
August, this being the 1st of December.
He looked down, and said he had no secret in the matter, only that I
should think him very silly. I told him that I did not think any
amusement silly to one who had so few.
"Well, madam, I have been trying to find out what day of the week the
17th of next August will be; but I can't quite make it out, because I
don't know whether the next is leap year."
The holding out my hand to them at parting brought every one of them to
tears; yet there was nothing unmanly in their bearing; there was no lack
of health, no feebleness of spirits, though a quietness of manner such
as might be anticipated in men under punishment and subject to remorse.
There was a degree of contentment (when the expectation of pardon was
removed) which I did not look for. They spoke (such as were qualified)
of other prisons with horror, and with approbation approaching to
thankfulness of the treatment they met with in this, where they were not
degraded as if they had done nothing but crime, as if they were not
still men. I was much moved by the temper of one, and much humbled (as I
often was) at thinking for how little guilt some are heavily visited,
when there is not one of us, perhaps, who may not justly feel that,
however safe and honoured he may appear, he has done worse, and deserved
a more fearful retribution.
A friend of mine, who knew that I was visiting the penitentiary, asked
me to see two brothers who were in for forging and coining. The case
was notorious, the elder brother being an old offender. I agreed to
inquire for them; and upon this my friend somewhat imprudently told the
mother of the convicts and the wife of the younger one what I had
promised, and sent them to see me. I soon perceived that the wife was
telling me a number of family particulars in the hope that I should
communicate them to her husband. I felt myself obliged to put a stop to
this, as I was upon honour, and could not think of violating any of the
rules of the prison, one of which was that the convicts should receive
no intelligence from without. The wife's reply was heart-wringing. She
said she did not wish to show disrespect to any rules; there was but one
thing that she implored me to convey to her husband. He had expected a
pardon in three months from his conviction; five months had now passed,
and he would be wondering. She only wanted him to know that it was
through no want of exertion on her part that he was still in prison. I
was compelled to refuse to communicate anything, and even to let the
young man know that I had seen any of his family. But in my own mind I
resolved not to see the convict till the warden, who was absent, should
return to Philadelphia, and to tell him the whole, that he might
communicate what he thought proper. By these means I believe the
prisoner heard some comfortable tidings after I saw him, and I am sure
he had never a hard thought of his good wife. I promised her a most
minute account of her husband's situation, to which there could be no
objection. She had done nothing wrong, and was not to be punished,
though it appeared that some of the ladies of Philadelphia thought
otherwise, as they took from her the needlework she had undertaken for
the support of herself and her children during her husband's
imprisonment. These virtuous ladies could not think of countenancing
anybody connected with forgers and coiners.