rigidly, for in another section, the “mental deficiency” of many of
these same persons “which an experienced observer will readily detect
on the day of their reception, or a few weeks after,” is described as
“so slight, as hardly to challenge casual observation or to prevent
their following successfully the ordinary pursuits of life.” We think
it would be very difficult to modify the discipline of a prison, so as
to provide for such minute diversities of mental power among convicts.
They will have to take their chance with the other rogues, we fear.
Although Dr. Given in one passage of his report speaks of “a
modification to a certain extent of the Pennsylvania system,” and “of
association in workshops,” and “of associated labor,” we are happy to
find that the general tenor of the document sanctions no such view.
On the contrary, free, vigorous and timely “out-of-door exercise,”
which is perfectly compatible in any form and degree with the
principle of our system, is clearly in his opinion, the grand panacea
for prison-ills. The gardener and waggoner, at the Eastern State
Penitentiary are accustomed to employ as assistants, such convicts as
need exercise in the open air, and an officer is specially appointed to
“attend invalid convicts, and give to them at least one hour daily of
out-of-door exercise, combined with improving social intercourse.”
It is obvious that these precautionary measures may be adopted to
any needful extent, without any violation of our cardinal principle.
Indeed, we see no evidence in the report before us, that they have
not been employed during the past year, to the full extent which the
exigencies of the institution have required. Not a case is mentioned
or hinted at, in which suffering has been endured, or danger incurred
for want of them. Indeed from the description which the Doctor gives
of the position and treatment of a convict in our Penitentiary, at the
present time, we can scarcely conceive of a system of penal suffering
being administered with more judgment, care and lenity. In speaking
of a keeper’s interpretation of the nature and responsibility of his
office, Dr. G. says: “Aware of the vast power which his official
position affords for influencing the prisoner, for good or evil, his
physical, his intellectual, and his moral character are subjected to
close scrutiny; and the nature of his work, the amount exacted of him,
the extent and character of his social intercourse are regulated
accordingly. If, after due experience, it is found that the employment
of the convict is not adapted to his strength or capacity, the fact
is reported to the warden, and intelligent suggestions offered as to
his future treatment. If the prisoner’s moral conduct proves perverse,
he is subdued by kind remonstrance, when for similar breaches of
discipline he would formerly have been punished; and if symptoms of
insanity, or physical disease portend, the deepest interest is felt,
and every possible exertion made to avert the threatened evil.”
We know not what more could be asked, if the idea of punishment is not
to be entirely foregone.
Indeed, we cannot avoid the conviction that in one particular at least,
a pernicious indulgence is granted; viz., the use of tobacco. Dr. G.
anticipates “quite as much censure as approbation,” will be bestowed
on this item of treatment, and he may think himself very fortunate, if
the scales are so nearly equipoised as that. For ourselves, we cannot
qualify our condemnation of the practice on every ground. So far as the
Dr.’s argument rests on strength of habit, it would be equally cogent
for the use of intoxicating liquors; and we must suppose he speaks
ironically, when he refers to “legislative chambers, halls of justice,
or even our pulpits,” as furnishing invariably safe precedents in moral
conduct. Convict-life is, and of right ought to be a life of privation;
and the wise disciplinarian takes advantage of this period to cross the
prisoner’s vicious inclinations at every point, and thus connect the
process of punishment with the process of reformation. Dr. G. has seen
“a strong stubborn man beg for tobacco with tears in his eyes.” We have
seen such a man beg, in like manner, for a drink of grog, or the means
of escape from prison. But it is “the painfulness of this privation”
which answers, in our prisons, the purpose which the douche, or the
yoke, or the cat-o’-nine tails are supposed to answer in other prisons.
It is suffering with profit, for it breaks up a most vicious habit, and
it is suffering without degradation, too. Why should we throw away such
an advantage?
But what shall we say to the other ground of apology for allowing
tobacco to the prisoners, viz., for the cure of “dyspepsia and mental
depressions, otherwise treated in vain?” In such a war, we must put
Greek against Greek. In insane asylums, where physical and mental
diseases are supposed to have the most skilful medical treatment,
we are informed that the use of tobacco is strictly interdicted by
the resident physician; and we notice by the return of the Ohio
Lunatic Asylum, that six of the cases of insanity received into that
institution last year, are believed to have originated in the use of
that narcotic! Nothing could show the prodigious power of the habit
more strikingly than the remark of Dr. G., that “the fear of being
deprived of it has produced a degree of order and discipline throughout
the establishment, that the severest punishment could not effect.” We
have seen, in a nursery of young rogues, a violent uproar against a
parent or care-taker quieted at once by just giving a sugar plum, or
a bit of gingerbread, which had been at first denied. How far such
concessions to the vicious appetite of convicts, or to the unruly
will of children promote sound discipline, is not a matter of doubt
to observing minds. A firm maintenance of wholesome authority, or the
discreet use of King Solomon’s specific for disorders of the temper,
would perhaps add a new strain to the discordant music for the time
being, but it would be likely to produce very agreeable harmony in the
end.
The striking improvements which have been made in the hygienic
arrangement of the Eastern State Penitentiary, and for which it is
greatly indebted to the earnest and well directed efforts of Dr. G.,
cannot fail to impress every reader of the report. Without relaxing in
any degree the radical principle of separation, or rendering the penal
feature of the discipline any less severe, the moral and physical well
being of the convicts has been greatly advanced, and the claims of the
worst of them to kind and humane treatment have been recognised with a
distinctness of which they are, for the most part, happily conscious.
If we would give to an inquirer on the subject a succinct but
impressive view of the advance which has been made in the improvement
of our system of prison-discipline, we know of no document to which we
would refer with more confidence than this report of Dr. Given.
ART. III.--JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, TRUANCY, &c.
In our last number, we commenced a notice of several interesting
matters occurring in Boston and its vicinity, and falling within the
range of our observation. The presentment of the Grand Jury of Suffolk
County was under discussion, and we promised to return to it again when
opportunity should allow, and this promise we now redeem.
The establishment of “an _intermediate reform school_ for young
persons, who are committed for first offences, when there is an
apparent opportunity for their reformation by the use of moral and
intellectual discipline,” is strongly urged in the presentment. The
Grand Jury have in view a plan, “where the mark of the penitentiary
shall not be put upon the convicts, but where, by judicious management
on the part of superintendent, and exemplary conduct on the part of
those consigned to his charge--they whose misfortune it may be to stray
from the paths of rectitude, could again be received into the bosom of
society without reproach.”
To enforce their suggestions, they call into view “the large number of
minors that have been brought before the tribunals of public justice
within the six months last past,” and express their deep conviction
that “if some plan were provided, at which neglected children could be
made to pass their time, instead of upon the wharves, in the streets,
around the doors of theatres, or in the market places,--say in some
industrial school provided by the State,--juvenile delinquency would
very much decrease.”
These are all very good notions for a Boston jury, or any other jury
to entertain, but suppose we should transform all these jurymen into
Legislators, and give them a seat in the House of Representatives;
and suppose a proposition were submitted to enact a law, making it
compulsory on all parents to give their children a certain amount of
schooling every year, and in default thereof, authorizing and requiring
the proper authorities to remove such children from the custody of the
parents, for the purpose of schooling them. Would they then and there
take the same view of the subject? Would no misgivings arise about the
bearing which their advocacy of such a stringent law might have on
their political prospects? Would they advance as directly and as boldly
to the application of the remedy as they do to the exposure of the evil?
It is obvious from the language of the report, that the Suffolk Grand
Jury have a much clearer idea of the disease than they have of the
cure. The class of persons to whom they refer as “committed for first
offences” are nevertheless “convicts,” and nothing can remove the “mark
of the penitentiary” but an executive pardon. And whether there is “an
apparent opportunity for their reformation,” is not an easy question
to determine. When the distinction comes to be practically applied,
it would be found very perplexing. Our Houses of Refuge are intended
to receive those who have entered, or are just entering upon a course
of life, which ordinarily ends in the penitentiary; and they have
doubtless saved scores of youth from the convict’s infamous doom, and
returned them to their families and to society, with every prospect
of usefulness and respectability. And we had supposed that the State
Reform School at Westborough, which has been so successfully conducted,
was designed to answer exactly this end. The boys who are committed
there, are generally sent for first offences, and the discipline is
strictly reformatory. Does the report of the jury then contemplate an
institution between the Reform School and the State Penitentiary, or
between the Reform School and “the House of Reformation for Juvenile
Offenders,” at South Boston? If the former, what ends are expected to
be answered, which the institution at Westborough fails to accomplish;
and if the latter, what class of offenders would they find between
those at Westborough and those at South Boston, for whose case neither
of these establishments provides?
However obscure the intimations of the report may be on this point,
they are very clear on another, viz., that juvenile delinquency would
be greatly diminished if all idle, loitering, loafing children “about
town” were put to good, industrial schools. It is not a whit more
certain, that if the Cochituate pond were to dry up suddenly, Boston
would have a far less generous supply of water than it has now. But
how shall this abstraction from the streets and wharves, of the filthy,
foul-mouthed, ragged urchins be brought about? When and where shall
the industrial school be established? What shall be the nature of
the discipline, and the length of the confinement? Shall the public
support them, or shall contributions be levied on negligent parents?
Such schools have been greatly prospered, we know, in some of the chief
towns of England and Scotland; but the institutions of society and
indeed its whole structure, will allow that to be done there, which
would not be tolerated here. We must give our Boston friends credit,
however, for a very wise and effective step towards the suppression
of juvenile vice. We allude to the law for the correction of truancy,
and we cannot more usefully occupy a page of our limited space than
by transcribing one or two passages from a leading document on the
subject. The views expressed are quite as appropriate to Philadelphia
as to Boston.
As early as 1846, a report came from the school committee of the
city, in which the mischief of truancy is represented as not only
interfering greatly with the regular process of instruction, but as
exerting a demoralising effect which can hardly be counteracted,
and employs much of the time and energy of the masters in
preserving the discipline which it assails. Nor is it an evil (says
the report) which ends with the schools. If it did, our duty would
still require of us to do whatever we can do for its suppression or
diminution. But it is certain, that, from the juvenile depravity of
which the truancy of the school is both a sign and a cause, grows
a large part of the suffering and crime of society. It is rare to
find in our prisons those who were well cared for as children,
and trained in regular habits of useful industry. An active child
can be kept out of evil only by giving him something good to do;
and when idleness has thoroughly corrupted the earliest years of
life, what can we expect from riper years, but a maturity of vice,
greater as temptations become stronger, and opportunities for crime
are enlarged?
In the worst cases, the truancy of the children, or their entire
absence from school, is permitted by the parents, and sometimes
caused by their desire to share in those wretched gains of debasing
or dishonest pursuits, for which after-time will exact a fearful
price.
If the law on the one hand, provides schools to which all the
children of this city _may_ go, on the other it provides another
institution to which certain children may be _made to go_. Here
then are institutions for those who _will_, and for those who
_will not_ be instructed; and under one or other of these classes
all our children may be arranged. The 143d chapter of the Revised
Statutes, Sect. 5th, enumerates among those who may be sent to the
House of Correction, “stubborn children;” and the “Act concerning
juvenile offenders in the City of Boston,” authorizes the City
Council to establish a building for “the reception, instruction,
employment and reformation of such juvenile offenders as are
hereinafter named;” this building we have: and the third section
of the same Act provides, “That any Justice or Judge of the said
Courts, (the Supreme Court, Municipal Court, and Police Courts) on
the application of the Mayor, or of any Aldermen of the City of
Boston, or of any Director of the House of Industry, or House of
Reformation, or of any Overseer of the Poor, of said City, shall
have power to sentence to said house of employment and reformation,
all children who live an idle and dissolute life, whose parents are
dead, or if living, from drunkenness, or other vices, neglect to
provide any suitable employment, or exercise any salutary control
over said children.” And the sixth section provides that any child
committed to the House of Correction, may be transferred to the
House of Employment and Reformation.”
It would seem, therefore, that the framers of the laws have done
enough, if they who are entrusted with the execution of the laws do
their duty.
These statements and views were not without their effect, though
measures of reform were not matured until 1850, when a law was past,
which we copy entire as the shortest method of presenting the whole
matter to the view of our readers.
“AN ACT CONCERNING TRUANT CHILDREN AND ABSENTEES FROM SCHOOL.”
1. Each of the several cities and towns in this Commonwealth,
is authorized and empowered to make all needful provisions and
arrangements concerning habitual truants and children not attending
school, without any regular and lawful occupation, growing up in
ignorance, between the ages of six and fifteen years; and also,
all such ordinances and by-laws respecting such children, as shall
be deemed most conducive to their welfare, and the good order of
such city or town; and there shall be annexed to such ordinances,
suitable penalties, not exceeding for any one breach, a fine of
twenty dollars: _provided_, that said ordinances and by-laws shall
be approved by the Court of Common Pleas for the county, and shall
not be repugnant to laws of the commonwealth.
2. The several cities and towns, availing themselves of the
provisions of this act, shall appoint, at the annual meetings of
said towns, or annually by the mayor and aldermen of said cities,
three or more persons, who alone shall be authorized to make the
complaints, in every case of violation of said ordinances or
by-laws, to the justice of the peace, or other judicial officer,
who, by said ordinances, shall have jurisdiction in the matter,
which persons, thus appointed, shall have authority to carry into
execution the judgments of said justices of the peace, or other
judicial officer.
3. The said justices of the peace, or other judicial officers,
shall, in all cases, at their discretion, in place of the fine
aforesaid, be authorized to order children, proved before them to
be growing up in truancy, and without the benefit of the education
provided for them by law, to be placed, for such periods of time
as they may judge expedient, in such institution of instruction
or house of reformation, or other suitable situation, as may be
assigned or provided for the purpose, under the authority conveyed
by the first section, in each city or town availing itself of the
powers herein granted.
ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF BOSTON.
_Sect. 1._ The city of Boston hereby adopts the two hundred and
ninety-fourth chapter of the laws of the commonwealth, for the year
one thousand eight hundred and fifty, entitled “an act concerning
truant children and absentees from school,” and avails itself of
the provisions of the same.
_Sect. 2._ Any of the persons described in the first section
of said act, upon conviction of any offence therein described,
shall be punished by a fine not exceeding twenty dollars; and the
senior justice, by appointment of the police court, shall have
jurisdiction of the offences set forth in said act.
_Sect. 3._ The house for the employment and reformation of juvenile
offenders, is hereby assigned and provided as the institution of
instruction, house of reformation, or suitable situation, mentioned
in the third section of said act.
We understand that this wholesome law was put in active operation
at once in the city of Boston and in the adjoining town of Roxbury,
and that a faithful execution of it bids fair to correct the hideous
public nuisance of truant children. We wish it were practicable to
secure similar legislation in our city. No indolent, thoughtless farmer
ever stood on the borders of his field, and witnessed the broad-cast
dispersion of Canada thistle-down over every part of it, with more
composure than our lawmakers and magistracy look upon the spread
of juvenile corruption in Philadelphia. We say this not without a
grateful sense of the late liberality of the legislature in granting
$60,000 towards the erection of a new Refuge in Philadelphia; nor
without a just appreciation of the results of the labours of that
excellent institution; nor without taking into view the various
agencies designed to accomplish similar objects. But upon the mass of
juvenile waywardness and depravity, they seem scarcely to have made
a perceptible impression. The accumulation of the material out of
which convicts are made is not sensibly checked. The sources of this
corruption have been laid open to view in the reports of our Houses
of Refuge, our Magdalen Asylums and police reports, but they remain
as numerous and as prolific as ever. Corrupt places of amusement are
thronged by boys and girls. Our eligible schools are open to them in
vain. The hawking of newspapers, occasional jobs at the steamboat
wharves or depots and chance-errands in the market-place, afford
them means of vicious indulgence; and the regular service of an
apprenticeship to some useful business, with the wholesome restraints
which were formerly involved in this relation, are too irksome for
their impatient spirits. Boys and girls of twelve or fifteen years of
age, in a majority of cases, choose their own pursuits, receive the
whole or a part of their earnings, to be expended at their pleasure;
and with these elements of independence it is not difficult to connect
a contempt for all authority, parental and magisterial, and this soon
breaks up the foundations of society. Then there is that still unabated
nuisance of young girls going about with fruit and candy; and by their
very manner of life exciting, if not soliciting heartless wretches to
make them their frequent or future prey. Is our community doomed to
stand quietly by and see these streams of social corruption rising and
swelling? Is there no arm long enough and strong enough to reach the
fountain and check, if not suppress, its issues?
We have given so much space to this topic of the report, that we must
be satisfied with but a brief notice of the rest.
The State Prison at Charlestown, of which _Henry K. Frothingham_ is
warden, contains 476 prisoners, one-third of whom are foreigners. Six
deaths occurred during the year, and the average number on the sick
list was six. Libraries are highly commended as a means of moral
culture, and it is recommended that they be furnished at the expense of
the Commonwealth, not only to the State prison, but to county gaols and
houses of correction.
The stinted supply of water at the Charlestown prison is mentioned
as an evil, and it is a very expensive one too, inasmuch as it was
procured during part of the summer, at an expense of from two to five
dollars a day!
In the county gaol there were received between November 1, 1850, and
November 1, 1851, 5,541 prisoners, of both sexes, 3,135 of whom were
foreigners. The daily average was 120. The Grand Jury think that the
Commonwealth’s witnesses should receive as good fare while in prison,
as they would be likely to receive at home. Whereas, they now are
served with the same food that convicts receive. Whether this is not
quite as good as most honest poor men can afford, does not appear.
In the Alms House at Deer Island during the six months ending December
1, 1851, 931 paupers were received, of whom 686 were foreigners. Of the
whole number, 33 were males, and 398 females, and 203 were under 12
years of age. The number of deaths in the same period was 77. There is
a loud complaint here also, that the supply of water is inadequate. No
trifling defect in such an establishment.
The Grand Jury advert to the intolerable nuisance of bawdy houses,
and suggest the expediency of a law, making the owners of such houses
responsible for the use which is made of their premises. There is
also a distinct reference in the report to the great disparity of
punishments for similar offences, and the evil consequences which
attend it--a subject to which we have more than once invited and urged
attention.
The erection of the new County Jail in Boston, is such an important
movement in the prison-world, and the structure and occupants present
so many interesting topics of remark, that we must make it the subject
of a distinct article.
ART. IV.--INSANE CONVICTS.
We cannot refrain from calling the attention of our readers to the
continued postponement of measures for the safe custody and proper
treatment of insane convicts. In the last report (January 1, 1852,) of
the inspectors of the Eastern State Penitentiary, the following passage
occurs:
If mental alienation in a prisoner renders his enlargement in
society dangerous to its peace and safety, then that imprisonment
is best which partakes of the nature rather of restraint, than
punishment. There are in the Penitentiary some prisoners who,
insane on admission, require now only restraints and proper
treatment for their mental disease.