The experience of visitors with some of this class is of a very
interesting character. Occasionally are heard, in the out-break of
passion, resolves of the avenging upon the world, the wrong inflicted by
the first incarceration. It cannot be denied that these resolves are
frequently carried out, and a life is consecrated to crime, in revenge
for punishment—and the cell of the prisoner is the first degree in that
education which terminates in a full graduation in the State Prison, or
on the gallows. Of course, far back of this first imprisonment lies the
evil; neglected education; want of parental direction, or the evil
influence of pernicious parental example; evil associations at the
corners of the street; and especially, and to be particularly noticed,
COMPANIONSHIP IN SOCIETIES formed for mischief before the initiates
understood the nature and tendencies of their confederacy. The prison
and the penitentiary of our city have been made populous by members of
these societies, whose object and origin are often emphatically set
forth in their abhorrent names. Thousands of lads have thought they were
honored in their position by being admitted to fellowship with those who
had become a sort of terror in their neighborhood; and others have
gratified a pugnacious inclination, by associating with vulgar heroes,
who were bound to protect them from assault, and assist in gratifying
their malevolence. It is no argument against the evils of these
societies that there are in them very few persons of mature age. Alas!
the ranks are crowded with those who have the vigor of nascent manhood,
without the restraints of a sense of responsibility. Plans of evil,
which if proposed to men, even young men, would have been voted down
from the danger which the actors would incur, are adopted with
acclamation by grown-up boys; and the quiet of neighborhoods is
disturbed, property destroyed, personal safety jeoparded, personal
injury inflicted, and sometimes human life wantonly taken.
In this class of prisoners, however, as we have already remarked, are
often found the proper objects of the visitors’ most hopeful attentions.
The young man or young woman, who by the error, we will not say the
accident, of bad associates, is arrested for an offence of which he or
she is only partly guilty of the act, and innocent of intention, after a
few weeks’ confinement begins to hear with interest the voice of
friendship “breathed through the lattice,” and though shocked at a new
contact with the innocent, yields soon, not merely attention but
confidence, opens up the heart to the friend at the cell door, receives
the proffered book, accepts the offer of frequent visitations, and in
time, not at once, shows that deep sense of degradation which is the
beginning of true repentance. The visitor finds himself depended on, the
confidence begets protection, and the punishment for the first offense
or for the first detection becomes the means under Providence of
permanent amendment.
In this department of the prison the separate system is practised as far
as can be done consistent with the plans of employment, and, with regard
to the effect of the system, even with the limited advantage which it
has in this place, favorable reports are made. One instance is mentioned
by a visitor, who is most faithful to the duties he assumes and whose
regular labors are almost entirely limited to convicts, and to those of
a particular gallery, so that he may not by diversity of labors, or a
multitude of objects, lessen the good effects of his visits or diminish
the means of a close intimacy with the minds of those whose good he
seeks. He has within a short time received letters from two soldiers in
the Army of the Potomac, both of whom had been under his moral dealings
in the County Prison at one time, and both were members of the ——th
regiment, both returned thanks for the valuable instructions and
kindness of the visitor, both professed to have derived the most
important benefits from his care, yet neither of them knew that they had
occupied adjoining cells in the County Prison, and neither of them was
acquainted with the fact that the other was addressing their common
benefactor. Instances of this kind, if not frequent, do at least occur
sufficiently often to strengthen the hopes of the Society that the
labors which its visitors perform in the name of benevolence and under
the direction of the Association, are fruitful, in individual and social
benefit. Fruitful in that good which was contemplated in the formation
of the Society.
One other instance of the effect of zealous, affectionate kindness and
watchful care in this department may be mentioned. A visitor who has for
twenty years been constant in the discharge of his voluntarily assumed
duties, found in a cell a lad who had by bad association and repeated
crimes deserved and received a sentence for many years imprisonment. He
was one of those impressible persons who yield to circumstances and
follow out fully the course into which they may have been conducted.
Notwithstanding the effect which several years’ bad conduct had produced
on the perceptions of the youth, separate confinement had afforded him a
means of preparing himself for that species of mental hostility to the
world which the young convict is likely to entertain, and when the
visitor entered his cell and asked for a statement of the circumstances
of his short but miserable career, the voice of affection and the tone
of deep, almost of parental interest with which the prisoner was
addressed, secured his confidence, and his tale of wrong doing was
readily told. In time the unfailing attention of the visitor became
almost necessary to the existence of the prisoner, and the prescribed
devotion was performed. The Scripture lessons were well studied, and all
that could be required of the inmate of the criminal cell seemed to be
so well done that the “visitor” felt authorized to second the wishes of
the prisoner for Executive clemency. A full pardon was obtained, and in
a short time afterwards, the released convict was seen occupying a place
of peculiar trust, where his own word was all that could be demanded as
a statement of cash received. The many failures and disappointments
which pain and mortify the visitors in their labor of love, are not
recorded. But such an instance as we have noticed above, will serve as a
reward for many years of toil, as compensation for many hundred
disappointments, and as encouragement to future exertions, and
especially to careful studies as to the best mode of improving the means
of usefulness. We are not to forget that the labors of the visitors are
low down. In other callings it is a comfort to know that the good have
been made better by well sustained efforts. The mission of the Society’s
Visitors is to those whom the world deems already lost. To snatch even a
few from the many, very many, of those who constitute the class of
depraved and criminal, publicly exposed, is a work in which the laborers
must find much of their reward in the sense of suffering mitigated, and
the feeling of kindness gratified. Their highest boast must be that God
has accepted the services for the permanent benefit of even a few.
In making an annual report of the doings of the Society for the
Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisons, we might be justified in
multiplying our statements of favorable results of the labors of the
members of the two great Committees. For these are the fruits of all our
plans, the result of all our labors. If the great object to many is to
secure the adoption of the separate confinement of prisoners, this
separate confinement is only to ensure the moral improvement of the
individual prisoner. If the Society puts forth its efforts to create and
multiply auxiliary institutions, it is only that there may be a greater
concurrence of zeal and talents to make our State Penitentiaries and our
County Prisons the schools of reform of individual prisoners; and the
Society for Ameliorating the condition of Prisons, while it rejoices in
the adoption of its views by institutions in other States of the nation,
and by governments abroad, rejoices not as having triumphed merely in
extending a knowledge of itself, and as having secured an adoption by
others of what it deems its peculiar plans, but as having conciliated
the prejudice of other benevolent associations, and secured their
co-operation in the work of promoting the good of society, by
multiplying the means of improvement of individuals.
We shall have occasion to speak more extensively of the nature of the
labors of the Prison Committee, each one of whom is a “Visitor,” when we
come to consider the labor in the female department of the County
Prison. And that, too, will afford opportunity to notice the operation
of the primary judiciary system of the city, and its effects on
prisoners and on society.