In the preceding divisions of this Report, it has been shown that the
County Prison is peopled and re-peopled by persons who pass regularly
from vice to vice, or from one degree of vice to another, marking their
progress with a short residence in the cells of the prison, remaining at
the longest only thirty days, and associating with those who may be
their teachers or pupils in misdemeanors. It is not pretended by those
who send these offenders to the prison, that the incarceration will
amend their habits,—it is only the means of punishment; nor is it more
than desired,—scarcely to be hoped,—by those who seek to alleviate the
miseries of the prison, that the confinement of thirty days will tend to
repentance and amendment of the vicious offender.
It is evident that more is required,—more in the way of wholesome
discipline, more in time, more in direct appeals and instruction, more
in the enforcement of industry. The prison cannot do much more than it
is doing for the vicious. The solemn pledges of the intemperate to avoid
intoxicating drink are slightly regarded when the means of violation are
enticingly offered, and all the vices which have procured imprisonment
lose their terrors, or double their attractions, when the temporary
punishment is accomplished.
It is evident then that we need a resort for the vicious that will offer
to society some hope that even if the vice is not avoided, the vicious
shall be kept where they will cease to degrade society by their
misconduct and lead others to destruction by their example.
We need a “House of Correction,” a place to receive those men and women
who will not be reclaimed by monitions, or short confinement. We need a
place where time for thinking can be found, and where the food for
reflection may be supplied.
But in this case we cannot throw the censure for deficiency on the
Legislature of the State. The wants of the community are admitted, and
the right to supply those wants granted: the means are withheld by the
city authority. Resolutions for building a Municipal Hospital for the
reception, care and cure of those attacked with the small-pox, are
adopted, and the means for carrying into effect those resolutions are
supplied by the Councils of the city. That is well, and denotes a
paternal care, on their part, of the interest and health of their
constituents. But why—when authority is given, why not provide a
Hospital for those struck with the pestilence of drunkenness and the
accumulated miseries that come in its train? Is there a disease in the
whole catalogue of human suffering that is more epidemic, if not
contagious, than intoxication? or is there one that multiplies itself
more by social contact? And why then should the vagrant, the breaker of
the peace, the drunkard, multiply his or her disease more than the
sufferer by the small-pox or cholera? If the hospital for the small-pox
is a retreat for the sufferer, and his family and neighborhood need to
be relieved from the danger of his condition, the House of Correction
would be no less an asylum for the vicious, in which they could grow
better by care, and escape the evil of communicating their mental
disease to their neighbors.
In whatever light the House of Correction is regarded, it presents the
highest claims on society for its establishment. Is it to be a place
into which the vicious are to be driven by the law, that they may be
punished for their offence, and society saved the disgrace and danger of
their presence? Society has a right to demand such a forceful withdrawal
of the elements of crime from its midst. Is it to be a place of enforced
refuge for the willing or unwilling victim of vice, where habits of
disorder may be broken and new habits of industry and propriety
established, where good counsel shall make reasonable and acceptable the
moderate discipline of the place, where good example shall illustrate
the lessons of good morals, and the exhibition of orderly propriety of
the place be made to contrast with the squallor and misery of the
resorts of vice from which the inmates have been gathered, and thus
virtue enforced and resolutions of good formed, and their exercise for
some time at least insured? Then it is solemnly urged that the House of
Correction is called for by all that humanity can contrive and sound
policy can suggest.
In this matter the Society has done its part, and is ready, when
empowered, to continue its labor in the direction of amending the
vicious. But whether the Society have or have not any direct relations
with the House of Correction, it must feel that the interests of this
great community, of humanity and of virtue, suffer by the delay in
providing for its erection. If there be truth in the statements
submitted with regard to the number and character of those who are
habituées of the County Prison, we need no argument in favor of the
House of Correction.
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