fresh marks of an infamous distinction; the moral effect of which, such as it is, decreases in an inverse ratio with the number of inflictions. The inefficacy of this mode of punishment, therefore, is sufficiently obvious. 4. Nor have we reason to think more favourably of public whipping, as a punishment for offences. Like that, which we have just mentioned, it is rarely allotted to the higher species of crimes. As a spectacle, it has been found to excite no sensation in the public mind, productive of useful results, and, perhaps, the contrary might with safety be affirmed, from the operation of sympathy, with subjects of a punishment, apparently severe and oppressive to the human frame. Whatever may be the pain or suffering to the offender for the time, it is but temporary; and when the sentence of the law is complied with, it leaves him at liberty to return immediately to his career of crime and to qualify himself for higher and more durable and lengthened punishments. We are not aware that the practice of any community has been found favourable to this species of infliction. end to this practice for the future. And if these should prove unavailing, a system of counter action appears to us to be equally requisite. It is manifestly unjust for any state to throw the burden of its convicts upon another state. The forced introduction of criminals into parts of this country, during their colonial condition, was one of the grievances, of which our ancestors loudly complained, and which led, in a measure, to the declaration of independence. The state which pardons its convicts on condition of their leaving its territory, enjoys an exemption from evil, at the expense of its fellow communities, which no constitutional or social relation obliges them to acquiesce in. No state has a right to require a sister state to become the penitentiary of its convicts. The right of self defence fully authorises the state in which such convicts may arrive, to remove them by compulsion, and return them to the state from which they were let loose. We conceive, therefore, that should it be found by experience, that criminals from other states arrive in Pennsylvania, under circumstances such as we have stated the legislature would owe it in duty to the people of this commonwealth, to adopt such measures as would most effectually put an end to the practice. 2. We have applied the term, deportation, to that spe 5. Banishment or transportation has been used as a mode of punishment from the most ancient times; and of late years has occupied a large share of public attention, and considerably divided public opinion; at least in other countries. The importance of the question un-cies of punishment which consists in the removal of ofder some circumstances may serve as our excuse for treating it more in detail than those to which we have had occasion to advert. This species of punishment is of three kinds. 1. Simple Exile. 2. Deportation, by which we would designate the compulsory removal of offenders to some foreign shore, where they should be left without further care on the part of the government. 3. Transportation, or the compulsory removal of of fenders to a distant place, where they are subjected to the penal government and discipline of the mother country. We use those terms for the sake of convenience and distinction, and not perhaps, according to their exact signification. 1. We understand by simple exile, the mere banishment of the offender from the soil of the state or country whose laws he has violated; under some stipulation, or the denunciation of some severe penal infliction in the event of his return. In the practice of modern times, this punishment has generally been allotted to political offences, of a grave character. The moral right of a government to turn loose its convicts upon other nations, may, we think, well be questioned. The right of every other government to refuse them admission is unquestionable; and this would doubtless be exercised, were the practice of banishment for moral crime to become at all frequent. In effect, therefore, a sentence of simple exile would for the most part be inoperative. If practicable, however, we respectfully submit, that it would be unavailing as a measure of conviction. A large proportion of offenders are transitory and cosmopolitical in their characters. They have few, if any, of those attachments, which bind the virtuous part of the community to the country of their birth or choice, and which render exile to them a suffering only short of death. Simple banishment, therefore, where practicable, only removes the offender to another and perhaps, equally congenial scene of action; and upon the community at large produces no visible effect. We cannot help in this place, calling the attention of the legislature, to a practice, which appears to prevail in some of the states of this Union, and which must in its operation prove extremely prejudicial to the interests of this commonwealth, as well as of others. We allude to the banishment of offenders from the particular state, leaving them at liberty to commit depredations and outrages in every other state. A just sense of the rights and dignity of this state, seems to require that measures should be taken by remonstrance or otherwise to put an fenders to some distant place, and the deposit of them at such place, without further care on the part of the government, whose laws they have infringed. It differs from simple exile in this, that the removal is the act of the government, by whom the place of deposit is selected for the purpose. We should have little to remark upon this method of punishment, were it not, that it has recently been pressed upon the consideration of the legislature, and the public, by some of our active and well intentioned citizens. It has been suggested that the objects and ends of punishments might be attained in an ef fectual manner, were the government of the United States to take possession of some uninhabited island; such as the island of Tristan da Cunha, in the Atlantic ocean. The respective state governments might then, at stated periods, remove their convicts to this great depot of crime; and after supplying them with sufficient food and clothing for a time, and with tools of trade and implements of husbandry for future support, might with propriety and convenience, it is said, leave them to their own exertions. Necessity, it is argued, would soon produce order, and some kind of government among them; and the community, whom they had injured, would be effectually relieved from their presence, at a very limited expense. This scheme it may be remarked, has never, according to the best of our information, been put in practice in any country; and depends for success entirely on the reasonableness of its theory. It is liable, we think, to many serious objections; among which we may enumerate the following. In the first place, it confounds all crimes, by imposing upon all, the same extent of punishment. As the banishment is to be without limit of time, it must be for life; and thus either the minor class of offences must be excluded, or receive an equal weight of punishment with those of the most aggravated character. Again the plan presupposes the existence of a suitable place of deposit, and the power to acquire such place; neither of which is very obvious to our apprehension. Another, and perhaps the most serious objection, arises from the proposed abandonment of the convicts as soon as landed. It must be presumed, that all the convicts to be removed are able bodied persons, capable of acquiring the means of support-which of course implies that all others are to remain; and be the subjects of some other kind of punishment. If we believe that order will prevail among those removed, and that contrary to all probability, rapine and bloodshed will not ensue among themselves; it cannot be doubted that this band of criminals will obtain the means of escape, or resolve themselves into a nation of pirates.— Accident, ship wreck or other causes, must occasionally throw vessels or the materials of vessels, on their shore; 1828.] PENAL CODE AND PENITENTIARY SYSTEM. 205 Such are the views we have taken of the punishments of banishment or transportation. and the history of navigation teaches us how readily mentioned. In point of effect, all distinction of crime men, in similar circumstances, obtain the means of es-is confounded, by the difficulties in the way of the cricape, and return to their own country. We must therefore minal's return on the expiration of his sentence, whatconclude that this system of punishment would be found, ever difference exists nominally in the number of years in practice, attended with unavoidable and insurmount- to which the sentence extends. The government does able difficulties. not undertake to return the prisoner; his means seldom 3. The punishment of transportation, as adopted of permit of his return at his own expense, if the opportulate years in Great Britain, consists in the removal of of-nity of a private conveyance occurred; and thus a pufenders for life, or for a term of years, to a distant place, nishment of exile is superadded, not less unjust in prinunder the jurisdiction of the government, whose laws ciple, than impolitic, in destroying the classification of they have violated, and subjects them to penal disci- crimes. pline in such place, which becoraes, in effect, only an enlarged penitentiary. Of the efficacy of this system of punishment in producing the desired results of penal 6. Simple imprisonment of criminals, or the mere relaw, we believe the experience of Great Britain does not straint of their persons, by day and night, without labor authorise us to speak favourably. For the time being, or separate confinement, is so obviously defective as a doubtless, transported convicts are placed beyond the mode of punishment for convicts, that little is requisite reach of repeating evil in the mother country. The in- to be observed on this head. Neither personal suffering sular position and remoteness of New Holland, and the nor amendment of the individual, nor any degree of inrigorous system of government pursued there, have ren- fluence upon society is to be looked for in this case; and dered escape and return to Great Britain difficult, if not the expense of maintenance is borne by the honest poraltogether impossible. So far, too, as the convicts have, tion of the community, exclusively. The experience of after the expiration of their sentence, applied them- the evils of this system has accordingly produced an abanselves to the cultivation of the soil, or other kinds of in- donment of it in almost every part of Europe, in which dustry, their establishment in a new country may be con- public attention has been turned to the subject of penal sidered as a beneficial exchange. We believe, however, discipline. In our own commonwealth it has been rethat the corrupt habits and infirm constitutions of most pudiated from the earliest times. The tenth section of of the convict settlers of New Holland, have rendered the laws agreed upon in England, in May 1682, declared the number of useful labourers very small. But what-that "all prisons shall be work-houses for felons, vagrants ever advantages may attend the system of colonial trans- and loose and idle persons; whereof one shall be in portation, they are attended with drawbacks and evils every county." The same provision was repeated in which probably counterbalance them. In the first place, the great law; and acts of Assembly were subsequently the necessary expense of this system must in any event passed to carry this wise ordinance into effect. Labour be of great magnitude. The removal of the offender to has at all periods of our history been inflicted as the just a distant place; his necessary support there for a time punishment, and meet retribution of convicts. The exat least; the maintenance of the colonial government, tent to which it shall be exacted, and the circumstances all imply great charges, which must be defrayed by the under which it shall be performed, are questions upon mother country; and the experience of the British nation which a diversity of opinion has prevailed in the public has been in accordance with this belief. mind, both here and in Europe. Under the remaining divisions of the subject, we shall offer to the legislature the result of the best examination we have been able to give to these embarrassing questions. It appears from the returns made to the British parliament, that from the year 1787, when the settlement of New Holland commenced, to 1820, the number of convicts transported amounted to 25,878. The cost of transporting is estimated at £100* sterling each: And the annual expense is not less, probably, than £40† sterling; equivalent to $177 60 of our money for each convict. From the returns laid before parliament, it appears, that the expenditure of the British government for the transportation to, and support of convicts at New Holland from 1786 to 1817 inclusive, was about four million pounds sterling, or upwards of seventeen and a half millions of dollars. In 1820 the annual expense of the colony is stated at £300,000+ sterling, or $1,332,000. It is estimated by British writers that one-tenth of the sum expended on this colony would have subsisted at home the whole number of convicts, while something might have been gained from their labour to the public treasury, which was not obtained at New Holland. On the score of expense, therefore, the system of transportation is objectionable. Again, experience shows that reformation of the offender is not to be looked for in a community of convicts. From the returns to the British parliament before mentioned, it appears that out of 4376 convicts, whose sentences had been remitted, or whose time had expired, only 369 were considered respectable in conduct and character. In fact, the same causes which have operated to render our own penitentiaries the seats of crime and the schools of iniquity, namely, free intercourse with the contagion of vice, have operated on a larger scale, and with more powerful effect in New Holland. Other objections exist to transportation as practised by the British, of which one only need be 7. Imprisonment with hard labour, but without classification or separation by day or night, was the earliest in the series of what are now denominated penitentiary punishments. It has been already mentioned, that the strong and far-sighted intellect of the founder of Pennsylvania, perceived the expediency of employing labour as a means of punishment and a compensation to society, half a century before the legislators of Europe began to turn their thoughts to the subject. The earliest provisions of our laws directed the employment of convicts "at hard labor in the house of correction," for a term of years, corresponding with the enormity of the offence. Of the manner in which the punishment was inflicted, or its effect in practice, we have no means left of judging. The alteration of the criminal code which took place in 1717, in consequence of the pertinacious attachment of the British government to capital punishments, seems in practice, to have restored the dominion of idleness-in the interior of our prisons; for although to some minor offences, the punishment of confinement for a short period at hard labour was annexed, yet the concurrent testimony of all, who remember its condition, represents the provincial prison of Philadelphia as a scene of profligacy and license, in which all sexes, ages and colours were confounded without classification, without labour, and without restraint. During the revolutionary contest, it is not to be wondered, that the attention of the legis lature was diverted from the spectacle, or that it was deficient in the means of reformation. The constitution of 1776, however, had directed a reform of the penal laws, and the introduction of hard labour as the punishment for offences. One of the earliest measures after the consolidation of independence, was the reformation of the penal code, and the substitution in many cases, of the penitentiary discipline for the punishment of death. The act of 1786 provided, that certain crimes, which had before been capital, should, for the future, be punished with hard labour, "publicly and disgracefully imposed." The convicts were, accordingly, employed in cleaning the streets, repairing the roads, &c. Their heads were shaved, and they were otherwise distinguished by an uniform and peculiar dress. What were the results of this system of punishment, will be best told, in the words of a distinguished philanthropist, who was himself an eye witness of its operation. The directions of the law of 1786 were "literally complied with, but, however well meant, were soon found to be productive of the greatest evils, and had a very opposite effect from what was contemplated by the framers of the law. The disorders in society, the robberies, burglaries, breaches of prison, alarms in town and country-the drunkenness, profanity and indecencies of the prisoners in the streets, must be in the memory of most. With these disorders the number of the criminals increased to such a degree, as to alarm the community with fears, that it would be impossible to find a place, either large or strong enough to hold them. The severity of the law, and disgraceful manner of executing it, led to a proportionate degree of depravity and insensibility, and every spark of morality appeared to be destroyed. The keepers were armed with swords, blunderbusses, and other weapons of destruction. The prisoners, secured by cumberous iron collars and chains fixed to bomb-shells. Their dress was formed with every mark of disgrace. The old and hardened offender daily in the practice of begging and insulting the inhabitants-collecting crowds of idle boys, and holding with them the most indecent and improper conversation. Thus disgracefully treated, and heated with liquor, they meditated and executed plans of escape-and, when at liberty, their distress, disgrace and fears, prompted them to violent acts to satisfy the immediate demands of nature. Their attacks upon society were well known to be desperate and to some they proved fatal."* sight into the working of the machinery, and of procuring all necessary information upon statistical facts, have been accessible to all; and, under these circumstances, it would seem easy to arrive at just conclusions upon this important subject. Very opposite results however, are furnished by the early and recent history of the penitentiary at Philadelphia. Shortly after the first experiments in reformation were made, but before full effect had been given to the system, a striking improvement was observed in the criminal calendars. The number of convictions for offences, previously capital, was considerably less than in previous years, although population and wealth had rapidly increased. On the 3d of May 1791, the number of convicts in the jail of Philadelphia was 143, while on the 3d of Decem. 1792, the number was only 37*. It will be seen from the tables, which are subjoined to this report and which we have taken pains to compile from the best sources of information, that the number of convictions for all offences was, in Thus, apparently, proving that the introduction of penitentiary punishments did not produce any augmentation of crime. During the 10 years fron 1797 to 1807 the number of convictions, for the same offences, 1311; an increase perhaps not greater than might have been expected from the great augmentation of the population. From 1807 to 1817, however, the number of convictions rose to 2612; a frightful increase; to almost double those of the preceding term. During the last 10 years from 1817 to 1827, the convictions have amounted to 3151, an increase almost equally alarming. The condition of the prison of Philadelphia, during the first 10 or 15 years after the change of system, became the subject of universal remark. Foreigners, as well as our own citizens, were struck with the degree of order and decorum that prevailed, with the exact discipline pursued, and the great apparent amendment of the demeanour and habits of the convicts. We quote from a memorial of the inspectors to the legislature, dated January 8th, 1821, the following testimony to the character of the prison, in its early stages, and at a period when solitary confinement was not spoken of, except to enforce the prison discipline. "The prison was well managed. Industry was en The discipline of the prison was not less remarkably deficient in wisdom and humanity. It will hardly be credited, that so recently as the year 1788, the prison of Philadelphia presented the spectacle, of the confinement of debtors with criminals, of honest poverty with the most vile and revolting of crimes, and the indiscriminate intercourse both by day and night, of women and men, whether debtors or convicts. Nor was this all, spirituous liquors were sold at a bar, inside of the wall, to all its inmates, and produced, as might be expected, scenes of profligacy and impurity disgraceful to the city of Penn. It is the peculiar blessing of free institutions that no abuse can long survive the broad light of public examination. The legislature were no sooner made sen-couraged among the prisoners. Employment was abun sible of the evils of the prevailing system, than they attempted its reform with vigour and earnestness. The acts of 1789, 1790, 1791, 1794 and 1795, prove the anxiety that existed to correct mistakes, and establish a system of punishments, which should combine severity and certainty with humanity; and by removing public disgrace, and the temptations to excess, leave room for the possible entrance of reformation. The system of penitentiary discipline, now pursued in the prison at Philadelphia, and subsequently imitated at New York, Boston, Baltimore and other places, was prescribed by the acts we have enumerated; and consists of that species of punishment which we have ranked as the seventh in the order enumerated. From the establishment of the penitentiary system in full effect in the year 1794, to the present time, its progress and results have been watched with intense anxiety, by a large portion of the public. A problem of immense importance to the condition of mankind was to be solved, and the natural interest in its *This fact is taken from an official statement published solution, kept public attention earnestly fixed upon the in the appendix to the very instructive essay on the pusubject. Fortunately, too, the means of obtaining in-nishment of death, by the late William Bradford, esq. • An account of the alteration and present state of the penal laws of Pennsylvania, &c. by Caleb Lownes. dant, and in consequence of the number of the criminals being small, classification to a certain degree was ob served. The consequence was, that the internal part of the building appeared to a visitor, rather like a well regulated manufactory, than a prison. Instances of reformation in the early period of this system occurred, and among all the prisoners, order and good discipline were maintained." The successful result of the experiment in this state, led, as is well known, to the adoption of the penitentiary system in almost every other state in the Union, and has been quoted as authority and evidence for reformation in Europe. Within the last twenty years, however, a remarkable and melancholy change has taken place, which so completely reverses the picture, that a stranger might well doubt whether it were drawn for the same institution and the same community. In 1803 it appears from a petition to the legis The difference may possibly have been caused in part by the recent occurrence of a criminal court. Senate Journal 1820-1, page 335. 1828.) PENAL CODE AND PENITENTIARY SYSTEM. lature by "the society for alleviating the miseries of public prisons," that the prison was then "no longer capable of containing the prisoners in such a way as to answer the intention of the legislature." In 1816 the same valuable association published "a statistical view of the operation of the penal code of Pennsylvania," in which it is stated, that "the institution already begins to as sume, especially as respects untried prisoners, the character of an European prison, and a seminary for every vice, in which the unfortunate being, who commits a first offence, and knows none of the arts of methodized villainy, can scarcely avoid the contamination, which leads to extreme depravity; and with which from the insufficiency of the room to form separate accommodations, he must be associated in his confinement." The same judgment was pronounced, in almost the same terms, by a committee of the legislature of Massachusetts, who in the year 1818 visited this state, for the purpose of examining into the operation of the penitentiary system. In 1821, the then board of inspectors addressed a letter to a committee of the senate, in which the condition of the prison was forcibly delineated, and some of the causes of the unhappy change were clearly and justly indicated. We make the following extract, because it must be considered as an authentic exposition. 207 shaved close, at least one in each week; they were to be sustained on the coarsest food, and kept to labour of the hardest and most servile kind, during which they were to be "kept separate and apart from each other, if the nature of their several employments will admit thereof;" and "where the nature of the employment requires two or more to work together, the keeper of the goal or one of his deputies shall, if possible, be constantly present." A subsequent section enacted, that if proper employment could be found, the prisoners might also be permitted to work in the yard; provided it were done in the presence, or within view of the keeper or his deputies. The number of hours of work was also prescribed, viz: Eight in November, December and January; nine in February and October, and ten in every other month. An act, passed on the 22d of April, 1794, (3 Smith's Laws, 186,) provided, (sect. xi.) that persons convicted of crimes, which by former laws were punishable with death, (except murder in the first degree,) should be kept in the solitary cells, on low diet, for such portion of the term of imprisonment, (not more than one half, nor less than one twelfth part thereof,) as the court in their sentence should direct and appoint. The act of 18th April, 1795, (3 Smith's Laws, 246,) enacted, that the inspectors of the prison should have full power to class the "It seems to be generally admitted, that the mode at different prisoners, in such manner as they should judge present in use in the penitentiary, does not reform of would best promote the object of their confinement.fenders. It was intended to be a school of reform; but The provisions of the act of 1790, which directed that it is now a school of vice. It cannot be otherwise, where the clothing of the convict should be of the coarsest maso many depraved beings are crowded together, with- terials and their labour of the hardest and most severe out the means of classification or of adequate employ-kind, were repealed; as was also a clause of the same ment. There were in confinement on the first instant. act, which allowed the keeper of the prison a commis(January) 424 men and 40 women convicts. For want sion of five per cent. on the sale of articles manufacturof room to separate them the young associated with the ed by the convicts. old offenders; the petty thief becomes the pupil of the highway robber; the beardless boy listens with delight to the well told tale of daring exploits, and hair breadth escapes of hoary headed villainy; and from the experience of age derives instructions, which fit him to be a pest and terror to society. A community of interest and design is excited among them, and instead of reformation ruin is the general result."* These are the chief provisions of the acts relating to penitentiary punishments. It will be seen, upon examination, that they contemplated a system of classification, at least as between the tried and untried, of severe and unremitting labour during the hours at which labour is practicable by day-light; and of separation of the offenders, during the period of labour, where the nature of the employment permitted of it. No provision was Many other testimonies might be cited, if necessary, made, however, for any general system of solitary conto prove that the condition of the prison of Philadelphia, finement, nor even for the solitary confinement of any within the last ten or fifteen years, has been the standing class of criminals, during the period of imprisonment:reproach and contradiction of the friends of the peniten- All that appears to have been contemplated was solitary tiary system, and furnishes a melancholy contrast to the confinement, for a greater or less term, according to the evidences and promises furnished by its early operation. sentence of the court, and the subsequent return of the Such being the existing state of things, it becomes im- offender to the society and intercourse of the convicts. portant for a first determination upon the subject, to as- Certainly, no provision was made for separate dormitocertain whether the recent evils have sprung out of the ries, or separation during meals. The size of the cells, system itself, or are the result of an imperfect or vicious which the act of 1790 required to be constructed, seems mode of administering it. For which purpose, it is ne- to negative the idea of their being intended for the sepacessary to take a brief review of the different acts of as-rate confinement of individuals. The cells in the Ausembly, by which the penitentiary system was established, that it may be seen whether they have been duly observed in practice, and if not, what circumstances have occurred to prevent their proper observance. burn prison are only seven feet high, and three and a half feet wide, and are sufficiently capacious for the intended purpose, The area of the cells at Philadeiphia, according to the directions of the act, was to be more than twice this size, or as 48 to 21. It was evident that the limits of the prison would not have admitted of the construction of cells of this size for more than a small number of prisoners. And it soon became evident, that the cells constructed by the commissioners were not sufficiently numerous even for "the more hardened and atrocious offenders." Consequently, the intercourse between the convicts, both by day and night, became constant and corrupting. The act of April 5th, 1790, (2 Smith's Laws, 531,) which repealed all the former laws upon the subject, and completed the essay of the penitentiary system, after providing the punishment of hard labour for certain of fences, directed, in the 8th section, that the commissioners of Philadelphia county should cause a suitable number of cells to be constructed, six feet wide, eight feet long, and nine feet high, "for the purpose of confining therein the more hardened and atrocious offenders," who may have been sentenced to hard labour for The alterations in the system, produced by the act of a term of years. Separation between convicts, vagrants, 1795, were perhaps more important, than they appeared and persons charged with misdemeanors, was directed at first sight. The repeal of the clause in the act of to be enforced as much as the convenience of the 1790, which directed the convicts to be clothed uniformbuilding would admit." The convicts were to be cloth-ly in coarse habits, the heads of the males to be shaved, ed in habits of coarse materials, uniform in colour and make; the males were to have their heads and beards Senate Journal 1820-1, page 334. and that they should be subjected to the hardest and most servile labour, may have produced a prejudicial effect on the discipline of the prison, or the penitential operation of the punishment. We are, at all events, un On Saturday last, March 22, there was a fall of Snow on the Broad Mountain, about ten miles from this place, four inches in depth. There was no snow here, whatever, at that time.-Miner's Journal, Pottsville. On the 7th inst. we had the pleasure of seeing a Martin, we believe the first of those agreeable accompaniments of the spring season which has made its appear ance. Perched alone upon a lofty tree, the note of the little stranger attracted much attention from having made its appearance so early in the season.—Ibid. acquainted with the causes which induced the repeal; and inclined to believe, that, especially that part of the old laws which required the labour of the convicts to be of a severe and servile character, was sound in theory, and serviceable in practice; and that, one of the great faults of the existing system, so far as we have had an opportunity of personal examination, is the lightness of the labour, both in respect to its character, and the extent of time devoted to it. The provision, which gave to the keeper of the goal five per cent. commission on the sale of manufactured articles, may also have excited on his part an interest in the labour of the convicts, which Union Canal-The water is in this canal, and we tended to produce more constant application, and left were yesterday informed by a merchant of this place, less time for idleness and corrupting communication.— that a boat had arrived at Middletown from Philadel The repeal of this clause, therefore, may have been pre- phia. judicial to the interests of the institution. The same act Pennsylvania Canal.-The water was, on Tuesday repealed a clause of the act of 1790, which authorised last, let into this canal at M'Allister's mill; and a genthe infliction of moderate whipping, not exceeding thir-tleman has just stepped into our office with the infor teen lashes each time. We are ignorant, however, whe-mation, that it has reached and is filling the basin near ther the punishment of whipping was frequently admin- this place.-Harrisburg, March 20. istered, or otherwise, under the former act. Whatever may have been the operation of these alterations in the law, it is certain that a considerable increase of conviction took place about this period.The number of convictions which in 1792 was 65, and in 1793 was 45, amounted in 1794 to 92, in 1795 to 116, and 1796 to 145. The testimony of all who had opportunities to examine the progress and present state of the Philadelphia prison, united with our own observation, convinces us that the flagrant evils of that establishment, are referrible to the communication, which takes place between the convicts by day and night, during their work, at their meals, and in the perilous interval between the conclusion of their labour in the evening, and the resumption of it the next morning. Other causes have also operated to produce the same result. Among the principal of which is the frequency of pardons, and the system upon which they have of late years been recommended and obtained. The enormous increase in the number of convicts, and the insufficiency of the prison accommodations have, we understand, reduced the Inspectors to the necesssity of applying, annually, for the pardon of a number of the convicts, to make room for others; and by this means it has happened, that the average term of imprisonment actually passed, has been far below the amount inflicted by the sentence of the courts. The operation of a state of things like this, could not be other wise than mischievous. The frequent changes in the persons of the inhabitants, the occasional enlargement of the most vicious, the abbreviation of the term of punishment of all, would probably, if the discipline of the prison were in other respects perfect, lead to the results we have mentioned; and which have caused the prison of Philadelphia to forfeit the high character it once possessed, and to become a reproach to the city in which it is located, and to the state by whom it ought to be superintended. The prevailing evils of the prison may, therefore, be considered partly as the necessary consequences, and partly as abuses of the system established by the acts of 1790, 1794 and 1795. The same is true, we have reason to believe, of most, if not all, the prisons in England and this country, established about the same period. Differing as men do in some respects, as to the causes of these evils, all agree that a change or reformation of practice is imperiously required by every motive of policy and humanity. In what manner the system shall be reformed, however, is a question upon which, as we have already intimated, there exists a great diversity of sentiment: The different suggestions that have been made with this view will be considered under the remaining divisions of punishments. [To be continued.] A Shad was taken on the 17th of March, opposite C. Musser's farm, 4 miles below Harrisburg, York county. Middletown, Monday evening, March 24, 1828. This boat sailed from Fair Mount Dam in company with several of the company boats, and parted with them on the evening of that day, and heard nothing of them since, excepting that there was a report of their having got on as far as Reading. This boat we consider to be the first from Philadelphia, with an assorted cargo, there was, however, an arrival of a small boat with oys ters, &c. some days sooner. In opposition to the opinion expressed in the article on the Delaware Trade and Canal, in our last number, "that an uninterrupted canal communication cannot be had on any of the routes from Tioga Point to Philadelphia, Baltimore or New York," a person well acquainted with that section of country, says that "A complete canal communication can be had with Tioga Point from Philadelphia by the Lehigh route, and with the same distances as mentioned in that article; but if rail roads are adopted in part, the distance from Mauch Chunk to Berwick would be reduced to 32 miles, which would make the whole distance to Tioga Point by that route 287 2-3 miles. But on the plan of rail roads, the Lehigh route would go by Wilkesbarre instead of Berwick (both which points can be reached in the same distance from Mauch Chunk) in which case the distance from Wilkesbarre to Berwick must be deducted, which would reduce the whole distance from Philadelphia to Tioga Point to about 265 miles; and from New York by the Delaware and Raritan Canal, (which will no doubt be completed,) Lehigh and Wilkesbarre, to Tioga Point, about 290 miles, both having the same lockage, which is believed to be less to both cities than by any other route. Printed every Saturday morning by WILLIAM F. GEDDES, No. 59 Locust street, Philadelphia; where, and at the EDITOR's residence, No. 51 Filbert street, Subscrip tions will be thankfully received. Price five dollars per annum-payable in SIX MONTHS after the commencement of publication-and annually thereafter, by Subscribers resident in or near the city-or where there is an agent. Other subscribers pay in advance. |