FIFTH INTERNATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS. 395 



easily grow too painful for an imaginative child disposed to take 

 all representative spectacle as reality ; yet tlie absorbing interest 

 of the action where the sadness is bearable attests the early de- 

 velopment of that universal feeling for the sorrowful fatefulness 

 of things which runs through all imaginative writings from the 

 " penny dreadful " upward. 







THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS. 



By SAMUEL J. BARROWS, 



SECRKTAEY TO THE AMERICAN DELEGATION TO THE CONGRESS. 



IN no country ought the results of the International Prison Con- 

 gress, held last summer at Paris, to be received with more in- 

 terest than in America, for it was an American pioneer in prison 

 reform, the late Dr. E. C. Wines, who took the lead in organizing 

 this series of international prison congresses. The way had been 

 prepared by the formation of local associations in Europe and in 

 this country. Dr. Wines's plan to have a grand international con- 

 ference was fostered by correspondence with Count SoUohub, of 

 Russia. The American Government backed up the enterprise by 

 appointing Dr. Wines a commissioner to go to Europe a year in 

 advance and secure the co-operation of other governments. The 

 result was the holding of an international congress in London in 

 1872, and its organization upon a permanent basis, with Dr. Wines 

 as president of the permanent commission. The second congress 

 was held in Stockholm in 1878, the third in Rome in 1885, the 

 fourth in St. Petersburg in 1890, and the fifth in Paris in 1895. 



These conferences have steadily grown in interest and influ- 

 ence. The title of the congress hardly gives a full idea of its 

 scope. This international gathering is not merely an assemblage 

 of prison wardens to discuss the subject of prison management, 

 though that alone would be well worth doing ; it is as well a gath- 

 ering of distinguished jurists, legislators, doctors, sociologists, 

 magistrates, the heads of prison administration, and writers and 

 experts on related branches of applied philanthropy. In the 

 Paris congress there were two hundred foreign delegates from 

 twenty-five different nations. In addition to these, the number of 

 French adherents and delegates officially enrolled and personally 

 or formally identified with the congress numbered five hundred 

 and thirty-seven, and included many of the most distinguished 

 names in France. The scope of these congresses has gradually 

 been growing broader. Every subject in any way related to crimi- 

 nology now comes within their field. One of the things which 

 distinguished the Paris congress from its predecessors was the 



