96 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts, and Letters. 



of the legislature and the people was called to the matter sev- 

 eral years. Abraham Beale, the General Agent of the Asso- 

 ciation, in his report to the Executive Committee, says : 



"That he is more than ever confirmed in the opinion that the best side 

 of a prison is tlie outside, and that tliere exists hut little within calcu- 

 lated to make men hetter ; and this applies especially to our county jails. 

 * * Nothing is done to elevate the moral condition of the prisoners — 

 not a friend to visit them ; not a book for their perusal ; not a rebuke or 

 admonition ; not a word to the innocent; not a moral lesson given ; not a 

 sermon preached; not a prayer offered; no anxiety or solicitude ex- 

 pressed either by the church or the world, for the reformation and salva- 

 tion of those unfortunates; hence so few reform." 



John D. Gruscom, M. D., in his report to the same body of 

 his inspection of the jails of several of the counties in the state 

 of New York, during the year 1870, says : 



" They remain much the same as heretofore ; and it would be a waste 

 of time and paper to repeat details, which have been given, again and 

 again, on former occasions. Their internal arrangements are for the 

 most part inconvenient and unsatisfactory ; old and young, novices and 

 professional criminals, the innocent and the guilty, are generally hud- 

 dled together in the day time, and imperfectly separated at night; there 

 is but little in jails of what may be called discipline, and less of moral 

 agencies for the benefit of their inmates ; the prisoners have no regular 

 employment, no secular instruction, no libraries, and generally, no pro- 

 vision is made for a due supply of their religious wants ; * * such is 

 the detail — by no means an exhaustive one — of the imperfections, defects, 

 and objectionable features of our system of common jails." 



One more brief quotation fi'om a report of the New Prison 



Association — one of the highest authorities on the subject in 



the land : 



"In the association of prisoners in our common jails the promiscuous 

 intercourse of all classes, all ages, and to a certain extent, we are sorry 

 to add, of both sexes, we have the great evil, the very Pandora's box of 

 the system ; the fountain head of pernicious influences, not simply to the 

 inmates themselves, but to the whole community as well, in the midst of 

 which the jail happens to be situated. If an institution should be estab- 

 lished in every county of the state, with the inscription over the door 

 "Vice and crime taught here" and the processes within corresponded to 

 the announcement without, this committee is impressed with the convic 



