Losley.] 4g(5 [November C. 



statute book which requires annual returns of information, and 

 which is generally unexecuted, although less than five years old; 

 we are content to permit the expenditure of funds, raised by 

 taxation of our people, upon structures, the very ground plan 

 of which is manifestly irreconcilable with the penal S3'stem which 

 we are pretending to enforce under the authority of State laws, 

 within the walls of State penitentiaries." 



In these words we see the motive that animated our friend 

 in his long struggle with popular prejudice and indifterence, in 

 behalf of those whose imprisonment was demanded not by ven- 

 geance but by social necessity. He congratulates his fellow 

 citizens of Schnylkill County in their choice of public officers, 

 '' who have known how to disregard the paltr^^ suggestions of a 

 misjudged economy, and who have not hesitated to expend the 

 public funds in accordance with the policy of our jurisprudence, 

 and with a regard to the rights of individuals, as Avell as to the 

 security of the community." 



Early in 185 1 Mr. Foulke and another member of the Acting 

 Committee, went to Harrisburg to secure the passage of a law 

 such as has been mentioned above. In April thc}^ report the 

 success of their arduous labors. The law required the transmis- 

 sion of careful plans for every new county prison to the Secre- 

 tary of State for his approval. Preparation was now made to 

 furnish such plans when needed, and Mr. Foulke devoted unre- 

 mitting attention to this work, and his published descriptions of 

 model county prisons, extensively distributed within and with- 

 out the limits of the State, exhibit his intelligence, discrimina- 

 tion, business capacity and industry. 



The summer of 1851 was an active one for him. He reported 

 his tour of visitation to Columbia, Montour, Union, Northum- 

 berland, Dauphin, Blair and Berks County Prisons. Some of 

 his reports were minute and laborious. In the following sum- 

 mer he reported at large upon the state of the Berks County 

 Prison : no detail of the building arrangement, discipline, or re- 

 sulting experience seems to have escaped his practised and phi- 

 lanthropic eye. 



In 1852 Mr. Foulke wrote a cordial obituary notice of his 

 friend Havilancl, the Architect of the Eastern Penitentiary 

 Buildings, wherein he incidentally states the nature of the phi- 

 lanthropic end which he liimself kept steadily so man^-^ years in 

 view. 



