Lesley.] 488 [November 6. 



become virtually a dead letter, and he urged the establishment 

 of a Penal Bureau, which, however, was never done. But he 

 published that year under the auspices of tlie Society a pamphlet 

 of fifty pages entitled, " Remarks on tbe Penal System of Penn- 

 sylvania, particularly with reference to County Prisons," accom- 

 panied M'ith elevations and ground plans drawn by Haviland, 

 the pamphlet being a careful recast of a rapid sketch which he, 

 Mr. Foulke, had written for the Journal of the Society.* It is 

 full of the marks of a mind used to taking large v;ews and ex- 

 pressing them with a happy faculty. He took occasion in this 

 pamphlet " to renew the serious appeal which it has been our 

 duty," as he expresses it, " from time to time, to make in rela- 

 tion to the local jails of the State." He gives a history of 

 some of the county jails, and of our Eastern Penitentiary, and 

 argues in favor of its system of separation. He adds to this a 

 description of the New York County Prison. 



In February, 1858. Mr. Foulke first proposed the appointment 

 of a Committee to revise the Penal Code of the State. His 

 memorial, adopted by the Society, produced in due time the 

 necessary legislation ; and he was appointed by the Societ^^ on 

 a committee to confer with the State Commissioners, and to 

 suggest such changes of the Code, as the long experience and 

 close observation of the Society, had taught it to think desirable. 

 The Commissioners were appointed in 1851), and a report of the 

 conferences appeared the following year. 



In 1860 the report of the three Commissioners was submitted. 

 Mr. Foulke swon after i)ublished, in a pamphlet of thirty-five 

 pages, his " Considerations respecting the policy of some recent 

 Legislation in Penns3dvania," the opening paragraph of which 

 will very well illustrate the clearness of his thinking and the 

 beauty of his style : — " The history of reforms of penal disci- 

 pline resembles in many respects that of other attempts to 

 remedy great social mischiefs. At first we have the disclosure 

 of the main evil, to which the public eye and mind had become 

 habituated, and the real magnitude, nature and causes of which 

 were therefore slowly appreciated b}' the communit}^ at large. 

 Then come the earnest etlbrts of a few well instructed and zeal- 

 ous reformers, whose laborious task it is to obtain the authoritj^ 

 and means requisite for proposed changes. They define the 

 mischief, trace its causes, indicate the departures to be made 



* Reprinted by the Societ.y in 1868. 



