1868.] ^ gQ [Lesley. 



from the old routine, mid invent the machinery of the remedy 

 which the government is to sanction, establish and conduct. 

 During the first stage of such an undertaking, all minds are 

 occupied -with fundamental considerations; and it is only after 

 the experiment has made progress through some steps of trial, 

 that its details receive the special scrutiny which is indispen- 

 sable to complete success." 



He then takes up once more the old debate bet\Yeen separation 

 and non-sepa,ration of Prisoners, and treats the sul)jectof Punish- 

 ments and Pardons upon the broadest ground. Starting from the 

 acknowledged postulates that it is impossible to form a reliable 

 judgment on the value of outward signs of penitence; that a 

 strict observance of prison rules and discipline can never, by 

 itself, be a fair criterion to enable us to judge how a prisoner 

 will conduct himself after he has obtained his liberty ; that suf- 

 fering is an essential element to any useful prison discipline, on 

 whatever general theoiy imprisonment takes place, he criticises 

 the whole ground plan of the New Penal Code, and charges to 

 it want of due consideration and consultation, and improper 

 haste. With the legal arguments we have nothing here to do. 

 Our object is onl}' to show in which direction his benevolent in- 

 telligence exercised itself. 



In the Autumn of 1800 he was appointed a delegate to the 

 Convention of State Prison Wardens, &c. (first held at Phila- 

 delphia), adjourned to meet in the City of New York. At the 

 Philadelphia meeting a citizen of Indiana had been appointed to 

 prepare an essay in defence of the Associated or Congregate 

 System of Prison Discipline ; and Mr. Foulke to prepare an 

 essay in defence of the Separate System. Three days the Con- 

 vention sat, and resulted in the formation of a society, to meet 

 for the first time in Baltimore in October, 1861. Mr. Foulke was 

 made itB Corresponding Secretaiy. The breaking out of the 

 Kebellion prevented his ever acting in this capacity ; but his 

 essay was published in a pamphlet of 112 pages, and was enti- 

 tled " Remarks on Cellular Separation, read by appointment of 

 the American Association for the Improvement of Penal and 

 Reformatory Institutions, at the Annual Meeting in New York, 

 November 29, 1860." It is a most elaborately finished argu- 

 ment, vindicatory of the Pennsylvania system of Separate Im- 

 prisonment, the ripe result of his observations and reflections 



