1822.]} 
of convictions in Boston is also yearly 
decreasing. Upon examining the re- 
cords, we find that there were con- 
victed, and sent to this prison from that 
town in 1816, sixty-cight criminals; in 
1817, fifty-eight ; in 1818, forty-nine, in 
1819, thirty-eight ; and, in 1820, only 
thirty. 
Surely these facts do not justify the 
belief, that such crimes as are here al- 
luded to have increased in this com- 
monwealth! While the number of 
these, subject to the Penitentiary disci- 
pline, have diminished, crimes of a 
higher nature, and such as are still capi- 
tal by the laws, in all the United States, 
have very much increased. We hear 
of murders, and strange unnatural mur- 
ders, piracy, and daring robberies; but, 
as all these crimes are, and ever have 
been, punishable with death, there can 
no clamour, from the perpcetration of 
such, arise against the mildness of 
state-prison punishments as encou- 
raging them. And, as it does not ap- 
pear that many, if any of these pirates, 
robbers, and murderers, have ever been 
subjects of a state prison, they must 
have learned their vices in some other 
school; and thus the charge of corrup- 
tion, so far as it has been adduced from 
the recent numerous occurrence of great 
erimes, also falls to the ground. 
Let us not, he again observes, be 
hasty to abandon what is so beautiful in 
theory ; and which, with proper ma- 
nagement and improvement, will be 
found, in practice, conducive to the best 
interests of socicty. As an oflicer of 
the establishment, he strongly recom- 
mends constant hard labour, under 
rules and deprivations, which we cannot 
help thinking too severe. “'They should 
be made even to do it cheerfully and 
willingly, if this is not an Irishism. I 
would punish them if they looked surly 
or cross about it. A few chastisements 
would make them put on a more smiling 
countenance. Although feigned and 
aflected at first, it would soon become 
habitual, and atlast sincere.” For our 
own part, we think this would at once 
be an outrage upon common sense and 
humanity. “I object, (he continues,) to 
that arrangement of Bury jail, which 
allows the convict two-fifths of all his 
earnings. Itis toomuch. The state, 
or the county, has a fair and legal title 
to all his earnings. The most that I 
would allow them should be what they 
could make by extra exertions. Again, 
on this account, I do not think it is a 
The Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism —No. XX. 
323 
good plan to allow convicts any specific 
portion of their earnings.” 
We are ata loss to perecive in these 
remarks any proof of the mildness of 
the new prison discipline. When to 
this we add what is passing in the Pen- 
sylvanian, Virginian, and other of the 
state prisons, where, it is said, the law 
of strict solitary confinement is about 
to be put in force, we find the truth of 
what we have long suspected, that, in 
their zeal to avoid the more apparent 
cruelty of corporal punishments for of- 
fences, the friends to moral discipline 
would probably inflict others more sc- 
vere and lasting. 
This is an error which ought greatly 
to be guarded against, as one which in 
penal jurisprudence might be produc- 
tive of the most unhappy consequences, 
and not so easy to be remedied as 
lamented. We think solitary confine- 
ment, as a law, ought never to be 
passed, much less to be put into execu- 
tion, even by way of experiment. 
It has been ascertained that its ef- 
fects are very unfavourable upon those 
who may be supposed to be insensible 
to its horrible influence ; and, if it ren- 
ders maniacs more mad and violent, we 
think it would probably, in many in- 
stances, drive convicts insane. 
For the sake of common humanity, 
and the character of the American 
legislature, we trust that it will never 
be thought necessary to have recourse 
to a measure, more cruel and vindictive 
than the vengeance of capital punish- 
ment, which would be considered free- 
dom and relief compared to the horrors 
of long solitary confinement. 
—— 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONTEM- 
PORARY CRITICISM. 
_NO. XX. 
Retrospective Review, No. 8. 
HIS number is perhaps more 
equally excellent than any of its 
predecessors. While on the one hand 
there is less of the dazzling splendour 
of some earlier articles, there is also 
none of that milk-and-water sentimen- 
tality which disfigures other essays. 
The merit of some of the papers is very 
great, and-these it will be our grateful 
task in the ensuing notice to particu- 
larize. 
The first article is, we believe, the 
avowed production of Henry Matthews, 
“the invalid.” At all events, it is 
worthy of his pen; and no one, we 
should 
