124 PHILADELPHIA. 



ignorant of a trade is taught one. No one 

 sentenced to a shorter imprisonment than two 

 years is received here, and although the sen- 

 tence may be for life, imprisonment, the go- 

 vernor tells me, is seldom continued in any case 

 beyond ten years. 



Every prisoner on his arrival is conducted 

 blindfold to his cell, from which, or the airing- 

 yard attached to it, he never emerges till his 

 sentence is fulfilled ; he never sees the face of 

 another prisoner, and no one but officers of the 

 establishment is ever allowed to see him. 

 When his appointed term of imprisonment 

 terminates, he is furnished with a sum of mo- 

 ney, part of his own earnings in prison, to en* 

 able him to follow an honest calling, and hav- 

 ing been kept in solitary confinement, all along 

 unseen by any one, if he now chooses to re- 

 move to where he was previously unknown, 

 the secret of his imprisonment may lie in his 

 own breast. 



Some such provision is a great desideratum 

 in our own prison-system, according to which, 

 however much a criminal may have reformed 



