200 SANTIAGO. 



arrival ; and to encourage the emigration of foreigners, the governor is not only authorized to 

 admit them on equal privileges with citizens, but is required to afford them such protection and 

 assistance as may be necessary. From the report of the Minister of Marine for that year, the 

 colony was in a most prosperous and attractive condition: the convicts had a primary school 

 for instruction, and an abundance of tools for various trades and agriculture, with a supply of 

 seeds ; there were a hospital and medicines for the sick, and all were furnished with bedding 

 and clothes. Shortly afterwards they revolted, murdered the governor and chaplain most 

 inhumanly, and, capturing vessels in transit, nearly all escaped. A part were retaken and 

 executed at Valparaiso in 1852, and the colony re-established with more powerful guards for 

 its preservation. 



Eespecting the penitentiary during the same period, the Minister of Justice tells Congress: 

 "The penitentiary, whose cells will be completed in the early part of next year, has not failed 

 to be an object of careful attention to government. The workshops established last year afford 

 prisoners constant and lucrative labor, at the same time that it is notably known their physical 

 and moral condition has been greatly improved by the regimen. Having, as a stimulant for 

 improvement in the branches of industry then established, not only the advantage of occupa- 

 tion to alleviate and distract their minds, but also an interest in the acquirement of a respecta- 

 ble and lucrative trade, in the gains of whose product they participate, it is not surprising that 

 the improvement of the convicts corresponds with what may be expected from such powerful 

 incentives in favor of industrial progress. 



"I can assure the legislature that products of iron, carpentry, and shoemaking, are so elab- 

 orated in the penitentiary as to leave nothing to desire when compared with the best finished 

 work of the most accredited free laborers. Nevertheless, there is wanted in the establishment 

 a well regulated accounting office, in whose books will be posted the first cost of materials used 

 in work, the product of the sales, and the quota to be subsequently rendered with that just 

 exactitude indispensable in favor of the institution, as well as those who have elaborated them. 

 For this object, one of such vital importance, the three thousand dollars granted in the 

 estimate will not be sufficient to pay the officers of the institution ; and I find myself under the 

 necessity of recommending Congress to give its early attention to a message from his Excellency 

 the President of the Republic, in which he asks that the office of treasurer of the penitentiary be 

 created, and a proper salary be assigned to him. 



"All the partial improvements adopted in the discipline of the penitentiary up to the present 

 time will be fully carried out, as soon as store-houses, barracks for the guard, and a residence for 

 the director shall have been completed. The government desires to begin these works of abso- 

 lute necessity, and is preparing to carry them into effect at the earliest period. 



" Nor has it neglected to charge a gentleman of known probity and zeal to visit the best 

 regulated prisons of North America, instruct himself in the discipline of each, and make such 

 notes of their divers rules and the mode of maintaining them, that when he returns to the 

 country he may submit for examination of government the documents gathered, in order that, 

 selecting the mode of discipline most suitable, it may be adopted in the fullest extent, and 

 tinder the superintendence of a person who has acquired information on the subject necessary 

 to conduct it to the advantage that is desirable." 



As the actual state of the prison and prisoners three months after the date of the report was 

 so greatly at variance with his statement, as has been shown, it is to be apprehended that, like 

 too many other documents, it was prepared by subordinates who should have carried out more 

 closely the instructions of government. It is not intended to be asserted that there was no work 

 going on, because there was a small party of blacksmiths employed in one of the triangular 

 courts, three or four shoemakers each at work in his cell, a plaiter of bridles with fine fibres of 

 hide, and a maker of finger-rings from horse-hair ; but more than eight tenths were absolutely 

 without occupation. Nor is the information obtained in the United States likely to be rendered 



