PRISON DISCIPLINE. 



689 



is called a "ticket of leave," being still under 

 the surveillance of the authorities, who do not, 

 however, molest him if he endeavors to obtain 

 an honest livelihood, ancl behaves with pro- 

 priety. Many of this class emigrate, and be- 

 come in a new country honorable and repu- 

 table men. 



In the United States, the first efforts tow- 

 ard the improvement of our State or convict 

 prisons were made in Philadelphia, in 1787, 

 by the Society of Friends. There resulted 

 from these efforts the erection of a prison, 

 nominally of separate confinement, with steady 

 labor, but so imperfectly was the system car- 

 ried out that the prisoners found ways and 

 means of communicating with each other con- 

 stantly. The first impulse to remedy this was 

 by solitary confinement without labor, and 

 this was tried at Auburn, N. Y., in 1821-'22, 

 and subsequently in Maine, New Jersey, and 

 Virginia. A short experience demonstrated 

 that either the health, the reason, or the moral 

 nature of the convict was speedily ruined by 

 this system, and it gave place everywhere, 

 except in Pennsylvania, to the Auburn, silent, 

 or, as perhaps it is more appropriately called, 

 the congregate system. The peculiarity of this 

 system is, that the convicts work in associa- 

 tion, congregated in squads in their several 

 work-rooms, but sleep and, in most cases, eat 

 in their separate cells. They are required to 

 preserve silence and to refrain from any com- 

 munication with each other at their work, but 

 in reality there is pretty free communication. 

 In a few instances, the State furnishes em- 

 ployment, and reaps the advantage of it : in 

 most cases, the labor of the convicts is farmed 

 out to contractors, to the disadvantage both 

 of the State and the prisoners. In two States 

 (Kentucky and Illinois) the prison and prison- 

 ers are leased on five-year terms to the war- 

 den, who pays a stipulated sum to the State, 

 and makes what he can from the prisoners. 

 In Pennsylvania, a new penitentiary was built 

 in Pittsburg, in 1826, and another in Phila- 

 delphia, in 1829, for the more effectual trial 

 of the separate or solitary system, with labor, 

 and these prisons are still conducted on this 

 system, though it has been abandoned every- 

 where else in the United States. The State- 

 prisons are all of them far enough from being 

 model institutions, but they are much better 

 managed than the county prisons or jails; and 

 these, in their turn, are greatly superior to 

 the municipal prisons, tombs, station-houses, 

 houses of detention, calabooses, lockups, etc., 

 of our cities and larger towns, which are, al- 

 most without exception, disgraceful to hu- 

 manity. 



Several institutions or associations have been 

 engaged, for many years past, in endeavoring 

 to ameliorate the condition of prisoners, and 

 improve the management of the prisons. The 

 oldest of these is the Philadelphia Society 

 for alleviating the Miseries of Public Pris- 

 ons, founded in 1787, which has accomplished 



VOL. XII. 44 A. 



much good, though less than it would have 

 done but for its strongly partisan advocacy 

 of the " separate " system. The Boston Prison 

 Discipline Society, founded in 1826, is liable 

 to the same censure for its activity in sup- 

 port of the Auburn or " congregate " system. 

 The New York Prison Association, founded 

 in 1844, has been more efficient than either, 

 and has accomplished very much in improv- 

 ing the character of the prisons, both of New 

 York and other States. Having a semi-official 

 character and authority, it has inspected the 

 county, municipal, and State prisons of New 

 York every year, and has done what it could 

 for their improvement. In 1866 it sent out a 

 delegation composed of its then corresponding 

 secretary, Rev. E. 0. Wines, D. D., and Prof. 

 Theodore W. Dwight, LL. D., to visit all the 

 prisons and reformatories of the United States 

 and Canada, and report upon them. They 

 actually visited the prisons and reformatories 

 of eighteen States and the Dominion of Can- 

 ada, and their report was exhaustive, and of 

 very great interest and value. This tour of 

 exploration led to the calling of a prison con- 

 gress, at Cincinnati, in 1870, at the instance 

 of Rev. Dr. Wines, and eventually to the or- 

 ganization of a National Prison Association, of 

 which he became corresponding secretary. In 

 1871 Dr. Wines commenced a movement for 

 the assembling of an international peniten- 

 tiary congress, to be held, in London, in Sep- 

 tember, 1872, and commissioners were ap- 

 pointed to it by the President, and by the 

 Governors of many of the States, as well as by 

 national and other prison associations. This 

 congress met at the time appointed, and its 

 doings and results were thus summarized by 

 Dr. Wines in his preliminary report to Presi- 

 dent Grant : 



This movement, inaugurated by the United States, 

 has proved a complete success, and is destined to 

 produce results as wide as they will be beneficent. 

 More than twenty nationalities were officially repre- 

 sented in the congress by the delegates named by 

 their respective governments, and fully one-half of 

 the States of the American Union were there through 

 commissioners appointed by their several executives 

 under legislative authority. Besides the official 

 delegates, a large number of commissioners, from 

 many different countries, were present, under ap- 

 pointments from national committees, from boards 

 of directors of prisons and reformatories, from prison 

 societies, from special commissions on penitentiary 

 reform, from societies of jurists, from the law de- 

 partments of universities, and from the Institute of 

 France, which deputed three of its members to rep- 

 resent that illustrious body of savants in the congress. 

 Most of the governments represented in the congress 

 forwarded official reports on the prison system and 

 administrations of their respective countries, in re- 

 ply to a series of interrogatories prepared and pre- 

 viously submitted to them. These reports embody 

 a larger amount of information on the penitentiary 

 question than has ever heretofore been collected. 

 Information of the highest value and most authentic 

 form, questions of the greatest interest and impor- 

 tance connected with the organization and manage- 

 ment of prisons, came before the congress, and were 

 discussed with a broad comprehension of their bear- 

 ings, and with signal ability, as well as in the best 



