WHAT NEXT? 251 



Yes, to be sure, that is good. No one will ask us to go back 

 to packing criminals, and all under surveillance of the law, pro- 

 miscuously into stone pens, giving them rotten straw to rest upon, 

 and supplying only the cheapest food that may answer the pur- 

 pose of keeping body and soul together. Few will be inclined 

 to think that the world's prisons hell triumphant in Austria and 

 Naples, excepted are not better now than in the day of Howard. 

 Progress there has been ; progress there must be. This palace- 

 prison is but a mile-stone on the road. 



What next ? There are some pamphlets before me in which 

 an answer to this question is attempted to be given.* The matter 

 is one of so much difficulty and so great importance, so nearly 

 connected with the progress of Christianity and civilized law, and 

 the plan of a new prison is so often to be discussed and estab- 

 lished among all our states and counties, that I must beg my 

 readers to carefully examine the new system of punishment that 

 they propose, and I urge it the more, because, so far as I know, it 

 has, up to this time, entirely escaped the attention of the Ameri- 

 can press. 



But first let us distinctly recall to mind what is most unsatis- 

 factory and clearly defective in our present prisons and system 

 of criminal punishment. 



There are two general principles with regard to the punish- 

 ment of crime that have been theoretically received and approved 

 in the minds of all enlightened and Christian people, and yet to 

 which there is much in our present system that is practically 

 false and repugnant. We say "necessarily so," and that this 



* " The Principles of Punishment," by Captain Machonochie, R. N., K. H. : J. Ollivier, 

 Pall Mall, London. " Crime and Punishment." by Captain Machonochie : J. Hatchard 

 & Son, London. An " Essay on Criminal Jurisprudence," by Mannaduke B. Sampson : 

 Highley & Son, London. These works may all be obtained through the agency of the 

 publishers, and will be found to contain (especially the last) most valuable hints and 

 suggestions applicable to other matters besides prison discipline. Their cost is trifling. 



